Dinosaurs on the Ark

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 2, 2013

Dinosaurs on the Ark

Galatians 1:6-10

It sounds positively scandalous:

“The companion of the Savior was Mary Magdalene.

Christ loved her more than all the disciples

and used to kiss her often on her mouth.”

Mary Magdalene,

the one who for centuries was considered to be

a woman of ill repute, a prostitute,

and now this, words from an ancient text,

a text written 1800 years ago,

a text labeled a gospel!

Not the gospel of Matthew, Mark,

Luke or John, of course.

But still, right there on the top of the first page

is that powerful word,

a word that carries so much weight: “gospel.”

The word that means “the good news of Jesus Christ”.

No, this is not a newly discovered text,

a text like those that were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls

found in a cave in 1947,

scrolls that had been stored away in large jars,

and forgotten for almost 2000 years.

No, we’ve known about this gospel ever since it was written.

It’s called the Gospel of Philip.

Whoever wrote it gave it the name of one of the original apostles,

a practice common in the early years of Christianity

as a way to give a writing more credibility.

Many put great stock in it when it first appeared

some two hundred years after

the crucifixion and resurrection

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The basic premise is the ground on which the novel

“The Da Vinci Code” was built.

Is it credible?

Is it believable?

Is it something for us to take seriously?

The answer is as simple as it is definite:

No.

The book may call itself a “gospel”

and it may purport to tell us about the life of our Lord,

but it is a blend of fanciful thinking and bad theology.

Church leaders were quick to reject it

as not a work inspired by God,

not canonical,

not a book to include in the New Testament.

Still, even today, were the apostle Paul alive,

he would be astonished to learn

that there are those who take the idea seriously

that Jesus might have been married to Mary Magdalene,

that he even had a child with her.

Paul would be astonished that many followers of Christ

still turn to “different gospels,”

readily believing things

that are not to be found in Scripture.

At last count, there were more than 30 books

written in the early years of Christianity

labeled gospels –

30 in addition to the four we have in our Bible.

“The Gospel of Philip” is but one of dozens. 

They make for interesting reading –

our Bible Study groups have read from a number of them

over the years.

We’ve read from them to understand

why they were not considered to be canonical.

We’ve read from them to distinguish

what we learn from the Bible from myth and legend.

We’ve read them to help us learn how to discern,

so that we don’t go down the path the Galatians took,

the path that led them astray,

the path of ignorance.

How do we discern what we are called to believe,

what we should believe,

especially when there is so much disagreement even within

the Christian community?

There are Christians who are adamant, for example,

in their belief that the Book of Genesis

provides us with the literal truth

of exactly how the world was created –

that it was created in six 24-hour days,

that the earth itself is only about 6,000 years old,

that scientists who say the earth was formed

about 4 billion years ago are not just wrong,

but godless heathens.

These folks will be only too happy to tell you

why they believe firmly, adamantly, resolutely

that there were dinosaurs on the Ark,

two of every kind,

that they were easy to fit on board

because most dinosaurs were no bigger than sheep,

and that for the biggest creatures

Noah made sure that he took only adolescents,

those not yet fully grown.

(http://www.answersingenesis.org/)

To us this is astonishing.

But to some this is truth,

fact,

indisputable.

“The Bible tells me so.”

In our lesson, Paul comes down hard on the people of Galatia,  

upset that they would listen to voices other than his,

voices claiming to know the gospel,

a different gospel.

He comes down hard on them

because they should have known better;

they’d heard the gospel directly from him.

Why in the world, Paul asked,

would they listen to anyone else?

We still struggle as the Galatians did –

to whom should we listen?

This voice over here? That voice over there?

This scholar? That writer?

This video? That book?

There is no shortage of men and women

claiming to possess the Gospel Truth.

The answer is that we have to discern,

to figure it out,

do the hard work of listening, thinking, praying.

It is too easy to listen to a voice that sounds compelling,

telling us things we’re eager to hear.

Jesus doesn’t always tell us things that make us happy;

his words to us are often challenging,

unnerving.

The first letter of John provides us with wise words to guide us:

“My dear friends, don’t believe everything you hear.

Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you.

Not everyone who talks about God comes from God.

There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.”

1 John 4:1

(from The Message)

As you are listening,

reading, watching,

ask yourself: are these words, is this teaching

grounded in grace?

Grounded in compassion?

In mercy?

In kindness?

Forgiveness?

Love?

If so, then you are probably hearing

the authentic Gospel

But, if you are hearing words that speak of

differences,

preferences,

judgment,

anger,

self-righteousness,

vengeance,

even contempt, even hatred,

then you are probably hearing a false gospel.

It was the Harvard scholar William James,

brother of the novelist Henry James,

who warned,

“There’s nothing so absurd

that if you repeat it often enough,

people will believe it.”

In its more pithy, contemporary form this adage is,

“a lie told often enough becomes the truth”.

So: Mary Magdalene was a prostitute;

Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene;

The Book of Revelation contains a secret code

that reveals exactly when Jesus will come again.

Our most recent Confessional Statement,

the Brief Statement of Faith,

written 30 years ago,

reminds us that we are no different

from the people of Galatia,

that we are, as the Confession teaches us,

all too quick to “accept lies as truth”

(10.3)

We hear voices everyday that claim Gospel truth,

that sound compelling, appealing, believable,

even as they speak words that would astonish Paul,

that would earn a rebuke from Paul

as severe the one he gave the people from Galatia.

Our lesson teaches us that we have the hard to do

of listening,

of discerning,

of learning,

of remembering that Paul is not astonished

that there are those willing to bend the words of the gospel

to suit their own purposes.

What Paul finds astonishing is that

there are so many who find such words

so easy to believe.

As you read, listen, learn

ask yourself do the words you see, hear,

sound like they would have been spoken by Jesus,

words, teachings that would have come from the One

who was the manifestation and personification

of God’s grace, mercy and love?

The One who was not married to Mary Magdalene.

AMEN