{"id":4815,"date":"2025-08-14T08:28:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4815"},"modified":"2025-08-14T08:28:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:28:55","slug":"apo-from-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/14\/apo-from-god\/","title":{"rendered":"APO: “From” God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0<\/em>

In 1993, a consortium of progressive Bible scholars and lay persons known as the Jesus Seminar published The Five Gospels<\/em>, their first report summarizing the results of their search for \u201cthe real Jesus.\u201d

It\u2019s an understatement to say the title came as a surprise to most orthodox Christian believers.

The church has long recognized Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the four authoritative biographies of Jesus. What then, are we to make of the Gospel of Thomas, a recently discovered document that was enthusiastically championed by the Seminar?

The following year Robert J. Miller added new fuel to the fire with The Complete Gospels<\/em>, a collection of 20 ancient biographies of Jesus (implying they should all should be regarded with equal seriousness), including the Gospels of Mary, Judas, and Peter.

During a 2006 MSNBC debate about Dan Brown\u2019s controversial novel The Da Vinci Code<\/em>, British journalist Andrew Sullivan declared, \u201cThere\u2019s a very important historical point here, which is that in the last 30 years we have discovered real Gospels \u2013 hundreds of them \u2013 that are not the official Gospels, that were part of the discussions in the early Church.\u201d

The number of \u201creal Gospels\u201d keeps accelerating, as does the rhetoric.

Suffice it to say we are living in an era in which scholars, novelists, and others hoping to capitalize on these new discoveries are rushing to get their thoughts into print and into the public imagination.

Where does that leave rank-and-file Christians? If following Jesus is fundamentally dependent on being able to discern the actual words and actions of Jesus, how can we know which Gospels to trust?

One of the presuppositions of progressive scholarship is that Jesus\u2019 identity was up for grabs during the first few centuries of the church. Multiple \u201cChristianities\u201d competed for attention. That diversity came to a screeching halt in A.D. 325 at the Council of Nicaea, where orthodox views prevailed and other perspectives were officially ruled out.

According to these claims, what became known as orthodoxy won the day through force. That means the Bible you hold in your hands is the result of a power play. In his global bestseller, Dan Brown asserts that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John made the cut not because they were \u201ctrue,\u201d but because they embodied the political and social biases of the victorious bishops.

Those are serious charges.

Orthodox scholars and historians haven\u2019t exactly been sitting on their hands the past few decades. Their books may not be available in the paperback rack at your local airport, but they are united in their evaluation of the \u201cmany Gospels of equal value\u201d hypothesis: It\u2019s nonsense<\/em>.

For instance, the Gospel of Thomas, which was discovered in a trove of Egyptian documents in 1945, deserves rigorous study. But there are compelling reasons to reject it as the fifth Gospel.

Thomas is a bit like the book of Proverbs \u2013 a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. There is no accompanying narrative of Jesus\u2019 travels, miracles, or relationships. Nor is there anything concerning his Passion \u2013 his trial, suffering, and crucifixion during his final week \u2013 stories which account for at least 30% of the material in the four traditional Gospels.

According to Thomas, Jesus was either a mystic or a Gnostic (someone for whom salvation is a chiefly a matter of knowledge).

In saying number 14 he declares, \u201cIf you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.\u201d That doesn\u2019t sound much like the Jesus we know.

Later he says, \u201cSplit wood, I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there.\u201d That\u2019s more like pantheism (God-is-everything-and-everywhere) than a Jewish perspective of creation.

Notoriously, the Gospel of Thomas ends with Peter saying, \u201cMiryam [Mary Magdalene] should leave us. Females are not worthy of life.\u201d Jesus replies, \u201cLook, I shall guide her to make her male, so she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.\u201d

That may provide interesting fodder for 21st<\/sup> century debates about gender fluidity, but it is utterly out of step with the way Jesus relates to women in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. \u00a0

Manuscript evidence suggests that Thomas was written between A.D. 175 and 200, long after the last eyewitnesses of Jesus\u2019 ministry had left the scene. In the words of Bruce Metzger, widely regarded as the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s chief expert on biblical documents, \u201cThe right way to put it is, the gospel of Thomas excluded itself.\u201d It doesn\u2019t hold a candle to its four rivals.

If we revisit Andrew Sullivan\u2019s remarks, we can affirm that while there were probably not \u201chundreds of real Gospels,\u201d the church of the first few centuries certainly knew there were plenty of documents in circulation that claimed to know something about Jesus.

But none of them \u2013 not one \u2013 came remotely close to winning a place alongside the four canonical Gospels.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John \u2013 alone \u2013 were written within the lifetimes of the original apostles; reflected eyewitness testimony; aligned with the orthodox teaching of the church\u2019s first teachers and missionaries; and were widely read in pulpits around the Mediterranean world.

The Acts of Peter and the Gospel of Judas may indeed have been part of the conversation of the early church. But from everything we know, that conversation didn\u2019t last very long.

That brings us at last to our verse and its relevant prepositions. We read in 2 Peter 1:21, \u201cFor prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from<\/u><\/strong><\/em> (APO<\/strong>) God\u00a0as they were carried along by<\/u><\/strong><\/em> (HYPO<\/strong>) the Holy Spirit.\u201d

This is one of the Bible\u2019s most important statements concerning its own authority.

The word \u201cauthority\u201d assumes the reality of an \u201cauthor.\u201d The Word of God is authoritative because it is from<\/u><\/strong><\/em> God. Theologians assert that while the books of the Old and New Testaments came from the pens of human authors, they did not originate in human minds or imaginations. \u00a0\u00a0

Does that mean the Bible was dictated by<\/u><\/strong><\/em> the Holy Spirit, and the human authors were little more than flesh-and-blood tape recorders?

While we may occasionally hear that perspective from an enthusiastic preacher, theologians throughout history have almost universally rejected it. Instead, they carefully distinguish between the source <\/em>of God\u2019s Word and the means<\/em> by which it is conveyed.

John, for instance, wrote his Gospel and his three epistles in a style that is quite different from Paul\u2019s. Luke\u2019s narrative style in his Gospel and Acts would never be confused with the way James composed his short letter.

As is often the case, we arrive at a point of mystery. The Spirit \u201ccarried along\u201d the human authors (as we read above in 2 Peter 1:21) in such a way as not to violate their personalities or run roughshod over their writing styles. Yet somehow their words were not just their own, but the very words of God. \u00a0

Over the centuries, men and women yearning to hear God\u2019s voice have discovered it in the four canonical Gospels.

Which should lead us to affirm, as we read in so many advertisements, \u201cAccept no substitutes.\u201d
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0 In 1993, a consortium of progressive Bible scholars and lay persons known… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[980,979,473],"class_list":["post-4815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gospels","tag-jesus-seminar","tag-prepositions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4817,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions\/4817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}