Alright, well, for today's class, the Canonization of Scripture, let's turn in our Bibles to 2 Peter 1. Kind of breaking in here where Peter is telling us about his experience with Christ upon the Mount of Transfiguration. But he says something very good about the Word of God itself in this passage. So 2 Peter 1, and I want to look at verses 20 and 21. Actually, we'll just go to verse 19. So he's saying we have something more sure here. He's comparing what we have now to what they experienced up on the mount. from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So let's pray and then we will get started. Dear God, thank you that you have given us your word that's more sure than any experience that we could ever have in our life. That we have a solid rock, an objective word from your heart, Lord, and your mind, a personal word to us that we can trust and see that it's true just on the face of it, Lord. Your word on the face of it reveals that it is true. So we pray that as we look at this idea of canonization this morning, you would make us alert and cause us to see the wonderful way in which your providence has guided all things. We love you and thank you in your name. Amen. Alright, so, as we approach this idea of canon this morning, we can discern from the religious landscape that this is a very controversial idea. Not only do we find disagreement with the Roman Catholics on this idea of canon, but we also find disagreement with those who would call themselves Protestants. But I want to state up front, however, and I'm going to try to write this on the board so you don't forget, that I'm arguing against the liberal Christian here in today's class. those who would call themselves a Christian, but they're of the liberal persuasion. I'm not going to even bother arguing a case for canon against the atheistic skeptic because this conversation is irrelevant to them. They need categories built in their minds first. So this class is against the liberal Christian and their scholarship of what they would call the canon. So, let's just look at an example of that. A guy named Walter Bauer. His dates are 1877 to 1960. He's a German theologian, and he would fly under the banner of a Christian, yet his understanding of what the canon is is quite different than our own. Andreas Kostenberger, in his book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy, reports Bauer's thesis regarding the canon. He says this, quote, Bower argued there was no orthodoxy or heresy within earliest Christianity, but rather there were various Christianities, each competing for dominance. Thus we should not evaluate early Christian literature only on the basis of the views of the eventual theological winners, but should consider all early Christian writings as equally valid forms of Christianity. Well, what are we to do with that? One might say, well, I don't have enough historical information to even make an evaluation of Bauer's thesis. I don't know what early Christianity said, I don't know what they believed, I don't know the diversity in which Bauer's claiming. But is that necessary? Is a historical bedrock of knowledge necessary to dismiss Bauer? And I would say it's absolutely not. What's Bauer's basic premise? Bower's basic premise is that of pluralism. Pluralism is the idea that you can hold mutually exclusive competing worldviews and they are all equally valid. So Bauer promotes this type of Christian pluralism, not a straight-up pluralism with other outside worldviews, but a pluralism within Christianity itself. Do we have to study history to know that that claim is false? No. It's self-evidently false. For example, early Gnosticism and early Christianity could not both be equally valid in any possible world. Either matter is evil, or it's not evil. Early Docetism and early Christianity could not both be valid in any possible world. Either Jesus came in the flesh or he did not. And the same thing could be said about Modalism, Marconianism, Arianism, or any other ism regarding the early church. It can also be said about the canon of Scripture. If we include all of the early writings as canon, like Bower's thesis says, then we have contradictions that cannot be reconciled in our scriptures. Bower is not just against the early canon, he's against truth itself. In order for truth to be true, it must have a harmony within itself. There must be a coherence of parts, otherwise truth ceases to be truth. In Bower's world, Contradiction is okay, which is the equivalent of saying that God can be God and not God. If Bauer can succeed in saying that all the early Christian writings were true, then in the end, none of them are true. The liberal Christian, at least one of Bauer's flavor, is nothing more than an atheistic skeptic. In that case, arguing Ken with him is like arguing trigonometry with your four-year-old. He needs other categories first. So, we are speaking about the canon against this group of people, but what we're going to show is that they're actually not even that group of people. They're on a different level. Now, somebody might say, well, I've never heard of Bauer. So, this discussion is irrelevant to me. But remember Francis Schaeffer's stairwell here. Up here at the top we have theology, or it used to be at the top, and philosophy. These are the movers and shakers of society. And we have the sciences. And we have high culture. And then we have pop culture down here. Now Bauer is at the top up here. So many people haven't heard of him. I had not heard of Bauer before I read this book by Kossenberg. But everybody's heard of Rob Bell, right? Rob Bell in his latest book, Love Wins, he puts forward the exact same thesis as Bauer. This is what he says, quote, Please understand that nothing in this book hasn't been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me. I haven't come up with a radical new teaching that's any kind of departure from what's been said an untold number of times. That's the beauty of the historic Orthodox Christian faith. It's a deep, wide, diverse stream that's been flowing for thousands of years, carrying a staggering variety of voices, perspectives, and experiences." Now Bell isn't just telling us how we should view history like Bauer or view the canon of scripture like Bauer. He's actually taken Bauer's thesis as fact and is saying that every belief, every perspective is an equally valid form of Christianity. And these beliefs are philosophically indefensible because to say they are right would be a contradiction in terms. They can't be right at the same time if everybody else who disagrees with them is right also. Their beliefs are ultimately a direct attack on the very nature of God Himself. If they are right, God is not God. God's Word was not something that was determined by theological winners. Rather, God's Word or the canon determined the theological winners. Do you guys see that? God's canon determined who the winners were, not the other way around. So, big idea. That the canon was not determined by subjective dogmatics, but rather discovered by its distinguishable mark. So, big difference between these two words, determined and discovered. That's the difference of a completely different worldview. So, we're going to kind of be looking at Bauer's thesis this morning, a little bit. It's going to be weaving in and out of this idea of canonization, because that's the situation we find ourselves in. We're arguing kind of backwards against those who would seek to basically undermine the whole Word of God as we know it. So, three things we're going to be looking at. We're going to be looking at the legitimacy of canon. We're going to be looking at the evidence for an emerging canon in the early 2nd century, and then we're going to be looking at the boundaries of the canon itself. So, first of all, the legitimacy of a canon. What is the canon? What does canon mean? Canon simply means rule or standard. So when we're talking about the canon of scripture, we're talking about a fixed set of books that make up the Bible. Now, interestingly, if you read Shelley's chapters in this last week, he points out the origins of the Bible's name. He says this, quote, Greek-speaking believers in the early days shifted from the early plural form, Biblia, meaning the books, to the Bible, meaning THE book. When you hold the Bible in your hand, the early Christian fathers saw this as THE book. So the question is, is this idea of canon even a legitimate idea to talk about? Remember, Bower's thesis was that there were many Christianities, and that canon was really a fabrication because it was determined by the majority vote of the theological winners. For instance, listen to another liberal Christian, remember that's who we're arguing against, James Barr, he says on this point, quote, Jesus in his teaching is nowhere portrayed as commanding or even sanctioning the production of a written gospel, still less a written New Testament. The idea of a Christian faith governed by written holy scriptures was not an essential part of the foundational plan of Christianity." Now that is a profound claim. Written scripture is illegitimate because Jesus never intended it. Is that true? Barr's claim was that the written word was not an essential part of the foundational plan of Christianity, so let's look at the foundational plan of Christianity, namely the Old Testament, and see what it says about the written word. You can't speak about the written word of the Old Testament without speaking about what we're going to call canon and the covenants. We already looked at this last week, but when we're talking about the canon, it's impossible to talk about that idea without inserting covenants as well. By the way, we're not really going to be focusing on the Old Testament this morning, the Old Testament canon. I did a defense of that here, I don't know, three weeks ago. So if you want to go to the website www.thewellvoicy.com, hit Resources, hit the Doctrine of the Word of God class, and then hit the Canon of Scripture, you can find that. We're mainly focusing on the New Testament this morning. I have another question. Yeah. Did you just say, or did he just say, I just want to get this straight. He just said that the written Gospels are not valid because it's not contained in the written Gospels? Is that what he just said? No, he said the written Gospels is... I think they probably used the word anachronistic. It wasn't God's, it wasn't Jesus' idea to have a written Gospel. That's us imposing our modern theological categories backwards. But the only way we would know that is if it's written in the written Gospels. Yeah, it's a self-contradictory statement. Completely ridiculous. Yeah, exactly. Alright, so, we talked about this already a couple weeks ago about the covenants, but we need to visit this idea again because this does prove the legitimacy of a written text. So, remember that there are five elements when we're talking about this idea of covenant. So, quickly, the first one is just the name of the king, or this is the preamble. Secondly, it's the historical prologue. Thirdly, we have the stipulations. Fourth is the sanctions. And then fifth is the administration. And when I talk about the administration when I did the sermons on the book of Acts, I basically kind of termed it just in God's providence, but it's more than God's providence. The administration is the actual written text of the covenant itself as copies for both the greater king and the people that he made covenant with. So this pattern right here, this pattern is found all over the Old Testament. And as an example, we'll go to Exodus 20, where Koxenberger points to the Ten Commandments given at Mount Sinai as an example of these elements happening all over the place. So he says this, quote, the core of God's covenant with Israel had a preamble, or the name of the great king, Exodus 20, Verse 2, I am the Lord your God. God is saying who He is and He's establishing the covenant by declaring to His people His name. Secondly, we see a historical prologue, Exodus 20 verse 2, part B. God says, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt? Here, God is giving a historical prologue of where we are at and where we have been. Thirdly, God gives a list of stipulations, Exodus 20 verses 3 through 17, which is you know, these are what I'm requiring of you as my people. And then fourthly, we see a list of blessings and cursings that follow from the people breaking those requirements in Exodus 20 verses 5 through 12. And then most notably here, what's most relevant to us this morning, the two copies of this covenant in written form were deposited in the holy place of worship, Exodus 31, 8, and Deuteronomy 10, 2. So here, basically what I'm saying is that this idea of covenant is what established the idea of canon. When God made a covenant with his people, it always went down in a written text, and then it was placed for subsequent generations to read and to understand what God requires of them. and its written form was the earliest canon that was formed. And this was God's idea, this was used to govern the land. Now Barr's claim that Christianity at its foundational level was not intended to be governed by written scripture is demonstrably false. Remember he said the foundational level of Christianity, Jesus never intended this to be in written form, but this is demonstrably false if you just look at the Old Testament. It was the basis of these scriptures, of this covenant, that the prophets of old acted as God's prosecuting attorneys and leveled charges against his people because they broke the written covenant, or the Old Testament canon. and it was these prophets who promised a new covenant from God himself. So, reasonably, we should be able to say this, if God gave the first written canon for the Old Testament, and then God promises a new covenant, then we should expect that he would also provide a written canon that would govern the new covenant. And let's examine whether or not Jesus will prove this conclusion right. So next we see the very testimony of Jesus himself in the New Testament. I just want to again remind you, we're not arguing against the atheists and skeptics, we're arguing against those who would say they are Christian, and yet are doubting the very worldview that the Bible puts forth. So, clearly in the New Testament, Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant at the Last Supper, and then finished that work three days later at his resurrection. During his life, he gave specific instructions and authority to his apostles. Speaking to them in John 15, 26-27, Jesus says this, But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning." So clearly, Jesus here is commanding them that when He leaves, they are to bear witness about Himself. A few verses before this, in verse 20, Jesus says this, remember the word, that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours." So in effect, Jesus is saying, your word that you speak to the people that follow you carries the same authority as my word carries. my true followers who follow my word will follow your word also because it's the same word. So here we have Jesus saying that the apostles will bear witness about him who is the creator of the new covenant, the inaugurator of the new covenant, and that the future disciples will keep their word. Now what word is that? The sounds coming from their vocal cords? No. The words that they wrote down, proclaiming to the world what the New Covenant is. In fact, this is in the inevitable conclusion of the Great Commission before Jesus ascended to heaven in Matthew 28-19. Remember, Jesus told them to teach everything that he ever commanded them. That's covenantal language. And then Jesus says he would be with them till the end of the age. This teaching that lasts till the end of the age can only be done through written form. It was on the basis of this that the New Testament canon was formed. So Barr's claim here is completely ridiculous from the start. I do want to look at this idea, though, of an emerging canon. Remember, part of Bauer's original thesis was that we only have a canon because of its eventual theological winners and he's claiming that on the basis of the Council of Carthage in 397 AD But there's lots of things that happened before that obviously I'm going to put revelation or the writing of revelation somewhere around We'll call it Mid-90s, we don't know for sure. It's pretty much the last book, as far as I know, of the New Testament. I don't think there was another book written later than that. So, between the Mid-90s and 397 at the Council of Carthage, where the canon was officially recognized as the canon of the church, between then, we have lots of different things. In 240 AD, Origen had a list of scripture, and guess what? He held to all 27 of the books of the New Testament with a little footnote. Six of those books were in a disputed category. And those were James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. I guess there's only five books. One, two, three, four, five. Five books, sorry. Five books were disputed. That's in 240. Athanasius, in an Easter letter in 367 AD, had a complete list of all 27 books with no footnote, no caveat, nothing. And then, of course, the councils themselves bore witness on the official canon. So, my question now is, was there an emerging canon before this date, before 150 AD? Because if there was, then what we're going to see is that Bauer's thesis is not only philosophically indefensible, but it's also historically indefensible. Alright, so let's go to the New Testament itself to see if there was this idea of an emerging canon, because Scripture's going to testify to this. First of all, 2 Peter 3, 15 through 16. Right off the bat, what we see is Peter thought what Paul wrote was Scripture. In 2 Peter 3, 15-16, Peter says this, and I'm going to kind of fast forward in this verse a couple of times. Our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. Down a couple lines. There are some things in them, the writings, that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. Now, I don't know if you guys caught that, but Basically, anybody who disagrees with Scripture is ignorant and unstable, and they twist it. So, I'm not saying that that's an apostle. As they do with the other Scriptures. So, what is Peter saying here? Peter's saying that Paul's writings are Scripture. that it's plural, he says scriptures. So in other words, there's a body of writings that Paul wrote that Peter was testifying to and he was assuming that his writers knew what he was talking about. This letter was written somewhere between 64 and 67 AD. Next, not only did Peter think that Paul's writings were canon, Paul also thought his own words were scripture. In 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13, Paul says this, And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, You accepted it not as the Word of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you, believers. So what's Paul saying here? He's saying that his words are not the words of men, but the very Word of God. You can also see he says something similar in 1 Corinthians 14.37. This letter, where Paul thought his own writings were scripture, was written between 49 and 51 AD. Thirdly, Paul also recognized Luke's writings as scripture. In 1 Timothy 5, 17-18, Paul is instructing the church about the elders. He says this, Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching." Now he's going to give the reason why. Four, the scripture says, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. So what is Paul saying here? He's saying treat the elders like this because the scripture says this over here. And then he gives two places where he's giving the reason for why. The first place is in Deuteronomy. The second place where he says, because the laborer deserves his wages, is what Luke recorded, as Jesus saying in Luke 10, verse 7. So Paul is saying that what Luke wrote was scripture. And this letter was written before his death in the mid-60s. Alright, back to Peter again now, 2 Peter 3, 1-2. Peter recognizes here the two-fold canon of scripture. He recognizes that both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are on one ground, one authority. He says this, this is now the second letter that I'm writing you, beloved. In both of them I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the Holy Prophet And, so he's telling them, you need to remember something. You need to remember the prediction of the Holy Prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your Apostles. So what is Peter saying? He's saying, you, reader, are not only bound by the Old Testament canon by the Prophets, but you're also bound by the New Testament Apostles who are speaking the commandments of Jesus Christ Himself to you. He's laying out the twofold canon that binds every believer everywhere. The Old and the New. He's saying that the Apostles are the chief carriers of the New, which is exactly what Jesus attested to. And then, fifthly, we see that the Apostles' writings were commanded to be read in the churches, like the Old Testament canon was. over and over again in the Old Testament. The requirement is, take these words, read them to the people, do this every year. The king, in fact, was also required to write down his own copy of the Old Covenant. And so what we find is, when the New Testament arrives, the apostles are writing these letters and they're saying, you need to read these publicly, because they're the authority over the churches. Colossians 4.16 testifies to this. Paul says at the end of his letter, and when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And then in 1 Thessalonians 5.27 he says, I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. You can also see Revelation 1.3 as another example of that. Alright, so, we're already seeing this idea of an emerging canon before 150 AD. Again, remember, we're not arguing against atheistic skeptics, we're arguing against those who call themselves Christians and don't see any legitimate reason for this idea of a canon, or they see a legitimate idea for multiple canons. So this, if they're going to hold to the scriptures, then they're going to recognize this as binding. We also see testimony of the early emergence of the canon not only from the scriptures, but from the early apostolic fathers Clement wrote in his letter around 96 AD Clement says this. First of all, he calls Paul an apostle, and he calls his readers to submit to his writings. He says this, quote, The apostles were given the gospel by the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. Thus, Christ came from God, and the apostles from Christ. So implication, before the apostles came from Christ, because the Apostles came from Christ, what they say is God's actual word. That's Clement's testimony around 96 AD. The Didache, written around 100 AD, remember we kind of looked at that document last week, it's a document kind of on church order and whatnot, in its writings it calls Matthew's account the Lord's Gospel and it cites the Lord's Prayer as authoritative and it quotes that directly from Matthew 6, 9 through 13. We also see testimony from Ignatius. Now he wrote his letter somewhere between 98 and 117, we're not totally sure so it's somewhere in this time period of Ignatius. He makes numerous references to the Apostles' writings because, of course, he wrote seven letters, remember. He said this, that there's an absolute and unparalleled authority of the Apostles. So the Apostles have absolute and unparalleled authority. Well, the only way you could say that is that what they're saying is God's words. Now the same can be said about Polycarp's letter, the Epistle to Barnabas, Papias, etc. The fact is that the earliest leaders of the Church recognized or discovered the writings of the Apostles as authoritative and binding on the Church. Alright, so I think that demonstrates this early emergence, that it wasn't until over here when these theological majority people said, hey, we need to get the church in line, so let's vote on these doctrines in order to exclude all these people. Obviously, from the very beginning, these scriptures were seen as authoritative over the church. So what about the boundaries? What about the boundaries of the canon? We've proved that canon was early, we've proved the legitimacy of the canon, we've proved that there's evidence for an emerging canon, but that doesn't really say anything about the actual books themselves. How do we know that the 27 books of the New Testament that we have embody Christianity as God intended? So we're going to look at one more liberal Christian. I think he would call himself a Christian. I looked at his credentials online last night, so I know that he's a professor at some college over religious studies. So this is Bart Ehrman, undoubtedly a disciple of Bauer. He says this, quote... I've got to choke this down first. Okay, he says this. But where did the New Testament come from? What if another group had won? What if the New Testament contained not Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, but the Gnostic teachings of Jesus delivered to his disciples after his resurrection? What if it contained not the letters of Paul and Peter, but the letters of Ptolemy and Barnabas? What if it contained not the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but the Gospels of Thomas, Philip, Mary, and Nicodemus?" Now, the principle behind this quote has already been dealt with in the intro. Obviously, it falls on its own sword. If Barth is right, then he's wrong at the same time. It's pluralistic nonsense. But, Let's go ahead and apply the test of coherence to these books that he lists anyway. Remember, if anything is going to stand, it must be able to cohere together, otherwise it's a non-thing. So let's just go right in order. First of all, Ptolemy's epistle to Flora. That's the first letter that he says, why couldn't that have been scripture? Well, that epistle taught that there were multiple deities. Not only does this violate logic, but it violates what's taught in the Old Testament as well. So, off the list. That's all you need to know. Off the list. Next, the Epistle to Barnabas. Now, I liked the Epistle to Barnabas. I thought it was a good read. However, it taught that there was a species of spotted hyenas that could change its sex. This is error. So, if it's error, then it's not divine. So, you can cross that one off the list. Next, the Gospel of Thomas. I wish there was girls in here. Oh, there is. Okay, great, this is perfect. The Gospel of Thomas records Jesus as saying this, quote, for every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven. Unquote. I don't think I need to comment on that one. That one is easy. The Gospel of Philip, also no comment necessary. It says, it taught that the Holy Spirit was a woman. So none of these books... Now... That's right, gosh, I didn't think about that. All of these books, remember, so Bart's talking about the New Testament, he's saying, why can't this be the New Testament? Well, Mr. Ehrman, if it is, then you have to throw out everything, including the old. The Gospel of Mary, next, his next book on the list. It has Mary telling the disciples that Jesus gave her a vision, quote, describing a Gnostic view of the Aeon. Unquote. Now just one thing regarding that, if Gnosticism is true, then Jesus is a liar. So if the Gospel of Mary is true, Jesus is a liar, he's not God, we're all going to hell. Next, the Gospel of Nicodemus gives two things. It gives an account, it gives a fictional account of Jesus, of course it doesn't call it fictional, it gives a fanciful account, rather, of Jesus' activities while he's in hell. And it also gives this story when Jesus walks in to the praetorium to be questioned before Pilate, that the Roman standards, I don't know if he means up on the wall or like the Roman standards on the shields, the images, they bow down and start worshipping Jesus. So, it sounds something more like Harry Potter than the scriptures. So, all of these fail the coherence test. Every single one of these violate sound reason and the Old Testament scriptures themselves. Now the same thing could be said, and this is the one part I'm going to talk about, the Apocrypha, the same thing could be said about the Catholics' Apocrypha. Besides the fact that these books were not recognized until the 16th century, and this was done in order to counteract the Reformation, these books contain the doctrines of purgatory, indulgences, and justification by works. And in my opinion, it's pointless to debate the Catholics over the idea of canon until you settle the question of authority first. They need categories built first before you go to argue canon. It's not saying you can't do it, it's just, kind of argue in circles. So, the Catholics believe the Church created the canon, and this is where they are similar to Bauer and others. They're not liberal, they don't deny supernaturalism, they don't deny God's providence, but they believe, just kind of in a different sense, that it was the church that determined what the canon was. So, it's easy to see how books are disqualified, but what about recognizing the true books as canon? So here's the last section, which I'm just going to call the Distinguishable Mark and the Operation of the Holy Spirit. So remember, that our big idea is that the canon was not determined by subjective dogmatics, but rather discovered by its distinguishable mark. In the early church, almost all of the New Testament that we have was recognized immediately, either because it was written directly by an apostle or it was recognized within the apostolic circle. Other books like Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude were contested by some, not by all, for a while, but in the end, their distinguishable mark became evident to all. Now, I actually think that's helpful. I don't think that those early Christians, I can't say this for sure, but I don't think those early Christians were dishonoring the word. I think they were trying to lift it up because they didn't want to say, yeah, this is God's word and lead people astray. So they were waiting until this mark just was really resounding as something that was inarguable. Now, what I want to say about this distinguishable mark is that it is something that is visible to all Christians everywhere. Paul, in 2 Timothy 3.16, proclaimed that the scripture was theonoustos. That's God breathed. The words of God. The scripture is theonoustos. It's breathed out by God. The author of Hebrews 4, chapter 4, verse 12, says this, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. So the word of God is living. It jumps out of the page and gets right in your face. And that's its distinguishable mark. I brought the example when I did the can of scripture two or three weeks ago, just the verse, my favorite verse, Psalm 34 8, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. That scripture bears on itself a distinguishable, unarguable mark. So that distinguishable mark, that truth is something that all Christians are drawn to. One of the early church fathers said this, quote, as the eye seeks light and as our body craves food, so our mind is impressed with the supernatural desire to know the truth of God and the causes of what we observe. So this supernatural desire is given to us by the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. That was the promise of Jesus, that not only that His sheep would... we would hear His... if we were His sheep, we would hear His voice, John 10, 27, but that He would send the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit Himself would lead us into all truth. John 16, 13. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." So it was the Holy Spirit of God that led the early church into the discovery of the canon. It wasn't them that imposed their will in the determining of the books. It was the Holy Spirit who caused those books to be imposed upon them. And just one quick analogy before we end. When Christopher Columbus sailed to America, he discovered it. He did not create it. After he discovered it, though, there was still a lag in time before everyone else saw it or discovered it for themselves. But is that an argument against the existence of America? Of course not. Before Columbus set sail, did his benefactors vote on a continent existing for him to find? Of course not. Now these questions might seem ridiculous, but the underlying principle that is found in this analogy is the principle that guides the liberal Christian's best arguments against the canon. Now that's astounding. If their best arguments are self-evidently false, then what are they going to run to? What argument against the canon is left? There's simply no ground to argue on the basis of manuscript corruption. We have simply too many texts that can prove that to be not the case. The only ground they have left is to argue against God himself, and that is why, at the end of the day, this type of person is really an atheist. This liberal Christian who argues against God's providence and the Holy Spirit and the Word of God bearing a distinguishable mark in all the Scriptures that say this is what Scripture is, they're not really a Christian at all. And I'm not speaking to the nature of their soul, I'm speaking to the nature of their worldview. Their worldview is atheistic. That is not how a Christian who is empowered by the Holy Spirit, based on the very promises of Jesus, acts towards the Scriptures. All right, so we'll end there. Any questions before we move on to the second session? Yes. So the implication of Bart Ehrman and Bauer is that the church council, you know, it was like a wrestling match and the stronger person prevailed and that's how we ended up with what we have. Did they actually have the books like Philip and Thomas and Mary and Nicodemus in front of them? Not that they gave them serious consideration, but were they actually considered and rejected at that council? So some of those books that Ehrman pointed out were not. The text that we didn't talk about was the Test of Historicity. If a book was written late or if it wasn't clearly written by an apostle, it was thrown out immediately. So those books weren't even at the council. I think most of those books weren't even at the council. And some of those books weren't even found until like 1845 or something like that. Ehrman's just kind of painting this hypothetical what if. And he's really saying, what if God? He's basically saying the same thing John Lennon said in his song, Imagine. Imagine there's no God. That's what he's basically saying at the end of the day. But there were some books. Shelley said that Augustine held to some of the books of the Apocrypha, which I had not heard that before. I don't think that makes any difference. Augustine is not the authority, the scripture is, and Augustine might have been wrong on some things. There were some books that were at the Council, and I think a lot of them were just the Apocrypha. I think part of that comes from the fact that the Apocrypha was part of the Greek Septuagint, but when they canonized the Old Testament, they really went to the Hebrew there. you know, that was where they got their books from. So, I don't know, I don't know what books were thrown out. I know the Shepherd of Hermes was thrown out at that point, but that was already way back here said to be, you know, kind of spurious, but helpful. Yeah, I think the bottom line where Isaiah says, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever is proof enough, because those things haven't stood forever. ridiculous books and you know, I mean, the Bible's still here and it's still standing strong. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, from my understanding, I speak to Dodaki and the Shepherds and I think the epistle of Barnabas, the epistle of Barnabas that we don't have a copy of anymore, I don't think it was their decision on whether to admit it to canon, but where its place would be in the church order, because the apocrypha in some of those books. Nobody had a problem with reading like the Shepard of Hermonster or the Tadake. It wasn't that there seems to be when I talk to people it's like we have to destroy these books or we have to keep Christians from them. And one of the things that I notice is that it is Christianity that encouraged the reading of things, the scripture especially, but of getting a hold of just reading as much as you can to find out, you know, to find out pretty much for yourself. But from my understanding it wasn't a matter of how do we accept these things into the canon, it was more of a matter of where is, you know, what do we do with the Shepherd of Hermas? And if it isn't as good a quality as scripture but by the same token do we just call it another book or do we you know set it aside and say well we kind of recommend kind of like C.S. Lewis's Miracles or something you know it's a good book to read but yeah you know and that was one understanding he said yeah if you want a good um it's not an extensive treatment but Josh McDowell's out of the defense emergency talks about a four-fold test for the um a criteria for canonization. So it wasn't like they were just voting to accept what the church had already... that was one of the criteria, that it was universally recognized by the church. And the books that are always put forward, whether they're Gnostic Gospels or these Apocryphal books, they were not universally recognized as scripture by the church. But if you don't want to believe something, any alternative will do. And so that's what Bauer, Ehrman, and Bob Bell, they're actually just throwing these things out to try to cast a reasonable doubt. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Can I ask a question just about the, just the book Hebrews? And I mean, just because from my understanding of what I've read, that was one of the more disputed books that at the Council Court, which did make the final judgment. So I mean, what, how did that decision come about? You know, I don't know. It's an easy answer. I do know that it was early church tradition, and in fact you can see this in some modern Bibles, that it was thought to be written by Paul. But that fact itself is disputed. I think at the end of the day, just the fact that the content alone, it had, you know, like the verse I said, O taste and see the Lord is good. Hebrews is jam-packed full of that type of distinguishable words. I'm all pointing to the Old Testament and to Jesus being the Messiah. So, to answer your question, I don't know specifically. Josh, I didn't actually answer that. It was because it appears in Hebrews to teach that you can lose your salvation. And of course, that would not, that cannot be possibly true at all. So... That's why it was disputed, you mean? Yeah. They were wondering, could this even be canonized? Because it could possibly lead, is this, is this book teaching this? And if it is teaching this, then it certainly is not part of Canons Not Inspired, because we know that that's not true. So then, as they read it more and became more familiar with the actual content of the book, they realized, well, it's not teaching that. And then it was accepted as inspired writ. Because it was often to their faces for looking at that as, well, of course, you have to make men persevere because God preserves it. So that's not teaching. There's other enlisted canons, too. Meletus is Old Testament. I don't know if it's the New Testament, but it's 150. Yeah, I didn't think it was the New Testament. I think it was just old, and I think it didn't include Esther at that point. And the Miratory ended in 200, and then Irenaeus lists books in against heresies in 180. I didn't get up to that part in Irenaeus, so I don't know exactly which books he accepted and did. It being read in the churches is a powerful thing, too. There's the lectionaries that are saved. There's a number of quotations in the church lectionaries, which are basically their readings for public worship that include all the different fragments. I think of every single verse in the New Testament except, I don't know, some 20 or 30 verses that are on record. And Hebrews has a bunch of them. This is from the first three centuries. So yeah. OK, I have a question on these guys coming out like that. I think that maybe it's a good argument. and to show where this all leads. And I was wondering if you had anything in common of mine as far as how succinctly you could talk about where these errors can lead and hopefully, you know, bring, persuade people to, since they're being postmodern and pulling this out from under us, you know. Well, I mean, if they're right, then there is no truth at all. I think that's the – I mean, like Kossenberger's book, he does – I love it. At that point, the only heresy left is orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the last heresy standing because it says that there are things that are true. That's the tough part about convincing people of this. Can you just look at the two characteristics, the loss of truth and the fact that the only heresy left is orthodoxy? That's exactly where we are. If somebody can't see that, you're not going to have a whole lot of success. And so if you can't convince people that that's where you're at now, you're probably not going to convince them about some future.