Lesson 12: The Closed Canon, Part 1

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Lesson 12: The Closed Canon, Part 2

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Okay, good morning everyone come on in and find a place and we're gonna get started with adult Sunday school class All right.

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Let's begin with prayer our father We are grateful for this day that you've given to us and that we have this place to gather and to worship and to fellowship

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With each other we're so grateful for that blessing and the freedom to enjoy these graces We also thank you for the fact that you've called us out of darkness and to yourself and you have brought us

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To faith and the truth and Jesus Christ and that you've given us your word it is a precious treasure that you have have granted to us and we're thankful that we have it in our own language and that You have blessed us with understanding in your word according to the gift of your

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Holy Spirit And we pray now today and this morning that as we spend our time here thinking about how you have

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Have preserved your word for us and and given it to us down through the ages that you would open our eyes and our hearts to understand these things and give us grace for the teaching ministry of your

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Holy Spirit to Be able to discern and to think clearly and to come to right and true conclusions regarding the truth of Scripture And we pray your blessing upon this time for the glory of Christ our

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Lord in whose name we pray. Amen Hey, we're in lesson 12 a Closed canon is the title of that lesson lesson 12.

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I'll give you a moment to find your spot there last week we finished up lesson 11 which dealt with the issue of canonicity and we looked at the

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Qualities of canonical books. What what qualities do all books which we have in our canon?

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What did they possess? We saw that they are alive. They're authentic and authoritative usually apostolic and we're talking about specifically

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New Testament apostolic authorship and Today we're looking we're gonna start talking about the question of is the canon closed and that's a little bit later in the lesson

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And I don't know that it will get all the way to that or even introducing that but we do want to get through Discussion of some of the disputed books that were there were there were question marks regarding their canonicity in the early church

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We're gonna look at each one Individually kind of alluded to these as we've gone through the last four weeks we've mentioned

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James and Hebrews 2nd Peter etc and those those disputed or questioned books and Those took a little bit longer to be widely accepted than some of the others

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Matthew Mark Luke John acts Romans Galatians Paul's epistles, etc. And so I've kind of alluded to those we talked about some of the reasons

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We're going to go into a little bit more detail on those today and then answer some objections that are commonly raised about some of the disputed books

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So we are under number one now the nature of disputed books. I'm going to give you three Sort of difficult to pronounce or big long

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Academic sounding words. They're not intended to be academic But if you read literature on these subjects, you're going to come across tomahawk homo

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Laguna pseudepigraphy and antelope omina though those words are used to describe

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The books of the New Testament and books that are not in the New Testament So I'm going to define each of these for you and then give you an explanation of what we mean by that so books particularly ancient books that are

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Considered in terms of their canonical status are divided into one of these three groups. The first is the homo laguna

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These were books that were accepted by all ACC EP TED accepted by all in other words

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There was no doubt by any Orthodox Christian by any Christian Church any Christian group any geographical reason region

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There was no discussion or debate or doubt about the legitimacy of whether these books were

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Apostolic whether they were authoritative whether they were inspired or canonical. These were accepted universally across the board by all

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Christians All the Church Fathers spoke in favor of the canonicity of these books all of them appear in all the major canons of the early church all the major lists including the moratorium canon which talked about last week this look this book

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Sorry, this list of the homo laguna contains 22 of the 27

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New Testament books So that leaves five of them that we're talking about or sorry 27 of them that we're talking about that are

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Disputed books. Okay. So the homo laguna books were accepted by all Universal recognition we can sort of put that a category.

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We're not discussing those this morning Second the pseudepigraphy. These were books that were rejected by all these are rejected by all pseudo meaning false and pygraphy meaning

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Bacon false bacon. These are the books rejected by all No false writings is the word we were described false writings

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It means false or fake writing spurious or heretical works They contain false doctrine many of them a bad history some of them aberrant doctrines by the 9th century there were a list of 280 of these books that were known to have been written or Originated between the 1st century around the 1st century between the 1st century and the 4th and 5th centuries 280 books were on the list of pseudepigraphy and we'll cover those a little bit later in a different lesson and then third the

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Antilaguna, these are the books disputed by some the books disputed by some

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Now the key here is the word disputed and not rejected Okay, notice the distinction between that there are seven books that were disputed by some

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Not rejected by some and not disputed by all and certainly not rejected by all

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Do you guys understand the difference between those it's important to keep that in mind as we're talking about these seven books These are books that were disputed by some

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Eusebius a Christian historian lists seven books that were disputed by some and That these seven books had not by the 4th century gained a universal acceptance

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So it took a little while for some of the books to gain universal acceptance because they were disputed by a few people

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That here's the letter B the nature of the Antilaguna the fact that they were questioned into the 4th century does not mean we've talked

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About this before but I need to reiterate it the fact that it was these books were questioned or disputed into the 4th century

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Does not mean that they did not have initial recognition by the Apostles or the post -apostolic communities

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Okay, it doesn't mean that these books take Hebrews for instance Just because Hebrews was disputed by some in the

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Western Church Into the 4th century does not mean that it was not accepted by the apostolic community and even post -apostolic

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Christian communities immediately in the 1st century in the 2nd century. It just means that at some point in some

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Regions of the the Christian Church. The book was questioned or disputed by some who did not view it as canonical

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Okay so the fact that they were questioned in the 4th century does not mean that they did not have universal recognition by the

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Apostles or by certain apostolic post -apostolic communities On the contrary we can say of all 27 books of our

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New Testament That all of them were quoted with authority from the earliest of times the earliest time that we have record

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Right, all of them that were quoted as authority So it's not like it's not as if we have a book say

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Hebrews that everybody universally rejected for four centuries And then suddenly around 450 somebody shows up and says, you know,

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I think we should add Hebrews to the book to the canon That's not how it worked at all Hebrews was quoted as authoritative and recognized as authoritative by some by most from the earliest times that we have record of the book of Hebrews So we're not talking here when we talk about the disputed books

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We're not talking about books that were universally rejected by everybody and added at a much later date The fact that they were questioned into the 4th century does not mean that their place in our modern

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Bible is any less firm or legitimate than any of the other books. It's important to remember as well

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So in other words, we don't have in our thinking in our New Testament We don't have two categories of books the ones that are

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Universally accepted and then we still have that list of a few that we're not quite sure about No, we we have no distinction like that at all.

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We have all 27 books. We recognize it because they have been yet recognized universally So we recognize them that way as Scripture We don't recognize we don't we don't label these as disputed books as if they're still under consideration

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We're still kicking around 2nd Peter trying to figure out if it's canonical or not. That's not how that works Okay, it simply shows that many geographical locations and congregations took longer to recognize the authority authenticity and orthodoxy and the power of certain

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New Testament books it took them time to do this because they had to verify those books themselves And when a book shows up and there's claims that hey 500 miles away these guys regard this book as written by Peter at 2nd

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Peter They regard as written by Peter and they regarded this scripture. You ever heard of this before right?

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This is new to your congregation. You have 1st Peter. You didn't know there was a second epistle So it shows up on your church doorstep and the pastors talking about it.

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What are you gonna do? You know just universally you don't recognize just because somebody else said it's scripture There were

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Gnostic and heretical groups that regarded the Gospel of Thomas as scripture So what would you do you'd verify it wouldn't you you'd want to ask is this how widely accepted is this book?

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We need to find that out. Is this book really apostolic we need to find that out We need to read and study this book and compare it to the writings of the other

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Apostles and find out if it matches up Does it have a high view of Jesus a high view of scripture? Is it authoritative?

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We need to work through this book and make sure that this is genuinely an inspired apostolic writing

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It would take time to verify that and that's why some of the books were disputed for a while Not not forever, but for a while it took time to verify that the writings were indeed apostolic

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Okay, are there any questions about that before we move on? Yeah small math point at least five, right?

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Yeah, I said I can Yeah Yeah, we have seven we're gonna look at Hebrews James 2nd

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Peter 2nd John 3rd John Jude and Revelation. So that's seven. We're gonna look at seven books that were disputed

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Okay, so that should be 20 20 of 27 books Thank you. Appreciate it. No.

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Well, I am a product of the public school system. So Okay. Thank you for that correction. Yeah All right

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So what is the nature of the dispute then the basic problem with those books that were? Disputed by some not rejected by some nor rejected by all but disputed by some the basic problem was a lack of information

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Or a lack of communication or in the ancient world a lack of ability to get that information or a lack of ability to communicate

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It's not like keep in mind that we're talking about the ancient world communication didn't work the way that it does today Sometimes it might take a year or more to get a message to somebody and away from somebody from somebody especially if the government is trying to persecute you and the very fact that you're gathering as Christians makes it threatening to your life to do so so communication and Information is very hard to come by in the ancient world.

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So this would take a little bit of time The people only the Christians only needed to confirm certain things

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Authorship whether it was accepted whether it was regarded as authoritative and it was a genuine epistle Faithfully and communicate faithfully and accurately transmitted and communicated once they could verify those things then they would accept the books without any question

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Alright number two the number of disputed books. This comes back to the math again So we're just gonna not talk about numbers

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We're just going to talk about each of these books and describe briefly why it is that some of them were questioned or disputed by some letter letter a

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Hebrews We've talked about this before the reason that Hebrews was disputed by some was because of the anonymity of the author

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That raised some questions about Hebrews because the author does not identify himself. In fact, it's it's very difficult unlike Unlike the four

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Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John there are very few Internal clues as to even the relationship of the author to an apostolic community

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He refers to the Apostles as those who transmitted to him the truth regarding Scripture regarding doctrine

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Hebrews chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 he speaks about having heard the testimony the witness from the Apostles themselves, right?

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He refers to the group of the Apostles and him being a firsthand witness to what they had testified to him

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So the author had some sort of a relationship with the apostolic community It was he disclaimed being one of the

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Apostles because he refers to them and not us as he is one of the Apostles So he disclaimed being one of the

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Apostles in chapter 2 verse 3 So the it was the anonymous and the anonymity of the author that raised questions for the book of Hebrews okay, so that's one reason a

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Second reason was because of the heretical monotonous. They quoted Hebrews to support some of their erroneous views and This slowed acceptance of the book of Hebrews in some

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Orthodox circles There were heretical groups that would use Hebrews because they found certain things in Hebrews friendly to their theology

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And so if a book is quoted prolifically by a heretical community that believes something that's not an apostolic

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You might question a little bit the legitimacy of that book. Is that correct? Yes Yeah, signing your name to some of the books that you would write in Roman Empire Yeah, if you if you weren't an

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Apostle, this is one of the This is one of the reason hold on Let me make sure

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I get my facts straight before I say something here No left me sorry

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That is true that there there would be reason to keep your name off of a book because of the persecution that might come as a result of you of you writing a book or even promoting a book that advanced

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Jesus the Paul was a Paul was a little more bold in that way I don't know what the reason why

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Matthew Mark Luke and John would have kept their writings anonymous or at least not explicitly named themselves in those books

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But I don't know if it would have been placed in code to answer your question if there Hints hints within the text.

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Yeah, that's how John reveals himself Yeah Yeah, and that is how

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Luke sort of puts himself into the narrative of acts if you remember I mentioned last week You're reading along through acts and it's all third -person

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They him he they all the way through acts But you get to chapter 16 when Paul crosses the Aegean Sea into Macedonia into this near the city of Philippi and win some of his first converts there that all of a sudden the text of acts goes universally from they and them to we and us and So it is at some point there

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Luke the author of acts joins Paul's missionary journey in the second missionary journey And then you start putting the piece of who's mentioned later on in the book and it becomes obvious that it's dr.

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Luke All right so the the quotation by heretical communities slowed the acceptance of The book of Hebrews and so we can understand this because we would look at it also with a jaundiced eye

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But would this necessarily disqualify the book from being accepted as canonical because it was quoted by heretical groups with that disqualify it from being canonical

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Jehovah's Witnesses quote all the books of the New Testament to support some of their heretical doctrines, right? So though in the first century it would have caused people to question the book of Hebrews Because of its usage in some sectors.

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It was not itself a disqualifier night neither by the way Is it a deal -breaker for the book to be anonymous because all four of our

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Gospels are anonymous and the book of acts is anonymous So we have other we have other

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Writings in the New Testament that were anonymous writings that were universally accepted and never questioned

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Matthew Mark Luke John and acts were never questioned By anybody they were regarded as authoritative from the very beginning So again with the book of Hebrews all they needed to find out was is it apostolic does it have apostolic?

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Certification is an apostolic doctrine Is this is this apostolic and it's in terms of its connection to the apostolic community and if it is then it was accepted

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Hebrews was suspected in the West by those who were not aware of its authority and its authenticity Because Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians, which we're seeing as we go through the book.

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Obviously, there's so much there That's connected to the Old Testament. So it was written to Jewish Christians who were located not exclusively

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But but largely in the eastern side of the Roman Empire the land of Israel and Jerusalem Judea and that region and so in the east over in Rome and Spain and and the other eastern

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Sorry, the West Rome and Spain the other portions on the west side of the of the Roman Empire They were though there were

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Jews there. They were not as not like the land of Israel. It's part of its Jewish population So it

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Hebrews because it was written so strongly was so strongly Jewish and written to Jewish Christians It took a while to gain acceptance in the western part of the

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Roman Empire but by the fourth century Hebrews was universally accepted and found a permanent place in the

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Canon It was except it was accepted because it was believed by many to be written by Paul or at least under the auspices of Paul We don't we don't think it was we don't know who wrote

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Hebrews, but my my suspicion It was it was not written by an apostle. But again that does not disqualify it from being canonical

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Christians by the fourth century universally recognized Hebrews as scripture and Is there anybody here today who would doubt that Hebrews is inspired scripture?

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He'd be a fool to do so, wouldn't you? And the proof is in the pudding just by looking at the book itself and the history and how the

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Spirit of God has used that book All right there any questions or comments about the book of Hebrews? We move on to James Okay, let her be the book of James This again was suspected on the basis of authorship

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The Western Church did not have access to information about its authenticity And so the real question was

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James was was this was James really the author of that book? It was suspected because of and we've covered this before it was suspected because of the apparent contradiction between what

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James says about justification and what Paul says about justification and That conflict or that apparent contradiction trouble has troubled many

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Christians as they read on the surface what James says and they read on the surface Of what Paul says, but once you understand that Paul is talking about a justification before men

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James is describing a justification Sorry, Paul's describing a justification before God James is describing justification by men

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Right the demonstration of your works being justified or declared righteous in the sight of men because they see your righteous deeds

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James is describing that James is not overturning Paul he's describing the other side of the coin of what

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Paul describes Paul describes a justification or a declaration of righteousness before God on the basis of faith and James is saying works is the way that you are justified or Demonstrated righteous before men and so it's two different aspects of justification two sides of the same coin and not a contradiction at all

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So once it could be shown that James did not contradict Pauline teaching on justification, then it was accepted.

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And again, the question was apostolic doctrine Because they had Paul's epistles remember even the first century before 63

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AD or 64 AD when Peter was executed and martyred When he wrote 2nd Peter, he refers to Paul's letters as scripture

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So already in the first century within 30 years of the death of Jesus There was a collection of books that were recognized as being

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Written by Paul and that had become a standard in regard to scripture So if you get James and it appears to contradict

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Paul, can you can you see how it why it was disputed by some for? A period of time they would obviously be really slow.

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You don't just throw books into the canon You don't just throw books into your into your church environment and say hey go read this.

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This is good stuff We don't do that today. They wouldn't have done that in the first century they would have that book and they would want to compare it with Paul's writing and say if we can show that this is

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Genuinely apostolic and it doesn't contradict Paul and the author is James then it's scripture And that was all that needed to be demonstrated for the book of James All right, any questions?

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I'll ask that at the end of every book if something pops up. Let me know 2nd Peter There was no book in your

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New Testament that had greater trouble being accepted than 2nd Peter It was doubted because of the difference in style from 1st

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Peter now I don't read Greek I can pronounce and read certain Greek words If somebody tells me that this word this

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Greek word is in this verse I can identify that Greek word I can tell what is a prefix I can tell what is a suffix I can tell what's the root part of the word

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I can kind of tell the family of words that it comes from I know just enough Greek to be dangerous and to kind of make my way around some

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Greek speaking or Greek usage language tools and that's about it. So I can't read or translate

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Greek as if it's a fluent language and I'm not gonna pretend to be able to do so ever But those who can do so will read 1st

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Peter and then they will read 2nd Peter and they will say these are two radically different styles of writing different styles of writing

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What might account for the different style of writing any idea sorry what a

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Timespan between them Yeah, it wouldn't have been a long time span though because 1st

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Peter would have been written right before Nero's persecution which started in 63 AD and Peter was likely executed or martyred in 60 63 64 65 so it's a it's a small time stamp the time small time period between the two

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Sorry The recipients. Yeah, if I wrote a letter to Rick Do you think it would sound a little bit different than if I wrote a letter to my wife?

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You would hope so, right? I mean I like Rick but It would it would sound quite a bit different wouldn't it and and sometimes listen to my letters

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My writing in my books sounds a lot different than the emails that I write totally different style the audience that I'm writing to the occasion that I'm writing on under the the subject matter that I'm Communicating all of those play into the style of a writing there are all kinds of things that you see this variety in Paul's writings

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Compare Paul's writings in Galatians to Paul's writings in Philippians or 1st Thessalonians to the

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Thessalonians Paul is And you you guys have demonstrated the gospel. He's patting them on the back.

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He is encouraging them It's almost as if there's no problems at all in the Church of Thessalonica Your your love has gone forth to all of those in Macedonia and even the people far away are talking about you

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And it's just this church was near and dear to his heart and in Philippians He says you you sent support and love to me on more than one occasions

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You sent a Paphroditus and he was your minister your servant at the time of my need and of great encouragement to me

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And it's just Philippians is full of joy and joy in the midst of suffering and then you turn to Galatians Who bewitched you you foolish

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Galatians to turn so quickly from the gospel of God's grace If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what you have received let him be damned

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You think circumcision avails you cut it all off I mean the sarcasm the biting wit

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The theological passion and the precision of Paul in Galatians two totally different styles You can't just look at two writings and say well one of these obviously came from Jim and one of them didn't or one of Them came from Paul and one of them didn't the occasion the audience the subject matter all of that plays into style

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So there's another there's another explanation for the difference of style between first Peter and second Peter I Mean the first Peter first Peter Peter is dealing he is addressing

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Christians who were facing Suffering in second Peter Peter is addressing false teachers and he is addressing false teachers who were plaguing the church

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And so there's obviously going to be a very different style between those two But first Peter mentions in amanuensis somebody who had a hand in writing that for Peter as Peter probably

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Dictated it to an amanuensis who was involved in the writing of it. Would that account for some of the style? It would wouldn't it right if I dictate if I dictate something to somebody

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It's a different style than if I sit down and have a hand in crafting the language myself Especially if the person

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I'm dictating to it I give the freedom to sort of word things a little bit differently Maybe choose word choice and then I read it over and say yeah, that's that's exactly what

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I want pass that on Okay, so that's a did that explains the difference in style. But once it could be established that it was

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Peters writing Then it was accepted. It was accepted by Christians at a very early date

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It was quoted by the early church fathers as scripture Clement of Rome quoted. It was accepted by origin

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Eusebius Jerome and Augustine All right, any questions about 2nd Peter, all right 2nd and 3rd

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John Again, these were suspected because of the anonymity of the author. He has identified only as the elder

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These did not enjoy wide acceptance because they were not circulated as widely as others If you know about 2nd and 3rd

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John Can you tell me why it is that they might not have been circulated as widely as other? books their personal letters

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I Can guarantee you the more people have read my book? My books that have read letters that I've written to my wife or to any one person ever

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Nothing that I have ever written to one person or even a small group of people has nearly the circulation as my books have

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So books that were written to a larger audience like 1st Peter 1st John written to Christians scattered abroad

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They're gonna have a much wider circulation and rapid circulation than a book that is a personal letter Written to an individual woman in the congregation and not that John had anything with this woman

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But he is obviously writing to one particular the elect lady in one of those letters So they're personal letters so they would not have been spread and circulated as quickly as others

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They were more widely accepted than 2nd Peter Polycarp who was the disciple of John? Acknowledged 2nd

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John as authentic as did Irenaeus remember Polycarp a disciple of John he recognized 2nd John as John's epistle

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And that just needed time for people to hear that and to know that and 2nd John 3rd John would have been accepted the

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Muratorian Canon which we talked about last week that goes back into the first century listed them as accepted books and The style is unquestionably similar to 1st

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John and so it was never doubted by many 2nd and 3rd John were never sorry 1st

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John was never doubted by any and so 2nd and 3rd John the style there is very similar to 1st

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John now similarity of style does not mean that a book is canonical does it? No, it's because somebody can duplicate somebody's style and voice doesn't doesn't mean that it's good

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It could be still be forged, but it is an argument in the favor of those books All right any question about 2nd 3rd

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John all right the book of Jude The dispute around Jude centered around Jews reference to the pseudepigraphal book of Enoch in verses 14 and 15

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Remember he mentions that Prophecy the seventh generation from Adam or something like that.

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I forget how he words it in Jude 14 and 15 But because Jude mentions a book that was widely or sorry universally recognized as pseudepigraphical

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Fake writing or a false writing because Jude alludes to that that raised questions about the legitimacy of Jude in the minds of some

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You think of an argument against why that is a legitimate argument against Jude? You think of an answer to that?

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Yeah, that was a bit confusing. Thank you. So that's good Okay, so the argument against Jude would be that he mentions a non inspired author

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He quotes a non inspired author that everybody knew was not part of the canon even in Jude's day

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So we're talking about I recognized it's not authoritative even in the first century. They recognize not authoritative books So the argument against Jude is that he quotes a non authoritative non inspired book.

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That's not part of our canon So people question Jude for that reason. Can you think of a reason to answer that objection Cornell?

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Yep, Paul quotes the Greek poets in Acts chapter 17 And he also quotes that in first in Titus chapter 1 right as some of your own

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Prophets or poets as some of your own Greek Cretans or liars liars

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Was it lazy lazy liars and evil beasts or something like that? Paul quotes somebody who was not inspired from somebody from his own day

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Yeah Yeah, very quite. Yeah, very good It would it would it it had to do with whether he's endorsing it or just simply alluding to those authors

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Some church fathers mentioned the controversy over Jude Jerome does and origin but Jude enjoyed substantial recognition by the early fathers

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Uranus Clement of Alexander and Tertullian They all accepted it as authentic and the meritorium canon

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Which again is the list of books goes back into the first century that was accepted Jude was listed on that as well

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So it enjoyed fairly widespread use but was doubted by just a few and we have to include it

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Even though it's the doubt regarding Jude was probably less than with any of these other books We have to include

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Jude on the list because there were some who questioned it on that basis And so again, it's not rejected by all or rejected by everyone.

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It is disputed or questioned by some and lastly the book of Revelation Some raised

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Concern over the book of Revelation and debate over Revelation lasted longer than any other book

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It wasn't it wasn't as hotly debated as 2nd Peter But the the questions regarding Revelation lasted longer than with any of the other book and that boiled down to some interpretive presuppositions that played into the debate interpretive presuppositions, so if you begin with a

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I'm gonna pick on my all -millennial postmillennial friends here for just a second But if you begin with an eschatology that requires that says there is no such thing as a millennium

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There's no 1 ,000 year reign of Christ How do you feel about reading through the book of Revelation to get in Revelation 20 which talks about a thousand year reign of Christ?

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You got a problem. And so Revelation was doubted by many for a long time because of certain interpretive presuppositions that made it very difficult to square the book of Revelation with your view of eschatology and So that lay behind some of its rejection.

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The controversy was really over Revelation chapter 20 They say well then why don't all millennialists and postmillennialists reject the book of Revelation today?

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because of Revelation 20 They don't they look at Revelation 20 and they just have an entirely different way of interpreting

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Revelation 20 than we would here So Revelation was among the first to be recognized in the writings of the early fathers

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It was accepted by papayas and Irenaeus Irenaeus was also a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of John the

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Apostle remember John the Apostle Polycarp and Irenaeus So when Irenaeus who was a disciple of one disciple by John the

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Apostle accepted Revelation then that is a strong argument in favor of its legitimacy and its apostolic authorship and Revelation was accepted by the meritorian canon the

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Montanists attached some of their heretical doctrines to Revelation Which did help slow its acceptance

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Augustine Jerome and Athanasius defended Revelation and showed that the Montanists were misinterpreting

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Revelation But when it was proved that the author was John from Revelation 1 verse 4 and 22 8 and 9 the debate was over So here's how we would summarize that what we've looked at so far regarding these seven books the anti -legomena books

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Were spoken against by some early church fathers This was usually because of a lack of communication or because of misinterpretation which had attached themselves to those books

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But once the truth was known by all they were fully and finally accepted into the canon Just as they had been recognized by Christians at the very beginning

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Close quote nuts from Geisler and Nix so to reiterate When we talk about those seven books, we're not talking about books that were rejected

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Universally by all Christians for any period of time Nor are we talking about books that were disputed by all

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Christians for any period of time We're talking about books that were questioned by some

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Until they could verify the authenticity of those books and we are talking about books that were

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Recognized as authoritative and apostolic by Christians from the very beginning From the very beginning now whether all

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Christians knew that and recognize that or not is a different issue That's what took a long time for though. That's what took a while That's what took the time was for the universal acceptance of it

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But all of the books of the New Testament were quoted and used and recognized by some

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Christians Somewhere in the Christian Church from the very beginning So that means that 2nd

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Peter though it was heavily disputed for years after it was written There was a group there always was a group that accepted it as apostolic and authoritative and inspired from the very beginning

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It just would take a while for Christians and the rest of the Empire to recognize to get to access to that book to be

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Able to verify its authenticity to examine and study it and then to recognize that it is canonical because again Remember when we talk about canonical books, we're not talking about something that is determined by people something that is discovered by people

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So it would take time for them to discover those books and to verify the authenticity of them And once that was done, then the question was over.

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It was a settled issue All right, any questions? No, okay, that's a little bit difficult

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The key here is to remember that we're not talking about books rejected by all people

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Anywhere in the timeline? All right We're talking about books that were disputed by some for a period of time and and some of them for various periods of time

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Every book another way of saying this every book in our New Testament was quoted as authoritative and recognized as authoritative from the very beginning by someone and No book in our

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New Testament was rejected by everybody at any time That's saying a positively and negatively.

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All right. So now we have number three some objections Objection number one and I'm gonna

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I'm gonna raise the objection and then we'll open up the field here for you guys to suggest some answers to this objection number one

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There were serious doubts about many of the New Testament books which sought should cause us to doubt their legitimacy

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And we're talking about objections people like skeptics critics atheists Bart Ehrman types who want to undermine our belief in the legitimacy of the

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New Testament canon We're talking about those type of objections. Those are the ones we're going to answer here There's serious doubts about many of the New Testament books true statement.

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There were serious doubts about many of the New Testament books Is that a true statement? What do you mean by many? What do you mean by many?

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What do you mean by serious, right? So we don't it would be wrong to say that there were serious doubts by everyone

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Right so when I raise this objection Again, what I want to try and show you how to do is to think behind the objection to the presuppositions behind the objection

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What is the presupposition? That if anybody questioned a book it was therefore should be questioned by us.

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Is that a is that a right look presupposition? Is that what we should do? Should we say that should we say that because a book was questioned by somebody that should be questioned?

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By us today That's a bad presupposition. Were there many? Did were many books?

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Question there were a few Yeah, I doesn't bother me at all The fact that Christians didn't watch as widely accept any

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Jesus writing that came down the pike That that comforts me Those who lived closest to the

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Apostles did their due diligence to make sure that these books were legitimate And they were in a better position to determine that in the first second third and fourth century than we are today much better position because the number of writings and tradition and Understanding that has been lost to history in the last 1 ,500 years is substantial so those who are closest to the

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Apostles and closest to the writing of these books were in the best position to verify their Authenticity and the fact that they did that and were slow to do that is a good thing

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And we need to recognize that that is a good thing. So were there serious doubts? No, there were not serious doubts. Was it universally questioned or objected to no not universally

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Was it several books wasn't several books at all wasn't it was roughly what a

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Quarter roughly a quarter of New Testament books Not a quarter of New Testament text a quarter of the number of New Testament books and remember 2nd

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Peter 2nd, John 3rd John, these are short Jude James. These are short books all right, so One further answer to that these doubts were by no means universal

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They were localized and they were limited the doubts regarding some of these books were localized and they were limited

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So objection number two if they weren't accepted by all Christians from the beginning then we should doubt them as well

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If these books weren't accepted by all Christians from the beginning We should doubt them as well an answer for that.

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You're right. The books have definitely proved themselves over time

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Okay, that is an answer for it Couldn't you point out that all the books were accepted by some

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Christians from the beginning? right All the books were accepted by some

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Christians from the beginning so they would say that some books

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Were disputed by some Christians from the beginning? That's true, but all the books were accepted by some

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Christians from the beginning That's the other side of that. All the books were accepted when their authenticity was validated or verified

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That's the other thing to remember all the books were accepted when the authenticity was verified The slow acceptance is a plus and not a negative since it shows that they were very judicious in books that they considered to be divinely inspired.

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Those closer to the time, I'm just going to repeat something I said here before, those closer to the time of the apostles were in a better position to verify the authenticity and to do so with all due diligence, which they did.

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All right, third objection, this is our final one and with this we'll close. Objection three, your defense of the canon of Scripture is circular reasoning.

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When asked why something is in the canon you say because it's inspired and when asked how you know if it's inspired you say because it's in the canon.

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How do you know that a book, how do you know that book Matthew, how do you know it's inspired? Well because it's in the canon, it was accepted as inspired from the early church.

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Well how do you know it belongs in the canon? Well because it's inspired. It wouldn't be in the canon if it weren't inspired, right?

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How do I know it's inspired? Because it's in the canon. Is that circular? That's circular reasoning, isn't it? It's a circular argument.

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How do I know something should be in the canon? Well all inspired writings are in the canon. Well, how do you know that's inspired? Well, because it's in the canon.

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How do you know it should be in the canon? Well, because it's inspired. What's your proof that it's inspired? It's in the canon. We could do this all day long.

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So what is your answer to that? Yes. Okay. So her answer is, by just reading it myself, my own personal testimony, the

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Spirit would testify to me that it is inspired. We can recognize, I did make the argument earlier, a couple weeks ago, that Christians have the ability to recognize which books are inspired or not because the

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Spirit of God dwells in us, and the Spirit of God is the one who wrote those books. So we ought to expect that the one who authored those books himself would give us some sort of an internal testimony or ability to discern the difference between Romans and Jesus' calling.

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Both would make a claim to divine inspiration. The reality is that it is inspired because it meets the criteria that you talked about earlier.

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And that caused it, the effect is it puts it in the canon. So Mike has proposed a way to get out of that circular reasoning by saying that we're not making the argument that it is inspired because it's in the canon, but that it is in the canon because people have recognized its divine qualities.

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It is the divine qualities themselves that the book has that is the reason why it is accepted as part of the canon.

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That places it outside of the argument, that places it outside of the circular reasoning, and you're right. That's one way of getting around it.

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To point out that canonicity does not make a book inspired or indicate its authority. We don't say, how do

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I know this book is inspired because it's in the canon? If we added another book to the canon, if we all took a vote and we added

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Jesus' calling to the canon, and we called it canonical, would that make it inspired? Would that make it a usable tool for the

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Holy Spirit to use? Should I preach from it then, just because we have added it to the canon? No, because again, we don't determine what's in the canon, and being in the canon does not determine that it is inspired.

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That's the complete backward step that we need, the complete backward process that we need to go through. We need to ask ourselves, what books has

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God written? The ones that God has written, those are the ones that are inspired. Those are the ones that are canonical. And so, we don't confer canonicity by saying, it's inspired, therefore it's canonical.

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We don't give that. We don't confer canonicity at all. We discover canonical books. We discover them by virtue of we read them, we examine them, and then we are able to see because we have the

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Spirit of God and we're regenerated creatures, we are His church, His new covenant community, that community is able to see those books which

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God has given to that covenant community by virtue of the fact that we are His people. So, inspiration is based upon the teaching of the

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Bible itself, not upon the fact that it is canonical. Scripture affirms that God has inspired

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Scripture, and Scripture makes that determination, so Scripture is the authority. We always go back to Scripture and stop with Scripture.

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And when you ask, how do you know that that's Scripture, we stop with that and we say because God has spoken it. God is, and He has spoken, and He has not been unclear.

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And so we stop there, we don't continue in that circular reasoning. We stop with that answer that God has spoken. So now the question is, if God has spoken, what books has

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He written? And then we figure out, we discover what those are, and the early, not us, we, but the church, the early church did discover what those books were.

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So canonicity is the process by which we acknowledge what God has delivered to us and establish and use it as the final guide for faith and practice.

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So again, canonicity does not make it inspired. The fact that it's inspired makes it canonical, and that's where we stop.

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So our argument is that it belongs in the canon because it is inspired. Our argument is not because it's in the canon, therefore it is inspired.

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So I gave you the circular argument. Half of the argument is the argument we're making, the other half is not the argument we're making, and we need to be very careful to be able to see that.

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So again, when somebody charges you with making circular reasoning, you just need to ask yourself, okay, what is the part of the argument that I'm making?

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It's a straw man to say that Christians regard that as inspired because it's in the Bible. I don't regard it as inspired because it's in the

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Bible. I regard it as inspired because God spoke it and He wrote it. Because of that, I put it in the

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Bible. So if you make the wrong argument, then you're caught in the circular reasoning trap. So don't make the wrong argument, make the right argument, that we don't just determine what is canonical, we discover what is canonical, and it is in our

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Bible because it is inspired. It's not inspired because it is in the Bible. If we start publishing the

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Gospel of Thomas in there, it wouldn't make it inspired. Again the Gospel, I'm picking on Thomas.

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All right, next week we'll discuss the question of, is the canon still open? Should we be looking for more books to add to our

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New Testament? And this is going to come back to the nature of inspiration, the nature of Scripture itself, the nature of God's preserving work in Scripture.

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As we begin to address that subject, is the canon still open or is it closed?

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I'll give you a little hint. Who determines whether the canon is open or closed? Yeah, wouldn't it be the one who created the canon by speaking the books into existence?

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If God is not speaking, then there is no open canon because He's not adding anything to it.

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It's a whisper. If He's whispering, then the whispers need to be written down and added to the canon. All right, let's pray.

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Father, we are grateful for this time that we have had today, the fellowship and thinking on these things. We're so grateful again that You have preserved

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Your Word and how You have done it. It is a testimony to Your sovereignty, Your grace, and Your love for us.

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We thank You for Your precious Word. It is a treasure from heaven that has been given to us that we can have the wisdom of our

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God in written form, that we can have Your Word to us, Your dictates, Your truth revealed to us.

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And we pray that You give us open hearts to receive it and give us affection and love for it and for You, the God who has written it.