In my last post, I argued that the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas has little to no value when it comes to the study of the historical Jesus. However, ever since the Jesus Seminar published their book, The Five Gospels, it has become somewhat common among Jesus scholars to include Thomas as another source for Jesus studies. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 logia, or sayings, that are attributed to Jesus, most of which are enigmatic and/or aphoristic in style. For example, saying 7 reads, “Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.” Thomas was discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi among some 52 other documents, most of which are from the 4th century CE. While Thomas contains intriguing sayings, its late date, its wholesale dependence on the Synoptic tradition, and its Gnostic coloring render it of very little importance for reconstructing the historical Jesus. Its primary value lies in understanding early Christian Gnostic interpretation and theological creativity, not the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
As noted above, the Gospel of Thomas, sometimes referred to as the Secret Gospel of Thomas, contains some 114 independent sayings attributed to Jesus without any kind of narrative structure or frame. Although the complete text found at Nag Hammadi in 1945 is in Coptic and dates to the 4th century CE, it also exists in three Greek fragments previously found at Oxyrhynchus around the turn of the twentieth century that date to the mid-second century CE. Some scholars argue that the oral traditions behind these Greek texts may be earlier, but this is speculation that is not supported by any physical textual evidence. The biggest difference between Thomas and the canonical Gospels is that it is completely lacking in narrative details; it contains no geographic markers, no passion narrative, and no account of the resurrection. More often than not, it simply reworks material from the Synoptic tradition. In spite of these differences, its non-narrative, aphoristic style is perhaps part of its appeal, but it is also the reason for its interpretive challenges.
This is perhaps why many, both scholars and popular readers alike, find Thomas so intriguing. It is cryptic, wisdom-oriented, less overtly theological, and resembles Synoptic style. For many, especially those who are skeptical of the canonical accounts of Jesus, Thomas reflects a non-apocalyptic, secretive, purely ethical Jesus, which is more in keeping with modern sensibilities. For example, saying 98 reads, “The kingdom of the father is like a certain man who wanted to kill a powerful man. In his own house he drew his sword and stuck it into the wall in order to find out whether his hand could carry through. Then he slew the powerful man.” Or again, saying 77 reads, “It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” According to the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, these sayings represent independent (read secret) traditions not found in the canonical Gospels. However, these claims often overlook Thomas‘s dependence on earlier Synoptic material and its interpretive framing.
Estimates vary, but roughly half of Thomas‘s 114 sayings have parallel, often more primitive, versions in the Synoptics. For example, saying 54 reads, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” This is clearly a restatement of the beatitude found in Matthew 5.3 and its parallel in Luke 6.20. Saying 55 reads, “Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot become a disciple to me. And whoever does not hate his brothers and sisters and take up his cross in my way will not be worthy of me.” This is taken from Matthew 10.37-38 and its parallel in Luke14.26-27. Saying 65 is simply a retelling of the parable of the vineyard owner found in Matthew 21, Mark 12, and Luke 20; saying 57 is simply a retelling of the parable of the wheat and tares found in Matthew 13. Other examples could be cited, but the point is clear, namely that the author(s) of Thomas have simply reworked Synoptic material, typically drawn from the Sermon on the Mount or the Kingdom sayings/parables of Jesus. Moreover, the ordering and grouping of these sayings typically mimics that which is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This evidence clearly demonstrates the secondary literary dependence of Thomas and mitigates against arguments that it preserves independent oral traditions. To put it another way, if Thomas is so clearly dependent, then it cannot be used as an independent historical source in the study of the historical Jesus.
Beyond its late date and its dependence on the Synoptic traditions, another reason Thomas holds no value for the study of Jesus is its clear Gnostic leanings. Gnosticism is a second century syncretistic heresy that combined elements of Christianity with Jewish mysticism and Greco-Roman philosophy. It is primarily characterized by its dualistic worldview, its emphasis on hidden knowledge (gnosis) and spiritual ascent, and its devaluation of material reality. The Gospel of Thomas, as well as most of the other documents found at Nag Hammadi, clearly fall into this stream of thought. For example, saying 62 reads, “It is to those who are worthy of my mysteries that I tell my mysteries.” Saying 24 reads, “There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness.” Or again, saying 108 reads, “He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.” Clearly, sayings from the canonical Gospels have been filtered through Thomas’s Gnostic framework. This theological overlay makes Thomas more a reflection of early heretical Christian thoughts than of Jesus’ own teaching. While Gnostic themes are historically interesting for understanding the history of the early church, they further limit Thomas’s usefulness for reconstructing the historical Jesus.
Methodologically speaking, for a source to contribute meaningfully to historical reconstruction, it must be anchored in some kind of narrative frame, some cultural or geographic context, some chronological markers by which its historical veracity can be evaluated. The Gospel of Thomas is clearly lacking in this regard. It does not contain any of the details of Jesus’s life, his public ministry in Galilee, his conflicts with the Jewish authorities, or his passion, death, and resurrection. Without any anchoring in actual historical events like these, a collection of sayings cannot be attributed to Jesus with any real confidence. Therefore, using Thomas as a primary source in the study of the historical Jesus risks reconstructing him as an abstract, decontextualized, disconnected figure. Or to put it another way, a Jesus disconnected from historical realities can become anything and everything, except who he truly was. The Gospel of Thomas is simply too late, too dependent, and too Gnostic to be of any value in the study of the historical Jesus. Of course, this does not mean that Thomas has no value at all. After all, the Gospel of Thomas gives us an open window into early Christian theological creativity within heretical movements. It highlights the role of wisdom and of spiritual and mystical orientations in the beliefs of the early church. And it gives us insight into how the teachings of the historical Jesus were received and interpreted by one particularly Gnostic tradition. However, whereas canonical sources like the Synoptics and Paul ground their theological reflections in the reality of historical events, Thomas abstracts wisdom and secret knowledge from reality. In this regard, then, Thomas illuminates early Christian imagination and hermeneutics rather than the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
In light of the above evidence, I can only conclude that because Thomas is derivative and shaped by Gnostic and Synoptic traditions, it cannot be used as an independent source to reconstruct the historical Jesus. Sound theological reflection must be grounded in the historical realities of the person and work of Jesus. Or to put it another way, history grounds theology, and theology interprets history. The two must remain interconnected in the theological task. To neglect one or the other would necessarily lead us into either hardened skepticism or wild theological speculation. While Thomas is a great source for understanding early Christian diversity, it simply should not be conflated with the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Thomas may open a window onto early Christian imagination, but the historical Jesus stands firmly in the Synoptic Gospels and the apostolic testimony of the New Testament.
Bird, Michael F. Bird. Whispers of Revolution: Jesus and the Coming of God as King. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2025.
When we confess that Christ is King, we are tapping into a longing that goes back to the very beginning of creation. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of Eden to serve as God’s vice-regents, to rule and to establish his dominion in the world. Of course, our first parents failed when they succumbed to the deceptions of the serpent, and from that point on, the story of the Bible revolves around God’s plan to reestablish his dominion in the world. In a new book entitled Whispers of Revolution: Jesus and the Coming of God as King, Michael F. Bird applies this lens to the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Bird is Deputy Principle and Lecturer in Theology at Ridley College, Melbourne, and he is the author of over 30 books, including the award winning The Gospel of Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus. In this book, Bird argues that Jesus was driven by the conviction that through his words and work, through his mission and message, God was unveiling his kingship in a way that would rescue Israel and eventually restore the whole world.
Bird’s essential thesis is that the life and ministry of Jesus is best understood within the context of Jewish restoration eschatology. Jewish restoration eschatology is simply the hope that one day God would bring an end to Israel’s exile, restore their national and spiritual life as his people, and through them bring the nations into submission under his rule. This hope is grounded in the visions of the canonical prophets, and it serves as the foundation for the theology and worldview of Second Temple Judaism. For Bird, this worldview “provides the key to understanding Jesus’ mission, aims, self-understanding and hope.” (56) With this lens in view, then, Bird goes on to walk through the Gospel accounts to show how the details of the Jesus earthly ministry fit within this framework. Along the way he discusses topics such as, the birth and early life of Jesus, Jesus’ self-understanding of himself as Messiah, his teaching about the Kingdom of God and other topics, his interactions with his contemporaries, his’ last days in Jerusalem, and his death and resurrection. In all of this, God is coming, coming as king. He concludes, “Jesus himself started the whisper of this revolution, one involving a reordering of power, Israel’s regathering, the redemption of the Jews, the defeat of Satan, and the renewal of creation.” (300) However, this good news could not remain a whisper; it had to be shared, repeated, declared, argued, and even shouted afar. And this is exactly what Jesus instructed his followers to do.
In terms of strengths, Bird is particularly helpful when he is discussing the place of historical Jesus studies in relation to New Testament Theology. After all, Jesus did not write any of the books that we have included in the NT canon. Technically, the NT Documents are written about him, but none of them were actually written by him. So, we may rightly speak of the theology of Matthew or Luke or Mark or John, but can we also speak of the theology of Jesus himself? Bird suggests that the study of the historical Jesus is a necessary prolegomena o our study of NT theology. Jesus is the church’s primal theologian, and it is his teaching, his ministry, his life and death that stands at the heart of the New Testament. Therefore, we cannot simply relegate historical Jesus studies to the domain of historians alone; no, the study of historical Jesus is a fundamental component of the theologians toolbox when it comes to understanding the theology of Paul or John or Matthew or Peter or James. Bird writes, “Jesus was the first theologian of the Jesus movement, and his is the creative mind behind so much of the church’s generative tradition.” (15-16) This means that the theology of the NT should find its impetus, not exclusively but at least initially, on the lips of Jesus of Nazareth. He goes on to write that, “the study of the historical Jesus is a reminder that the ‘word became flesh’.” (17). In other words, if we truly believe that our faith in grounded in the historical realities of Jesus life and ministry, death and resurrection, then we must give the study of the historical Jesus its proper place when it comes to understanding the New Testament.
One minor reservation that I have concerns Bird’s relatively frequent appeal to the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas is a mid-to-late second-century sayings collection comprising 114 logia attributed to Jesus, many of which exhibit clear literary and thematic dependence upon Synoptic tradition. While some scholars continue to argue that Thomas may preserve independent and possibly early Jesus traditions, the case for its independence remains highly contested. In numerous instances, the parallels suggest secondary development rather than primitive preservation, and several logia reflect theological trajectories consistent with the emerging Gnostic or proto-Gnostic tendencies. To be clear, Thomas is an important witness to the reception and reinterpretation of Jesus’ sayings in the second century. However, its value for reconstructing the historical Jesus is, in my view, extremely limited. For that reason, Bird’s approximately twenty-two references to Thomas—nearly half the number of his citations of the far more substantial and canonically received Gospel of John—feel somewhat disproportionate. While these references do not materially affect his overall thesis, a more restrained use of Thomas would have strengthened the historiographical clarity of the argument.
Whispers of Revolution is not a fifth gospel but at the same time it is not merely a gospel harmony. It is historically grounded, insightful, and clarifying reconstruction of Jesus within the context of first century Judaism and its hopes for restoration. And insofar as the historical study of Jesus of Nazareth is “indispensable for religious scholarship and the life of Christian faith” (14), Bird’s book is both accessible and academically rigorous. It will be a great benefit both to lay Christians who want to understand Jesus and the gospels better and to scholars who are looking for a clear and coherent understanding of Jesus to which they can correlate their own work. And so, I would gladly recommend this book, and if I were ever to teach a course on the life of Jesus or the Gospels, I would require it for my students. When Jesus was with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi, he asked them, “Who do people say that I am?”, and then, more importantly, he asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” This is the fundamental question we must all be able to answer. Bird has answered it: Jesus was a messianic prophet of Jewish restoration in fulfillment Old Testament hopes. While Jesus was certainly more than this, he was certainly not less, and Whispers of Revolution is a great book for those who want to understand the life and times, the ministry and message of Jesus as he himself might have understood it.
One of my favorite topics in the study of the New Testament is the historical Jesus; it is an area of study that attempts to understand Jesus as he was within the context of first century Judaism. However, many who study the historical Jesus argue that the Jesus of history (the first century Jewish teacher) is not the Christ of faith (the exalted Lord proclaimed by the church). In other words, the early church’s understanding of Jesus has been embellished and augmented by influences that go well beyond who Jesus actually was and what he taught. This presupposition is one of the the primary factors that originally inspired the now century old quest(s) for the historical Jesus. Of course, we must affirm that historical investigation is indispensable for understanding the person and work of Jesus, but the hard distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith collapses under the weight of the earliest evidence. The church’s confession of Christ emerges not as a departure from Jesus, but as the historically grounded interpretation of his life, death, and resurrection. In the space that follows, I would like to defend this thesis by examining why history matters, where the split came from, and why the evidence actually favors continuity and not discontinuity.
It would seem to be readily evident that the historical study of the New Testament is essential for understanding the Christian faith. This is because Christianity makes several direct and specific claims about real events that took place in historical space and time. So understanding these events and their historical and theological significance is a matter of first importance when it comes to understanding our faith. As a case in point, when the eternal Son came incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, he stepped into a particular place at a particular time, the fullness of time according to Galatians 4.4. In other words, the doctrine of the incarnation requires some historical understanding of the place and time when Jesus was born. In fact, the Gospels themselves are anchored in the geography, personalities, and events of the first century Palestine. The point is that if Jesus is severed from the places and times in which he lived, then we run the risk of distorting the significance of his life and teaching. More than this, we run the risk of reshaping Jesus into a man of our making, as a some kind of modern therapist or social reform mascot. The bottom line is that the hard work of history disciplines our theology and grounds it in the life of our savior as he lived it. Or to put it more simply, to confess that the Word became flesh is to confess that history matters.
The point of this is to say that historical inquiry is not the enemy of faith. The problem comes when we presume to dictate what history is allowed to contain. During the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, philosophers and historians began to doubt the details of the New Testament’s depictions of Jesus. Because of their presuppositions about the supremacy of human reason in the pursuit of truth, they were highly skeptical of the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’s miracles, particularly his resurrection. Their skepticism resulted in an approach to history that might be called methodological naturalism, or the idea that anything that even remotely smells like it might be supernatural must be ruled out as a theological fabrication. Ultimately, their dismissal of the miracles of Jesus, particularly his resurrection, led them to conclude that the church’s high Christology, or its understanding of Jesus as the divine Lord of heaven, must be a late addition to the New Testament that has nothing to do with who Jesus was and what he did and taught during his lifetime, a conclusion which had more to do with their own presuppositions than with any actual analysis of the evidence. The real question, however, is not whether the theology of the early church developed over time (it clearly did), but the question is whether that development moved away from Jesus or unfolded from within the impact of his life and resurrection. An examination of the earliest documents clearly demonstrates that this is in fact what happened.
Now, the earliest Christian documents are the 13 letters of Paul, which were likely written between the years 49 CE and 68 CE. (The earliest of these is most likely 1 Thessalonians, and the latest is 2 Timothy.) Important for this post is the fact that several of these letters include embedded hymns and creedal material that clearly exalt Jesus as the divine Lord. For example, in Philippians 2.6, he “existed in the form of God,” and in Colossians 1.15, “He is the image of the invisible God.” In 1 Corinthians 8.6, the Apostle writes, “for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.” This is clearly a reworking of the Shema (Deut 6.4) which equates Jesus with the God of Israel. Even outside of Paul, in Hebrews 1.3, Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” And in James 5.9 (possibly the earliest document in the New Testament), he is “the judge [who] stands at the door!” The point of all this is to show that the church’s so called “high Christology” developed very early in the life of the church, and that within the context of strict Jewish monotheism. And so the question must be asked, “How did first century Jews come to worship Jesus as God so quickly?” The only possible answer is that the seeds of this belief were already present in the life and ministry of Jesus.
Of course, Jesus never articulated his identity in the language of the Nicaean Creed, but he clearly acted with divine authority. When the Pharisees ask, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven. Get up, take your mat, and go home.” (Mark 2.1-12) When his disciples were rebuked for picking heads of grain on the sabbath, he responded, “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12.1-8) He calmed the storms, he healed the sick, he cast out demons, he raised the dead. He equated his body with the temple, and he proclaimed a Kingdom of God that centered on his own person and work. And when the High Priest asked him if he was indeed the Christ, he responded, ““I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven,” to which the High Priest responded by accusing him of blasphemy. (Mark 14.61-64) As a side note, the title Son of Man is most likely taken from Daniel 7, where Daniel sees “one like a son of Man” approaching the Ancient of Days to be vindicated and enthroned as king. The identity of this “one like a Son of Man” is debated, but it is highly likely that Daniel understood him as (quasi) divine figure. The point is that Jesus made several extraordinarily “high” claims about himself, claims that clearly threatened the Jerusalem religious establishment and eventually got him killed.
Moreover, the church did not invent these categories out of thin air; rather, it interpreted the shock of Jesus’ life and resurrection within the context and storyline of Israel’s Scriptures. And for them, the resurrection was the decisive interpretive key. The historical plausibility of the resurrection is practically certain given the cumulative effect of the evidence. The earliest confessions assume the truth of the resurrection (1 Cor 15.3-8). The earliest disciples went from fearing for their lives in the upper room to boldly proclaiming the truth of the resurrection in the temple square. The first witnesses of the resurrection were a couple of women whose testimony would have been viewed as untrustworthy in their day. All eleven of the disciples went to their deaths preaching Christ as risen from the dead, and the apostle Paul went from hateful persecutor of Christians to the most effective preacher and missionary in the early church. In other words, the resurrection was a central component of the early church’s belief, and its exalted understanding of Jesus flows naturally from this belief. If Christ was truly raised from the dead, then he truly was who he said he was, i.e. “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The point is that the Christ of the church’s faith is what the Jesus of history looks like after Easter. Without the resurrection, a hard divide makes sense, but with the resurrection, the continuity between the two becomes inherently plausible. Or to put it another way, the resurrection is not some theological embroidery added to the story of the historical Jesus. No, it is the primary engine of the early church’s “high” Christology.
The bottom of line is simply this, namely that the hard division between historical events and their theological significance is a false dichotomy. There simply is no such thing as uninterpreted history; all historical events are immediately interpreted. The moment something happens, it is interpreted. The question, then, is not whether theology exists, but whether it faithfully corresponds to what actually occurred. In other words, theology is not the corruption of history; it is reflection upon it. And when it comes the person and work of Jesus, the Gospel accounts are just historical testimony that has been shaped by conviction. The faith of the early church was an organic and continuous development that grew out of the life and teaching of the historical Jesus, and the earliest confessions of Christ are best understood as historically grounded worship. If we separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith, the our faith becomes mere myth layered on memory. Jesus came incarnate at a particular time in a concrete place, and he was resurrected and he ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father. And this is why both the history of Jesus and the faith of the early church matter. The one worshiped in the church is not a theological invention layered upon a forgotten Galilean. He is the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth. There is theological development, yes. There is interpretation, certainly. But there is no canyon between the Jesus who walked the hills of Galilee and the Christ that the church confesses as Lord. There is continuity — deep, historical, and theologically unavoidable continuity between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.
In John 20.19-23, Jesus appears in the upper room on the eve of his resurrection, and he breathes on the disciples saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is the so-called Johannine Pentecost, and at a glance, it would seem to contradict the very clear teaching of the book of Acts that the Spirit was given on the Day of Pentecost some 50 days after Jesus’s resurrection. If the events of that first Pentecost are understood as the climactic coming of the Spirit to indwell the followers of Christ, then Jesus’ giving of the Spirit in John 20.22 would seem to indicate that John (who was present at Pentecost) was hopelessly confused about the timeline. In the space the follows, I would like to suggest that John is not confused; rather, I think that John 20 presents Jesus’ giving of the Spirit as the breath of the new creation in fulfillment of Ezekiel’s restoration promises and in turn, it grounds the church’s corporate authority to forgive in the life of the risen Christ.
Of course, scholars and pastors have tried to resolve this tension in a variety of ways throughout the history of the church, and here I will identify just four. First, some suggest that the giving of the Spirit in John 20 is a kind of proleptic gift, a partial filling, that was meant to steel the disciples until the climactic coming of the Spirit 50 days later. Others suggest that John has theologized the giving of the Spirit by temporally relocating the event to the resurrection and directly connecting it with the risen Christ in light of his own “realized eschatology”. Still others suggest that John 20 functions as a kind of apostolic commission for the disciples which establishes their role as authoritative leaders in the early church. Finally, and this is my view, but the giving of the Spirit in John 20 should be understood as the inauguration of the age of the New Covenant/New Creation. This is not in contradiction to the Book of Acts and its descriptions of the Day of Pentecost. Rather, John has compressed these events theologically by linking the resurrection of Jesus with the concept of new creation, the giving of the Spirit, and the inauguration of eschatological life. He does this by alluding to the creation account in Genesis 1-2 and the New Covenant/Resurrection account in Ezekiel 36-37.
In John 20, the scene opens “On the first day of the week” (20.1), and this temporal note is repeated in our passage in 20.19, “when it was evening on the first day of the week.” This is a clear allusion to the first day of creation in Genesis 1. In other words, with the resurrection of Jesus comes a new first day, a new creation. This allusion is further confirmed by the fact that the scene takes place in a garden (19.31), and Mary mistakes the risen Christ for the “gardener” (20. 15). This is most likely a typological allusion to Christ as the second Adam. More significantly, we are told that Jesus “breathed on them.” The Greek word here (ἐνεφύσησεν ) is a verb that only occurs here in the New Testament. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX), in Genesis 2.7, we read that “The the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.” In the same way (and with same word) that God breathed life into Adam, so also the risen Christ breathes life into his disciples. This is not just incidental language; the Evangelist has utilized this rare word intentionally, because he wants to connect the resurrection of Jesus with the new creation. When Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples, they become participants in a new humanity.
However, there is another important Old Testament allusion that stands in the background of John 20, and that is the description of the New Covenant and the story of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel 36-37. In Ezekiel 36.26-27 (also 37.14), we read,
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.
And in Ezekiel 37.1-14, we read where Ezekiel is commanded to prophesy to the breath to “come from the four winds and breath (ἐμφύσησον) into these slain so that they may live.” In the same way that Ezekiel stood in the midst of the valley of dry bones and the dead came to life by the “breath/Spirit” of God, so also the risen Christ stands in the midst of his disciples who are “dead/paralyzed” in fear, and breathes into them the Spirit of life. Now, in the book of Ezekiel, these chapters drip with corporate overtones, particularly in regard to the restoration of the people of Israel. The dry bones coming to life is a symbol of national (and individual) resurrection and restoration, and the Johannine Pentecost symbolizes the eschatological restoration of the people of God, such that the 12 (or 11) disciples function as the nucleus of that people as a renewed Israel. The point is that John portrays the resurrection of Jesus as the moment when the promised Spirit of restoration becomes reality.
Now, it is important here that we stop and recall what John has already said back in John 7. 39, where we read, “Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” This is the heart of John’s theology, namely that the glorification/exaltation of Christ comes in the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus. We know this because, Jesus said in John 12:32, “As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate what kind of death he was about to die.” The verbal idea of being “lifted up” refers both to the kind of death he would die but also to the idea of exaltation. Point being that in John 20, Jesus has now been glorified and so the Spirit can now be given as a sign of eschatological life.
However, there is one more problem in this passage. In verse 23, we read where Jesus tells the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Of course, this language also occurs in the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew 16:19 in Jesus words to Peter and then again in 18:18 in the context of the Community Discourse. Clearly, this is the language of commissioning and authority, but exactly what kind of authority is in view here is debated. Some (particularly in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions) understand these words to signify Apostolic/priestly authority to absolve sins. Others understand them to describe the authority of the church to announce the promise of forgiveness on the basis of the gospel. In my view, in the context of John 20, these words demonstrate that the Spirit-empowered community participates in the eschatological sorting of humanity. Forgiveness is determined by a person’s acceptance or rejection of the person and work of the Son (cf. John 3:18-21), but the church’s authority to forgive is part of its new-creation governance. In other words, just as the first humans were given dominion in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:28), so also the church as a new humanity is given Spirit-authorized responsibility as an agent of new-creation reconciliation. And John is clear that this authority is derivative, not autonomous; it flows from the risen Christ’s life and breath (i.e. Spirit).
In conclusion, then we must conclude that the Johannine Pentecost is not simply the relocation of the events of Acts 2; these are distinct narrative events serving distinct theological purposes. Whereas Acts emphasizes the public outpouring of the Spirit, the gift of tongues, and the church’s mission to the nations, John emphasizes the new creation, the restoration of the people of God, and ecclesial authority and identity. To put it more simply, John narrates the ontological beginning of the New Covenant age, and Luke narrates the Spirit-empowered expansion of the church’s mission. There is no contradiction; these are simply two theological angles on one redemptive reality. By tying his narrative to Genesis and Ezekiel, John gives us a theologically robust understanding of the significance of Christ’s resurrection. More importantly though, John 20.19-23 clearly demonstrates that the church exists because the risen Christ breathes his life into it. Its life is cruciform and Spirit-dependent, and its mission is one of reconciliation in the power of the new creation.
Most English versions of the Bible print the words of Jesus in the Gospels in red letters. It is a tradition that goes back nearly a century. The first red-letter New Testament was published in 1899; the full Bible with a red-letter New Testament was printed two years later in 1901. The reason for this practice is relatively clear, namely to highlight the words of Jesus over against the surrounding narrative and commentary. As noble as this aim is, it can lead to some unhealthy conclusions and applications. Readers might be tempted to conclude that the red letters are more important, more valuable, and more primary than the rest of the New Testament. For example, some so-called “red letter Christians” pit the words of Jesus against the rest of the New Testament and purport to follow the social ethic of Jesus which is characterized by love and compassion rather than the more conservative theology and ethics of the Apostle Paul et al. However, if Jesus is fully God, and there is only one God, and if God inspired the whole Bible, then in a sense all of the words of the Bible, whether black or red, are the words of Jesus.
Of course, this does not mean that the actual content of Jesus’s teaching ministry is unimportant. When it comes to the quest of the historical Jesus, the details of what Jesus said and did are essential for understanding who Jesus was and what he came to do. This is why scholars of the historical Jesus developed criteria of authenticity to determine which sayings in the canonical gospels authentically come from Jesus and which ones do not. Criteria like multiple attestation, dissimilarity, coherence, embarrassment and others like these are used to decide the authenticity of each individual saying or pericope. However, more often than not, these criteria have been used to dismiss more sayings than they have proven. This is most evident in work of the Jesus Seminar and their book The Five Gospels: What did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. Instead of establishing the authentic words of Jesus, they dismissed some 82 % of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the canonical Gospels either as things he definitely did not say (black bead) or as things he did not say but that might be close to his ideas (grey bead). Even sayings that met the established criteria were dismissed as inauthentic. This proves that there was probably another criteria at play in their judgment, that being if a saying evinced a relatively high Christology, then it was not authentic in their view.
More to the point, in my recent book review of Jesus and His Promised Second Coming by Tucker S. Ferda (see here), I suggested that the search for the “authentic” sayings of the historical Jesus in the gospels is a fundamentally flawed endeavor from the outset. This is because the Gospel writers did not set out to record the words of Jesus verbatim (ipsissima verba). They did, however, attempt to convey the words of Jesus by way of summary, thematic arrangement, implication, and interpretation. In other words, they were conveying the essential substance of the words of Jesus as well as it theological significance (ipsissima vox or substantia verba). This is partly because the Gospels are based on traditions that were passed down orally from the time of Jesus until the time the Gospels were composed. Even if the composition of the Gospels is dated early, i.e. in the 40s or 50s CE, then we are talking about 10+ years that have passed from the time Jesus to the time when the sayings of Jesus were written down. The point is that if “authentic” is understood to mean the actual words that Jesus spoke verbatim as he spoke to them, then we are searching for something that will never be found.
On the other hand, we must affirm that the Gospel writers were not simply making things up as they went along, putting words into the mouth of Jesus that he never said or thought. This is sometimes compared to the children’s game of “telephone”, where the first child hears a sentence, and then passes it along to the next child by whispering in their ear, and on to the next and so on. More often than not, when the final child reports the sentence, the final version is a far cry from the original, and usually so horribly garbled as to be beyond recognition. This analogy is a caricature of the actual nature of oral transmission. Not only was the culture at the time of Jesus thoroughly oral, but the Jews in particular took the transmission of oral tradition highly seriously. The Old Testament scriptures commanded them to pass on their faith orally from generation to generation, and Jewish children were trained in this from an early age in the temple and synagogues. The faithful transmission of oral tradition was practically sacrosanct in Jewish culture, and given the recognized authority of Jesus as a rabbi, the gospels writers would never have thought to put their own thoughts and agendas into his mouth. The same could be said for so-called prophetic utterances given by the risen Jesus; these would never have been treated as on par with actual Jesus tradition. As Luke himself indicates in the opening of his Gospel (1:1-4), the Gospel writers were faithfully writing down that which they had also remembered and received.
Now, someone might object, “What about the doctrine of inspiration? Weren’t the Gospel writers inspired by the Holy Spirit and so kept from error?” And I would answer, “Yes! Of course they were!” (2 Tim 3:16-17). But inspiration is not dictation. The Gospel writers were not mindless automatons simply transcribing by rote. Here again, Luke’s introduction indicates that he had done his research, had talked to eyewitnesses, had done the hard work “to write carefully and in order.” In other words, inspiration does not negate the normal processes of research and writing. In inspiration, the Holy Spirit works in, with, and through the human author in such a way that their words are his words. Moreover, the method of inspiration varies according to the genre of the literature being inspired. Clearly, prophetic texts, “thus saith the Lord” were directly inspired speech, but historical narrative, epistles, et al. allow for the creative engagement of the human author with the work of the Holy Spirit. B. B. Warfield puts it this way in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible,
The Scriptures, in other words, are conceived by the writers of the New Testament as through and through God’s book, in every part expressive of His mind, given through men after a fashion which does no violence to their nature as men, and constitutes the book also men’s book as well as God’s, in every part expressive of the mind of its human authors.
The point of all this is to say that the Gospel writers have faithfully conveyed to us the real and true words of Jesus even if they have not conveyed to us his exact words. So, we should not take individual sayings (or even whole pericopes) out of their narrative context and then dismiss them as wholly inauthentic. This is a fundamentally flawed method of historical and exegetical inquiry. Rather we should attempt to understand how the words and actions of Jesus fit within the context of first century Judaism and how they gave rise to the theology and practice of the early church. As to whether we should continue to print the words of Jesus is red letters, I am of mixed opinion. Further, I suspect that my views on the question will do nothing to unseat standard publishing practice. Nevertheless, we must understand that there is no portion of Holy Scripture that is more authoritative, more valuable, more transformative than any other. Whether we are dealing with the letters of Paul or with the words of Jesus in the Gospels, we are dealing with the Word of God, and it is He who is speaking to us when we read. And so we should ask the Lord to give us the ears to hear and the hearts to receive what the Spirit is saying to us.
Ferda, Tucker S. Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024.
One of the convictions that has Christians now for 2000 years is the expectation that Jesus will come again at the end of history to judge the living and the dead and to establish his kingdom on earth. This “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) has been the confession of followers of Jesus from the very beginning of Christian history, as evidenced in the Apostle’s Creed. The problem is that this belief has somewhat of an embarrassment in the study of the historical Jesus. In other words, if Jesus truly believed that he would come again in the lifetime of “this generation” (Matthew 16:28, et al.), then either he made a simple mistake in his calculations or he was horribly deluded as to his understanding of himself and his role in the final consummation of all things. Scholars have typically followed two approaches in order to alleviate this embarrassment. On the one hand, there is a widespread consensus among critical scholars that the second coming is a belief that was created by the first followers of Jesus, and it does not go back to the historical Jesus. On the other, a large number of “evangelical” scholars have reinterpreted the coming of Jesus metaphorically/symbolically as a coming in judgment and have applied it to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
In his most recent book, Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins, Tucker S. Ferda (Errett M. Grable Associate Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) challenges both of these approaches by arguing that the second coming hope goes back to the historical Jesus. He advances this argument in four parts. In the first section, he considers questions related to historical and interpretive method, and he critiques certain “atomistic” approaches that attempt to sift through the Gospels in order to find the authentic sayings of Jesus and then then from them try to construct the beliefs of Jesus. In Ferda’s view, this methodological approach has it completely backward. Instead, he suggests that we should start with the beliefs of the early church as they are presented in the New Testament documents and then attempt to construct a plausible scenario that how these beliefs came to be. In the second section, Ferda considers the history of scholarship on the question of the Second Coming, and he identifies certain presuppositions and biases that have contributed to the current state of affairs. Particularly, he suggests that certain elitist and antisemitic tendences among scholars have caused them to want to distance Jesus from “outlandish” apocalyptic beliefs of Second Temple Judaism. In the third section, in keeping with the method that he outlined in section one, Ferda surveys the Gospels and and writings of Paul to demonstrate the widespread and ubiquitous belief in the Second Coming that characterized the early church, and finally, in section four, he offers a historical reconstruction of the Sitz im Leben Jesu (the life and ministry context of Jesus) which he believes explains the Second Coming beliefs of the early church and how they arose from the teaching and beliefs of the historical Jesus.
In the space that remains, I would simply like to identify two strengths and two weaknesses that stand out in Ferda’s work. First, Ferda’s critique of certain “atomistic” approaches to the study of the historical Jesus is spot on. So many reconstructions of the historical Jesus have relied on application of the so-called criterion of (in)authenticity to the saying of Jesus. In this approach, scholars utilize criteria like dissimilarity, multiple attestation, embarrassment, et al., to identify which sayings of Jesus in the Gospels are authentic . However, in practice, these criteria have led to the dismissal of more sayings of Jesus than they have authenticated. Moreover, this approach simply does not appreciate the what the Gospels actually are. They are not verbatim recordings of the teaching of Jesus; the Gospel writers were not attempting to record and convey the ipsissima verba (the very words) of Jesus. Given the literary and historical nature of Gospels, it is much more likely that they convey the ipsissima vox (the very voice) or the substantia verba (the substance of the words) of Jesus. So, the search for “authentic” sayings of the historical Jesus is a fundamentally flawed endeavor to begin with; it is not possible. Ferda’s alternative approach accounts for this by treating the Gospels as theological/interpretive history, and moving backward from how the church understood and interpreted Jesus to what Jesus likely understood and believed. In other words, it attempts to explain how the beliefs and expectations of the historical Jesus fit both within the context of Second Temple Judaism and how they give rise to the beliefs and hopes of the early church.
The second strength in Ferda’s argument has to do with his thorough and nuanced handling of messianic expectations in the Second Temple period. It is widely recognized that expectations for who the Messiah would be and what he would do were quite diverse during the time of Jesus. Of course, the liberation and restoration of Israel was foundational for these hopes, but expectations for how this would be accomplished were far from uniform. However, it seems relatively clear that book of Daniel played a primary role in the formulation of these expectations, and especially so for Jesus and his understanding of himself as the Son of Man. In his analysis of these expectations, Ferda clearly demonstrates the plausibility of Jesus’ belief in his own Second Coming. Moreover, he clarifies how notions of imminence and delay fit together in these scenarios. He writes, “It is also important to note that messianic hopes, varied though they were, frequently envisioned some kind of process of inauguration, whereby the coming of a messianic figure is climactic but does not necessarily change history instantaneously.” (390) The point is that the idea of imminence need not be equated with immediacy, and it need not preclude the idea Jesus expected an interim period between his death/resurrection and his coming in glory and power. Not only is this tension between imminence and interim present in the expectations of Second Temple Judaism, it is highly likely that it was a characteristic component of the eschatological expectations of the historical Jesus.
Overall, I think Ferda has made a strong and persuasive case for the idea that the Second Coming hope goes back to Jesus himself. Of course, this does not mean that I agree with every detail of his argument, and here I will identify two that stand out. First. while he is right to reject approaches that attempt to sift the Gospels for authentic sayings of Jesus, from time to time he still dismisses sayings that he considers clearly inauthentic. For example, he writes, “The threefold passion and resurrection predictions are highly suspect as they conveniently predict what exactly took place in Jerusalem (Mark 8.31, 9.30-32, 10.32-34, and parr.).” (327) In other words, because Jesus predicts the exact events that will unfold as to his death/resurrection, these predictions cannot be authentic sayings of the historical Jesus. This is a dismissive statement that reads more like a bias than an evidence based conclusion. Moreover, he goes on to argue that it is entirely plausible that Jesus had considered the possibility of his own death and that he likely expected to die in Jerusalem. Setting aside the question of Jesus’s understanding of his resurrection, it is not clear why Jesus could expect to die but not predict that he would be killed. Moreover, as noted above, the decision on whether a saying is authentic or inauthentic is at best not helpful and at worst irrelevant.
Secondly, as I noted above, Ferda makes a convincing case that Jesus’s understanding of imminence need not entail that the kingdom would come and that the would return within his own lifetime, especially since it is clear that he expected that he would die (rise again, and ascend). It is a truism to say that the proclamation of Jesus was characterized by the notion of imminence. However, how the notion of imminence should be understood is widely debated. Even though Ferda acknowledges the presence of a delay in Jesus’s expectations, he attempts to salvage the idea of imminence by limiting it to “this generation”, meaning that Jesus expected that he would come back within the lifetimes of his audience or a timespan of approximately 40 years. This is based on statements like the one found in Matthew 16:28, which says, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom,” or Matthew 24.34, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.” These verses, and their parallels, are widely debated. Moreover, if Ferda’s interpretation is correct, then it is not clear how this saves Jesus from error. If he believed that he would come back within 40 years, and he clearly did not, then he was still wrong about his understanding of his coming. This is a fundamental question. Ferda doesn’t acknowledge the implications of his statements in this regard, nor does he attempt to resolve this tension. (See how I have attempted to address this problem, here.)
In the final analysis, we need not be ashamed to confess that “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.” (Nicene Creed). This is our blessed hope, and to deny this in any way is to countenance heresy. It simply will not do to explain it away as a creation of the early church, and it will not do to reinterpret it as a metaphor or symbol. Jesus is coming again, visibly, bodily, in glory and power, to establish his kingdom on earth, to vindicate his people, and to defeat sin once and for all. Tucker S. Ferda has effectively demonstrated the plausibility that the church’s belief goes back to Jesus himself. Of course, he has not answered every question, and there is still more work to be done in terms of understanding the eschatology of the historical Jesus and how it is presented in Gospels particularly but also in the rest of the New Testament. But even if every question cannot be answered or every detail explained, followers of Jesus can boldly proclaim, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”
8 The high priest Hilkiah told the court secretary Shaphan, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it. 9 Then the court secretary Shaphan went to the king and reported, “Your servants have emptied out the silver that was found in the temple and have given it to those doing the work—those who oversee the Lord’s temple.” 10 Then the court secretary Shaphan told the king, “The priest Hilkiah has given me a book,” and Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.
11 When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. 12 Then he commanded the priest Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, the court secretary Shaphan, and the king’s servant Asaiah, 13 “Go and inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah about the words in this book that has been found. For great is the Lord’s wrath that is kindled against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this book in order to do everything written about us.”
14 So the priest Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the prophetess Huldah, wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second District. They spoke with her. 15 She said to them, “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: Say to the man who sent you to me, 16 ‘This is what the Lord says: I am about to bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, fulfilling all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read, 17 because they have abandoned me and burned incense to other gods in order to anger me with all the work of their hands. My wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.’
18 Say this to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord: ‘This is what the Lord God of Israel says: As for the words that you heard, 19 because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I myself have heard’—this is the Lord’s declaration. 20 ‘Therefore, I will indeed gather you to your ancestors, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster that I am bringing on this place.’” Then they reported to the king.
~2 Kings 22.8-20
Title: On Fuel for the Fires of Revival Text: 2 Kings 22-23 Series: Revival Us Again! Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR Date: December 28, 2025
Christmas really is one of my most favorite times of the year. I love the decorations, the gifts, the parties, and the church Christmas programs, but most of all I love the music. The traditional Christmas carols, the sacred Christmas hymns, they just give me all the feels when it comes to Christmas; in the car, at home, at church, you will almost always find me listening to Christmas music during the month of December. And one of my most favorite Christmas songs is the song “Mary, Did You Know?”, and my most favorite arrangement of the song is performed by Mark Lowry with the acapella group Voctave singing backup (posted above). Mark Lowry wrote the lyrics in 1985 when he was asked to write a script for a church Christmas play, and the lyrics were put to music in 1991 by Buddy Greene. Of course, it has been recorded by many varied recording artists over the years, both secular and sacred, and it is sung and played regularly during Christmas programs in churches all across the United States and, no doubt, around the world.
However, every year it seems, I read some renewed or repeated criticism of the song on social media. Some attempt to dismiss the song theologically, citing the Annunciation and the Magnificat as evidence that “she knew”. I have even seen some who have attempted to go line by line through the song to give a yes or no answer to each rhetorical question. Similarly, those in the Roman Catholic tradition take issue with the suggestion that Mary needed to be “delivered” and “made new” because of their (erroneous) beliefs about the sinlessness of Mary. Others argue that the song is mawkish, sappy, and infantilizing, that it is “the most sexist Christmas song ever written,” or that it “treats her like a clueless child.” Still others dismiss the song simply because it is overplayed and/or poorly performed by well-meaning church members during the Christmas season as “special” music. And to be honest, when I read criticisms like these, I just shake my head and wonder how we have lost our wonder at the miracle of the incarnation.
Biblically, it is true that Luke presents Mary as a paragon of faith. When she is confronted by the angel Gabriel with the news that she will conceive by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Son of God, she responds with simple faith, “See, I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me as you have said.” (Luke 1.38) And her Magnificat (Luke 1.46-55) clearly indicates that she understood that this was a pivotal moment in the unfolding of God’s plan of redemption for the world. However, we also know that at one point during his earthly ministry, she came with her other children to try to hide Jesus away because they thought he was an embarrassment to the family. (Mark 3:31-35, parallels Matthew 12.46-50, Luke 8.19-21) Time and again, the Gospels detail how the first followers of Jesus struggled to fully understanding the significance of who he was and what he had come to do, and we should assume that Mary would have been no different. We know that Mary treasured and pondered all these things in her heart, but the Bible is clear that the first followers of Jesus, including Mary and his brothers, grew in their understanding of the person and work of Jesus over the course of his life and ministry and that they did not understand him in full until after his resurrection and the coming of the Spirit.
The point is that we should not underestimate the richness of what it means for God to become flesh. When Jesus was born in the Bethlehem 2000 years ago, there was already plenty of theological and cultural expectations as to what he was supposed to be and do. But Jesus turned those expectations on their heads, and he demonstrated that he is a Messiah who cannot be fit into a preconceived box. And as his followers, we should never lose our wonder at this fact. Jesus will always be more than we could possibly hope to comprehend; we will never have him fully figured out. Even when we reach glory, we are told that “He had a name written that no one knows except himself.” (Revelation 19.12) This means that even then there will be more to learn and understand about him when he returns as glorious king. We must never lose our wonder at the person and work of Jesus. Even the things we think we know about him pale in comparison to the fullness of his glory.
And so, when we hear the song “Mary, Did You Know?” this Christmas season, we shouldn’t try to dissect it theologically. We shouldn’t dismiss it because of its musical style, its tone and perspective, or even its emotionality. We should allow it to spur our reflections, to feed our wonder, to drive us to worship the God who became flesh for our sakes, who suffered and died in our place, and who is coming again to receive us unto himself. The song is an artistic, poetic reflection on the miracle of Christmas and the sheer mystery of the incarnation. Mary was in a unique position to feel the weight and wonder of it all, and at Christmas, it is right for us to enter into her experience, to ponder anew what it must have been like, and to fall down in worship of the God who became flesh. This Christmas, let us rekindle our wonder. Let us stand in awe and silence, and let us rejoice in the fact that we have a savior who came to heal our brokenness, to free us from sin, and to restore in us the joy of living in his presence. He is Emmanuel; He is God with us!
21 For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. 23 I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. 25 Since I am persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that, because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.
~Philippians 1.21-26
Title: On Death as Gain when Life is Christ Text: Philippians 1.21-26 Occasion: Celebration of Life for Mr. Bobby Garrison Church: Redeemer Baptist Church, Jonesboro, AR Date: November 15, 2025
Several months ago, Matthew Barrett, then a professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, announced that he was leaving the SBC to become Anglican. Shortly thereafter, he took a position as Research Professor of Theology at Trinity Anglican Seminary, and he and his family joined St. Aidan’s Anglican Church in Kansas City. He detailed his reasons for making this change in an article on his blog/newsletter, Anselm House. Basically, he suggests that the SBC “officially rejected” Nicene orthodoxy, that the SBC values image over external (read episcopal) authority, and that the “baptist” hermeneutic is ultimately individualistic in its rejection of infant baptism. Though I find these criticisms to be greatly flawed and wholly inaccurate as representations of Baptist theology and ecclesiology, it is not my purpose to respond to them here. This has already been done by several others who are more capable than me. (For example, see Denny Burke’s response here.)
Rather, I would like to respond to another component of Barrett’s argument for Anglicanism, that being the beauty and and antiquity of its liturgy. After giving a rather glowing description of the elements and order of an Anglican worship service, including pictures, he goes on to write, “What a comfort to tell our kids, “The way we are worshipping is how Christians have worshipped across history. It’s really, really old. You are participating in the church universal.”” Now, let me just say that I have no small appreciation for high church liturgy. I have previously written on the use and value of the lectionary, the Christian calendar, and church tradition. I think there is much that modern churches, with their consumeristic performance based, emotion driven worship services, could learn from these practices. However, to say that “Anglicanism is the most beautiful representation of classical Christianity” is surely to place preferences of form over matters of substance.
The fact of the matter is that the early church’s worship was simple; it revolved around Word and Table, fellowship and prayer. As we read in Acts 2.42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.” Beyond this, we simply do not know what worship services in the early church consisted of. We have scattered liturgical details and other descriptions throughout the New Testament, but we do not have an official liturgy for the early church. Did they sing psalms? Probably. Did they read the Scriptures? Definitely. Did they pray together? Likely. Did they observe the ordinances of baptism an the Lord’s Supper? Clearly. Did they recite early kinds of creedal statements? Possibly. Of course, as the church grew, more formal liturgies were understandably developed, especially in the second and third centuries, and by the fourth century, there seems to have been a common or shared understanding of what the worship of the church should include and how it should progress. But, contrary to Dr. Barrett’s claim above, there is simply no proof that the Anglican liturgy is “how Christians have worshipped across history.” No doubt there are many similarities, but there is likely just as many differences that vary across place and time.
However, the more basic point that needs to be underscored here, I believe, is that the church’s worship, no matter what form or style it is expressed in, is beautiful. When God’s people gather together to sing His praise, to hear from His Word, to intercede in prayer for one another, to commemorate the Gospel is baptism and eucharist, there is simply nothing that is more beautiful, nothing more majestic, nothing more glorious. The voices of the saints singing and praying and confessing and expositing the great works of God in Christ as one gathered and united body in the Spirit is the most beautiful thing in this world. Of course, as I noted above, this beauty has sadly been lost in many churches today; we have turned the church’s worship into a show. We have exchanged beauty for spectacle, truth for emotion, participation for entertainment, and this is especially so in churches that do not come stand in the line of high church traditions. But, the point is that it is narrow minded and arrogant to suggest that one particular form or tradition of worship is the most beautiful, the most ancient, the most formation to the exclusion of all others.
In the Book of Revelation, John writes, “After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7.9). This vision of the diversified and redeemed people of God standing before the heavenly throne praising God should help us to understand the beauty of the church’s worship. We do not all sing with one voice, we do not all worship in the same way. Every tradition, every culture, every community has its own way of worshiping God, and this is beautiful. The glory of God in Christ cannot be wholly encapsulated in just one worship tradition, but wherever there are genuine believers who are gathered together to worship God in Spirit an truth, this is beautiful. Every church has its own liturgy, whether it be formal or informal, but when we prioritize the form of our worship over the object of our worship, then we have missed the mark. Christ is the focus of our worship, there is no way that we could ever find enough ways to magnify and exult in His glory.
Faith seeking Understanding 