05-01-2012, 02:46 AM
Hi Rungold.
I want to reiterate what Chuck said. The CoE doesn't view these books like, say, an evangelical Protestant group would feel about the book of Mormon.
It's not a rejection in that manner, if anything it's more of an indifference. We respect that the majority of believers hold them to be authentic, even if we don't. Sort of like how the majority of believers revere Maccabees as a virtuous work of history and literature, at a minimum.
Someone wrote a fantastic and beautiful book in Revelation. It may very well have been the apostle John. I wish we had a longer history with that book, and that we had an Aramaic copy. I wish we had all of them so that the church would have a unified canon. But unfortunately this is a part of history that we have to accept for what it is.
Godhead given us His written word but more importantly His unwritten word which dwells in us, the Church. That is our sign of salvation, even if we didn't have the written word as the early church didnt have it.
I want to reiterate what Chuck said. The CoE doesn't view these books like, say, an evangelical Protestant group would feel about the book of Mormon.
It's not a rejection in that manner, if anything it's more of an indifference. We respect that the majority of believers hold them to be authentic, even if we don't. Sort of like how the majority of believers revere Maccabees as a virtuous work of history and literature, at a minimum.
Someone wrote a fantastic and beautiful book in Revelation. It may very well have been the apostle John. I wish we had a longer history with that book, and that we had an Aramaic copy. I wish we had all of them so that the church would have a unified canon. But unfortunately this is a part of history that we have to accept for what it is.
Godhead given us His written word but more importantly His unwritten word which dwells in us, the Church. That is our sign of salvation, even if we didn't have the written word as the early church didnt have it.