This is the first entry on the topic of the Church. In this entry we will begin to discuss the role the Church played in the formation of Scripture
What came first, the Church or Scripture? What is the Church’s relationship to Scripture? It’s a very important question but the answer to the question depends, as these kind of questions often do, on how you define the terms. What do you mean by the Church and by Scripture? These are important questions that will be investigated in this first entry on the Church.
There is considerable debate on when the Church began. Did it begin at Pentecost, perhaps when Christ called his first followers, or does it stretch back as far as God choose people to carry out his mission to undo the fall? These are all positions held by various Christians. Likewise, when we refer to Scripture what are we referring to? Individual scripture that later were declared to be canon, the full canon, and does it include works that were for a time considered scripture but are no longer? Does it include both the New Testament and Old, or just one of them?
These questions in themselves cry out for more discussion, but we must stop asking questions that move us away from the main question in mind at some point. For the sake of simplicity when the term the Church is used in this piece it will refer to the believers who joined together in common purpose of living out the path Christ set down for them from Pentecost to today. I do believe that the Church has existed as God’s called out ones since the fall, but since I also plan to deal mainly with the New Testament we will leave that theological debate for another time. I mean to deal with the NT not because I wish to set it against the OT (I do not, although I do believe the NT to reveal much more then the OT did) but because with the writings that came out of the early church we can see how it interacted with scripture soon after it was written.
Now it is simply a chronological fact that the Church came before the NT Scriptures. It is also a fact that it was the church that wrote the Scripture. Now to this some may want to say to the first point, that although the church did chronologically come first, God ordered all from before time was created. I would agree with those that raise that point, but such an argument does nothing to further the position that Scripture has no relation to the church since just as God ordered scripture before time began so He also ordered the church. Others, citing 2nd Timothy 3:16, will say to the second point that the church did write Scripture, but they did it under the inspiration of God. Now I would also not disagree with them that God inspired the writers, but all that means is that God used his chosen instrument, the church, to bring his word into the world. It does not mean that the church does not have the authority to interpret scripture, or to even choose what scriptures belonged in the canon.
What 2nd Timothy also does not do, which many evangelics believe it does, is set out a particular quality that only the scriptures collected in the canon have. The term simply wasn’t used that way as Craig D. Allert points out in A High View of Scripture?
In this argument, appeal is made to 2 Timothy 3:16, which states, “All Scripture is inspired by God [theopneustos] and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”…a few words about therm translated “inspired by God” (NASB) or “God-breathed” (NIV) are in order here. Basicly, the argument is that the biblical term theopneustos is reserved and used only in refrence to the biblical documents, and that this is what gives these documents their unique authority. This argument is dependent, of course, on the understanding that the fathers understood and accepted this designation. If theopneustos was accepted as the unique designation for only canonical documents, then the implication follows that the fathers would be reluctant to apply that designation to anything other than canonical documents. An examination of the patristic literature, however, contradicts this argument.
Allert then goes on to list commentaries, a tomb inscription, and synod decisions that were said to be theopneustos. This is important because it goes directly to the relationship between Scripture and the Church. Protestants have often said that the church played no role in accepting the canon. The argue that the Scriptures that belonged in the canon had a quality, that is, they were inspired, and all the church did was recognize that quality. Besides the fact that this has been shown that is not how the term “inspired by God” was used, it also does away with the debate and disagreements within the early church as which books belonged in the canon.
The church discussed and debated which scriptures belong in the canon. Over many years they compared what they had been taught about Christ to the writing that they had accepted the scriptures that agreed with what they understood and were deemed important. Am I saying then that the church chose the canon? In one real sense yes, it was not simply them recognizing the scriptures that belonged right from the beginning, but a process. Could the church have then chose otherwise? Could the church have got it wrong? Are we missing books, or have included books that should not have? I do not believe so.
Just as God used the Church to write the Scriptures, so He used it to announce what books were Scripture. God works through His Church. He uses the Spirit to guide it. He would not let it choose the wrong books. We must believe that the God who had the power to sacrificed His Son for us has the power to tell us about it. Does this mean that the church never makes mistakes? No, of course not. But on an issue such as what books are Scripture we must have faith that we have the right books.
In the next entry we will look at what this means for the authority of Scripture and the role the Church now has in understanding it.
Bryan, what is your position on the texts which are in the Catholic Bible but not in the Protestant Bible?
For my part, I believe that the Protestant Bible is the correct one, but at the same time, does it really matter, since Catholics don’t really look to the apocrypha for much or any theological teaching but rather treated as a secondary canon? What’s your take, since you appear to be more versed in the different traditions?
I have questions about the books referred to in the Bible that are not considered scripture, or at least are not included in the Bible. The following is a list of books and their corresponding biblical references:
Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14)
Book of Jasher (Joshua 10:13)
Book of the Acts of Solomon (I Kings 11:41)
Book of Samuel the Seer (I Chronicles 29:29)
Book of Gad the Seer (I Chronicles 29:29)
Book of Nathan the Prophet (I Chronicles 29:29)
Prophecy of Ahijah (II Chronicles 9:29)
Visions of Ido the Seer (II Chronicles 9:29)
Book of Shemaiah (II Chronicles 12:15)
Book of Jehu (II Chronicles 20:34)
Sayings of the Seers (II Chronicles 33:19)
The Epistle to the Corinthians predating I Corinthians (I Corinthians 5:9)
The Epistle to Laodicea (Colossians 4:16)
The prophecy of Enoch mentioned in Jude 1:14
I’m personally not comfortable with dismissing the importance of these books altogether. Had they been unimportant they would not have been mentioned in scripture. I can’t even tell you which of these books is totally lost and which ones exist. Perhaps the most important parts of these books was restated in the other scriptures, but I don’t know. This is a mystery to me.
Darius, I was hoping no one would bring up that topic
I had only briefly considered the topic in passing a while back, and it wasn’t until I wrote what I did above that I realized that with my view I will seriously have to look at it again. According to what I wrote, if it can be shown that there was a wide consensis that the Aporcrypha was part of the canon in the early church then it should be accepted. Catholics say there was, some Protestants say there wasn’t and the other Protestants just don’t care (the majority). That said, I’ve never even read to Aprocrypha before so I will be putting that on my list of things to read soon.
Chris, thats a question I remember thinking of long ago. I actually began to read Enoch (interesting book, never finished) to see what I would make of it. I don’t have a good answer for you as to why they were not included in scripture since I don’t know much about them. What you would need to do is investigate each one and see if anyone in the church ever said anything about them. Also, all of those, spare two, could have been dealt with by the jewish leaders before Christ and the church may have just followed their position.
The position outlined in the article is not internally consistent. Either the canonical books have no inherent difference from other respected books of Christian doctrine (in which case the church COULD have chosen a different set of key texts), or the books chosen DO have an inherent difference that caused them to be chosen by the church. Obviously the church itself believed these books to have special significance, or they would not have created a set list of books that was considered complete. While there was a slight amount of disagreement regarding a few select books, each book selected had huge circulation among the early church and was generally treated as authoritative by the readers. The church DOES have authority to recognize and interpret Scripture on the basis of the Holy Spirit living in us. This authority of the church is not a special power wielded by church leaders, but something present in all believers. The same Spirit that inspired the writings though is the Spirit that allows us (as believers) to recognize the Scripture.
Regarding the books recognized by Catholics but not protestants, most are OT books that were present in the Septuagint but not present in older Hebrew manuscripts. I think valid arguments can be made either way regarding their inclusion, and tend to side with their exclusion. I am not aware of any major doctrinal problems with either approach though.
I like having you around Atanamis, you always give me a needed kick to write more
First:
This authority of the church is not a special power wielded by church leaders, but something present in all believers.
Look at how I defined “the Church”. I’m not speaking of special leaders, but of “the Church” coming to a conclusion. I’ll have to expand this definition a bit as the series goes on I think.
Second:
As to your point about the article being inconsistent, what your talking about and what I’m talking about is related but not the same thing. There is no doubt that the Church examined the books to see which ones had the quality to be included in canon. Looking back we can see they had (although it was not a check list for them) certain elements in mind (Apostolicty, Orthodoxy, and Catholicity). I’m not concerned here with that. It is important yes, but not for what I want to eventually discuss.
What I’m talking about here is that it was the Church on which the task fell. It was the church that God used. I say explicitly in the above entry that this was guided by the Spirit. It was not individual Christians who finally declared which books where to be authoritative, but the church as a body that came to the conclusion even when individual Christians disagreed. The Church made decisions on which books were the most authoritative, just as it made a decision in Acts about what laws the Gentiles were bound by, not because it had explicit teaching from Jesus on what to do but because it applied what it had to the present situation. This series is about the authority the Church has, not about what qualities Scripture has, but I had to start somewhere.
If anything I’m arguing circular in the article: God used the Church to show us what books belong in the Canon, and we know what books belong in the Canon because the Church told us. But I don’t think you can have a first principle without it being somewhat circular and I do think that if I flush this one out it won’t be viciously circular.
Also, everyone, read the book I linked to in the entry. Please!!!
Brayan, thanks for the clarification. I agree that we know the canon based on the conclusions of the gathering of believers rather than the views of individual believers. The Bible is very clear regarding the special position of a gathering of believers, and even of the responsibility of a believer to submit to the spiritual authority of a leader in the church. We do still have clear historical examples though of the “global church” shifting dangerously off of Scripture, and then refusing to be corrected by Scripture. Even Peter and Paul held themselves accountable to the teachings of Scripture, and if these mighty leaders and apostles were not above the recognized canon neither are any of us. Still, I would agree with you that in the US at present far too little respect is given for the authority of “church”, and that the prayer and council of other believers is an important part of learning the Will of the Father.
I apologize if I misrepresented your distinction on the “specialness” of the canon. I’ve had too many discussions with people who felt that the church just picked and chose books they liked, with those books having no special quality over any of the alternatives. This doesn’t appear to have been your intended position though. I’m glad you like my feedback. I try to hammer on any weak arguments I can so as to encourage deeper thinking. Normally people just tell me to stop talking instead!
This discussion has caused me to go back and look at an old book I have called, “The Story of the Christian Church.” It is written by a guy named Hurlbut; I can’t remember the first name. It is a very abbreviated book no doubt intended for light reading rather than in-depth study. Anyway, one thing it said with regards to the canon (and you may have mentioned this before, Bryan) is that there were some books acknowledged as scripture in the East that were rejected in the West. The opposite might have been true as well, if memory serves. But what it says (and again it is obviously the abridged version of events) is that the use of some books gradually fell away, and thus were excluded until a more conclusive consensus emerged over time. Could you speak to this, Bryan? And do you know of Hurlbut?
I do not know anything about Hurlburt, and I also do not know much about Eastern Church at all (Hopefully the book that should be arriving for me this coming week will open up this subject to me a bit more).
For me, the biggest dilemma in accepting other books not considered scripture is the peer pressure that comes with such a decision. However, I am not one to let things go without asking critical questions. On principle, I would be open to accepting any book that I thought satisfied the standards of what I could consider scripture. I’m really not willing to accept that the Protestants have it entirely right, and the Roman Catholics have it entirely wrong. Obviously, it would undermine any ministerial effort to try to push for the acceptance of a book after these many years of tradition, but that is another matter altogether. It seems like it would be a waste of time and energy to proselytize Christians on the importance of other books.
Here are the minimum standards that I feel must be met to consider as authoritative any books not currently recognized as canonical.
1) Any book referred to as scripture by any other book in the Bible.
2) Any historically verifiable epistle written by the Apostles.
The other day I read the Laodicean epistle. If it was written by the hand of Paul, I have no reason to believe that it isn’t scripture. But perhaps the reason it was not included in the canon is because it is very short and says some of the same things other epistles say. If nothing else, it’s repetitiousness seems to validate other epistles with the same content; Even Ephesians and Colossians are mostly the same epistle just worded a bit differently with some minor variations. This being the case, although I might recognize Laodicea as authoritative (And I’m not saying that I am just yet), I would not read it regularly or give it much more consideration accept to appreciate it’s historical significance.