Last week we talked about some of the other early books that were written and somebody asked me about the Gospel of Thomas.

Have you ever read the Book of Thomas? Read it and you’ll know why it wasn’t included in the canonized New Testament. When you talk about the Book of Thomas or the Book of Barnabas or any of these other books, they don’t meet the criteria of the canon. I’ll make it real quick but when you get to the end of the Book of Thomas, it says that all women must become men to get into heaven. If you accept that, then you can accept the Book of Thomas. It’s a weird book but you can read it. They think it was written around AD 150 (Thomas wouldn’t have been living at the time). If somebody wanted to write a book back then and gain popularity, they usually named it after one of the apostles. They did that a lot. You’ll see a lot of books that could not have been written by Thomas, Peter, John, etc., because they were written later. But they used the apostles’ names to get attention.

I noticed the New York Times Best Seller Lists this week. The #1 fiction book is Armageddon, which shouldn’t surprise you; it’s part of the "Left Behind" series. The #1 nonfiction book is Beyond Belief: The Secret of the Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. If you’ve ever heard of her or read some of her other books, she spends a lot of time on what is called "Gnostics," meaning "knowledge." The Gnostic movement started between the 2^nd and 4^th centuries AD. Basically, the Gnostic movement said that if you were one of those super-knowing people, you are more spiritual than anybody else. You know things.

You may have heard of the "Jesus Seminar." They are a group in California. They’ve written a new book (bible, really) that contains "The Five Gospels." It includes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Gospel of Thomas. The Jesus Seminar is made up of a group of scholars. They say they’ve scoured all the material we talked about last week and decided to make some changes. They’ve said, "You know, we want to clean up the gospels. We don’t believe Jesus really said and did all those things. We think people added them along the way. But we do believe the Gospel of Thomas." It’s interesting: they’ll accept the Gospel of Thomas but not the four Gospels. They have deleted a lot of the things we will read and study. They say, "Well, we just can’t be sure that was said by Jesus. If we’re not sure, we’re going to cross it out."

Take the Lord’s Prayer, for example. The only thing from the Lord’s Prayer they accept as being words from Jesus’ mouth are, "Our Father." That’s it. They crossed out the rest of it. They said, "The rest was fabricated."

You can find critiques about it all over the Internet. It’s very interesting. This is why I’ll push very hard on your individual understanding of the New Testament, on basic doctrine and beliefs. We’ll get to one this morning about the virgin birth. Do you have to accept the virgin birth as a Christian?

I bring up the Jesus Seminar because Elaine Pagels’ #1 fiction bestseller Beyond Belief really brings out the conflict between the Gospels of John and Thomas. She says Thomas was showing a lesson of spiritual enlightenment whereas John limited it to Jesus being "The Light" alone. The Gospel of Thomas says that the "light" is in all of us. It wasn’t in just Jesus but in all of us. John kept saying, "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life." She argues that Thomas is the one we should really be reading, "He has a glorious diversity of religious tradition."

Another critique says that it’s basically her pursuit to ignore all of Paul’s letters because Paul says that Jesus was the Son of God. Thomas treats him like just another teacher. But that’s her book and that’s what the Gospel of Thomas is all about.

I’ve recommended The Case for Christ before. There’s also The Case for Faith. These books are by Lee Strobel.

Lee Strobel interviews author Bruce Metzger, PhD. He’s a very reliable scholar. Dr. Metzger talks about the Gospel of Thomas as being found in Egypt in 1945. They didn’t know it existed until recently. "If it has the secret words which the living Jesus spoke and that Thomas wrote down, why was it excluded from the Church?" This was written by a guy (Lee Strobel) who was an atheist who set out to prove the Bible was inaccurate. He was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. After searching for proof, he ended up accepting Christ. So he wrote this book (The Case for Christ) as if he were searching for all the answers to the questions skeptics and critics ask—"why do you believe this, how can you believe that, or how could Jesus have risen from the grave?" He pushes the scholars with good questions. You have all asked some of these questions. It’s a good book.

Dr. Metzger was asked, "Why was the Gospel of Thomas excluded from the Church?" Metzger says, "The Gospel of Thomas came to light in the 5^th century in Coptic which I’ve translated into English. It contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus but no narrative of what He did. It seems to have been written in Greek and Syria around AD 140." It wasn’t the Thomas we know from the Bible.

He goes on to talk about some of the things from the book. "Some of the content is accurate and from the other Gospels. ‘A city built on a hill cannot be hidden’ is from the Gospels. A quote from the Book of Thomas by Jesus says, ‘Split wood and I am there. Lift up a stone and you will find me there.’" That’s called "pantheism," if you’ve ever heard of pantheism, where God is part of nature. "The tree is part of God," and so forth.

The Gospel of Thomas ends with a note saying, "Let Mary go away from us because women are not worthy of life." Whoa! It’s in there. Jesus is quoted as saying, "Lo, I shall leave her in order to make her a male so that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Read about it. Elaine Pagels had a personal incident in her life that you need to read about. It will prompt you to ask, "Is this why she’s looking and searching for things that will help satisfy her personal problem?"

Let me say something in general about the Jesus Seminar, Elaine Pagels, and others (including yourself): If you’ve already made up your mind about something before you’ve read it, what are you going to read? You’re going to read what you want to. When you find something that supports your opinion, guess what you’re going to say? "This is a great book! You need to read this. This is really good." Because it supports your view. If you get to something that you disagree with, guess what you’re going to say? "This is not worth reading. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on."

So how do you approach the Bible? Be open-minded. Let God, through the Holy Spirit, talk to you—you, individually. Don’t listen to what I say and say, "Well, this is what Carlton says…" No. You go read the Word of God and you see what the Word of God tells you. We’re going to get into it this morning: genealogies, the virgin birth, etc. I’m going to read some things in the Bible and some of you will say, "That word’s not in here, Carlton. You say it’s here but I don’t see it." Wrong. Don’t look at what I say. Here’s the key: it’s what the Holy Spirit says. The Holy Spirit is going to tell you. I’m trying to challenge you, make you think, and make you look at things from different perspectives. But I want the Holy Spirit to teach you because the Holy Spirit will teach you things that I’ll never be able to teach you.

It’s the same with the Jesus Seminar and with Elaine Pagels. They have an objective: anybody who accepts the Gospel of Thomas is for us and anybody who rejects it is a right-wing, conservative, orthodox person. They’ve already branded you. What do I say? I’ll read anything the Jesus Seminar sends out. I’ll read anything Elaine Pagels writes. But as soon as I find out they’re more strict in their narrow thinking than I am, as a Christian, then I will say that they’re not worth it. They’re not willing to open their minds, talk about things, or discuss things. They’ve already made up their minds.

This is where scientists get hung up. It has torn up mankind to try to rationalize faith and reason. What does reason say? "Give me an algorithm, state the facts and rules, and I’ll follow my scientific methods." That’s reason. What does faith say? "I’ll believe it even though I can’t prove it or figure it out." How does God reconcile these things? God says that you must have faith to believe Him but He also says in His Word, "Come and let us reason together."

Matthew is the most-quoted and systematic. It highlights the teachings of Jesus. It is written for the Jews. We know that because there are about 150 direct or indirect references to the Old Testament.

Picture yourself as a Jew, living in the 1^st or 2^nd century AD with your Old Testament. You don’t have the New Testament yet, per se. You have letters floating around all the churches. You hear about "Christus," or Christ, who did something miraculous and may be the Messiah. Matthew wrote to you and the Jews, "I will show you Jesus is the Messiah through the Old Testament." That’s what Matthew’s about. The other Gospels were written to other audiences.

Mark was written to emphasize the servanthood of Jesus and written toward the Roman. Luke was written toward the Gentiles, not the Jews, to us. John was written to all mankind. If you know what the emphasis is and you start reading it, you can understand more.

Matthew has a lot of references to the Old Testament, emphasizes the miracles, and the only Gospel to use the word "Church." Some people have it dated as early as AD 55. It was written somewhere between 30 and 40 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Matthew, the tax collector, was hated by the Jews. If you were a Jew, you didn’t like him because he took the tax money and probably kept some for himself. He was probably a liar, cheat, and thief. He was not a pretty person. And yet he became one of Christ’s disciples and wrote the Gospel of Matthew for the Jews.

Here’s an overview of what we’ll be covering:

Jesus’ virgin birth, the genealogies, temptations, Sermon on the Mount, Sabbath, Pharisees, Sadducees, the Last Week, etc.

Do you all see all those names? Do you just want to skip down to verse 18 and go on? You’d better say, "NO! We want to know what’s in it. We think it’s exciting!" It is exciting.

Do you all know about Genesis 12? If Matthew were writing to the Jews and he’s relating back to the Old Testament, he has a Jewish mindset toward the Old Testament. When we went through the Old Testament, we learned that there are promises God made to the Jews. One of those major promises occurred in Genesis 12, the most important chapter in the whole Bible.

God promises Abraham that He will multiply his seed and that through his seed, all nations would be blessed. We read that. There is another key promise in 2^nd Samuel 7. We’ll turn to that one. It’s key because this is what Jews point to for the fulfillment of the Messiah.

This is God, talking to King David.

He’s talking about Solomon. He says, "Hey David, I, God, am promising you that you’re going to have a descendant and I will raise him up."

There’s the key. David had wanted to build the Temple for God, patterned after the original Tabernacle. David said, "God needs a permanent house." Because of Bathsheba, Uriah, and the blood on David’s hands, God said, "I do not want my house built by someone with bloody hands. So your son, Solomon, will do it." That’s why it’s called Solomon’s Temple.

Next He says, "I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." If you were a Jew, you would say, "David’s throne—established forever." Then you would start to interpret it. Through the years, you’ve been under the domination of Assyria and Babylon. How’s that going to happen? Well, this was a promise from God. God said, "Through David’s line, a throne would be established forever." That’s what the Jews took as "gospel."

So in the time of Christ, 1^st century AD, if you’re looking for a Messiah, you’re looking for a powerful king. They’re waiting on a king from the line of David. In other words, whoever is going to be king must prove his genealogy back to David.

Remember those two promises and take a look back at Matthew.

Is Christ the "son" of David? No, but He’s in the lineage of David. It’s just a way of saying He’s a descendant of David.

If you’re a Jew and you’re reading this, what are you thinking? "Oh. I remember Genesis 12 and 2^nd Samuel 7. I remember that. This guy whose book I’m reading is relating this man, Jesus Christ, to my Jewish heritage."

We won’t read all of these even though it is very interesting. The list contains some women, a prostitute, two Canaanites (not Jews), and a Moabitess (not a Jew). The lineage of Christ is not all-Jew. It’s a mixture of Jews and non-Jews with the lineage flowing through the men. Whether you like it or not today, back then land was passed along through men. If all the Jewish men in a family were killed, there had to be a special compensation for a woman to own any land. If a man died, the woman would marry his brother to keep the land within the family. So lineage and land were passed through men.

Rahab was thrown in here. Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho before the Israelites came over and beat them up.

There’s David.

You can read the rest of these.

Here’s an amazing thing about God’s Word that a lot of people don’t know. We went from Abraham to David and now we see Jeconiah during the time of the Babylonian Captivity. 2^nd Samuel 7 says the throne will be established forever which we believe will occur during Revelation when Christ returns to establish His Kingdom forever.

If you go back to Jeremiah (written during the Babylonian Captivity), God says that because the kings of the Southern Kingdom were so bad toward the end (especially Jeconiah), I am going to remove, cut off the throne from his line. He will not have anyone to succeed him on the throne.

If you were a skeptic or critic of the Bible, what would you say? "OH! God just broke His promise. He promised in Samuel that it was David’s throne forever. Now He got fed up with those people and said, ‘That’s it! You’re not going to go any further.’ We have to reconcile this in the Bible." In Jeremiah 22:24-30, God specifically says, "That’s it! No more people from this lineage."

How do we reconcile this? Take a look at Luke 3, another genealogy. Read it carefully.

Who was the father of Joseph? Heli. Who was the father over in Matthew? Jacob. Well, now the Bible is wrong! How can it be wrong?

Who was it in Matthew? Matthan. Well, that’s pretty close.

Matthew? Eleazar. Uh Oh. We’re off again. What’s going on here?

Luke’s genealogy covers Mary’s lineage. Luke 3:23 says, "the son of Heli." You will not find "son" in some translations and manuscripts. Instead you’ll find "son-in-law." So whose descendants are we talking about? Mary’s. Mary’s line stated through the fathers. Mary was married to Joseph. Who was Joseph’s father-in-law? Heli, Mary’s father.

Hold on. This gets even better. Find David. Who was David’s son?

Who was it in Matthew? Solomon. We have Solomon and Jeconiah because they were the kings. What is this "Nathan" business? Nathan was a son of David. So why do we trace two different lines from David?

Matthew has the line of Joseph.
Luke has the line of Mary.

Matthew has the royal, legal line to the throne.
Luke has the blood line to the throne.

Why does Luke 3:23 have, "(Jesus) was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph?" Who really impregnated Mary? The Holy Spirit. This is why the virgin birth is so important. It was the Holy Spirit, not Joseph. So how does Matthew refer to Jesus’ father?

All the way down, he’s said, "the father of… the father of…," but when he gets to Jesus, he says, "Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus." In other words, Matthew did not say that Joseph was the father. Luke didn’t say that Joseph was the father of Christ. The virgin birth was of the Holy Spirit.

Look at this lineage. Here’s the line God said in Jeremiah would not occur after Jeconiah. Everybody said, "Well, that’s it. It doesn’t matter what happens now. There will be no lineage." God said, "No. I have this other line. I have the blood line that allows me to say that through David, the throne will be established forever."

Let’s go back and read Luke.

Wow! Does that sound like 2^nd Samuel 7? Where do we find it? We find it in Luke. We find it through Mary’s bloodline.

You have to ask yourself, "How could man have created all this?" Man couldn’t have. God did. It started all the way back with Abraham and then David. Luke’s lineage has it all the way back to the beginning of man, Adam. Luke was written for the non-Jew. The non-Jew would say, "Well, I don’t have anything to do with Abraham," but Adam includes everyone.