Smoodock's Blog

I haven’t done this before on my blog, vis-à-vis introduce a man and have that introduction be the basis of my message, but I believe I must, because I intend to use some of Dan McClennan’s YouTube dissertations as a basis for adding to my own studies, and in this present case, they would be about my recent study of the Book of Genesis. Dan McClennan is a scholar of the Bible and religion, [1] and I really appreciate the scholarship that he brings in his work. Often, I do not agree with Dan, but that’s okay; in fact, I believe differences of opinion can frequently be a good thing for the Body of Christ. My next few studies will be in Genesis, and they will go against Dan’s conclusions. So, I want to make it clear from the beginning that I really do enjoy his work, even though we often don’t agree. Why do I say this?

My recent and soon to be published study of Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians has changed my understanding of who is and who is not a Christian.[2] Many folks sincerely believe they have a right to exclude other folks from the Church of Christ, when the excluded actually claim to be Christian. No one, in as much as I can tell, has been given that authority over the Body of Christ. While God does have the power to decide one’s identity in Christ, we don’t have that authority (cp. Mark 9:38-39; Luke 9:49-50).

In my study of Colossians, I came to realize that folks, who apparently didn’t have a very good understanding of the preeminence of Christ (Colossians 1:15-20) were greeted by Paul as Christian brethren (Colossians 1:2). Moreover, while Paul did not explicitly say that the Colossian brethren had been invaded by false teachers and capitulated, as was true about the churches of Galatia (Galatians 1:6-9), he did, however, warn the church about corrupting themselves through the philosophies of this world, whether those philosophies were gentile or Jewish (Colossians 2:8).

Josephus defined Jewish philosophies as groups of Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and Essenes,[3] so Paul was referring to belief systems that oppose the opinions or belief systems of other folks—something like Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics and, yes, Mormons. The fact is, we are all guilty of dividing the Body of Christ into sub-Christian traditions, accusing one another of rebelling against Christ, teaching false doctrine or even of being “not of the body” to begin with (cp. 1Corinthians 12:12-27).[4] Nevertheless, this wasn’t so, when God first called the Church out of the world (Acts 2), and what makes any of us think God has changed his mind about our being ONE Church?

So, if my understanding of Paul’s letter to the Colossians is close to being correct, Dan’s scholarship is authentically Christian; we don’t always agree, but we are Christians who don’t always agree, and it would be great, if everyone could keep this in mind. Why not simply reject Dan and his scholarship, if we don’t agree? One big reason is, because diversity is needed in the Body of Christ. Paul says so (See my mention of 1Corinthians 12 above). Dan is a critical thinker, and, for me, that means that he often sees the text differently than I do, so by listening to Dan I can usually get a different perspective of God’s word that I ordinarily wouldn’t see. As I said, I may not agree with everything Dan says, but I probably agree with him as much as I disagree, and it’s a lot of fun finding out which way that goes.

_____________________________________________

[1] Dan is a Mormon; he admits it, probably from the beginning (I’m a recent enthusiast of his channel, so I don’t know when he first admitted his affiliation to Mormonism), but, unless he is speaking specifically about Mormonism, he doesn’t bring those denominational issues into any of his other YouTube dissertations that I’ve watched.

[2] While what I’ve come to believe may be wrong, I’m ready to accept that. What I’m not willing to accept is excluding folks from the family of God and being wrong about that.

[3] See JOSEPHUS; Antiquities of the Jews; Book 18; chapter 1; paragraphs 1 & 2. In later centuries gentile philosophies began to influence the Church, Platonists, Aristotelians, Pythagoreans, Stoics etc.

[4] Today, much of the quarreling had turned friendly, but this hasn’t always been so, and neither is it completely true for all denominations today. Many of us will still find reason to exclude entire groups of people, simply because we don’t agree doctrinally. Only Jesus saves; doctrines, good or bad, never saved a soul.