Faith & Reason Ministries

Faith & Reason Ministries We meet at 10:30 AM Sunday mornings, with a meal and times of worship & teaching as was done in Act chapter 2. We hold Bible studies throughout the week.

We encourage authentic questions and discussion. The earliest Christians met in homes, ate together, worshipped together, and devoted themselves to learning God’s Truth. Acts 2:42
At Faith & Reason Ministries, we meet together, eat together, worship together, and devote ourselves to learning the Truth about God and the Bible, His Word. We encourage discussion and honest questions. We are just regu

lar folks worshipping an amazing God. Think of us as a little bit retro. Like 33AD retro. Join us for breakfast & worship. On Sundays we normally begin with a potluck breakfast, announcements, a time of prayer and worship, followed by the reading of Scripture. Typically there will be additional prayer and worship, followed by the teaching and then concluding with worship. We regularly include communion and baptism. Children’s activities normally occur at the same time as the adult activities. The children will on occasion join the adults for the first prayer and worship time before moving to their own area. They will then have prayer and a Bible lesson followed with fun activities. The children often rejoin the adults at times of communion or baptism.

06/22/2026

Thought for Today, June 22, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 3C: The Gnostic Gospels

What does the “Jesus” of “The Gospel of Thomas” teach? What does he proclaim? Will we find this “Jesus” teaching the same things as the biblical Jesus? All quotes are taken from: Dart, John and Ray Riegert. “The Gospel of Thomas: Unearthing the Lost Words of Jesus.” Berkeley: Seastone, 2000.

The gospel starts (page 14): “These are the secret words that the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.” One sees the Gnostic bent from the start: the book reveals secret wisdom known only to Gnostic teachers and their initiates.

There are roughly 70 sayings that parallel what Jesus said in the actual New Testament Gospels. Here is one (page 34): “If a blind man leads a blind man, both of them will fall into a ditch.”

That so many sayings parallel the New Testament Gospels helps “Thomas” have an appearance of legitimacy. It is therefore potentially easier to fool those who aren’t familiar with or reject portions of the New Testament Gospels.

There are many sayings unique to “Thomas.” For example (page 28):

“Jesus saw some infants being nursed and said to his disciples, ‘These children are like those who enter the kingdom.’ They said to him, ‘If we are children shall we enter the kingdom?’ Jesus said to them, ‘When you make the two one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, and an image in place of an image, then you shall enter the kingdom.’"

According to Midrash Beresh*t Rabbah 8:1, prior to being split into separate male and female beings, Adam was an androgynous whole. We tend to think that the sexual identity issues our culture currently face are somehow new. Yet here in “Thomas,” with this saying, we see a blurring of male and female, with the male not being male and the female not being female. What does this “one” look like? The text doesn’t answer that question, leaving it open.

Page 55: “When you bring forth what is in you, what you have will save you. That which you do not have in you will kill you if you do not know it within you.”

What does this saying tell us? Salvation is something that we must possess and bring forth from within. It is not found outside of ourself. There is no biblical Jesus who died on the cross for our sins.

Here is another cryptic saying (page 63): “Adam came into existence from great power and great wealth yet was not worthy of you. For had he been worthy, he would not have tasted death.”

Adam is lost, not worthy of being redeemed. One can infer that since he wasn’t enlightened, he is forever lost.

The most controversial saying of all (page 114): “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us, because women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I shall lead her so that I can make her male in order that she also may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’”

On one level, women will understandably find this saying extremely offensive. Yet on a different level, what the saying states has largely happened in our culture, with women in essence seeking to become like men (the reverse is arguably also true with the feminization of men).

One would think that “The Gospel of Thomas” would be rejected based on this last quote (the final saying in “Thomas”). But no, its denial of Jesus Christ is more important. Its move towards non-binary identity is arguably another key. Just as people do with the real Bible and a passage they don’t like, that last saying can be ignored.

Are any of these other sayings even remotely biblical? No. It is easy to understand why Gnostic writings like “The Gospel of Thomas,” along with the others we’ve briefly looked at, not to mention all the others, were excluded from Scripture. They are not biblical, go directly against what the genuine gospels teach, and are not from God. Rather, they are from a different spiritual source. They declare other gospels, gospels that are false, gospels that Scripture, particularly the book of Galatians, warn against and condemn.

In the next post, we will begin looking at the various books of Enoch.

06/20/2026

Please join us, tomorrow, June 21, for Father's Day. Pastor Dave will be continuing our "Your Questions Answered" series. He will be looking at men's rights and abortion.

As always, breakfast will be at 9:45 A.M., the service will start at 10:30 A.M., and the live stream of the sermon will begin at 11:00 A.M.

See you there.

06/19/2026

Thought for Today, June 19, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 3B: The Gnostic Gospels

The Gnostic writings: The Nag Hammadi find uncovered many gnostic writings.
They include among others: “The Secret Book of James,” the “Secret Book of John,” “The Gospel of Thomas,’ “The Gospel of Philip,” “The Revelation of Peter,” “The Gospel of Mary,” “The Acts of Peter,” and “The Gospel of Judas.” As noted in the previous post, those who seek to discredit Christianity wish that these writings would replace the biblical gospels.

Of these writings, “The Gospel of Thomas” is probably the most important. A copy of it was obtained by the Jesus Seminar, smuggled out of Egypt, and then published by them in "The Five Gospels." According to the Jesus Seminar, “The Gospel of Thomas” is the oldest and most authentic gospel.

In “The Five Gospels,” they are honest enough to admit their dishonest approach. They had already determined that Jesus was merely an illiterate peasant who uttered pithy sayings and got in trouble with both the religious and political leaders. As such, he never claimed to be God. Therefore, any text in the Gospels attributed to Jesus that indicated anything different, had to be by definition, later legendary additions by various Christian communities.

“Thomas” has none of that, and therefore it had to be the oldest most authentic gospel. Since in “Thomas,” Jesus mostly uttered pithy, often obscure, sayings, that helped cement its status. As we saw in the previous post, the historical and archeological evidence point to a much later compositional date than the biblical gospels. But, Jesus being both fully God and fully human is not an allowable option for these “scholars,” and therefore something else must be true.

As mentioned, of all the Gnostic writings, “Thomas” is probably the best known. But some of the others have been quite influential as well. In this brief overview, looking at all the Gnostic writings is not possible, but a couple will be mentioned briefly before we take a more detailed look at “Thomas.”

One of the famous passages from the Gnostic gospels comes from “The Gospel of Philip.” That passage states, and doesn’t state, due to holes (lacuna) in the manuscript: “And the companion of the […] Mary Magdalene [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her […] on her […].”

The idea that Jesus didn’t die, had children with Mary Magdalene, and Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” nonsense, stem in essence from that passage.

The most common reconstruction of that phrase is: “used to kiss her often on her mouth.” That is just a logical guess. No one knows the answer.

Another important Gnostic gospel is “The Gospel of Judas,” written probably around 150 AD. The hero of that gospel is, as expected, Judas Iscariot. In essence, Jesus gives secret information to Judas, information he alone understands. The other disciples believe in the false god, the demiurge. They will do all sorts of evil. Jesus tasks Judas with betraying him. While Judas will be reviled, even killed by the other disciples, he will ultimately be vindicated.

In 2008, Peter Rollins wrote, “The Fidelity of Betrayal,” a book built upon the “Gospel of Judas.” It it, he states that the best way to honor and maintain fidelity to Jesus is by betraying him.

Rollins’ book became a key work within the emergent/progressive church, helping birth pyrotheology (an incendiary system that emphasizes approaching life by faith, but minus belief in anything) Pyrotheology is another key within progressive Christianity. One recently recommended practice was to encourage people to give up God for Lent, to embrace atheism (pyrotheology is a form of religious nihilism).

The Gnostic gospels have significantly impacted our contemporary culture. As we will see in the next post, arguably in some ways, “Thomas” is even worse.

06/17/2026

Thought for Today, June 17, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 3A: The Gnostic Gospels

The Gnostic Writings. In 1945, near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, a treasure trove of new “Biblical gospels” and other writings were discovered. As the writings never claim that Jesus was God, many “scholars” ever since have touted them as the “true biblical accounts,” defeating the now proven to be false version of the Bible imposed on others by the winning “orthodox” Christians (see Bart Ehrman, the earlier Jesus Seminar, among others).

The Gnostic gospels and other Gnostic writings found at Nag Hammadi have been dated from between the mid-second and the fourth centuries. They were written considerably later than the books of the New Testament. That actual history is rejected by those who seek to deny Jesus Christ, and historic biblical Christianity.

Who were the Gnostics and what did they teach?

The Gnostics were prominent from the mid-second through the fourth centuries. They believed that physical matter was evil, that only one’s spirit was important. Since matter was evil they split into two camps regarding one’s behavior: either extreme asceticism or extreme license was ok. The former view reflected the rejection of matter; the latter, the idea that since only the spirit was important, how one behaved physically was of no real consequence.

They believed that salvation was through knowledge, particularly secret knowledge and wisdom that only they possessed. One had to be deeply involved with them before being taught that special salvific knowledge (we see the Masons using a similar approach today). They were particularly prominent in Alexandria, Egypt, but also elsewhere.

Since the Old Testament God created matter, a “god” known as the Demiurge, that God was seen as more of a self-focused bumbling idiot. That god was prone to making mistakes, since no real god would have made the error of creating physical matter. The chief goal of the Gnostics was to realize and recover their true identity as spiritual beings, beings imprisoned in a body.

As for Jesus, the Gnostics tended in one of two directions: Jesus was either a special type of human mystic who uttered spiritual pithy sayings, or he merely appeared to be human but was strictly a spiritual being. In no case was Jesus both fully God and fully human. Enlightened, yes; God, no.

As stated, gaining special knowledge was key. The very name of the movement declares it: gnosis is Greek for knowledge.

Unfortunately, we see some of their beliefs infiltrating and infecting the church today, just as they did in the past, particularly the ancient church at Alexandria via Clement of Alexandria and especially Origen. Origen held that the literal meaning of Scripture was the least important. Those who wanted to go deeper in Christ would recognize the more important allegorical and spiritualized meanings of the text, meanings that were often kept hidden from basic unenlightened Christians.

We possibly see a forerunner of gnostic tendencies in Revelation 2:24, in the letter to the church at Thyatira:

Revelation 2:24 (ESV): “But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden.”

The teaching, the deep things of Satan, by definition a type of special knowledge, mirrors what the Gnostics would teach.

Currently, we see at least some of the key leaders of the NAR downplaying the literal contextual meaning of Scripture, replacing the literal meaning with either symbolic readings of it or new “prophetic” words, prophecies and knowledge only their prophets possess. While their teachings are different, the underlying commonalities are most concerning.

We’ve noted what the Gnostics believed and taught in a general sense. What did some of their writings directly claim? We will start to address that topic in the next post.

06/15/2026

Thought for Today, June 15, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 2C: The Apocrypha

What do the apocryphal writings teach? In this post, we will continue to summarize them.

The additions to Esther: The additions to Esther claim to give the details about how Mordecai uncovered the plot to murder the king, as well as Esther’s prayers during her fast, along with various other details.

Both Wisdom and Sirach mimic Proverbs, but neither have the same force. Baruch is supposedly by Jeremiah’s scribe, but as we’ve seen, given the time frame of the apocryphal writings, that is not the case.

The additions to Daniel: Among other things, the additions to Daniel tell of the rise of Daniel, in part due to his rescue of Susannah from false charges of adultery. It also details a story of Daniel and the dragon: how he spent a week in the lion’s den as he rejected a false dragon god. During that time, God supernaturally has Habakkuk bring him food.

Prayer of Manasseh: The Prayer of Manasseh supposedly records Manasseh’s prayer of repentance, something Scripture does not provide.

1 and 2 Maccabees: 1 and 2 Maccabees have some historical value as the books tell of the Jewish revolt under the Maccabees against Antiochus IV. But, as we discovered in the previous post, it contains material that is unbiblical, but is used to support the Roman tradition of purgatory.

Tobit: We are looking at Tobit last, as it also contains egregious errors. The story is self-conflicted with an impossible timeline. The text of Tobit states that he lived 158 years (variant: 112). Tobit 1:4–5 requires him to be alive in 922 BC, at the time of the division of the kingdom of Israel into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

However, based on his experiences, and the kings he lived under after the Northern Kingdom was conquered by Assyria, he also had to be alive at least until about 675 BC. That math doesn’t work, does it? He lived to be 158 years old, but he experienced events that took place 247 years apart. The book of Tobit is therefore self-contradictory.

What are we to make of the Apocrypha? Why are the writings not part of the Protestant Bible? As we’ve seen, the Apocrypha contains numerous errors, legends, and considerable unbiblical material. As we saw, the writings were never considered part of the Old Testament by the Jews. The writings are, by biblical definition, not inspired. They are not Scripture.

Why were apocryphal writings added to Scripture by the Council of Trent? As we’ve noted, some of the writings support Roman tradition. But, I wonder if there isn’t another reason. Admittedly, the following comments are pure speculation: By including these books in the Canon of Scripture, it becomes easier for Rome to disregard the sole authority of the Bible, given the errors these books contain. It also becomes easier for Rome to elevate their tradition as being equal to Scripture. Both serve as means of countering the Protestant Reformation, and their insistence of Scripture alone.

Should Christians spend time reading the Apocrypha? As we saw, for most of church history, the Apocrypha was viewed as being of some use as devotional reading. The difficulty is that all too many of us spend far too little time reading Scripture as it is. Given that situation, it is arguably better to spend one’s time reading actual Scripture rather than writings regarded as suitable only for devotional reading. Worse, the writings sometimes contradict Scripture. They therefore run the risk of introducing confusion. In addition, many of them seek to provide answers to things God doesn’t tell us, filling in the blanks. That attempt to do so, biblically speaking, is not wise.

As for Apocrypha, as we have seen, there are good reasons why Protestant Bibles exclude them.

06/14/2026

This Sunday, June 14, we will be looking briefly at two topics in our ongoing series of "Your Questions Answered." We will be looking at "Do your pets go to heaven," and "what about su***de?"

As always, breakfast will be at 9:45 A.M., the service will start at 10:30 A.M., and the live stream of the sermon will start at 11:00 A.M.

Hope to see you there.

06/12/2026

Thought for Today, June 12, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 2B: The Apocrypha

What writings are part of the Apocrypha? What do they purport to teach?

The following writings are part of the Apocrypha: 1 and 2 Esdras; Tobit; Judith; additions to Esther; Wisdom of Solomon; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach); Baruch; Song of the Three Holy Children (Azariah); Story of Susanna; Bel and the Dragon; Prayer of Manasseh; 1 and 2 Maccabees

All of them were written during the intertestamental period, roughly 300 BC to 100 AD. All told, the writings are about 5/6 the length of the New Testament. Some of them attempt to fill in the gaps of what Scripture doesn’t tell us: Song of the Three Holy Children; Prayer of Manasseh; Baruch; and 1 & 2 Esdras. Some claim to give new revelation, while others provide additional historical information.

We will not examine all of them in detail but will give examples from some of them, and briefly summarize most of them.

1 Esdras: 1 Esdras chapter one speaks of Josiah’s reforms, keeping of the Passover, etc. The chapter reads slightly off, taking bits and pieces of other Old Testament books and then stating that Josiah did the same. Other chapters fill in gaps in Scripture with legendary stories, conflates other biblical passages, but also contains biblical errors regarding Israel’s return.

2 Esdras: 2 Esdras contains Ezra’s supposed prophecies, as well as conversations with God. Here are a couple examples:

2 Esdras 6:20–21 (KJV Apocrypha): And when the world, that shall begin to vanish away, shall be finished, then will I shew these tokens: the books shall be opened before the firmament, and they shall see all together: And the children of a year old shall speak with their voices, the women with child shall bring forth untimely children of three or four months old, and they shall live, and be raised up.

2 Esdras 7:28–30 (KJV Apocrypha): For my son Jesus shall be revealed with those that be with him, and they that remain shall rejoice within four hundred years. After these years shall my son Christ die, and all men that have life. And the world shall be turned into the old silence seven days, like as in the former judgments: so that no man shall remain.

Do either of those passages sound even remotely biblical? No. Rather, don’t they sound legendary? The passage about the Messiah has no basis in reality. Rather, it is biblically in error.

The book of Judith is rife with errors. Judith 1:1 (KJV Apocrypha): “In the twelfth year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor, who reigned in Nineve, the great city; in the days of Arphaxad, which reigned over the Medes in Ecbatane.”

That one verse is rife with error. Obviously, Nebuchadnezzar was not the ruler over Assyria, and didn’t reign from Nineveh. Also, later on per Judith, Ozias (a Greek variant of Uzziah) was king at the time as Nebuchadnezzar, yet another obvious error.

Judith was a godly widow, a prophetess and leader who led Israel to victory over the Assyrian enemy Holofernes, a legendary character, the leader of the Assyrian armies of Nebuchodonosor. Judith decapitates him while he is asleep (note the close parallel to Jael’s killing of Sisera in Judges). Israel’s leader Ozias ends up leading a great slaughter after the death of Holofernes. Judith dies, still a widow, at 105.

As we are starting to see, the apocryphal writings are problematic in numerous ways. We will continue looking at them in the next post.

06/10/2026

Thought for Today, June 10, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 2A: The Apocrypha

The Apocrypha. If there is a gray area in extra-biblical writings, it is found in the Apocrypha. How did this happen?

The Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, known as the Septuagint, in the third and second centuries BC, the apocryphal writings were tacked on as a type of appendix. For most of church history, they were viewed as being somewhat useful for devotional reading, but not considered part of Scripture.

That changed at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestants asked a logical question. Were the apocryphal writings ever considered by the Jews to be part of the Old Testament canon (known validated books)? The answer was a clear, “No.” Since the writings were not considered Scripture by the Jews, there was no reason to include them as part of the Bible.

In reaction to the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church, at the Council of Trent in 1546, approved them as part of their biblical canon. In a couple places these writings seem to confirm Roman Catholic doctrine or tradition.

2 Esdras 9:7–8 (KJV Apocrypha): And every one that shall be saved, and shall be able to escape by his works, and by faith, whereby ye have believed, Shall be preserved from the said perils, and shall see my salvation in my land, and within my borders: for I have sanctified them for me from the beginning.

We see that 2 Esdras 9:7–8 supports the Roman insistence that salvation is by works and faith. The passage insists that people are saved and escape by both works and faith.

2 Maccabees 12:39–45 prefigures Purgatory, although Roman Catholic theologians admit that the complete doctrine is not found here:

2 Maccabees 12:39–45 (KJV Apocrypha): And upon the day following, as the use had been, Judas and his company came to take up the bodies of them that were slain, and to bury them with their kinsmen in their fathers’ graves. Now under the coats of every one that was slain they found things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites, which is forbidden the Jews by the law. Then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain. All men therefore praising the Lord, the righteous Judge, who had opened the things that were hid, Betook themselves unto prayer, and besought him that the sin committed might wholly be put out of remembrance. Besides, that noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forsomuch as they saw before their eyes the things that came to pass for the sins of those that were slain. And when he had made a gathering throughout the company to the sum of two thousand drachms of silver, he sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection: For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.

The Roman Catholic Church therefore had good reason to include the Apocrypha as part of their Scriptures. By doing so, they could justify some of their non-biblical teachings.

What writings are part of the Apocrypha? What do they contain? We will turn to those questions in the next post.

06/08/2026

Thought for Today, June 8, 2026
Extra-Biblical Books? Part 1

Do we follow the Bible, or are we drawn to other extra-biblical books? We often want to fill in the gaps where Scripture is silent, or to have access to “secret knowledge” others don’t possess. Thus, non-canonical writings have a seductive appeal. Numerous supposed “biblical” books have been heartily endorsed, books that supposedly reveal the “real truth” that Scripture deliberately hides or denies.

We’ve been looking at the way the NAR and the progressives/inclusivists twist or ignore Scripture, but that is far from the only danger. Consider the endorsement of the Apocrypha by Roman Catholicism and some Anglicans. Others favor “The Gospel of Thomas,” along with other Gnostic gospels that purport to give special knowledge, viewing them as more authentic than anything recorded in the New Testament Gospels.

We also have the increasing curiosity and fascination with first, second, and third Enoch, particularly first Enoch. What are we to make of these supposed “biblical” books? After all, 1 Enoch is included in the Ethiopian Bible. Among other things it purports to give the true origin of sin and the details about how those shadowy creatures, the Nephilim, came to be. Weren’t all the other churches wrong to exclude it? It is sometimes inferred that there are all sorts of things that the Church doesn’t want us to know.

Do any of these books provide us with extra-biblical, but more authentic authoritative “truth”? We will start by looking at the Apocrypha, then “The Gospel of Thomas” along with other Gnostic writings, and close with an examination of the various books of Enoch.

06/07/2026

Please join us this morning as pastor Dave continues our series, "Your Questions Answered." We will be looking at the questions: Why suffering, and why doesn't God heal everyone?

As always, breakfast will be at 9:45 A.M., the service will start at 10:30 A.M., and the live stream of the sermon will begin at 11:00.

See you there.

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