Was Peter really told to disobey a commandment of YHVH?

Acts 10

¹ Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, ² a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually. 

From a Hebraic perspective, verse 2 would sound like this: 

²Cornelius was a ger toshav, a yagor Elohim, he gave tzedakah, and he did the Amidah.  Now what are these things? 

Ger Toshav (a devout man): In the Jewish community, this person is considered a righteous gentile.  He accepts the authority of the Torah and keeps the Biblical feasts, but would not be allowed into Judaism and to celebrate in Jerusalem.  There were two types of converts to Judaism in Cornelius’s day: the ger tzedek and the ger toshav.  A ger tzedek was proselyte of Judaism and aspired to hold to all 613 commandments.  They would have to be circumcised and do a mikvah which is a full immersion in living waters.  They would also be required to learn the oral tradition as well.

 

Yagor Elohim (God-fearer): Cornelius kept the Torah because those who fear God keep His commandments.  If you would go to an orthodox Jew and say you were a God-fearer and yet kept no commandments, they would say you were a liar. 

Tzedakah (alms): Charity given.  This is a spiritual charity and is seen in the Jewish community as an obligation.  The highest form is to send gifts anonymously to recipients. 
 

Amidah (prayed to God continually): This called the standing prayer.  It is interesting to note that Cornelius was praying in the ninth hour of the day.  This would have been 3pm in the afternoon and the time of the afternoon prayers in Judaism or the afternoon part of the Amidah.

 

Cornelius was a gentile who feared God and kept His commandments, but would not have been accepted in the Temple of the Jews because he was a gentile and had not been through the mikvah or circumcision.  Despite this, Cornelius prayed to God to be accepted into His family.  He did all of it in faith and so now enters Peter into the story.

Acts 10:3-20

^…3 About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, “Cornelius!” ⁴ And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. ⁵ Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter; ⁶ he is staying with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea.” ⁷ When the angel who was speaking to him had left, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were his personal attendants, ⁸ and after he had explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹ On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. ¹⁰ But he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance; ¹¹ and he *saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, ¹² and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. ¹³ A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” ¹⁴ But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” ¹⁵ Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” ¹⁶ This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.

¹⁷ Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon’s house, appeared at the gate; ¹⁸ and calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was staying there. ¹⁹ While Peter was reflecting on the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. ²⁰ But get up, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them Myself.”

This vision is often misused to say that we do not have to keep Kosher, but as you can see, Peter did not immediately understand what the vision meant.  He most certainly did not understand it to mean that he could eat anything he wanted.  Context is the key to understanding everything in the Bible.

What is interesting is that the men sent by Cornelius were Roman soldiers and they were commonly called “pigs” by the Jews.

Gentiles Hear Good News

Acts 10:34-35

³⁴ Opening his mouth, Peter said:

“I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, ³⁵ but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.

Peter finally understands the vision in verse 34-35.  He had come from the teachings of the House of Shammai (a whole other teaching) which put him under no obligation to visit a gentile or have anything to do with Cornelius.  Context is the key to understanding that Peter understood gentiles, even ones that kept the same feasts and commandments as he did, to be common, unclean, and outside the grace of God. 

God never violates His own commands and He is never at war with Himself; He is One.

Who is the one who really loves you? It may not be who you think.

Life is a confusing mix of love, hate, pain, joy, truth, and so called harmless “white lies”. I was thinking on truth the other day and how truth never suits all situations. Or at least that is how it seems to play out in our society and the church. When we think it is best for another person, we easily slip into a harmless “white lie”. All the while telling ourselves that it is what is best for them. Is that what is really best for them? Is it safe to live a life based on truth peppered with lies for the sake of others?  Doesn’t a little leaven ruin the whole lump of dough?

I believe at best it will only make us hypocrites. Being a father, I have seen this full well. I want my children to trust me and so I am unashamedly truthful with them. I want my children to know that their Father (not a mistype; I am teaching my children about their Father in heaven in what I do) is principled and one that they can run to in the storms of life and celebrate with when they are joyful. Therefore, there is no santa claus in our house or reindeer on the roof. The delight of children in such things is not worth the moment they find out that mom and dad have been lying to them all those years opening the floodgates to question what else mom and dad have lied about.

That is why when we celebrate Feast and Festivals throughout the year, they are based in truth; the word of God.  We care not for traditions of men or what our family has always done forever.  Those things don’t bring lasting joy and closeness to YHVH.  The question that must be asked is: Is perpetuating a lie to others really loving them to our fullest potential?  For me, it is not.   Now this stance is not popular and has cost me points in America society and with my family.  But if you really look closely at what I am doing, I think you will find that it is what everyone wishes they could do with their children but are afraid of what others might think.  Don’t give your child a stone if they say they are hungry.

The Scripture says to train up a child in the way they will go and he will not depart from it.  What way are you training up your children to follow?  Myths about a fat man in a suit giving gifts living in the North Pole, a celebration of the winter solstice and tree worship all while claiming it is about the Messiah, or the day of the dead and easter eggs and rabbits?  I can guarantee you this:  If you train your children up in those ways, they will not depart from them.  Only YHVH will be able to pull them out of the lies and set them on the path of the righteous like he did with me.

Do we want to just love people or love them to our fullest potential?  To truly love someone, you must love like Yeshua.  He never was politically correct; He came and spoke truth unabashedly.  He shared that which sets men’s souls free from bondage.  Most of what I see preached and taught today is more bondage.  It is bonding men into a system that will ultimately leave them unprepared for the things God is about to do.  These pastors are the ones crying, “Peace, peace!”  They are teaching their congregation the traditions of men and not the commandments of Elohim.  They are the moneychangers in the inner court keeping people from getting close to God.

Why?  Two reasons: 1) They just flat out don’t know or 2) They know the truth but to turn 180 and teach the truth would almost immediately unseat them from their position of power in their church.  I can tell you this, when the end comes, I would not want to be one of these men.   I have heard it said that you are responsible for what you know.  That is the key:  what you do with truth once you have it.  If I was a man telling you things from men, I am not one to listen to.  But if I am a man telling you things that God has actually said in His word, then I am giving you truth from God.  Now what will you do with it?  How are you going to love others?  Who really loves you that you have surrounded yourself with?

  

Does this sound like your life? As a believer, it should.

Psalm 139

1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. 5 You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. 7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” 12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. 13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.

14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You. 19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. 20 For they speak against You wickedly, And Your enemies take Your name in vain. 21 Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22 I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.

Do You Have Faceted Love For God?

Deuteronomy 6:4-6

⁴ “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! ⁵ You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 

God commands us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and might.  I am curious what the Hebrew is for these three facets of a human being.  I thought we might look at that and see if we can also love the Lord our God with all of our mind as well. 

“Your heart” 

This word in Hebrew can mean: inner man, mind, will, heart.  The idea is that we love God not superficially, but deep within the recesses of our being; within us, with our will, and with our mind.  Our wills should strive to line up with the Father’s as Yeshua’s did.  We should love the Father with our minds, thinking deeply on His word and searching it for instruction and the character of the One who has given us it. 

“Your soul”  

This word in Hebrew can mean: a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, or emotion.   Our desires should be that of Elohim.  Our passion should be for Elohim and His will.  Our appetites should be for the things of God.  Nothing should stir our emotions more than YHVH and Yeshua.   Wow.  That is a tall order and very convicting when I weigh how excited about earthly things I can get. 

“Your might”

This word in Hebrew can mean: muchness, force, abundance.  We are to love God with the totality of ourselves.  We are to love Him in abundance not faceted love pulled from the other loves of our life.  The worship of Elohim is of the magnitude that it is all consuming.  He is a consuming fire that envelops our heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

So we need to think deeply on the things of God.  Question the truths we have been taught and show them to be of God or of men.  We are pretty good at loving God with our emotions, but we leave our minds at the door because you can’t get too intellectual with your faith.  It’s about what you feel in your heart right?  Not according to Scripture.  Scripture says in Jeremiah 17:9 that the heart is more deceitful above all else.  

There is only one thing that can be trusted as the right way: the word of God from the mouth of God.  His instruction is the way we that believe should be doing it.  It usurps all teachings of men and baseless claims about what Elohim is like and desires.  Love Him with your mind, do the work necessarily to love Him wholly.

Is Your God Echad?

John 5:19-20

¹⁹ Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. 

The Messiah clearly says that He “can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing…”  This would mean that He and the Father are Echad (One). 

John 14:20-21

²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. ²¹ He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” 

He also says that “he who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me…”  So if the Messiah and the Father are Echad, then the one who keeps the Father’s commandments is keeping the Messiah’s commandments and is the one who truly loves the Messiah. 

1 Corinthians 7:18-20

¹⁸ Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised. ¹⁹ Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God. ²⁰ Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called. 

Even the man that most use to excuse themselves from the Torah, Paul, affirms that we should keep the Torah.  The Messiah and Paul both kept the Feast and Festivals as well as the Torah.  It does not do violence to being saved by grace through faith if you are keeping the Torah as a result of salvation and not for it.  It is no different than keeping the city ordinances of the city you live in.  You are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, right?  Then why keep the Feasts and Festivals of the worldly kingdom?  If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might be a duck. 

Titus 1:13-15

¹³ This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴ not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. ¹⁵ To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. 

The commandments we are not supposed to keep are the ones of men.  Jewish myths were the oral tradition built around the Torah, not the actual Torah. 

1 John 2:4

⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

1 John 5:2

² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 

Anybody else seeing a pattern here?  If you keep His commandments, you love the Messiah, you are focused on what matters, and you are not a liar.  Not only that, but this shows that we love the children of God.  Notice that I have used only the New Testament to show that we should keep Torah from a salvation perspective.  When you turn to the Hebrew Scriptures, you see the actual commandments you are supposed to keep from the mouth of God through Moses.  Not some made up precepts of men told to us in church because when you live only in the New Testament, you have to guess what the commandments that Messiah is talking about are.  

Matthew 5:18-20

¹⁸ For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

²⁰ “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 

If you choose not to keep Torah, you just end up least in the Kingdom.  Heaven and earth are still here.  The reason you will be called least in the Kingdom is because you will have the least amount of knowledge of what the Kingdom is like and what will be going on when we get there.  If you have never celebrated Sukkot, then you would naturally be confused when we celebrate it in the Kingdom with the Messiah.  It is the Feast of Ingathering or the dwelling of God among His people. 

Matthew 26:18

¹⁸ And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.”’” 

The Messiah kept Passover as well as the other Feasts.  Why would He say He is One with the Father and then go against the Father’s eternal, perpetual commandments? 

Romans 15:4

⁴ For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 

Paul instructs us that what was written in the Torah was for our instruction (remember Paul was writing the New Testament at the time).  Interestingly, the word Torah means “instruction” in Hebrew. 

Revelation 14:12

¹² Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. 

Perseverance is for the saints who “keep the commandments of God”.  Notice that it was not written “keep the commandments of Yeshua”.  Because God is Echad and there is no division between Father and Son.  What was given for our instruction on Sinai is the same instruction taught by Moses, the Messiah, and Paul.  Scripture even says is will be taught in Zion by the Messiah directly. 

Micah 4:2
² Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Husbands, Wives, Yeshua, and Love

Genesis 2:24; Proverbs 18:22; Psalm 128:3; Proverbs 5:18; Proverbs 12:4; Proverbs 19:14; Proverbs 31:10; 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 

²⁴ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh…²² He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD… ³ Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants around your table… ¹⁸ Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth… ⁴ An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones… ¹⁴ House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD… ¹⁰ An excellent wife, who can find?  For her worth is far above jewels… ³ The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does… ²² Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. ²⁴ But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.  ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸ So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹ for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of His body. ³¹ FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. ³² This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

Why do we continue to try and sacrifice pigs in our bodies; the Temple of Elohim?

When tackling something like keeping Kosher and more particularly not eating pork, one will necessarily not win any popular votes in America.  Bacon is king here and we have found a way to include it and pork in just about everything we eat.  Why?  Because pork is cheap and readily available.  When you attempt to explain that pork is not good for you or in any way assert that God does not want you to eat it, you are in for immediate difficulties.  However, the message needs to be said and heard by those who have ears to hear so here I sit writing another unpopular blog again.

I want to look at three things in particular:

1.       Does God approve of His people eating pork?

2.       Is our body a Temple as believers in Yeshua?

3.       Does pork have any place in the Temple of God?

 

Leviticus 11:1-8

Laws about Animals for Food

¹ The LORD spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, ² “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth. ³ Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat. ⁴ Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you. ⁵ Likewise, the shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; ⁶ the rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; ⁷ and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you. ⁸ You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

Deuteronomy 14:7-8

⁷ Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these among those which chew the cud, or among those that divide the hoof in two: the camel and the rabbit and the shaphan, for though they chew the cud, they do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you. ⁸ The pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You shall not eat any of their flesh nor touch their carcasses. 

We see in Leviticus and again in Deuteronomy that God commands us not to eat pigs or to even touch the dead carcass of one.  Who is this command given to?  It was given to the “…sons of Israel” which is anyone who believes in Messiah because you are part of the commonwealth of Israel when you become a believer.  We must come to grips with the fact that what God liked and desired in the Hebrew Scriptures is what He still likes and desires in the Renewed Testament.  His plan has not changed.  Yeshua confirms that in the gospels. 

Malachi 3:5-7

⁵ “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the LORD of hosts. ⁶ “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

⁷ “From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 

If Elohim changes, then maybe He changes His mind when it comes to our salvation and decides to just wipe us all out for our sin.  A great many churchmen cling to the fact of God’s unchanging character except for when it comes to what He has decreed us to do and do not do.  Then it is open season to doubt God’s eternal desires of what we eat and do not eat.  It is hypocritical at the least and blasphemous to say that Elohim does not care about such things now.  Yeshua is in agreement with the Father.  God is echad, One. 

Okay.  God is not for eating pigs.  Now how about the question of our body being a Temple? 

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? ¹⁷ If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. 

Paul is surprised that the Corinthians did not understand the concept of keeping the Temple holy which was their bodies now that the Spirit of God dwelled in them. 

1 Corinthians 6:18-20

¹⁸ Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. 

Interestingly here how Paul talks about sins outside the body.  When we eat, we take something within us.  Yeshua proclaimed in the book of John that those who eat His body and drink His blood abide in Him (Jn. 6:56).  The idea of what we take in to the Temple is seen in His proclamation.  It is not necessarily the pork itself, but the disobedience that we take in when we eat of it.  We choose, again, the forbidden fruit, of the garden instead of all the other trees Adam and Eve were allowed to eat of.  We miss the blessing and receive the curse.  How many times have we read how bad pork is for your heart? 

So does YHVH allow pork in the Temple?  Would He want the unclean in His temple?  That is the real issue here: unclean versus clean things in our lives. 

I want to take you to a story about Antiochus IV Epiphanies.  He was a hated ruler of Antioch by the Jews who eventually desecrated the altar by sacrificing a pig on it along with decreeing that they could not keep Sabbath anymore or obey the Torah: 

1 Maccabees 1:41-63

^41-43Antiochus now issued a decree that all nations in his empire should abandon their own customs and become one people. All the Gentiles and even many of the Israelites submitted to this decree. They adopted the official pagan religion, offered sacrifices to idols, and no longer observed the Sabbath.

⁴⁴ The king also sent messengers with a decree to Jerusalem and all the towns of Judea, ordering the people to follow customs that were foreign to the country.⁴⁵ He ordered them not to offer burnt offerings, grain offerings, or wine offerings in the Temple, and commanded them to treat Sabbaths and festivals as ordinary work days.⁴⁶ They were even ordered to defile the Temple and the holy things in it.⁴⁷ They were commanded to build pagan altars, temples, and shrines, and to sacrifice pigs and other unclean animals there.⁴⁸ They were forbidden to circumcise their sons and were required to make themselves ritually unclean in every way they could,⁴⁹ so that they would forget the Law which the Lord had given through Moses and would disobey all its commands.⁵⁰ The penalty for disobeying the king's decree was death.

⁵¹ The king not only issued the same decree throughout his whole empire, but he also appointed officials to supervise the people and commanded each town in Judea to offer pagan sacrifices.⁵² Many of the Jews were ready to forsake the Law and to obey these officials. They defiled the land with their evil,⁵³ and their conduct forced all true Israelites to hide wherever they could.

⁵⁴ On the fifteenth day of the month of Kislev in the year 145, King Antiochus set up
The Awful Horror on the altar of the Temple, and pagan altars were built in the towns throughout Judea.⁵⁵ Pagan sacrifices were offered in front of houses and in the streets.⁵⁶ Any books of the Law which were found were torn up and burned,⁵⁷ and anyone who was caught with a copy of the sacred books or who obeyed the Law was put to death by order of the king.⁵⁸ Month after month these wicked people used their power against the Israelites caught in the towns.

⁵⁹ On the twenty-fifth of the month, these same evil people offered sacrifices on the pagan altar erected on top of the altar in the Temple.⁶⁰ Mothers who had allowed their babies to be circumcised were put to death in accordance with the king's decree.⁶¹ Their babies were hung around their necks, and their families and those who had circumcised them were put to death.⁶² But many people in Israel firmly resisted the king's decree and refused to eat food that was ritually unclean.⁶³ They preferred to die rather than break the holy covenant and eat unclean food—and many did die. 

The prophet Daniel predicted this would happen: 

Daniel 11:31

³¹ Forces from him will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress, and do away with the regular sacrifice. And they will set up the abomination of desolation. 

Changing the way that God wants things done is nothing new.  Rulers such as Antiochus IV have been trying to unify the people by having them all under one pagan rule for centuries.  Worship on Sunday and the distaste of things “Jewish” can be attributed to Constantine.  Why?  If you can unify the people, then it is easier to rule over them.  Not to mention, you can celebrate publicly what you like as a ruler.  You can spend the people’s money on your rituals and customs because they like the same things and won’t complain to make the example more modern. 

The bottom line is that we are the Temple of God, pork has always and will always be unclean, and pork has no place in the Temple of God.  Pork desecrates the altar in the Temple and the altar is what makes the sacrifice holy to the Lord.   This would apply to all things unclean that we may take in.  Please don’t be ignorant and parrot what others have told you no matter how many seminary degrees they have.  There are a great many ignorant men in seminary.  I know having been there.   Find out for yourself.