By that logic, everything written by a man of God is the Word of God.
Is that what you believe?
Dale, which canon do you accept, and how did you choose that canon?
That would be inferring waay more than is justified into that brief remark!! There are descriptors for that tactic that I will avoid using.
I believe that godlier men than myself have already dealt with that question a long time ago. That means I am under no compulsion to reinvent the wheel. I accept the âtraditionalâ Protestant canon.
I also believe that the adversary deals in counterfeits (noting several items on your lists) and tries to influence believers away from trusting in the genuine currency as much as they should, distracting them into things not profitable for the Kingdom.
Can someone get me up to speed for this thread? Just a quick summary of you will for the past 350 posts or so as to what the point of it is.
Dale, I havenât found any canon list that has the traditional 66-book Protestant canon before the 1800s, when the apocrypha was deleted from most versions of the KJV.
You might consider wondering whether just accepting a canon that was not in use until 200 years ago is doing your due diligence.
Matthew, my summary is that there are some who think it is inappropriate to refer to the Bible, in its entirety, as the âWord of God.â
Others think it is conventional and acceptable.
In my opinion, the term âWord of God,â in the Bible, refers to one of the following:
- Jesus Christ, the Word of God Incarnate or
- A specific message from God for a specific person or
- The message of God for all humankind of the good news of Jesus Christ.
And, in my opinion, calling the Bible the âWord of Godâ is inconsistent with the use of the term in the Bible and amounts to padding the resume of the Bible. And, to me, that shows a low view of scriptureâ that it needs our embellishments to be viable.
Others may view the thread differently.
Part of the discussion has been about inspiration. Some view inspiration as unique to the canonical scriptures, but that is inconsistent with church history.
I love the scriptures and study them. I donât want to make claims for them that they donât make for themselves. And I think elevation of every word of the scriptures to the âWord of Godâ creates a danger that people will have a crisis of faith if they find a minor error.
Certain people object to the Christian tradition of referring to the Bible as the word of God (or Word of God.) Vance, because the Bible doesnât refer to the Bible as the word of God, Roger (who I think is okay with word of God, just not the capitalized version) because people will undoubtedly confuse the Bible with Jesus, the Word, some others because to them word of God implies inerrancy. Thatâs pretty much it. The last 200 posts or so, have not said much.
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You might consider wondering whether or not you should really expect every Christian today to be a scholarâŠ
âŠand cutting to the chase, a scholar that considers themselves capable and authorized to use a pair of scissors, Ă la Thomas Jefferson. (That may sound snipy, and snippy too 
, but it does make the point.)
I donât expect everyone to be a scholar, but I do hope for sincere and honest thought about what we believe.
We have been given many opportunities, and to whom much is given, much is required.
Just parroting what one was first told without considering the options seems a rejection of responsibility.
I donât cut out any of the scriptures, why would you imply such a thing?
You have apparently been given more than I.
Questioning the sincerity and honesty of what I believe is out of line (@Christy), as is the pejorative âparrotingâ.
Why is that such a surprise? (And actually it was more explicit than implied.) I would have thought it obvious â you consider yourself authorized to determine what is inspired and what is not. What is not can be discarded.
You still seem to think inspiration is a criterion for canonicity. That was not the case.
Here is an excerpt from the definitive book on the development of the canon. I hope it enlightens you.
âIt will have been noticed that in the preceding discussion concerning criteria used by early Christians in discerning the limits of the canon, nothing was said concerning inspiration. Though this silence may at first sight seem to be strange, the reason for it arises from the circumstance that, while the Fathers certainly agreed that the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments were inspired, they did not seem to have regarded inspiration as the ground of the Bibleâs uniqueness. That is, the inspiration they ascribe to the Scriptures was only one facet of the inspiring activity of the Holy Spirit in many aspects of the Churchâs life.7 For example, while Clement of Rome
speaks of the sacred Scriptures (here referring to the Old Testament) as âtrue and given through the Holy Spiritâ (lxiii. 2), the author of the Epistle to Diognetus writes for his own part to his correspondent: âIf you do not offend this grace, you will learn what the Word (λÏγοÏ) talks about through those through whom he wishes to talk, when he pleases. For whatever we have been moved painstakingly to utter by the will of the Word that commands us, it is out of love for the things revealed to us that we come to share them with youâ (xi. 7â8). Among the writings of Eusebius there is a sermon attributed to the Emperor Constantine; whether or not this attribution is correct, the preacher clearly does not consider inspiration to be confined only to the Scriptures. He begins his sermon with the prayer, âMay the mighty inspiration of the Father and of his Son ⊠be with me in speaking these thingsâ (Orat. Const. 2).
âNot only do early ecclesiastical writers view themselves to be, in some degree at least, inspired, but also others affirm, in a rather broad sense, the inspiration of their predecessors, if not their contemporaries. In a letter that Augustine addressed to Jerome, the bishop of Hippo goes so far as to say (Epist. lxxxii. 2) not only that Jerome has been favoured with the divine grace, but also that he writes under the dictation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritu Sancto)âwhich may seem to be rather strong hyperbole applied to the often irascible Jerome. That Gregory the Great enjoyed the reputation of being inspired is easier to understand than is the case of Jerome, and Gregoryâs biographer, Paul the Deacon, describes how the Holy Spirit, âunder the form of a dove whiter than snowâ, would explain to him the mysteries of Scripture (Vita S. Gregorii, 28)âŠ
The same impression is conveyed when we examine patristic usage of the designation ânon-inspiredâ. While the Fathers again and again use the concept of inspiration in reference to the Scriptures, they seldom describe non-Scriptural writings as non-inspired. When, in fact, such a distinction is made, the designation ânon-inspiredâ is found to be applied to false and heretical writings, not to orthodox products of the Churchâs life. In other words, the concept of inspiration was not used in the early Church as a basis of designation between canonical and non-canonical orthodox Christian writings.
In short, the Scriptures, according to the early Fathers, are indeed inspired, but that is not the reason they are authoritative. They are authoritative, and hence canonical, because they are the extant literary deposit of the direct and indirect apostolic witness on which the later witness of the Church depends.â
Excerpt From
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
Bruce M Metzger
](https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Publication123/v4/aa/61/2d/aa612d3d-683f-3a76-4377-878d93236528/9780191606878.jpg/1200x630wf.png)
âThe Canon of the New Testament
âReligion & Spirituality · 1997
itunes.apple.com
This material may be protected by copyright
Do note this:
âIn other words, the concept of inspiration was not used in the early Church as a basis of designation between canonical and non-canonical orthodox Christian writings. In short, the Scriptures, according to the early Fathers, are indeed inspired, but that is not the reason they are authoritative. They are authoritative, and hence canonical, because they are the extant literary deposit of the direct and indirect apostolic witness on which the later witness of the Church depends.â
I would think that all of us should hope for sincere and honest thought about what we believe. Expressing hope is not a bad thing. You read something into the post that was not stated.
Thank you so much. We both have some growing in grace to do.
Do you consider yourself a teacher?
You have inordinately high expectations of the laity.
'nuff said.
Is 03Cobra a Mustang? 
And you might want to dig a little deeper and find when the apocrypha was added to the canon and by whom. Do your due diligence so to speak.
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No one will deny that Bruce Metzgerâs work on canon was definitive when it was written 22 years ago but the field of canon studies has moved on since then. I particularly note two things:
First, As to the church fatherâs view of inspiration Metzgerâs arguments are no longer open and shut (if they ever were). Folk like Dr Michael Kruger have illustrated this through his interactions with other writers in canon studies. See for example, here where Kruger argues that:
the early church fathers repeatedly express that the apostles had a distinctive authority that was higher and separate from their own. So, regardless of whether they viewed themselves as âinspiredâ in some sense, we have to acknowledge that they still viewed the inspiration/authority of the apostles as somehow different.
He then goes on to refer the reader to 1 Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Dionysius. He notes, as do I, that the linked article is not a full-scale argument, for that, I refer you to his two books on the canon The Question of Canon (2013) and Canon Revisited (2012).
Second, as the above illustrates, theology has a tendency to evolve over time as new thinkers inject new thoughts and challenges into the conversation. Many of the church fathers did not have a fully orbed theology of creation and certainly one that did not account for modern science. That does not mean folk such as Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin were mistaken when they sought to further develop the churches theological articulation of these matters. Nor were they wrong to, in the case of Aquinas, seek to develop this theology beyond what scripture might expressly state on the matter by interacting with past and current thinkers. In recent years, writers like Dr John Walton (and those at BioLogos, for example) have sought to take the theological articulations further still by taking into account the perspective of modern science.
Similarly, even if the Fatherâs did not see the canon as expressly inspired in the way one might today, that does not simply mean one kicks the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture into the long grass. It simply means that the theological landscape has changed significantly since the patristic period - which, I believe, is fairly obvious. Should I or Dale at any point argue that the Patristic writers used inspiration as a criteria of canonical status, feel free to quote Metzger to your heartâs content. However, should Dale or I or another refer to the canon as inspired by virtue of our Christian tradition then we will likely to point out that your reference to Metzger is interesting and worth considering but hardly a mortal wound to the traditional doctrine of inspiration.
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