Canonicity

I. The charge: The Roman Catholic Church removed from the Bible the books it did not want Christians to read. So Christians are not getting all the information about Jesus that was written by the early church.  Have you ever heard of the Gospel of Thomas? Have you heard of the Gospel of Peter? The teaching of the Twelve? The first epistle of Clement? All these were early Christian writings. There were over two-hundred accounts of the life of Christ committed to writing. They were considered Scripture by many early churches. But you have never heard of them because the bishops of the early church robbed you of these important works.

II. How do we answer such a charge? By understanding the process of Canonicity. The Process of Canonicity is the process that the early church used to recognize the books that God had inspired and reject those books that, while they may have claimed to be inspired, actually were not.

A. The word Canon comes from the Greek word kanon which originally referred a staff a stick or a reed. It came to be known in time as a standard by which things were to be measured. Finally in the Christian Church it came to be known as the standard or collection of writings that were recognized by the Church as those writings that God had inspired.

Question: From our discussion on Inspiration lets ask the question; who determined the books that would comprise the canon of Scripture?

Some say the Church determined the canon. Like the argument from The Da Vinci code. What is wrong with this argument?
The truth is that God determined the canon by virtue of the books He inspired men to write!

What would happen if we had the same situation today that we did in the early church. What if we had over two-hundred accounts of the life of Christ to wade through and try to recognize the true from the false?

We could do this because the principles of Canonicity the church used to recognize the canon are resident in the Scriptures themselves.

B. Turn in your Bibles to Galatians 1:1, 11-12. Paul is asserting that His message came to him directly from God not from man. The message of his opponents came from man and not God.

1. The first principle of recognizing a book as inspired is was the book written by an apostle or prophet of God or an approved associate of an apostle or prophet?

Turn in your Bibles to 2 Cor. 12:12, and Hebrews 2:3-4. The writers of Scripture were confirmed by miracles. They did only the things God can do. So why did God give these abilities to the lives of the early church?

Was it because God wanted everyone to be healed?

Did God want to prove His power to the world?

Should all evangelism  come with this power today?

2. No the second principle of recognizing a book as inspired is was the writer confirmed by the acts of God?

Turn in your Bibles to 2 Cor. 1:17-18; Hebrews 6:18; Deut. 13: 1-13. It is impossible for God to lie or be the author of untruth. It is impossible for God to contradict Himself by revealing one thing to one generation and something contradictory to another generation. It is impossible for God to lie or be the author of untruth.
3. The third principle is Does the writing tell the truth about God?

Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16-17, John  10:25-27. The word of God comes with the power of God in the hearts of His people. It is able to build them up in the true faith. Jesus’ sheep hear his voice. This is one of the most important principles. We know the word of God because we are of God, we are of His sheep
4. The fourth principle is does the writing come with the power of God?

Turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 4:12.


5. Was it received by the people of God.

Turn in your Bibles to Col. 4:16. 1 Thess. 2:13. Paul knew that his letter would be received by the church as the word of God and he instructed it to be shared with other churches.

III The Process of Canonization. The process of Canonization for the NT took place from the writing of the first NT book (the book of James) at approximately 45 AD to the year 405 AD. The first authoritative list was Athanasius Easter letter in 367 AD which contained all 27 books that are contain in the NT.

A. During the process of Canonization, by applying the principles of Canonization resident in the text of Scripture four groups of books were identified:

1. Homologoumena: Books accepted by all. twenty of the twenty-seven books fall into this catagory.

2. Antelegomena: Books disputed by some. These were seven in number

a. Hebrews: Authorship
b. James: Theological issues in harmonizing with Paul’s writings on justification by faith
c. 2 Peter: Internal styling differences with 1 Peter.
d. 2, 3 John: Author identifies himself as an “Elder” not apostle these books had limited circulation and did not enjoy wide acceptance
e. Jude: Because in vv14-15 he quotes from and OT pseudopigraphical book of Enoch
f. Revelation: Because of the doctrine of chiliasm which by this time was rejected by the church though it had been held  by the church for three centuries before.
3. Psudopigrapha: Books rejected by all:

Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of the Ebioites
Protoevangelism of James
Gospel to the Hebrews
And over 150 more!
4. Apocrypha: Books accepted by some: These were useful books that for a time were accepted in the canon for a limited time by some but were ultimately rejected:

1. Epistle of Psudo-Barnabas
2. 1 Clement to the Cornthians
3. 2 Clement
4. Shepherd of Hermes
5. Didiche
6. Apocalypse of Peter
7. The Acts of Paul and Thecla
8. The Epistle of Paul to the Laodicieans
9. Gospel according to the Hebrews
10. Epistle of Polycarp
11. The seven epistles of Ignatius