ReformationUCC.org

Perhaps you’ve read the one liner “Shrimp anyone?” appended as a post script to one missive or another to serve as the final nail in the coffin for the doctrine of Biblical Authority. Why? The fact that the people of God eat shrimp with impunity is alleged to show that the Word of God is completely unreliable and unworthy of our attention as a moral guide.

The fact that it is the Bible itself - in Mark 7:19 and Acts 10: 10 -15 for instance - which authorizes this change of diet for Jews and which never applied at all to Gentiles is conveniently overlooked.

It does raise the question of how we interpret the Old Testament or more specifically the Pentateuch or “Torah”.

Sadly, many faithful people who instinctively trust the Bible as God’s Word have not been equipped to answer even such a rudimentary red herring.

Understanding why eating shrimp in after the coming of Jesus when it was forbidden in Israel was not a problem for our ancestors in what are now the “mainline” churches and their answers are instructive for us.

In both the Savoy Declaration of the Congregationalists and Westminster Confession of the Presbyterians, the phenomenon of the Old Testament’s ceremonial aspects being fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Romans 10:4) is explained in some detail. In both confessions the topic is addressed as “Chapter 19: The Law of God” in the same language (the two documents only differ after Chapter 19 in fact). Even the Baptists of the day agreed with them - what ecumenism!

Here is how our ancestors in the faith understood the the alleged “discrepancies” heralded by those who wish to question the authority of Scripture:

1. God’s moral law is universally applicable from the foundation of creation.

2. God’s moral law was restated in the “Ten Commandments”.

3. In addition to the moral law, God’s covenant with Israel included ceremonial laws which pointed to Jesus Christ and were fulfilled in Him (see the Book of Hebrews on this). They also included judicial laws intended specifically for that time, people, and place in redemptive history.

4. After the coming of Jesus, the moral laws apply as they always did and forever will. We do not keep these laws to attain salvation. Instead they inform us about how those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ should live thanks to God’s help and mercy.

5. The ceremonial laws are studied to point us to the glories of Jesus Christ who fulfilled them. But as “laws” their function ceased when Jesus rose from the dead (see Romans 10:4).

The judicial laws apply only as examples of how the moral law applied to a particular time and place (Israel before Jesus rose again) and were considered as having an abiding moral equity worth studying in the areas of social ethics.

Our ancestors believed that when the Old Covenant ceased, the judicial laws ceased as well though their moral influence has instructed many Christian lawmakers through history though that’s another story to be explored later.

So in answer to the red herring “Shrimp anyone?” as a way of discrediting the Bible, the people who founded what are now our mainline denominations might answer something like this…

1. The law you refer to was a ceremonial law governing Israel under the Old Covenant.

2. The law you refer to was never applied to Gentiles like us anyway. They could always have shrimp. So why do you say this as if it’s anything new or even relevant?

3. Now even Jewish people can have shrimp because God has revealed that the time for that lesson with its implications for teaching moral discernment are over.

4. What does abide is God’s moral law which never changes. And it never had anything to do with shrimp - unless you were worshiping them or stealing them.

5. Hasn’t anyone ever taught you to read to the end of a book before presuming to write a “book report”?

The fact that such a question, however flippant, enters into the debate these days shows how far we’ve fallen from the insight and wisdom of our forebears.

They knew their Bibles and knew the Bible makes sense and is reliable when it’s message isn’t being twisted out of context. (Say, we thought it was the fundamentalists who took things “literally”without regard for their context…so just who are the “wooden literalists” these days?)

Perhaps it’s time for a new question in the mainline: “Bible anyone?”