EDIT: Guidance with the Gospels

Quickly, I mean to edit and improve the previous blog post with a little ditty I wrote:

Synthesis of the Major Teachings: Dei Verbum and the Document on the Pontifical Biblical Commission: INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE GOSPELS.

Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted His teachings to ordinary men but through His help and the Holy Spirit they became much more than men and after some time began to fully understand their purpose as well as the purposes of Jesus’ teachings and instructions to them. There are some phrases in the world which we hear throughout our lives and think of as commonplace but as soon as we discover they come from the lips of our Lord or the ink from an Apostle of Jesus, we suddenly hold those words and phrases without hesitation as immaculate and Holy. Our Lord gave us a Church that entrusted these teachings to His Apostles and indeed instructed them to teach them to others (Mt 28:20 NAB) but oddly enough never wrote a word and the Bible shows no explicit command to write. But they did.

Four of the Apostles wrote the Gospels doing their best to tell their audience about the Jesus they knew, each of them writing about the same Jesus. John, the one Jesus loved, wrote these words and the rest with a very personal feel and flow. Luke, the physician, writes in flavorful detail and diagnosis. Each of the other two have their personalities as well but they all teach of the same person, Jesus Christ.

With this our Mother Church holds steadfast on the historicity and inspiration of all four as Apostolic origin. In time the Church sorted out the accurate from the not, and assembled them in a symbolic order of the four creatures in Ezekiel and Revelation. We can trust our Church Fathers, why? Because Jesus did. We are His bride and as a perfect groom He promises to keep us from the gates of Hell (Mt 16:18 NAB), which if she fails to tell the Truth, the gates of Hades have certainly prevailed against her.

With this being said there is historical and practical value in the Gospels. The exegete, the one who critically explains the text, will need to keep in his interpretive tool box a few things in order to accurately and carefully, not to mention faithfully, execute his or her mission. First, the exegete must not rely on himself but on the Lord and the Church which is the pillar and bulwark of Truth. Next this individual must follow with the guidance of the Church and her Fathers and Doctors as to not contrive contrary teachings no matter how novel they are and to use the resources available to him/her. Finally, as the term implies, the exegete will use all means necessary to probe into the lives, the culture, and the depth to find deeper insight into the lives of those in and those who wrote the gospels in order to better discern their message and meaning.

Above all, the individual at hand must take heed to obey, observe, and offer his teachings in line with the magisterium of the Church. Let him/her not attempt novelty by straying from these teachings and Traditions for the mere sake of being novel and original. Such efforts are not of the Spirit, for the Spirit of God cannot lie and the promise from Jesus lips forbids and precludes the necessity of doing so, “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn 14:26 NAB) and again the Lord urges, “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (Jn 16:13 NAB).

Nicene and Apostles Creed x2

This is part two. Welcome back.

Apostles: And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  

Nicene: I believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the father before all ages. God from God, Light  from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. 

So why the expanded profession of faith? Was it not enough for the Council of Nicaea to only believe in the three facts surrounding Jesus as we see in the Apostles creed? Surely, outside of this creed we believe many things; but why place something into a creed? What is so important about a creed?

What the average follower might not consider is the progression of the faith. Jesus tells the apostles in John 14:26 that "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit —the Father will send Him in My name—will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you." The first century Christians surely believed in the risen Christ and Peters confession of Him as the Son of God, but these beliefs were challanged in time and added to with heresy. The Gnostics didn't believe that Jesus was flesh, and therefore we have institutions of faith in the creed that say "and became man."

The Council of Nicaea devoted its efforts to many controversies but the chief reason for the council was to address Arianism. Arius was a priest in the late second century who eventually denied the deity of Christ - that he was not God. Much of his debate was with the relationship of Jesus and God, making one lesser than the other. Arius ended up convincing many people of this great lie.

Without boring the reader, can you now see why the Nicene creed places more emphasis on the person of Jesus, His relation to the Father, and His nature as the God-Man?

Meditation: focus and ponder on the progress of the Christian faith. We come to understand our faith more clearly when it is challenged by a heterodox teaching. We did not see much in the Bible about an argument for or against a trinitarian God, or a dispute about His birth of a virgin because while those were beliefs of orthodox Christians, there was no need to defend it because there was no adversary to its teaching. Chew on it.