A happy Bible discovery

I admit it. I’m a Bible wonk—someone with a deep enthusiasm for and interest in the Bible. I’m particularly motivated by the first tenet of Christian Science: “As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 497).

This last time I read the Bible straight through I noticed something new: Inclusiveness is an overarching theme. This is noteworthy, since people sometimes think that the Bible is judgmental, exclusivist, or even divisive.

The Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures, focuses on the children of Israel, who are described as chosen of God. This was not to delimit God’s blessings but to illustrate and share the universality and unconditional embrace of those blessings. God promised that through Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew people, “shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). In the New Testament, Paul recognized that belonging to the family of God does not depend on ethnicity, ritual, or culture but is realized through filling one’s heart with love for God and humanity (see Romans 2:25–29 and I Corinthians 13:1–13). As we do that, we prove that everyone is chosen by God for infinite blessings.