Systematic Theology Review, Part 6

Systematic Theology Review, Part 6

See part 1,2,3, 4 and 5 here: Part 5  Part 4 Part 3   Part 2  Part 1

And now we are on to Chapter 3

THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE (i.e. the list of all the books that belong in the Bible)

"To add or subtract from God's words wuld be to prevent Go's people from obeying him fully..."  That is some serious stuff!!

"If we are to trust and obey God absolutely we must have a collection of words that we are certain are GOd's own words to us." 

God started the canon by writing the ten commandments with his own hand...Moses continued it with "absolutely authoritative words from God.'  

Joshua followed Moses, but he must have been confident he was writing God's words because he knew the command, "you shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it"  (Deut 4:2)

Prophets from God mostly filled out the rest of the Old Testament. 

Maccabees, which is outside of the Old Testament, comments on how around 100 BC, "They tore down the altar and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them."  So they were saying that the time of the prophets speaking from God had ceased. 

(An interesting side note, "According to one count, Jesus and the New Testament authors quote various parts of the Old Testament Scriptures as divinely authoritative over 295 times, but not once do they cite any statement from the books of the Apocrypha or any other writings as having divine authority.)

Jesus apparently did not have any problem with what was considered as the Old Testament canon, so we don't need to worry that anything needed has been left out or that anything that is not God's words has been included. 

up next...the New Testament in the Canon of Scripture!