Study to show thyself approved unto God (2 Tim. 2:15).
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This lesson addresses the “Attend the Church of Your Choice” mentality toward religion. Does it really matter what you believe? See what the Bible says about it.
Watch the video on the right and let me know what you think. I’m looking forward to getting your feedback, questions and comments.
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On a recent visit to the Danville Public Library, I was confronted with something that I thought was “old news.” Last year I wrote an article entitled “The Lost Gospel Hype” dealing with the media frenzy surrounding the so-called Gospel of Judas. At that time there were new books being released along with news coverage and a two hour documentary on, of all places, The National Geographic Channel.
I had thought all this hype over an obviously fictional story surrounding Christ and Judas had pretty well run its course. However, as I was browsing through the new books at the library there were three on the Gospel of Judas prominently displayed. With the discovery of these new books, I thought I would do a little update on “The Lost Gospel Hype.”
The introductions to these books make their agenda very easy to see. For example, in “The Gospel of Judas” by Kasser, Meyer and Wurst, the introduction immediately begins by casting doubt on the accuracy of the New Testament by representing the death of Judas as a contradictory account. Notice, in pointing out how the New Testament presents Judas as the “quintessential traitor,” Meyer says, “the end of Judas, according to the New Testament, is as ignominious as his actions. He takes blood money from the authorities for his betrayal of Jesus, and either he hangs himself (as in Matthew) or his belly is ripped open and he dies in a ghastly fashion (as in Acts).” Meyer presents it as an “either, or” scenario with no possibility of harmony between the two. The fact is that the accounts of Matthew and Acts regarding the death of Judas complement each other perfectly. Judas hanged himself, died and became bloated, as a corpse will do, and then he burst open upon hitting the ground when the rope either broke or was cut. There is no contradiction! However, there is a very obvious motive of Meyer revealed here. From the outset, one can tell by page two of this book that the Bible is not going to get a fair shake.
The second part of the book is the text of “The Gospel of Judas.” For more on the contents of the manuscript itself please see the original article, “The Lost Gospel Hype.”
Part three of the book is the commentary of the manuscript. The chapters in this section also reveal the books slant toward a questioning of our modern Bible. For example, “Christianity Turned On Its Head: The Alternate Vision of the Gospel of Judas.”
Here is another very telling quote from the introduction. “Barges once noted concerning the gnostic accounts he was discussing, ‘Had Alexandria triumphed and not Rome, the extravagant and muddled stories that I have summarized here would be coherent, majestic, and perfectly ordinary.” In other words, if not for the Roman Catholic Church (which the New Testament actually reveals to be the result of the great apostasy) our Bibles would be totally different. Instead of the Gospels and letters we now have, our Bibles would be composed of the Gospels and letters found in places like the Codex Tchacos, from which comes the Gospel of Judas, and the Nag Hammadi Library. Again, for an idea of what our Bibles would look like under those circumstances, see “The Lost Gospel Hype.”
If you don’t think that books like these are trying to convince us that we should turn to other sources for our knowledge of Christ and God and how to serve him, just look at this quote from “Reading Judas: The Gospel Of Judas And The Shaping Of Christianity” by Elaine Pagels & Karen L. King. From the introduction, “Much of the Gospel of Judas is filled with Jesus’s [sic] brilliant teaching about the spiritual life….The answers to these questions lead deep into the agonizing controversies and exultant visions of God that would ultimately come to shape Christianity and capture the hearts and souls of people for millennia to come. These are the matters we address in ‘Reading Judas: The Gospel Of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity.” Maybe a better subtitle would be “The Gospel of Judas and the Reshaping of Christianity,” because that is clearly the agenda of those who continually tout about these so-called “lost books of the Bible.”
There can be no doubt that the agenda is to cause us to doubt our Bibles and to turn to the wisdom of men rather than the wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor. 2:5). We must always remember, and make sure that any with whom we have influence knows, that salvation is by the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:16; Js. 1:18; 1 Cor. 4:15; 1 Pet. 1:22, 23; et. al.). Anytime someone starts going on about some “lost books of the Bible” just “be ready to give an answer” (1 Pet. 3:15) from the word of God. He said that His word would “endureth for ever” (1 Pet. 1:25). We can be assured that the New Testament we have today is the same one that the apostles gave. Clement of Rome wrote around 97 A.D. His writings are among the earliest uninspired Christian texts. At this time he quoted from a very large number of the New Testament letters, indicating that the letters in our Bibles were in the church before the end of the first century, long before the Roman Catholic Church had anything to do with it. The evidence for the accuracy of our Bibles is overwhelming and we should never allow anyone to cause us to doubt that.
There is no doubt that the books will keep coming and the weak and doubting among us will be taken in by them. Let us be prepared to stand up for the truth!
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Bible things should be called by Bible names! There are several reasons why we should be careful to only refer to biblical subject in the way the Bible refers to them. Such a practice would help us to keep our discussions of biblical topics in biblical context, it would encourage us to refer to our Bibles to see how a certain thing is referred to, it would go a long way toward helping us to keep our speech pure. We could go on with any number of reasons for calling Bible things by Bible names but the number one reason would be that God has every right to call His things by whatever He wants them called and we are obligated to accept His will in the matter. That is, when God calls a thing by a certain name who are we to change it or call it by another name! We are even commanded against such.
In 2 Timothy 1:13 the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy to “hold fast the pattern of sound words.” Here Paul is referring to the doctrine of Christ as “sound words” but that term is very significant to our discussion of calling Bible things by Bible names. The term “sound words” refers to words which are healthy, words which are true. Therefore, the WORDS of the gospel are that which produce spiritual health.
The Bible leaves no doubt to the fact that the very words themselves are of great importance. When we are talking about the inspiration of the Bible we refer to 1 Corinthians 2:13 where Paul says that the very words of the Bible, not just the thought or intent of the letter, but the very words themselves are given by the Spirit of God. If the very words used in relaying the gospel of Christ, both Old Testament and New, were given by the Holy Spirit then how can we think it acceptable to replace them with our own words? Again, when Peter is talking about how we ought to speak he says to speak “as the oracles of God.” That means to say what God has said, nothing more—nothing less.
There are numerous examples of what happens when we fail in this practice. Probably the most prominent example in our time is that of the church. The Bible uses several designations for the church, nearly all of which designate Christ as the owner (Acts 20:28; Matt. 16:18; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 16:16; et. al.). But today we see churches called by every name under the sun except the Son’s. Where in the Bible is the church ever referred to by the name of a religious act (such as baptism)? Or, where in the Bible is the church ever referred to by the name of a man (such as St. Peter’s or Martin Luther’s)? Or even after a method of study (such as “Whole Gospel Church” or “Methodist”)? The closest thing we find in the Bible to such a practice is found in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, where the apostle Paul vehemently states that such a sectarian practice is totally contrary to the will of God! He also shows that this kind of thing can be avoided by sticking with biblical designations.
Another prominent example of this is how people refer to themselves in regards to church membership. In the Bible church members are referred to as: members of His body (Eph. 5:30), sanctified in Christ—saints (1 Cor. 1:2), children of God—brothers (1 John 3:10), disciples—Christians (Acts 11:26), sons and daughters of God (2 Cor. 6:18). Notice how all of these designations emphasize belonging to God and Christ. However today we see many who claim to be believers wearing names to emphasize belonging to man or religious practices (i.e., Lutheran, Baptist, et. al.).
Disregarding how the Bible refers to them has corrupted even the manner in which people refer to preachers. When referring to preachers the Bible calls them: “preacher” (Romans 10:14, 15), “evangelist” (2 Tim. 4:5), “brother” (2 Peter 3:15), “minister” (1 Tim. 4:6). It is somewhat amazing, in a horrifying kind of way, to hear how people refer to preachers today. How else can it be described when we here people referring to preachers as God! It is utterly horrifying! Granted, most people don’t realize that they are calling their preacher God when they call him “Reverend” but they are. There is no doubt that they are because the only one referred to in the Bible as reverend is God Himself (Ps. 111:9, KJV). It is interesting to note that some of the modern translations of this verse have “awesome” rather than “reverend.” How could any man think it o.k. to put himself, or allow others to put him, on the same level with God? It is completely unbiblical and even blasphemous. This is akin to the problem of applying biblical designations to the wrong object and again is exemplified in how people refer to their preachers. We’re talking about the term “pastor” now. While this is a very biblical term it is never used to refer to the preacher. It is applied to the one in the office of an elder and never to the preacher (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1; 1 Peter 5; Acts 20:17ff).
We could go on and on with examples of how biblical things have been twisted and corrupted by using terms other than those used by the Bible to refer to them. The above examples stand out to show us how important it is to “speak as the oracles of God.” That is, to speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent. When we begin to call things by terms of our own devising its not long until we think we can change the meaning of the thing itself. Let us remain pure in our speech when referring to biblical things by “maintaining the pattern of sound words.”
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