‘Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.’
Let’s apply that to puppies.
Now, there are religions that say dogs are to be rejected; you cannot thank God for a dog because they are unclean and lead to sin. So, they never say thank you to God for dogs.
Now, a Christian is not duty-bound to own a dog. A Christian has the freedom to say no to a dog. However, in the same vein, a dog can be consecrated. A dog, a little puppy, can be made holy if it is put through the filter of the word of God and prayer. Isn’t that transformative? That actually you could think about getting a puppy, and you could look at the Bible and say, “What does God think of puppies?”
Well, puppies were made on the sixth day, so you start from there. God made these animals. But you can look at the rest of the Bible too.
There’s certainly a great amount of negative stuff in the Bible about dogs—they go back to their vomit. And more generally they’re unclean in terms of the categories of animals—they don’t have split hooves, they have paws, they are non-peaceful, they have teeth designed to eat meat. They are fallen in a very obvious way.
Yet, we also see how the Lord Jesus is towards gentiles, who, by no coincidence, he calls dogs. They are being redeemed; we, as gentiles, are dogs from one perspective, eating crumbs from the table of the Jewish church.
And by the time we get to the book of Acts, we have confirmed that all unclean animals are now declared clean. So, we’ve put dogs through the filter of God’s word.
But you don’t just think about the bits in the Bible that mention dogs, you think about how that dog will affect your walk with the Lord and with others.
And then, what about prayer? If you’re thinking about getting a dog, or if you’ve already got a dog, then have you prayed about that? Do you pray about your pet dog? You may say, “Oh, God is not concerned with dogs.” But we know that’s not true, everything God created is good. We have prayed about dogs in our prayer meeting before. We consecrate the dog by the word of God and prayer—that’s the process.
