All right, so let's see. I think Jody is missing one. Anyone else need a handout? You should have one piece of paper so far. OK, everybody should have one. Jody, you're welcome. So I'll explain what this is in just a moment because it might look a little bit wild and crazy if you're not used to logical progressions. But we are in chapter one. of the Westminster Confession of Faith. And so last week, we just kind of did an introduction, historical background, why we need confessions, that whole kind of big picture questions about confessions. And so a confession is just something that is written down, trying to understand the Bible, make sense of the Bible, something for a church or a collection of churches to agree upon. That's really all confession is, is saying, we believe the Bible teaches this. And so it's an aid, it's a way to help us understand and agree on especially the fundamentals, but even to try to get some of those secondary and tertiary issues at some place where we can agree, or at the very least, it gets conversation started even if we differ over them, which can be fun. So confessions are great. And of course, we hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith in the PCA. That is our binding document. Bob had to agree to it to become an elder. I had to agree to it to become a teaching elder. So it is our standards, not to say that we have to agree with every single last thing in there. There are some secondary issues we can quibble over. That's fine. But by and large, we agree to that. So as we walk through here. The confession starts at a very important place. Think about all, if you were writing your own confession, think about all the different things, topics, that you could start with. And y'all are probably going to try to give the answer that's here that the confession gives. But if you were asked to write a confession, what topic do you think you would start with? There's a lot of topics in Scripture. What would you start with? Right. Right. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, the confession starts with scripture. But if left to our own devices, we didn't have that model. We might try to start other places and that that's not necessarily wrong. But I do think it shows the humility of the Westminster Assembly, that those men, they did not start with their own ideas per se. Of course, they are trying to explain scripture in this chapter. Still, it is a human document. The same time they go to the source to begin with. They don't start with trying to work out the sacraments and church government and all those other issues. They start with the core. They start with the foundation. They start with the building block, which is if we're going to understand anything about our faith, about the church, about God, we've got to start with the scriptures. So chapter one, right off the bat, we start with a section on the scripture. And out of all the chapters in the Confession, this is probably what I would consider at least the high point. It's one of the longest chapters, if not the longest chapter in the Confession. There's a lot of statements in here, a lot of nuance, a lot of depth. So really, it's one of the richest chapters in the Confession. And it's very important to start here and to get this right because if we don't have a correct view of scripture, then everything else we try to understand is going to end up off. It's going to end up tilted and discolored. So, it's very important to get our doctrine of scripture right immediately. Let me hand out a few more of these. And so, I'll explain these sheets while I'm handing these copies out. This is a logical progression, which I think I've handed out before. Some of you may have seen these or use them in school. Basically, if an idea is parallel or contrast, then it could be on the same vertical line. But as it starts to explain things, so you have this idea, the next statement explains that idea. So you would indent it one and then the next idea might explain that idea. So you indent the next line some. And so as you go down, you kind of indent as it's explaining things. But you also have. sentences, phrases, that'll be on the same line. And so those will be parallel phrases, or this is true, and this is true, and this is true, every time descending one, but keeping it even. So as we go, that'll become more clear. My laptop's not staying on this today. So let's give an intro to paragraph one. So the confession's laid out in chapters, but also in paragraphs within those chapters. So we'll start at the beginning, paragraph one of chapter one, which is titled Holy Scripture. Let me give some background before we read the paragraph itself. So, there's a lot of, we kind of take for granted, solo scriptura, as Reformed believers, we kind of take for granted our view of scripture. But that view of scripture has not always been something you could just assume, even in any circles, really. The Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation had a very different understanding of the scriptures. They did not hold to Sola Scriptura. Some of them may have, but it would have been understood and articulated very differently than how we understand it. So, I'm asking you here, what is the number one authority for the life of a Christian on all things? Scripture. Yeah, not a straight question, right? But if you ask the Catholic Church that, especially during the time of the Reformation or right before the Reformation, what would their answer be? The church, the church would be the supreme authority, not scripture. And so the order of everything changes depending on who you ask and where you go in history. And so when the Westminster Assembly comes along and they're trying to explain scripture, now they're building on the backs of other reformers who have worked this out very well and gone back to the early church and their views on scripture. But they were contrasted very sharply with the Roman Catholic views of scripture and how to understand scripture. For the Roman Catholic Church, really the priests were the only ones who had the authority and ability to explain the scripture. That's why you could only have scripture in Latin. You weren't supposed to have it in your native tongue. If you weren't trained as a priest to study it, you weren't believed to be able to study it. And so you had to wait and let the church explain it to you. Of course, what's the problem with that? Well, there's a lot of problems with that. But what's one of the biggest problems with that? Yeah, they couldn't be Bereans, so they couldn't study the scripture themselves. Also, you have to rely on that one priest to understand it correctly and actually explain it to you, which did not happen very often, to be quite honest. They hold all the cards, and so you just got to take them at their word, the church becomes the supreme authority, corruption gets into the church, and you've got a whole laundry list of problems. So, there's a lot of issues there, and you just need to understand the context in which this chapter was written. It's written, part of why it's so long, part of why it's so detailed, is because it is arguing against some very poor views of scripture in that day. And today, we have just as many poor views of Scripture in our world. In the American church in particular, there's a lot of bad understandings of Scripture, proof texting in the bad sense. There's a lot going on in the world around us. All right. Now, one more thing before we get into the text itself is we need to talk about revelation. So, chapter 1 talks about two different forms of revelation, and those are General revelation, just abbreviating here, and then special revelation. So there's two forms of revelation, ways in which God reveals himself to us. And so the easiest way to see this, I think, is to, if someone could flip to Romans 1, 18 through 20, and raise your hand so I know somebody's doing it. Volunteer to turn there and read Romans 1. Okay, Bruce, thank you. And then if someone else could turn to Psalm 19, you can raise your hand and let me know you're doing it. Okay, okay, Hazel's been volunteered. All right, so, Bruce, if you, whenever you're ready, read Romans 1, 18 through 20 for us. Well, the wrath of God, as you reveal from heaven, is all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. But what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, All right, thank you. So, why are unbelievers without excuse? What did those verses just say? General revelation. God has revealed himself in creation, in his goodness, in his providence, in all that, just looking around the world, it is clear that there is a God. Now, are there limits to that though? It's clear that there is a God, but does creation tell you everything about God? No, and that's where general revelation stops short, and we'll explain this contrast in a moment. Hazel, did you have Psalm 19? Yeah, let me look at it, too, and make sure I give you... Well, I want to talk about the whole chapter. I don't know if we need to read the whole chapter, though. If you could read verses 1 through 4. All right, thank you, Hazel. And so Psalm 19's fantastic for so many reasons, but one reason is if you're talking about revelation, this is one of the easiest ways to explain how revelation works, general and special. Because the first half of Psalm 19 is just about how the creation speaks to the glory of God, how it declares his majesty, it declares his wisdom, it declares his goodness. But at the same time, there's a limit to that because you don't see, well, what about sin? What about salvation? How do we go about that? How do we have a personal relationship with the Lord? Well, creation doesn't quite give that information. It gives you a lot, but it stops short of what is needed. We need more if we're to be saved, if we're to understand our sin, if we're to have a personal relationship with Christ. And that's where the second half then switches to special revelation. God actually telling us about himself and what we need and what we need to do. So I'll read verses 7 through 9. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. So in the first verses, we see this declaration of the glory of God in creation. But we also see no description of the effect on mankind in that. Because it does not lead to a true knowledge of God, it just leads to a knowledge that there is a God. But when you look at special revelation in the second half, it produces results in mankind, those who actually learn and pursue this knowledge of God. It makes them wise. It revives the soul. It makes them pure. It enlightens the eyes. It gives them the fear of the Lord. It makes them righteous altogether. So general revelation tells you there's a God, special revelation tells you how to meet with that God in Scripture. And so that's what we're really going to see here in paragraph one is this split between general revelation and special revelation that God has told us who he is through the Word. And so really what it's telling us is that the Bible is necessary. Paragraph 1, big picture headline, if you take notes, just, the Bible is necessary. That's the main point of this paragraph, to tell you that general revelation is not enough, but we need the Bible because that's where God tells us who He is. We need that specifically. So, someone could just read the first line there of paragraph 1 off the sheet. Right, and someone could read the second line now. Okay, and so on that first line we see, okay, what is telling us that there is a God? This is the general revelation idea we were talking about. Yeah, the light of nature is the first part. Yeah, the works of creation and the last one, right, that the world's created, but it's also sustained. It doesn't just fall apart the next day. Right. So there's the light of nature, the fact that nature gives some level of wisdom and understanding by studying it. There's the works of creation and then the providence of God. So these manifest. What about God? In the second line. Right. So that general revelation reveals the goodness and the wisdom and the power of God. So as we look to these things, we see that there is a God and that this God is order. He is wise. He is all knowing. He's powerful. All these different things and more. So this is kind of the summary is what they're giving in that statement. So God has revealed himself in his creation. And then the third line, what does that mean for humankind? Yeah, no excuses. The line is, as to leave men inexcusable. Inexcusable to what? About what? Yeah, really the fact that He exists. It will get down to sinfulness. But yeah, the fact that He exists, there is no excuse not to know that there is a God. General revelation, somebody who's never heard the gospel knows that someone had to create all of this. Someone has to be ordering this. Someone has to be keeping life going. And so that's that statement so far, this general revelation. So it is to leave men inexcusable these displays of God's power in general revelation. But what does the next line say? Yeah, and of course we wouldn't want to say, yet they are not sufficient. That's just a different old school language saying, yet are they not sufficient? So, these great displays in creation, they're great, they point you to the fact that there's a God, but there's something missing still. There's a lack. It's not enough on its own. And it's not enough on its own to do what? What is the next line? Yeah, to know God and his will. So not to know there is one, but not to know everything about God and his will. And then the next line, which kind of goes with that and explains that. So knowledge of God and his will, and why is it important to know his knowledge, have a knowledge of him and his will? Because it's necessary unto salvation. And here's where we need to note one thing, which is not really written in here, but it is very important to note. The reformers are not, or the, The divines, the Westminster divines, they're not here claiming that the problem with general revelation is general revelation itself. And this might sound confusing for a second. Where is the fault in the fact that general revelation isn't enough? Where's the fault? Where's the problem? Why is it that it's not enough? Right, and that's the key, sin. Sin is why general revelation is not enough. It's not that God has not clearly told us through the creation. But because of sin clouding our minds, clouding our hearts, because we're enslaved under sin, you know, before redemption, we're enslaved in Adam, that knowledge is not enough. Our sin has so discolored our view of the world and our understanding and our relationship with our Creator that it's not enough anymore. We need more. We need that knowledge of sin. We need that knowledge of salvation. We need that knowledge that only comes from Scripture. And so the fault is 100% with man, not with God. So that's an important distinction here to make. And so we have this problem, general revelation, God's given it. But for us, because of our sin, it's not enough. It's not enough for us to know God truly. And so what did God do? The next line, therefore, it pleased the Lord. What are the two little sub statements there? Yeah, fun words, right? And those basically just mean various. So various times and various manners or ways. So God spoke, and we'll get to this in a moment, what he did, but he spoke at various times. It wasn't once he spoke and then he was done. He spoke at various times throughout history and in different ways. What are the different ways that God spoke? Prophecy. Is that it? Theophany, yeah, so appearances, okay. Law, right. Visions are another one. Dreams, he's spoken through dreams. Yeah, those are most of them. All right, good, so different times, different ways. Please the Lord to, and then this is where the logical progression can help you keep it organized. Therefore, please the Lord, we talked about the two sub-statements go down. It pleased him to do what? To reveal himself. So please the Lord to reveal himself. Did God have to reveal himself to a bunch of sinners who made themselves incapable of fully knowing him on their own? No, he did not have to and yet he did. So it pleased the Lord to reveal himself to us, though we did not deserve it. And so we're getting to some parallel statements to reveal himself and to what? Yeah, declare his will to his church. So there we get information, right? There is a church, there is a group of believers, there is a group of his people, his special people, and that's who he reveals his will to. Okay, and what's the next and? Got it in multiple parts, so it gets a little bit wordy. Right, and so he reveals himself to his church, but afterwards, for the better preserving, for the better propagating, for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church, think just big picture, improvement of the church, for the church's sake, that's the big picture. And again, for their sake, for their good, against some evil things too. So what's the first evil thing that God's protecting them from? The flesh, second thing? Right, and the third thing, and you might be able to combine those last two into one, either way, but yeah, against the corruption of the flesh, the evil of Satan, the evil one that we pray for protection for in the Lord's Prayer, and the world which is always tempting us, always trying to reshape how we think and try to conform us to itself. So, for the protection against all those things, what does God do with his revelation in the next line? Holy unto writing, so that it's preserved, so that his church has it, so that his church can study it, so that it can be passed along from one generation to the next without being forgotten because of poor memories like mine. Holy unto writing. And so all of this makes what about the scripture? Yeah. Most necessary. We need it. We need it written. We need it passed along. We need it studied. We need it learned. We need it preserved. And so all these things are true. So it becomes most necessary because general revelation is not enough. We need God to reveal himself if we are to know him. We have no other hope. And so it is most necessary. And also it's most necessary because remember we mentioned some of the ways God spoke. He spoke through prophecies and visions, sending prophets, even speaking in tongues in the New Testament church early on with interpreters. But then what do we learn in the last line here? Yeah, time is complete. Former things no longer are. Those former ways no longer are. So, is God speaking to visions through prophets today in the church? Some claim yes, I would claim no, but we're definitely not adding to the canon with anything anyone's coming up with. We have the completed Word of God, we're not changing that. In fact, there's passages of Scripture that very strongly encourage you not to add to or take away from any letter in the Word of God. And so, yeah, those former ways being ceased, so we need His Word preserved, what has been said and recorded, for us to continue to read and learn from. All right, questions or observations so far from paragraph one? So I have an observation. I have family that go to church, but they don't really believe God's word is from them. They think it was passed down so many times in their eras. So it's like, this is a synopsis saying there's an introduction to man by just God's creation, right? Oh yeah, oh yeah, gotta have a start somewhere. Right, right, oh yeah. Boy, that'd be nice though, wouldn't it? No, that's great. Other thoughts, comments, questions, things that were unclear. uh... okay we need to make sure that the scriptures are taught rightly in any church we attend. Because, again, you can just kind of tell there's a little bit of that whole, you know, we don't need the confession. I said, what does their statement of faith say in these two churches you're looking at? So, one thing that seemed to resonate with him is when I went back to John 1.1, he was talking about the word made flesh. I know my daughter is, so we're having a discussion. How do you bring it down so you're not necessarily going through this? Do you know what I mean? Let's say you were having a quicker conversation with a younger person and they were, I kind of need to revisit that if you're able to just real quickly based on this first paragraph one that you went through. Well, no, I'm just trying to make sure I understand your question correctly to speak to it. So there's quite a few things I want to say there, but for the sake of time, I'll try to limit it. One is we, and for good reasons, want to be able to summarize and break down and boil down things to a level that we can pass something along in a few moments that is incredibly complex. And I don't think we can actually do that. We try, and I think sometimes we do ourselves more harm by attempting that than by giving little bits and pieces at a time. And if you have an opportunity to have continuing conversations, to break that down over time and not to try to get everything in in one moment, to leave them wanting more answers, to leave them time to think of more questions, to really give them a time to be curious about it. So, I don't think there is a way to simply package this in one brief conversation. I think that where I would start personally is I wouldn't start with the confession. I would start with the ideas here helping me understand Scripture, and I would go somewhere like Psalm 19. I would go somewhere like Romans chapter 1. You get the great statement in 16 and 17 about the power of the gospel, and that Paul's not ashamed of it. This is the power of what it does. But then 18 and on, it talks about the fact that men are without excuse. They know God exists, but then there's that lack there. There's that, but wait, what next? And then you have to go along. You have to keep going in Romans to get the answer, right? So, that's where you have to think of how to explain that. That's where Psalm 19 is nice because it's all condensed into one spot. That would be my best answer at the moment. I think that's wise, yeah, in this situation, especially with young, because it is. As somebody who's still young and somebody who remembers what it was like to be even younger, If you put up a pride wall in somebody's mind, they ain't listening anymore. But if you let them work it out and you just help them, encourage them, pray for them, say less, that tends to help more in my experience anyway with people and with myself. Yeah, I'm a hard person to deal with personally myself. Yeah, I have a lot of trouble dealing with myself. Anyway, paragraph one, any final things before we go on to paragraph two? We need to at least get through two this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great detail. Great detail. All right, let's move on to paragraph 2. Paragraph 2 is a little simpler. One is kind of the grand opening, if you will, of revelation. Paragraph 2, kind of the big picture here is it's listing canon and explaining what canon is. And it goes together well with the following paragraph, paragraph 3, which is going to really explain what is not canon. And so, you know, this is the list of canon, though, in paragraph 2. Make sure there's nothing else I want to say before we start here. Okay, so, paragraph 1, line 1, under the name of Holy Scripture, talking about special revelation, and we've talked about the big picture, general and special, now we're narrowing in on special revelation. So, under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written. That's an important detail there. The Word of God written is what we're talking about. We're not talking about the dream that Prophet Joe Billy had yesterday before coming to church. We're talking about the written Word of God, the completed canon. We're not talking about old prophecies that we don't have, because this is an important detail throughout church history, and that includes the Old Testament. God has spoken to his people many, many times throughout. Do we have recorded every single thing he's ever said to his church in the Scripture? No, we have what we need. But he spoke through many prophets in the New Testament even before the canon was completed. He spoke to them all the time, things that we don't have written or recorded. So the scripture is important to understand. It's not a book about every single thing that God has ever said to humanity. That's not what it is. It's about what we need for life and salvation, which the confession is going to say in one of the later paragraphs of this chapter. So the Word of God written. That's what we're talking about. That's what we have. That's a special revelation God has given to us. If we're trying to rely on anything else, we're already going off the rails. The Word of God written is what we're talking about. Now, someone could read the next line, that third line there. Right, so we've set the boundaries. The Bible, okay, well, what are we talking about with the Bible? The Old Testament, the New Testament, okay, not overly complicated. And then the confession goes on and lists it. So if you look in, you don't have to pull them out, but the back of the Trinity has the confession. If you look at any confession, it will list out every book, Old Testament, New Testament. I didn't want to use that much space on the paper for the printer's sake, so it says the nice not listed here for space. But it lists out all the books of the Old New Testament if you go look at the Confession. I mean, it's the ones we're used to, the ones that are in your Bibles, unless you've got a Mormon or a Catholic Bible, which we need to talk if you've got one of those right now. And so all these books, all these books that are in the canon, are given by the inspiration of God, second to last line there, to be the rule of what? Faith and life. And this is where, if someone can quote it, we don't need to turn there. Can someone quote off 2 Timothy 3, 15 and 16 for us? If not, can someone flip there and look it up for us? that the man of God may be competent for every good work, I think is correct, something like that. We put it together, 2 Timothy 3, 15 and 16. And so it is the complete word that we need. All of scripture contains what we need for faith and life. And the confession has great phrases like that, faith and life. So, it gives you what you need to know for your faith as to how to relate to God, how to know who God is, who you are next to Him, and for life. So, it's not just enough to know how to worship on Sunday morning. You need to know how to go home and work your job in a way that a Christian should. You need to know how to raise your children. in the way that God has called you to. How to relate to other people as you go out to the grocery store. Simple things that we need help with because we're sinful and incomplete and imperfect. And so we need that for all of faith and life. Any comments or questions about paragraph two? Again, big picture here, giving the list of canon and where the boundaries are for that. All right, we'll keep moving. We spent a long time on that first paragraph, so we'll see if we can at least get through the next one. So paragraph three, now we're getting to, so we've listed what Canon is, Old and New Testament, the books that had been accepted for a while by the church as authoritative, as God's actual word. And now we, in paragraph three, we're going to talk about what are not scripture. So the big headline is, Apocrypha is Not Scripture. Now, apocrypha is a fun word, not one we use very often. But what are the apocrypha? No one wanted to take a stab at it, huh? OK. Apocrypha basically means hidden things. And hidden things can be taken in multiple ways with apocrypha, because depending on what apocryphal book you're looking at, it can be hiding various things. First, many are falsely, are written under a false name, false authorship. It's one person claiming to be this person and it's not. They're lying. They're trying to claim authority by claiming to be somebody important. And so many of these books end up being heretical. Sometimes apocrypha are hidden things because they promise hidden wisdom inside the book. If you read this book, you'll find some hidden wisdom, hidden understanding of God, hidden way to live. It's very similar to Gnostic writings. Secret knowledge, secret way to commune with God. If you become a Gnostic and you follow a heresy, you'll be a higher level of being than the normal person. So, that's what kind of Gnostic writings did. Now, there's a more mild version of the Apocrypha, if I can use that language, that is not Heretical. There is a list of books mostly written between the second, the rebuilding of the temple, and the coming of Christ. So in that age, like first and second Maccabees, books like that. So Jewish writings, things they used as kind of devotional material, the Qumran community, some of their writings are included in this if you know who that is. So there's a lot of other writings outside of scripture that have been used throughout history by the Jews and by the church. Some of which have useful things in them, some of them kind of act like commentaries or devotionals, others can be off the rails. But the point is, Apocrypha, even if it's a good extra-biblical source, what the Confession is going to say is it's not Scripture. And this is very important in that, remember we talked about the time when this was written, the Catholic Church had their ideas, And the Protestant reformers had very different ideas than the Catholic Church did. And so this chapter is much more important then than it is now. Has anyone in here ever read an apocryphal book? Okay, Nick has, Liesl has, Dave, yeah, okay, so some of you have read these. And so I've read some myself and some of them are way out there. Some of them seem pretty normal and seem okay. And so it just depends on the one. But the big idea here is that they're not part of the scripture. So, paragraph three, the book's commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration. And in a sense, we could stop right there, okay? If it's not of divine inspiration, it's not scripture. Scripture is specifically the books that God has given to his people, spoken through his prophets, through his apostles, that are inspired by him, by the Holy Spirit working in them. So, if these books are not written under his inspiration, then they are what? Next line. Yeah, no part. They're not one bit a part of it. And therefore, the big therefore, what's the therefore? Right, if it's not inspired, it's not a part of the canon, then it is not authoritative in the church. Period. It cannot hold authority. You cannot follow the Gospel of Thomas as one of your authorities if you want to be a Christian. It doesn't work that way. That's not how God's given us his word. That's not part of the word that he's given to us. So it's no authority, it's not part of canon, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of, then what? than any other human writing. So, some of those better apocryphal books can be useful for certain things. They have been used many ways over the course of church and Jewish history. So, if they're useful for your walk with God or in helping you better understand scripture, then great, use them, but it's just a human book. Remember, it's just a human book, and then you can use them if you need to. Do what? Yeah, self-help, sure. Yeah, Joel Osteen does not count on this. Yeah. Yeah, good question. And actually, as we go through, the divines have their own answer to that. Paragraph four. I think through seven really answers that question. So we'll have to wait till next week to really dig into that too much. Short answer is God has given us his word. He's declared in his word that it is his word and authoritative. And the testimony of the Holy Spirit ultimately is what convinces his church and proves the authority of the scripture. That's kind of the big picture answer. The church can recognize it and does recognize it. That's why the canon was established within the, by the end of the second century, the canon was pretty much fully established. People who try to draw it out are not following historical data or evidence. The church was able to notice, recognize scripture, and compile it almost immediately, and that has to be a work of the Spirit. Because there's more letters that Paul wrote, which Paul wrote them. We know he wrote some of those extra letters. They're not in the canon. Why? Paul wrote them, but no, it's the guidance of the Spirit. Yeah, I think there are a few things that claim to be written by Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas being one of them, and that's a very heretical book. It seems all right for a while, and then you get to the end. I think it's at the end, and there's some wild stuff. Yeah, anyway. Yeah. Right, so they were discovered a lot later, but really that's just a collection of manuscripts and things. And all it really did was show, because of when they were written and how well they were preserved, all it really did is show, oh look, okay, our texts are really accurate that we still have. No, there was nothing new. I mean, they might have had some apocryphal scrolls in there, but that doesn't mean that they were scriptural. That just means those were made use of by Jewish communities for centuries. I can't remember all the details of what exactly was involved, what exactly was in that collection of writings off the top of my head. Yeah, it showed that the scripture is authoritative and that has been preserved incredibly well. It has not been changed as you know anything about the Quran and Muslim texts. That does not hold true for Islam and Muslim texts. It has been changed a lot compared to scripture which has not been changed. All right, we'll get to the original autographs and all that in a little bit in the confession. Okay, now I remember. So, last thing about this is, remember this debate between the Catholics and the divines, the Reformed world. So, some people, especially in the 16-1700s, they started accusing the Reformed Church of pulling the Apocrypha out of the writings of Scripture. It's like, well, why did you all remove these Apocryphal books from the Bible? And so this is actually a common objection for a long time. Some people still bring up this objection. It's like, well, the Catholic Church believed it. Why don't y'all? Why did you pull it out? Is that just an anti-Catholic thing in you? But actually, that's not really the right understanding of what happened in history. So when did the Reformation take place? What was the official start as we normally recognize it? 1517, nailing of the 95 Theses by Martin Luther, right? So it's not until 1546. I can't math. What is that? 29 years later? Did I math right? Okay. 29 years later at the Council of Trent. It's not till then that the Roman Catholic Church suddenly included the Apocrypha in their canon. So, we didn't remove anything. The Catholic Church waited a couple of decades and then tried to add the Apocrypha to the Canon of Scripture. So, we didn't remove anything. We were with the ancient church, the early church, the medieval church, all the way up until Trent, we were in agreement on what the Canon was. It's not until the Council of Trent, which if you know anything about the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church went off the rails in a lot of different ways with the Council of Trent. Not maybe as badly as some of the later ones, but Yeah, anyway, so the Apocrypha were added by the Catholics. We did not remove them. They were never a part of Canon and we simply recognize that fact, that it was never included as part of Canon. And some Reformed people did actually endorse reading them, like we mentioned, as kind of devotional material, some of them, some of the more solid ones. The Thirty-Nine Articles, which was a precursor to the Westminster Confession of Faith in England, it actually endorsed reading Apocrypha for kind of devotional purposes, but it was not Scripture. It was very clear on that. In contrast to the Roman Catholic view, which many in England at this time would have believed, this was a powerful statement by the divines that, no, this is scripture. Those things have been, are not really scripture. Real scripture is the canon as we know it, Old and New Testament. All right, any final questions or comments on that? I was just wondering, if the council here had included the Apocrypha, did they put it at the same level as the scriptural books, or did they include it but recognize I believe it was the latter. I'm not sure if they would claim it's quite the same level, but they, so they definitely add it to their canon, which is a huge statement about what you think it is. But yeah, I think they do try to claim that it's lesser of an authority. I don't think they hold it to the exact same, but I need to look back at that, because I don't, I'm not 100% on that. I'm like 80% sure. Other comments or questions? All right, let me see, we have 10 minutes. Right. Right. And so that's actually a great question. Perhaps I should have been more specific. They've included all this in their Vulgate in their official Latin translation. How many of their. How many versions of translations they have with all that in there? I couldn't tell you now. I don't know how that's worked out. There may be Catholic Bibles that look the exact same as ours. I'm not completely certain on that. But the Catholic Church official stance, unless it has changed in a recent council, which I don't think it has, is that those are a part of their canon. So maybe I should have been more specific with the Latin Vulgate portion there. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Dave. Bruce. Yeah, I'm not going to make it to the next paragraph. Right. Uh huh. Uh huh. Oh, sure, sure. That's the culture. It makes you very unpopular to hold a view that is against homosexuality and all that in the culture. I witnessed that as I went through college. I was not popular in that respect. Not that I went around yelling, hey, y'all yell it wrong. But any time it came up, it was a big debate. Yes. You've had some experience. Yes. Yeah, I have. I'm sure most of y'all have as well. And so that's the thing, that's building a lot of presuppositions that are all wrong, first of all. Second of all, what does Jesus, I mean, we just went through the Sermon on the Mount, what does Jesus say he's doing in the Sermon on the Mount with the law? Fulfilling it, he's not abolishing it. And then he goes on and he fixes something, but he fixes misunderstandings of the law. So not once does he redo the law, not once does he throw the law out. He explains how people were misunderstanding and abusing the law. And so at no point does he throw out Old Testament moral laws. And so, not only that, but he specifically does speak against porneia in the Greek, and that includes every sexual deviancy in it, including homosexuality. And you can connect that back to the Septuagint in Leviticus when it condemns homosexuality. That same word would be, Greek word would represent the Hebrew words in Leviticus, and that's what Jesus would be using in his preaching. So, he absolutely speaks against homosexuality in his ministry. Although, off the top of my head, what the exact verse is, I don't remember. But he is very clear. Right, but that's mean old Paul. That wasn't Jesus. That's what they say. But that's where Jesus specifically, and actually in the Sermon on the Mount when he's talking about sexual immorality, it's that word. Right, well, in the Sermon on the Mount, it's Jesus. Right, that is absolutely what they're saying, but Jesus said the same thing. Jesus talked a lot more about hell than he did heaven in his ministry. People don't recognize that. That's also building on the presuppositions of a famous book, and I can't remember what the name of it is, maybe one of y'all do, that somebody supposedly won an in-depth study citing hundreds or thousands or something of sources explaining why the Bible actually is in favor of committed homosexual relationships. But is that book, I cannot remember the name of the author of the book, But critical scholars and people who have gone back, theologians, and have looked through his references, half of them aren't real references. They're faked. The other half are things taken out of context. And basically, there is no basis for that view. You have to lie about Scripture in order to agree that. So, critical scholars, people who don't believe the Bible is the Word of God at all, they don't care about it in that sense. But they study it and they still say the Bible does not allow homosexuality. They'll say they disagree with that statement, with what the Bible teaches, but you can't look at Scripture, take it at its word, and think that it's okay with homosexuality, Jesus or anybody else. Right. Right, but honest scholars who look at scripture, it's clear. You can't get around that fact. It condemns it. So, yeah. So, the presuppositions behind their arguments are all wrong. Now, how you go about telling them that, I'll leave that up to you. Right. No. Right. Yeah. Right. Right.