Open to Interpretation

The other night I was reading the Bible when I came across a real banger* of a passage about justice.

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. – Isaiah 10:1-2

This led to me just now letting my mind wander, and think about the way the Bible talks about two things: Justice, and how God’s people are supposed to treat the poor.

I don’t believe in sugar-coating scripture. I won’t sit here and deny that it has difficult passages.

What I will do is state the obvious: Scores of people set their worldview according to how they interpret the Bible. And the Bible is a book that people can choose to interpret in a way that either helps or hinders humanity. It floors me—the number of people who choose to interpret it in evil, downright selfish ways, yet believe that they are helping their fellow human beings.

Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash

*It might not have been the quoted verse, although I was in Isaiah.