There is a Bible on a lot of shelves. Sitting on desks. Downloaded on phones that mostly stay open to social media. The book is there. Whether it’s functioning as a guide is a different question. Keith Hoeck opened his message with exactly that image. A GPS sitting in a car. All the information is in it. The route is mapped. But nobody turned it on. Nobody asked it anything. And so the person behind the wheel is lost — not because the guide failed them, but because they never consulted it.
Hosea 4:6 says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Romans 1:28 gives the reason: “because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” It wasn’t that the knowledge wasn’t available. It was that the knowledge wasn’t wanted. And so, tossed by every wind of doctrine, shaped by Greek philosophy, moved by human tradition, swept along by whatever sound theology was fashionable, the people drifted. And the distance between their life and the instruction in the book grew. Keith’s message was a call to close that distance. Specifically through one of the most misunderstood conversations in scripture: the question of what is holy versus what is common.
It Started Long Before Mount Sinai
The most common objection to the biblical food laws is a familiar one: those commandments were given at Mount Sinai, part of Israel’s sacrificial system, not applicable to us today. Keith’s response was simply to open the book earlier. Genesis 9:3 — God speaking directly to Noah, after the flood, before there was a nation of Israel, before there was a tabernacle or a priesthood or a covenant at Sinai: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you… but you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” There’s a distinction being drawn here in the first book of scripture, by God Himself, to a man who predates the law of Moses by generations. The prohibition on blood isn’t a Mosaic invention. It is a foundational principle rooted in something much deeper.
Blood, Life, and What God Considers Sacred
Leviticus 17:11 makes the logic explicit: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.” Blood isn’t just a biological substance in God’s economy. It carries life, and life belongs to God. That’s why it was placed on the altar, not consumed. That’s why the sacrificial system pointed forward to the blood of Christ, the giving of life in place of another, the ultimate atonement. The dietary laws weren’t random rules about what tasted good.
They were daily reminders of a theological reality: some things are set apart. Some things belong to God. And the people of God are called to think that way, to distinguish between the holy and the common, to ask whether their choices reflect the character of the One who made them. Leviticus 20:25 uses the word distinguish. That’s the assignment. Not just compliance with a list, but the cultivation of a way of seeing — discerning what reflects God’s holiness and what doesn’t.
The Mark 7 Misunderstanding
Keith spent time on the passage that gets used most often to dismiss the food laws: Mark 7, where Jesus confronts the Pharisees about their disciples eating bread with unwashed hands. Many read the passage and walk away thinking Jesus declared all foods clean. Keith asked a pointed question: What were the Pharisees actually upset about? Unwashed hands. A ritual tradition about ceremonial washing, not a violation of dietary law. The Pharisees, who were obsessed with the Law of Moses, didn’t accuse the disciples of eating unclean meat. They didn’t, because that’s not what was happening.
Unwashed hands. A ritual tradition about ceremonial washing — not a violation of dietary law. The Pharisees, who were obsessed with the Law of Moses, didn’t accuse the disciples of eating unclean meat. They didn’t, because that’s not what was happening. Jesus responded by exposing the real issue: “You have let go the commandments of God and are holding on to human traditions.” He went on to name the actual source of defilement, “From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders…” The problem Jesus was addressing was moral purity, not dietary freedom. He was not handing out permission slips for pork chops. He was indicting the human heart. As Keith observed: if Jesus had intended to abolish longstanding distinctions between clean and unclean animals, it would have been explosive news. The scribes, the Pharisees, Peter, all the disciples, someone would have reacted. No one did. Because that’s not what was said.
Peter’s Vision Is About People, Not Pork
Acts 10 is the other passage that comes up in this conversation. Peter sees a sheet descend from heaven filled with all kinds of animals, clean and unclean, and a voice says: “Kill and eat.” Peter refuses. The voice comes three times. And then Cornelius knocks on the door. Peter himself gives the interpretation in Acts 10:28: “God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.” The vision was about people, specifically about the Gentiles being welcomed into the covenant through the gospel. It was not a menu revision.
Keith’s observation: Peter had walked with Jesus through His entire ministry. He heard every teaching. Witnessed the resurrection. Preached at Pentecost. And yet, after all of that, Peter’s immediate response to “kill and eat” was still “Not so, Lord. I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” If Jesus had changed the food laws, Peter would have known it. His instinct tells us something.
The Real Question
The dietary laws, for Keith, are not the whole point. They are an entry point into a much bigger question: Are you willing to let God define what is holy, or are you always negotiating toward what is comfortable? He closed by reading 1 Peter 1:15 — “He who called you is holy, be holy in all your conduct.” Then he turned it into a mirror: “Am I living in a way that reflects the holiness of God? Am I approaching His Word with humility? Am I trying to please Him — or am I looking for a way around His instructions so I can live as comfortable and familiar as possible?”
That’s the question underneath the question. Not just about food. About the whole of life. God’s instruction exists to form us into something, a people who think differently, who see the world differently, who carry the weight of being set apart in how they make choices, what they consume, how they treat others, and whether they bring His character into every room they walk into. Be ye holy, for I am holy. He said it. He meant it. And He hasn’t changed.
Watch the full message from Keith Hoeck on our YouTube channel. Greater Phoenix Church of God meets every Saturday at 10:30 AM at 4300 N. 82nd Street, Scottsdale, AZ.