February 23, 2016 Show with Michael J. Kruger on “Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins & Authority of the New Testament Books” plus Richard Barcellos on “Better Than the Beginning: Creation in Biblical Perspective”

The Meaning of the Canon and the Authority of Scripture

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnzin. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,.

And the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzin, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 23rd day of February 2016.

I'm very excited about today's program, and please stop making fun of me for repeating that line at the beginning of every program, but I just can't help it. I get great guests on my show, and I'm doubly excited because our first guest during our two-hour broadcast today is on for the very first time, and it's somebody that I have greatly admired from afar, as they say.

He is Dr. Michael Kruger. He's going to be talking about the canon revisited, establishing the origins and authority of the New Testament books, and Dr. Michael J. Kruger, who received his Ph .D. from the University of Edinburgh, is professor of New Testament and the president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he is the author of The Gospel of the Savior and the co-author of Gospel Fragments and the Heresy of Orthodoxy, among other books, and his research on Christian origins has made him a trusted authority in the development of the New Testament canon, and for our second hour later on at 5 p .m. Eastern, we're going to have Richard Barcelos.

He has not been on the program for years. He was on the old Iron Sharpens Iron. He was participating in a debate on New Covenant theology, but Richard Barcelos, who is on for the first time on the new Iron Sharpens Iron today, we're going to discuss his book, Better Than the Beginning, Creation in Biblical Perspective, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of their own, the email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail dot com, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. Michael J. Kruger.

Thanks, Chris. Great to be on the show. Yeah, it's great to have you on the show, and my co-host in studio with me, who you've already met briefly off air, is the Reverend John Busby Taylor, or as I call him, Reverend Buzz.

It's great to have you back in studio as my co-host. Thanks. Great to be here again. And it is also interesting that I found out providentially as I was arranging this interview, as Dr. Kruger had just confirmed before the program started, that he was a pastoral intern in the 1990s, I believe, at the very church where I am now a member, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Small world. Dr. Kruger, just out of curiosity, are you still a Baptist?

Well, not exactly. I actually have fond, fond memories of my time at Grace Baptist, and have so much love and respect, I'm sure, to the chagrin of that whole group.

Well, show's over. Well, my co-host, Buzz Taylor, is grinning ear-to-ear enthusiastically about that, since he is Presbyterian, as you know.

Yeah. It's a complicated debate. Glad it's not our topic today.

That's right. Well, The Canon Revisited. This is a very valuable book, indeed. I don't know if you're aware, Dr. Kruger, but for the last 20 years of my life, I've been reading a lot and I have been very actively involved in arranging theological debates, live, public, moderated debates, most frequently involving my dear friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministry, who defends historic Protestantism, and more specifically, Calvinism.

And he, in his Catholic debates, I think the thing that the Roman Catholic Church views as our greatest Achilles' heel is this very subject. They do not believe that we can trust in the canon that we have without, depending upon the Roman Catholic Church, because there is no inspired table of contents in our Bibles.

But if you could, actually, before we even go into that, some of our listeners may be confused by some of this language. I know that we do have new Christians often listening to the program, and some of our listeners are not Christians at all.

I know that we even have Muslim listeners. But the canon, what are you actually referring to? And that's not a word exclusively used for the scriptures, obviously. It's used for secular.

Literature as well. But what is the canon referring to? Yeah, well, when Christians speak of the canon of the Bible or the canon of scripture, we regard as the collections of major... And as I opened up the program with, the accusation of the Roman Catholic Church,.

Or Roman Catholic apologists and individuals, is that you don't have your Bible without us giving it to you. The Roman Catholic Church is the one who chose what books were to be included, and what books were to be included, and so on.

They will cite that as the reason that we don't have the Apocrypha. They will cite the fact that we do not have an inspired or God-breathed table.

Of contents. If you could go into that a little bit. Yeah, well, this is a standard objection that's unfortunately led to many in the second century, citing, preaching from, and acknowledging New Testament books happening long before there was any church declarations.

How church declarations acknowledged what was already there was more of a declaration of what was, rather than what it ought to be. Another example is the Old Testament canon. If one needs an infallible, authoritative, inspired church to make the time of Jesus, how did they know which books were in the canon?

In fact, Jesus cited it. There was any doubt at all about which books were scripture. So that whole premise is fundamentally flawed, and most.

Obviously at a historical level. Yeah, that's an excellent retort as far as the Old Testament believers. And we do, I usually don't take questions this early from our listeners, but since it applies directly to what you're speaking of, I will take a question from Pastor Bruce in Center Reach, Long Island, New York, who asks, how do we know we have all the proper books in.

The New Testament? Yeah, well, this is my book canon. I call this the problem I have access to.

Yeah, obviously you have people all the time, not only Roman Catholics, but you have liberals constantly getting titillated by documentaries they see on television, and they'll say, why did the church remove the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary and all these other books that are not found in our New Testament canon?

They will act as if a council of Christians or Catholics sat around and actually removed books that were considered.

To be a part of the Bible already. But if you could comment on that. Yeah, I think talking about these so-called books is really helpful for Christians, because I think once you start looking at that issue, you realize what a vast difference a serious shot at being in the canon received by a book.

In fact, a few times it's mentioned and it's hardly condemned. It never really was close. People make it sound like there was this narrow vote or things shot at all. In fact, when you compare the four canonical Gospels with all these other Gospels, you realize very quickly that those Gospels were generally ignored or condemned or very rarely used in the early church.

And the books that were used far and away the most often were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There really is no comparison between the four canonical Gospels.

And obviously, I'm assuming from the question or the answer that you gave to Pastor Bruce's question about do we know that we have all the books, I'm assuming that you believe since providentially, for all we know for the last 2 ,000 years or most of the two millennia that have passed since Christ's presence on the earth, since that length of time has passed, that what we have is sufficient to be embraced by the people of God as God's Word, even though there may have been other inspired books.

In fact, there were, as you said.

Yeah, absolutely. We believe that God preserved the books that were necessary and needed for the life of the church. And obviously, you can see that book is foundational to the church. And I think there's also interesting reasons to speculate why some books were preserved and not others.

One particular reason we think might be the case is that in the ancient world, when you would write a letter to someone, you would often have a scribe make a copy of that letter before you sent it out.

So actually, they not only sent a letter, they had some letters of pulp for whatever set of reasons, but some letters were sent out without.

A copy. We do have a listener identifying himself as a Roman Catholic in Youngstown, Ohio. He said, wasn't the Didache considered scripture by some of the early Christian churches? Were there any other books so considered?

And did any of the reformers try to knock out any of the New Testament.

Books from the canon? I'm thinking of Martin Luther and James. Right. Yeah. So the writer of the question issues, it's a very interesting book, and Christians cite it from time to time and rely on it.

But there's no indication anywhere that it was regarded as a scripture. What we have to realize is that a lot of books can't assume that every time a patristic writer uses a book, they shunned it even.

The second half of that question, he says, let's see, did any of the reformers try to knock out any of the New Testament books? Yeah. He refers to the same, and this is a well-known fact that Luther, in his mind at least, or to Luther later, as we all know, being a little bit extreme in some of his statements.

And no doubt James, in the end, even in his translation of the German Bible, that he regarded it as. And he, Pete, has another.

Quick question. Was there any books, any other books that almost didn't make it into the canon?

I assume the author's asking about the early church, not the Reformation. Right. The most controversial books, and when I say controversial, that had the roughest road into the New Testament are the smallest ones, interestingly.

Books like James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and so on, are the ones that we have the least amount of evidence for, and were used the least, and so the difficulty. Are there books that, was there a controversy?

And by the way, I want to.

Let both Bruce and Peter know that you are getting a free copy, each getting a free copy, of The Canon Revisited by Michael J. Kruger, but I need your mailing addresses, so please email me your full mailing addresses, not just the city and state where you're from.

And by the way, I have to apologize to our Canadian and overseas listeners, the free books that we're giving away today, you do not, you're not eligible for these, I am sorry, because our sponsor, CVBBS, who mails these out free of charge for us, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, they would have an astronomical bill at the end of each month due to the high volume of books we give away on Iron Trip and Zion, if they included the overseas listeners.

But we would still love to hear from you with your questions, we just can't send you free books, sorry about that. And we have, I think, an excellent question that probably should have been my first question to start off the program.

Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania writes,.

What are the tests of canonicity? Well actually, it's that question that is the whole basis for my book, Canon Revisited. So as the writer may know, there's a whole debate out there about what are the standards that were for years.

I, in my book, challenge the standard way that conversation unfolds. I ask the question, if we're asking about the criteria for canonicity, I ask an earlier question, what is our criteria for our criteria?

In other words, if I'm going to pick things that make a book canonical, where am I getting that list from? Am I making it up? Am I deciding out of thin air that I think a book has to get my criteria from?

Not only the biblical numbers, and that is what we call a self-authentic layout, is the attributes of canon. And in my volume I articulate this in more detail, but in essence, the attributes of canonicity include apostolic origins, the divine qualities, and also the reception of the people of God, the church.

And then those three together, I think, give us a lot of assurance about which books belong and.

Which books do not. And you're also getting a free copy of the book, Susan, Canon Revisited by Dr. Michael J. Kruger. Thank you very much for that question. We have a question from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jeff asks, how should we think about the antilegamons, these books that had more doubts, and the confidence we can have in their status?

Yeah, antilegamona are there, I think the author's referring to Eusebius' categories. I'm not able to see the email in front of me, but I'm guessing that he's quoting a phrase that Eusebius uses in his Ecclesiastical History to refer to the disputed books.

And what you'll note is that what Eusebius acknowledges are the disputed books are the ones I mentioned a moment ago, which is the smaller books, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and James, and books like this.

And the thing that's noteworthy about that is,. A, it's explainable largely on the basis, but it's also interesting that the debated books are a very small number of books. It's only about 4 or 5 books.

21 out of, say, the 27 books, maybe 22 out of the 27 books of the New Testament canon were well established, even in the middle of the 2nd century. And so you're talking about controversy over a very small number.

That fact alone is noteworthy because it tells you the Church had wide consensus on the core of the canon at a very early time. Regardless of how the debates went with these smaller books, the essence of the canon was already established many centuries before.

And that, I think, is one of the reasons we can be sure that the canon we have is the right one, is that you had a very vast, wide early consensus on these core books. And it's those core books that lay out the theological trajectory that even helps you adjudicate the disputes over the smaller ones.

And so if you have the Gospels, if you have Paul's letters, it helps you determine whether the teachings in, say, 2 Peter are the kind of teachings that fit with what the Apostles would say. But it's that kind of reasoning that gives us assurance that these small books also fit into the canon.

And the apocryphal books, I know that.

Your book is on the New Testament canon, but the Catholic Church, when they hurl the accusation that we have no business telling anybody which book is to be included in the canon or not, whether it's old or new, they will cite that we removed the apocryphal books from the Old Testament canon.

But isn't it true that the Jews never in recorded history embraced the Old.

Testament apocryphal books as canon? Yeah, so some terminological distinction might be helpful. The term apocryphal and apocryphal get thrown around a lot, and some of the listeners may be confused on what we mean by that.

Right, so the term apocryphal, as an adjective, can be used to describe the New Testament writings, or sorry, not New Testament writings, but New Testament era writings, Old Testament. Those books include books like 1 and 2 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, and so on that the Roman Catholic Church has received in Protestants.

You've already hit on the main reason that Protestants don't recognize them. In fact, here's an interesting fact for you. Every single time an Old Testament book is cited as scripture in the New Testament, it always comes from nine Old Testament books.

A single time, is there a citation of the Catholic Church? That fact is stunning. Where are the citations in the New Testament writers who cite the Old Testament, not a single time? And is the reason why...

And one of the Catholic retorts to that would be,.

Yes, but Jesus Christ himself quoted from the Septuagint, and the Septuagint includes the.

Apocrypha, the Greek version of the Old Testament. Yeah, well actually, Jesus wouldn't have quoted simply because they... On one level, they're right. It is an argument. One of the questions that.

Jeff from Philadelphia asks, he says, although you specialize in the New Testament, any lessons can we learn about the canonical status of the Old Testament Apocrypha and books, or could they be used in any way by the Church today, even if they're not considered to be inspired?

Yeah, absolutely. This kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier. Early Christians recognized a number of books as highly useful, that they never would regard as scripture, but yet found profitable and helpful.

Example of this, saying that they're... Then the way we use books today, I mean, what would they conclude that you're reading and say, this guy read Calvin's Institutes more than just about anything out there, and must have thought that Calvin's Institutes were scripture, but that's not true at all.

You can read a book a lot. You can even read a book more than some books of the Bible, but yet not believe it's scripture. Well, you don't even have to bury.

Them to be accused of that. Yeah, fair enough. And if this recording lasts far into the future, I want the people of Earth to know that Mad Magazine is not a part of the canon, so I just wanted to say...

There you go. I think we got one book... I just wanted to let them know in case...

I don't know anybody but Chris that would make that happen.

Well, guess what, Jeff? You have also received a free copy of our book today, Compliments of Crossway, and we're going to need your full mailing address as well there in Philadelphia. We're going to be going to a break right now, actually, and if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com, and we're going to be right back with Dr. Michael J. Kruger,.

So don't go away. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in-depth study. Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the NASB is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable Bible translation.

The NASB offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the NASB is known for. The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues.

From compact to giant print Bibles, find an NASB that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com. Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com.

Tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching?

Perhaps you've begun to think that in-depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island. Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest for the first hour, which is the remaining half hour now, is Dr. Michael J. Kruger. We're discussing his book, The Canon Revisited. Dr. Michael J. Kruger is the president of the Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Chrisarnzen at gmail .com. You bring up a point in your book that involves the supernatural in the authentication of the New Testament canon.

My sheep hear my voice, the quote from Jesus Christ himself about his sheep hearing his voice,.

Knowing him, and following him. If you could comment on that. Yeah, when critical scholars, a critical scholarship, a key starting point, namely, God uses his objectively true, this is what I refer to as divine qualities.

Divine qualities are what are, so I talk about an issue of, this is why I'm about the role of the Holy Chronicle studies is not to address that.

One of the controversial issues that arises in the debate over the King James only controversy involves the woman caught in adultery. The passage from the Gospel of John in chapter eight, uh, you have those who believe that that story is not in the earliest manuscripts, so we cannot trust it to be genuinely a part of the canon.

And then you have others who say that that's extremely heretical to dare even think of, of questioning that the canonicity of those passages. So if you could comment on your thoughts on that.

Yeah, so I think it's always helpful to make a distinction. They're clearly related, but they're not the same. And so what I tell people, this is a very simple, that the study of the canon is a question of which book also very distinguishable.

We can, we can affirm that the Gospel of John is in the canon. In fact, there's a secondary question, and that is, well, which text of John are we talking about? And once you ask that question, now you're getting into work for evangelical Christians.

It's about that book that the Holy Spirit specimen scholars agree that the story of the adulterous woman was not originally in John's gospel. Um, and for evangelicals that believe that inspiration pertains, uh, fact, uh, originally, and, uh, that doesn't mean, of course, it's not a useful story.

Or maybe, you know, that was a very important distinction between, uh, canonization and.

Textual criticism. I appreciate that. But, you know, there is another connection with the King James only debate. Debate that, that enters in here. And that is, um, both the King James only and those who questioned the, uh, or think that we've left out some books, uh, believe that we didn't have the word of God until very recently, if you think about it.

No, that's, that's exactly.

Right. Um, there's a very interesting parallel there where, you know, uh, you know, for 2000 years, supposedly, uh, you know, no one had the Bible and only now, you know, those are, those are issues that, that definitely are in play.

And, and of course they do need to be.

Addressed because, well, it's like you started in your, your, um, your preface that, uh, the most enjoyable books to write are the ones that answer the questions you've been asking.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And, uh, I don't know how many times I've heard people ask, uh, questions like in my pastoring and so forth, you know, because if they're to put their faith in this book, then how are the, how can they, unless they have evidence of this book being worthy of that faith.

And that's, that's kind of, you know, that's, it seems like it should be more of a watershed issue than it is because of the fact that there's a lack of understanding. The fact that we even have to have discussions like this is showing that, uh, there has been a lack.

That's right. And I think that the typical books on Canon, and this is what motivated me to write this one are actually, uh, you know, asking a different question than I was asking. Most books on Canon are asking the question, uh, historically, how did this all unfold?

When did, when did certain books start getting read and used, but don't really disagree in the how and when books started getting used. So mine was a, mine was a great, well,.

That's basically what the question that everybody's asking the same question. How do I know? Yeah, absolutely. And of course we have to be careful too, because like as Chris alluded at the beginning, you know, a lot of our information on these other books comes from, you know, the history channel and so forth.

And we have to be extremely careful about a revisionist history.

Yeah, extremely careful. I'll tell you there's, what's interesting about doing a historical study is discovering how often people have conceptions about things that are just absolutely, uh, off base and they don't realize it because they're getting their information from the internet or from, you know, these sorts of things.

In fact, another book I wrote, which is not the topic of today's discussion is a book for IVP academic called the question of Canon and the book called actually went through five misconceptions about Canon one by one.

And I deal with each of those in a single chapter. So there's five main chapters in the book. And I talk about these five misconceptions that are out there, not only in the popular world, actually, and this is maybe more surprising for people, even in the academic world, these, these views are held and I think they're,.

They're held on very thin ground. Well, you can see just the importance of the issue by the fact that, uh, well, it's not like I've been with Chris over the years, but just for the few times I've been here co-hosting, uh, I have never seen questions come in so quickly as they are today.

This obviously is hitting a nerve. Yeah. Well, I think the average Christian, this is a very hot topic for them. It just, uh, is it simple. And by the way, uh,.

Inner varsity press is also has already shipped out that book to me. And I hope that you can return.

To discuss those five items that you mentioned. Yeah, I'm happy to do it. Those are the nice thing about those five items. So we are going to have a cliffhanger attached to our show today,.

Which will whet the appetite of our listeners to, to look out for the, uh, the next program. Yeah. Come back, but we don't know when, uh, there are some who say that, uh, why are we, or they should, I should say they ask, why are we even including the book of Hebrews in the new Testament canon when we don't even know who wrote it?

Any comment to that?

Yeah, it's a very common question. And, uh, one of the first issues we brought up is the issue of authorship. And, uh, it's interesting that this bothers people. I try to tell people that, you know, who helps you is whether you have good reasons to think the content is apostolic.

And so what I tell people is I look, I said, well, author says directly that in Hebrews chapter two, um, so what, what he very much liked the gospel prologue, Luke there is setting himself up, not as an apostle, but it's what we might call an apostolic man.

And what I mean by that is someone for the apostles and getting their message down on paper and the writer, uh, doesn't necessarily challenge its canonical tradition. We have for this very reason that.

Some have argued that that's interesting that I heard Dr. James R. White, uh, mentioned that he.

Had that personal, uh, preference. Yeah. I mean, this isn't a new idea. Clement of Alexandria, actually, will have suggested, he suggested that secretary, we know the story of what's called the Emanuelsis, the tree gene ideas.

You kind of get, you get it in a language that's more Lukan. Um, and some, you know, others since then have made the same argument, um, uh, about Luke and authorship. And I think there's probably some interesting things about that.

Interesting. And.

I would say even plausible idea. Now this could be a subject for a program in and of itself, but I know a, uh, female, uh, Bible scholar, theologian. She's not a feminist. She believes in the, uh, the prohibition, uh, against women in leadership in the church and so on.

And she is a biblical, she believes strongly in biblical inerrancy and so on. Uh, but she has a, uh, theory that Priscilla wrote the book of Hebrews. And one of the reasons it's anonymous is because it was written by a woman and she didn't see any violation of that theory.

She didn't see that theory as being a violation of any biblical mandate because the words of women are in the scriptures themselves.

What are your thoughts on something like that? Yeah, that's a very interesting idea. That's also not a new idea. Interesting, uh, German scholar by the name of, um, uh, there's a, there's a significant problem that the author actually, oh, I think you have good internal evidence to Christianity and historical circumstances.

Well, another internal evidence,.

Of course, that Hebrews was written by a woman is in the final chapter. It says I've written to you.

Briefly. Yeah. Yeah. I think you meant it wasn't written by a woman. Uh, the internal evidence,.

It wasn't. You take that however you want. I'm not going to commit either way, but.

I'm not getting involved in that. Uh, uh, the, as far, going back to the apocryphal books, uh, that are cited in many of the, uh, modern day documentaries, uh, that are claimed to have been a part of the new Testament canon and then later removed like the gospel of Thomas and so on.

Uh, are we pretty certain, or are men such as yourself, I should say, uh, historians and experts in the field, pretty certain that those books were not even written by the, the, uh, authors that they claim?

I mean, the forgeries basically. Yeah, that's right. I mean, here's a,.

Here's a stunning fact that people look, there's not, we only have in those gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Every other gospel we do fully here, critical scholars agree. And that tells you that whatever names are a tantrum long after these people have died.

So yes, it's called the gospel of Thomas, the only ones that actually even have a shot.

We have Lou in Sharpsburg, Georgia, who asks, which version of the Bible do you consider more.

Accurate for personal Bible study? So I'm assuming they're asking about an English translation when they use the term version. I'm just going to assume that in the question. Um, common question, which English translations do I, you know, if you're looking to do very, very careful Bible study and you don't know the original languages, of course, it's well-known looking for, you know, smoother, easier reading.

That's not at all the new, new NIV. I think that goes without saying, but actually the 1984 NIV was, was, was good. And I used it myself for many years and liked it. Now you have to know what you're getting when you get a English translation like that, the dynamic equivalent than what then is the ESV.

Uh, but, but those translations, there's many good ones, but the only way you're going to be able to, well, uh, since the NASB.

Sponsored my program, I have actually developed an NASB only, uh, theological position on this. For pragmatic reasons. But I actually also use it, I must admit, but, uh, we heard your ad at.

The break there. I think it was James White, actually. Yes, it was. Yeah. That's right. And,.

Uh, sorry, Lou, we don't have a book, uh, on the, uh, the canon by Dr. Kruger to give you. We already ran out of them, but maybe next time, Lou. And thank you for the great question. Uh, I really want to make sure we, we have about eight minutes left.

And before we go to any more audience questions, I want to make sure that you really, uh, leave our audience with the main things that you want etched in their hearts and minds regarding this topic before the program is.

Over. Yeah. Well, I think if someone reads my book and revisited it, and certainly I would encourage them to do so if they have the opportunity, uh, they'll, they'll get the essence of my message, which is not a new message or one that I've come up with.

And that is that there, there is a reason that you can be certain. Uh, there's a reason that you can be confident that God intended. Um, you may not have every historical question answered. You may not get every intellectual itch scratched, but on a, on the big picture level, Christians are not flying blind.

Uh, when we, when, when we regard these 20, the more you look into it, the more you're going to realize that, Oh, I see now Luke and John, for example, are in the Canon and not Thomas or Peter or Mary.

Um, and I think that the deeper you dig actually, the more confidence you're going to have and the more assurance you're going to have regarding the, the, the, the, the validity of these 27 books. And so if my book has the impact of giving people that level of encouragement, reassurance that then I will feel like the, uh, Now, who would you say that this book is intended.

For? Is it primarily intended for a seminary student or pastor, or do you think the average lay Christian, and I hate that term by the way, but just so people understand what I'm saying, the average person in the pew, uh, is that you think that this is, uh, at a, written at a level.

For them to embrace and understand. I think it's, it's, it's going to be a thick book to read. Um, and I don't mean just in terms of the number of pages. I mean, it's, it's not, you know, easy going. Um, but I think that any, any, uh, person in town, I don't want to give the impression that I wrote it for a introductory level, uh, or that I wrote to use that as a reason.

And so my wife, and so you don't, it's, it's, it's C-A-N-O-N not, not two ends, but one. Right. Uh, we do have an anonymous listener that who says that sometimes apologists make me feel.

Like a second class Christian because I do not know Hebrew and Greek. How important is it for.

The average Christian to learn the original languages of the Bible? Uh, yeah, I, I don't think the, uh, the average Christian in the pew needs to stress out over not knowing Hebrew and Greek. Um, I think we have excellent English translations.