A “freecycler” resists the consumer culture and pursues a lifestyle outside of prevailing economic systems. One freecycling practice is dumpster diving—foraging in garbage bins for food. One regular diver, Rebecca, has a career and financial resources (and even an art piece hanging in the Seattle Art Museum); but still, 99 percent of her groceries come from dumpsters. She limits her purchases to butter and milk.

Freecyclers like Rebecca make what might seem to be bizarre choices because of their commitment to other values. God has called His people to a distinctly countercultural life (dumpster-diving not included).

Deuteronomy provided wide-ranging instructions for the way ancient Israel should live as God’s people amid a culture that consistently resisted God’s vision of the world. Like freecyclers, these instructions even touched on how and where and when they got their food.

For instance, God told Israel that they could eat meat from “the ox, the sheep, [or] the goat,” but never to eat a pig or an eagle or an owl (Deut. 14:4). They could eat swimming creatures with fins and scales, but if the swimming creatures did not have fins and scales, no.

There are probably numerous reasons God provided these instructions (sanitation, environmental concerns, etc.). However, one of God’s purposes became clear with His seemingly odd insistence that Israelites never “cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” (v.21). Apparently, this cooking practice was common in Canaanite culture, part of their pagan religious ritual. The issue was not about whether or not goat meat boiled in goat milk was good or bad. The prohibition had everything to do with maintaining fidelity to God over false gods.

Likewise for us, any cultural loyalty or consumer practice or political commitment that runs counter to fidelity to God deserves to be dumped—with no diving allowed.