How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

When someone quotes Leviticus to say that Christians shouldn’t eat shrimp, or when we see “God hates shrimp” memes, or someone questions why Christians wear polyester blends, what should be obvious is a lack of understanding of the Bible. Using these verses to mock the Bible’s validity simply shows that the person doing the mocking doesn’t understand what the Bible is saying. The truth is that Christians today can enjoy shrimp all they want. They can wear all types of mixed fabrics. They can play football. Why? Because those Bible verses were written to a specific people group, in a specific place, for a specific time period, and for a specific purpose. When you study the entire Bible (rather than picking and choosing individual verses), you see that many of these verses don’t apply to followers of Jesus today. Using them in the way these memes do or as an attempt to discredit the Bible simply shows us how not to read the Bible.