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I AM VEGETARIAN, WILL I BE FORCED TO EAT NON-VEG?

Should a Christian be a vegetarian OR non vegetarian ?

No. This is a myth. This is not true.

Bible does not endorse anything related to eating any particular food – vegetarian or non-vegetarian. 

Paul explains in the Bible that eating or not eating anything does not matter because kingdom of God is not about eating or not eating some particular foods. He rather exhorts not to eat a particular food for the sake of a brother or sister of weaker faith who may stumble because of our eating of particular food.

“But food does not bring us near to God; we areno worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” [1 Corinthians 8:8, 9]

The other faiths that ask people to abstain from eating meat talks about living a simple life (which is no harm and rather appreciated); however, living good life by our efforts does not bring salvation because with our best possible acts we would still fall much much short of the holy standards of God. Salvation (moksha) comes only by believing in Jesus Christ because of his atoning sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of mankind.

In nut shell, it is not what we eat which accounts for our spiritual life, but our attitude and faith towards God and His people. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean’.” [Matthew 15:17, 18]

On the other hand if we want to scrutinize it technically, we must also realize that we are unable to prevent ourselves from killing other organisms anyway. We inhale millions of micro organisms in every breath and probably hundreds of thousands of them would die in our inside body temperature. We walk on the land and many small organisms die under our feet unknowingly. Even according to some scientific researches, it is concluded that plants have life, so in that case we kill plants which are other kind of living beings.

Standing on this premise how can we survive at all? And if we compromise just based on the level of life and life generating ingredients, probably we are just trying to justify the means.

So summarily, I can say that Bible is very sensitive about the salvation of people for which it encourages us that even if we have to abstain from certain foods, we should.

Real Christian faith does not force anything because in the Holy Spirit there is freedom. God gives us free will to even choose to love Him or reject Him, then how could he force us for anything. He does not change, he is good God.

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