Ordination #2, Art. 1c: Canon

Canonicity is the issue of what belongs in the Bible and what doesn't. The space for my ordination thesis is extremely limited so, if you have some more specific questions, please ask. It will help me with the follow up questions that are sure to arise during my oral examination. This is frustratingly brief, but you'll be doing me a favor if you ask me to elaborate on some specifics. Anyway, here's the section on Canon...

The Bible is God’s complete revelation as well. The OT Scriptures are usually viewed as a unity in the NT, and unequivocally God’s Word (2 Tim. 3.16). Even with their high regard for the OT, Peter puts Paul’s writings on par with “other” Scriptures (2 Pt. 3.16). Paul writes commands from the Lord (1 Cor. 14.37) and John viewed his own writings as being of divine origin (1 Jn. 4.6; Rev. 22.18-19). For the final establishment of the canon, however, we must move beyond Scripture to the Council of Carthage (397 AD) where the NT canon was established based primarily on authorship, content, and universality. The author was either an apostle, or an apostle was closely related to the author, the content was sufficiently spiritual or substantive, and the book had broad appeal through the church. There are a few letters that do not meet all the different categories, but they apparently make up for it in the other categories. The canon is, for all practical purposes, closed. It could hypothetically be open if some assured apostolic work was found, the content was in line with the current canon, and the church was universal in its acceptance. One would have to wonder, however, why God would have an inspired text remain lost for 2000 years. And perhaps more problematic would be general agreement by the church on its apostolicity. The canon seems to be complete apart from the most phenomena of circumstances.