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All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
In 1985, a group called The Jesus Seminar, calling themselves “scholars,” started meeting together. Yes, they called themselves “scholars.”
Read the following and make up your own mind.
They took the challenge to review each of the sayings and deeds of Jesus and determine which ones were real. Being “scholars,” they used “colored beads” – a new scholastic technique similar to throwing dice.
The 150 “scholars” met twice a year and, after reading a portion of the Gospels, would drop a colored bead into a box expressing their thoughts.
Red beads meant words or deeds that most likely happened. Pink beads represented words or deeds that possibly happened. Gray beads indicated words or deeds that didn’t literally happen but were close to what occurred. And Black beads represented words or deeds that were fictional.
Aren’t we thankful for this academic expedition, occurring 2,000 years after the Gospels were written by writers who heard Jesus speak and watched His deeds? Kudos to these “scholars” for knowing more than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
(The previous paragraph is Green for sarcasm.)
Let’s read what the Apostle Peter said …
Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 2:20-21).
Okay, let’s take a test. What does Pastor Grant think when he reads about the Jesus Seminar? Lest you wonder – I’ve color-coded my response.
Dumbest idea that I have ever heard! Could be idiots but are just deceived. Poor scholars always misunderstood. Brilliant people at work!
After years of tossing beads in a box, the scholars of the Jesus Seminar concluded that only 18 percent of the words of Jesus and 15 percent of His deeds were authentic.
They did publish a book called “The Five Gospels” because they included the Gospel of Thomas.
You would be foolish to purchase their book on Amazon for $40. You would only see redacted prose, like a document produced by the scholars at the CIA – with only 18 percent of the words and 15 percent of the deeds “beaded” as authentic and the rest blacked out.
Dumb-dumbs, nincompoops, inconsequential windbags, and wolves in scholarly sheepskin.
Okay, sorry about my Red tirade.
Paul predicted the educated elite in the last days, “Always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth … corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding faith” (2 Timothy 3:7-8).
Let’s read a scholar who does believe the Gospels …
The church has claimed to possess an accurate reflection of Jesus because the four gospels are said to come from those who were closest to Jesus. These roots connecting Jesus and his followers’ portrait of him are important. These roots, and how they are evaluated, impact the way subsequent generations see and assess Jesus. A divorce between these texts and Jesus means we see only a shadow of the real Jesus or even a distortion of him. Revelation then functions in a kind of fog, penetrating a thick mist with great difficulty, and not the light of Jesus. (Darrell Bock in Dethroning Jesus)
“Scholars” who toss colored beads in a box to define what Jesus said and did are morons. Their doubt impacts the authority of Jesus in how we live and can also determine where we spend eternity.
For the Jesus Seminar “scholars,” I close with some words from the Apostle John …
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book (Revelation 22:18-19).
Yes, written in Red as a warning to those who mess around with God’s Word.