4:3 {3} Forbidding to marry, [and commanding] to abstain from meats, {4} which God hath created {5} to be received {6} with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
(3) He sets down two types of this false doctrine, that is, the law of single life, and the difference of meats.
(4) He proves that he justly called such doctrines devilish, first, because the teachers of them make laws of things which are not their own: for have they created the meats?
(5) Secondly, because they overthrow with their decrees the reason why they were created by God, that is, that we should use them.
(6) Thirdly, because by this means they rob God of his glory, who will be honoured in the use of them. And here with this, the apostle declares that we must use the liberality of God solemnly, and with a good conscience.
4:3 Forbidding to marry. Not long after Paul's time the superior holiness of the unmarried life began to be preached in the church, and this resulted at last in monasticism and a celibate clergy.
[Commanding] to abstain from meats. The ascetic practices which began to grow up in the church a little later extended to foods. To eat the least palatable food which would sustain life was counted a virtue. These ascetics generally forbade animal food, and some lived only on bread and water. These practices are still found among certain orders of the Latin and Eastern churches.
Which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving. The foods which God hath created are for use, to be eaten thankfully by those who
believe and know the truth, instead of having their minds darkened by delusions.
4:3 Forbidding priests, monks, and nuns to marry, and commanding all men to abstain from such and such meats at such and such times. Which God hath created to be received by them that know the truth - That all meats are now clean. With thanksgiving - Which supposes a pure conscience.
4:1-5 The Holy Spirit, both in the Old and the New Testament, spoke of a general turning from the faith of Christ, and the pure worship of God. This should come during the Christian dispensation, for those are called the latter days. False teachers forbid as evil what God has allowed, and command as a duty what he has left indifferent. We find exercise for watchfulness and self-denial, in attending to the requirements of God's law, without being tasked to imaginary duties, which reject what he has allowed. But nothing justifies an intemperate or improper use of things; and nothing will be good to us, unless we seek by prayer for the Lord's blessing upon it.
