What We Need the Bible For

An N T Wright quote I like on the purpose and authority of the Bible in the Christian Movement.

We live under scripture because that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord.

But what is God’s authority there for? Certainly not to give us a large amount of true but miscellaneous information. Solomon made lists of natural phenomena, but they didn’t get into the Bible. The Bible is not an early version of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Here is the central element: the point about God’s authority is that the whole Bible is about God establishing his kingdom on earth as in heaven, completing (in other words) the project begun but aborted in Genesis 1–3. This is the big story that we must learn how to tell. It isn’t just about how to get saved, with some cosmology bolted onto the side. This is an organic story about God and the world.

God’s authority is exercised not to give his people lots of true information, not even true information about how they get saved (though that comes en route). God’s authority, vested in Jesus the Messiah, is about God reclaiming his proper lordship over all creation. And the way God planned to rule over his creation from the start was through obedient humanity. The Bible’s witness to Jesus declares that he, the obedient Man, has done this. But the Bible is then the God-given equipment through which the followers of Jesus are themselves equipped to be obedient stewards, the royal priesthood, bringing that saving rule of God in Christ to the world.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

George Müller, quite possibly reading a Bible

Photo courtesy of georgemuller.org

One of my biggest heroes in the Christian movement is George Müller, the German emigrant minister of the 1800s who built orphan homes in Bristol, England. He rescued thousands of children from a homeless life on the streets, feeding them, clothing them, and providing them an education. All this he did without asking for a single farthing from anyone -- except for God, in prayer. In fact he made it clear that he was explicitly depending on God alone to fund his orphanages as an in-your-face 62+ year-long demonstration to the 19th century world that God still answers prayers.

Interestingly though, despite his reputation as a man of prayer, when George Müller got up in the morning the first thing he did was not to pray. It was to read the Bible. This, he said, was one of the secrets to a prayer life that moves mountains and rescues orphans from the street:  before we go before God in prayer, we must feed our souls. And one did this by "dining" on the words of God, (Gospel of Matthew 4.4).

Müller said that he meditated on scripture until he reached a state that he described as "being happy in the Lord." Once the action of scripture upon a person's heart had made them "happy in the Lord," then they were ready to go before the Lord in prayer. Then they were ready to move mountains.

[For much more information on George Müller, go here and here.]

Just a book?

The Bible does not purport to be just a wise and wonderful book; it purports to be revelation, a living, active entity through which the Holy Spirit of God speaks -- in the present tense. Just as Jesus of Nazareth was not only a wise and wonderful teacher but the unique revelation of the Living God.

The early Christian movement believed "[Moses] received life-giving words (literally, "living words") from God to give to us", (Acts of the Apostles 7.38 ERV). Jesus taught that King David wrote Psalms "by the Holy Spirit" (Gospel of Mark 12.35 - 37).

As the scholar J. N. D. Kelly wrote, "Whenever our Lord and His apostles quoted the Old Testament, it is plain that they regarded it as the word of God," (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 60). It was the same with the Apostle's writings, because Jesus' followers recognized that they carried the revelation that the Messiah had entrusted them with (p. 56). "The words that I have spoken to you," John records Jesus as saying,  "are spirit and are life," (Gospel of John 6.63).

For them -- and for any who allow themselves to be nourished by the Bible -- "God’s word is alive and working. It is sharper than the sharpest sword and cuts all the way into us. It cuts deep to the place where the soul and the spirit are joined. God’s word cuts to the center of our joints and our bones. It judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts," (Letter to the Hebrews 4.12 ERV).

The word we must not speak

What I'm suggesting is that nice leather-bound book you have on your desk or the paperback version in your car is not just a book: It is something that intelligent 21st century people get vaguely uncomfortable with, something that some scholars devote their lives to showing it is not.

It's supernatural.

When George Müller cracked his Bible open in the morning, he was exposing himself to the creative power of God's own being, as God wants us to experience it. And so are we. Reading the Scriptures, as John Wesley used to say, is a "means of grace," a physical object (like the bread and wine of the Lord's supper) that God has chosen to use to connect you to him. And then anything can happen.

Modern people aren't supposed to think that way. We can explain all that miraculous stuff away with our current understandings, can't we? There's no need to go there, surely.

But as C. S. Lewis wrote, if you are a member of the Christian movement, "Like it or not, you belong to a supernatural religion."

The Story

(This is a repeat of a previous post while I am at a conference.)

So what do we mean when we talk about the "revelation" Jesus brought or the "deposit of faith" or the faith "given once and for all to the saints?" What was it that the Apostles were so busily "passing down" to the members of the Christian Movement? Yes, certainly the New Testament, but read on for a minute to see where I'm coming from. Before word one of the New Testament was committed to writing, Jesus' emissaries were teaching this revelation face to face.

I'm taking this from my site's 'Prologue' up at the top of the page. The other red boxes break up and discuss what this Prologue says. It's fairly short and I'll expand on it in future articles, but I'd ask that you notice two things as you read it through: First, how bare-bones it is. Jesus left a lot of the work up to his Movement. Another topic for a future post, I think!

And second, notice... that it's a story! The revelation Jesus left us with did not consist of a list of rules or a detailed chart of how Bible prophecy works out. When the last Apostles died they left us with a story.

___________________

Personally, I like a religion that can be summed up in a short poem.

In ancient times, when someone decided to follow Jesus of Nazareth, they would first have this poem recited to them, line by line. And after each line they would be asked, "Do you believe this?" "Yes," they would respond, "I believe."

Then they would be baptized.

That poem, of course, is the Apostle's Creed, dating back to the earliest days of the movement Jesus founded. During the first ages of that movement, Christian documents were expensive, cumbersome, and prone to be confiscated and burned by the authorities. But, although you might not be able to carry the Bible with you, you could carry this poem (composed of artfully arranged quotes from Scripture) in your mind.

Today, whatever else they may squabble about, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant are united on the truth of these words. Even those groups that claim to eschew creeds will usually agree with it's teachings.

It is this poem that we present here. These are the core truths Jesus and his Apostles taught. This is what the ancient martyrs died for. This is the Authentic Light.

~~~

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.

On the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Theologian Thursday: Vincent on Finding the Real Thing

The straight stuff

Many, many people claim to follow Jesus or be part of the Christian Movement, even while disagreeing widely with each other. How do you know you're getting the real deal? Today's theological visitor, Vincent of Lérins, tells us that if you want to find the straight stuff you need to go old school.

In the universal or catholic Church itself, we must make sure that we hold the faith that has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For what is actually and strictly "catholic," or "universal," as the name itself and it's nature imply, is spread out universally.  And we will be following this rule if we follow these three things: universality, antiquity, consent. We follow antiquity if we do not depart in any way from the teachings and understandings that were obviously held widely by our holy ancestors and fathers. And we follow consent when we stick to the consensual definitions and determinations of all -- or almost all -- the priests and great teachers in antiquity 

...But someone might say, "Then, won't there be any progress in Christ's Church?" On the contrary, there will be as much progress as possible. Only someone who envies humans and hates God would try to stop it. But it must be real progress, not alteration, of the faith. In progress something grows within itself, but in alteration it is transformed into something else. So the intelligence, knowledge, wisdom of individuals and of everyone, of a single person just as much as the whole Church, should grow and make vast and vigorous progress over the ages and centuries. But this will happen within each type of thing, that is in the same teaching and in the same meaning.  

Vincent of Lérins (died AD 445)
Commonitory, chapters 2 & 23

A Revelation About Revelation

Read more in Part 2a>>

(The first part of this series is Life After Death, Part 1. Think of this article as an interlude in the discussion where we bring up a different but closely related subject.)

Revelation is progressive

Before starting Part 2 of our Life After Death series, there is one small thing I'd like to point out first. It's a simple point and will be blatantly obvious once I type it, but you'd be surprised how many people down through the ages have gotten tripped up by it. So many bad Bible interpretations and misunderstandings have stemmed from not getting this that it's really rather embarrassing.

The Big Reveal

Ready? Here it is: Revelation is progressive.

This has nothing to do, incidentally, with whether your theological views are "progressive" (i.e., liberal) or "traditionalist" (conservative). Instead it just means that Adam didn't understand as much of God's program for humanity as Noah did, Abraham didn't know as much as Moses, Isaiah could grasp more than Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth, well... he himself was the final, complete, and sufficient revealing of that program.

"Spoken through his Son"

So God did not reveal all the truth he had to reveal at the beginning in a blinding flash of light. He revealed it by dribs and drabs within the stream of history as it flowed along. "In the past God spoke to our people through the prophets. He spoke to them many times and in many different ways. And now in these last days, God has spoken to us again through his Son," (Letter to the Hebrews 1.1-2, ERV ). Previously obscure or unknowable, God has made his truth known in events of finite history (Letters to the Colossians 1.26-27 and the Ephesians 3.3-6).

Why bring this up now? Because what God reveals about death and what comes after was revealed gradually over time. You can see it grow as we trace it throughout the Bible until in the New Testament Jesus gives it definitive form.

Two Difficuties

But there are two things that happen with alarming frequency with the subject of life after death (and many other subjects for that matter):

1.)  Sometimes people will reach right into the middle of the process of God revealing this teaching and cherry-pick a bit that they like. A variation of this is, in effect, ranking the earlier bits over the later, more complete bits of God's revelation.

So someone who, for instance, believes the dead are all unconscious until the resurrection (sometimes called "soul sleeping") will support that by quoting Book of Ecclesiastes 9.5 - "the dead don’t know anything." But when "the Teacher" wrote that, God wasn't done revealing things yet; that whole process was still going on. In fact, it still had a long way to go.

With anything we try to understand from God's revelation, like the afterlife, it is crucial that we take everything he has taught, as a whole, leaving nothing out. We need to try and hold the entire revelation God gave on that topic in our minds at once, and grasp the "story flow," not just cherry-pick our favorite proof-texts. And it is equally crucial that we look back at the whole long flow of what God revealed through the lens of the supreme revelation of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

2.) The other thing that happens with alarming frequency is that people chuck the revelation on any particular subject and substitute some other idea instead -- often because they weren't even aware that their substitute isn't what Jesus and his Apostles taught.

Greek philosophers

Photo by Matt Neale

With the afterlife for example many people believe that when you die, if you've lived a virtuous life, you shuffle off your old body and live forever as an immortal disembodied soul in Heaven. And this despite the fact that the Christian Movement has recited innumerable times over the centuries, "I believe in... the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."

That first belief is actually a hodge-podge of old Greek ideas (like this one as an example), not at all what Jesus or his Movement or the Hebrew scriptures teach.

Forward

So, forewarned of these two muddy ditches on either side of our path, let's begin tracing out the trail of what God reveals about life after death.

Read more in Part 2a>>

Introducing Theologian Thursday

Today I'm starting a new feature here at Authentic Light called Theologian Thursday! Don't all cheer at once.

Every Thursday I will haul in a famous theologian and have her or him discuss a topic that is -- or should be -- important to people interested in following Jesus of Nazareth. I know this sounds thrilling and I'll have a ready-made audience (Note: sarcasm) but I probably ought to explain it a little anyway.

As we've discussed elsewhere, Jesus entrusted his movement with a series of revelations -- God communicating with humans throughout history -- of which he himself is the ultimate one. His revelation -- his life, death, resurrection, and teaching -- is the key to understanding all the other revelations that came before. The things God revealed over time to Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and all the rest are only fully grasped by looking at them through the lens of the appearance of the Messiah -- through the lens of Jesus and what he himself revealed about God. He explained this plainly to his apostles before he left (Gospel of Luke 24.26-27 and 44-48), and he gave examples throughout his career (see basically the entire Gospel of Matthew for that).

But what he didn't do is write a detailed, systematic, exhaustive explanation of his doctrines or a complete commentary on the Old Testament. Instead he left us with the revelation embodied basically in the Bible. He left us the Holy Spirit "who will lead you into all truth" (Gospel of John 16.13). And he left us... theologians.

Why Theologians?

Theologians are a little like scientists: the data a scientist studies is the universe and they just have to take it the way it is, rough edges, mysteries and all, and do the hard work needed to understand it.

A theologian's data is God's revelation encapsulated in the Bible. It's presented to us in a wondrous hodge-podge of history dealing with family squabbles, history dealing with geopolitical squabbles, laws, poems, philosophical discussions, prophetic announcements, erotic songs, letters, laments over fallen cities and fallen people. And above it all, Jesus Christ. Theologians are the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and explaining it all.

On Theologian Thursdays I'll be bringing in the cream of the crop (living and dead), the acknowledged experts in their fields and let them take the floor. I'm using a very wide definition of  a "theologian" that includes not just scholars but regular preachers, authors, hymn writers, mystics, and just regular people who studied, thought, prayed, and contributed something about God and what he has revealed to humanity. Also, there's no time limit: these theological musings may be one brief paragraph or stretch into the blog equivalent of pages and pages (not usually though).

What We're Looking For

Some theologians, like some car repairmen, are better than others. Some are only good on one subject and not terribly impressive or downright misleading in other areas. And of course some are just awful, no matter what their advertising may say.

As you've probably guessed if you've read this blog for a while, my criteria for picking theologians is ordinary, everyday, garden variety Christianity. Or to put it another way, the stuff that was taught by Christ to his Apostles, passed on by them to the Christian Movement, and it's ramifications largely unfurled and explained by around AD 400. That doesn't mean we'll only invite theologians from that era, just that we want people who teach the consensus reached by the Christian Movement doing the hard work of theology during that time. To put it a third way, simple, historical, authentic Christianity. Fortunately (providentially?), there are and have been many around who teach that.

First Up

Our first Thursday theologian, who will be posted about 2 hours from now, is Dr. Georgia Harkness on providence and a God who is personal.

What is the Bible For?

Another N T Wright quote of the day:

We live under scripture because that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord.

But what is God’s authority there for? Certainly not to give us a large amount of true but miscellaneous information. Solomon made lists of natural phenomena, but they didn’t get into the Bible. The Bible is not an early version of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Here is the central element: the point about God’s authority is that the whole Bible is about God establishing his kingdom on earth as in heaven, completing (in other words) the project begun but aborted in Genesis 1–3. This is the big story that we must learn how to tell. It isn’t just about how to get saved, with some cosmology bolted onto the side. This is an organic story about God and the world.

God’s authority is exercised not to give his people lots of true information, not even true information about how they get saved (though that comes en route). God’s authority, vested in Jesus the Messiah, is about God reclaiming his proper lordship over all creation. And the way God planned to rule over his creation from the start was through obedient humanity. The Bible’s witness to Jesus declares that he, the obedient Man, has done this. But the Bible is then the God-given equipment through which the followers of Jesus are themselves equipped to be obedient stewards, the royal priesthood, bringing that saving rule of God in Christ to the world.

Jesus is the Revelation

What does it mean to say, as Ignatius of Antioch did here two Sundays ago, and as the Christian Movement has always taught, that Jesus of Nazareth himself is the revelation? And not simply "a" revelation like the 10 Commandments or the words of the Prophets, but "the" revelation -- the ultimate revelation.

As you read through the Jewish scriptures you learn three very important things (among many). First, that God has decided to reveal himself to humans beings. He's been doing it from the very beginning (Genesis chapters 1-3) and certainly no one made him. Communicating with humans at all is a pure, raw, free choice by God.

A second thing we find is that God has revealed himself via history. We might prefer, in our theological fantasies (if there are such things), that God had imparted all of his truth in a single, dispassionate, abstract, crystal-pure burst of light. Instead what we know of God, his goals and plans, his moral standards, what he requires from us, and what we can expect from him have all been communicated to us through his words and actions on the 'stage' of historical events. The Bible is the inspired (i.e., written in a partnership of God and humans) record of those actions and what they mean. There was a time when the Bible had not been written, but there never was a time when God was not revealing himself.

Story Telling

And third, we learn that in revealing himself, God told a story. There is a story arc to the Bible. It begins with God being the origin of everything. It tells about the humans he created to reveal himself to, their disobedience of God, and the fundamental disharmony that fell on the world as a result -- a disharmony later called "sin." The story goes on to tell of a great flood in reaction to sin, and then of a man named Abraham who was selected to live up to a unique commission:

"I will use you to bless

    all the people on earth."

(Genesis 12.3, ERV) 

From there we learn of the nation descended from him with the same commission and how they ultimately failed and were crushed by foreign nations. But not before producing a singular King whose dynasty was destined to issue in a man who would rescue Israel and the world, deal with sin, proclaim a new law "written on people's hearts," and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. The one, in other words, who would finally fulfill that commission. As the 1st century neared this rescuer came to be called "Messiah" -- "the specially commissioned one," the man with ceremonial oil poured on his head, as was done to kings and priests. In Greek, Messiah is "Christ."

So when we say Jesus of Nazareth himself, in his own person, is the Christian revelation, we mean he is the climax of all that had gone before as God had revealed himself to humanity. Jesus is the spear tip of all God had been doing to set things right since the beginning of time.  Or as St. Peter realized, he is, "the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," 

One Other Point

There is one other point: As Jesus went about doing his job as Messiah it became increasingly apparent that things said only of God or done only by God in the Jewish Scriptures, were being done and described of him. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father too," (John 14.9 ERV).  Very early on the life and actions of Jesus were realized to be those of God.  Messiah turned out to be much more than was even expected, and those who looked for him expected quite a lot.  

I've pointed out previously that the vast bulk of the Apostle's Creed is just a summary of Jesus' life. There is a reason for that.  Jesus himself  is the revelation because his words, life, death, and resurrection are the best possible way to grasp what God is really like. He is the ultimate self-revealing of God.

After 50 or 60 years of turning this over in his mind St. John described it concisely, "No one has ever seen God. The only Son is the one who has shown us what God is like. He is himself God and is very close to the Father," (John 1.18 ERV).

...The Crowning Achievement Forever...

The revelation of Jesus is Jesus himself.

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

"No one can see God,
    but the Son is exactly like God.
    He rules over everything that has been made.
Through his power all things were made:
    things in heaven and on earth, seen and not seen—
all spiritual rulers, lords, powers, and authorities.
    Everything was made through him and for him.
The Son was there before anything was made.
    And all things continue because of him.

He is the head of the body, which is the church.
    He is the beginning of everything else.
And he is the first among all who will be raised from death.
    So in everything he is most important.
God was pleased for all of himself to live in the Son."

Letter to the Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 - 19 ERV

______________________________

Ignatius, the early Christian leader we met last Saturday on his way to execution in Rome, wrote a short letter to a group of Jesus' followers in Philadelphia (the one in Asia Minor, that is). He had just been there and in this section he recounts part of a disagreement he had with members who thought the Christian Movement ought to be much more Jewish (often called "Judaizers" by Bible scholars). Ignatius makes an important point: That what the Movement teaches is indeed in the Old Testament, but the revelation of Jesus trumps everything else.

I urge you, do not do things in cliques, but act as Christ's disciples. When I heard some people saying, "If I don't find it in the original documents [i.e., the Old Testament], I don't believe it in the gospel," I answered them, "But it is written there." They retorted, "That's just the question." To my mind it is Jesus Christ who is the original documents. The inviolable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and the faith that came by him. It is by these things and through your prayers that I want to be justified.

Priests are a fine thing, but better still is the High Priest [i.e., Jesus, see Letter to the Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14-15] who was entrusted with the Holy of Holies. He alone was entrusted with God's secrets. He is the door to the Father. Through it there enter Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the prophets and apostles and the Church. All these find their place in God's unity.

But there is something special about the gospel—I mean the coming of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, his Passion and resurrection. The beloved prophets announced his coming; but the gospel is the crowning achievement forever. All these things, taken together, have their value, provided you hold the faith in love.

Ignatius of Antioch (died c. AD 107)
Letter to the Philadelphians chapters 8 and 9

"...One Heart and One Soul..."

Irenaeus of Lyon

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

"There is one body and one Spirit, and God chose you to have one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. There is one God and Father of us all, who rules over everyone. He works through all of us and in all of us."

(Letter to the Ephesians chapter 4 verses 4 - 6, ERV)

___________________

Irenaeus was a leader, thinker, and writer in the early Christian Movement. He had grown up in the church at Smyrna (in today's Turkey) led by Polycarp, a legend in the early church. Polycarp had been a student of John the Apostle himself, and he passed on stories and teachings from John and other "elders" in the Movement. Irenaeus absorbed it all with the fabulous mind he had. As an adult he moved east to Lyons, France where he cared for the Movement's outpost there and handed on the 'deposit of faith' as he had heard it from Polycarp, who had received it from St. John the Apostle who received it from... Well, I imagine you can see what makes Irenaeus so important in the history of the Christian Movement.

In his guest-blog today, Irenaeus describes what was in the revelation Jesus entrusted his Apostles with, and how carefully it was handed on.

Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world to the end of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God—the comings, the birth of a virgin, the suffering, the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily reception into the heavens of the beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from the heavens in the glory of the Father to restore all things, and to raise up all flesh, that is, the whole human race, so that every knee may bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Saviour and King, according to the pleasure of the invisible Father, and every tongue may confess him, and that he may execute righteous judgment on all.

The spiritual powers of wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and fell into apostasy, and the godless and wicked and lawless and blasphemers among men he will send into the eternal fire. But to the righteous and holy, and those who have kept his commandments and have remained in his love, some from the beginning [of life] and some since their repentance, he will by his grace give life incorrupt, and will clothe them with eternal glory.

Having received this preaching and this faith, as I have said, the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth. For the languages of the world are different, but the meaning of the [Christian] tradition is one and the same. Neither do the churches that have been established in Germany believe otherwise, or hand down any other tradition, nor those among the Iberians, nor those among the Celts, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor those established in the middle parts of the world.

Irenaeus of Lyons (early 2nd century – c. AD 202)
Against All Heresies book 1 chapters 10 sections 1 - 2 (written about AD 180)

Ignatius Deploys the Christian Revelation

Ignatius of Antioch is executed in Rome

I've been talking lately about the Christian revelation or the "deposit" of Faith given once and for all to Christ's people, and I've identified it to an extent with the words of that marvelous little poem, the Apostles' Creed. But if you're checking up on me you will know that the Apostles Creed didn't reach the form we're used to until the early AD 700's. Just like our understanding of what Jesus revealed, the words we use to describe and remember it also developed over time. And we can trace that development all the way back to the days of his Apostles.

As we discussed the other day, the Apostle's Creed doesn't lay down rules, it tells a story. After the last Apostle died, one of the earliest places we find that main middle part of the story about Jesus is in a letter by a man named Ignatius. He was the main leader of the Christian Movement in the large Syrian city of Antioch and now found himself in chains on the way to a gory execution in Rome.

Along the way, dedicated leader that he was, he wrote 7 letters to groups of Christians in the towns he passed through. This was in AD 107 or a little later -- about 10 years after John had passed on (To find out when John died, click on Irenaeus, Against Heresies book 2 chapter 22 section 5). He wasn't trying to teach these people the basics of their Faith (they were already Christians, after all), but was more concerned with a fake Christian teaching called "Docetism."  It claimed that Jesus hadn't really been human -- that he only pretended to eat, drink, sleep, and other human things.

So in his Letter to the Trallians he used part of the Christian revelation to show that the Messiah actually was quite a real human being. If you remember how the Apostles Creed goes, it might sound a little familiar:

"So pay no attention, if anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, who was truly raised from the dead. His Father raised him and in the same way will raise us too who believe on Him. His Father will raise us in Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not have true life."

(Letter to the Trallians chapter 9 verses 1 - 2)

For 'Meditation for a Sunday Morning' our guest blogger will be Irenaeus of Antioch. He will go into more detail on how the Christian Movement summed up Christ's revelation in his day.

The Purpose of Authentic Light

Justin Martyr in his
Philosopher's robe

This is the fourth and final post of my beginning-of-the-year "housekeeping" series. The other three can be found here, here, and here. This one will be about what Authentic Light's purpose is, what I'm hoping to accomplish here.

In the first half of the 2nd century, there was a man named Justin whom I admire quite a lot. He was a philosopher who had been a follower of Plato until he met an old man as he was walking by the sea one day. He continued to wear his philosopher's robe but from that day on he taught what he considered the ultimate philosophy: Christianity. He once described what he did this way:

“I live over a man named Martinus at the Timiotinian Bath... If anyone wanted to visit me, I communicated the teachings of truth to them.”

That's pretty much what the Authentic Light blog is for: communicating simple, radical Christianity to interested parties. It's simple because in a way there's not much to it. The basics can be recited in under a minute. And it's radical because that simple teaching can (and does) change everything.

Brand Names

But there is a dizzying number of  brands of Christianity, aren't there, all clamoring for us to do it their way and subtly -- or not so subtly -- denigrating the competing brands. When people unfamiliar with the Movement Christ founded, or who have only heard bad things about it, or who had a bad experience with one brand, decide to look into Christianity for themselves, they are faced with a spinning, bewildering sea of claims and counterclaims. As St. Paul said about another type of confusion, "If some people come in who are without understanding or don’t believe, they will say you are crazy," (First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 14 verse 22, ERV).

At one time though, Christianity was one thing, and every follower of Jesus knew what it was. It was taught "everywhere, always, and by all". Christianity, at the beginning, was the deposit, the revelation we discussed yesterday. It's basic outlines can be seen throughout the New Testament and then, before the last Apostle had died, traced in the letters of Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna, and in the writings of Aristides, Athenagoras, and the noble Justin Martyr mentioned above. Plus a large crowd of others. It slowly expanded until the late 400's as more meat was put on the bones. But they were always the same bones given once and for all to the saints, expanding (changing the metaphor here) as they were unrolled and their implications realized.

Today, (giving up and mixing my metaphors with abandon) those same unrolled bones lie at the base of every Christian group -- Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox. In many churches creeds are read every Sunday, ostensibly to remind us of this. We hear them, but we often don't recognize what the words mean. And of course, that eventually gets boring, and ultimately meaningless.

But if you do learn the words, if you grasp the full meaning of that wildly, madly, powerfully, wondrous revelation (and no, it can never be fully grasped because it speaks of infinite things), you might just find yourself swept up in a revolution far bigger than yourself.

As one of my favorite theologians says, "I plan to present nothing new or original in these pages... I am dedicated to unoriginality." It is my contention that ordinary, garden variety Christianity is the most exciting thing in the world. Authentic Light is not here to argue or with a compulsion to convince anybody. All I hope to do, like Justin Martyr, is to "communicate the teachings of truth." This site is content to turn that message loose in all its rugged glory and let it work.