The Bible is not an ethical textbook. The biblical writers are interested in revealing God's plan of salvation. They were not concerned to integrate the scattered moral elements into a systematic whole. Moral ingredients are dispersed throughout the text of Scripture and when these ingredients are gathered together they do not in themselves present a totally comprehensive picture. There are many gaps, and these do not allow us to correlate everything into an entirely comprehensive arrangement.
p. 248 The how and why of love: An Introduction to Evangelical Ethics by Michael Hill
Take the bible as a ethical textbook, you will get some crazy religious people.
Take the bible as the progressive revelation of God's plan of salvation, centred on Jesus, you get a life-transformed (and transforming), love abounding people.
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