Beautiful People, Ugly People

Your beauty must not depend on outward things such as hair-styles, jewellery and clothes. It must show itself in that calm and gentle spirit which rises from the inner springs of a person's nature
1 Peter 3:3,4 


Jesus said Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Don't you understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside? 
Gospel of Thomas 89

Let it be by your gentleness that all men know you
Philippians 4:5 




I remember one time when I was talking with a friend. She said, "I'm going to the salon. What should I do with my hair?" I thought about her question. I thought for a while. In fact, I thought about it long enough for my friend to interrupt my thoughts by asking, "Well?" 

I replied, "You know, I really have no idea. I'm actually a lot more concerned about what you are going to do with your heart."

My response was not dismissive, trite or trivial. It was honest. I knew where she was coming from, what she was trying to deal with; she had recently sought me out for some advice. Her idea now was that a new hairstyle would signify a new her, would go some way to wash away the hurt of her recent past. But we both knew that appearance usually flatters to deceive; any real change must begin inside.

We live in an age when people pay excessive attention to their outward appearance, believing that their bodies are who they are. It's not just hairstyles, of course, or fashion, or editing selfies, or getting a tattoo; our body obsession is all over our shopping malls, gyms, and every article and film with gratutious sex. It's also obvious in our all-too-easy dismissal of the old, the frail, and the crippled.

Interestingly, in the passages quoted above, the word 'braided' is used regarding hair in the original Greek, telling us that we are not so different from the people who lived back then.  But stop there for a moment. Why would biblical texts even mention braided hair? They mention them because our appearance is not who we are.

You may have seen Chris Rock's film, "Good Hair" which analyses the African-American hair industry from the premise that his children believed they had bad hair. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with braided or styled hair or even paying attention to our appearance. But there is a big problem when we pay more attention to how we look than how we live; when we pay more attention to our image than our thoughts; when we spend more time in front of a mirror or taking selfies that we do in resisting evil or showing care and compassion for those around us. 

The point of the ancient writers is simply that prettifying our bodies (our outsides) doesn't create beautiful people, it only creates beautiful bodies; truly beautiful people are created within, through developing loving, compassionate natures. It's what we do, not how we look. In other words, for Jesus, Peter, and Paul, beauty or ugly are how we live; beauty is a verb. 

Why the Gospel of Thomas was banned by the church

Why was the Gospel of Thomas banned by the church?

I believe the reason why the church considered the Gospel of Thomas to be anathema was because the story in Matthew that records Jesus as saying to Simon, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church" is significantly different in Thomas.

Matthew 16:13-17 in the NIV reads:

¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

The parallel passage in Thomas (logion 13, Lambdin translation) reads:

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like." 
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel." 
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." 
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like." 
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out." 
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" 
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The two accounts clearly retell the same incident, but the differences are striking. In the Matthew passage, Jesus renames Simon as Peter. The early church, based in Rome, developed its idea of being authoritative from this passage. According to tradition, Peter was the first Pope, and all popes since then have been the spiritual heirs of Peter. In the Thomas passage, Jesus denies Messiahship, saying instead that the Father has empowered Thomas to be his twin. 

There are many things we can say about the words used here. Firstly, Jesus was of course a Jew and not a Christian, but Matthew has Jesus using the word 'church'--surely an anachronism? And secondly, the name 'Peter' in Greek means 'rock'. For me, this is a cleverly written and structured piece of persuasive writing.

So too is the Thomas passage, for the name 'Thomas' means 'twin', and we will dream forever about "the things that he told me", what they might have been...

However, the reason the church wanted this gospel destroyed is, I believe, simply because its existence removes the papacy's claim to being the Christian movement's legitimate authority.