March 15, 2009, 7:02 pm by dc-agape.

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This post is critical to my following posts on the subject of the Word of God.  I will attempt to make as short and sweet as possible, but remember that this is a very serious topic that all Christians should pay attention to.  I will use a verse from the Apostle Paul to make the point that there is a very special way that Christians should conduct themselves.  This verse is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  This verse is explained in more detail by either Barnabas or Apollos in the Book of Hebrews.  Two more verses will be used: John 13:35 and Romans 6:12.  These two verses will finish the topic of Christian conduct.

In the Letter to the Philippians, Paul is writing to these Christians for five reasons: to thank them for their support, to encourage them to persevere, to remind them to be humble and unified, to let them know that timothy and Epaphroditus are coming, and finally to warn about dissention groups in their city.  In the following verse Paul blends numbers two and three together.

Phil 1:27-28 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.  Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.  This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved – and that by God.

The most important thing to note in this section is that Paul tells the members of this Church to act in a way that is worthy of the Gospel!  So what is “worthy of the gospel of Christ”? 

In the Book of Hebrews:

Heb 13:7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you.  Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Here the authors are telling the newly converted to imitate the people who taught them.  But it is not just any teachers…it is the teachers/leaders whose way of life had a specific outcome.  In other word, don’t follow just anyone, inspect their way of life.  If it has good results, imitate that.  Unfortunately, most “christians” just imitate the closest available authority figure, without considering the outcome.  The best leaders to imitate are those from the first century!  Every other leader is just imitating an imitation.  We all know that a copy of a copy is never as good as the original.  So Christians must imitate the leaders of the First Century Church, not the imitation from 2009!

What else is conduct “worthy of the gospel of Christ”?  What about using what Jesus himself had to say about Christian conduct?  Check this out:

John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

How’s that for conduct “worthy of the gospel of Christ”?  Pure and simple love that is the proper conduct.  How many Churches show this type of conduct?  No instead, as soon as a disagreement occurs the church is split, it continues to splinter until disunity separates the two groups.  In the end you have 38,000 denominations, with a forecast of 55,000 by 2025 (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary).  That forecast is not an example of conduct “worthy of the gospel of Christ”!  Many of those denominations are certain that the other denominations are going to hell.  And that is the crux of the Atheist point of view.  We do not see TrueChristians™ following this commandment from Jesus to love one another!  As a result, we do not know that these people who claim to imitate Jesus are really disciples of Jesus.  In fact, we see no evidence that these people are Christian.

The final verse that I will use to describe “conduct worthy of the gospel of Christ” is this one:

Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

Very simple, Paul is writing to the Church in Rome.  But this one verse describes exactly what “conduct worthy of the gospel of Christ” means.  Christians must give up “sinful” acts.  They cannot be ruled by the “evil desire”.  Have you met a “Christian” who follows this verse? 

Yeah, that’s what I thought.  “But I try so hard”, “That is what every Christian attempts to do”, and “That is the goal” are the lame excuses that the “christian” will use.  The verses I just used are not talking about “goals” or “intentions”!  They are specifically telling Christians exactly how to conduct themselves.  And today’s “christian” does anything but conduct themselves in a way that is “worthy of the gospel of Christ”.

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March 15, 2009, 12:24 pm by dc-agape.

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Codex 1, Tractate 2, 1:1-2:22

This will be similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls how I label the top of the post.  But there is now one more label required.  The Codex is the Book cover that a particular Tractate was found in.  The total number of Codices is 13 with 47 tractates spread amongst those Codices.  Each Tractate is usually a full Book, except cases like the Prayer of the Apostle Paul.  Instead of having verses, these Books are divided by the column number and the row number of that column.  Hence, what I have write above means that this is the second Book in the First Codex.  And I am reading the 1^st through 2^nd columns ending on the 22^th row of that column.  Before that scares anyone off that covers 2 typeset pages in a rather large 12 point font from The Hag Hammadi Library edited by James M Robinson.  Remember the link to read the same material is from the Gnostic Library.

The Apocryphon of James starts as many letters of the NT did, with a greeting to the person(s) it was addressed to.  These types of greeting include things like hoping for peace, grace, love, and Life.  Paul does a very similar thing in his letters.  Here is an example:

1^st Cor 1:3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

But this Tractate was “written” by James, the very same half-brother to Jesus.   Unfortunately, that cannot be ascertained to a high degree of certainty.  First, we have only one other surviving document that claims to be written by the same person: The Book of James.  Comparing the styles of the two Books is like comparing apples and oranges.  The Book of James was written directly to the masses of Jewish Christians.  This “Apocryphon” was written directly to one individual.  That part of the Codex that identifies that person is so damaged that it is only conjecture that it might have been a man named Cerinthus (Answers.com).  Oddly, one of the most well known things about the teachings of Cerinthus is also present in the Book of Revelation.  Cerinthus believed that a 1000 year reign of Jesus would come before the Judgment.  Here is the same concept in the NT:

Rev 20:3 He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.  After that, he must be set free for a short time.

The verse from the Book of Revelation is taken right after Jesus returns (Rev 19:11-21) and right before the Judgment begins (Rev 20:11-15).  It is also believed that this Tractate was written before 150 CE.  Meaning that the author and the recipient could have been exactly who they claim to be, but highly unlikely.  The brother of Jesus was assumed to be killed in 62CE (Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte).  But as many Books the NT were not “written down” until many years had passed since the actual events, this is not a complete declaration of falsehood. 

This Tractate is a special “secret” document meant only for the person it was addressed to.  So it becomes obvious that when the letter was written fractures had already begun to form in the Church.  In fact, James writes that Jesus did not mean for this discourse to be spread to all twelve Apostles.  But the salvation of many people depended on the contents of this letter.

James continues to describe how he had already written one letter to the same person.  That one was revealed only to James directly from Jesus.  The new one that makes up the Tractate 2 was actually shared by Jesus with both James and Peter.  We reach the same problem that I have shared before.  Without any Books of the NT written by Peter, except 1^st Peter and maybe 2^nd Peter, we do not have any reference to whether Peter agrees with this narration or not!  My past observation was that even though Peter was “the rock” that Jesus was going to build his Church on we have no writings from Peter! Instead we must rely on the letters of Paul…who never met Jesus.  When I, a gay Atheist, start to put these pieces together, I begin to wonder if Christianity lost Jesus from the time that Paul began to preach!  It is quite obvious that the Gnostics were active within the 1^st century, yet by the Third Council of Carthage (497CE) the canonization of the NT only included four Gospels about Jesus and the rest were almost entirely written by Paul.  Had a fait accompli occurred?

James finishes the introduction by describing the situation at the time of Jesus appearance to him.  This includes a description of how the twelve apostles were together recording what they had experienced with Jesus.  James continues by saying that it was exactly 150 days since Jesus was resurrected.  This of course is directly in confrontation with the Book of Acts:

Acts 1:3 After his suffering, he gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

So did Jesus stick around for only 40 days or was he still hanging around for more than five months?  Jesus did appear to Paul 6 months after his resurrection…..

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