My Favorite Videos

My goal was to create a post every day this year, and to be honest I missed a few over the course of the last few weeks so I decided to fill in one of my favorite videos. Here’s another one…

The Importance of the Word

Well I got into it with someone this week online. I have tried to keep my social media nose clean when it comes to political interactions. I’m trying to stay in my wheelhouse and leave the politics to the politicians. I fail sometimes but I am doing better. This week though I was on a ministry page, and someone was lamenting that seminaries are not teaching “gospels” such as the “gospel” of Mary Magdalene. I pointed out that this might have something to do with the fact that the gospel of Mary Magdalene appears to have been written about five centuries after her death. There is some debate on that front, but what I as not prepared for was the pushback I received. One person, a fellow white male, made the assertion that the fact that I had a problem with the idea that this “gospel” might be taught had something to do with the fact that I am in fact a white male. Others chimed in with things like the people who assume she was a prostitute, as if this would be my problem. For the record, I have no problem with Mary Magdalene, as a matter of fact when I get to heaven, she is one of the people I would really love to speak to, she was after all among the first to see the resurrected Jesus. As to her past, even if it was as lurid as some people say, that really only further demonstrates the amazing grace of our Lord. Mary Magdalene is a very important person in the gospels and in the early church. I have nothing but respect for what she became.

My issue is with a false gnostic gospel attributed to her name but almost definitely not written by her. The gnostics were people who believed all matter was evil. To the gnostics, it could be argued that Judas Iscariot is the good guy in Jesus story because he assisted Jesus in putting off His evil flesh. There was nothing evil in Jesus and nothing could be further from the truth than the gnostic view. I would like to hope that no seminary would teach such a false gospel, unless they were teaching it as “opposition research” showing students what we are up against. I’m sure several people found my beliefs on scripture to b e simplistic and antiquated. I’m really okay with that, so here is what I believe. I believe God is big enough to protect His Word. I believe that every book of the Bible that God wanted to be in the Bible is in the Bible and the ones that were rejected, were rejected with good reason. I know with faith, I can teach the 66 books of the Bible that we have for the rest of my life and never lead anyone astray. That’s good enough for me. I really don’t need to teach my people from extra-biblical texts, especially those with such doubtful origins.

The thing is if the church leaders cannot be bothered to revere God’s Word, then the church is in trouble. The Word of God is infinitely important to the church, it’s importance cannot be overstated. It tells us how to follow God and points us to our Savior. It is the single most important “book” ever created. It’s message points the way to eternal life in Christ. We need to take it seriously and follow it whether it lines up with the conventional wisdom or not, because, as I am fond of saying, in this world, the conventional wisdom is usually neither conventional, nor wisdom.