I grew up surrounded by the reading and teaching of the Christian Bible. I was taught from birth that it was the Word of God and thus should be central to our life practice. I thought I knew everything about the Bible, even memorizing whole books for Bible Quizzing (yes, Bible Quizzing). Then one day, I learned that the books of the Bible were chosen by a group of men in a process called canonization.

What!?!

No one ever told me how the books came to be, just that God wrote them using the hands of men (why he/she didn’t use women, I never asked?) Neither was I informed about the significant disagreement among the canonizers as to which books should be included and whether large swaths such as the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) should be included in the bible at all. Finally, I learned that different sects of Christianity call different books sacred with different Bibles for Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestant communities.

This was the first step on a road that de-deified the Christian Bible in my eyes. Fortunately, it certainly has not made that book lose its significance in my life. In fact, I find more beauty in the narrative of the Christian story as illustrated in the Old and New Testaments, than when I was memorizing verse by verse. Another benefit has come from the ability to find sacredness in other texts, particularly those of the early church which did not make the cut. While some of these are spurious, many of these text have added rich value to my faith and helped me understand the early church to a larger extent than the Gospels or Acts can accomplish.

My favorite of these texts is The Didache. This ancient writing is considered one of the earliest documents of the church and presents a framework for how Christians and Christian Communities should act with each other. If you’re never read it, you can see a translation here or here.

The central premise of the Didache is an outline of The Two Ways. We are presented with the Way of Life and the Way of Death. The Way of Life is described using Jesus’ own words, reminding us that life is found in loving our enemies, practicing generosity, and avoiding excess desires. The Way of Death is a reminder to flee from evil by avoiding a standard list of evils. While the latter parts of The Didache focus on ceremonial rites like baptism and communion, this discussion of the ways is what I find most significant.

I love this writing because Jesus’ Way is more important than Jesus as THE way. While the canonical “Gospels” are rich in both narrative and teaching, they often are read to prove that Jesus is the mystical Son of God and that anyone who doesn’t get on the Jesus bandwagon obviously isn’t down with God. Too often, the actuality of what Jesus taught is abandoned and replaced with misinterpretation of the teaching of the Apostle Paul. This leaves behind a community of faith which loves Jesus, but doesn’t know what he taught.

The Way of Life and the Way of Death present to us a better framework for understand the way of God in the world than the “salvation from eternal hell” idea. We live in a world of choice, in which we have alternatives with different consequences. The power of the moment comes to play as the choices I make don’t effect my eternal destiny as much as they move me closer to one of two alternatives. In this scenario, our whole lives come into to play. Things which are life-producing: spiritual practice, care for the environment, healthy lifestyles, and love for neighbor are the Way of Life, while the opposites: selfishness, prejudice, greedy consumption, and exclusion of the other lead us to death. Could this be what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the narrow and the wide gates? I believe so.

The Didache serves to ground us in the framework of what we’re about as people who try to follow God in the way of Jesus. Much as faith communities today develop statements of faith or common values, the Didache gives us a picture into what the early Christians were thinking about. In my reading, it seems that they were a lot less concerned about proclaiming Jesus as God and singing songs of worship than they were about living out the Way of Life in a world addicted to death. Give it a read and tell me what YOU think?

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