For the last few months, our meditation group, which has been meeting together on Sundays for the last 13 years, has been reading through the Gospel of Thomas, following our 40-minute meditation. Initially, we were reading five verses at a time, but we found that the verses were so deep, and often challenging, that now we simply reread last week’s verse and read one new one each week. As many of you probably know, the Gospel of Thomas was rediscovered buried in the Egyptian desert near the village of Nag Hammadi in 1945, along with a number of other ancient Christian texts. Initially, the Gospel of Thomas was dismissed by many scholars as being too “gnostic.” But over the years since its discovery, more and more biblical scholars have begun to realize the importance and legitimacy of Thomas. Many scholars believe that it comes from an earlier time than the Canonical Gospels in the New Testament that most of us are familiar with, namely Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read more »