The call to worship this morning is going to come from 1 Corinthians 2. We're going to be reading verses 6-16. 1 Corinthians 2 verses 6-16. Here again, the word of the triune God. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Let's pray together. Your word, O Lord, is a spring of living water, a deep mine of costly treasure, a table furnished with all sorts of food, a garden of pleasant fruits. It is the church's charter, containing all her privileges and her deeds. It has pious precepts for our reformation and precious promises for our consolation. To the saint who is afflicted, may your word hold their head above water when the waves break over the soul. To the saint who is assaulted, may your word be their armor of proof by which they may defend themselves from their foes. To the soul that is unholy, may your word sanctify them as Christ promised. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. to the soul that is in the air of hell. May your word save them for this word alone can make people wise to salvation. And we ask all of this in Jesus name. Amen. So we are back in the confession of chapter one. So if you want to dial that up in your 1689 again, there's a Looks like a few copies up here. As always, there are copies in the back of the Trinity Hymnal. And we are again on the subject matter of Bibliology, the doctrine of God's Word. But in particular, we're dealing with our understanding of the canonization of Scripture. How can we know and have a good certainty that the 66 books of the Old and New Testament are the inspired Word of God. So that's really what we're after in these this time around in the confession. And as I said, it's going to be a general overview. There's various nuances that we could get into, but I want to just give us a a good foundation so that we are standing on solid ground when we come to think about the canon of scripture. And so just as a quick way of review, I don't want to spend, I can waste all my time reviewing and I don't want to do that, but it is needful. So last Lord's Day, we looked at three different models of canonization. How to go about determining if the books that we have are scripture. And we said there were three in particular models that were used, a community determined model, historically determined model, and the self-authenticating model. And our focus was that all three of these aspects are going to be important. It's going to be important that the spirit of God in the church recognize God's work in the Word. It is the church's responsibility as those who are filled with the Spirit and illuminated by the Spirit to recognize the Word of God. So that there's an aspect of that. There's also an aspect where historical features come to play, right? We are talking about those who have been uniquely given authority to write scripture and write it at a particular time in history. So there's a sense in which apostolic authorship is extremely important. We want to know that these men were commissioned by Christ to continue what Jesus had taught them, to bring to fruition all that Jesus had taught, what was necessary for salvation and the understanding of the gospel. So there is a sense in which that is a important aspect. Both of those, though, as we said last week, are important to recognize. But they do not become determinative in our absolutely saying this is scripture and this is not scripture. We can't look to any outside source to give the ultimate authority of our faith its authority. So we can't look to something When Scripture claims to be the ultimate authority, the perfection of authority, the true authority, we can't say, here's how I know that's true by appealing to something else. Now, some of you looked confused by that last week. Just think about it this way. When someone swears an oath, the Bible says, in order to validate that oath, they swear by something greater than themselves, right? If they want to really validate what they're saying, they swear by something much more important than they are. Look, this is really important. When God swore an oath, what did he appeal to? What could he appeal to that's of more value or greater than himself? Nothing. So what did God swear by? Himself. That's the same thing we're talking about here with Scripture. When Scripture says it's the authority, and we must recognize it's authority from the Bible itself, that is a circular argument, but it's a logical circular argument. Does that make sense? It is a reasonable circular argument, because to appeal to something else would immediately be to underestimate or undermine its claim to ultimate authority. So these things are important, but they don't determine whether the Word of God is the Word of God. The Word of God determines it. And so we talked about the self-authenticating model. And what we said was, we are dealing with first principles or ultimate authority. To try to validate an ultimate authority by appealing to some other authority, we would undermine it. So what we're saying is, this means that the Scriptures bear evidence in themselves to their divinity. The Scriptures also provide the necessary direction and guidance about how it is to be authenticated. It sets the terms for its own validation and investigation. So all we're saying here is that in the Bible itself, by God's divine authorship, and by the church's illumination of the Holy Spirit, and the way the Bible is orchestrated in itself, and the way it articulates itself, It's self-authenticating. We don't say this is scripture and give it the stamp of approval. We recognize that it's scripture and we come along and confirm that reality. There's a difference between saying that we have the final verdict. and us saying the evidences of it concur with the truth and we are bearing witness to it but not actually giving it its authority. We're recognizing its authority. That's what we mean by the self-authenticating models. When we recognize for the divine aspects of it, then we're able to recognize the historical connection to Christ. We're also able to recognize that the church universal has, by the Spirit of God, in a great sense of unanimity, said, these are the words of God. Go ahead, Joel. Right, right. Way, way different, way different. Another good, go ahead, go ahead. Very good. And that's what we are doing. And the Spirit is the one bearing witness to it. And we're submitting to what the Spirit is telling the churches. And we could say it the way Jesus said it. My sheep know my voice and they will not listen to another. They take that promise and hold to that. We could also hold to the fact that Jesus said not one dot, not one jot or tittle, not one iota will pass away from the law. We're going to talk about preservation now until all has been fulfilled. So that aspect. Go ahead, Ryan. Yep. Don't know. I don't know witness as far as Scripture is concerned It would just confirm the truths we find in Scripture, right when we look at creation We're going to see the same because it has the same divine author, right? So we're going to see the same divine truths unearthed in both texts So that that would be a way of bringing a sense of unity to it. It's not contradicting in any ways So that would be one way it doesn't give any Like I said, for any external authority to the sense that it gives it its ultimate stamp of approval. But it is another witness to its being what it claims to be. The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and so is the Word of God. They're connecting. So that's an evidence. Yeah, we could use we can use the word evidence for sure. For sure. What we're talking about with the model we want to use, though, is here's what we're after. We're after at the end of the day, when we say these are the books that scripture contained. These are the 66. We just want to always say with a sense of submission and humility, we've recognized them by the Spirit. We've not given them authority by an outside counsel. That's all we really want to say here, which is of ultimate importance. Because there are those like Rome who want to say, no, the church determines the Bible. Right? We've said no. It's the scripture that creates the church. You don't put the mother or the baby before the mother. Right? We kind of talked about that last week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would be a way of giving evidence for the case, but in order to, what they're going to be hung up is, well, how do you know it's the word of God, right? I mean, that could be coincidental. I mean, they could give a lot of different excuses, but it doesn't, as much weight as we can put to the argument and weigh the scales down, at the end of the day, it becomes, we demand them now to to bear the proof. You know what I mean? We put it back in their court. And that would be a way of doing that, just overloading them with the evidence that can't be refuted, fulfill prophecies, and on and on and on we could go with things. So yeah, that's good. So that was canonical models. So we're saying, when we think about it, we're talking about the model we're using is the self-authenticating model, meaning that Scripture is going to tell us in itself that it's Scripture. That's what we mean. We also talked about definitions of canon. I'm not going to spend so much time there. What I want to get into this morning is, so if we're saying that the Bible is self-authenticating, right? We don't give it its authentication. It's self-authenticating. We submit to it. We recognize it by the Spirit. and we humbly hold to it. So what then would be the criterion? How would we know that these are the aspects of God's work in His Word? What are the attributes, is one way to say it, of Scripture that validate the fact that it is the Word of God? And so if we're wanting to pull from the 1689 Paragraph 5 speaks to this and there's three of them that we're going to look at Only two Lord willing this morning and one next Lord's Day But paragraph 5 says this the testimony of the Church of God may stir and persuade us to adopt a high and reverent respect for the Holy Scriptures and Moreover, now notice here's where we're starting to get into how we recognize the heaviness of the contents, the power of the system of truth, the majesty of the style, the harmony of all the parts, the central focus on giving all glory to God, the full revelation of the only way to salvation, and many other incomparable qualities and complete perfections all provide abundant evidence that the Scriptures are the Word of God. Even so, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority of the Scriptures comes from the internal work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. That's just saying what I'm trying to communicate. It's just unpacking what I'm trying to communicate. So scripture has attributes that are unlike any other book in the world. that they are unlike any other writings of men. They're uniquely and distinctly the finger of God, and there are things to recognize in them, and we'll see that. Ultimately, the way in which we recognize, authenticate Scripture, is the Spirit of God in us doing that, the Spirit of God bearing witness of that reality. But there are three Three things here, three components, if you will, on how to go about understanding how the Word is self-authenticating. I'll give them to you quickly. Providential exposure. Attributes of canonicity. We're talking about their characteristics. And then internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. Providential exposure. unique attributes of the writing itself, like the unity of the whole. Who would have thought that it started in a garden and ended in a garden? Right? That kind of aspect. A variety of those things. So this morning I want to deal with two. Providential exposure internal witness of the Holy Spirit the attributes since there's so many of them Lord willing I'll try to tackle those next time so Providential exposure. What do we mean by one of the ways we recognize scripture as scripture as it authenticates itself is by God's providence Providence is something that directs us in our understanding and so just to unpack this, let me read what I have here. In order for the church to be able to recognize the books of the canon, it must first be providentially exposed to these books. Locating our doctrine of scripture with relation to the doctrine of providence reminds us that the various words, passages, texts, and books of the Bible were written in the midst of the history over which God is Lord. A sparrow doesn't fall to the ground without the Father's consent. How much more the scriptures which form his self-testimony. In other words, we need to de-secularize our view of the process of culture and history which produced these texts, and all other texts for that matter, This isn't to deny the human, cultural, and historical influences on the way scripture came to be the way that it is, but it is to remember that all of history's movements come together under God's hands. When you look at the historical process, you need to realize you're not seeing all the action when you've accounted for human psychological, political, and even theological motivations. Father, Son, and Spirit rule over history, governing, preserving, and upholding all its activities, even that of the production of Scripture. God's providence doesn't compete or deny the natural and the human but it sustains and underlies it. So a strong doctrine of providence and preservation helps us to understand that when Jesus says not one iota will pass away, this is what he means. And even though we can look at when the scripture was being argued over, God is not absent from that process. It is not as if man in and of himself did this, even if there were political reasons behind what's going on, even if there was jockeying for position in the church in a selfish way, even when men's motives were sinful. Who is Lord of all? God is. And so we need to take that into consideration, which means then we need to recognize that the books we don't have We're not supposed to. And the books we do have, we are supposed to. And one good way of seeing this, even from Scripture itself, is the canon is not identical with all special revelation. Let me say it this way. Greg Bonson helps us here. He says, in order for a book to be accounted canonical, it is necessary that it be inspired, right? All scripture is inspired. And in order for it to be in the canon, it must be inspired. However, while inspiration is a necessary condition of canonicity, it is not the only one. Meaning, otherwise, all of God's special verbal revelation would constitute the canon of the church. Yet, this is not the case, as we can see, for a couple of reasons. So, just for a second, everybody turn to John 21-25. Everyone get a finger in John 21 25 I'm just going to prove to you this idea of how providence plays a role in Our understanding that we have the books we're supposed to have we have the exact truth We're supposed to have no more no less by providence. Okay? John 21 25 Now there are also many other things that Jesus did Were every one of them to be written. I Suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written Okay, so what's John saying here? His gospel his recording is selective, isn't it? Under whose selection process? Who's the one that decided this miracle? Not that one. This teaching? Not that one. This interaction? Not that interaction. This discussion with a woman? Not that discussion with a woman. Right? Are we to think that all that Jesus ever said and ever did was recorded in Scripture? John says, by no means think that. But does that mean that when Jesus talked, he was not under 100% inspired authority in everything he said? Well, he's who? He's God. And when he when he speaks in the sense of giving verily, verily unto you, I speak or do these things, it is with authority. Right? But it's not given to the church at this moment because it's not needed by the church in these particular moments. So it wasn't recorded for us. And I'm just saying the Spirit determined that, not man. Right? There's not going to be a hundred other writings that John put down. It's almost as John's to tell you, don't look for anything more. These things have been written down for a selective purpose, that you know that Jesus is the Christ, and in believing in Him, you would have eternal life. Right? Does that make sense? So, in one aspect, we can say there's a lot of things that happen that we know could be inspired things, but the Scriptures did not providentially choose to give us. I'll give you one more example. 2 Corinthians 12, go there real quick. 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says in verse 3, And I know that this man was caught up into paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. And then you jump over to verse seven and he says, so to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the, what's the word? Revelations. Right? So, Paul is given direct revelation from the throne room of God concerning things that are of God, and you don't have a clue what they are. And who checked Paul at writing that down? Who checked him from writing those things down? You can answer. The Spirit of God. the Spirit of God. These are not things for the church to know now. They are not necessary for her up-building, strengthening, salvation, sanctification. One day we may know them, but it wasn't something the church needed to know. And so all I'm saying here is when we take that into consideration then, that that reality happened, there are things that have been revealed Even to apostles that the spirit of God in Providence did not have them write down. We could say also then in the same way that when they did write things down and those letters are no longer with us. The reason they're no longer with us is because of the same spirit that has guarded and guided the other two aspects of Providence, right? That's how we're gonna understand the third book of Corinthians. It wasn't necessary for the universal church to know how Paul was specifically admonishing the Corinthians in that regard, or we would have it as a part of our scriptures. Was it authoritative and was it inspired? Sure it was, it was the apostle Paul. Was it supposed to be in the canon of scripture? And the answer we have to go with understanding providence of preservation is no, it was not. And you can say, but what if we find it? Well, we'll talk about that if we do. I'm going to go with in the providence of preservation of God, you won't find it. Just like the Ark of the Covenant. Not going to find that thing either. God said you wouldn't find that thing. So anyway, so just pause there for a second. Is that making sense? So one of the first ways that we recognize how scripture authenticates itself is understanding that we have to deal with texts we have, we have to understand that God has specifically and uniquely given us some, and not everything. So not everything that he could give us he did give us, because providence has guarded and guided it. And so when it is within the church's reach to have, and it has been since it was canonized, those are the books that we are supposed to Recognize we're supposed to submit to we're supposed to see God's handiwork in but not anything else That's why we shouldn't keep looking for it We have what God wanted us to have his providence has established it. So that's one of the ways in which we need to understand Just our launching off point a church can't authenticate or excuse me a church can't Give its recognition of a book it doesn't have, right? Same with, tie this into kind of all kinds of prophecies that people want to give you that are disjointed from anything in scripture, right? Kind of talked about that yesterday in men's group. The Lord told me, or I feel as if, or all the kind of things that would go with that. So questions on that. Is that at least understandable, what we're getting at with providence and preservation giving us knowing that what we have to work through, we are not missing something else, right? Because think about that. If you couldn't have a sense of certainty, right? I'm not saying a perfect certainty. I'm saying a good sense of certainty. If you're trusting in providence and preservation, you can have a good certainty that there isn't another book that we must have and we have an incomplete Word of God. We can rest in the providence and preservation of God and make a good argument even from the word itself in the way he's orchestrated it to say, Lord, we're content to know that you have delivered your voice to the church, your sheep have recognized it, and it's exactly the right jots and tittles we needed to know and needed to have. That's what we're saying. Good? Go ahead, Joel. Right. Works towards what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And with the Mormons, so we talk about the burning in the bosom, that is a completely subjective experience. When we talk about the internal evidence or the internal work of the Holy Spirit, that's an objective reality, meaning it is granting or being validated by an objective reality outside of us, not just simply Sensory experience that I've had right that becomes different and I know Nate could speak more to that than me But I that that's pretty much just a subjective when when they run out of arguments they appeal to that Does that make sense when they when they got nowhere else to go? Well, this is how I know right that's that's like like prophets when they got nowhere else to go, you know modern-day They just appeal to the fact that God told me how do you order? How do you argue with that? Right that kind of an idea. So yeah, you know somebody else good Yeah, yep Yes, yes, so that would basically be on the reality of the Pope giving them recognizing in them at least a Illusionary connection to Scripture again do does the Apocrypha have truth in it? The answer is yes, probably. Does it mean we can't learn from it? No. But it's based on what authority you give it. I mean, you read theology books, right? Do you benefit from them? Are they inspired? No. The difference is they're saying that they think there's enough evidence within them to authenticate them being from God. We would deny that, and here's the biggest reason, and we'll get to this. One of the key aspects of understanding the canonization of Scripture is, as the Scripture says, it's unity within itself. And if you understand all of Scripture, all of Scripture is pointing to one ultimate reality, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So that the reality is then this entire canon of Scripture called the Old Covenant, actually being fulfilled by everything that's happened in this canon of Scripture the new covenant and they're Coordinated to one another the books of the Apocrypha according to the early church as far as those who were outside the Catholic Church did not see any Christological connection whatsoever and didn't see it actually in some of them saw heresy actually saw some actual heretical even teaching in them and denied that. But the Catholic Church, again, just because of the Pope's ex-cathedra reality, made them that way. But we would say that, yes, there is truth in it. Like, I mean, there's truth in You can read Immanuel Kant if you want to, and you can find, I mean, he's creating the image of God. I wouldn't, I mean, you don't have to go to the garbage to do that, though. But the issue being that that's the reason that they would have done it, evidence enough of what they saw, the Reformers and those after, even before Augustine would have not held to any of that, based on the Christological point. Based on the Christological point. But yeah, they're simply, again, Scripture doesn't authenticate itself to Rome. Rome authenticates Scripture. That's a good question. I would have to look that up. Does anyone know when the Apocrypha was added? Yeah, it'd have to be, I mean, the Bible didn't even come together for them until after the fourth century. See what I'm saying? So until the Council of Trent, Catholics didn't even have a canon, per se. So yeah, and I don't even know how long after, I don't know if the apocrypha was included at that point or not. I'd have to do research to find that out. But yeah, so. But again, we would say in the criterion we're using, when you read those books, They do not bear the witness of the Holy Spirit in them to the things that really, really matter. Again, the difference is that Rome is given an external authority. We're saying we're recognizing an internal authority, and they're not going by those guidelines. They're not going by those guidelines, per se. All right, next let's talk about the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit in 10 minutes. And we are not going to get this all done, but we're going to get a good, good jump at it. Internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. In order for believers to rightly recognize these attributes of canonicity, which we'll talk about next time in more detail, the Holy Spirit works to overcome the noetic effects of sin. Now, we use noetic, a big word. It just means the way sin affects the mind. When you hear the word noetic, it just means how sin has affected man's intellect. And the Spirit of God renews that. That's all we're trying to say here. So, it affects on the mind and intellect and produces belief that these books are from God. These are the doctrines of inspiration and illumination. Inspiration refers to the act of God directly guiding the authors of the Bible to accurately record His revelation, while illumination describes the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in enabling believers to understand, apply, and rightly recognize the books that are Scripture themselves. Essentially, inspiration is the act of God revealing truth, through the Bible, and illumination is the work of the Spirit in helping individuals grasp that truth and see it. So, both those aspects are essential, right? If there is no inspiration, it doesn't matter if we have illumination. Does that make sense? If the writings aren't themselves the very words of God, then inspiration doesn't mean anything because there's nothing for us to recognize. So these things are inseparable. We need an inspired authorship and we need an illuminated bride. Both of those realities come to play. And here let me just I'll get off track just for a second, but this is so important in understanding our coming to canonization. I don't think, I know you know this, but it's a good reminder. Not all biblical theologians and systematic theologians are Christians. Did you know that? Not all college professors in universities are teaching things about Scripture, and I'm not maybe necessarily talking seminaries per se, but colleges that are teaching theology are Christians. Many of them, in working through the understanding of canonization, don't even believe that this is the Word of God. Or they don't think it's the inerrant Word of God, or they think it contains the Word of God, but you have to find it as you read it. Not every word is God's Word, but contained within the Word is God's Word. Okay? So we want to start by saying, I think very helpfully, and Michael Kruger is really good on this, by saying, look, we're not going to subject our understanding of recognition of the canon and the spirits work in it by people who don't have the spirit. Does that make sense? And so there are many critical theorists who are anti-canon, or this is errors, and this is this, and this is this, and this is this. But let me just say, just general, and I know this sounds like a skateboard argument, but it is a solid argument. The Bible tells us itself, without the Spirit of God, you cannot know the mind of God. 2 Corinthians, correct? It's impossible for natural man to know the things given by God. So yes, it sounds like a real easy cheat argument. Well, you think there are there because because you can't read it. Well, the end of the day, we should be OK with that argument because it's God's argument. You know, I'm saying it's ultimately what God is saying. We are not going to subject our understanding of the canon to errors, to men like Bart Ehrman, who are not regenerate. They're damned men. They're not going to tell us what our Bible is. We're not going to allow them to because they don't have the qualifications to do what scripture demands to be done. That's kind of what we're getting at. Okay. So let me, um, read something to you here from what? Kruger says, quoting Scripture, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. It is here, then, that we come to the crux of the matter. Should Christians abandon their commitment to the canon's authority because biblical critics, who view scriptural interpretation as merely a human enterprise, claim to have discovered theological incongruities? No, because Christians have no grounds for thinking that those without the Spirit can rightly discern such things. Indeed, Christians have good grounds for thinking they cannot. And most of the times, if not, well, I'm going to say all of the times we can understand what appears to be contradiction when we rightly apply scripture to scripture and see what God is doing. There are no errors in the Bible and where we find them, where are they located? In you, that's right, in you. So this is important because there's a lot of scholarship that you could pick up a book for and say, how do we know our Bible is our Bible? And you're reading man. who have no qualifications by which to truly and rightly understand what they're saying. They're simply natural men using natural means and coming to natural ends. And we are not going to submit ourselves to that reality. He gives a good illustration in here of the most world-renowned violinist, Joshua Bell. This guy's name and he went to Washington DC Metro Station you ever see people go out there and they play So he went to the Metro station. He took with him his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius Violin so he's he's sitting at DC Metro with a 3.5 million dollar instrument and Probably the most world-renowned violinist He played for, I don't know, three or four hours, maybe even longer than that. No crowd ever gathered. And by the time he was done, he had less than 35 bucks in his little hat. And he's saying, in the same way that culture doesn't really grasp the greatness of music, right? We know music, but do you know music, right? Can you tell the difference between this person play and that person play? There is a difference, right? And so he's saying, it's only the church that recognizes the shred of artists when it plays. No one else does. But we will. Because Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and they will not listen to another. So I just think that's an important aspect. And I want to put that bug in your ear, because I know you can read a lot, you can see a lot, but This aspect of the internal witness of the Holy Spirit is central. It's a super important aspect. Probably just stop there. So pick up next time. Lord willing we're gonna start talking a little bit about this Illumination and how it works and how we're to think about it in recognizing So right now just as a reminder we are on how to recognize scripture Authenticating itself. How do we recognize it first? and very just baseline providentially and by preservation we've got to have the texts and We're not dealing with texts we don't have, and we know that the Spirit has been selective in texts, even from Scripture itself. So we can know that if He's selective, that we're not missing anything, or He'd have put it in there. He'd have put in all of what Jesus had said if He wanted it in there. So we know there's not something out here that He wanted in there and didn't put it in, or He would have. That's how we're resting on that reality. And then secondly, the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, which we begin on, and that being a central aspect. So we've got a minute here. Any questions on just those two aspects? And we'll further that one, and then I want to pick up on the attributes of Scripture itself. Go ahead, Kim. Yep. Yep. Yep. It's like the gospel. Yep. Yep. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, again, we have wonderful, logical and rational arguments. Here's what we want to get out at the end of the day to the unbeliever or skeptic. that our arguments are not illogical or irrational. That's all we want to do with them. Now, again, we'd love for them to get saved. We'd love for them to embrace it. But again, at the end of the day, it's the spirit that does that. But what they think is we're stupid. They think that Christians just take their brains and they chuck them over here and everything is a big faith leap. Right. That's what they think. And we're saying, no, by the same deductive reasoning and logical laws of logic and conclusions of evidence that you use in every other realm of study. we are using in this regard and they are valid just because you don't like them or submit to them doesn't make them less valid. Does that make sense? We have logical and rational arguments. We're not just those who believe the Bible by faith in faith. We are those who have believed Scripture because Scripture authenticates itself by the power of the Spirit using your mind, not bypassing your mind, with rational arguments, right? We don't come to Scripture by naturalism, and we also don't come to Scripture by immediacy, like the Spirit overrides our brains and we don't use them anymore. No, we come to Scripture by rational intellect because the Spirit regenerates. Right? He didn't take your intellect out and get rid of it. He renewed it. And now you use it rightly. And that's how we come to these conclusions. And they're rational arguments. They're sound arguments. They're good arguments. We shouldn't be ashamed of them. We can go toe-to-toe with anyone in regards to these things. All right, enough of my hobby horse. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you again for just the opportunity to think deeply about these things. We continue to pray that you'll help us to think accurately and clearly. Give us again this steadfast, robust ground to stand on that we would continue to be gaining assurance and trustworthiness of our Bible. We're thankful that you have Providentially preserved it that it is exactly what you have designed and desired and nothing is missing And there's nothing will be added because it is sufficient sufficient for what you gave it And so Lord help us to hold fast to these things and we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. All right