Let’s talk about what’s wrong with the idea of a Biblical Canon.
You know — The 66 books of the Protestant Bible. Not the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, or the 77 books in the Orthodox Bible, or even the 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.
We’re only talking about the ones God supposedly rubber-stamped through a bunch of bishops, councils, and creeds hundreds of years after Jesus walked the earth. The truly inspired books that now make up what we call “The Word of God.”
Here’s my problem with the Bible: I believe the idea of a fixed, finalized, divinely-approved list of sacred books is not only misguided — it’s spiritually dangerous.
Is the Canon Really A Cage?
Let’s start with the obvious:
-Jesus never handed anyone a Bible.
-Paul never read a single Gospel.
-The early Christians didn’t have a New Testament
Why? Because it didn’t exist yet.
What they did have was a living experience of the risen Christ.
Not a Holy book. Not a systematic theology.
There wasn’t a Nicaean Council in sight.
And yet…they knew God. They followed Christ. They were filled the Spirit of the Living God.
So why should our spiritual lives be limited to what a few men (yes, they were all men) decided to gather into a leather-bound anthology centuries ago?
Here’s the problem: The canon was a political power grab by a Roman Emperor.
No, that doesn’t mean the books in it have no value — many of them are beautiful, poetic, subversive, and life-giving.
But the moment we draw a line around which voices are allowed to speak to our souls and which ones are silenced something awful happens.
We stop growing. We stop listening. We trade wisdom for certainty and Spirit for structure.
We end up putting God in a box and we start to believe that everything God wanted to say to the human race was said two thousand years ago.
God’s Voice Can’t Be Contained
Let me be clear: God has never been confined to a canon.
Mystics, sages, poets, and prophets have been hearing from the Divine long before there was a Bible — and long after we invented it.
I’m talking about Rumi, Buddha, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Ávila, Ram Dass, Black Elk, Alan Watts, and yes, even the voices of your own heart and soul.
But if we buy into the lie that only certain Scripture is divinely inspired we shut ourselves off from the Infinite. We stop listening for God in our everyday life, in the questions we ask, and in the experiences that don’t fit inside a first-century framework.
Be Your Own Guru
Here’s the truth: You don’t need anyone to tell you what is “inspired” or not. Not your pastor. Not a Pope. Not even an author and blogger like me.
The Spirit of God is within you. The Kingdom of God is inside you.
Jesus didn’t try to create a religious institution or religion. He came to awaken you to your own connection to the Divine.
He came to provoke your sacred imagination and to inspire you to trust your own God-given intuition.
Bottom line: We have got to stop outsourcing our spirituality to ancient councils, holy texts or modern preachers.
We need to start learning to trust ourselves again.
Start asking more dangerous questions. Start listening to that still, small voice within.
Start learning to be still and to know the God who dwells within.
Because if the Divine really is Love — and I believe it is — then that Love isn’t confined to parchment or scrolls or bonded leather.
God’s love is living. It’s moving. It’s speaking.
Right now. In you.
The Canon Is Not the Conclusion
So, what if what we call Scripture wasn’t the last word — but just the beginning?
What if inspiration didn’t stop with John of Patmos, but continued through St. Francis of Assisi, and Howard Thurman and the Sufi mystics and your own grandmother?
What if sacred text is being written every day — in your journal, in your dreams, in your doubts, on your TikTok feed?
The moment we canonize the past, we fossilize the future. We turn the Living Word into a dead language. We exchange genuine encounters for doctrine and we trade mysticism for memorization.
The Good News is, you don’t have to settle for any of that.
You’re allowed to color outside the lines. You’re allowed to become inspired by the poetry of Khalil Gibran, or the wisdom of Tao Te Ching or the writings of Brené Brown, or Anne Lamott and find God there.
You’re even allowed to disagree with the Apostle Paul or to close your Bible and listen for that still, small voice of God within.
Because the Bible isn’t the boss of you.
You are free.
You are filled with the fullness of God who fills everything in every way.
Because God is love and all who live in love live in God and God lives in them.
And that means you don’t need anyone, or any guru, or any book, to tell you what God has to say.
You have ears to hear.
So, listen.
And know.
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The new book, “The Quantum Gospel of Mary and the Lost Gospel of Truth” is now available on Amazon.
The book from Keith Giles, “The Quantum Sayings of Jesus: Decoding the Lost Gospel of Thomas” is available now on Amazon. Order HERE>
Keith Giles is the best-selling author of the Jesus Un series. He has been interviewed on CNN with Anderson Cooper, Coast to Coast Radio with George Noory, USA Today, BuzzFeed, and John Fugelsang’s “Tell Me Everything.”He co-hosts The Heretic Happy Hour Podcastand his solo podcast, Second Cup With Keith which are both available on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Podbean or wherever you find great podcasts.
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