Matthew 19 paraphrase
While enjoying Lectio Divina meditation on Matthew chapter 19 I imagined the following paraphrase for our time.
Some religious leaders came to Jesus and asked “is it lawful for the church to reject a member who loves someone of the same sex?“
Haven’t you read, he replied, that “love comes from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God?”?And also “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God."
Why then, they asked, does the Bible say that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as he would with a woman?
Jesus replied, the Old Testament purity laws were given to you in your moral infancy so that you might grow in wisdom to understand beyond simplistic binaries of clean and unclean and how something makes you feel, but it was not so from the beginning. Also why do you not note that the Bible says that "it is an abomination to sow dissension among the brethren. " you pick and choose what you believe.
I tell you that you must not send away anyone that I have invited to my table.
