Evidence of an Emerging Canon in the New Testament

In Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, Michael Kruger gives three different threads of evidence for an emerging canon in early Christianity that are found in the New Testament itself.

There are references to canonical books. 2 Peter 3:16, for example, “where Paul’s letters are regarded as on par with … ‘the other scriptures’ of the Old Testament. (Kruger has explained this argument on his blog.)

There are allusions to a bi-covenantal canon. Look at 2 Peter 3:2:

… that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles… .

Quoting from Kruger’s remarks on this verse:

Most noteworthy here is the juxtaposition of “prophets’ of the old covenant and the “apostles” of the new covenant as two equal sources of divine authority. This suggests that 2 Peter views divine revelation in two distinct phases or epochs—perhaps an allusion to the beginnings of a bi-covenantal canon. The mention of plural “apostles” would also indicate that any emerging New Testament would be composed of more than just one apostle’s teaching (thus making it clear that Paul is not the only author in view).

Moreover, the fact that “holy prophets” is clearly a reference to written texts suggests that the possibility that the “commandment of the Lord … through your apostles” may also refer, at least in part, to written texts. This possibility finds support in the immediate context, which expressly mentions written apostolic texts (2 Peter 3:1, 16). In addition, the phrase [commandment of the Lord] not only is used regularly to refer to written Old Testament commands, but also finds a notable parallel in Paul: “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord … ” (1 Cor 14:37). This passage is at least on instance where a “command of the Lord” from an apostle appears in a written text.

There are references to the public reading of canonical books. See Col. 4:16, 1 Thes. 5:27, 2 Cor. 10:9; Revelation 1:3. Why is this important? Portions of the Old Testament were read out loud to the congregation in the Jewish synagogue. The readers of Paul’s letters and Revelation would have known this, and would probably have viewed these letters, then, as “in the same category as other ‘Scripture’ read during times of public worship.”

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Other quotations from this book:

• A Canon Based on Probability
• Canonical Bookends
• Like a Thermometer, Not a Thermostat
• Getting Our Expectations Straight

Theological Term of the Week

baptism of Jesus
John the Baptist’s baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River at the beginning of his ministry.

• From scripture:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:13-17 ESV).

• From ESV Bible study notes on Matthew 3:15:

Jesus’ baptism inaugurates his ministry and fulfills God’s saving activity prophesied throughout the OT, culminating with his death on the cross (cf. John 1:31–34). In so doing, Jesus also endorses John’s ministry and message and links his mission to John’s. Although he needed no repentance or cleansing, Jesus identifies with the sinful people he came to save through his substitutionary life and death (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21).

• From The Gospel According to Luke by Leon Morris:

It is at first sight puzzling that Jesus should have accepted baptism at the hands of John, for this baptism was ‘a baptism of repentance’. Since Luke depicts Jesus as without sin it is not obvious why he tells us He was baptized in this way. But Jesus saw sinners flocking to John’s baptism. Clearly He decided to take His place with them. At the outset of His ministry He publicly identified Himself with the sinners He came to save.

Learn more:

1. From Scripture: In addition to Matthew 3:13-17 quoted above, see Mark 1:9-11 and Luke 3:21-22.
2. GotQuestions.org: Why was Jesus baptized?
3. Allen Ross: The Baptism of Jesus
4. Brian Borgman: The Baptism of Jesus (audio)
5. John MacArthur: Why Was Jesus Baptized? and The Significance of Jesus’s Baptism (video)

Related terms:

• crucifixion (of Christ)
• temptation of Jesus 
• Transfiguration, the
• virgin birth

Filed under Person, Work and Teachings of Christ

Do you have a term you would like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

A Catechism for Boys and Girls

Questions about the Word, the Church and the Ordinances

133. Q. What is the Lord’s Supper?
          A. At the Lord’s Supper, the church eats bread and drinks wine to remember the sufferings and death of Christ (Mk 14:22-24; 1 Cor 11:23-29).

(Click through to read scriptural proofs.)

Click to read more ...

Linked Together: Ask the Experts on Church History

These two post came across my feed reader on the same day last week, begging to be linked together. 

What Day?
“The Gospel Coalition asked four Christian historians, ‘After AD 70, what day most changed the course of Christian history?’” The answers:

• The Muslim invasion of the Middle East in mid-seventh century.
• The day that Constantine was converted to Christianity.
• The day the Roman capital of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks.
• The day George Whitefield spoke Jonathan Edwards’ church.

Read the whole post for explanations of each choice.

Which Controversy?
“In the recent issue of Credo Magazine, … we asked some top scholars the question, ‘Which controversy in church history should Christians know about today and why?’” The answers: 

• The Reformation.
• Protestant Liberalism.
• Augustine and Pelagianism.
• Arianism.  

Read everything the scholars had to say.

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Update: Sort of related: Several “Firsts” in Christian Thought (Justin Taylor)

The Year With No Summer

Yesterday we had snow flurries and a high of 5ºC, and today will be more of the same. This is Victoria Day weekend, our first long weekend of the (supposed) summer. It made me think of this post from five years ago.  (Update: Some Canadians have it even worse this weekend. Link sent by Kim Shay.)

When I was a child I read a novel that mentioned a year in the 1800s when there was no summer. I read a book a day at that time and they all blend together, so don’t expect me to remember a title. What I’ve never forgotten, however, is that there really was a year without summer.

I imagined a year with snow cover all year round, when people ice skated on frozen lakes in July. It wasn’t quite like that, but 1816 was an unusual weather year. There was a snowstorm that dumped 4 inches of snow in New England in the middle of June, and there was frost overnight for several days in a row in both July and August. In between those extraordinary occurrences, there was normal summer weather, but the frosts caused crop failure in the northeastern US and eastern Canada.

In Europe, there was nearly constant cold and wet, with crop failures there, too. In Ireland, it rained for 142 days in the summer, causing a famine. There was no grape harvest in France and no grain harvest in Germany. 

Historians blame the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia the year before,  the biggest eruption in recorded history. All those ash particles in the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere were bound to cause significant changes in the weather.

Not every result bad. There were brilliantly colourful sunrises and sunsets, which some say inspired the intense glowing depictions of the sun on the horizon in the paintings of the British impressionist painter J. M. W. Turner. You see an example in Turner’s painting of Flint Castle above, and another in one of his nautical paintings, The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up.

According to oral tradition, we had a year without summer in the Yukon, and people starved here, too. In the 1970s, Yukon elder Rachel Dawson reported that it occurred over one hundred years before her time. Here’s how she describes it.

Two winters joined together. No snow, but there was ice all over, and the winters were joined together. 1

There are variations to the story, and it’s impossible to pin down exactly when it was. Perhaps it was 1816, when the Tambora volcano wreaked widespread havoc, or maybe it was either 1845, 1849, or 1850, when tree ring measurement shows very little growth.

But it all goes to show that in the weather realm, strange things can happen anywhere at any time. What I’m waiting for is the year with no winter. Of course, we’d chalk that up to global warming/climate change.

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1When I originally posted this, I linked to a source for the information and quote. That document is gone now, but I found this book corroborating the info, but not the quote.

Sunday's Hymn: Trust and Obey

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Refrain

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh or a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross,
But is blessed if we trust and obey.

But we never can prove the delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet.
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way.
What He says we will do, where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.

—John H. Sam­mis

This is another hymn with hundreds of recordings on YouTube. The Hawaiian hula praise dance rendition was an obvious no-go, but that still left pages and pages of good videos to choose from. Here are two that popped up early in the search that I liked.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Throne of Grace at Gospel Grace
• Leaning on the Everlasting Arms at By Grace Alone
• When Christ Our Lord Had Passed Once More at The Happy Wonderer
• Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah at Challies.com
• Hail Festal Day! at Conjubilant With Song
• Voices from the Past #20 at Tried With Fire 
• Lord’s Day 20, 2013 at The Thirsty Theologian
• You Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Either He did or He didn’t!

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

No Creature But Is Fed

Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens will give His children bread.

—William Cowper

I’m continuing the series on Scriptural Lessons from the Natural World at Out of the Ordinary today.

Scripture uses our knowledge that both humans and animals have food to teach us about God—or, more precisely, to remind us of what we already should know about God. We can know that God exists, and that he is good, wise, and powerful because he feed his creatures.

But there’s more. That God has revealed himself by providing food for us ought to influence what we do. I’ve found four biblical commands based on our knowledge of God’s food provision. The first two apply to everyone, but the last two are especially for believers.

Read the rest of All Creatures Eat (Part 1). 

Getting Our Expectations Straight

From Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books by Michael Kruger, four reasons from Scripture for us to expect some disagreement over the canon in the early stages of Christianity:

1. The Scriptures warn of false teaching (and false teachers) in the church (2 Pet. 2:2; 1 John 2:19). If so, then it is reasonable to think that the church would also face false teaching about the status of canonical and apocryphal writings.
2. We should not overlook the fact that these are spiritual forces opposing the church (Eph. 6:10-20; 1 Pet. 5:8-10; Rev. 12:13-17). Thus we have greater reason to expect there would be controversy, opposition, and heresy in early Christianity.
3. People often resist the Spirit by their sin and disobedience (Acts 7:51; Eph. 4:30; 5:18; 1 Thess. 5:19). For this reason, the testimonium1was never understood by the Reformers as something that would lead to an absolute unity over the canonical books.
4. Not all groups who claim to be the “church” are really part of it. Some claim the name of Christ who are not really his followers (Matt. 7:21-23; John 2:23-25; Phil. 1:15-16; 1 John 2:19). Thus, the canons of these so-called Christian groups (Valentinians?) might differ significantly from those of true Christians. This can give the impression that there was more canonical diversity among early Christians than there actually was.2

Contrary to what some argue,  disagreements over the canon shouldn’t undermine our trust in the ability of the early church to identify the canonical books; but rather, the witness of scripture itself should lead us to expect some dissent.

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Other quotations  from this book:

• A Canon Based on Probability
• Canonical Bookends
• Like a Thermometer, Not a Thermostat

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1The testimonium is “the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit”—“not a private revelation of the Spirit or new information given to the believer—as if the list of canonical books were whispered in our ears—but it is a work of the Spirit that over comes the noetic effect of sin and produces the belief that the Scriptures are the word of God” (page 100).

2Page 198-199.

This Week in Housekeeping

Whew! I barely have time to keep up with the fixing and updating project for the theological terms. It’s been a month since I did any work on them at all. Actually, once a month seems to be the rate for the last half year or so.

perfectionism

• Fixed links to Wayne Grudem’s lectures on the doctrine of sanctification: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. (The Grudem Systematic Theology lectures have been moved around a lot over the years. I’m hoping these are links that last!)
• Added a link to R. C. Sproul’s The Heresy of Perfectionism.

autographs

• Added a link to Michael Kruger’s The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts.

incarnation

• Fixed links to Wayne Grudem’s lectures: The Person of Christ, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• Added related terms advent, ascension of Jesus, crucifixion (of Christ), deity of Christ, humanity of Christ, hypostatic union, virgin birth.
• Added “Filed under Person, Work and Teachings of Christ.”

Theological Term of the Week

cultural mandate
God’s command for the human race to fill the earth and rule over it; also called creation mandate, dominion mandate, or stewardship mandate.

• From scripture:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28, ESV)

• From ESV Bible study notes on Genesis 1:26-28:

[T]he idea is that the man and woman are to make the earth’s resources beneficial for themselves, which implies that they would investigate and develop the earth’s resources to make them useful for human beings generally. This command provides a foundation for wise scientific and technological development; the evil uses to which people have put their dominion come as a result of Genesis 3. … As God’s representatives, human beings are to rule over every living thing on the earth. These commands are not, however, a mandate to exploit the earth and its creatures to satisfy human greed, for the fact that Adam and Eve were “in the image of God” implies God’s expectation that human beings will use the earth wisely and govern it with the same sense of responsibility and care that God has toward the whole of his creation. 

• From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton:

All human beings, even as fallen, remain God’s image-bearers—with the original commission to rule, guard, and keep, and to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” extending God’s reign with Eden as the capital (Ge 1:26-28, cf. 2:15). Often referred to as the cultural mandate, this original vocation given to humanity remains the source of that indefatigable impulse to build cities and civilizations, farms and vineyards, houses and empires. Every person, believer and unbeliever alike, receives a distinct vocation for his or her calling in the world, and the Spirit equips each person for these distinct callings in common grace. However, God’s Word in the cultural mandate is “law”: the command to subdue, rule, fill, and expand.

Learn more:

1. 9Marks: What is the cultural mandate? Who is it given to?
2. Cornerstone Presbyterian Church: What is the Cultural Mandate? and How the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission Complement Each Other
3. Greg Johnson: Why the Mona Lisa is going to Heaven
4. John MacArthur: We Must Rightly Understand the Creation Mandate

Related terms:

• creation ex nihilo
• Great Commission
• image of God
• vocation

Filed under Anthropology

Do you have a term you would like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.