125. Impure Bible Stories

Impure Bible Stories

Unbelievers of different degrees are always saying that parts of the Bible are unchaste, and not fit to be read in a mixed audience. Well, there are chapters and verses that were not intended to be read in public, but these chapters are absolutely not filthy. To be sure, they speak in the very plainest terms of the vilest sins known, but only in order to expose their loathsomeness, and as a warning; but this is not impurity. The way a story is told and for what purpose, makes it clean or vile. If the writer is making a joke of sin, it is then indecent. Sin is pictured and called by its right name in the Bible, and the terrible results related to make man with his sinful heart turn away from these sins. The Bible was not all written for public reading, but it was written for a purpose. We have in our library several very valuable medical books, but there are pages and passages in them we would not think of reading in public: they were never written for that, but are excellent and very helpful in their own place and time. They are written to describe conditions that do exist, and they give warnings of what will come to pass if the warnings go unheeded. We wouldn’t think of refusing to read and understand these valuable warnings just because we could not read them in public. The Bible, too, has many warnings of what will happen if sin in the human heart is allowed to run its course, but that dc,es not make the Bible an unclean book.

Only people with filthy minds can ever call the Bible filthy. Let us be as fair with God’s Word as we are with other books that are written to help and warn humanity of the many dangers around us.