Vegetarian Delight – Part 1
Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king’s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see [Daniel 1:12-13].
I love pizza. But it’s got to be the real thing, if you know what I mean. No, I don’t mean it has to be genuine Italian-made, or deep dish from Chicago. I mean it has to be sausage…period. Well, okay. It can have crust too, and cheese and sauce. But anything else on pizza nullifies the “pizza” part of the food!
Daniel and his three friends were minding their own business in Jerusalem back in the day. For you novices, that would be the day of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I’m sure those four dudes were enjoying some kosher sausage pizza. Well, maybe not because sausage isn’t kosher! This is especially so for Italian sausage, er, I mean Babylonian sausage.
Anyway, along came ol’ King Cole, er, I mean ol’ King Neb. Accompanying our king-of-the-day was his army, a formidable bunch to be sure. When the dust cleared Daniel & friends no longer lived in Jerusalem. They had moved to Babylon, where they had the not so enviable job of waiting on ol’ King Neb and fulfilling his every fickle whim.
As slaves of the king their food came from the king’s kitchen. The king even assigned one of his stewards to be in charge of Daniel & friends. The steward was responsible to see that Daniel & friends learned the ropes of living in Babylon and waiting on ol’ King Neb.
Part of this responsibility required the steward to be sure Daniel & friends were strong and healthy. He had to make them brush their teeth before bed and wash behind their ears. Okay, I made that part up. But the steward did have to provide the four Hebrews with food from the king’s table. After all, if it kept ol’ King Neb healthy, it had to be good for his foreign slaves too.
Here’s the thing. Ol’ King Neb and all the Babylonians were idolaters. They presented their food to idols as offerings of worship. The false gods of Babylon received their portion of the food, and the remainder was enjoyed at the table of ol’ King Neb and his servants.
This created a major conflict for Daniel & friends. They were Hebrews who worshiped the one true God Whose name is YHWH (or Yahweh or Jehovah). As any card-carrying Hebrew could tell you, only YHWH could be worshiped. He alone is God and He demanded to receive all the worship from His people. It was on pain of death for any Hebrew to partake in pagan worship of idols.
Still, ol’ King Neb was in charge of Daniel & friends, now that they had been carted off from Jerusalem as slaves to ol’ King Neb. And he was quite content to worship his idols, thank you very much. So it wouldn’t have been wisdom for Daniel & friends to denounce Neb’s gods and refuse to eat the food offered in sacrifice to those false gods. Not because the idols would wreak their vengeance on the Hebrews, mind you. But ol’ King Neb would!
This presented a real conundrum for Daniel & friends. They just couldn’t bring themselves to desert the one true God YHWH, but they still had to get along with ol’ King Neb and his pantheon of gods. What to do? What to do? Hmm. That’s a toughie.
We’ll return same time same station tomorrow to finish the show. See you then. Enjoy some time with the Lord Jesus in the interim.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
I love pizza. But it’s got to be the real thing, if you know what I mean. No, I don’t mean it has to be genuine Italian-made, or deep dish from Chicago. I mean it has to be sausage…period. Well, okay. It can have crust too, and cheese and sauce. But anything else on pizza nullifies the “pizza” part of the food!
Daniel and his three friends were minding their own business in Jerusalem back in the day. For you novices, that would be the day of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I’m sure those four dudes were enjoying some kosher sausage pizza. Well, maybe not because sausage isn’t kosher! This is especially so for Italian sausage, er, I mean Babylonian sausage.
Anyway, along came ol’ King Cole, er, I mean ol’ King Neb. Accompanying our king-of-the-day was his army, a formidable bunch to be sure. When the dust cleared Daniel & friends no longer lived in Jerusalem. They had moved to Babylon, where they had the not so enviable job of waiting on ol’ King Neb and fulfilling his every fickle whim.
As slaves of the king their food came from the king’s kitchen. The king even assigned one of his stewards to be in charge of Daniel & friends. The steward was responsible to see that Daniel & friends learned the ropes of living in Babylon and waiting on ol’ King Neb.
Part of this responsibility required the steward to be sure Daniel & friends were strong and healthy. He had to make them brush their teeth before bed and wash behind their ears. Okay, I made that part up. But the steward did have to provide the four Hebrews with food from the king’s table. After all, if it kept ol’ King Neb healthy, it had to be good for his foreign slaves too.
Here’s the thing. Ol’ King Neb and all the Babylonians were idolaters. They presented their food to idols as offerings of worship. The false gods of Babylon received their portion of the food, and the remainder was enjoyed at the table of ol’ King Neb and his servants.
This created a major conflict for Daniel & friends. They were Hebrews who worshiped the one true God Whose name is YHWH (or Yahweh or Jehovah). As any card-carrying Hebrew could tell you, only YHWH could be worshiped. He alone is God and He demanded to receive all the worship from His people. It was on pain of death for any Hebrew to partake in pagan worship of idols.
Still, ol’ King Neb was in charge of Daniel & friends, now that they had been carted off from Jerusalem as slaves to ol’ King Neb. And he was quite content to worship his idols, thank you very much. So it wouldn’t have been wisdom for Daniel & friends to denounce Neb’s gods and refuse to eat the food offered in sacrifice to those false gods. Not because the idols would wreak their vengeance on the Hebrews, mind you. But ol’ King Neb would!
This presented a real conundrum for Daniel & friends. They just couldn’t bring themselves to desert the one true God YHWH, but they still had to get along with ol’ King Neb and his pantheon of gods. What to do? What to do? Hmm. That’s a toughie.
We’ll return same time same station tomorrow to finish the show. See you then. Enjoy some time with the Lord Jesus in the interim.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Deuteronomy: Volume 5 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
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