Be Sure of What's Pure! -
by Pastor Ricky Kurth
"Unto the pure all things are pure..." (Titus 1:15).
Boy, a verse like that sure begs the questions, "Who are these pure people, and why are all things pure for them?"
Well, the word "pure" just means "clean," as we see when Solomon asked,
"Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (Pr. 20:9).
The answer to this rhetorical question is that none of us
can make our heart clean! That's why we need God to save and purify
us. So when sinners believe the gospel, God saves them by His grace,
"purifying their hearts by faith" (cf. Acts 15:9)--so much so that Paul
could tell even the carnal Corinthians that they were "washed" clean because they were saved (I Cor. 6:11).
That means the "pure" people in our text are saved people. But
when Paul says that "all things are pure" unto the pure, it doesn't
take a Bible scholar to know that he can't be saying that sinful things are pure for saved people.
No, in the context, Paul is telling Titus how to deal with "vain talkers...of the circumcision" (Tit. 1:10), unsaved Jews who were teaching the "vain jangling" of the Law (cf. I Tim. 1:6,7). These teachers of the law were probably insisting that certain meats were "unclean" for the pure because the law said they were (Lev. 11:4,5,6,7,8 etc.). For nearly 1500 years, Jews under the law would not eat impure foods.
Of course, Gentiles who were not under
the law would eat anything. That's one of the reasons the Lord called
the Gentiles "dogs" (Mt. 15:26), for a dog will eat anything! Your dog might be a fussy eater, but even he will eat anything if he is hungry enough.
But today, in the dispensation of grace, we are all "baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles" (I Cor. 12:13). That means when our apostle Paul says that "we are not under law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:15), even Jewish believers are free to eat meats that God once classified as unclean.
That's why Paul wrote that "commanding to abstain
from meats" (I Tim. 4:3) is one of the many "doctrines of devils" that
we should avoid (v. 1). If you take a doctrine that God gave
specifically to people in one dispensation and impose it on people in
another dispensation, it becomes a doctrine of devils. When
Paul added that "every creature of God is good, and nothing to be
refused" (v. 4), that's just another way of saying, "unto the pure all
things are pure."
The apostle expressed this truth again when he wrote,
"...the kingdom of God is not meat and drink... all things indeed are pure" (Rom. 14:17,20).
Had
Paul written those words during Old Testament times, someone would have
steered him to Leviticus 11 and reminded him that the kingdom of God did involve meat and drink under the law. Then they would have led him out to be stoned for saying otherwise!
I know there are many who insist that unclean meats are still impure for the pure, but the only reason God pronounced certain foods unclean was to teach the Jews that certain people were unclean--the unsaved Gentiles (Lev. 20:24,25). We
know that Peter understood this, for after the Lord told him he could
eat unclean meats (Acts 10:9-16), he said about the Gentiles,
"God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (Acts 10:28).
So
to say that certain meats are unclean today under grace is to say that
the Gentiles are still unclean, and God says otherwise. It's better to
agree with Him when He says, "unto the pure all things are pure."
Now would somebody please pass the bacon!
The
Day of The Lord- Isiah 2:14
By
Les Feldick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Les Feldick Ministries
30706 W. Lona Valley Rd.
Kinta, OK 74552
Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
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