The Last Temptation of the Gnostics

On a Sunday when we heard about God creating Eve from Adam's rib and Jesus' stern teachings on divorce and adultery in Mark 10, I was taken aback when our preacher chose to begin her sermon by bringing up the "was Jesus married" schlock that has been in the news recently. If the subject is to be discussed in church on Sunday, it should be to debunk it and not to give it a passing nod, and certainly not to pass on the impression that it is at least a possibility. And to compound the error, we had to hear about the "DaVinci Code" and the "Last Temptation of Christ" (the latter in far more graphic detail than I ever wanted to know).

I just don't understand why Episcopalians love this stuff, or maybe I do. I wonder if the fascination with novel ideas and extracanonical "discoveries" is due to a deficiency of love for the Bible, a deficiency that has as its basis inadequate teaching and preaching.

I had followed the story of the recently "discovered" fragment of papyrus, but I had never intended to waste blog space on it. I will refer interested readers who were confused by today's sermon to Albert Mohler's more sensible commentary on the subject in which he concludes,

“'The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife?' Not hardly. This is sensationalism masquerading as scholarship. Nevertheless, do not miss what all this really represents — an effort to replace biblical Christianity with an entirely new faith."
 

Shame on anyone who gives this fragment of gnostic nonsense the time of day, particularly on a Sunday morning.