Book review: This Is My Body

by Keith A. Giles

★★★★

For ye are the temple of the living God.

What was the temple that Jesus came to establish? It was you and I—the living temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did what David and Solomon and all the rest could never do. He built an acceptable temple for God that was cleansed with His own blood and purified by the Lamb of God.

And God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” -2 Cr. 6:16

This concept forms the basis of Giles’ book, This Is My Body. His emphasis on Christ, particularly the Christ dwelling within, renders today’s clergy (as a class separate from the laity) as a misdirected spinoff from first-century teachings. The early church knew nothing of the clergy class of leader we see today; in the New Testament, every Christian is a minister, everyone a priest. In arguing his case, Giles holds true to the traditionally understood authorship and dating of the New Testament.

Consider the controversy over the Pastoral letters: Timothy I, II, and Titus. Scholars recognize how the teachings of the Pastorals contradict the teachings of other Pauline letters and of the Gospels, addressing the hierarchical needs of the growing church (e.g.: the need for a clergy!), and assume that they are written later; possibly in the early second century. That would mean they are not written by Paul. Giles, however, takes the opposite approach; he takes Pauline authorship for granted, and argues instead that we are wrongly interpreting the meaning of the Pastoral letters. His book contradicts both conservative and liberal thinking, and while Giles would never put it quite this way, he probably comes closer to the message of Jesus than the New Testament writers themselves.

Says Giles, “I believe it’s time the Church went out of business. Close down the bank account, lay off the pastoral staff, cancel the utilities, sell the building, auction off the sound system and the digital projector and turn out the lights.” Time to become the church instead of attending one.

(This book may be purchased at http://wearethetemple.blogspot.com/)