How Do We Know Which Books Should Be Included in the Bible?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--how-do-we-know-which-books-should-be-included-in-the-bible
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
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that's a very good question that goes to the fundamentals of our faith because we believe the Bible is our Authority for uh Doctrine for salvation for Christian Life and Christian Ministry I do discuss this question in great detail in my book God's infallible word this is the question of What's called the Canon CA n o n or list of books that are accepted as scripture theologically we say the books accepted as scripture are the books that are inspired by God so we don't decide the Canon God decided the Canon by deciding which books to inspire but we're still left with a practical question how do we know so to summarize briefly the Old Testament the basis for our accepting them are as follows fir uh first of all we accept the books that ancient Israel accepted because they were the people of God at that time to whom these books were given so we accept the same books that Judah judism from ancient times till today excepts as biblical um a second point is almost all the books now the the Hebrew Bible has the same 39 books but some of them are combined so either you have 22 or 24 Hebrew books which are equivalent to our 39 Old Testament books so using the Hebrew uh classification Jesus or and the other speakers and writers in the newest Testament quoted from almost all of them as authoritative scripture but did not or or alluded to stories from them but did not quote from any of the other books and uh that would be ancient or uh usually in the old test you're talking about the possibility the Apocrypha which are books and written in inter testamental times and you recorded a great episode so we discussed that um and so it's a practical matter and also it appears that the old Testament prophets kept written records and added to them so it appears that the many of these ancient books were recognized in scripture almost immediately because they were kept by a company of recognized prophets who prophesied who wrote some things and who handed them down to us so the Old Testament is not too controversial especially as I've stated we've separately discussed those books in the inner testamental period known as the Apocrypha um so that's pretty settled now the New Testament essentially the criteria the the the number one Criterion is Apostolic Authority so they were written you know Jesus commissioned 12 Apostles and then he commissioned the Apostle Paul as a special Apostle to the Gentiles so we regard those 13 men as divinely chosen to establish the church well all the books of the New Testament were written with Apostolic Authority what I mean by that is they were either written written by one of those 13 men or an associate of one of those 13 men with the approval of those men in other words if they weren't were not written directly by an apostle they were written by someone who worked closely with the apostles who had the opportunity to review their work correct their work and ifSign it in was written and distributed some Apostles are still alive could say no that's wrong so the 27 books of the New Testament we accept because of Apostolic Authority and as a practical matter uh by say the middle of the 2 Century almost all of them are mentioned in various writings with the exception just of a few small books like second and third John they're all recognized as scripture and quoted as scripture by Believers in the late 1 Century the early 2 Century so as a practical matter the people of God at that time or at least the Christians recognized Christian we know there's some true and false Doctrine but the mass of people uh from the mid 2nd Century much like the Jews of the Old Testament the Christians of the New Testament era or slightly thereafter would have accepted these very books actually if you go through the list most of them are non-controversial so Matthew 1 of the 12 Mark associate of both uh Paul and Peter Luke associate of Paul John 1: 12 so you go down the list the 13 Pauline Epistles of course acts written by Luke um associate of Paul and Luke acts those two books represent 1/4th of the New Testament themselves so you have the 13 Pauling Epistles uh Epistles of Peter Epistles of John uh so uh you know Jude brother of the Lord James brother of the Lord uh and are recognized as leader of the early church Revelation by John um Hebrews the author is not named but it seems by the references within it as well as the theology to have been an associate of Paul and Timothy and so a few of those have been controversial over the centuries for various reasons I think about seven of them were disputed but the vast majority the gospels acts the Pauline Epistles uh first Peter first John were never disputed so even if you took out the seven that were disputed by some you have all the doctrines of the New Testament pretty much there and the remaining books that were disputed by some the dispute is resolved in their favor by the Criterion criteria I've mentioned Apostolic Authority acceptance by the earliest Christians and of course we also look uh if a book doesn't match the doctrine that's of the accepted books then it can't be valid and so some of the other books you mentioned um they have non they have doctrines in them that don't fit the rest the New Testament they're obviously wrong like the Gospel of Thomas is obviously a gnostic forgery um the Epistle of Barnabas is not written by the Barnabas of the Bible written later and it has some questionable things so um you know you can easily go through the list Enoch there is a book that is supposed to be quoted from Enoch or about Enoch and Jude makes a reference to that but it's very possible that both The Book of Enoch and Jude are are quoting or referring to the same authentic tradition from ancient times and so what you have to understand is there are some rare mentions in the New Testament of a few Jewish Traditions that isn't first of all that doesn't mean the whole book that would now have that tradition is is considered authoritative also it could mean as I just alluded to that this later book and the the um biblical book is going back to the same oral tradition as a matter of history just like in a sermon I might quote uh Lincoln that doesn't mean I'm think that Lincoln's inspired by God but I recognize that as a historical quote or valid source so without going into great detail I think we can say the New Testament Apostolic Authority acceptance by the earliest Christians and with really no dispute at all for the vast majority and U you know matching the rest of the new test that's already been clearly established so I think we can have great confidence that the same God who inspired the writers to write also through the historical process kept his hand of preservation upon the word and revealed uh what is the word so that he otherwise you would say you could say God's intentions were thwarted if he inspired the books and yet they're lost or obscured and nobody can figure them out well wouldn't God's purpose be destroyed so if we have enough confidence that God inspired the books I think we can have confidence that God kept his hand upon the subsequent reception process so that we can have confidence that the books we have today are indeed the word of God