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Good evening and welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shipley at Witton Baptist Church. I'm here with you today to continue our Canon of Scripture topic, remember Canon with one N. And this is about why we have these 66 books of the Bible and why we don't have other books of the Bible, often known as the Apocrypha, the Old Testament, the New Testament Apocryphal Books.
And I want to take a few minutes to review from last week. Now, if you can find the link, if you can go back and watch last week's on the Witton Facebook public page or Witton Media Ministry, you can go on there and do that and it's called the Canon of Scripture Part 1.
This is the Canon of Scripture Part 2 and I just want to revisit some of those themes we talked about last week and then spend a few minutes going over some passages to help us think about these things.
First off, remember, when we speak of the Old Testament Apocrypha, we are mostly speaking against the additional books and chapters of the Roman Catholic Canon. We have seven or eight extra Old Testament books, 1st, 2nd Maccabees, Tobit, Edress, and some extra chapters in Esther and Daniel.
One of the extra chapters in Daniel has Daniel killing a dragon by feeding it pies. Things like that. And when we speak of the New Testament Apocrypha, we're mostly speaking against Gnostic Gospels. We recognize that the 39 books of the Old Testament we have in our Bibles today are the inspired words of God and we reject some of the other historical books, not because they're demonically possessed or like Return of the Mummy and if you read them you're going to be sucked into the vortex of the underworld.
We recognize that 1st and 2nd Maccabees, we recognize that all of these other ones are history books. They're just books. Some of them are important books. Jude even references Enoch, or the Assumption of Moses, even though they're not in the Roman Catholic tradition.
That doesn't make them inspired by God. I mean, you think about it, not everything the Apostle Paul ever wrote is in the New Testament. There are other letters he wrote. If he wrote down his grocery list, it doesn't mean we think it's the inspired word of God.
God inspired those works that he wanted to inspire. They are God-breathed. They are honest to us. Additionally, we think about this. We went over some history last week. A few names to remember. Athanasius in the 4th century, Josephus in the 1st century.
Always accounted, either 22 or 24, depending on how you count them, the inspired books of the Jews that were laid up in the temple. Now when you think for a minute, you're like, wait Josiah, 22 or 24 books?
I thought we had 39. They're the exact same books. Remember, they counted them differently. All 12 of the minor prophets were counted as one. So you know, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Abadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, that was all counted as one.
And then 1st and 2nd Kings was one. 1st and 2nd Samuel was one. It's actually normally called 3rd and 4th Kings. And then there's a few other little tricks. For example, to get 22 or 24, sometimes Ezra and Nehemiah were counted as one.
Sometimes Jeremiah and Lamentations were counted as one. And all that, you get either 22 or 24. It's the same 39 books we have. Those were laid up in the temple, Josephus says. Athanasius says those are the ones that have always been considered by the Jews to be inspired.
It's not that the Jews didn't know about the Maccabees and Tobit and Judas and Wisdom and Sirach and Beirut. They did. They just didn't accept them as canonically Theanostas, inspired by God. Okay? So, then we have the New Testament, which quotes the Old Testament as many as 300 times.
But it never quotes the Apocrypha, those extra books, with the words, as it is written, or according to the scriptures. It never does that. Because they knew they existed, but they knew they weren't Theanostas, the word of God.
So, if the New Testament never quotes them within that authority, I think that speaks volumes. And last, so, reason number one, the early church and the Jews never considered them to be inspired. So, what evidence do we have that we should?
Two, it's never quoted authoritatively in the New Testament. And three, there are some doctrinal and historical problems. The book of Tobit begins saying that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Nineveh. When that's historical fiction, and I don't mean to be mean, and it contradicts the book of Daniel, which says he was king of Babylon.
So, those are simple reasons why we don't accept the Old Testament Apocrypha. They're written way later, they're written during the silent years of, hey brother Jeremiah, they're written during the silent years of, you know, 400 BC to the time of Christ.
So, we have that too. Okay, now when it comes to the New Testament Apocrypha, just to give you a few things, most of these are Gnostic Gospels. And as I'm saying this, I think we're going to do a question and answer video on what is Gnosticism.
That sounds like a good one to me. But, the New Testament Apocrypha, the same reasons that I just gave why we don't accept the Old Testament Apocrypha are very similar, with a few differences. First off, I have more respect for the Old Testament Apocrypha as historically accurate than I do the New Testament Apocrypha.
They're known fronds. We don't have even any fragments. Remember how last week we talked about how we have 5 ,500 Greek fragments or full copies of the Greek New Testament? The Gospel of Peter, for example, we have three fragments dating from the late second, excuse me, late third and late second century.
And we don't have a full copy until the eighth century. So 800 years after it happened. That wasn't written by Peter. If the earliest fragment we have is 250 years after Peter died, that should tell us something.
The Gospels tell them the same way. They're known fronds. They are known to not be from the first century. Whereas the entire New Testament was written in the first century. The entire New Testament. It's really not even disputed.
Now we don't have the copies, excuse me, we don't have the copies from the first century. They're from the second century. But that doesn't change the fact that we can verifiably testify that the New Testament documents were written down in the first century and the Gnostic Gospels, the New Testament Apocrypha, were not.
So they're known fronds. They were not written by who they say they were, by Philip or Peter or Thomas. Peter recognizes Paul's writings of Scripture. Paul recognizes his own writings of Scripture. John certainly does, if you read John.
They don't recognize any of those others. Additionally, the New Testament Church, even though, yes, I do admit there was some debate about, okay, which of these are canonical because, you know, all the apostles have died now.
The fact that there was debate about it only shows us that they took it seriously. But the final conclusion was these books were not from the apostles of Jesus Christ. Remember, there's a difference between being an apostle, one who is sent, and the apostle of Jesus Christ, or a apostle of Jesus Christ, sent out by Jesus himself.
And in other reasons, it's a different Jesus and a different doctrine altogether. I mean, it's heretical, the New Testament Apocrypha. It's even worse than the Old Testament Apocrypha. And you have, in the Gospel of Peter, you have Jesus coming out of the grave, and you see him come out of the grave, and he's so tall his head reaches past the clouds, and the cross walks out of the tomb and talks.
Now, does that sound like what Peter said happened at the resurrection? No. The Gospel of Thomas does a good job, because of docetism, trying to show that Jesus wasn't really human. This is what John speaks against in 1 John.
Okay, so yeah, I think I've decided that we're going to do a pre-recorded video on Gnosticism, as well as maybe some other things. So, we'll get to that very soon. Okay. Now, let's look at a few New Testament examples of how Jesus and the Apostles viewed the Old Testament and the New Testament.
We did a few of these last week. First off, I want to always remind you of two very important passages. 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17. I'll quote it. I'm not sure what version I'm memorizing this in. All scripture is breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
So the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. All scripture is theionous to us. God breathed. 2 Peter 3, 16. 2 Peter may be the most important book in the New Testament about the Bible.
2 Peter 1, 16 -21 talks about, you know, no prophecy ever comes from one's own interpretation, and said men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. But 2 Timothy 3, 15 and 16, you have Peter equating Paul's writings with the authority and inspiration of the Old Testament.
He says that people seek to twist and devise Paul's writings for their own destruction, as they do with the rest of Scripture. Peter recognized that what Paul was writing down was theionous to us with Scripture.
But I want to point something out here. First off, I want to point out in Luke 24, Luke chapter 24, and I'm going to write this down so I know what to make videos for next time. I know this isn't super, what's the word for it, professional, but I'm trying to help you guys.
Eyewitness versus Scripture, Jesus. We'll do another one, guys, on Jesus. We did this in church yesterday, being Son of God and God at the same time. And then thirdly, what is Gnosticism? Luke 24, some of you have heard this before.
Listen to this. This is the Emmaus Road. So Jesus has risen from the dead, and he's appeared to a good amount of people so far. Well, it appears to be two disciples. It doesn't appear that they're of the twelve, but other disciples.
May have been of the seventy he sent out, who knows. And Jesus appears beside them and kind of pretends like he doesn't know what's going on. And he goes, hey, what's happening in Jerusalem? What's all the hubbub?
And they're like, are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know about what's happened? They're like, this guy named Jesus of Nazareth, he was a prophet. And he did all these awesome things. And we saw that he was crucified.
And now they're saying that he's been raised from the dead. Now, Jesus condemns them and chides them for being foolish. Here's why I want everyone to listen to this. Verse 25 of Luke 24. Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.
Was it not necessary that Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Here's what's amazing, guys. And I won't stress on this too much. Jesus chides them because they didn't believe until they saw it with their own eyes. Jesus says the greater testimony is that the scripture which you have read since you were a child has always said these things.
Why are you just now surprised and just now have all this abundance of faith because you saw it? The greater testimony is not an eyewitness account. The greater testimony is that the word of God said it would happen and it happened.
And Jesus chides them for only believing when they saw it. Very similarly, we may have covered this last week, but in Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus, when he sees Lazarus with Abraham in glory and sees the rich man in torment and fire, the rich man who's in torment asks Abraham to send somebody to warn his family.
And the rich man says, Abraham, if you send somebody, they'll believe. Listen to Abraham's response. This is in Luke 16, verse 29. Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
Verse 31, he said to them, if they don't hear Moses and the prophets, they won't be convinced even if someone would rise from the dead. God, I'll be honest. I have thought this and I know you have too.
Maybe I'm just the only idiot, but I've thought this. Jesus, God, why don't you just appear in a pillar of fire? Or God, just appear so that people will believe in you. Listen to what the word of God is telling us.
And this is hard to hear for those of us who like to see and feel and touch in order to believe. Right here it says, if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't be convinced even if someone would rise from the dead.
Guys, whenever a God thing happens, the world always comes up with an excuse for how it happened. When we find fish fossils on the top of mountains, you and I know how that happened. It happened because of the global flood.
But there has to be a whole subset of premises and different beliefs to make that work for a worldview that doesn't allow for God. The same would happen if God showed up. When God does miracles, an excuse has to be made for a natural consequence.
Because they can't accept the possibility of there being a God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. Our job is not to make the gospel more palatable to people's ears. Our job is to preach the true gospel.
And it comes from the word of God. Let's look just to let you see how Paul... I used to think, did Paul know he was writing scripture? I'm now convinced he did. 1 Thessalonians 2 .13. We'll do three more and we'll be done.
Yeah, I still have to do that. Just like with the ABCs sometimes when you put stuff in alphabetical order. 1 Thessalonians 2 .13. We also thank God constantly for this, that you have received the word of God, which you heard from us and accepted it not as the words of men, but as it really was, the word of God, which is that word to you believers.
Did you hear that? Paul's writing to the church at Thessalonica, a church that he started and said, I thank God constantly that you received the word of God that we taught to you. And you accepted it for what it really is, not the word of men, but the word of God.
Paul is saying the words I gave you were the words of God. That is a powerful sentence. 1 Corinthians 14 .37. This is at the end of Paul's three-chapter teaching on the spiritual gifts, on tongues, prophecies, so on and so forth.
1 Corinthians 12 -14. And he ends it in 1 Corinthians 14 .37 by saying this,. If anyone thinks he's a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.
Paul knew that what he was writing was the Lord's command. And finally, Ephesians 3 .3. This one's fun. I've read past this for years. The mystery was made known to me by revelation, which I have briefly written above.
When you read this, you can perceive my insight to the mystery of Christ. This mystery was made known to me by revelation, which I have briefly written above. Paul knew that what he was writing was revelation from God.
So, what to make of all this? Let's summarize. Well, I trust that the 66 books we have in our canon are the words of God because Jesus and the apostles viewed them as that and didn't view the other ones as that.
That's reason number one. Reason number two, there is a biblical consistency of systematic theology that from Genesis to Revelation, the doctrines are found in this are consistent. And even though they're written thousands of miles apart by different people, 1500 years apart, they say the same thing.
That type of consistency can only happen if the author is God, even though the writers are men. That type of consistency and historical accuracy does not happen in the New Testament Apocrypha or some of the Old Testament Apocrypha.
And the early church and the Jews knew that. And even though there was debate about it, the large majority accepted what we have today as the word of God. And if it was... That's how Jesus and the apostles viewed it, and that's how it was quoted in the Old Testament as divine.
And even though Paul and the other apostles may have quoted other poets, even pagan poets, and even other historical books, they never gave them the attestation of as it is written or according to the scriptures.
And I would like to have the same opinion of scripture that Jesus and the apostles did. I hope this was helpful. Share this if someone needs it, and ask more questions. Bring in the question and answer Saturday.
I love you guys very much. Have a good one.