Question:  Hello Greg,

            I have been reading through the questions and answers that you have provided.  It’s great that you are doing this.  I read a question from another lady who asked about blood transfusions and how the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t accept them.  I have a hard time believing that God would not allow us to have blood transfusions if needed to save lives.  But in studying the Bible, I did run into a verse—Acts 21:25.  It mentions to abstain from blood.  Can you explain this to me, and what does it refer to when it says abstain from blood?  I think it means from literally drinking blood, but I’m not sure.  Your help is greatly appreciated.

            God bless you,

            Marie

Answer:  Dear Marie,

            Thank you for the encouragement about “Ask Greg.”  PTM provides this service as part of our commitment to share the gospel throughout the world, and this particular feature is worldwide—as we receive requests for answers and for help from around the world.

            The passage in Acts about which you ask (Acts 21:25) relates that Paul was in Jerusalem explaining to “brothers” (verse 17)—fellow Christians—what he was doing, saying and preaching in other parts of the world.  The book of Acts, as well as Paul’s writings (notably Galatians) gives us some insight about the mindset of these Christian brothers in Jerusalem.  They were all Jewish Christians, and as a result very concerned about any deviation from the old covenant.  They had not yet realized the full implications of the new covenant—and their traditions and culture as Jews made it all the more difficult to understand just how transforming and “new” the new covenant really was.

            Paul was primarily ministering to Gentiles, and he here, in verse 25, reminds these brothers that in a major conference in Jerusalem a few years before that, they had all decided that Gentiles didn’t need to become cultural Jews in order to become Christians.  They had debated what exactly Gentiles would be required to stop doing/giving up in order to become Christian.

            One of the things that was very different about Jews and Gentiles at this time was their diet.  The Jews had a rigorous and careful dietary code, based upon the old covenant.  The Gentiles had few, if any, restrictions.  Acts 15:28-29 simply remembered the Hebrew restriction against eating or drinking blood (see Genesis 9:3-4).

              This practice of eating and drinking blood (by Gentile Christians) was repulsive to Jewish Christians.  The special conference recorded in Acts 15 asked the Gentile Christians not to eat or drink blood, not because it was a law by which Christians must live, but because it offended their Jewish brothers and sisters.  Paul taught, in later letters, to avoid doing things that caused others to stumble (see Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 10:32). 

            There is nothing at all here about prohibiting blood transfusions.  In fact, there is nothing at all in the New Testament that prohibits a Christian from eating or drinking the blood of animals.  The teaching of the old covenant not only didn’t apply to Christians, but it had a meaning far beyond the literal prohibition—the teaching was designed to help teach the principle that the blood, of both humans and animals, carried life (see Leviticus 17:10-12).  The teaching is thus another passage that helps us see that Christians are given new life, eternal life in Christ, because he shed his life—his blood—for us.  We have eternal life because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  That’s the significance of this passage—with nothing at all about blood transfusions being a part of the intent.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht