Video Transcript: Which Books Belong in the Bible?

Day 11 to 20 – Unit 2 God's Book

Video Transcript: Which Books Belong in the Bible? (Dr. Feddes) 

Which books belong in the Bible? Most of us have a Bible which is very thick, and has lots of books in it. But how did those books get there? And how do we know that those books belong? and not others? Or how do we know that there are not some books in the Bible that really don't belong there? Well, to understand those kinds of questions, it's helpful to understand how the Bible was formed in the first place, and why certain books got into the Bible. So let's begin with the Old Testament, which Old Testament books are God breathed scripture? Why did Christians accept certain books and not others? Christians recognized that all 39 books of the Hebrew Bible are God breathed scripture. At the time of Jesus, His followers recognized that the Hebrew Bible was given by God. The Hebrew Bible, by the way, never included the Apocrypha, which are some writings that were written after the Prophet Malikai. And before New Testament times, these were books that were held in high esteem, but they were never part of the Hebrew Bible. The apocryphal books were included in the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament. So some of those books were included in some editions of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, but were never part of the Hebrew Bible. So far as we know, early Christians encouraged reading the Apocrypha, they said those books were profitable and very valuable. But they did not recognize those books as God breathed scripture. The Roman Catholic Church later on did accept the apocryphal books, as scripture, Protestant churches didn't, and it would seem, earliest Christians did not either because they recognized the Hebrew Bible and the Hebrew Bible, as finalized by Jewish people in the first century, and their counsel recognize those 39 books which we today call the Old Testament, Jesus Himself, confirmed the Old Testament books, this is a very important reason for recognizing those books, those 39 that were recognized by his day, as the Old Testament, the scriptures bear witness about me, said Jesus, and he also said, scripture cannot be broken. 

I just want you to notice these statements, because some people speak of an Old Testament, God that they really don't like very much. And then of Jesus, oh, they like Jesus and the New Testament. But Jesus loved the Old Testament scriptures and said they witnessed about him, and that they cannot be broken. So if you have a tendency to downplay the value of the Hebrew Scriptures get over it, because Jesus had such a high opinion of them. And you won't know why he had a high opinion of them because they pointed to him, because he revealed them in the first place through His Holy Spirit. Jesus had everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled, and then you open their minds to understand the scriptures. Now, when he speaks of the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms, he's really referring to what the Jews considered the three main divisions of the Hebrew Bible, the law of Moses, were those first five books written by Moses, the Prophets included what were called the former prophets, which are what we sometimes call the historical books. Those what are today labeled by Christians as historical books were considered by Jewish writers as the former prophets because they were the prophets angle on historical events. And then the Latter Prophets were what we call the prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel and so on. And then Psalms was the division which is sometimes called the Ketuvim, or the writings, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, the wisdom writings and the praise portions of the scriptures. So when Jesus says everything written about me in Moses, prophets, Psalms, he speaking what every Jew would understand as the three main divisions of the 39 books of the Old Testament. And then he opened their His disciples minds to understand those scriptures as they applied to him. 

After Jesus's resurrection, he wasn't quite finished teaching his disciples yet we sometimes forget that. But remember that the disciples were really a little bit clueless about Jesus, upcoming Death and Resurrection while Jesus was with them and teaching and they didn't understand everything Jesus was doing in light of His sacrifice, and his triumph over death because those things hadn't happened yet, and they couldn't see to get it through their minds what Jesus was talking about when we refer to that, but 40 days, for a period of 40 days after His resurrection, Jesus appeared his disciples and kept speaking to them about the kingdom of God now in light of the reality of His resurrection, and the full dawning of who Jesus really is in his eternal power, and in his victory over death, and a vital part of that was helping them understand the scriptures that had already been given the Hebrew Scriptures, and then to prepare these eyewitnesses of His to produce a fresh set of scriptures, which were the final testimony to the reality of Jesus, Jesus promised that New Testament books would be given through spirit guided apostles, Jesus on the night before his death said all this, I have spoken while still with you, but the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Jesus also said, I have much more to say to you more than you can now bear. But when he the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. Jesus had selected these men to be especially close to him, to communicate with them during that three year period. And then also during those 40 days after His resurrection. But he said, Now that you've been a witness of all this, then I'm going to send the Spirit to reveal the rest of the truth that you couldn't absorb yet, while I was with you, which New Testament books are scripture? Well, as the early church and the first Christians, were forming those scriptures and recognizing the scriptures that God had given, they asked three main questions. One was, does it come from an eyewitness apostle? Is it written by an eyewitness himself, or by somebody who was listening to an eye witness as he wrote? Second, is it recognized and used in all the churches in all the congregations of the Christians or at least very, very widely, because that's what the word Catholic means that it's believed all over all over, and by all the congregations of God's people. And so if a book was recognized by all and the Holy Spirit impressed all with its divine authority, that was good evidence. And then the third question was, is the content of this particular book, fully consistent with other books that are undoubtedly, God's word, there were a few books that weren't recognized quite as quickly as others. And those were tested by the books that were recognized earlier. The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Paul's letters were treated as revelation of Jesus, right away. They were read in worship, they were quoted by Christian authors, as far back as we can find any records, or any trace of things. So those books were just accepted and recognized, from the very time that they were first written. Now, when we asked which New Testament books are scripture, we've also got to recognize that there were a few books that were used as scripture very widely by most congregations, but not by all churches at first. And eventually these came to be recognized by all and those books were Hebrews, James, Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Revelation. 

Sometimes there were questions about is this really from the Apostle? Or do we test it by how it fits in with the other books and eventually these came to be recognized? They were recognized pretty widely right away. But some questions were raised by a number of Christians, whether they belong. Nobody ever doubted that they were great books, but there were a few who weren't using them as scriptures right away. Remember, people then just hand out New Testaments, or hand out Bibles. In those days, there would be a scroll called gospel according to John or scroll called James. And there were different scrolls, that people were reading the scriptures and perhaps circulating from one church to another, and how widely it was used was one Mark of whether it was going to be included in the greater body of Scripture when it was compiled. Now a few books were used as scripture, by some, but not by most, and eventually these books were seen as helpful but not as God breathed. And those books were the Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, probably not by Barnabas, but was written under his name, at least not by the Barnabas of the Bible. First and Second Clement, who was an early leader in the church of Rome, and he never claimed to be an apostle, and he really never claimed that his books were on a par with scripture either, but they are wonderful writings and some early Christians, though not that many thoughts they might qualify as Scripture. The teaching of the 12 apostles is another title for that. In English, it contains, again, some wonderful teaching about the two roads, the road of life and the road of death. Some, though not too many included as scripture, another document the gospel of the Hebrews, all these, to the degree that we're able to read them, we can see much of tremendous value in them. But they don't have the same quality as the books that eventually made it into the New Testament that was recognized by most pretty early on. 

They were valued, as we value many good books outside the Bible today. But they were not included as scripture. Other early books were not included as scripture for much stronger reasons, because they just didn't have a ton of credibility in the first place, although some were still outstanding books, but they were never included in Scripture. For instance, there were books that had sound teaching, one of my favorite of those early centuries was the Epistle of Dignitas in which he's explaining to somebody what it is to be a Christian. And for instance, the phrase in the world but not of the world, would trace back to the Epistle of Dignitas and showing how Christians are like the world, oftentimes, and just eating a lot of the same stuff and living in a lot of the same towns and maybe wearing similar clothing styles, but very different in that they wouldn't just sleep around with anybody but will remain faithful to one wife, they'd be willing to give their lives out of love for others, and so on a tremendous writing beautiful, but never claimed to be from an apostle and was never included in the Bible. Then there were the pious concoctions. I say more about that elsewhere. I won't say too much about it here. For instance, the Infancy Gospels where there's this gap between when Jesus was a baby, and when he was an adult in the accounts that we have in the Bible, and some people decided to fill those in. So they've got this story of Jesus making the clay birds and when boys come to smash them, Jesus claps his hands and the birds fly away, or bullies picking on Jesus and Jesus curses that bully and he's dead. Now maybe there's a kid or two who'd like to pull that sort of stuff. But nobody read those and said, Yeah, that belongs in the God breathes scripture sounds like Jesus to us, those who knew the real Jesus knew that that sounded a little phony. 

Then there were the poisonous counterfeits. A couple of these are the gospel of Mary Magdalene. The Gospel of Judas, it was not written by Mary Magdalene was produced later, the Gospel of Judas was 150 years after Jesus death and resurrection. But these were produced by Gnostic sects, and just versions that tried to take certain elements of Christianity and merge them with the Greek mystery religions and with hatred of the body. And these were just recognized by the early Christians who held the true scriptures as utter nonsense. And then you had some that were including a lot of stuff from the real Bible, but they were kind of a cut and paste addition, you would get editors who would produce books by taking what was known to be biblical material. And then they would omit from that biblical material, what they didn't like, and then they would slip in a few things that will change the whole spin and understanding of it. And so you have the Gospel of Thomas, for instance, recently discovered, a manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas has given a lot more insight into that gospel, because nobody had it for a long time. Again, it's not written by Thomas himself. It's written in Thomas's name quite a bit later than Thomas, and by heretical Gnostics. And then there's another thing called the gospel of the Lord, which again, takes many elements of the biblical gospels and then omit some adds others. And these books you can look at for historical interests to see how certain heretical sects were handling scriptures at the time, but they certainly aren't contenders to belong in our Bible today, and they were not contenders to belong in the Bible back long ago, either. So those are some of the early books that weren't in Scripture. Some were sound teaching, but just known to be from good godly men who were not apostles and eyewitnesses. Some were just known to be kind of pious concoctions but fictional, and others were known to be poisoned and heresy.

A very, very important mark of any book, including the New Testament was the eyewitness factor. Matthew was one of Jesus chosen 12. And Matthew's gospel gives eyewitness accounts of what Matthew heard and saw and witnessed Jesus doing. Mark was a very early disciple we read of meetings of Christians occurring in Mark's house, so he himself was a very early follower of Jesus, though not one of the 12 apostles, but according to very early accounts, Mark was the writer of accounts that Peter actually gave him firsthand accounts from Peter of the life of Jesus. Luke was not one of the 12. But Luke was an excellent writer and researcher, who made it a point to find as many eyewitnesses as he could, and get their recollections and then write it down. And as he introduces his book, he says, Many have undertaken draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 

We have good reason to believe, for instance, that Luke consulted with Mary herself the mother of our Lord, because we have the account of Mary and the shepherds and some things in the early chapters of Luke, we find that Luke traveled with Paul to Jerusalem, he undoubtedly, at the same time, as Paul did, had occasion to meet with the other apostles who were there in Jerusalem had opportunity to interview them, and was able to check many things out with a variety of eyewitnesses, and then sat down and orderly account of the life of Jesus during his time here on Earth. And then later on of the Acts of the Apostles, to which Luke himself, of course, was an eyewitness for much of it because he traveled with the Apostle Paul. And then John, who's called again and again, the disciple whom Jesus love, Jesus, closest human friend here on Earth. And near the end of John's gospel, it says, this is the disciple who testifies to these things, and who wrote them down, we know that his testimony is true. So these four special accounts, what a treasure it is that God has given us eyewitness accounts of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter emphasized, we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. The apostle John put it this way, That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at it Our hands have touched this we proclaim concerning the word of life.

John had literally leaned on Jesus shoulder, and had touched Jesus, and had heard Jesus words. And he said, This is what we're sharing with you what a gift. And it wasn't just the gift through these memes Jesus had in mind all along that humans who would be appointed eye witnesses, and then he promised that his Spirit would guide them in exactly how to understand and communicate these things. Mark three, verse 14, says Jesus appointed 12, designating them apostles, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out. They were to be with him in a special way. He had other followers, other disciples, but they were to be the authoritative eyewitnesses to Him. Jesus told those apostles, when the counselor comes, the Holy Spirit, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who goes out from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you also must testify for you have been with me from the beginning, from the very beginning of Jesus ministry, these men have been with him, and the Spirit of Truth, would testify through them, and make it known in a clear, infallible, authoritative way. And then, a final eyewitness, Jesus appoints friends to travel with him. 

John has his closest friend, they spend a lot of time with Jesus. And then Jesus decides, Okay, one more eyewitness and this is just evidence that God never goes with just a formula, or is stuck with one approach. He has these good friends of his who are his eyewitnesses who had been with him all those years. And then he decides, I want one final eye witness and you know who it's going to be, it's going to be my worst enemy on planet Earth. The guy who has decided he's going to hunt down Christians and kill them, if that guy's mind can be changed, anybody's mind can be changed. If that guy can be forgiven, people will know that anybody can be forgiven. If that guy says I'm for real, people are gonna have to believe I'm for real. And so Saul of Tarsus is riding on the road to Damascus, continuing his campaign to wipe out Christians. And Jesus comes to him and appears to him in blinding light and speaks to him and says, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant, and as a witness of what you have seen of me, and what I will show you, just as Jesus had chosen those other apostles, so he chose Paul, formerly known as Saul to be a witness of Jesus of that encounter and further things that Jesus would show him.

And as Paul relates it later he says, last of all, as to one untimely born, Jesus appeared also, to me, Paul was still a literal eyewitness to the reality of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul was very emphatic that his message came directly from the voice in the mouth of Jesus himself. The Gospel that was preached by me is not a man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man. Nor was I taught it. He didn't get it from other Christians, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Now later on when Paul refers to Arabia in that same letter, he refers to Mount Sinai. So it's possible that Paul went to the area of Mount Sinai where Moses and Elijah before him had gone, where perhaps Jesus went during his time in the wilderness, to hear more from our Lord. But whatever he was doing, we know that he did not get his message by listening just to other Christians. But the voice of Jesus communicated directly with Saul, and taught him the things that he would later teach and proclaim to others. Now, some people pull with Paul, the same sort of thing. They might pull the Old Testament, they say, well, we like Jesus. But Paul, he kind of twisted the Christian faith. And he didn't give us that cheery Jesus, we like to believe in and we like Jesus, but we don't like Paul. But once again, let me just say, if you don't like Paul, you don't like Jesus, because Paul heard firsthand from Jesus, His words are the words of Jesus. It's a mistake to have one of these red letter Bibles and think that the red letters, which came from the mouth of Jesus, as the apostles recorded them, are somehow more authoritative than the rest of the Bible. But Jesus gave the rest of the Bible to, and Jesus gave Paul, his message. 

At any rate, when we hear Paul, we need to understand that he is speaking the message of Jesus as it came to him directly from Jesus. And we also need to understand that Paul knew more than he was telling us. Sometimes people think, oh, Paul made some stuff up here or there, or he didn't really know, as much as he claimed to know the fact of the matter is, Paul knew a lot more than he told whether it was in Arabia or some other time, Paul tells us that he was caught up into Paradise, whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know God knows, and heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. Paul literally went to heaven in back whether it was only in the Spirit that God carried him there, or in his body, that he was to heaven and back, and in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when Paul speaks, he does not say, I'm kind of taking a stab at some things here. And, you know, there's a lot that I really just am clueless about. There are things he couldn't tell and wasn't permitted to tell. He did tell us by the way, that our current sufferings aren't worth comparing to the glories that will be revealed he had seen and tasted the glories. And so he knew that even those terrible sufferings he went through with nothing compared to the glory of heaven at any rate, Paul heard from Jesus, Paul saw Jesus, and the letters of Paul, are an overflow of that truth of Jesus applied to particular people in churches and applied to us still today.

When Paul finally did meet with the other apostles, three years later, he met just with Peter and James and talked with them some and it went very well. And then 14 years later, after you've done some preaching, and missionary work, Paul met the Jerusalem apostles, and he says, I did that to set before them, the gospel that I proclaim, they added nothing to me. When James and Cephas, switches another name for Peter, James and Cephas and John, who seem to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me. So Paul has received this gospel from Jesus independently of other people's input. And yet when he sits down to compare notes, with the other apostles who had been with Jesus during those years, they added nothing to them, they found themselves to be in complete agreement as to the truth about Jesus, and what the Word of God was communicating. Sometimes I'm asking, well, did Paul know that he was writing the word of God? You know, wasn't he just kind of a pastor writing these letters to churches and then later on, people recognize them or thought they were the Word of God? 

Did Paul really know that his letters had divine authority? Well, how did those letters start? Paul's letters often begin with Paul an apostle by the will of God. He understood that God had chosen him to be one of those apostles of authority of giving God's authority as he spoke the word and sometimes you see it even in the way he phrased you'll say, Paul, an apostle by the will of God. And Timothy, our brother, he liked Timothy, Timothy is a great guy, Timothy carries the gospel message. But Timothy is not an apostle. Paul is the apostle whose words have that divine authority and Timothy's authority is derived from being based on the Word of God that's revealed through Paul and the other apostles. Paul said, the things I'm writing to you are a command of the Lord. And Paul called for public reading of Scripture, the Hebrew Bible, but he also called for public reading of his letters, he'd say, to a church, okay, I'm sending this letter to you. Now, I want you to have it read in a neighboring church as well. And so he had a pretty good inkling that God was speaking through him, and that he wanted these writings to be included in the Scriptures. And as Paul was facing death, he made it a point to again, communicate the Word of God so that future generations would have God's word.

The apostle Peter recognized Paul's writings as Scripture. He says, our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does, in all his letters when he speaks in some of these matters, there are some things in them in Paul's letters that are hard to understand. There's some comfort for all of us, who've tried to understand some of the more challenging parts of Paul's letters. Peter had some trouble with them too. Or at least, he recognized the difficulty at times, he says, there are some things in them that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. Notice that last phrase, as they do the other scriptures. 

So Paul's letters are one kind of scriptures and the bad people do bad things to Paul's scriptures as well as to other scriptures. It's clear from Peter statement then, that he recognized Paul's writings as scriptures. By the way, Paul evidently was quoting from Luke's gospel when he wrote one of his letters. In First Timothy five, he says, Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor and preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. Now, that first quotation is from the Hebrew Scriptures, Deuteronomy 25, verse four, the second quote, which Paul says, the Scripture says, is the statement the laborer deserves his wages, you can read the Old Testament all you like, and you'll never find that statement there. But you will find it in Luke 10, verse seven. So Paul is quoting from the gospel from the words of Jesus in that gospel, and speaking of it, as the scripture, so very, very early on. 

The writings of Paul and the gospels were being recognized by those earliest Christians as the word of God, on the same level as the Hebrew Scriptures that had already been given. And those New Testament scriptures were in many respects even better, because they had the full light of the coming of Jesus Christ and gave the final account of who Jesus is. And so as we read these accounts and understand how we got these various books in our Bible, we can take again to heart, what Scripture says about itself. As for you continue in what you've learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus, always remember that that's what sacred writings, the Holy Scriptures, the word of God, are for, to make you wise for salvation through faith. In Christ Jesus, all scriptures breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped. For every good work, we've been thinking about how certain books got recognized as the word of God, but once they are recognized, take to heart what they're good for, to know Jesus and find salvation in him. To be taught, to be rebuked, to be straightened out and put on a better path. And to go through constant training and developing in your skills and in your ability to walk with the Lord, and to teach others. To walk with the Lord until you are equipped for every good work in becoming like your Savior Jesus Christ.