Context is everything and so much about the church that pushes people away would be greatly diminished if churches taught how the bible came together in the first place.

Up until 200AD there wasn’t even a book, just a collection of handwritten copies of letters and eyewitness statements.

The early church adopted the Hebrew texts, what we call the Old Testament for contextual purposes only. It was the story of the people of Jesus himself. Genesis was there to show that God made the world now how God made the world. Leviticus was the first edition of the Hebrew constitution, allowing them to form a nation-state after generations of living in Egypt under somebody else’s rules; it wasn’t meant for us.

And that text itself is an anthology of prophecy, folklore, campfire stories, legends, diaries, articles, poetry and song written down over centuries. It’s not meant to flow like one big story.

The big lynchpin event of Christianity was the resurrection. It stands to reason that this is true because those eyewitness accounts were protected at the risk of the very lives of the early church and proved Jesus was who he said he was. If he was a fraud, his movement would have died out.

But his movement grew and it grew on the back of a message of love, tolerance, support and forgiveness that is as counter-cultural now as it was 2000 years ago. We should teach the Old Testament for context but not use it as a rule book. Ultimately as Christians we believe that God put in place the biological mechanisms that led to everyone’s existence and that he loves everyone. By loving God above all others we must also show that love to our fellow humans.

We might privately disagree with them on things and we might not agree with the way some people live their lives but it is not our place to show them anything other than dignity, love and kindness.