Caller:  I have a question about vegetarianism and Jesus.

Pastor Doug:  I have one minute.  What can we do?

Caller:  Well, help me out with this.  I don’t see too much in the Scripture about Jesus partaking of the flesh, of meat, of lamb, or whatever, and I know that there is some thought about Him being of the sect of the Essenes.

Pastor Doug:  Of the Essenes.

Caller:  The Essenes.  Right, by the Dead Sea.  And they were, from what I understand, basically vegetarian.  I want to know if there is any reason to think that Jesus might have been Himself, for most of His life.

Pastor Doug:  Well, you know, there’s only a couple of records of Christ eating meat but they are there.  Jesus ate the Passover lamb and it says He ate fish.

Caller:  Yeah, well…

Pastor Doug:  So, it depends on if you’re counting fish.  But He did eat the Passover.  It says in Luke: “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you”.  And then, of course, when He rose from the dead He asked the disciples if they had any fish, or they gave Him a piece of fish to eat, He said “Do you have any food”.  So Jesus obviously ate fish.  He probably ate lamb, at least on the Passover.  We know when He multiplied the loaves and fish He probably ate some.  So you can’t really build a strong doctrine that Jesus was a total vegetarian.

Caller:  No, I understand that, but I could see in the ceremonies that He would take that, but on a daily basis there’s really nothing compared to a lot of the other people in the Bible partaking, I mean it was a big thing.  And you don’t really hear that much about it.

Pastor Doug:  That’s true.  We have a lesson that deals with the Bible benefits of eating a biblical diet, and if you’d like us to send that to you, call and ask for “You Wouldn’t Do This, Would You?”