January 8 - I've Got a Secret

January 8 – I’ve Got a Secret!

Everyone wants to know the secret things that the Bible has to offer. We’ve seen numerology and symbols from scripture used to promote crazy ideas. Jewish mystics attract people like Madonna because they are searching for something more than the Word of God.

A great heresy that has never quite died out was called Gnosticism. Gnosis is the Greek word for ‘to know’ and the Gnostics believed that they had the inside scoop on the things of God.

They’d been around for awhile and many of Paul’s letters deal with different portions of this heresy.

Some of their strongest teachings were that the physical things in life were corrupt and only spiritual things were pure. They believed that the earth was evil and denied themselves every earthly desire. Many castrated themselves. They didn’t drink wine because it might incite pleasure, so if they were part of a Christian church only used water for the Lord’s Supper.

Since the physical was evil and corrupt, they flat out rejected the humanity of Christ. John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us” was rejected by them. Christ didn’t become flesh, but was a spirit that lived in a normal human called Jesus.

They taught that the world was created by angels, not God – that God is distant and not really connected to the world and that if you learn the secret teachings, you can gain salvation. They believed that the Gnostics were superior to regular Christians.

Gnostics fused Christianity with Greek philosophy and Asian religions. This appealed to many who believed that they could then be in charge of their own salvation.

Throughout the early centuries of Christianity, Gnosticism was a great threat and many well known names in the history of the Christian church were Gnostics. Much of this heresy became part of the early traditions. In the first century, Christians had totally rejected physical pleasure. Marriage was acceptable, but less holy than a life of celibacy. Ideas such as this still pervade some Christian thought.

Gnostics finally withdrew from the churches, yet at the same time, it forced the church to define itself. We’ll look at these challenges next.