Parchment and Papyrus

Basing our faith on a Person rather than a piece of paper

04/26/2018

John 13:16-20 When Jesus had washed the disciples' feet, he said to them: "Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me. From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me."

What would your life be like without the New Testament? What if all you had to feed your faith was the Old Testament? Would we all be Jews? Before we can answer that question, what do we mean by the term “New Testament”? Most Christians would probably reply the New Testament is roughly the second half of the Bible comprised of twenty-seven books. And that’s certainly true enough. But what would the Christians answer who lived for three hundred years before the official canon of the New Testament was finalized by the end of the fourth century? For the first three hundred years of Christian history – which is longer than the entire history of the United States – there was neither the King James Version nor the RSVCE (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition) of the Bible. So what did those poor people have to discuss in their Wednesday evening Bible study class?

To put it simply, those early Christians’ faith was not based on a piece of paper, but on a Person, namely, Jesus. In a fascinating little book called Consuming the Word, Scott Hahn observes insightfully: “The content of the Gospel is quite simply Jesus. He represents the fulfillment and a kingdom. He is the Gospel long before the literary Gospels were written. He himself is the canon long before the official canon came into being.” He continues: “Christians preached this Good News and proclaimed it and lived it out long before anyone wrote a word of it down on parchment or papyrus” (Consuming the Word, 15, emphasis in original). In other words, the term “New Testament” for the early Christians, which inspired their life as well as their death, was the Person of Jesus Christ. That is the most ancient and authentic meaning of the term “New Testament.”

In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul goes to Antioch and attends a synagogue service. We read: “On the sabbath they entered into the synagogue and took their seats. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the synagogue official sent word to them, ‘My brothers, if one of you has a word of exhortation for the people, please speak’.” And what did Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, do? Did he reach into his back pocket and pull out his concise New Testament and quote from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? No. He spoke eloquently about Jesus, a Person who profoundly changed his life, and the One who fulfilled all the aspirations of the Old Testament. Jesus is the New Testament.

In the gospel of John, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet and then adds: “So that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, the one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.” When Jesus uses the word “Scriptures” he can only mean the Old Testament. Why? Because he himself is the New Testament. If you had asked St. Paul or Jesus or any early Christian what does the term “New Testament” mean? They would never have answered, “Roughly the second half of the Bible comprised of twenty-seven books.” They would always have said, “What a silly question! The New Testament is Jesus, of course.” They always fed their faith with a Person, not with parchment and papyrus.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not trying to denigrate the Scriptures, or discourage you from attending Bible study or say the Scriptures are unimportant for our faith in Jesus. My Scripture professor in the seminary was fond of saying, “There is Scripture and everything else is commentary.” That comment was a jab at the other theology departments, suggesting that Scripture study is superior, and everything else secondary. St. Jerome, who translated the entire Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin in the fourth century, famously said: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” So, go full-throttle in Bible study, memorize Scripture passages, treat your Bible with the reverence and respect it deserves as the inspired word of God. But at the end of the day, realize that even if you didn’t have a Bible you could still be saved. Salvation does not come from parchment and papyrus but from the Person of Jesus.

If anyone asks you again what does the term “New Testament” mean, I hope you can now reply: “Originally, and most authentically, the New Testament was the Person of Jesus Christ.” Scott Hahn insists that would be the answer you would get from the written version of the New Testament itself. He asserts: “In the texts of the New Testament, then, ‘New Testament’ denotes not a text, but an action – not a document but a sacrament.” We do not feed our faith on parchment and papyrus but on a Person named Jesus Christ.

Praised be Jesus Christ!