21 September 2024
The dream
I dreamed I was driving my van. The van had two windscreens, one on the left and one on the right. Then I had an accident. Both windscreens broke. The van’s skin was peeling bare. The accident did not rock the van drastically. I was still calmly driving along.
That morning
That Saturday morning I was with two friends. They are disciples. They came to challenge me about what happened with another disciple during the trip in Turkey.
On that trip I had tried to convince him to leave vegetarianism and go carnivore because of his mental health. That was the reason I spoke. That was the matter they brought.
Their intention was good. They wanted to make sure no other member of the church would cause a brother to fall. I understood their concern from the verse about causing a brother to stumble. That is why I am now curious to find out what “stumbling” means in the Bible.
The two windscreens are two persons — those two friends. Two views on the same road. Both broke. The skin laid bare means to show, to expose. The hit is real. The van is not thrown off. I keep driving, calmly. What was covered is now seen, and the road is still under me.
This reminds me of Peter when he is challenged and must follow God, not men.
“But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’”
(Acts 5:29 ESV)
That sentence was spoken when the council told them to stop preaching Jesus. It is not a verse about vegetarianism. It only answers this much: men’s word is not the last word. God’s word is.
Why I gave that advice
I was not trying to win an argument about food. I was thinking of his mind. The brain is largely fat. About half of its dry weight is lipid. It uses fat to build membrane and myelin. It also needs long-chain omega-3 fats — EPA and DHA — which the body makes poorly from plants. Those fats sit in fish and other animal foods. Reviews of trials have found a modest benefit of omega-3, especially EPA, on depressive symptoms.
Vitamin B12 is not in plants. It is in animal food. Low B12 is tied to depression, fog, and other neuropsychiatric signs. A vegetarian diet is often short of it unless it is supplemented. A systematic review of vegetarian and vegan diets and depression found mixed results: some studies linked those diets to higher depression, some found no link, and some found a benefit.
There is also anecdote. Lierre Keith was a vegan for almost twenty years, from the age of sixteen. She later wrote The Vegetarian Myth. She says her health failed, and that her spine began to fall apart after about two years. That is one person’s story, not a trial. It is part of why I do not treat vegetarianism as a safe default for the mind or the body.
High-fat, very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) eating is now being tested in psychiatry. A randomised trial in treatment-resistant depression found a larger drop in depression scores on a ketogenic diet than on a control diet at six weeks. The extra benefit was modest. This is early work, not a finished proof that fatty meat cures the mind. It is why I pointed him toward animal fat and away from a diet that often lacks B12 and long-chain omega-3.
That research does not cancel Romans 14. A true reason can still be spoken in a way that bruises a conscience.
The Bible’s warning about meat is not about fat or the mind. It is about meat sacrificed to idols. Paul is writing to people who would not eat because the meat had been offered in a pagan temple. That is the setting of 1 Corinthians 8 and of Romans 14. I was not asking him to eat idol meat. I was talking about animal fat and his mental health. Those are not the same matter.
What “stumbling” means
This is the question I am weighing after that morning. In ordinary speech, “stumble” can mean you embarrassed someone, or they disliked what you said. That is not the Bible’s weight.
The New Testament uses two main words.
Skandalon / skandalizō. First, a trap-stick: the trigger of a snare. Then anything that trips a person so they fall — into sin, or away from faith. Jesus uses it of causing little ones who believe in him to sin (Matthew 18:6). He uses it of Peter when Peter tries to turn him from the cross: “You are a hindrance (skandalon) to me” (Matthew 16:23). Paul uses it of using your freedom so that a weak brother is destroyed (1 Corinthians 8:9–13).
Proskomma. An obstacle in the path; something you strike your foot on. Paul puts both words together:
“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block (proskomma) or hindrance (skandalon) in the way of a brother.”
(Romans 14:13 ESV)
So biblical stumbling is not “he did not like my advice.” It is causing a brother to trip into sin, to violate his conscience, or to turn aside from the Lord.
Friends can have good intentions and still raise a heavier matter than the act deserves. The church should watch for real snares. It should not treat every hard conversation as a trap.
Jesus had already said that food does not defile.
“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
(Matthew 15:11 ESV)
“Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
(Mark 7:18–19 ESV)
So meat is not unclean. What remains is the weaker case: meat that has been sacrificed to an idol, and a brother whose conscience is still bound to that. That is the setting of 1 Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 10:28, Acts 15:29, and Romans 14. I was not asking him to eat idol meat. I was talking about animal fat and his mind.
On food the test is this, and the food in view is meat sacrificed to idols:
“Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ … However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.” (1 Corinthians 8:1, 7 ESV)
“Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” (1 Corinthians 8:13 ESV)
“But if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience.” (1 Corinthians 10:28 ESV)
“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.” (Romans 14:14–15 ESV)
The abstaining brother in those chapters is not a vegetarian for health. He will not eat because the meat was offered to an idol. The council in Jerusalem named the same limit: abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols (Acts 15:29).
Did I stumble him?
I do not know from that morning alone.
I was not trying to harm him. I was talking about fat, meat, and his mind. They were not trying to harm me. They were trying to keep the church from putting snares in front of people. That still does not settle whether I stumbled him.
The questions Scripture actually asks are:
- Did he believe the meat had been sacrificed to an idol, and that eating it would be sin for him before God?
- Did I press him to eat that meat against that conscience?
- Did he turn from Christ, or fall into guilt he could not carry?
If he only heard a suggestion about animal food and remained free to refuse, that is not yet the skandalon of 1 Corinthians 8. If his conscience was bound because the meat was idol meat, and he was pushed over that line, then the concern has weight. My words were about fat and the mind, not about meat offered to idols. That still does not finish the test. It only names the context the verses actually have.
I cannot finish that test from a dream. I would need what was said, how hard it was pressed, and what happened in him.
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”
(Galatians 6:1 ESV)
“Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”
(Romans 15:2 ESV)
The accident is the challenge. It does not wreck the van. Two friends look through two screens, and both screens break. The skin is laid bare so the hit can be seen. I am still calmly driving. Obey God rather than men. Do not put a snare in a brother’s way. Weigh the word “stumble” before you pin it on a person.
The van I later hired
I later remembered this dream while I was looking to transport my father’s paintings. I ended up hiring a van for that move. In the dream I was already driving a van. In waking life I hired one. I take that as a self-fulfilled prophecy: the picture came first, and then I stepped into it.
So the dream can carry two messages. The broken windscreens and the bare skin belong to that Saturday with my two friends. The van belongs to what I later did.
Scripture (ESV)
- Matthew 15:11 — what goes into the mouth does not defile.
- Mark 7:18–19 — what enters from outside cannot defile; Jesus declared all foods clean.
- Acts 15:29 — abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols.
- 1 Corinthians 8:1, 7 — food offered to idols; a weak conscience eats it as really offered to an idol.
- 1 Corinthians 8:9, 13 — do not let this right become a stumbling block; if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat.
- 1 Corinthians 10:28 — if someone says it has been offered in sacrifice, do not eat it.
- Romans 14:13 — do not put a stumbling block in a brother’s way.
- Romans 14:14–15 — nothing is unclean in itself; do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.
- Romans 15:2 — please your neighbour for his good, to build him up.
- Matthew 16:23 — Peter called a hindrance (skandalon).
- Matthew 18:6 — causing a little one to sin.
- Acts 5:29 — obey God rather than men.
- Galatians 6:1 — restore in a spirit of gentleness; watch yourself.
- James 3:2 — we all stumble in many ways.
Research and anecdote
- Liao Y, et al. “Efficacy of omega-3 PUFAs in depression: A meta-analysis.” Translational Psychiatry 9, 190 (2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0515-5
- Jain R, et al. “Association between vegetarian and vegan diets and depression: A systematic review.” Nutrition Bulletin 47, no. 1 (2022): 27–49. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbu.12540
- “A Ketogenic Diet for Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial.” JAMA Psychiatry 83, no. 4 (2026): 331–340. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41637092/
- Lierre Keith, The Vegetarian Myth. Anecdote: vegan for almost twenty years; she says her health failed. https://www.lierrekeith.com/book-ex_the-vegetarian-myth.php
