The Canon

There were some things you said here that I wasn't expecting but before I start to discuss as instructed, I'll throw up my initial thoughts from reading the chapter. "The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books that belong in the Bible".

Until reading p55 I hadn't thought through how much of the Old Testament was written by people in the office of prophet. Now I have thought about it, it makes sense. After all, the words of the Old Testament are the voice and words of God and a prophet is the one who communicates God's words to the people so you would expect the Scriptures to have been written by God's prophets. I've been musing, and I can't think of any of the Old Testament that we know wasn't written by prophets. Am I wrong? I realise that if I'm right it's not proof that every word was prophet-written, but I'm curious. It's interesting that the Jews knew that the cessation of prophets meant that God wasn't really speaking any more. It's not surprising they were so eager to find the Prophet Moses had promised them - and a huge shame that so many missed him.

Grudem cites two examples of apostles refering to parts of the New Testament as 'Scripture', so giving their endorsment for it to be canonised. I was aware of the first (2 Peter 3:15-16, refering to Paul's letters), but not the second. In 1 Timothy 5:18 Pauls quotes Luke 10:7 ("the labourer deserves his wages") and refers to it as Scripture. It really is encouraging that Peter and Paul had the same view of these writings as the church does today.

Much of this chapter was interesting, but what struck me most was a sentance near the end. Grudem writes the (obvious, but in my case forgotten) reminder: "The ultimate criterion of canonicity is divine authoriship, not human or ecclesiastical approval" (p68). The 66 books in the canon aren't Scripture because they were approved by the church, or even that they were written by the apostles. They're Scripture because they are, because they were written by God (through humans), because they are God's own voice and it is this rather than any human opinions which make them reliable and give them great power. Praise God that he has spoken to us in his word!

I had a couple of other thoughts but they'll fit better in my answer to what you wrote, so I'll stop this and start that.