Bible message

Sir, Serena Lancaster is quite right (7 March) to emphasise the need to consider the whole of the Bible, but your correspondent seems continually in a state of confusion between eisegesis and exegesis, the reading into the Bible what is not there and what the Bible clearly states - one of the great dangers when the Bible is subjected to speculations that lead people to conclude that the Bible can say what one wishes it to say in accordance with the cultural mores of the day.

Serena Lancaster draws attention to John 8:1-11 whilst ignoring that our Lord here condemned the biblical sin of adultery. As homosexuality and adultery are both biblical sins your correspondent cannot pick and choose between the two. Either both activities are sinful or neither are.

Your correspondent’s use of the image of slavery is flawed in that she is erroneously using the Bible to promote homosexual practice in the same way that was used to promote slavery - namely ignoring and distorting the spirit, letter and trajectory of Scripture in the attempt to discredit the unambiguous condemnation of homosexual practice.

The compassion of Christ is indeed for all and this is why God has given boundaries for sexual behaviour in order to protect people from their own inclinations and the often-disastrous results that follow.

Alan Minchin, Stratford upon Avon