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Welcome to the Theological Touchpoints podcast. I'm Julian. The focus for this episode is Foundations theology for the everyday Anabaptist. The doctrine of the canon of Scripture addresses the question of how we can know what is included in the inspired, inerrant, authoritative scriptures. All Scripture is God-breathed, but how do we know which writings are from God and which have been contrived by man? Certain principles can be used to gauge whether or not historical writing deserves a place in the biblical canon.

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In this second episode we will be talking about the general principles that frame our understanding of the canon of Scripture. We will begin by looking at three foundational ideas relating to the canon of Scripture and follow that up in the next episode by looking at four principles of canon. So first, three ideas that are foundational to our understanding of the canon of Scripture. The first thing we must keep in mind coming into this discussion is that the Bible sets the expectation of canon. Again, when we're speaking of the canon of Scripture, we're speaking of those books that are recognized to be the Word of God. The Bible itself sets the expectation that God's Word will be written, that those writings will be assembled and those writings will be preserved for Christ's Church. The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, as Ephesians 2.20 says, and the Church grows on that foundation. That is, the Church is what it should be only when it is built on the foundation of what the apostles and prophets taught. The teaching of the apostles and prophets is essential for the right formulation of ecclesiology, of a theology of the Church. And how is the Church to continue after the apostles are no longer living? If the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, or rather the teachings of the apostles and the prophets, how is the Church to continue after the apostles are no longer alive to minister and to lead the Church? Well, god preserved their teaching in written form in the Bible, and the Church continues to be a biblical Church, to be God's Church when it is ordered according to the principles of Scripture.

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If we want to be a part of the same church that existed in the first century, we must be built on the same foundation. That foundation was laid by the apostles and prophets through the Spirit's inspiration in the written Word of God. The church's very existence is contingent on the existence of a preserved word, recognized and known to be God's very words to his people. These words are our New Testament Canon. So again, the church is that organization built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets Canophesians 2, giving that reference. That foundation is laid by the apostles and the prophets in the writings of the New Testament, and it is expected then that those writings from God, through his chosen spokespersons, those writings, will be preserved for the church. And in order for those writings to be preserved, we must know which writings are truly from God, which ones are not. And by that we arrive at this question of the Canon of Scripture. How do we know whether or not a writing is truly from God? We must have principles by which we can determine that Those principles, i believe, arise out of Scripture. They're not something we impose on Scripture. They arise out of Scripture. Principles can be deduced by studying Scripture, and that's what we'll get into here later as we look at the principles of Canon. But again, the Bible sets the expectation of Canon. The Bible expects that God's word will be assembled, will be recognized as people, will be preserved and will continue to be fundamental to the life of God's church. So that's the first idea.

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The second idea to keep in mind as we move toward the principles of Canon is that Canon cannot be properly understood without recognizing God's providence. Our confidence in the 66 books we consider to be God's inspired word comes from a belief in God's providence. A natural explanation for the formulation of the Canon is simply insufficient Explanations that focus exclusively on the human aspect of the development of Canon, things such as the preservation by individuals and church councils and some of those dynamics. Explanations that focus on the human aspect neglect necessary emphasis on God's sovereign hand. He is the one collecting and preserving his inspired word. So again, our understanding of Canon assumes God's providential involvement. We believe that the books we have are God's words to us, because we believe God not only inspired Scripture but also ensured that his words will be preserved for his people throughout the church age.

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If God willed to reveal himself to mankind, and he willed to do so through a written word and he does so by inspiring his appointed spokesmen to write his words it follows that he would be concerned that his words be preserved for coming generations. Put another way, god revealed himself in a written word. Would he then neglect that word to gather dust in a corner or rot in a waste heap? Surely not. The same God who inspired his word also preserved it for his people and led his people to recognize his word so they could collect it, study it and pass it on to following generations. And I used a word in that last sentence that's very important for us to notice God's people recognized his word.

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They recognize the canonicity of a writing. They do not assign canonicity. That is our third foundational idea. So first of all, we must understand that the Bible sets the expectation of canon. Canon is not a human invention or is it a later invention? but the apostles themselves expected the formulation of a written canon of God's word. Secondly, canon cannot be properly understood without recognizing God's providence. And third, the Church recognizes canonicity, it does not assign canonicity. The Church recognizes canonicity, it does not assign canonicity.

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Now some have posited the idea that the canon is a fabrication of the 4th century Church. In the 4th century the Council of Nicaea published a list of the books of the New Testament. As we know it, This was the first official action of the Church that we know of to codify the New Testament canon, and some will say that this was a mere power play. These particular leaders selected certain books to be the official canon, while neglecting others, their rightful place. The idea is that there were more books that could have been included in the canon, but the bishops only selected the ones they liked or the ones that fit their own ideas of truth, rather than embracing all of the possible writings.

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This is simply not true Historically. It ignores the facts. But it also misunderstands the process of canon. So first we must understand that a book is either inspired by God or it isn't. Its canonicity is determined by the giver of the word, not by those who receive it. Whether or not a book deserves a place in the canon depends on whether God inspired it or not. If he did, it is a part of his word. If not, it isn't. Seems simple, right, but this is unclear to many who study the canon. They see the canon as being the development of church leaders, not something intrinsic in the writings themselves.

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But we must understand that the canonicity of a writing depends first and foremost on its source. If it comes from God by way of inspiration, through the apostles and prophets, then a writing deserves a place in the canon of the Word of God. So this approach of thinking of canon as being assigning a otherwise ordinary book a place in the Word of God is wrong, first and foremost because we understand through Scripture that Scripture comes by inspiration of God. God wrote His Word, god wrote the Bible, and if it came from God, it's a part of His Word, and if it didn't, it doesn't. And so it's our responsibility to recognize the characteristics of a writing that is truly from God. But we can't change whether or not a writing has come from God. We can, again, merely recognize it. So the first reason why seeing a canon is just the fabrication of the church is wrong is because it understand it, because that understanding misses the fact that books that deserve a place in the canon deserve that place because God has written it, and that's a fact that is true about the writing where it's not true about a writing, and that is something that cannot be changed by those who are examining them and attempting to apply canonicity or recognize the canonicity of a book.

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Secondly, if we trace the development of the New Testament canon, the church's collection of the inspired writings, we discover that the four Gospels had been collected into one volume by the end of the first century, a mere 40 years or so after they were written. This in contrast to those who say the canon was fabricated into the fourth century by the Catholic Church. The church in the first century had already recognized these Gospels as being inspired by God, worth studying, worth preserving, worth hanging onto And within again. Within 30 or 40 years after these Gospels were written, they were already circulating as a unit among the churches of God. Likewise, the 13 letters of Paul were being shared among the churches as one unit. These were understood by the first century church to be from God for them to be received as God's inspired word to them. All 27 books were received by an early church leader by AD 170. So very early on in the church's development we have the collection of the writings of the apostles into one unit that was distributed as the word of God for God's people to study and learn from and grow in and grow in the relationship in God through that word. So, as I said, an early church leader recognized all 27 books that we have in our modern canon by 80, 170. This is just over 100 years after these books were written.

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Now you may say 100 years seems like a long time to assemble God's Word. If they were written, it seems like they should have recognized and assembled it much faster than that. But four factors help us understand why it took over 100 years to assemble the canon of Scripture. First, we need to remember that copying books was a difficult process. Copying an entire New Testament would take ascribe 12 to 18 months, and now that would be Matthew to Revelation more writing than just a few letters.

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But as God's Word was collated, it took more and more work to create more copies of Scripture for other churches to use. That means copies were difficult to come by. A church may only have one copy of the Word of God And a lot of these churches probably didn't have every piece of what we now call consider the Word of God. And naturally churches weren't quick to part with their only copy And this copy got used. So copies were out and it was difficult to create more copies. And so there weren't just a plethora of scrolls laying around that could be used and distributed to other churches so that the Word of God can be assembled into one recognized book. Obviously no copying machines, no printing presses, nothing like that, and none of the high volume production that we're used to today in being able to quickly create multiple copies of written books. So copying books is a difficult process.

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That slowed down the collection of the Word of God, the collation of the Word of God. A second the copies were written from various locations across the Middle East and sent to various locations as well. The writings of our New Testament were not all written from the same location, they were not all sent to the same location. They were written as letters, so they were sent to a church in a specific location. And again, it takes time for the church in Corinth to share their letter with the church in Ephesus And for the church in Ephesus to share that letter back with the church of Corinth, for copies to be made and for the Word of God to spread to all of the churches through the Middle East, through Asia Minor.

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A third factor to consider transportation was slow. All copies had to be transported by foot or by animal, or perhaps by cart at times, but it took a long time to move a copy from one city to another. Ships would have also been used for transportation, and so it took a while for the distribution of the books to happen, for the different letters to be spread across the church and for copies of the Bible as we know it to be assembled. And the fourth factor the early church experienced much persecution. This meant not only that copies of the New Testament would be destroyed, but also that they couldn't make use of the common means of copying and distributing writings. A person suspected of being a Christian couldn't just go to the neighborhood copyist and have them make copies of whatever portions of scripture they had, because obviously that would expose them as believers And so that also would limit the copying and distribution of the Word of God. God and His grace did see that the writings He had inspired were preserved, were copied and were collected, and within a hundred years or so all of the writings that make up what we now know as the New Testament were recognized and were beginning to be assembled into a single manuscript containing all the New Testament.

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So that's the second reason it is incorrect to see the canon as merely a fabrication of the church. The third reason is that that approach misunderstands the process of canonicity itself. The principles of canon are not principles developed by the church independent of any examination of scripture, but are actually developed as a result of looking at scripture. These principles are not imposed upon certain books. They arise from scripture. They are intrinsic, not extrinsic. They are not a later set of principles developed by church leaders in order to elevate certain books while sidelining other, equally qualified books. Rather, these principles arise from the concept of scripture as God's written revelation and from scripture itself, that is, those things with scripture teaches us.

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So again, we do not create canon, we recognize it. Each portion of scripture was fully divine the moment it was written. When we evaluate the canonicity of writing, we are not assigning divine inspiration to an otherwise ordinary book. We are recognizing those that are already divine. So again, just to review, we have three foundational ideas as we think about a canon.

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First, the Bible sets the expectation of canon. The Bible itself sets the stage for the development of the New Testament canon, of a collection of recognized writings from the apostles that are authoritative in the church. Secondly, canon cannot be properly understood without recognizing God's providence. We see God's involvement in the writing of scripture And so we also expect that, and we see that in the preservation of scripture and the compilation of scripture as well. Third, the church recognizes canonicity. It does not assign canonicity. We have no authority to ascribe divine authority to a book. But when a book speaks with God's divine authority, we are able to accurately recognize that and say this book speaks for God. We've covered three foundational ideas related to canon.

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In the next episode we will move into the next part of our discussion the four principles of canon. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Theological Touchpoints podcast. This podcast is a production of Sword and Trumpet Ministries. For more information, visit wwwswordandtrumpetorg or theologicaltouchpointscom. If you have thoughts or questions, you can contact us at podcastatheologicaltouchpointscom. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely And may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved, blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.