I'm studying a 2nd century "heretic" named Marcion of Pontus. He wrote a gospel and the people at the time accused him of taking Luke's gospel and reworking it to his pleasure. In other words, not only did he steal someone else's work, but he perverted it to his own ends and then disseminated it about. Recently, scholars have argued that perhaps it was Luke who copied and reworked Marcion's gospel. Perhaps Marcion was first.
What does this mean?
Well, Marcion was a docetist, which means he had a different view about Christ than the modern church would condone. He believed Jesus was only and fully divine. No humanity, no flesh. Although Jesus came to earth, it was only as a spirit. Thus, his ideas of the death and resurrection of Jesus are quite different. Because of this belief and some other beliefs he had, his gospel looked different from Luke's in a few places. No crucifixion narrative, no birth story, among other things. Also, not very many references to Jesus' physical lineage. He also did not write of Jesus performing many miracles since miracles were largely focused on a person's body, a shriveled hand or broken leg. Marcion believed that God wanted us to focus on the spirit and not the body. He believed that, since the body only leads to sinful pleasures and eventually decays anyway, its not important and actually evil. There's more to his theology but that's the skinny of it.
So, Luke gets a hold of this gospel and makes minor changes. If this is the case, then we have to assume that Luke at least had some kind of agreement with Marcion's views. Why would he grab a gospel of his opponent and use it as a source, while not even changing that many passages at all? So, under this hypothesis, Luke held similar theological ideas to Marcion.
What? A different opinion outside the "orthodox?" That cant be right. Well, what about different authors of the OT that emphasize different attributes of God? Certainly Moses may have held slightly different views than the author of Ecclesiastes or Joel different views than Hosea. We know from events recorded in Acts that some of the disciples had differing ideas. Can the Bible be said to be the Word of God and still contain a wide variety of theologies that all represent the Trinity that we believe to be God? I think so. I think that, despite Paul and Peter's differing understanding of Christ's justification, they both did amazing things for God. In fact, God used them beautifully in their own ways. Despite Paul and James' possibly different understanding of grace and works, they both did ministry together and both loved God. Does it make one of them wrong? Does it mean we have to meld them both into 1 view, doing herminutical gymnastics to make them say the same thing? I don't think so.
So, many different authors with one purpose: to glorify God. But, did they do this in different ways? Maybe God equipped each one for specific words and a specific ministry. Maybe Paul's particular theological understanding led him to courageously plant churches in many cities that Peter wouldn't have even felt were important. Maybe John understood God's love differently than Mark or Matthew. Even in Christian scholarship, historians separate the "synoptic gospels" and "John" and claim they have different perspectives.
What does this say to us today? Maybe our distinctions of denominations and doctrines and theologies are good as long as they lead to unity. The kind of doctrines that claim absolute authority and universal adherence, damning all others, may not be what Paul had in mind when he said "one gospel, one truth." Maybe the Gospel is multi-faceted and God works in different ways across different cultures of different generations. Maybe God reveals a particular part of his character more to one man while another comprehends a different part. Maybe God can be both predestining and will giving, not in the sense that both fit into one particular version of doctrine like the Reform definition of free will, but in the sense that many ideas from many doctrines point towards Jesus the Christ and his salvation.
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