Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 6

Well, today we're going to be going through some the topic of the completion of God's word. And, going into the ideas of why we believe that, that what we have is the complete word of God. to start it off, we're gonna do a little bit of review, over some things, and, Josiah Tay has been asked to present some things that, that cover some of the things that we've been, looking at up to this point. So he's gonna take us through that.

So I ask you to give him your attention. Josiah, go ahead and, and come on up and get us started. Guys, can you hear me fine? How, how many of you guys have played the telephone?

Telephone game. OK, so for those of you who haven't played it, basically everyone sits in a circle and someone comes up with some secret message, and then he whispers it to the guy next to him, and that person whispers it to the guy next to him, and so on, until we reach the final guy. And at the very end, we compare the final interpretation of the message to the original. And this game is really humorous because you're gonna have some really weird interpretations of that message.

For instance, like a cute puppy could become a mute guppy. and they're entirely different. One is a lot cuter. and you get some crazy results because in this process of transmission, the message can get distorted or even lost entirely in transmission.

and this is a common argument that skeptics will use today against scripture. They'll say, the Bible was written thousands of years ago and it's been translated so many times, so, we can't possibly trust scripture today. so I'd like to answer this question today. How can we trust the Bible when it's been translated so many times?

I know that Pastor Mike talked about this topic last week. So this is a little bit of a review. so firstly, I wanna examine the Christian framework. The framework that as Christians, we approach this topic with.

secondly, we'll see some concrete evidence throughout history that scripture has been translated, and finally, we'll see what the relevance is for us today. So, first of all, let's examine the framework that we as Christians start with. Now as Christians, we start with an important presupposition when approaching this topic, and that presupposition is that God is sovereign. Psalms 1153 tells us that our God is in heaven and he does whatever he pleases.

What it's telling us is that God is sovereign, he's in control, and he's all powerful, because God is all powerful, he ultimately will execute whatever is in his will because he is ultimately sovereign. So what is God's sovereign will when it comes to scripture? Well, Matthew 5:18 tells us that till heaven and earth pass away, one, not one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Now Matthew is expressing here God's intent to essentially preserve His word.

Now what exactly though is it referring to when it says one jot or one tittle? Now what's really interesting is that the jot is the, I, I. Letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it also happens to be the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Now a title is, or a tiny ornamentation strokes that Hebrew writers would use to essentially decorate their letters.

And what it's saying here is not even the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, not even these little ornamentation strokes will even pass away from the law because God's sovereign will is to preserve His word. So that's ultimately the framework and the presupposition that as Christians, we come and approach this topic with that God is his sovereign will is to ultimately preserve his word throughout scripture. Now if, if this is truly his will throughout history, we should see some concrete evidence that God has preserved his word and that scripture for the most part is accurate today and close to the original copies.

Well, we actually do see a lot of evidence, and I just want to cover a little bit.

the first point is that of manuscript evidence. Now two important things to know when it comes to determining the accuracy of transmission when looking at historical documents. The first one is the number of copies. Generally speaking, the more copies you have, the more accurate your document is gonna be.

my homework assignment is to copy a page from a book. Obviously, I'm gonna make some, some mistakes. but if I copy that same page 10 times, Each time, the likelihood of me making the same exact mistake over and over and over and over is a lot lower. and that applies if I, if I copy the same page 100 times, I'm gonna make even less mistakes over and over and over again.

And thus, if we have lots of copies of a document, we can actually compare the copies to each other and basically extract the original copy by seeing, here we had a mistake and here we didn't. and the second important thing to notice is the time between copying the original and the next manuscript. The shorter the time, the more accurate our copy is. So let's examine the works of a few historians throughout history.

There's a guy named Tacitus and, he, he, we have around 31 copies of manuscript evidence. Thucydides, we have around 96 copies and Pliny we have around 200 copies, which may seem a lot or a little bit. However, let's compare this to scripture. Josh McDowell says that we have over 66,000 scrolls and manuscripts of the Bible today.

Over 66,000. Imagine the incredible, the remarkable accuracy that we can draw from looking at those 66,000 documents and, and extracting scripture. and further, the time span between the original and these manuscripts of these historians, were around 100s to even over 1000 years. but when looking at like the New Testament, the New Testament, the, the time span between copying was less than 100 years.

All this To say that scripture is actually extremely accurately translated because of the numerous manuscript evidence we have today, even more accurately than these, these other documents of well-known historians that secular culture would accept today as well. and the second point I'd like to make is that of copying standards. Now Jewish scribes who copied the Old Testament had to memorize over 4000 regulations. Imagine how many years of your life it would take to memorize 4000 regulations that you had to follow in order to copy scripture.

In fact, copying a single scroll of scripture would often take scribes between 1 and 3 years. And here's a few of the many intricate rules they have to follow. One of them is they couldn't write a single word from memory. So even if it was like a simple noun or verb, they had to constantly be looking back at the original document in order to copy scripture.

Secondly, they had to follow a perfect stroke order. When writing a, a Hebrew character, they had to follow this perfect stroke order every single time for thousands of times. Now currently I'm learning Chinese and Chinese is quite similar because you have to follow this perfect stroke order in order to write a character. And it's really difficult, but it does ensure that your characters look the same over and over again.

And they had to do this thousands of times in order to ensure that their characters were accurate and that were, that, that they were neatly written in order that future scribes would be able to read what they wrote as well. And thirdly, the entire scroll was destroyed if one mistake was made. So, imagine that you just spent 3 years of your life copying, a copy of the Torah, and you made one mistake. Well, you would have to destroy the entire scroll and start over again.

And that's the incredible dedication that these scribes had to copy scripture., finally, one really interesting fact is after they, completed this copy, they would bring in counters. They count the letters and the words in the entire document. And what they would do is they would count the middle letter and the middle word. And the middle letter would always end up being Leviticus 1142 and the middle word would always be in Leviticus 1333, every single time.

If it wasn't the case then the entire document was destroyed. Now, I was recently at a conference where Josh McDowell was speaking and he brought something called the Loads Torah scroll, which was, which is around 550 years old and it was 72 ft long. And it's one of the most valuable and oldest copies of the complete Torah in existence. And what really fascinated me was that every single word looked essentially like it was printed from a computer.

It was so accurate and the spacing between each character was absolutely perfect. Which really just goes to tell us that these scribes spent such enormous dedication to translate the Torah and to translate scripture in order to that we might have an accurate copy today. Now we do have to know that we do have mistakes because humans are imperfect, scribes are imperfect, and that we will see mistakes throughout history. However, among these mistakes, the vast majority are all just little spelling and tiny grammar errors that don't affect the meaning at all.

even if you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, when we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, we found an entire copy of Isaiah. And the book of Isaiah was actually 95% identical. and this 5% error was really just little spelling and grammar mistakes. In fact, we only have 3 words that we even called into question.

and these three words obviously really don't affect the meaning at all. and this really goes to show once again. Again that God in His sovereign will has ultimately determined that scripture will be transmitted into our hands today and it's quite accurate because of the amount of manuscript evidence that we see and the incredible standards that Jewish scribes had to follow in order to copy. So finally, let's just wrap up by examining a couple of relevant points.

But why should we even care?, we're talking about apologetics a lot, we're talking about like why is the Bible accurate? but why, why should we even care for our own selves? I think there's two points of relevance we can take away. The first one is that of trust.

We can have an incredible trust and confidence knowing that God's sovereign will is to preserve His word and give it to us today, accurately translated. And we can have trust knowing that the divinely inspired words of our perfect sovereign God are in our hands today and that he's actually given them to us for us to follow and that they're quite accurate. And the, the second point of relevance is we should also feel a sense of responsibility. A sense of responsibility to cherish God's word and to take his word in context and to even teach it to our children, knowing that this Bible has been accurately passed down to us.

imagine the respect that these scribes had when translating the Bible. Spending years of their life dedicated to one book, but it wasn't just a book, it was the divinely inspired words of God. And they knew that they were passing it down to their children and their children's children and future generations, and even ultimately to us today. And so we should have this incredible sense of responsibility, to cherish by God's work.

So, at the end of the day, I think God has been incredibly gracious in not only giving us His word, but also ensuring that it was sovereignly translated and kept as accurate as possible for us today. So that's why the Bible is actually, has actually been accurately translated over so many one. Thanks, Josiah. Great job.

That was excellent, excellent material. the Dead Sea Scrolls are a fascinating, confirmation for us. my wife and, and son, we went down to San Diego a few years ago. They were showing, they had a display of the Dead Sea Scrolls there and, and included with that display was, was a, space they had, set aside for showing this video that Described really the layout of the whole camp where, where this happened and, and they showed how this communal social structure was there and really, they, they were just a group of people that had gone out into the hills above the, the Dead Sea and, lived apart from the rest of society.

And they had in, in one of their buildings, there was what was called a copy room. And this is where the scribes did the copying. The reason why the scrolls were there was because there were people there dedicated to copying the scriptures and they had other manuscripts as well, but, the reason why the scrolls were hidden away in these jars of clay in a cave was because of the Roman invasion. And they were afraid that, that they would be destroyed, so they had hidden them away.

But the amazing thing to me is when you look at the timing of everything, of, of when they were there, what they were doing, copying scripture, you realize that this complete edition of the book of Isaiah. Which is a copy, is that this has been copied over and over again. These people go back to the time of Christ. Already, they're copying, these are copies that they're copying that have all these prophecies of the Messiah.

If you recall from the book of Isaiah, how, how many messianic prophecies there are there, that, that these are not prophecies that were made up after Jesus came. These are prophecies that go way back before Jesus and the prophetic, implications there are that, that this is the word of God. And so it, it's an amazing thing to see that evidence. And so if you ever get a chance, if you've not done so, to see those scrolls, I think it's, it's really a, a good thing to, to just educate yourself with.

You can also go online and you can, you can do some, some research with it and, and see a lot of those things. Thank you again, Josiah, for, for sharing those things with us. And taking us through the review, which is going to be part of, we're just gonna skip through a lot of that, this morning, so we can get to our lesson today. we're gonna be talking about how God's word is complete, how he has given to us, everything that he, he wants us to have to this point.

we have been taught, we've talked about in the past how the scripture is sufficient. We've talked about the hermeneutic we're using. does anybody know what that is? What's our hermeneutic?

Say again. Thank you. Historical, literal, grammatical. And what, do we want to use exegesis or isosis?

Exegesis, right. So exegesis is when, when we let the scripture speak out to us, E being the Latin for, for out or Greek rather, for, for out. Iso is, is to look into us when we put into the scripture what we think it should be saying. And so we're letting the scripture teach us with that.

What is inerrancy? The Right, without error. Is it reasonable for God to swear by Himself? We've talked about that, that there is no higher authority for God to swear by.

He is the ultimate authority. And so what do we mean then when we say that the Bible is authoritative? That the Bible is the word of God because it says it is, and it allows us to make sense of the, of the world around us. The Bible, because God swears by Himself, also the Bible declares itself to be the authority and so we understand it from that standpoint.

The authority of scripture means that all the words in scripture are God's words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. And so that's, that's the position we take on the authority of Scripture. preservation of Scripture. That God has and will adequately protect His written word.

But on the other side, his people have a corporate responsibility to preserve, protect, to proclaim his word amid the attacks of the devil in the world. And so God's word has been under those attacks, for centuries. And so we, and, and we can also see how the, the people of God have stood up and defended God's word and there has, has been this effort and we're gonna be looking a little bit at that, today, how that has happened. OK.

John 14, we're gonna start with John 14. So if you take your Bible and turn there. And I'll read from the New American Standard. It says this, Jesus talking to his disciples, says, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

So who are the characters in this? We have Jesus speaking. And he's speaking to whom? His disciples.

And so, that's who's there in this conversation. Where and when did this take place? This is, I might go ahead and just answer the questions because it's hard for me to hear you and so, But where and when did this take place? We have this in the upper room.

And this is at, at the, the, the Last supper, right after Judas has left. Jesus then turns to his disciples in John 14 and he begins to talk to them about him leaving and that he's going to send someone to take his place. And so he's taking them on a, an emotional and mental journey that they're not expecting at this point in time. So he has a lot of things that he tells them in this upper room discourse and from, from 14 through 16 in describing how things are, are going to be for them.

And so this is what he describes about what the Holy Spirit is going to do as far as, as, God's word, that, that the Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance. And so, this passage tells us that the Father will send the Spirit. That the Son, is the one who has said many things to his disciples, and the Spirit will bring those things to their remembrance. The Spirit is the one who is sent by the Father.

He will come in Jesus' name, and, He will, teach them all things as, as well as bring to them things in remembrance. So we have really here the, The gospels, that, that's what he'll bring to the remembrance, and we have the epistles that the Holy Spirit will continue to teach them and lead them into more things. And so that's, that's where that, that's how we are blessed with it, with our New Testament is the Holy Spirit doing the work in their life. And, and that reminds me of, of a point that I think is really important for us to, to remember in the work of the Holy Spirit.

In our day, and this has happened in the past as well as we will see. We have an interest in God doing miraculous and, and supernatural things. And so there's this, this, interest in the work of the Holy Spirit being like that and doing something that's, that's, supernatural. And so we have supernatural gifts and, and so on that, that people really desire to have.

But I would suggest to you and, and, I think JI Packer makes this a really good point in, in his book Knowing God, in the work of the Holy Spirit, that the work of the Holy Spirit has been primarily to give us his word. He's the one who's inspired his word and he's the one who then opens up our minds to understand it, even to desire his word. He's the one who calls us into repentance and faith and, and gives us the ability. He, he's the one who awakens us, gives us the life to, to have understanding in order to have salvation.

The Holy Spirit works powerfully and if we're not willing to, to go to what he has done here in this book, this is the work of the Holy Spirit given to us. If we're not willing to study it, if we're not willing to, to bring it into our life, let it impact us, how, in my opinion, how dare we ask for something else. It's like a, a, I think of it like this, like a, a child who's brought before a table, who's brought this This a very healthy meal to eat. And the child screams and says, but I want candy.

that's, that's how the immaturity of, of our Christianity can be sometimes. And so, the work of the Holy Spirit is here and what we need to do is get into it. We need to learn it and we need to open up our heart to, to apply it so it can change us because it's supposed to transform us. And so we need to get into what the Holy Spirit has given to us.

This is a gift from the Holy Spirit and we need to, to really get into it. the Holy Spirit will be leading them to recall the things they were taught, and they will carry on the teaching for further instruction. And so, that's what the Holy Spirit will do. And that's the main point of the passage.

And so what we have then is the New Testament writers. Given the recall of what they went through in their time with Christ. And so we have the 44 writers, Luke, getting the testimony of, of the people he talked to, but Matthew and John giving their direct, personal experiences, but it's all based upon The Holy Spirit bringing back to memory to them. Mark probably it's believed is, it got his from the testimony of Peter and, and so Mark comes from Peter's experiences.

Now, the question that was on here when you were walking in, if you looked at this and, and thought about it. And you wonder what does that have to do with anything? Can you recall in detail what you were doing October 19, 2004? That's 11 years ago, if my math is right.

11 years ago, do you remember what you were doing? Yeah, I don't. And I've had this question for a few days and I didn't even go back to see what day of the week that was. I'm maybe going to work, maybe it was a Sunday and I went to church.

I don't know, but I don't remember any details about it. There are a few strange people in humanity who can't tell you everything they've done on every single day of the calendar. But most of us, Most of us can't do that. so how is it that Matthew and John could write down these details about things that they went through?

Now, certainly, certain things will stand out, in your memories, but they're writing things that, that, are of a, a daily event in, in the in that short period of time they were with Christ. How are they going to recall these things? The Holy Spirit is, is bringing these things back to their mind and, and bringing things to their mind that were important for them to relate. So they weren't dealing with things that are not important or that, that God didn't think that we needed to know, but everything that's in the Gospels is there because the Holy Spirit prompted them, brought that back to their memory to write it down for us.

And so they're, it's there on purpose. It's not just a, a diary or somebody's journal of events that took place. Some of it's relevant, some of it's not. This is all important for us and so we take that as being from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Also, in the back, you might have picked up one of these common thread worksheets and I don't think we're gonna have time to actually do it in class, but I encourage you to, to use this, for homework. but to, it's, it's a really interesting way to actually take just a few verses of scripture and see how they, they go together. And what's, what God was through the Holy Spirit was doing with them. OK, let's turn over to Revelation 22.

Verses 18 and 19. He says, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book, of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book.

OK. All right. So who is the author of Revelation? John.

John is the one that Jesus came to and talked to and But John is the one who wrote this down. Who's the audience? The churches The churches are the audience. This was written, there were specific messages to seven churches in Asia Minor, but then it, it really does give us a general sense to, to all the existing churches at that time.

What are the two commands in this passage? There are two commands that actually are inferred. From warnings. So what are the two commands?

That's right. No adding, no subtracting. Get rid of the math, right. so don't add to the prophecy.

Don't take away from the prophecy. And what would be the consequences? Plague Plagues, if you add to it, to your life will be added the plagues that are written in this prophecy. And what's the other one?

Like Right. And so, it's a, a removed, being removed from the tree of life in the holy city. And actually, This was an interesting thing because as we get into the next question, there, there is a discrepancy in translations. And I think it's really important for us to To have our words correct, between the difference between, the originals, manuscripts or the original languages of the manuscripts and our translations.

Translations are not perfect. And so it's, in some translations, it's the tree of life, in some translations, it's the book of life. We'll get into that in just a minute in. I believe in Yes, in this question.

What is No, that's the, the second question. What is the book referred to in verse 18? The Book of Revelation certainly is what's referred to. It's at least the Book of Revelation.

but because of the timing of this book, many will take the position, which I believe as well, that, this is referring to all of the, of the Bible, what we know now as the Bible, because it's the last book that's written. This is the end of the last book that's written, and there are references to the other, scriptures in this book. And so, I believe that it is, it is the Holy Spirit issuing a final warning. And this isn't the only time as we'll see that this a warning has been given in scripture.

And so this is a reinforcement of how important it is that we leave God's word as it is, not take away from it, not add to it. OK, now, what is the book of life mentioned in verse 19? As I said, in, in some translations, it's the tree of life. so I, I did some checking on this yesterday and, and the, the King James Version, the New King James, and Young's literal translation translated Book of Life or scroll of Life.

The rest of them, New, New American Standard, NIV ESV, NLT were all tree of life. And because my, Greek New Testament is packed away in a box somewhere and I couldn't find it, I, I couldn't look up to see what it really was and, the MacArthur study Bible that I checked on it, he didn't comment on that part. so, I, I don't know what the word is, but here's what I do, think is either way. What it's referring to.

is that It's referring to our eternal existence. So it's, it's, it's about eternal life. So if it's the, the, The Book of Life or the Tree of Life. Either way, it's, it's a, a description of our guarantee of eternal life.

That's what it's, it's, it's about. And so, It's our place in the presence of God for eternity. And so the, the consequence of taking away from the book is to have ourselves taken away from this, this guarantee of eternal life. it's, it's, it's really this act of disrespect of God.

God is, is saying, you need to respect the work I've done, have reverence for the work I've done. And, and live according to that. When you do that, then your place is in, in that eternal state with me. OK.

Are there other passages in scripture that relate to this passage? Yes, let's look at some of those. Let's look over to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Chapter 4 verse 2.

says you shall not, let's, let's pick it up in verse one. He says, now, Israel, listen to the statutes and judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. So we have here an example of a warning right up front with, with the law that was given to Moses, not to add to it or take away from it.

And let's look down in, in chapter 12. In verse 32. He says, whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to or nor take away from it.

Again, God is, is being very particular about his commandments, that you don't distort them one way or the other. leave them as they are. Trust me, I know what I'm saying, he's, God is declaring. and, and so leave it as it is.

And how human nature is. We always like to adjust things to fit ourselves. we do that with our own laws. We adjust them to fit our own particular way of living.

but with God, what he's saying is have reverence for what I say. I know what I'm saying and it the way I say it. And so trust me with that. And that I do believe is an act of trust.

Let's look over to Proverbs chapter 30. Verse 5 and 6 says, every word of God is tested. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to his words, or he will rep, reprove you.

And you'll be proved a liar. And so God is, again, declaring, leave my word alone. As far as making any changes to it. Just accept it the way it is.

And so that's what we are to do. The biblical and historical context of this passage. It's, as I said before, the last writing that we have, it's the end of the first century. And John is the, one of the commonly held dates for the Book of Revelation is 95, 18095 and so that would be at the end of things.

john, I believe here is, he has, as we know, he's from the beginning of the book, he's been exiled to the island of Patmos. Probably the last of the 12 apostles still alive. And John is, is sent there because of preaching God's word, being faithful to God, and so he's in exile and there it is that Jesus appears to him. It takes him on this, this journey, if you will, and, and then John was to write it down.

And over and over throughout the book. He's told to write this, write this. Write this, John. and then there was one thing, write this, but don't let anybody see it.

Write this. And so there's, there's all these things that John is to write. And, it, the book closes out and It is believed it was the position of the early church fathers was When they, when they started doing the examination of these things, that this was the final book of the Bible. And so we'll get into that next.

Hebrews 1:1 says God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. has in these, these last days spoken to us by his son. The Eminem of the early church. Marcion and Montanus are two really important characters in church history that have to do with the, the canonization of the New Testament.

Around 88,140. So we're talking probably about 45 years after the Book of Revelation was written, Marcion, who had been a, a believer, or at least amongst the believers, he fell into a type of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was something that was determined to be a heresy because they were combining all kinds of things with, with, with the Greek, mysticism and they were trying to incorporate some of these things into Christianity. Christianity up to, at least up to the end of the 1st century and on into, well into the 2nd century had been mostly, slaves, mostly lower, economically class people and so it had a, it was like on the lower end of society and had that a feel to it.

The, the upper class, looked down upon it. they were, they were not the movers and shakers of society in a human way, but what they were doing through the work of the Holy Spirit was, was revol revolutionizing the Western world. But There were, there were those who began to think, well, we need to make this a little more sophisticated. And so the Gnostics, which that word comes from the word to know, The Gnostics were, were trying to raise the level of discourse and so they came up with these really strange ideas and not all Gnostics were the same.

There were different, different groups of them, different beliefs. But he fell into the type that believed that the God of the Old Testament was different from the God of the new. That the Old Testament God was unknowable, and that he was harsh, and, and so on, and that, now the Christian God has been revealed. And so that was his, his belief system and His belief system began to actually to catch on in, in certain segments of the, of the early church.

And so the, the church leaders had to get together and deal with this. As happens with when heresies arise, they have to be dealt with, they have to be confronted. Marcion rejected the entire Old Testament because as he said, that God is unknowable. And He rejected parts of the New Testament, such as Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Hebrews.

The reason why is because they favored the Jews. And so the, the God of the Old Testament is no longer relevant to us. We have this new God of the New Testament. And so it's, it's primarily shifted to the Gentiles.

Jews are no longer part of God's plan and so, we just need to reject that. And so he, he really only had, the part of the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, and then some of Paul's epistles. And that was what he, he had for his Bible. And so that, as I said, the church leaders had to deal with how are we gonna confront this, this whole thing.

we, and so they got together, they talked about it, they hashed it out, and they came to this confirmation of, of accepting all of the Old Testament and all of what we know as the New Testament as being God's word. And so, That was, that was the, the, the process that was going on with that. And, and what we see, we see in church history, we even see it today, that, that there will be people who rise up and bring in controversy, bring in, in strange ideas. But the Holy Spirit uses that to actually strengthen the church because the church has to wrestle with this stuff.

They have to talk about it. They have to get together and say, what do we really believe? And the good thing about controversy is, is it sharpens us. It makes us reexamine what we believe.

And so it shouldn't be something that we throw up our hands and say, God, can't we all just get along? No, the point of it is to make us, work at what we think. God's intention for us is always to be intellectually vigorous. We should be always examining these things and, and, and making sure that, that, we know why we believe what we believe.

God wants us to spend time with this. And he, he did that there and, and God used a Marcion to, to begin this, this whole idea of amongst the church leaders, we need to really, going through this, this process, we need to really decide what is and what is not God's word. As we will see in, in a few minutes, there's also other documents being written, claiming to be God's words. They had to deal with that.

And so we come to Montanus. He was around the same time period just a few years later, between, somewhere between 156 and 172 that he was active and, and having an impact. He went into the whole idea of, of, new prophecies, new things coming out and, his revelations were coming from two prophetesses that he had who were giving ecstatic utterances. And so they would stand up and, and, and begin to in a sense speak in tongues and then those things were written down and this was the new revelation that was coming from God.

And so he was attracting a following. And because of that, They, the, those church fathers had to deal with that as well. They're saying, OK, now here's a new thing that's coming up. What they ended up seeing, and this is a quote from Bruce Shelley in Church History in Plain Language, a book, a textbook we used for our church history class a couple of years ago.

But here's, here's what he said about that. He says, if Marcion, a heretic, nudged the church, the churches into thinking about forming a New Testament, another troublemaker, Montanus, forced the churches into thinking about closing it. And so what the idea is, is that we need to actually put together what are the parameters of the New Testament. Where does it begin?

Where does it end? what, what is it, and make this just get it confirmed. And so that was That's who the Eminem brothers were and what they did, the impact that they had on it. So we have here this idea of the cannon.

This is a word that's used to describe what was taking place. It comes from the Hebrew word and a Greek word which both mean measuring rod. And it's a a measuring rod where it, you have, you have something that is the standard and everything has to measure up to that standard. And so that's the idea of, of what the canon work means.

When we speak of the canon, we mean the books which the Holy Spirit inspired and which his people have recognized to be the word of God. And this is an important point as we go through this to see is what we're going to say is that the canon of scripture is not something that early church fathers in some conspiracy said, OK, we're, we're putting together what we think is God's word. No, it's, the canon is, here's the measuring rod and how do all these documents fit against it and do they measure up?

In your handout, if you picked it up on, on the lesson, it gives what the qualifications were that they used in there.

So I encourage you to take a look at that. that, that, that was the measuring rod that they used. It is important to realize that the formation of the canon of scripture was a process, not an event. Again, this isn't like some council that got together and secretly decided, we're keeping this and we're throwing out this and, and so on, and it was, it wasn't like that.

this was, it was a process over years of time of, of Of dealing with this. As I said, these, these two guys, Marcian and Montanus, were, were raising it. They weren't the only ones raising issues, but, they were two of the prominent ones raising issues and, and creating this need for actually going through this process of what had been generally accepted. There were these books that were generally accepted as being from God.

And so now it was gonna need to be codified, as so. Is a process involving both divine and human elements. There was a need for canonization as we've been talking about. as the apostles began to die off, their writings were providentially preserved by churches, pastors, and copyists.

And so, we have this happening at the end of the 1st century and on into the 2nd century. they're dying off but they're, what they have left behind is a testimony that we still have today. And so it was preserved for the rest of us. The trait Tres were people who turned over scriptures during persecution.

One of the things that was happening, that was creating a need for these to be put together and accepted were that some of the copies were being lost. By What, what were called traitors or traitories, but people were arrested for being Christian and were giving up their copies of the scripture and instead of hiding them. And so, and the persecution was intense in those times. If you've read anything about church history, that.

And so, some of the copies were, were being lost, but there were thankfully many copies. God was protecting that, but it was part of the responsibility of the early church was to, to keep those. Then there was the proliferation of pseudo. Pseudopographical works.

these are other documents that Nowadays, people claim, well, these were the ones that were left out and there's, this is the other Bible. This is the rest of the New Testament and so on. There are a lot of writings that were claiming to be from God, but they were not. And as their content was read, it was obvious that they were not from God.

They didn't match up with what, the, the rest of the scriptures, talked about. But these were coming up, so again, there was this need. To actually put into, a complete collection of what really was God's word. Then of course, like we talked about Marcion, there were incomplete canons.

There were some people had parts of the New Testament, they didn't have all of it. So it was a, a good thing again to put it all together. Montenance was the ecstatic prophecies. People just popping up with new revelation from God and how is that going to be dealt with?

The existence of the canon, this is what I was referring to a few minutes ago. We must not confuse the existence of the canon, which is God's action, with the church's recognition of the canon. The, the, just because the church declared this to be the, in the New Testament, the 27 books, doesn't make it so. It was so before the Declaration because God was the one who was the, is the original author.

God is the one who makes it so. He's the one who makes it exist. The activity of the church. Such as statements of church fathers, decrees of councils, etc.

concerning the contents of the New Testament does not create the canon. So the, again, the early church didn't create the canon. God did that. The early church discovered the canon, and they, they're the ones who looked at the documents.

They looked at all the things and said, OK, this is what it is. They discover it. They don't create it. Am I, is that clear?

I hope I'm not muddying things up here, but Criteria for canonicity. There was external criteria. Such as apostolic authority. That wasn't just authorship, but that could include authorship, but, did the apostles, what did the apostles think about it?

Let's look in John 14. Well, we looked at John 14, that was where the Holy Spirit was going to bring back to, to remembrance. In John 16, We're still in the upper room. And Jesus is sharing in verses 13 and 14.

In the wrong chapter. No, I'm not. That was the part where he's gonna bring back remembrance. I must be.

John 14 Verse 26. But the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things. that's the one I read. Then why does this look the same?

But when he comes, the spirit of truth comes. He will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for he will take up mine and will disclose it to you. Excuse me, sorry about that mix up.

But the, what John is, is saying there is that That the Holy Spirit is going to clarify. He's gonna make clear what my word is. So he's going to do that through the apostles. There's the antiquity.

Was it written in the times of the apostles? Do these date back to that time? And so that was one of the, the clarifying marks in the 2nd century, they're looking at things and saying, OK, this, this can't be real. It doesn't go back to that time.

This is, this is now current with us and so we, we do not accept it. Then universal acceptance, was it used in worship in the churches? was it already commonly accepted by the churches? This is an example of Justin Martyr who was a end of the 1st century, 2nd century pastor.

He wrote this, on a day called Sunday, there is a meeting in one place of those who live in the cities or in the country. And the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. When the reader has finished, the president in a discourse urges and invites us to the imitation of these noble things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers.

And I said before, when we have finished the prayer, bread is brought with wine and water, and the president similarly sends up prayers and thanksgivings to the best of his ability. And the congregation assents, saying the amen. The distribution and the reception of the consecrated elements by each one taking place, takes place and they are sent to the absent by the deacons. Those who prosper and who so wish contribute, each one as much as he chooses to.

What is collected is deposited with the president, and he takes care of orphans and widows and those who are in want on account of sickness or any other cause, and those who are in bonds and the strangers who are sojourners among us. And briefly, he is the protector of all those in need. We all hold this common gathering on Sunday since it is the first day on which God transforming darkness and matter made the universe, and Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead on the same day.

So he's given testimony of, of what the early church service was like.

And at the beginning of that, he talks about the reading of God's word, and they would spend a long time reading as long as they could. So, that was the, the God's word, what was generally accepted in the churches was part of the criteria. The internal criteria was inspiration. Was, and by the way, it's, it's, it's, does it declare itself to be inspired?

Is it declaring itself? And, and you can see that from The writings in the, either in the Gospels or in the epistles that they do that self-authentication is what that's talking about is in the final analysis, the attempt to demonstrate criteria of canonicity seeks from a position above the canon. To rationalize or generalize about the canon. Instead, we must recognize the New Testament canon as a self-establishing, self-validating entity.

So it declares about itself what is true and we have the faith to accept that. And so that's, that's our place in it. Our place is not to be the judge over whether it is or not, but our place is to recognize it and it will declare itself to be authentic. some of the evidences of self authentication.

Jesus quoting from the Old Testament, and that creates the congruency there. But there's quote after quote of the Old Testament, by Jesus and By the way, you see it from, from the other writers as well. Peter, I was reading through, with my, my son Brandon, we, we've been reading through the book of Acts. And then in my personal time, I've been reading in the Book of Amos.

And so I was reading a book in Acts where Steven is giving his testimony. to the, the leaders of, of the Jews there and, and, he quotes directly from the book of Amos, and I had just read this two days before. I'm reading them to, to Brandon and wait a minute, that sounds familiar. And sure enough, and, and so it's, it's, it's amazing how much that it goes back to and how much the New Testament and the Old Testament fit together.

That God has, has given us one really message. And I like to think of it as the First Testament and Second Testament rather than the Old and new because they both have validity to us. And they both are important for us to know. the apostles' knowledge of this authentication, In 2 Peter chapter 3.

In verse 2, it says, well, verse, verse one, this is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you in which I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets in the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. So, Peter is tying. The prophets from the Old Testament to Jesus, message in the new. And, and so he's stirring those things up in their minds and, and, and they're to be, to be thought of together.

1 Corinthians 14. Verse 37. If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. And so, What Paul is, is warning against is people coming up with their own spirituality, their own things from God, and, and what Paul is saying, wait a minute, if you think you are, understand that what I'm writing to you is from God.

And, and so that we don't just arbitrarily make up our own stuff. 1 Thessalonians 2:13. For this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. So Paul is, is reiterating here that this is from God.

This isn't just us. making up our own religion here. That God has, has given it to us and we're giving it to you. And so, you need to accept it that way.

Ignatius, who is, who, who is a, a later church father in the, in the 2nd century. I do not order you as Peter and Paul. They were apostles. So he's, he's, he's writing a letter to the church at Rome, but he's not saying this is inspired, this isn't like Paul's writing to the church at Rome.

that, that was Peter and Paul's thing. I'm just another guy out here. Living by underneath that same thing. And so, there was this recognition even before the canonization took place that it was commonly accepted.

It was just the need for the canonization arose because of outside forces that were coming against it. Paul quotes Luke's writing in scripture, in First Timothy and in Luke. How are we doing on time? We need to Finish up here.

Peter, gave his approval on the writings of Paul. We've looked at that a few weeks ago, where Peter says that Paul's writings are, are sometimes hard to understand, but they're, they're, something we need to, to see. Internal witness of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and there is that, that sense that when we're real believers, we read the scripture, it speaks to us and, and it, it, when we're open to it, it confronts us.

It tells us things sometimes that we don't want to see, but we, we know we need to hear that. And so the scripture is something that, that, has that internal witness within us. Scripture must be confirmed by the witness of the spirit. Excuse me.

Thus, may its authority be established as certain, and it is a wicked falsehood that it's, that its credibility depends on the judgment of the church. And so, John Calvin in writing this, this comes I guess from Calvin, it's a Westminster confession of faith that, that scripture isn't, the validation of scripture isn't dependent upon some declaration of a body of men who get together. It's not dependent upon that. It's from God.

It's just, and, and it's, it's restating that position of humility before God's word, that we are humble before God's word and we see it, we recognize it. And, and so we, we're not the ones who confirm that it is God's word. We're not the ones who, who, declare it to be so. It declares itself to be so.

And our position is a position of humility before it. To, to truly accept it is that. Grudum, he says, it should not be thought impossible or unlikely, therefore, that the early church would be able to use a combination of factors, including apostolic endorsement, consistency with the rest of scripture, And the perception of a writing as God breathes on the part of an overwhelming majority of believers to decide that a writing was in fact God's words, though a human author and therefore worthy of inclusion in the canon, nor should it be thought unlikely that the church would be able to use this process over a period of time as writings were circulated to various parts of the early church and finally come to a completely correct decision.

Without excluding any writings that were in fact God breathed.

And without including any that were not, that this work was superintended by the Holy Spirit. God Himself is involved in making sure that what we have is that, that's all collected together truly is what he intended for us to have as his word. Should we expect any more writings to be added to the canon? Hebrews 1 says, talks about the revelation that came through the prophets and now is through Christ, that Christ is the, is the final revelation.

Revelation 22, we looked at that at the beginning, don't add anything, don't take away anything. And so, we do take the position that this is the final revelation of God. That was to be written for us. How do we know then that we have the right books in the canon of scripture that we now possess?

Our confidence is based on the faithfulness of God, that God has the, the intent. And he has the power to make it to be so. The pres preservation of the cannon should be seen as part of the history of redemption, not merely as a part of church history. And we are persuaded by the activity of the Holy Spirit who convinces us as we read scripture.

OK, we'll close with this. Simon Peter, does this book belong in the canon of scripture? Simon Peter said to them, Let Mary go away from us, for women are not worthy of life. Jesus said, lo, I shall lead her so that she, so that I may make her as a male, that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males.

For every woman who makes herself a male will enter the kingdom of heaven. The Gospel of Thomas. If you've ever run into anyone who says, well, the Gospel of Thomas should be in the Bible. Really?

I think there, there are valid reasons why that some of these writings were suspect. That's a light word, isn't it, suspect. OK. Historical data available to us comports with our persuasion.

In 83 367, Athanasius lists the 2-seven books. The Council of Carthage, 30 years later, agreed on the same list. This became the common acceptance of it. OK.

This is your homework and we need to shut this down because I'm out of time. OK, it's a closing prayer. Father, we thank you for your word, for the power that it has in our lives, and may we be faithful to, to read it. And to comport our lives to it.

Lord, we, we need your spirit for that. We need your spirit to give us understanding, to teach us, and we depend upon your spirit for that. Thank you so much for, for what we have and what you've so generously given to us. And now, Lord, may your presence be upon us as we fellowship with one another, as we attempt to apply what you have taught us into our lives in Jesus' name.

Amen.