The best cha shao (叉烧)and shao rou (烧肉) rice that I know of in Singapore is near Paya Lebar Methodist Church. The cha shao is succulent and sweet, and the shao rou is crackling and juicy! I could eat that every day! I know what you are thinking: “Bo jio! Call yourself brother!” Ok, ok, come and jio me for lunch and I will take you. 😊 Now, you may be asking why am I bringing up food? Well, the Israelites seemingly had dietary restrictions imposed upon them – what they could and could not eat.

On the surface, Deuteronomy 14 deals with instructions regarding clean and unclean food, and tithes. Scholars to this day still debate why one type of animal is clean and another is not. What is critical for us to understand, however, is not why some animals are clean and others are not, but why God gives these prohibitions in the first place: And the reason is that these food laws are a continuation of God’s commands against practices He deems abominable in 12:31 and 13:14.

The first two verses of the chapter read: “You are the sons of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” (14:1-2 ESV).

Moses reminds Israel that God has chosen them, they are His treasured possession, they are a people holy to the LORD. God’s choosing makes them holy to Him. Being His possession makes them holy to Him. Israel has no holiness of her own and is not holy to anyone else or in anyone else’s eyes. It is only through this exclusive relationship with God that sets them apart from all other nations. And this special status is repeated again in 14:21: “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.”

As a people set apart as different from other nations around them, God prohibits them from consuming any “abomination” (14:3 ESV), meaning something that causes horror or disgust in others (the CSB translates the same Hebrew word as any “detestable thing”) because these are practices common to other nations surrounding Israel. By observing these laws, the Israelites reflect what it means to be a holy and elect people.

As Christians, we are not bound by these laws (see Acts 10:9-16) because ALL nations are now invited to be God’s people through the Cross but as the dietary laws once reminded Israel that they were different from those who did not worship God, that they were a chosen people who are made holy to God, this same underlying principle remains true for us as Christians today: That we Christians are a chosen people and a treasured possession who are made holy to God, apart from Whom we have no righteousness.

“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16 ESV)

Instead of clean and unclean food, what God calls us to observe daily today is a covenantal lifestyle that turns away from every facet of sinful living and desires, instead, only the food that Christ has to offer: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34 ESV).

Reflection & Prayer

What is one thing you can start doing daily that reflects God’s design or intention in the Deuteronomy 14 dietary laws about clean food?

What is one thing you can stop doing that reflects God’s design or intention in Deuteronomy 14 dietary laws about unclean food?