Understanding the Canon: Recognizing Scripture's Divine Authority

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Canon is a fascinating topic, and I should probably say right from the outset what kind of canon we're talking about. This is canon with one 'n,' not two 'n's,' that's the thing that, you know, goes boom. This is canon with one 'n,' and it's a Greek word, actually, comes directly from the Greek into the English, and the word literally means "measuring rod." [00:00:27]

And the call goes something like this: "I grew up Catholic, and attended a Catholic church, and I have become born again, and I'm now at an evangelical church, and I have a very troubling question to ask you. Why is your Bible smaller?" That's the question I get. "What happened to these books? You just took them out." Right? [00:01:24]

In fact, the book claims that the canon question was settled at the Council of Nicaea in 325. And that actually isn't true at all. In reality, actually there was a council that discussed the canon, and it was much later. It was actually in the 390's that we see it, not 325. [00:02:59]

Now, as Protestants we think a little differently about this issue than is thought of in the Roman Catholic Church. In Roman Catholicism, the idea of the church's role in the process of canon is understood as the church establishing what is in fact the canon. And as Protestants we substitute a word for "establishing." The word that we prefer to explain this process is the word recognize. [00:04:54]

The Old Testament, if we start, and where we really need to start here is Scripture itself. And one of the things we see is Scripture's own self-reflection on it as canon. We see this in Joshua; right there at the onset of the historical books there is the reference to the Book of the Law. [00:06:23]

The famous text of course here is Jesus on the road to Emmaus with the disciples, and while He is on the road to Emmaus, He is referring back to the law and the prophets. In fact, he mentions that twice in this time. So we see this, even on the road to Emmaus as Christ is there with the disciples in Luke chapter 24. [00:08:24]

And one of these figures, a heretic, by the name of Marcion produces what is sometimes called Marcion's canon, and in that he takes a swipe at these Old Testament books as not being authentic revelation, not authentic books of the Bible because of their content. So now the church has to respond to that heresy. [00:11:41]

And one of those touchstones along the way is a great document from 140 that we call the Muratorian Fragment. Now, it's called a fragment because it is, in fact, a fragment, very scholarly, isn't it? The beginning is lost, and the ending is lost, hence it's a fragment. [00:13:41]

But what this document gives us is sometimes what we refer to as the Muratorian canon. And it gives us some insight into the process, and it also shows us where we are in the process. Now, to back up from the Muratorian Fragment, we could even go back to the New Testament itself. [00:15:08]

And three criteria emerge. One is authorship -- the book had to be written by an apostle. Now, that's two-fold reason. One is the apostles were eye witnesses, and even in our courts of law today, right, hearsay evidence is ruled out, eye witness evidence, see, that matters. And multiple eyewitness evidence matters even more. [00:20:35]

So authorship -- apostolic authorship -- for instance Muratorian fragment mentions the book The Shepherd of Hermes, and it says, "This book is a helpful book, Christians should read it," but it also says it shouldn't be read aloud in the church, meaning when the Scripture is read aloud, right? Because they didn't want to confuse it as Scripture. [00:21:22]

Well, Athanasius, in 367, as a bishop writes an Easter letter to the churches. And in his Easter letter of 367, sometimes it's called the paschal letter -- p-a-s-c-h-a-l -- for that time of the suffering of Christ, the paschal lamb -- 367, gives us a list of the 27 books of the New Testament. [00:23:20]

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