The first is the versets 19-22 of chapter 5:
Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.What struck me is that this verse, in the very least, encourages believers to not despise prophecies, revelations from God, but it also encourages them to test what is said. Paul encourages the believers to listen to what someone passes on as a word from God, but not just to accept it without examination and questioning.(1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)
God speaks, he longs to speak to us and communicate with us. He uses men and women to do so, this is how the Bible came to us, through God using his children to write things down for us. But not all prophecy nor all so-called revelation is from God. It's important to examine what is being said, to discern that which is in agreement with the character of God, and that which is not. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are called to discern, to hold on to that which is good, and to avoid all sorts of evil.
This has echoes of the Bereans who studied the Scriptures dilligently to verify what was being said to them.
With the help of the Holy Spirit and the God breathed Scriptures, we should be able to discern what is from God and what is not, and hence live a life pleasing to him.
We are not called, as Christians, to just accept blindly all that is said to us, all that is taught to us, all that is claimed to be revelation.
The other passage which struck me was 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 where Paul says :
According to the Lord's own word, we tell you . . .One or two commentators have pointed out that the Gospels contain no record of the following words being pronounced by Jesus. So it would seem that Paul was passing on teaching received from Jesus, but which was not recorded in the Gospels nor the beginning of Acts.(1 Thessalonians 4:15)
The teaching given in the following verses and the next chapter draws on teaching found in Matthew 24 and 24 concerning the return of Jesus and the final judgement.
What struck me particularly, was the fact that Jesus said many other things which are not recorded in the Gosples. John admits as much in the last verse of his Gospel :
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.So Jesus said and did many other things which God in his widsom decided to allow to not be recorded in the New Testament for us.(John 21:25)
The Apocryphal books may or may not have been written by godly men, they may even have been written by prophets, but if they have never been accepted by the whole of the community of God, why should they be included as inspired Scripture, as not even all the words of Jesus have been included ?
The writer's of the Gospels had intentions when they wrote, they wanted to communicate something about Jesus. God, in bringing about the writing and compilation of the Bible, wanted to communicate something.
The Bible is not just a collection of all the holy writing of the Jews, or of God's people. It is a work which has a purpose, the purpose of it's author, who is God. The Bible describes to us and show us God's desire to be in communion with his creation, it shows us what God has done to reach out to us, to repare our mistakes, to give us his love.
The purpose of the Bible is not that we become clever people, or knowledgable people, it is that we might know that we are the beloved creation of God, and that he seeks to be in relationship with us, he wants to reestablish the relationship for which we were created.
My Bible does not contain the Apocrypha, but neither does it contain a record of the first 12 years of the life of Jesus, nor does it contain a record of all the other things Jesus said or did. But I am none the poorer, because in the Bible I have all that God deemed necessary to know him, to put my faith in him, to enter into a relationship with him.
