because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and passes away ejected from him?« By these words Jesus pronounced all kinds of food clean.
He said to them, »You know better than most that a Jew is strictly forbidden to associate with a Gentile or visit him; but God has taught me to call no one unholy or unclean.
Yet let us send them written instructions to abstain from things polluted by connexion with idolatry, from fornication, from meat killed by strangling, and from blood.
You must abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. Keep yourselves clear of these things, and it will be well with you. Farewell.«
As one who lives in union with the Lord Jesus, I know and am certain that in its own nature no food is `impure'; but if people regard any food as impure, to them it is.
To the pure everything is pure; but to the polluted and unbelieving nothing is pure, but on the contrary their very minds and consciences are polluted.