Let’s start with the biblical data related to this question. On the one hand, it appears that God initially gave humans (as well as the entire animal kingdom) plants to eat (Genesis 1:29-31), and in the vision of the future Kingdom revealed to Isaiah, it appears that humans, as well as all animals, will return to eating only plants (Isaiah 11:6-9; Isaiah 65:25). There are also numerous places where God expresses profound love and concern for his entire creation, including animals, and God desires that humans show the same care for it (Genesis 1:30; Genesis 2:15; Genesis 8:1; Genesis 9:16-17; Deuteronomy 25:4; Exodus 23:12; Jonah 4:11; Proverbs 12:10; Hosea 2:18; Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6; Matthew 6:26; Revelation 11:18; Jeremiah 12:4). Indeed, caring for the earth and the animal kingdom was God’s first mandate to humans (Genesis 1:26-28).
On the other hand, after the Flood, we are told that God permitted humans to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). God later included eating meat as a part of the Passover celebration. The Old Testament says that any meat that has been drained of blood (viz. is made ‘kosher’) may be eaten, except for animals that have been strangled or that are considered “unclean” (a detailed list of what was considered “clean” and “unclean” for eating is found in Leviticus 7 and 11).
In the New Testament, we find that Jesus himself ate meat/fish both before and after his Resurrection (e.g., Luke 22:41-42). At the Jerusalem council, when the early Jewish and Gentile Christians were having a dispute about food issues, the Apostles concluded that any meat may be eaten, except for the above mentioned exceptions (Acts 15:29). The Apostle Paul instructed Christians that it is permissible to eat anything sold in the meat market (1 Corinthians 10:25-26). In Romans 14, Paul gives one of his most important teachings on this question when he states that whether or not one eats meat is a matter of conscience and personal discernment, and that we are to avoid either judging or offending each other by what we say or do regarding the issue of meat-eating as well as other disputable issues.
Within the Woodland Hills Church community, differing perspectives are held on this question. Some have a deep conviction that eating meat is not God’s ideal will for us. For others, their conscience has led them to the conviction that eating meat is permissible.
While eating meat is permissible if one’s conscience allows it, violence and oppression are not. Modern day industrial farming practices, which didn’t exist in biblical times, raise new concerns about the treatment of animals before they arrive at our tables. These large-scale factories typically force animals to live their entire lives in tiny enclosed quarters, prohibiting them from engaging in any natural activities. Because the first mandate that God gave to humans includes extending God’s loving care to animals (Genesis 1:26-28), we believe followers of Jesus today must take responsibility for how their food choices may cause unnecessary animal suffering. They should therefore seriously consider the appropriateness of eating meat from these farms, thereby supporting the factory farm industry. We encourage all who choose to eat meat, to the best of their ability, to seek out meat providers who treat animals more humanely and allow them to live a more natural existence.
We also recognize that current levels of meat consumption raise serious questions about our stewardship of global resources. For example, simply feeding all of the animals necessary to satisfy the meat demands of our country requires a staggering amount of resources and that does a staggering amount of damage to the environment. And as is all-too-often the case, the negative impact of the meat industry is felt most keenly of peoples in less advantaged countries. Therefore, while eating meat is permissible, we recognize and support those who strategize and/or restrict their meat consumption in an effort to combat an inefficient system that may be contributing to the oppression of others.
As 1 Corinthians 10:23 states, everything is lawful, but not everything is beneficial. There are concerns about the welfare of animals, environmental concerns, and even health reasons that could persuade a person to eat mostly (or only) plant foods. Still, Scripture never condemns meat-eating, and so we believe that, on this matter, every person must seek out God’s will for their own lives, while refusing to judge those who disagree with their convictions (Matthew 7:1-3). As Paul says, it is permissible to eat anything so long as it doesn’t violate your conscience and so long as we, with grateful hearts, ask God’s blessing upon it. For it is God’s blessing that makes it pure, so that we may eat it gladly (1 Timothy 4:1-5).
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God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9 They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided;
16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
4 “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.
12 “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest so that your ox and your donkey may have relief and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.
11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?”
10 The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.
18 I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground, and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
18 The nations raged, but your wrath has come, and the time for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and all who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
4 How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it, the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.”
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
41 Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done.”
29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, 26 for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.”
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. 3 They forbid marriage and abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.
