The Canon of the New Testament

I am a natural born skeptic.  When they say I should drink two glasses of water before breakfast, I wonder who they are.  When they say I should change my oil every 3000 miles, I wonder if they are engine experts or shills for the oil companies.  When they say I need eight hours of sleep a night, I wonder how they know that about me specifically.  I subscribe to the theory that my body will wake up when it has had enough sleep.  Is that too simple-minded?  Maybe I should ask they.

So what happens to my skepticism when they tell me that the 27 books of the Bible that make up my New Testament are God-inspired?  In short, it disappears.

And my skepticism disappears for two reasons.  First, the manuscript evidence supporting the authenticity of the New Testament is outstanding.  No, we don’t have the actual originals penned by the apostles.  But we do have documents from so close to the time of the originals, that to a trained archeologist, the gap is basically zero.

I like to think of it this way.  As a geophysicist, I make predictions about the subsurface of the earth from measurements taken at the earth’s surface.  And there is always a varying uncertainty as to what I am “seeing”.  (In fact, a large part of my job is quantifying that uncertainty.)  Sometimes the “picture” is fuzzy and the uncertainty is high and my interpretation is nothing more than an educated guess.  Other times, the “picture” is quite clear and the certainty is high and I have a 90% confidence in my prediction.  And 90% is close enough to 100% to move any project forward.

We can’t say with a 100% certainty that the manuscripts we have are authentic.  But we are so close that, in my mind, the leap of faith is not very large to get there.  But we all vary in our natural skepticism, so let me encourage you that whether you think the leap of faith to get there is large or small, it is your faith that will take you the rest of the way.  And given the manuscript evidence at hand, it is a reasonable faith.

Now the second reason my skepticism disappears is because there is no they in the Canon of the New Testament.  No church council said, “OK, here is a list of 50 books, let’s pick 27 and get this finished.”  While two church councils – in 393 and 397 A.D. – did indeed confirm the canon of the New Testament, the key word is “confirm” not decide.  The councils codified something that already existed; the books of the New Testament.

For over two and a half centuries, prior to the councils, the developing church had adopted the 27 books of the New Testament.  The early church, in its teaching and practice, had come to accept the Fourfold gospel, the letters of Paul, the book of Acts as the connection between them, and the letters of the other apostles as the authentic Canon of the New Testament.  So if there is a they, it is the church at large, listening to the voice of God over a large geographic area and over a long time.  (For a longer explanation see F. F. Bruce The Canon of Scripture in book form or 4 page pdf summary)

So now we can proceed with confidence that we are indeed exploring the God-inspired text as we return to two of the New Testament’s over-arching messages:  Jesus is the only way to heaven and a sinful lifestyle is not compatible with being a believer.  We will take up the first point next time.

Everybody Has an Opinion

Ah yes, the beauty of diverse opinions in the body of Christ.  It seems everyone, these days, is an expert on what is wrong with the church, or more specifically in my milieu, the American church.  I have joined the chorus myself with several entries in this blog about my concerns.  Sometimes it is hard to separate legitimate concerns where we play the proper role of the prophet calling the church back to its purpose, and personal preferences where we are calling the church to be more to our liking.  Of course, I consider myself totally in the prophet category.  How about you?

A recent rash of articles and responses in this regard highlights millenials leaving the church and what is behind their dissatisfaction.  And as usual, everyone has an opinion.  I understand young people’s hesitancy to embrace the church of my generation.  Looking back it is easy to see some confusion we have caused between the gospel message and our political activism, our pursuit of the American dream, and our rigid legalism.  But before we fling the pendulum, as we are all wont to do, too far the other direction into liberal politics, acceptance of all lifestyles, and living simply, let’s stop for a minute and let the Bible speak for itself.

When speaking for itself, I believe the New Testament is unequivocal on two points that affect what the church of the next generation embraces.  First, Jesus is the only way to heaven, no ifs, ands, or buts.  Second, a sinful lifestyle is not compatible with being a believer, a child of God.  Again, the Bible is unequivocal in its presentation of these points.

Now if we are going to accept what the Bible says for itself, we must trust that its words are true.  We must be committed to truth.  We must believe that the Bible, as we know it, is communicating God’s truth.  So this is where we are going to start.  Next post we will investigate the reliability of the New Testament.  Then we will move on to what the Bible has to say about our two propositions:  Jesus is the only way to heaven and a sinful lifestyle is not compatible with being a believer.  I hope you can join us and your faith is encouraged along the way.

A New Approach to Bible Publishing

Around 140 A.D. a church bishop named Marcion published a canon of Scripture that left out the Old Testament as well as any reference to it in the gospels and the letters of Paul.  It appears he was motivated by his inability to reconcile the character of the God of the Old Testament with God the Father as revealed by Jesus Christ.  His final product was a severely edited gospel of Luke (no Matthew, Mark, or John) and ten abridged letters of Paul.  He was excommunicated from the church as a heretic.

While Marcion was clearly over the line in his rejection of the Old Testament and much of what we have come to accept in the New, his angst is still with us today as evidenced by the recent series of cover stories in Christianity Today magazine under the banner Grappling with the God of Two Testaments.  The challenge brought on by how God describes Himself in the two testaments – a challenge Marcion basically gave up on – is still with us.

As a first step in addressing this challenge, I think we should flip things around in our Bible publishing.  What I mean is, let’s publish our Bible with the New Testament first and the Old Testament second.  Let’s publish our Christian Bible with the Christian message first.  Let’s print the New Covenant – our current arrangement with God – first, and include the Old Covenant second as a prequel or appendix as it were to the New.  Don’t you think that the Christian Bible, if it is to represent the Chirstian message, should start with the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ?

The church fathers in the second century, in direct response to Marcion, said that the New Testament does not supercede the Old Testament, but stands beside it to form a complete set.  But I wonder if the New Testament does indeed supercede the Old.  After all, the New Testament itself proclaims its superiority to the Old Covenant.

Theologically speaking, the New Covenant proclaims itself as better than the Old.  The book of Hebrews is a thirteen chapter dissertation on the main idea that Jesus is better.  Jesus is better than the angels, Jesus is better than the Old Testament prophets, Jesus is better than Moses, Jesus is better than the Law.  And the New Covenant introduced by Jesus is superior to the Old Covenant.

Practically speaking, the provisions for righteous living are far superior under the New Covenant than under the Old.  The whole book of Galatians is based on this idea.  The Law was nothing more than a schoolmaster condemning us and pointing out our sin.  But this ministry of condemnation, identified by Paul as the Old Covenant, has “come to an end” (II Cor 3:11).  It has been replaced, not added on to, by the New Covenant; described as the ministry of life, the ministry of the Spirit, the minstry of righteousness (II Cor 3:6-9).

So what do you think?  Do you like the idea of publishing the New Testament first in our Bibles?  It is an approach that is not that uncommon in the literary and film-making worlds.  Not to take our cues from Hollywood, but think about the Star Wars franchise.  As you recall, Episodes 4, 5, and 6 – the heart of the story – were produced first.  Episodes 1, 2, and 3 were produced many years later as a prequel.  If it had been shown the other way around, would the impact have been the same?  Would we have lost interest long before the pivitol quote, “Luke, I AM your father”?  Just a thought, but it causes me to wonder if it is an unfortunate part of our Bible publishing that one has to read through 931 chapters of the Bible before hearing God say, “Jesus, I AM your Father.”

Red Letters Only?

When I began to study what the New Testament said about work, I realized that Jesus Himself said very little about the topic.  And it got me thinking about the progressive revelation of the gospel message throughout the entirety of the New Testament.

What I mean by progressive revelation is this.  Starting with Jesus’ announcement of “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is here,” through His earthly ministry, through His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, through the missionary journeys of Paul, through the formation of the Church and local churches, through the letters of the New Testament, to the Revelation of Jesus to John the elder apostle, we have the completion of God’s written revelation for the church age.  This is the full presentation of the gospel message.

I think this understanding is important as we evaluate movements toward “Jesus only” that suggest we only need the teachings of Jesus to have a full understanding of the gospel.  But if you think about it, Jesus said very little about many issues of the Christian life.  For example, Jesus said very little about the Christian home.  Yes, He clearly endorsed marriage as being between one man and one woman.  He elevated the value of women and children in a society where they were often marginalized.  But beyond that, He did not spell out principles for husband-wife or parent-child relations.  On other issues, he didn’t address the value of “secular” work or list the qualifications for church leadership or how potential lawsuits should be handled between believers.

Now if we think about the timeline for the formation of the church, this all makes sense.  Jesus came to announce the arrival of His kingdom and His call was literally to drop everything – fishing nets, family ties, religious customs – and follow Him.  In Jesus’ day, there were no Christian homes, no Christian architects, no church elders, etc.  They did not exist because the church was in the process of being founded by itinerant disciples, with Jesus in the lead.

Let’s fast forward to the missionary life of Paul and the spread of the church beyond Jerusalem.  As folks in the Gentile world came to Christ and churches were formed, you now had Christian husbands and wives.  You now had Christian craftsmen, artisans, and homemakers.  You now had a need for church government and church elders.  So the New Testament letters address the biblical principles that inform these roles.  The pattern for Christian behavior in these relationships are not secondary issues to Christ’s call to radical discipleship, they are instructions for what radical discipleship looks like in these settings.  And this was the setting most new believers found themselves in.  And I might add, the setting most believers find themselves in today.

Red letters only?  I don’t think so.  We need all of the New Testament to capture the full presentation of the gospel message for the church.

Representing Jesus to the World

Principle four is that we work to represent Jesus Christ to the world.  This is the last of our four principles that summarize why we go to work, and what we are trying to accomplish in our work.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.  You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.  Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:13-16).

When our co-workers see our honesty, our cheerful attitude, our industry, and our integrity, it should be displayed in a way that brings glory to God.  We all have been tempted to join the griping and gossip at work with attitudes that are not becoming to the Lord.  We need to fight this temptation with attitudes that are positive and uplifting.

May I encourage you to see your job as full time ministry?  We often only think of religious professionals or missionaries as full time ministers.  We in the secular workplace are to be full time ministers as well.  The difference in our ministry is how we receive our funding.  One of the beautiful benefits of seeing work this way is that we are free from the desire to manipulate to get our way in the workplace.  Manipulation for advancement and the salary that comes with it is the world’s way to get ahead, not God’s way.

Why do we go to work?  To provide , to redirect, to excel, and to represent Christ.  And all for the glory of God.