If Your Brother Stumbles... Maybe Don’t Be A Jerk

If my wife could get rid of one verse in the Bible it would be the "if you see you brother stumble restore him" verse. This is an often used loose summary of Galatians 6:1 and my wife has seen it used as a free pass for self righteous Xns to list all the bad or theologically incorrect things that someone else is doing. It’s a way of laying down the law for anyone being a bit too free with their faith. However, the verse really works the other way round. Galatians is all about the fight between two groups one with lots of rules about what you should and shouldn't do and the other group without those rules. Paul unashamedly sides with the group without the rules declaring that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, that is life by the spirit is more important than a life under a law of rules and regulations. So when in Galatians 6:1 Paul asks people to restore someone in gentleness and carrying their burdens it is most likely to be in the context if liberating them from a rule or law that is simply unhelpful. For the Galatians this rule was circumcision.
 

For me, If I could get rid of any verse in the Bible it’d be the endings to Mark's gospel. Most bibles have warnings that this is not part of the earliest texts but it still sits there at the end of my favourite gospel and I wish the publishers would have the guts just to cut it out or at least put it as a foot note. 

I'd also like to get rid of the "love the sinner hate the sin" verse... Of course I'm being facetious because that verse doesn't exist. Most of the time Jesus attitude is closer to "love the sinner and hate your own sin" (as Tony Campolo would say). But there is a point in John's gospel where Jesus comes close. In John 8:11 Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery to “go and sin no more”. Once again you'll probably see a warning on your Bible that this story was not in the earliest manuscripts of John's gospel. Which is probably going surprise many because for the most part this episode is such a beautiful summary of Jesus character. Jesus, on the side of the oppressed and down trodden pointing out those accusing the woman that they have their own sin they need to deal with. But, then at the end of the episode Jesus says "go and sin no more". Which in my experience often gets interpreted into a free pass to tell any young hussy all the things that she should and shouldn't be doing. So that'd mean stoning someone till their bloody mess is bad, but throwing spiritual stones until someone is a shattered mess go right ahead. I don't think so.
 

Maybe, just maybe we are called to love ,to walk alongside and not to judge. Jesus rarely tells people what they should do. This is usually reserved for the Pharisees or people like the rich young ruler who are more interested in trapping Jesus or showing him how right they are and how wrong he is. To those viewed as sinful, Jesus was accused of hanging out with them too intimately of loving the sinner and ignoring their sin. Even with Zacchaeus, Jesus says nothing to him. I suspect Zacchaeus knows what is right and wrong. He's not looking for a moralist to point his faults out to him, instead he is looking for community to take him in so whole heartedly and so unconditionally that he will have the strength to make the changes he needs to make.