Category Archives: Culture

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Can We Truly Know An Infinite God?

While we cannot know God exhaustively, we can know him truly. The finite human mind cannot fully comprehend the nature of an infinite God (even in heaven), but we can grow in our understanding and experience of God as he has revealed himself in Creation, Scripture, and through Jesus Christ.

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”—Deut. 29:29

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”—Rom. 11:33

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” – Hebrews 1:1-2

“This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.”—Jer. 9:23-24

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The Good News Remembered By An Eyewitness

Read the powerful 1st century words of one who was there…

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

—The Gospel of John 1:1-14

Merry Christmas from Think Christianly!

*Have you signed up for the Think Christianly Podcast? You won’t want to miss our next podcast of a conversation I had with a leading NT scholar addressing the challenge of Bible contradictions.

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Should ‘Lost’ Gospels Be In The Bible?

Every Christmas and Easter skeptics (like Bart Ehrman in Newsweek) love to make provocative claims about missing Gospels, Lost Christianities (yes plural), and what we don’t really know about Jesus. Let’s just focus on one of the questions raised. Should lost Gospels be included in the Bible? (see my recent post on how we know we have the right books of the Bible for more on that question)

In 1945, fifty two papyri were discovered at Nag Hammadi in Lower Egypt and some of these texts had the word ‘gospel’ in the title. Now Scholars have known about these and other 2nd – 4th century documents for a long time, but only recently has the general public been introduced to them. This has caused quite a bit of controversy and speculation. Why?

Our culture is generally skeptical of authority and enjoys a good conspiracy theory; sprinkle in some high definition documentaries around Easter and Christmas with titles like ‘Banned Books of the Bible’ and the recipe for confusion is complete. Was there a cover up by the Church? Were we lied to about Jesus?

These so called ‘lost gospels’ fall into two categories: (1) New Testament Apocrypha (2) Gnostic writings.

Apocrypha means ‘hidden things’. These writings tried to fill in the gaps about two periods of Jesus’ life—his childhood and the three days between his death and resurrection. The motivations for these works ranges from entertainment to the comprehensive redefinition of the Jesus revealed in the 1st century writings of the New Testament.

The first time I heard about these ‘lost gospels’, it honestly made me nervous…until I read them. The juiciest of the apocryphal writings is probably the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Here are some things I discovered about Jesus’ childhood: he called a child an “unrighteous, irreverent idiot” (3:1-3). Another child bumped into Jesus, which aggravated him so much that Jesus struck him dead (4:1-2). Evidently those who provoked childhood Jesus fell dead a lot (14:3). No, I’m not making this up.

Then there are the Gnostic writings. Gnosticism can get kind of complicated, so here is a chart to help give you the basics of how different it was from the worldview of the New Testament (the Greek word gnosis means ‘knowledge’).

Orthodox Christianity

Gnosticism
Only One God and Creator Multiple Creators
The World, Body, Soul, and Spirit are Good The World and Body are Evil.  Only Spirit and Soul are Good
Jesus is Fully Human and Fully Divine Jesus Only Appeared Human; He Was Only a Spirit Being
Jesus Came to Restore Relationships Broken by Sin Ignorance, not Sin is the Ultimate Problem
Faith in Christ Brings Salvation (available to all) “Special Knowledge” Brings Salvation (available to only a few)

The two most popular examples of Gnostic writings are the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas (yes, that Judas). The two most popular examples of Gnostic writings are the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas (yes, that Judas). Scholars are still debating Judas’s role in the betrayal of Jesus in this new gospel, but it is clear that he gets special access to some secret revelation from Jesus that the other disciples did not have.

The Gospel of Thomas wins the most scandalous passage award: “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven’” (Saying 114). Again, not making this stuff up. Both of these documents were written long after the time of Jesus and his earliest followers.

The bottom line. These gospels were not lost to the early church; early Christians knew about them and rejected them for good reasons (cf. Irenaeus in A.D. 180). While historically interesting, these so called ‘lost gospels’ offer us nothing significant about the historical Jesus. The writings in the New Testament are still the earliest and most reliable witnesses to the words and works of Jesus.

*A form of this article first appeared in a contribution I made to the Apologetics Study Bible for Students, published by B&H.

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The Bible Is Not Aladdin’s Lamp

The Bible is a unique book—but it is still a book. Yet, many think they have to read the Bible differently than any other book they read, like it is a book of magic. At the other end of the spectrum, some people read Scripture as an academic book of literature or history only—discounting the miraculous part of it—and miss the heart of its message. Biblical scholar Roy Zuck offers good advice:

The Bible then . . . is a human book and is also a divine book. Neither can be denied. If we look on the book as only human, then we approach the Bible rationally. If we look on the book as only divine while ignoring its human elements, we approach the Bible as a mystical book. Seeing that the Bible is both human and divine, we seek to interpret it as we would any other book while at the same time affirming its uniqueness as a book of divine truth from the hand of God.

God chose to reveal himself to prophets and apostles in time and space to a particular culture. That means language, grammar, syntax, historical setting, and literary devices matter. Recognizing these realties and growing in our skill as thoughtful readers will help us handle accurately the word of truth.

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” – 2 Tim. 2:15 (NASB)

So where should you start? I explain the basics concepts of how to read and understand the Bible for yourself here (chapter 9).

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Why Everyone Needs The Right To Be Wrong

In a culture of increasing moral, religious, and political disagreement, it’s imperative that we protect people’s right to be wrong. I can’t say it any better than Os Guinness:

Respect for freedom of conscience means that, while we respect people’s right to believe what their conscience dictates that they believe, even if we think they are dead wrong, we have a right and sometimes a duty to disagree with them, though their right to believe has to be countered by our responsibility to disagree with the civilly and persuasively.

He goes on further to say in The Case for Civility:

Tolerance is infinitely better than its opposite: intolerance. But tolerance that is blase about error and evil, and tolerance that flip-flops into intolerance, are two sides of the same bad coin. Equally, it is bad to be silenced and not allowed to speak, but it is no better to be seduced by polite words and a politically correct atmosphere. Far better to have a tough-minded view of tolerance that simultaneously knows what it believes and respects the right of others to their beliefs, and knows how to debate forcefully but civilly when there is disagreement.

As Christians we need to be thoughtful, courageous, winsome, and tolerant (in the aforementioned sense). Everyone loses if truth is removed from the public square. Because if this happens, all that will remain is the struggle for power.