Try Deuteronomy 21.18-21: "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders: 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death. So you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear."

Shocking, isn't it? Maybe not, if you've got a rebellious son. I bet my parents considered it!

What do you make of the fact that the Bible recommends death by stoning as punishment for something minor like rebellion against parents? Don't all young people rebel against their parents?

Isn't this a good example of how ancient and uninformed Bible culture fails to measure up to a more enlightened age like our own?

Fact is, this is just one example of many Bible passages that are scandalous to people today. Many of us recoil in horror at the way

Can one blind person criticize the appearance of another? And how can people in my culture separate the truth in God's Word from the ancient culture in which he revealed it? Do you really think it's as easy as trimming the fat off a piece of meat?

-- Don't let things you don't understand cause you to stumble and fail to obey the truth you do understand. Not understanding the one "shocking" verse doesn't mean you can ignore the 99 plain ones.

-- Don't assume you understand the meaning of the passage that shocks you. When someone from one century reads something from an earlier century, it's easy to misunderstand. Studying the culture of the time may show you it makes more sense than you first thought. Look at the other passages around the verse that puzzles you. Think about passages in other parts of the Bible that speak to the subject. Let the whole of Scripture interpret its parts.

Some common words found in the essay are:
God's Word, Bible's Accept, Try Deuteronomy, Written Word, God Bible, Creator Christians, Promised Land, God's Maybe, , rebellious son, blind spots, god's word, prejudices sacred cows, minor sin, own culture, bible passages, passage shocks, own blind, it's easy, own blind spots, myths prejudices sacred, earlier generations,
Approximate Word count = 1257
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)