P2: The Canon

You may not know what I mean by the canon of scripture, that is something that I cannot directly reference in scripture, but, nonetheless very important. The English word canon, in this case, comes from the Greek κανών kanōn, meaning “rule” or “measuring stick”. The canon in the way I am seeing it is the general concepts and flow of scripture. You can see Christ in every one of the 66 books, likewise there are many concepts, like the character of God, the earth, heaven and hell, angels and demons, any many more that are repeated or key elements throughout scripture.

Since we established the Bible as being complete and whole, everything lines up start to finish. You cannot hen pick a verse from scripture and give it a meaning unless you can justify that same meaning throughout scripture. Unlike any other writing, it has no contradictions throughout all the twists and turns and complicated passages, one of the justifications that God wrote it. To have a book that spans that many years and authors, and yet the concepts, character, and story fit so perfectly together there is no way a human could of wrote it. That also means you cannot redefine it. If you struggle with a passage and decide that it cannot mean what it says, and make up a explanation, you will then also have to make it fit in the whole of the canon, both in the subject and as a whole. If you cannot, then either as I explained in the authority of Scripture, you accept it by faith or go with the canon that lines up with the whole of scripture knowing there must be a perspective you are not seeing. As I mentioned before, Scripture trumps experience, I have leaned in my own life that you cannot make a experience override Scripture, Scripture always trumps experience and understanding.

The foundation of Scripture rests on this, the Authority of Scripture and the Canon of its contents. Along with that is context, as many people take verses out of context, this also takes it out of the canon. Just like someone with good editing skills can make YouTube videos piecing together someone’s teaching making it sound they are teaching something incorrect, whereas if you actually would watch the teaching straight through you would see they where meaning something else and they are actually correct. I have seen that more than once, I never pay attention to the “conspiracy” or “false teacher” videos unless I can watch or listen to the actual message, so many people get hung up on a phrase they tune out of the context it was in and completely miss the point.

That is the reason you always validate Scripture with Scripture, and I cannot justify basing a entire theology on one verse or phrase, or even word. If God did not make it clear in His Word, then it’s probably not as much of a issue than what it needs to be. God always repeats what is most important, and only touches things that are not so important. Now for me, and this is more of my opinion, I do not believe God has kept anything hidden, Through the Holy Spirit what we need to know has been made plain. Even the Greek that was used to write the New Testament is basic, common Greek. It was expected to be read by common people, not by the educated. I do not believe God is hiding anything or the Bible is a secret code book, he reveals to His followers what we need to know now, and will reveal all when we get to see Him face to face. I do not look for the hidden meanings, I am looking for the obvious ones.


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