"Common" and "unclean" are different terms, and confusing them distorts Scripture. In Acts 10:14 Peter uses both words to describe meats. "Unclean" (akarthatos) refers to animals the Bible defines in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. "Common" (koinos) means ordinary, defiled, or profane, as opposed to holy or consecrated. Clean meat becomes common only when a clean animal dies naturally or is torn by beasts (Leviticus 22:8), or when its blood has not been properly drained (Leviticus 17:13-14; 3:17). Such flesh could be given to strangers or aliens who wished to eat it (Deuteronomy 14:21). Acts 15:20, 29 likewise forbids Gentiles to eat strangled animals or meat not drained of blood. Romans 14:14 says nothing is "unclean" of itself, but the Greek word there is koinos, so the verse should read "defiled." The meat under discussion was probably meat offered to idols and sold in the marketplace. It was not defiled in fact, only in the minds of weak church members who believed the pagan association had tainted it. Paul explains in I Corinthians 8:4-8 that an idol is nothing, so the meat carries no spiritual taint. Yet a weak conscience is defiled by eating against its conviction. Romans 14 therefore does not touch the laws of clean and unclean meat. In Acts 10, God told Peter not to call common what He has cleansed, and that referred to Gentiles, not food.

Nothing God has declared unclean becomes "common" by passing of the Old Covenant, and Peter's vision does not say otherwise. In the vision Peter three times refused to eat the unclean animals in the great sheet, and God did not rebuke him. The meaning is given in Acts 10:28: "God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean." The vision concerned people, specifically Gentiles, not foods. In the ensuing dispute (Acts 11:1-18) no mention is made of clean or unclean foods. Likewise, Christ's words in Mark 7 do not declare all foods clean. He addressed ritual washings the Jews added to God's law, and His remark in verse 19 concerns the human digestive tract, which handles all food the same way. What truly defiles a man is his conduct. The distinction between clean and unclean predates the Old Covenant, going back to Noah, and so did not die with it. Christians, as spiritual Israelites called to be holy as God is, are to keep themselves set apart and not touch what is unclean. That distinction will still be taught by the priesthood in the Millennium.