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The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice

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If a Gospel of Jesus Christ had been discovered 50 years ago, and its content and tone were deeply at odds with the entire thrust of the churches' traditional interpretations of Jesus' message, and it had been established by biblical scholars to be both earlier and more accurate than the four canonical gospels...wouldn't you expect these facts to be common knowledge, and important news to most Christians?

Well, those facts are all true, but normative Christianity seems to have responded to the Gospel of Thomas with a collective yawn. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the fact that those who call themselves Christians are not interested in reading a newly-discovered and unique gospel is enough to make one agree with Ron Miller that organized religion is more interested in controlling thoughts and political influence than in spirituality.

Every Christian should be interested in the Gospel of Thomas. In this book, Ron Miller uses current scholarship, engaging prose, and an inimitably direct and open style of thinking to explain Jesus' message in the light of these newly discovered teachings. It turns out that Miller is an important contemporary thinker. What he finds will surprise you.

There is one drawback to this book -- it does not contain all of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. For that, you must refer to The Gospel of Thomas Annotated & Explained, translated by Stevan L. Davies.

The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice is an academic and spiritual commentary upon the Gospel of Thomas, a text discovered in Egypt in 1945 that brings new light to Jesus Christ's teachings, offering insights in following in His footsteps and in effect, becoming His "twin". Sections titled "Practice" drive one to reflect upon how to apply the wisdom and selflessness of Christ's teachings to daily life, while questions entitled "Reflections" urge the reader to consider such tasks as "How can I be a more prayerful person while still being true to my understanding of the spiritual universe?" A vessel for personal and spiritual self-growth as surely as it is an analytical dissection of religious text, The Gospel of Thomas is an excellent guide for anyone seeking to explore what this holy text has to say about belief, life, God's Kingdom and the way of Jesus Christ.

If you want to really know Christ as God has intended him to be known and as Jesus himself wanted his followers to know him then read this book. The BIBLE seems insignificant to those who have read this Gospel and come to understand the reality in which Christ lived himself and wished other followers to apply his words - those of the Gospel of Thomas - to their lives. This is a must read for ANYONE who calls themselves to be "Christian."

This book was exactly what I was looking for. It took verses from the gospel of Thomas and discussed their meaning, put it in context, and gave you spiritual practice ideas to "live" the concepts. This is not the full gospel of Thomas, however for me it was more useful than merely reading a translation. This is more like a study guide to practice the book of Thomas than to study it. It is the best spiritual guide book I have read in years!

Not much exists from the time of Jesus. The four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written at least 30 years after Jesus died. The Gospel of Thomas was written much earlier and gives us great insights into the person and message of Jesus. Ron Miller does an excellent job of allowing us to see Jesus even more clearly.

Ron Miller's book opened with a promising introduction but went downhill from there. The author was a self-professed Catholic during his formative years before graduating into becoming a full-fledged proponent of pluralism ("...if one religion is true, then all religions are probably true..."). The book reflected much of his conversion experience. However, for a book touted as "A guidebook for spiritual practice", I found the short 123-pager particularly dissatisfactory as it completely ignored the important comparison (parallels or otherwise) between the Gospel of Thomas and the four canonical gospels of Mark, Peter, Luke and John. Further, the author's attempt to correlate the Thomas Gospel with myriad religious sayings and idioms, from Buddhism to Hinduism to Chinese proverbs, merely skimmed the surface if not haphazardly done. (Little wonder, as the author claimed to have written the bulk of this spiritual guide within 48 hours). Of the books written on the Thomas Gospel, I highly recommend Professor Stevan Davies' book on the same subject (also by Skylight Publishers) as it is the only definitive work presenting the full translation as-is with side annotations, stopping short of jumping onto the bandwagon of deciphering Jesus' cryptic sayings in an overly simplistic manner.