Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #101： How did we get the Bible？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge, where each week

00:00:05.640 I offer 15-20 minute answers to tough theological and pastoral questions. This is a 100% listener

00:00:13.100 supported audio ministry of relearn.org. And for those who don't know, our mission

00:00:18.900 at relearn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical, confessional,

00:00:25.000 and missional house churches. For more information, just visit relearn.org forward slash house.

00:00:32.160 Well, guys, welcome to our brand new format for this podcast. We did 100 episodes with both my

00:00:40.420 wife, Veronica, and I, and going forward, we are going to be doing this new format. So welcome back.

00:00:46.020 We've been off for the last couple of weeks, but we are excited to have this new shorter format.

00:00:51.800 So I have a question for you. Have you ever wondered where we got our Bible? How was it

00:00:57.760 actually put together? But more than that, how can we know that the scriptures are as trustworthy

00:01:04.460 as the gospel? How can we trust that the Bible that's in our hands is actually without error

00:01:11.520 and trustworthy and put together by the Holy Spirit? This is an important question,

00:01:16.840 and we're going to unpack this discussion. But first, I want to make two quick announcements.

00:01:21.800 One, if you guys haven't heard of our product, standinvictory.org, this is a program on breaking free from the bondage and addiction to pornography.

00:01:32.700 If you are struggling with pornography addiction, if you are struggling with just having regular habitual usage of pornography, and you are looking to be set free, we would love for you to check out the resource that we created at standinvictory.org.

00:01:49.380 Again, that's standinvictory.org. This is a short three-video with three PDF pack,

00:01:56.760 step-by-step gospel-centered program for breaking free from the bondage of pornography. Again,

00:02:04.080 you can check that out at standinvictory.org. The second thing I wanted to talk to you about

00:02:09.460 is our Ultimate Marriage Program. These are some other resources that we have for really creating

00:02:16.340 healthy families within healthy churches. And so UltimateMarriage.com is Veronica and I's six-week

00:02:23.360 marriage mentor program. It's filled with incredible biblical information on how to

00:02:31.020 generate, demonstrate to your children a biblical union. This is a great gift for somebody who is

00:02:39.580 going through maybe premarital, that's right about to get married, or a great wedding gift.

00:02:43.740 This is also great for somebody who's in probably the first 10 to 15 years of marriage.

00:02:50.160 We've been married for 10 years, going on 11, but we also have couples that have been

00:02:55.000 married for 20 years who have gone through the program as well.

00:02:58.800 But it's a great resource, six 30-minute videos with a great PDF resource to discuss

00:03:05.660 with your spouse.

00:03:07.780 The testimonials are just amazing.

00:03:10.080 Again, you can go to ultimatemarriage.com to watch a video about that.

00:03:14.760 All right, let's get into today's question.

00:03:17.700 Today's question is from Jackie in Oklahoma City, and she asks,

00:03:22.300 Pastor Dale, if the Bible is to be authoritative in the life of a Christian,

00:03:27.060 the immediate question for me becomes, wasn't this book put together by men?

00:03:31.620 How are we to know that what we have in our hands is truly God's word?

00:03:36.980 Was anything left out?

00:03:38.880 Dale, can you help me with these questions so I can have a settled confidence in the

00:03:43.800 scriptures?

00:03:44.740 Okay, Jackie, this is a great question.

00:03:46.960 You're not alone in your curiosities.

00:03:49.960 You're just not.

00:03:50.900 I've gotten this question several times.

00:03:52.600 I want to start off by saying, while there is a solid apologetic argument with historical,

00:03:58.560 archaeological, moral, and cultural evidence for your question, the central source of our

00:04:06.280 confidence in the scriptures comes from the evidence of the gospel in our own lives that

00:04:11.740 we received through the scriptures. Now, stay with me here for a second. I'll explain what I mean.

00:04:16.320 The miracle of the gospel isn't that it changes what you do. Dead religion and behavior modification

00:04:23.460 can change what a person does. The miracle of the gospel is that it changes what you want to do,

00:04:30.400 and that is that the gospel really changes our affections and our desires. The gospel gives us

00:04:35.680 a new and restored heart. And this renewal is called being born again. And one of the evidences

00:04:44.240 of someone who has truly been born again is their trust and hope and confidence in the scriptures.

00:04:52.280 Now, I'm not saying that a born-again Christian is just blindly believing in the scriptures

00:04:58.620 without sufficient evidence. Again, there is incredibly strong arguments. We'll talk a little

00:05:04.900 bit about them, but they are believing in the scriptures if they're born again because

00:05:08.780 a miracle happened in them and something basically changed radically within your soul

00:05:17.420 and they can't deny that. And so their conversion, their new life in Christ

00:05:23.380 becomes their central evidence and primary source for their confidence in God's word, right? Faith

00:05:30.420 comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But I know what you're thinking. How does the

00:05:35.220 miracle of the gospel connect to the reliability of the Bible? And so let me give you a few reasons.

00:05:42.900 So first, the Bible is the earthly source or codex, if you will, of the gospel. It's where

00:05:51.040 God has chosen to preserve the good news. It's also the agent by which salvation comes about.

00:05:58.980 Again, I said earlier, Romans 10, 17.

00:06:02.000 So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

00:06:05.320 And so there has never been a person who has come to faith outside of hearing or reading

00:06:10.460 the word of God.

00:06:11.780 And this could include preaching, personal reading time, one-on-one discussions, a personal

00:06:17.780 encounter with Christ if you were alive then while he was on the earth, or if you were

00:06:21.540 Paul.

00:06:22.760 It could also be even a dream inspired by Christ, like we're often hearing about in

00:06:27.820 the Middle East.

00:06:28.980 Um, my point is that you cannot separate faith in Christ from the word of Christ.

00:06:36.360 And, you know, I think about a story of Martin Luther, uh, when asked about his successful

00:06:42.840 ministry accomplishments, uh, he once responded, I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's

00:06:50.020 word.

00:06:50.520 Other than that, I did nothing.

00:06:52.940 The word of God did it all.

00:06:55.260 So that's my first point.

00:06:56.680 Second point is, you cannot separate the word of God from the work of God. And so God created

00:07:04.600 all things, including your way to salvation and your personal election to salvation by the power

00:07:13.420 of what? By the power of his word. And so Jesus himself is referred to as the word that became

00:07:21.360 flesh. And so to have confidence in God while lacking confidence in his word is theologically

00:07:29.060 irrational. Now to have faith in Christ is to also have faith in the scriptures. The two again

00:07:36.580 are inseparable and I'll explain why in my next point, which is really this. Are we going to

00:07:44.700 believe in Jesus while not believing in Jesus's belief in scripture. And what I mean by that is,

00:07:52.980 are we going to bet our lives and our eternity on Christ, but not the whole Christ? See,

00:07:59.420 because the whole Christ includes a belief in the authority of scripture, because during Jesus's

00:08:05.960 earthly ministry, Jesus quotes or references 78 different verses from 16 different Old Testament

00:08:11.900 books. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles,

00:08:17.860 Psalms, Isaiah, Jonah, Micah, Hosea, Malachi, Zechariah, and Daniel. And he actually calls

00:08:23.980 these references the scriptures, the word of God. He calls them the wisdom of God. And so are we

00:08:29.480 really going to validate Jesus as our Savior, but imply that he was a liar or a lunatic when it

00:08:36.580 comes to his teaching and affirmation of the scriptures throughout his earthly ministry?

00:08:41.900 That would be weird and absurd.

00:08:44.240 In Matthew 5, 17 through 18, Jesus says,

00:08:47.620 Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

00:08:52.860 I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

00:08:56.440 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,

00:09:00.280 not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until it is all accomplished.

00:09:06.360 Basically, Jesus is saying, I didn't come to abolish the scriptures,

00:09:11.040 but to fulfill what is said in the scriptures. So in other words, it's impossible to disconnect

00:09:18.160 Christ from the scriptures because belief or because to believe in Christ while doubting

00:09:24.100 the very scriptures that predict, prepare, and speak of him is to doubt Christ. So hopefully

00:09:31.060 you're hanging with me here, but Matthew 19, three through five and Mark 10, six through eight,

00:09:36.720 we see Jesus speaking of other scriptural realities like creation. He speaks of Adam and

00:09:43.660 Eve. He speaks of marriage and the order of a marriage. He speaks about sin in direct historical

00:09:50.140 reference to issues and events that happened in Genesis and throughout the Torah. He even speaks

00:09:58.840 of Jonah in the belly of the great fish. He talks about the flood and Noah's Ark. He references

00:10:05.200 Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, right? So he discusses the lives of so

00:10:10.840 many people. We know he talks about David and Solomon, again, in accordance to the scriptures.

00:10:16.920 So to doubt the scriptures is really to doubt Christ. You cannot have one without the other.

00:10:26.140 But again, I think the heart of your question, Jackie, comes from a desire to better understand

00:10:31.420 the New Testament. So let me close by touching briefly on the reliability of the New Testament

00:10:37.520 books and the canonization of the Bible. So the word canon means an officially recognized list

00:10:45.320 of authoritative books. Okay, I'm going to say that again. The word canon means an officially

00:10:51.560 recognized list of authoritative books. So you might hear like the canonized scriptures or

00:10:57.780 the canon of scripture. In seminary world or in the theological world, that's a common phrase.

00:11:05.060 There are 39 canonized Old Testament books in our Bible. They were written from about 1400 BC

00:11:13.600 to about 400 BC. And there are 27 canonized New Testament books in our Bible that were written

00:11:21.820 between 50 AD and 90 AD. And so together we get the 66 books in the canon of scripture. The Bible

00:11:29.620 that you have probably at your house is going to have 66 books in it. And the Old Testament,

00:11:35.720 you know, was recognized and canonized in Jerusalem during the 4th century BC.

00:11:43.620 So that was before, right? When Jesus was there, he was quoting canonized scripture.

00:11:49.620 Now, the 27 books of the New Testament canon were circulated for about 100 years, you know,

00:11:56.460 by making handwritten copies.

00:11:59.240 And so remember, you know, they didn't have the internet, they didn't have cars, and,

00:12:02.400 you know, things were slow.

00:12:03.960 So it took about 100 years by making handwritten copies and bringing them to other places where

00:12:09.100 more copies could be made, and, you know, and bringing them to other places where more

00:12:14.020 copies could be made.

00:12:14.840 And historically, we see that by the end of the second century, which is, you know, say 190, you know, 90% of the New Testament was recognized by the early church.

00:12:31.480 In fact, in the writings of the early church fathers that we see, they mentioned several

00:12:38.920 times that there's a list of letters that are generally accepted as a list of canonized

00:12:45.920 scriptures, and so there was a list of letters that were totally canonized, there was a list

00:12:53.920 of books that were being debated currently at that time, and there was a list of books that

00:13:00.940 were rejected at that time. And you can go look at really beautiful evidences of this

00:13:06.680 all the way back into the way early church. It wasn't actually until 397 AD, about 300 years

00:13:17.400 after Revelation was written. So it took about 300 years at the Council of Carthage that we see

00:13:24.720 the 27 books of the canon formally recognized. Now, I say recognized and not declared. Like,

00:13:34.340 they didn't declare these books as canonized because they had some sort of authority to do so.

00:13:41.360 I say recognize because this wasn't just a bunch of men deciding which books were permitted and

00:13:48.800 which weren't. No, this was a formal acknowledgement or a public acknowledgement

00:13:56.620 of the organic spirit-led process that occurred over the previous 300 years. So basically,

00:14:05.560 in a, again, in a non-internet world, it took time for these 27 books by way of, you know,

00:14:13.280 copying, preaching, reading, and, you know, what I would say, textual scrutiny and theological

00:14:20.500 unity. It took a bunch of this to emerge the genuine, authoritative, and inspired scripture.

00:14:29.560 And so by the time we get to Carthage 300 years later, the functional canon had already been in place in the churches for nearly two centuries.

00:14:42.200 But a final observation, according to certain criteria, like was the specific letter written directly by an apostle or someone who traveled with an apostle?

00:14:57.080 Does the content of the letter have contradicting theology with the other accepted books in

00:15:04.500 the church and other authoritative books from apostles?

00:15:08.860 Has the letter been universally accepted by the churches?

00:15:13.680 That was a big one.

00:15:14.760 If a portion of the church, a region of the church would reject that, that wasn't accepted.

00:15:20.980 They were looking for universal acceptance by the churches.

00:15:23.540 And the people at that era were incredibly theologically adept in terms of paying attention.

00:15:34.940 This is, again, you know, this isn't an era of uneducated human beings.

00:15:41.460 This is actually coming from an era of philosophy and high thinking.

00:15:46.900 Um, and there was some major scrutiny to get what we have today.

00:15:54.100 Uh, and, you know, historians were really good at their job because they were, they

00:15:59.680 were keeping history.

00:16:00.680 And so we, we knew the original, um, uh, manuscripts from these false manuscripts that

00:16:08.700 were emerging.

00:16:09.560 And I'm going to give you a resource to, to, to watch a video that you guys can watch to

00:16:13.900 understand that a little bit more.

00:16:16.020 But these became the final standards that gave us the New Testament.

00:16:19.560 And so when we think of the Gospel of Thomas or the Epistle of Barnabas, and we ask, why

00:16:28.720 are those included in the New Testament?

00:16:31.300 These books weren't rejected by a council of men.

00:16:35.500 They were rejected universally by the early church for their heresies, their inconsistencies,

00:16:40.600 and unreliability when measured against the other vital criteria that I was talking about.

00:16:46.600 And so there's always somebody that comes up and says, oh, look, we got, you know,

00:16:50.580 the epistle of Thomas says this about Jesus, that he was married to Mary, you know, or whatever.

00:16:57.940 It doesn't line up with the historical scriptures that were canonized,

00:17:05.860 and it doesn't line up with the theology that was, you know, that was there during that process.

00:17:15.040 So the bottom line is this. I believe in a God who can protect his word in the world.

00:17:23.640 This is one of the major arguments that the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons claim against

00:17:27.300 the church. They say that the Bible has been corrupted and they needed a new revised Bible,

00:17:33.220 right? The Book of Mormon or, you know, the translation that the Jehovah's Witnesses use,

00:17:37.240 right? This means that they believe in a God who can't protect his own word in the world

00:17:44.480 and needs men to help him, you know, put it back together. It's absurd and it reveals how small

00:17:51.780 their view of God truly is. And so when Jesus says in Matthew 24, 35, heaven and earth will

00:17:58.400 pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. I believe he meant that. I believe the 66

00:18:05.340 books of the Bible that have been canonized and produced the fruitfulness of the New Testament

00:18:11.800 church over the last almost 2,000 years tell an immaculate and remarkably unified story with the

00:18:21.920 Old Testament that lines up perfectly with theology and prophetic revelation that all

00:18:29.700 culminates in the person of Jesus Christ.

00:18:32.280 If you read it, you cannot escape the supernatural strength that comes from its unity.

00:18:41.720 But again, this is a very important topic.

00:18:44.620 And if you are placing your hope and faith in Christ, you should.

00:18:50.440 you should settle this discussion in your own heart. And it's not going to be by listening to

00:18:55.000 this short podcast. This is a massive theological topic. I had to do a class and read an entire book

00:19:03.280 just on the topic of canonization. And that's just a little bit that I know about it.

00:19:09.800 So let me close by offering a few great resources for your journey. And I will also link

00:19:15.720 these resources on the post page for this episode at relearn.org. This is episode 101

00:19:24.800 titled, How Did We Get the Bible? And so here's a few resources. I'm going to give you three of

00:19:30.560 them. And I think you should really take the time to look at them. And so first resource is a YouTube

00:19:38.000 video. It's titled, How Do We Get the Bible by Southern Seminary? Another YouTube video that

00:19:44.300 you're going to want to sit down and watch. I had to watch this during seminary. It's titled

00:19:50.080 New Testament Bible Reliability by Dr. Daniel Wallace. The guy's actually pretty funny,

00:19:57.440 but you got to watch the whole thing. Okay. You got to watch the whole thing,

00:20:00.440 make a commitment to watch the whole thing. If you want to get super deep and you want to study this,

00:20:05.140 there's a book by F.F. Bruce titled The Canon of Scripture. Again, these resources will be linked

00:20:13.260 for you on the post page.

00:20:16.060 Again, this is episode 101.

00:20:17.620 How did we get the Bible?

00:20:20.680 All right, guys,

00:20:21.200 hopefully that was helpful for you guys

00:20:22.460 answering that question.

00:20:24.220 If you're a regular listener

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00:20:37.740 and they are very encouraging to us.

00:20:40.980 Thank you guys for listening.

00:20:43.260 to this episode. My name is Dale Partridge, and we will see you guys next week.

00:21:13.260 dot org forward slash house. Lastly, do you have a theological question you would like answered on

00:21:18.860 the show? Submit your question at relearn dot org forward slash question. Thanks for joining us on

00:21:24.500 this episode of Real Christianity. We'll see you next Wednesday.

Dale Partridge - July 08, 2020

Real Christianity #101： How did we get the Bible？

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