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CJari said:
I agree with you on all of the four points you have made but the reason why I am asking about this is because of what the apostoles decided in acts:

- Acts 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
CJari,

I think it is prudent to understand the of that passage in the overall context of the chapter where the issue before the Apostles was the problems involved between the scruples of Jewish converts and those of Gentile converts. In short, some/many of the Jewish converts to Christianity brought with them much of the old covenant ceremonial and civil law which no longer applied and in some instances came into conflict with practices of the Gentiles, which in and of themselves were not sinful. Thus, the conclusion of the Jerusalem Council was to bring peace within the Church during this interim period of the Church's infancy on matters of conscience. I do like how J.A. Alexander handles this text:

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James proposes, therefore, to en¬join upon them the most careful abstinence from every semblance of this sin, as well as from the more indifferent and in itself innoxious practice of eating flesh which had been sacrificed to idols. This combination of an essential with a ceremonial sin has led to much dispute respecting the two last particulars, or rather to the one which is expressed in two forms. Strangled i. e. killed without shedding the blood; so that this clause denotes flesh with the blood still in it, as the next does blood itself, either separate from the meat, or in a generic sense, including both. That blood here means bloodshed, i.e. homicide, is a notion which appears to be confined to one or two of the Fathers (such as Cyril and Cyprian); as the application of the ancient prohibitions to the use of flesh from the living animal appears to be peculiar to the Jewish Rabbins. The use of blood for food had been forbidden, not only in the law of Moses, but in the covenant with Noah, as being the vehicle or seat of life, which some regard as a physiological fact attested by divine authority, while others understand it as an arbitrary designation of the blood as the appointed representative of life for sacrificial purposes, without affirming or denying their physical relation in the animal economy. Connected with the first of these hypotheses is the belief, that the use of blood is here forbidden on the same ground with the practice of licentiousness, to wit, that both are necessary and intrinsic evils. In accordance with this view, the prohibition is enforced as a perpetual one by some of the ancient Fathers and Councils, and in the practice of the Greek Church to the present day. The Western Churches, both reformed and unreformed, adhere, with individual exceptions, to the doctrine of Augustine, that the prohibition was prudential and temporary, founded on no natural necessity or principle, the Old Testament restriction having ceased with the sacrificial services to which it had relation, and the one before us being merely an expedient for maintaining peace between converted Jews and Gentiles, during the anomalous and doubtful interval between the organization of the Christian Church and the outward as well as inward abrogation of the Jewish one. This is now commonly regarded as the import and design of all these prohibitions, which as being purely negative could not be regarded even as a temporary “yoke” imposed upon the Gentiles. (Acts, J.A. Alexander, Banner of Truth [Geneva Series Commentaries] vol. 2 pp. 83, 84

Thus, the pronouncement made by James as spokesman for the Church at Jerusalem was only a temporal in scope and has no application to us today. The more extensive treatment of Adiaphora is to be found in the epistles of Paul, e.g., 1 Corinthians 8 and Romans 14.

Oh..... I wanted to ask you about something you wrote in another reply. You put this restriction on yourself that you prefer to eat nothing that "tastes like blood". My question is, What does blood taste like? I've eaten a substantial amount of beef and pork over the years but I can't recall there being any "blood" when I ate it. And I must say I do prefer to have my beef cooked rare to medium rare. There have been occasions when I have sustained an injury where I was bleeding and as a youngster licked the wound, e.g., on my finger. But then again, that was many years ago and I can't remember exactly what "blood" tasted like.

In His grace,

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simul iustus et peccator

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