Fracas: The Word

How does a irenic, conciliatory guy like me get into so many fracases, especially over at Living Lutheran? The latest is over the Bible. How can we disagree about God's Word! Well, let me tell you:

Many people subscribe to the popular, but inaccurate, idea that the Church created the New Testament (NT) in the 4th century. They believe, as I was once misled to believe, that there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of Christan writings being used by the church prior to that time and that the Church finally (and arbitrarily) on its own authority said what was and what was not included in the canon of the NT circa 325 A.D. No so! In fact, even a cursory survey of the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers shows that all the catholic Christian churches in the first three centuries used more or less the same 27 books, i.e., those that were eventually canonized, with only minor and insignificant exceptions. The plethora of gnostic writings (such as the supposed Gospel of Judas) that receive an inordinate amount of attention today, were never widely used by the early mainstream Christian Churches. The Church did not define the canon for about its first 3o0 years because it did not need to. Led by the Holy Spirit, Christians already knew what was authoritative and apostolic, and what was not. It was not until Marcion, a gnostic, tried to force his canon on the Church that the Church found it necessary to set and close the NT canon. Many people today want to teach, "The Bible did not form the church; the church formed the Bible," but, like all revisionist theology, that comes with a not-so-hidden "hidden agenda." The scheme is to take away the objective authority of scripture and invest power instead in the subjective gatherings of Christians. Their thinking seems to be, "If 51% of Christians in a given assembly vote for it; it must be the Word of God." Hence, what the Bible means in California it might not mean in Bangkok. What it meant to Luther it might not mean to you, and probably won't mean to your grandchildren. Hardly sees like the Word of a God who is unchanged and unchanging!