Are there books missing from the Bible?

Have you heard about the Gospel of Thomas? a friend asked me yesterday. I sat down and read it over a cup of tea. It’s not very long. The Gospel of Thomas, is a non-Biblical book of sayings, supposedly from Jesus. They were left out of the Bible because the early churches unanimously did not consider them Biblical books. They also don’t have the same historical validity as are dated later. (I learnt this in this six hour presentation, although I’ve only managed to get through the first couple hours!) The Gospel of Thomas is known as one of the ‘gnostic Gospels.’ Gnostics, (and some new agers) believe that the God of the Old Testament, who created the earth we live in is an evil God, and that we all have a divine spark within us. Gnosticism is based on ‘missing books’ from the Bible, which Gnostics believe have been unfairly left out. 

It all goes back to the garden of Eden. Life in the garden was perfect. Adam and Eve lived a heavenly existence, being able to communicate directly with God. Satan, spun a lie that if Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil then her eyes would be opened, that she could become a god too. Satan suggested the idea, that somehow heavenly perfection was not enough, that there must be something more. 

We see this all throughout our fallen world, the craving for more happiness, more money, more knowledge, more healing, more of everything, that will never ever fill the God-shaped hole that was dug in our being, when Eve took that decision to go against God, and separate from Him. Satan, ‘the father of lies,’ wants to suggest to us that the Bible is not enough, that it must have been doctored, or edited, or that something must be missing and that we must keep searching. What if the truth is in the Gospel of Thomas?

I’ve written a few thoughts before about why I believe our God would ensure that his full word would be communicated clearly. He’s not the ‘master of confusion’ like Satan. He wants to be clear, and honest with us and give us a straightforward easy to follow Gospel that will lead to our salvation. I’ve written about how much mainstream music is demonically inspired, channelled by the devil, and this is a mere counterfeit of how the Holy Spirit can speak through God’s people, leading to the divinely inspired word of God. 

I read the Gospel of Thomas, because I was curious to see what it said. Some of it reads like a paraphrase of things Jesus said. (mixing truth with lies?) Other passages contradicted the Bible. There was one paragraph that jumped out at me, that I think clearly depicts the difference between divinely inspired Biblical writing, and ‘man-made’ writing. It’s this one, 

‘’Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." 

In the time the Bible was written, women had very low social status in society. However the Bible itself sees men and women as equals, both made in God’s image. Jesus treated men and women as equal, and the apostle Paul, who wrote the new Testament letters said, ‘So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ 

The Bible says we are all born again in Christ, all equal, there is no need to ‘become male’ to enter the Kingdom of heaven. The writers of the Gospel of Thomas have betrayed their humaneness, with their low view of women. It’s like without the genuine Holy Spirit, they were unable to rise about societal norms, and comprehend the equality message that Jesus brought. Paul, genuinely inspired by encountering Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit is able to convey God’s truth. 

It’s very telling to me that Gnostic Christianity is the version that is pushed in Hollywood. In the documentary Hollywood’s War On God, Pastor Joe Schimmel shares how films like The Truman Show, The Matrix, and Dan Brown’s The Davinci Code, push this Gnostic message. The BBC also made a documentary about the Gnostic Gospels. This was shared with me a while back by two different awake friends. Another fb friend shared a documentary by the BBC about ‘was Jesus a Buddhist?’’ While we’ve spent the last few years avoiding the BBC’s advice on medical matters, it’s alarming to me the lack of discernment that people will consider the BBC a reliable source of information on spiritual matters. 

Pretty much everything (bar a rare exception or two), in the mainstream has an agenda attached to it, and if the BBC doesn’t tell us the truth about vaccines, and paedophiles, then I’m pretty sure it’s not going to tell us the truth about Jesus either. 

Gnostic beliefs, the ‘divine spark’ within. It’s Satan’s lie, over and over again, ‘you shall be as gods.’ This is the lie in the new age, that cherry picks Bible verses out of context, and romanticises lost Gospels, while ignoring the blatant sexism. 

Thank God, for the divinely inspired words of the Bible. Thank God that we have these words intact.