“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Food and Drink #10
“All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor. 6:12-13).
One of the strong contenders for the most out-of-context quotations would be verse 19 of this chapter, the place where Paul says that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The verse has been employed as the all-purpose fitness-regimen verse. If your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, then you have a responsibility to steer it clear of tobacco, alcohol, refined sugars, processed foods, etc. The problem with this line of argument is that Paul expressly says that he is not talking about anything like that. There are all kinds of sins that are sins, sure enough, including poor stewardship of your body, but it is sexual sin that is the sin that defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit, and only sexual sin (v. 18). Bungee jumping with frayed cords is poor stewardship of the body, but it is not a sin against the temple that is the body. Giving yourself lung cancer is a bad idea also, but it is not the problem Paul is addressing here. Splay your fingers on the concrete driveway, and hit each finger smartly with a hammer—poor stewardship again, but you haven’t done anything to the temple of the Holy Spirit.
When it comes to food, all foods are lawful. That doesn’t make everything a great idea, particularly undercooked chicken, because not everything is expedient. All foods are lawful, and the issue is self-control, not being brought under the power of any (v. 12). If someone cannot ingest moderate amounts of corn syrup, then that is a problem. But it is the same problem that somebody might have with any other form of sweeteners—whether cane sugar, all-organic maple syrup, some concoction right out of some scientist’s beaker, and so on. You know how the kids love to get into those hidden bags of carob chips. No?
Food for the stomach, the stomach for food, but God is going to destroy both stomach and food (v. 13). That means that the stomach/food issues aren’t that big a deal. Max nix.