I ENTIRELY agree with Dave Goodwin's claim (Letters, September 15) that the Bible should be taken as a whole or not at all. It's just a pity that he doesn't keep to his own rule! 

It is possible to take verses of the Bible out of context and away from their historical background and make a case for all sorts of things, as he does by quoting from Leviticus 25. In fact, one of the remarkable things about those verses is not that they allow the enslavement of foreigners (a universal practice in the ancient world) but that they forbid the enslavement of fellow countrymen. 

Later parts of the Bible developed and extended that idea until we get to Jesus' great teachings that we should even love our enemies. It was these New Testament teachings about common humanity that inspired Christians like Wilberforce to campaign against the slave trade. 

I don't believe that Christians are a persecuted minority and I do believe that it is important that universal human rights should be inscribed in law. I would just encourage anyone thinking about reading the Bible for the first time to start with the New Testament and not somewhere in the Old.

Stephen Cook

Rector of Okehampton

Chair of Christians Together in Okehampton

I WAS delighted to read Dave Goodwin's encouragement for us to take the Bible as a whole or not use it at all.

My only concern is that mine clearly reveals that the New Testament church saw no distinction between slave and free. In fact, there was already in Moses' time an injunction to free a slave after six years of service.

It was Samuel Wilberforce's 25-year battle with parliament and his grasp of the scriptures that enabled him on his death-bed to hear of the passing of legislation which outlawed the practice of slavery in this country.

The bible can so easily be misapplied when merely viewed as an instruction manual to be slavishly followed rather than as a progressive revelation of God's will for everyone, culminating in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles.

Barrie Duke

Minister of Oak Baptist Church

Inwardleigh