Apostolic Authority and The Bible (Part 4)
Apostolic Authority and The Bible Part 4, with Dr. Matt Cawthorn, discusses the Protestant doctrine of "Sola Scriptura" as something we just accept without really delving into what this means for us today and all of its ramifications.
How can we really know for certain which books belong in the Bible. Certain books of the New Testament, such as the synoptic gospels, can be shown to be reliable historical accounts of Jesus’ life. However, there were a number of New Testament books (e.g., Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation) whose very authorship and canonical status were debated in the early Church.
In time, over the course of several centuries, the Church (not the Pentecostal church, or the Baptist church, or the other churches that are more recent on the church timeline,) THE CHURCH decided in their favor and they were included in the canon of inspired books.
We are two thousand years removed from their writings. How in the world could we know if they should be included? How could we even have the possibility of proving these works were genuinely apostolic? The internal evidence of the Bible does not tell us which books are inspired.
These are questions that Dr. Cawthorn answers in Apostolic Authority and The Bible Part 4.