Paradise Found

To read the Bible in such a way that's it’s not a sprawling mass of contradictions we have to center our reading at some stationary, unmoving point. That is, we have to find the place to stand in this thousand page epic of redemption where we say, “It's from this vantage point that I’ll read and interpret the rest of Scripture.It’s not Leviticus with its prohibition against eating shellfish and other obsolete laws.It’s not Joshua’s conquest of Canaan with its troubling genocidal violence.It’s not even Paul’s technical theology of justification that we’re so prone to misread and misunderstand.It’s certainly not the Book of Revelation with its wild (and often inscrutable!) metaphors.Center your reading of the sacred text in the Gospels…with Jesus…on the cross…as he forgives his murderers. Luke 23:34 ("Father, forgive them") is the Pole Star around which the rest of scriptural constellations rotate and are interpreted.