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Biblical Verses Lost and Found
Author: Thomas James Martin Published on: May 25, 2005
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.~ The First Letter of St. Paul to Corinthians 13:1-13
The Bible is one of a number of sacred books based on the legacy of the lives of great spiritual masters. I try to honor all spiritual traditions, but lately some in the United States who wish to politicize evangelical Christianity into a one-party theocracy seem to find a few things in the Bible that I cannot for the life of me find there.
For some reason I always thought Christ based his message on love, faith and mercy and somehow came to update the old Jewish law. Where in the Bible does it say:
- Thou shalt discriminate against all who are not like you.
- Thou shalt not allow Gays to marry.
- Thou shalt honor only Christians who take the words of the Bible literally.
- Thou shalt steal from the poor to give to the rich.
- Thou shalt not kill--unless of course it is "anyone wearing a towel around their head," (as one conservative Southern senator remarked), or those referred to as the "collateral damage" of war or maybe a doctor who honors a woman's right to choose.
- Thou shalt base U.S. foreign policy on hate, fear and divisiveness.
- Thou shalt base U.S. domestic policy on hate, fear and divisiveness.
- Thou shalt treat with contempt any mainstream Christian who questions your beliefs.
- Thou shalt believe that God created the world in seven days. (Even if God did create it in seven days as it states in Genesis, I do not find a passage in the Bible that says you have to believe that concept literally.) This leads to the ancillary commandment following:
- Thou shalt assume that thou knowest the mind of God (Hey, just what exactly is a "day" in the mind of God anyway?).
- Yea, thou shalt rub mercury and PCBs into the fertile land, destroy the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea--since it matters not a gasping salmon after you are Raptured.
- And ye waiting for the Rapture, pay not attention to the following words of Christ recorded in the Gospel of Mark (13:32) about predicting the time of Christ's second coming:
"But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." (Mark 13:32)
- Thou shalt be as self-righteous as is humanly possible. Ye are not the same as other religious fanatics. Ye shall be forgiven and not kept from the Kingdom for promoting wars and killing a few medics with whom you disagree.
- Thou shalt support imperialism in all its perfidious circumstances and use it for the conversion of those who do not follow your path.
- Thou shalt not support stem cell research no matter what the cost in human suffering.
Good News! I did find the following verses:
- Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. [Beatitudes]
- Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Beatitudes]
- You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you be sons of your Father who is in heaven. . . . [Matthew 5:43]
- . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself. . .[Matthew 22:37]
- This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. . .[John 15:13]
They are some of my favorites. They are the ones I first learned at the First Baptist Church of Liberty, North Carolina on Sunday mornings, that church of the beautiful stained glass windows, red brick facade and cheerful-sounding bells.
They are the words that truly comforted a small child.
They are the ones that offer a "lantern for my feet and a light upon my path" as I wend my way through this life. They are the words that help me offer love when I feel hate, mercy for vengeance though I am most decidedly human and practice Christ's message so very imperfectly.
The ones that I cannot find in the Bible have not--insofar as I know with my admittedly limited human perspective--really helped anyone. They do not offer bread to the poor or a hand to the suffering. They do not address the social or economic needs of most Americans or help a powerful nation offer compassionate leadership in the world.
In my opinion, those verses that I cannot find mostly feed hypocrisy and self-righteous bloviating. I cannot help but wonder if they are not the beliefs of latterday "scribes and Pharisees."I do not believe that a small child has ever taken comfort from them. |
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