SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/28/2025
10:00 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1
“The Inspired and Inerrant Scripture”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Timothy
3:16-17
Message of the verses: “16 All Scripture
is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate,
equipped for every good work.”
I want to begin by saying that I have been reading
John MacArthur’s commentaries for a very long time and the way that he has set
this section up is different than what I have seen in any other commentary that
he has written. We went over these
verses in the last three Spiritual Diaries, and now it seems that he wants to
go deeper into “The Inspired and
Inerrant Scripture.” Now remember that I have written that John wrote this near
the end of the first century and the letters and books that he wrote were
probably the last sections of the New Testament so his writings would be the
last writings written in the New Testament.
Now before I go on with the things that John MacArthur
has written in this section of his commentary from 2 Timothy I thought that I
would add what I looked up on how the New Testament was canonized from an
article that I found from Focus on the Family Canadian site. It is a rather long article but will help us
understand how we got the New Testament, which was not actually canonized until
sometime in the 300’s AD.
Let me just say that I truly believe that it was the Holy
Spirit who is the author of the entire Bible, and therefore I think that it is
best to believe if He was the Author of all Scripture that He would make sure
that when it came time to put the New Testament together there was no problem
for Him to make sure it got together correctly in order to bring glory to God.
The New Testament canon: Why these 27 documents?
Written by Subby Szterszky
Themes covered
Faith and Culture Faith and religion History Society and culture
What's inside this article
- Separating fact from fiction
- Early canonical lists
- Qualities of canonicity
- The fuzzy edges
- The canon chose itself
- Sources and further reading
When we hear the word “canon,” the first
image that pops into mind may be of a camera or a big gun rather than anything
to do with the Bible.
However, the concept of canon as an
exclusive set of works is common even outside biblical studies. Scholars in the
humanities speak of literary, philosophical, musical and artistic canons. Fans
of popular culture debate which movies, books or TV series are canon, part of
the official storyline of their favourite franchise.
This sense of the word, which comes from
Greek and means “measuring rod,” was first used by Christians in the early
church to distinguish which of their writings were Scripture and which were
not.
Of course, this raises questions among
skeptics and thoughtful believers alike: How were these documents selected? Who
selected them? Why these documents and not others? How do we know we have the
right ones?
There are no doubt Christians who haven’t
given this too much thought, or who assume an early church council must’ve
settled all these questions once for all. The reality is more complex and
interesting, and also more consistent with how God typically works through
human history.
Separating
fact from fiction
There’s a common storyline about the
early church, promoted by skeptics and popularized in books like The Da
Vinci Code, that goes something like this:
At the beginning of the church, there
were diverse brands of Christianity, none of them more orthodox than any other.
Likewise, there were various documents floating about, many of them as popular
as those which wound up in the New Testament. As an oral culture, the early
church didn’t put much stock in written documents, so people in the church
could read widely and freely and believe what they chose. It was only centuries
later that the dominant orthodox group, together with the Roman emperor,
decided which teachings and writings were orthodox in order to consolidate
their political power.
The
problem with this scenario is that it can best be described as historical
fiction. Almost none of it is supported by biblical or historical evidence.
While the early church was indeed an oral
culture with many non-literate members – as was the case in the wider society –
this didn’t mean they were non-textual. They had Scriptures from the beginning
– what we call the Old Testament. They read it publicly, studied it and embraced
it as the Word of God. In this, they followed the example of the apostles and
of Jesus, who quoted liberally from the OT Scriptures.
Since Jesus is the fulfillment of
everything in the Old Testament, it was inevitable that the writings of his
apostles, who recorded his life and fleshed out his teaching, should become the
capstone of the biblical account. Those apostolic writings, which make up the
New Testament, are by far the earliest Christian documents in existence, dating
from about 50 to 70 AD, with John’s works a bit later, from the 80s and 90s AD.
By comparison, the apocryphal gospels all date from the 2nd century or later,
clear forgeries claiming to be written by various apostles, long dead by then.
Far from endorsing a heterodox blend of
doctrine, the NT authors always point to one God, one Christ, one Gospel and
one faith delivered to the saints. The four Gospel writers are either apostles
(Matthew and John) or else close associates who relied on apostolic witness
(Mark with Peter; Luke with Paul). The apostle Paul describes his own teaching,
both spoken and written, as the Word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2
Thessalonians 2:15). When he tells Timothy that the labourer deserves his
wages, he is quoting the Gospel of his friend Luke as Scripture (1 Timothy
5:18; Luke 10:7). And when Peter refers to Paul’s letters (plural) as Scripture
(2 Peter 3:16), he shows that even at this early stage, there was a collection
of Pauline epistles circulating with scriptural authority.
There was no Internet or printing or
modern postal service in the Greco-Roman world. Letters and other documents had
to be copied by hand and delivered by envoys travelling from city to city, and
passed along in the same way. It took time for all of the NT documents to reach
every corner of the church. It took a while longer for a handful of the shorter
letters to be universally accepted. But by the early- to mid-2nd century the
core books, including the four Gospels and Paul’s letters, were widely recognized
as bearing apostolic authority, cited and quoted as Scripture by the early
Church Fathers.
Early
canonical lists
The Festal Letter of Athanasius from
367 AD contains the earliest known list of all 27 New Testament books, and only
those books. But it is far from being the earliest canonical list.
Origen, writing over a century earlier
around 250 AD in his typical metaphorical style, compared the apostles to
priests blowing trumpets around Jericho to herald the Gospel. In the course of
his fanciful description, he appears to cite all 27 books of the New Testament,
with the possible exception of Revelation.
The Muratorian Fragment,
dated to about 180 AD, is the earliest known canonical list of New Testament
books, affirming 22 of the 27. These include the four Gospels, Acts, all 13 of
Paul’s letters, Jude, 1 John, 2 John (and possibly 3 John) and Revelation.
Even earlier witnesses to the authority
and canonicity of the Gospels include Papias (c. 125 AD) a disciple of John;
Justin Martyr (c. 150 AD) who wrote of the Gospels “drawn up by [Jesus’]
apostles (Matthew, John) and those who followed them (Mark, Luke)”; and his
pupil Tatian’s Diatessaron (c. 170 AD), one of the earliest
harmonies of the four Gospels.
Irenaeus, writing around 180 AD and
contemporary with the Muratorian Fragment, stated that there could
be no more and no less than four Gospels, just as there are four winds and four
corners of the earth.
Finally, one of the most useful keys to
understand how the canon developed was provided by the church historian
Eusebius in the early 4th century. He laid out four categories of books that
were available in the early church, in descending order of value:
Recognized
books had been universally accepted since earliest times
and there had never been any serious dispute over them. These include 22 of the
27 New Testament books: the four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s 13 letters (plus
Hebrews), 1 John, 1 Peter and Revelation.
Disputed
books had been subject to some early debate but were still
considered canonical. These are the five shorter NT books: James, Jude, 2
Peter, 2 John and 3 John. Together, these first two categories make up the
canon of the New Testament.
Rejected
books were still considered helpful and valuable to read
but didn’t have the authority of Scripture. Among these were some of the early
post-apostolic writings, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache and the
Epistle of Barnabas. They were read much as modern believers might read their
favourite Christian author – as useful and inspiring but not on par with
Scripture.
Heretical
books were so far off the rails theologically that they had
little or no value for the church. They included the apocryphal gospels, such
as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter, among others. Contrary to
popular theories of modern critics, these works never even rose to the level of
being disputed. According to Eusebius, they were “forgeries” that were
“altogether wicked and impious.”
It’s important to note that none of these
canonical lists were written as new, authoritative declarations about which
books should be included in the New Testament. Rather, they listed books that
the church had already recognized as Scripture, via a growing consensus, over
the course of its history.
Qualities
of canonicity
What criteria did the early church use to
recognize whether a book was inspired by God, and therefore part of the canon
of Scripture? In broad terms, there were three:
Apostolic
authorship. Jesus commissioned his apostles to testify about his
life, teaching, death and resurrection. In Greco-Roman culture, an apostle was
a messenger who spoke with the authority of the one who sent him. Alongside the
Old Testament, the teaching and writing of the apostles was foundational to the
creation of the church and the spread of the Gospel. Paul described the church
as “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself
being the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). To qualify as Scripture, a document
had to be written by an apostle or a close associate who received his teaching
directly from an apostle.
Universal
reception. As the body of God’s new covenant people, the early
church could be expected to recognize the books that came from their covenant
Lord. This doesn’t mean that everyone agreed on every book right from the
start. Clearly, they didn’t. However, one would be able to trace an unfolding
consensus in which the overwhelming majority of the church came to recognize a
book as Scripture. Such consensus was a strong indicator that a document
belonged in the New Testament canon.
Divine
attributes. Jesus told his followers, “My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Consequently, the early church
recognized that if a book were from God, they would be able to hear his voice
in it. Much like how nature reveals God’s attributes, any book from him would
contain internal evidence of his divine qualities, his beauty, power, wisdom
and grace. Understandably, non-believers may argue that such a criterion is
subjective. But for believers, the Holy Spirit opens their hearts to see God’s
attributes and hear his voice in these objective, self-authenticating texts.
The fuzzy edges
None of this process happened overnight,
with sharp, clear boundaries between what was recognized as canon and what was
not. It took time, and there were fuzzy edges. A handful of the shorter New
Testament books were disputed for a while, likely due to questions about their
authorship.
At the same time, a few writings of the
Apostolic Fathers, the generation following the apostles, were popular in the
early church. These writings, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of
Barnabas and 1 Clement, were considered generally orthodox and edifying to
read, and they occasionally entered the discussion about canonicity. Overall,
however, they were judged not to bear the authoritative marks of divine
inspiration. They appear in far fewer manuscripts than the canonical books, are
cited far less frequently by other patristic writers, and rarely if ever are
they quoted as Scripture.
The discrepancies are even more
pronounced in the case of the apocryphal gospels. These documents, which
include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Peter, among
others, were all written in the 2nd century or later, with the names of
long-dead New Testament figures attached in an attempt to gain legitimacy.
They’re attested in a mere handful of manuscripts, were never in serious contention
for canonical status, and are often cited negatively by the Church Fathers for
their heretical ideas. If they had been as popular as skeptics claim, there’s
no material evidence to support this.
In addition, these documents were gospels
in name only. Unlike the four canonical Gospels, they offered no coherent
narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus. Instead they were collections of
sayings and weird legendary stories. The Gospel of Peter, for example, claims
that Jesus emerged from the tomb as a giant with his head in the clouds,
followed by his cross, which then began to speak.
The
Gospel of Thomas, a favourite of modern critics, ends with this bizarre
misogynistic exchange: “Simon Peter said to [Jesus], ‘Let Mary [Magdalene]
leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead
her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit
resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the
kingdom of heaven.’”
It’s
worth repeating that the writings of the apostles took time to circulate in the
1st-century Mediterranean world, and a while longer for all of them to be
accepted. But by the mid-2nd century, there was overwhelming consensus about
the core of the New Testament canon. And in any event the early church, led by
the Holy Spirit, could easily tell the difference between, say, the Gospel of
John and the Gospel of Thomas, and which of the two offered an authentic
apostolic portrait of Jesus.
The canon chose itself
Contrary to the urban myth promoted in
popular novels and on the Internet, the New Testament canon wasn’t decided at
the Council of Nicea in 325 AD by politically driven church leaders in
collusion with the Emperor Constantine. In fact neither the Council of Nicea, nor
the Emperor Constantine, nor any other church council, had anything to do with
the creation of the New Testament.
Rather, the canon emerged gradually,
organically, not always along clean lines and sharp edges, within the context
of the early church. It began with the teaching of the apostles and developed
as the people of God came to recognize, by widening consensus, which of their
writings bore the authority of apostolic witness and spoke with the voice of
their Lord.
Michael Kruger, a New Testament scholar
specializing in the formation of the NT canon and the early church, sums it up
like this:
“The shape of our New Testament canon was
not determined by a vote or by a council, but by a broad and ancient consensus.
. . . This historical reality is a good reminder that the canon is not just a
man-made construct. It was not the result of a power play brokered by rich
cultural elites in some smoke-filled room. It was the result of many years of
God’s people reading, using and responding to these books.”
It was a similar process with the canon
of the Old Testament. In the centuries between the return from exile and the
coming of the Messiah, there was no council of rabbis or scholars to determine
which books belonged in the OT canon. Instead, the covenant people of God came
to recognize over those centuries which of their writings spoke with the
authority of the prophets, and which were apocryphal. And by the time of Jesus,
there was a fixed consensus. The Lord viewed the Law, Prophets and Writings as
authoritative and assumed his hearers would concur. Even his enemies never
challenged him over questions of canon.
None of this should come as a surprise.
If God came to earth in human form and spoke his Word (both OT and NT) through
human authors, one should expect that he would preserve it the same way –
through fallible humans and messy human history.
As Michael Kruger
concludes, “In the end, we can certainly acknowledge that humans played a role
in the canonical process. But not the role that is so commonly attributed to
them. Humans did not determine the canon, they responded to it. In this sense,
we can say that the canon really chose itself.”
It may be tempting to wish there had been
some sort of council or official declaration that defined the canon of the
Scriptures once for all. But this is wrong. It’s far more reassuring to
recognize that God chose to preserve his Word the way he usually works –
through his flawed and limited people. That way, the reliability of Scripture depends
not on the deliberations of a human council, but on the wisdom and power of
God.
Sources
and further reading
Michael J. Kruger is Professor of New
Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte,
North Carolina. His website, Canon Fodder, from which the material for
this article was drawn, offers a wealth of resources, written at a popular to
intermediate level, about the development of the New Testament canon and the
history of the early church.
Subby Szterszky is the managing editor of Focus on Faith and Culture,
an e-newsletter produced by Focus on the Family Canada.
©
2020 Focus on the Family (Canada) Association. All rights reserved.
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5/28/2025
10:41 AM
