God’s Kingdom And The Gospel Of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas is a Gnostic Gospel which is fancy terminology in the Evangelical world for “don’t read it.”  

Why?  

Because “Gnostic” is about secret knowledge that people must have or adhere to in order to be welcomed into or part of the “in group”.

Oh.

You mean, like most Evangelical theology? 

Which typically teaches Sunday in and Sunday out that in order to be welcomed into heaven or into God’s family or whatever one must believe and adhere to certain doctrines or theologies or whatever about Jesus?

“Our theology is the best theology.”

“Our way is the only way.”

“Our way is the right way.”

“We have the secret knowledge, the secret sauce.”

That sounds pretty “Gnostic” to me, and very unlike the early centuries of Christianity that somehow made it through the world without creeds, without doctrines, and without this kind of Evangelicalism.

Sigh.

Anyways, I’m reading the Gospel of Thomas (just because I can - I’m my own person, for crying out loud!), which is a “Gnostic Gospel” and this morning I came across something super interesting.  

Whoever wrote Thomas (and it wasn’t Thomas, by the way) has Jesus responding to a question from the disciples where they ask him to tell them about the Kingdom of heaven and Jesus says that you will be in the Kingdom when ...

“The inner is like the outer and the outer is like the inner, when male and female are single so that male is not male and female is not female.”

Eh?

Read it again, you will be in the Kingdom of God:

(1) When the inner is like the outer and the outer is like the inner (or, in other words, when who you are INSIDE lines up with what you portray OUTSIDE, when your life is marked by integrity, when there is congruency between what people see and what people don’t see).

AND.

(2) When male and female are single so that male is not male and female is not female (or, in other words, when we stop drawing lines and creating dichotomies that often end up separating people, creating in groups, out groups, powerful groups, weak groups, etc. - Jew/Gentile, Male/Female, Christian/Secular, Republican/Democrat ... ).

Yeah.

And so do we want to live as Kingdom minded people this year? 

Then let’s make sure that in 2020 who we are on the outside matches who we are on the inside and let’s remember that in God’s Kingdom there aren’t in groups and out groups and there aren’t walls and dichotomies, people aren’t segregated or cut off or cast out or pushed away with a gun of eternal fire to their head demanding that they believe a certain way or be cast out forever.  

Let’s live as wildly inclusive people of integrity.

And yeah, this is all coming out of the Gnostic and Evil Gospel of Thomas, I realize, but it sounds to me a heck of a lot like the voice of Christ and so I’ll follow it.

Want to join me?

Much love,