Question

Beloved,

We have a problem with Acts 15:20. Apart from fornication, can we eat meat strangled today and be condemned or disfellowshipped?

Answer

Dear Brethren,

Eating blood has been sinful in every age.

After the Flood, when the Lord God first permitted mankind to eat meat, He revealed, "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Genesis 9:3-4).

To Israel, the Lord commanded, "Therefore I said to the children of Israel, 'No one among you shall east blood, nor shall any stranger who dwells among you eat blood.' Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust; for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, 'You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off'" (Leviticus 17:12-14; 7:26-27; 19:26; Deuteronomy 12:16, 23; 15:23).

The apostles incorporated this prohibition against eating blood into the New Testament in the chapter you cite (Acts 15:19-20, 28-29). It is wrong to east things strangled because the blood remains within the meat.

The contention that the apostles were only forbidding this because it was so offensive to Jews is contradicted by the fact that, in the same statement, they also forbade sexual immorality. Furthermore, the apostle Paul taught all, both Jews and Gentiles, to accept one another despite customs from their respective societies that might be offensive to one another (Romans 14:1-15:3).

"The life is in the blood," and, out of respect to life, though we may east any kind of meat, we must not eat blood, including meat from an animal that has been strangled.

Brotherly,
Keith Sharp