PART ONE
Not too long ago, I was accused of following man-made doctrines and making decisions based on my interpretations and definitions because I consider the Bible alone as the final authority (Sola Scriptura) in my life as a Born-Again Christian. I was told that "according to the Bible, I was not of Christ and did not belong to His Church, but rather I was following a different religion and a different god." I was also told that "Christ didn't come down and give us a Bible. He came down and gave us a church and died for our sins. It is the Bishops of the Catholic Church who are the successors to the Apostles, and they gave us the Bible with the table of contents determined by a Catholic council in Rome in AD 382 until Luther took out seven books in the 1500s. The books called the "New Testament" were the books read at the Catholic Eucharist for the first 300 years of Christianity and are still practiced at Catholic masses. The Eucharist is the new covenant, the new Passover. Without the Catholic Eucharist, you don't have the Bible."
This message will address the early church, the authority, and history of the New Testament, the offices of Apostle and Pastor-Teacher, as well as Transubstantiation in Communion.
THE EARLY CHURCH
The early Church was all-embracing of everything in the Bible, which is the definition of 'catholic.' For the first 280 years of Church history, the Roman Empire banned Christianity, and Christians were horribly persecuted. There was no official organized 'church,’ just the Bride of Christ, THE Church.
The Roman Emperor Constantine decided to provide religious tolerance with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, which lifted the ban on Christianity.
Constantine called the Council of Nicea in AD 325 in an attempt to unify Christianity as a religion that could unite the fracturing Roman Empire. Constantine did not fully embrace the Christian faith. He continued many pagan beliefs and practices, including turning the Temples of the dozens of false Roman goddesses and gods into Christian churches while keeping their statues, which facilitated the Christian churches to become a mixture of true Christianity and Roman paganism. Some attribute this leading to the worship of, and prayer to, Mary and the Saints.
Constantine was instrumental in the compromise of Christianity with pagan religions. Instead of presenting the saving message of the Gospel, the ever-expanding Catholic Church compromised and incorporated pagan beliefs in the church to make itself attractive to the lost people of the Roman Empire. As a result, the Catholic Church became the dominant religion in the world for centuries.
"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4 ESV)
THE BIBLE ALONE IS THE FINAL AUTHORITY
The foundation of Christianity is the Bible. It is the only dependable source for humankind to know God's voice. It has the answers to all eternal questions. The focus of all Scripture is ultimately on Jesus. It is the blueprint of Heaven and the only reliable source of truth for all moral and spiritual information by which humans can successfully live each day and build a foundation for any endeavor. In its original text, the Bible is the all-inclusive, inerrant, divinely inspired word of God (2 Timothy 3:16).
The Bible was written with a consistent theme by about 40 authors over an approximately 1,500-year period in three languages on three continents with no evident contradictions. Its writers were scholars, ranchers, shepherds, and fishermen.
The Bible is comprised of 66 books, of which about 40 scribes wrote over roughly 1,500 years by various individuals as the Holy Spirit moved them in three languages on three continents with no evident contradictions when thoroughly exegeted using the rules of biblical Hermeneutics. Its writers were scholars, ranchers, tax collectors, shepherds, and fishermen. The books themselves fall into different categories, which are determined by their literary structure. There is often some overlap between categories. Prophecy is not restricted to the prophetic books but is found in other historical writing, and much that is within the prophetic books themselves is in the form of poetry (Isaiah is an excellent example of prophecy in poetic form).
The Bible Timeline
The historic church has had the complete written Word "logos/graphe" since before AD 100. Below is the majority consensus of Bible-believing Born-Again Scholars for the timeline in which each book was written.
The Book of Job is considered the oldest book in the Bible. 2000-1500 BC
The stone tablets of the Ten Commandments given to Moses. 1500-1400 BC
The original 39 books were completed. 1400–400 BC
The original 39 books were canonized 300 BC
The Greek Septuagint was produced. 250–200 BC
1. The Old Testament Timeline (BC)
Pentatech (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers) 1445-1406
Deuteronomy 1406
Joshua 1370
Judges 1085-971
Ruth 1085-971
Samuel 1030-931
Job 1030-931 (Poetic parts of the book date back to 2000)
Proverbs 971-686
Ecclesiastes 940+-
Song of Songs 940+-
Joel 800-700
Amos 792-752
Hosea 782-722
Jonah 745-630
Isaiah 739-686
Micah 733-701
Nahum 663-626
Zephaniah 636-627
Kings 627-574
Habakkuk 626-590
Jeremiah 605-580
Ezekiel 597-573
Lamentations 586
Obadiah 586+-
Daniel 550-530
Haggai 520
Zechariah 520-480
Malachi 515-415+-
Esther 474-450
Chronicles 450-400
Ezra 440 BC
Psalms 440-400+- Oldest Psalm 90
David’s Psalms 1030+-.
Nehemiah 430
2. The New Testament Timeline (AD)
The historic church has had the complete written “logos/graphe” Word since before 100 AD. Below is the majority consensus of Bible-believing Born-Again Scholars for the timeline each book was written.
James 40-46
1 Thessalonians 50-52
2 Thessalonians 51-53
Galatians 53-56
1 + 2 Corinthians 56-57
Romans and 1 Peter 57-58
Philippians 59
Matthew 35-60
Titus, Philemon, Mark 61
Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, Hebrews 61-63
2 Peter, 2 Timothy, Luke, Jude, Acts 58-67
John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John 63-80
Revelation 89-95
Both the Old (OT) and entire New Testament (NT) could be reconstructed from the writings of the early Church Fathers such as Clement of Rome, who wrote a letter to the church at Corinth in AD 95 that contained numerous OT Scriptures as well as the writings of the Apostles Jesus had hand-picked, that were considered as sacred Scripture.
The OT Scriptures were completed by 400 BC+-. The Jews recognized God's messengers and accepted their writings as inspired by Him, and by AD 250, there was nearly universal agreement on the Canon of Hebrew Scripture.
The NT Scriptures (27) were compiled into one book in AD 144 by Marcion of Sinope (AD 85-160), the son of the Bishop of Pontus.
Paul considered the writings of Luke to be as authoritative as the Old Testament (1 Timothy 5:18; see also Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7). Peter recognized Paul's writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). Some of the books of the New Testament were being circulated among the churches (Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27).
- AD 95 - Clement of Rome mentioned at least eight NT books.
- AD 108 - Polycarp, a disciple of John the Apostle, acknowledged 15 books.
- AD 115 - Ignatius of Antioch acknowledged about seven books.
- AD 170-235 - Hippolytus recognized 22 books.
- AD 130-202 - Irenaeus quoted from 24 books of the NT over 1,800 times.
- AD 150 - Justin Martyr wrote a letter known as his first Apology to the Roman Emperor in which he described what happened during a typical Sunday church service. He wrote that the Scriptures of the OT (the writings of the Prophets) and the writings of the NT were read out loud, and then a message (discourse) was preached, songs were sung, and people prayed together. Then, an offering was taken, part of which was used to help those who were sick, as well as for widows and orphans, and all those that were in need (First Apology, 67).
- AD 185-254 - Origen Adamantius, a theologian and scholar, made over 18,000 references to the books in the NT.
THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE
The word ‘Canon’ is used to describe the divinely inspired books in the Bible. The Canon was a process conducted first by Jewish Rabbis and scholars and later by early Christians. This complete list of books is called the ‘Canon,’ which comes from the root word ‘reed’ that was used as a measuring rod, which came to mean ‘standard.’ As applied to Scripture, ‘Canon’ means an officially accepted list of books after a few hundred years of reflection by church leaders.
A book of Scripture belonged in the Canon from the moment God inspired its writing. Putting together the New Testament Canon included the process of the recognition and collection that began in the first centuries of the Christian church.
Historical evidence supports the theory that the Hebrew Canon was established well before the late first century AD, though more likely as early as the fourth century BC, because the Jews were convinced that the voice of God had ceased to speak directly through prophetic voices. Therefore, no word from God meant no new Word of God. Jesus often referred to the Old Testament, and there is no evidence that He found fault with the canonicity of any Old Testament book.
The first full Canon was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in AD 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John. In AD 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with one book of the Apocrypha) and 26 books of the New Testament (everything but Revelation) were canonical and to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (AD 393) and the Council of Carthage (AD 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.
In actuality, no early church council decided on the Canon because it was God alone who determined which books belonged in the Bible. The long human process of collecting the books of the Bible was flawed because sinful fallen men are full of ignorance and stubbornness, which are parts of the sin nature, so the Holy Spirit brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired.
It was because of the rise of heretical movements that selected their Scriptures, the church needed to know which books should be revered, read in church services, and applied to life as their source of authority. By the end of the fourth century, in 397 A.D., the orthodox Canon was definitively settled, accepted, and established at the Council of Carthage, and it was upheld at the Council of Trent in 1545. It should be noted sgain that the church didn’t develop the ‘Canon,’ God did by inspiring its writing and supervising each book’s preservation. The church recognized the ‘Canon’ by experience and mutual agreement.
Based on the writings of early Church Fathers about biblical and church history, there are at least five principle characteristics called the Laws of Canonicity that guided the recognition and collection of authentic and divinely inspired books.
1. Was the book written by a prophet of God? If a spokesman of God wrote it, then it was the Word of God.
2. Was the book confirmed by acts of God? Miracles are what separates true Prophets from false ones. Examples of true prophets were Moses, Elijah, John, and Jesus. Miracles are supernatural acts of God that confirm His Word given through a Prophet to the people of God. They are signs that substantiate God’s message.
3. Did its message tell the truth about God? Church fathers essentially used the guiding principle of “If in doubt, throw it out.”
4. Does it come with the power of God? The early (and present) church leaders believed the Word of God was alive, active, and a transforming force for edification and evangelism. If the message of a book/writing did not have the power to change a person, then it was clear that God was not behind its message.
5. Was it accepted by the people of God? When a book/writing was readily received, collected, read, and used by the people of God, it was regarded as canonical.
It was primarily the dramatic increase of heretical movements that church councils played a role in the actual formation of the New Testament Canon because they recognized and acknowledged the inspiration and self-authenticating authority of the 27 New Testament books and limited it to those books.
Sixty-Six Books
The Bible is most often considered one book, yet it is a collection of sixty-six books that are the standard of truth by which all other truths are to be judged in the Christian life. The 39 books of the Old Testament form the Bible of Judaism.
The early Christian church followed the practice of Jesus and regarded the Old Testament as authoritative (Matthew 5:17–19; 21:42; 22:29; Mark 10:6–9; 12:29–31). Along with the Old Testament, the church esteemed the words of Jesus with equal authority (1 Corinthians 9:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:15).
The Christian Bible adds the additional 27 books of the New Testament. This complete list of books was found acceptable because the church deemed them to be divinely inspired books.
The Catholic Bible includes 14 books that are not considered canonical, known as the Apocrypha (Those hidden away). They were included in the Septuagint (the primary translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek) and the Latin Vulgate (Jerome’s 4th-century Bible translation that became the Catholic Church’s official version in 1546). Jesus and the New Testament writers never quoted from the Apocrypha.
The Apocryphal New Testament books, such as the Gospels of Thomas and Judas, were not added to the Canon because they promote a Gnostic (“inward knowing) heretical form of theology and were writings of unknown authorship or doubtful origin and were incompatible with the established First Century writers of the New Testament.
SOLA SCRIPTURA
Sola Scriptura means that God's Word, the Bible, is solely authoritative for the faith and practice of Christianity because it is complete and trustworthy. The Roman Catholic is strongly against the principles of Sola Scriptura even though they are strongly indicated in the Bible and were used by the early church for hundreds of years. By the early 1500s, there were church schisms over unbiblical, extra-biblical, anti-biblical doctrines, and heresies that were contradictory to the Bible. They included such things as transubstantiation, prayer to Mary and the saints, the immaculate conception, indulgences, and papal authority arising in the church (Acts 17:11; 1 Corinthians 4:6).
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV).
Sola Scriptura does not nullify the concept of fallen man-made church traditions even though they are not superior in authority to the Bible and have resulted in contradictory practices in numerous churches (See Mark 7:6-9). Sola Scriptura gives the solid foundation on which to base traditions because they play an essential role in clarifying and organizing Christian practices. Traditions are valid only when they conform with Scripture.
Traditions that contradict the Bible are not of God and are not a valid aspect of the Christian faith. The Word of God is the ultimate and only infallible authority. It must be studied and prioritized to become a well-trained Disciple of Jesus rather than the esoteric ramblings of fallen humans. Sola Scriptura is the only basis for faith and practice because it is the only way to avoid personal confirmation bias and opinion from taking authority over what the Bible says.
"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,c a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV - also 4:2)
A. The Sufficiency and Authority of Scripture
1. The Bible is the authoritative source for the proclamation of the church and the norm by which that proclamation is tested. It cannot be changed by any additions, subtractions, or modifications offered by anyone, no matter what position or authority they claim to hold. Once a person attempts to conflate various verses, supplement, supersede, distort, or subtract from the Bible, they enter into heresy.
2. The Bible is the absolute perfect revelation of Jesus Christ and the only infallible, inerrant, inspired source of knowledge about Him and the only reliable source to hear His voice.
3. Everything in the Cosmos is sustained by God’s Word.
"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." (Hebrews 1:1-4 ESV)
The writers of the New Testament lived in poverty and suffered tremendous persecution by the two most influential cultures of the day. They willingly endured political disgrace, beatings, stoning, imprisonment, and execution about the claims of Jesus and what He did while boldly insisting to their last dying breath that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead.
4. The writers fully believed that they were recording the very inspired words (Scriptures) of God.
5. The vast majority of New Testament books were written somewhere from AD 50-80.
There were numerous eyewitnesses, and there is no record of anyone alive at the time questioning their accuracy. There were indeed many activities and sayings of Jesus that were not recorded in Scripture. However, the letters and writings that were chosen to be included in the New Testament were required to meet three significant points of criteria.
First, the author had to be an eyewitness to the events they wrote of or directly taught about them by the Apostles.
Second, the writings had to be consistent with church practice and tradition.
Third, each piece of writing had to be already used by the church for teaching and accepted as the divine Word of God (See 2 Timothy 3:14-17).
6. Because the Bible is already inspired, it does not need any fresh revelation to be relevant (John 14:26, 16:12-13).
Dreams, visitations, or prophetic words are not reliable. Only the written Word of God is. Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father is God. All three are ONE. Their Word can be trusted, and it does not need extra-biblical help to be interpreted. The Bible only needs the Bible to do that.
7. The Bible says that "no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of any personal or private or special interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20 NIV).
It must not be used as only a source of inspiration for anecdotal stories in 'feel good' messages or consulted and used merely to support an idea or pet belief. It is the ultimate authority for the Christian and must point directly to the character and work of the Triune God. The Bible warns that there will be ignorant, uneducated, and unstable people who will try and distort the Scriptures by bringing in meaning that forces them to conform to their opinions, thoughts, ideas, and agendas (2 Peter 3:16).
Modern translations and paraphrases of the Scriptures have changed God's Word in such a way that it has watered down the message. There are even some translations that have led people to the belief that Jesus is merely a "son" of God, inferring that He is God's offspring.
8. There is no need to seek God in any other place, including in the traditions of men.
9. The Bible alone is the foundation and center of all teaching and preaching in the life and worship of the Church and within the daily lives of every Christian through reading, study, and sincere contemplation.
Christians need to be continually taught how to become a true Berean and learn how to understand what is written clearly (Acts 17:11). The Bereans were open-minded Jews living in Thessalonica who were willing and eager to examine the Scriptures to see if what the preacher (Apostle Paul) was saying was faithful and aligned with Scripture. They must be encouraged each week from the pulpit to daily read, search, and study the Bible rather than rely on anecdotal stories, testimonials, and extra-biblical sources or expect a fresh direct revelation, dreams, and supernatural words of knowledge or personal prophecies.
Every Born-Again Christian should be hungry for more of Jesus and less of themselves and not have aberrant desire or compulsion to experience something "fresh" from Heaven to "feel" filled with the Holy Spirit. They have already been given "fullness" in Christ.
The Bible alone points us to what God has revealed because He proves Himself to be dependable, always speaks the truth, and never changes His mind or contradicts Himself. The only way to know for sure what God expects of us is to stay faithful to what He has revealed in the Bible alone.
APOSTLES AND PASTOR-TEACHERS
Jesus dwells in every Born-Again Christian, and they have complete access to the fullness of God. He is as He has always been, and as He will always be (See Hebrews 13:8). The supernatural gifts and governmental authority have been given to every Christian to edify and perfect them as needed at any given moment in time. It is up to the individual Disciple to appropriate the gift(s) as the Holy Spirit directs.
Filling the role or ministry duties of an apostle and being in the official office of an Apostle are very different things. The underlying meaning of the word 'apostle' (Gk: ‘apostolos’) is one sent on a mission as an authoritative delegate. Anyone who has served as a church planter, missionary, or proclaimed the Gospel has fulfilled the equipping ministry spiritual gift of an apostle. However, that does not make them an Apostle like the 12 Jesus personally chose.
A person would be hard-pressed not to find the vast majority of Bible scholars throughout history have taught that the office of Apostle was used to build the initial foundation (Gk: themelios: the beginning substruction of a building, wall, or city) of the Church, are on-going. The foundation of a building project is laid only once and not continuously. The Church built its foundation on the "faith which was ONCE and for all delivered to the saints." We are to "remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 1:3,17 NIV – emphasis mine, see also 2 Peter 3:2).
In the New Testament, God, the Father, spoke to God, the Son, Jesus, who spoke to the Apostles who were then moved by God, the Holy Spirit, to speak and write down what they were told, which became the New Testament, and is precisely what God intended to use to complete the building of the final foundation (a noun, not an adjective) of the Church, 'Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone" (2 Peter 1:19-21; Ephesians 2:20; Acts 2:42), which is why the Bible alone is "breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). The new life in Christ has been firmly built on the rock-solid foundation of Jesus and cannot be destroyed by the storms of circumstances (Matthew 7:24-27).
The teaching that there are modern-day Apostles is not new to church history. Many protestant fringe groups have attempted to restore the office, including the Montanists (second century), the Irvingites (the 1830s), and the Apostolic Church (early 1900s). The modern so-called Five-Fold Ministry morphed out of the Latter Rain Movement, which started around 1910, along with the Manifested Sons of God / Joel's Army, Kingdom Now, Word of Faith, Dominionism, the 7-Mountain Mandate, the New Apostolic Reformation, and its latest iteration, the heterodox Apostolic-Prophetic movement.
The name/term for the movement was conjured up by C. Peter Wagner, a self-appointed apostolic 'general,' to describe this loose, informal network of an unadvertised governmental structure that seeks to establish a fourth house within the Church (distinct from Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodox Christianity) that will take dominion of the Earth, under the authority of new apostles and prophets, because God initially gave it to humanity but lost it at the fall.
The restored offices of the Apostle (the highest office) are purported to govern the Church because they have the God-given authority to receive new extra-biblical divine revelation and are commissioned to instruct their followers on how to respond and implement it appropriately, which supposedly started happening in the 1980s. Then the '2nd apostolic age' began in 2001, according to Wagner, who explained how he came up with the name in the book Churchquake!: How the New Apostolic Reformation Is Shaking Up the Church As We Know It (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1999), 34-37.
The teaching of the restored office of Apostle is built upon a false premise (see Ephesians 4:11-16). It correctly reads in Greek as a FOUR-fold ministry, and not FIVE-fold, because the words' pastor' and 'teacher' are separated by the Greek word 'kai," which is a conjunctive (meaning even as, even so, also), and links the words "pastor/shepherd/bishop" and "teachers" as a single ongoing office.
The official offices of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Teaching-Pastor were already given - "gave (Gk: 'didomi' – a demonstrated pronoun already granted and bestowed) some (Gk: 'tous' = men – to make a partition or distribute into), on the one hand, as Apostles…" by Jesus to equip the saints (Ephesians 4:7).
Continued in PART 2
