So Clean

I've been long puzzled over something and I hope, in the spirit in which this is written, that y'all can help me out.

Acts 10:9-16 tells a story about a vision Peter had. He repeats in Acts 11:4-10. In the vision to a hungry Peter, a sheet falls down from heaven with every possible critter on it. A voice from heaven tells Peter to eat. Peter protests that he doesn't eat unclean things. The voice from heaven, according to the narrator in Acts 10 and Peter in Acts 11, says to Peter, "don't call anything God has made clean "unclean." Peter takes that to mean to not draw distinctions between people - what he attests to in Acts 11:11-12 - and goes to Joppa to meet a man he would've considered unclean.

We cite this text about eating crab, about enjoying lobster. God made it clean. We cite this text to justify eating ham for Christmas dinner. We cite it about food.

What I need help understanding is why we are unwilling to call critters that God created unclean but don't extend that same reasoning to ourselves - our bodies, our humanity - and each other. Cause, like, if I can't call them nasty worms of the sea that y'all call shrimp "unclean," how can I call you, who are beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God "unclean"? If pork skins - as unhealthy as they are - are clean, why are women's bodies unclean and worthy of being hidden?

(And don't attempt to excuse that last part with "modesty." Modesty is covering that which we find shameful. And I'll just ask you why you consider what God created to be shameful and we'll just go back and forth until I remind you that Jesus told men who lust after women's visible bodies to pluck out their own eyes...)

Why, I need help understanding, do we use Acts 10 and 11 to call everything under the sun "clean" except for human beings? And why, in our refusal to see ourselves and each other as God made and unable to be considered "dirty," do we demand folk who say "but wait, I'm a critter made by God, too" to treat their bodies as unclean for the sake of protecting our idiocy?

#AintNothingGodMadeUnclean #IncludingYou #IncludingMe

#WhyHideTheWorksOfTheLord #CrowdSourcedBibleStudy