"You Christians Just Pick and Choose!"

Bacon, Cotton Polyfiber Shirts & Sex

You've probably heard it before. Maybe from a skeptic at work, maybe from a cousin at Thanksgiving, maybe from your own nagging inner voice.

"You Christians always talk about what the Bible says but you just pick and choose. You get in my face about my lifestyle, but you're wearing a cotton-poly blend and you washed your car on Sunday. Hypocrite."

It's a fair question. And if you grew up in church but never got a solid answer, I understand why it leaves you tongue-tied.

Here's the thing: the Bible actually has a really clear answer. We just haven't taught it well.

Let's talk about bacon.

Why God's People Couldn't Eat Bacon

If you know your Old Testament, you know that God's people—the ancient nation of Israel—were forbidden from eating pork. No bacon. No pork chops. No pulled pork. None of it.

Why? Partly, it may have been practical. Pigs root around in their own filth. Before modern medicine, avoiding them wasn't a bad idea hygiene-wise.

But the deeper reason was theological. God told Israel: "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). Holy means “set apart”. Different. Other. Israel was to look different from the surrounding nations as a sign that they belonged—in covenant—to a holy God.

Food laws weren't arbitrary weirdness. They were a visible marker. You could tell who belonged to God's people partly by what they ate, what they wore, and how they worshiped. The rules said: these people are different. They belong to someone.

That makes sense. But then Jesus shows up. And things change.

What Jesus Did with the Old Testament

Jesus didn't throw the Law out. He was crystal clear about that:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17)

He fulfilled it. Personally. Every dot, every iota—He lived it perfectly, completed it, and brought it to its intended conclusion. Also, “iota” is a fantastic Scrabble word.

To understand what that means, you have to understand that the Old Testament Law wasn't one big undifferentiated rule book. It was made up of three distinct types of laws.

The Three Types of Law

1. Ceremonial Law

This covered the priests, the sacrifices, the temple, the atonement system, and, you guessed it, the bacon and cotton polyfiber shirt laws. These laws pointed forward. They were never the point themselves. They were always pointing to someone.

Jesus fulfilled every piece of it:

The food laws existed to mark Israel as God's people. But now, God's people aren't defined by their bloodline or their diet. They're defined by faith in Jesus—by His righteousness credited to them. The external marker has been replaced by something far better: the indwelling Holy Spirit.

So yes. Eat the bacon.

2. Civil Law

Ancient Israel wasn't just a religious community. It was a nation-state, with geographic borders, a military, and laws governing daily civic life. God Himself was their head of state: The King. It was a theocracy.

In the U.S. in 2026, we don't live in a theocracy. We live in a democratic republic. And the church—the new covenant people of God—isn't a nation-state. It's a family gathered from every tribe and tongue and language.

Jesus fulfilled the civil law by creating a new nation: the church. God's people are no longer defined by geographic borders or ethnic Israel. They're defined by faith in Jesus.

That's why those specific civil laws—land redistribution in the Year of Jubilee, rules for Israel's army, dietary regulations tied to national identity—aren't binding on Christians today. There's plenty of wisdom in them. We study them. But they governed a specific covenant people in a specific geopolitical moment that has been fulfilled and transformed in Christ.

3. Moral Law

Now here's where people get confused. Because Jesus also said:

"For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness." (Mark 7:21–22)

Look at that list. That's basically nine of the Ten Commandments repeated directly by Jesus. He didn't loosen the moral law. He deepened it.

Rape, theft, murder, lying, coveting—Jesus repeats these commands to make clear that His moral law remains binding on His people. Not to earn salvation. Not to impress God. But because people who are hidden in Christ, wrapped up in His righteousness, are being transformed to live the way He lived: salt and light in the world.

The moral law is still in effect. Not as a ladder to climb to God, but as a description of what the life God rescues us for actually looks like.

So How Do You Tell the Difference?

Here's a simple test:

Does the law point to something Jesus fulfilled in His person and work? → Ceremonial or Civil. No longer binding.

Does the law reflect God's unchanging character and His design for human flourishing? → Moral. Still binding.

That's why Christians can get tattoos, drink a glass of wine, worship on any day of the week, and eat whatever they want to the glory of God—these fall in the ceremonial or “adiaphora” (matters of conscience) category.

But it's also why Christians can't murder, steal, lie, commit adultery, or dismiss sexual ethics as culturally negotiable. These aren't cultural preferences. They're woven into the fabric of what it means to be human and to reflect the image of God.

Paul puts it well: "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up" (1 Corinthians 10:23). In areas of conscience, let your conscience guide you. Just don't turn your personal convictions into laws you impose on everyone else—and don't use your freedom as an excuse to dismiss what God has called sin.

The "Pick and Choose" Objection, Answered

So when someone says, "You Christians just pick and choose" you can actually say: no, we don't. There's a real framework here, and it's been the historic understanding of the church for 2,000 years.

We follow the moral law because Jesus affirmed and deepened it.

We're free from the ceremonial law because Jesus fulfilled it—He is our priest, our sacrifice, our temple, our atonement.

We're not bound by the civil law because the theocratic nation of Israel has been transformed into the church, a multinational covenant family.

We're not picking and choosing. We're (hopefully) reading the whole Bible with Jesus as the lens.

One More Thing

Jesus ends His teaching in Matthew 5 with a warning: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

That's not a call to try harder. The Pharisees were already trying as hard as humanly possible, and they were missing the point entirely. Their problem wasn't laziness. It was that they cleaned the outside of the cup while the inside was full of greed and self-indulgence (Matthew 23:25–28).

The righteousness Jesus is talking about isn't performance. It's the imputed righteousness He gives to everyone who runs to Him in faith, who admits they don't have their act together and desperately needs a Savior.

Pretending you have it all figured out? That's the Pharisee trap.

Admitting you don't, and running to Jesus anyway? That's the narrow path. And it leads somewhere.

God's love is absolute and perfect. He meets us right where we are. And somehow,in a way only God could pull off, His absolute, perfect love is greater than His absolute, perfect hatred of sin. That's what the cross is. That's what changes everything.

So study the whole Bible.

Follow Jesus with your whole life.

And eat that juicy bacon without an iota of guilt.