WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.600 Then you don't want to be Mormon. But anyway, 00:00:01.720 --> 00:00:06.960 the point is, so we looked at some... She said 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:10.839 they call us crazy. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes they 00:00:10.839 --> 00:00:12.699 do. Actually, most Mormons probably would not 00:00:12.699 --> 00:00:14.519 call us crazy. They would just say that we don't 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:16.850 have the full picture. They say, well, you just 00:00:16.850 --> 00:00:19.089 need to know these other things. You're not buying 00:00:19.089 --> 00:00:20.449 into the rest of it. Because they believe in 00:00:20.449 --> 00:00:21.910 the Old Testament and the New Testament. They 00:00:21.910 --> 00:00:23.969 just also believe in some additional stuff that 00:00:23.969 --> 00:00:26.850 has been added, right? And then where the two 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:28.870 contradict, they take the additional stuff over 00:00:28.870 --> 00:00:30.949 the Bible, and that's the problem. We're going 00:00:30.949 --> 00:00:33.030 to see an example of that in a minute. But anyway, 00:00:33.170 --> 00:00:35.450 so the point is, some things claim to be Christian 00:00:35.450 --> 00:00:37.670 and are not, so don't buy into it if it's a lie, 00:00:37.810 --> 00:00:39.590 right? If it's not right, don't buy into it. 00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:43.009 And that would be true of Islam, too. So some 00:00:43.009 --> 00:00:46.929 things like militant or radical Islam is actually 00:00:46.929 --> 00:00:49.049 kind of more the traditional Islam. If you go 00:00:49.049 --> 00:00:50.990 back in the Quran, for example, look at it. That's 00:00:50.990 --> 00:00:54.409 militant or radical Islam. The Quran calls all 00:00:54.409 --> 00:00:57.270 Islamic believers to destroy all non -Islamic 00:00:57.270 --> 00:00:58.950 believers, basically. Either you convert to Islam 00:00:58.950 --> 00:01:01.810 or die. That's what the Quran calls for. But 00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:04.510 then an adaptation of that is much more peaceful. 00:01:04.790 --> 00:01:06.870 So there's a Muslim people that is much more 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:10.030 peaceful than that. They don't follow those directions. 00:01:10.409 --> 00:01:12.390 At least they say they don't. And they don't 00:01:12.390 --> 00:01:16.739 go around killing people. But then... radical 00:01:16.739 --> 00:01:21.760 Islam harvests people from regular Islam than 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:23.159 to become radical because they're like, well, 00:01:23.219 --> 00:01:25.879 that is what it says. It's like if the Bible 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:29.620 says thou shalt not bear false witness, and in 00:01:29.620 --> 00:01:31.439 our church we were telling everybody, well, it's 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:33.659 okay, you can bear false witness, it's okay. 00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:35.859 Well, somebody would probably come along and 00:01:35.859 --> 00:01:37.579 say, well, no, it's not okay, it says it right 00:01:37.579 --> 00:01:39.519 there. Well, it's the same way in Islam. They 00:01:39.519 --> 00:01:41.200 look at that and they say it says it right there 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:43.879 that we should be killing non -Christians. So 00:01:43.879 --> 00:01:46.359 therefore, I mean, non -Islam. So therefore, 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:48.340 we should be killing non -Islam, and then they'll 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:50.540 leave regular Islam and go become radicalized. 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:53.060 So there's, in every faith, there's always people 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:54.719 that are kind of splinter groups, and that's 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:57.079 true with Christianity, too. The two largest 00:01:57.079 --> 00:01:59.219 splinter, three largest splinter groups of Christianity 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:02.180 are Catholicism, which is debatably a Christian 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:04.819 faith. Okay, so people say it's Christian, and 00:02:04.819 --> 00:02:06.560 the government recognizes it's Christian, but 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:09.979 it's debatably Christian. And then Mormonism. 00:02:10.379 --> 00:02:13.159 and Jehovah's Witness. None of those things are 00:02:13.159 --> 00:02:15.819 truly, purely what the Bible teaches, right? 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:17.620 They've got other stuff that they've added in 00:02:17.620 --> 00:02:20.539 to make it the way that they want it. So that's 00:02:20.539 --> 00:02:23.639 a problem. But we're not worried about what the 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:25.039 problems are at the moment. We're worried about 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:26.599 what is right. So what we're going to do is we're 00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:28.400 going to look at those three monotheistic religions 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:30.379 and try to figure out which one is correct. Because 00:02:30.379 --> 00:02:33.300 if you can get somebody to... to that first part, 00:02:33.379 --> 00:02:35.460 come up with the 10 traits of God, and then you 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:37.259 take them through, well, you say you're agnostic, 00:02:37.300 --> 00:02:38.460 but that doesn't really work because of this. 00:02:38.500 --> 00:02:39.840 You say you're atheist, that doesn't really work 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:42.280 because of this. You're pantheistic, well, that 00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:43.759 doesn't really work because of this. You're going 00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:45.500 to get down to monotheistic, then they have to 00:02:45.500 --> 00:02:49.719 make a choice between Islam, being a Jewish person, 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:55.180 or being a Christian, okay? And so the dividing 00:02:55.180 --> 00:02:57.699 factor is the New Testament, and that's why we're 00:02:57.699 --> 00:02:59.219 going to talk about the New Testament. If the 00:02:59.219 --> 00:03:01.500 New Testament is accurate, only Christianity 00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:04.479 can be accurate. The other two would be ruled 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:10.620 out. Because Islam says that Christians do not 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:13.819 have a proper understanding of the biblical teaching. 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:18.199 So Islam rules out the New Testament. Yeah, they 00:03:18.199 --> 00:03:22.039 recognize him as a prophet like Muhammad. And 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:25.139 they would say maybe even that he was divine. 00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:29.699 But they also say that he was that, like, for 00:03:29.699 --> 00:03:31.060 example, I know it's going to sound weird, but 00:03:31.060 --> 00:03:33.379 it's what they believe. Mainline Islam believes 00:03:33.379 --> 00:03:36.599 that while he was on the cross, that God moved 00:03:36.599 --> 00:03:41.080 the soul of Jesus out of his body and moved the 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:43.580 soul of Judas into his body so that it was Judas 00:03:43.580 --> 00:03:45.580 who was crucified on a cross in Jesus' body. 00:03:47.180 --> 00:03:49.620 So there's nothing like that in the scripture, 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:53.419 but that's what they teach. So anyway, the point 00:03:53.419 --> 00:03:56.719 is they had some things that... If the New Testament 00:03:56.719 --> 00:04:00.139 is accurate, then Christianity is right, and 00:04:00.139 --> 00:04:02.620 the other two are wrong, because Jews don't accept 00:04:02.620 --> 00:04:06.539 the New Testament, and Islam says the New Testament 00:04:06.539 --> 00:04:09.639 is wrong. So what we're starting to do today 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:13.419 is look at, not from within the Bible yet, we'll 00:04:13.419 --> 00:04:16.579 get there, but from outside, how can we know 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:18.480 that the New Testament is accurate? So that's 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:20.899 what we're going to talk about. So if you look 00:04:20.899 --> 00:04:24.709 at the top of your page, it says Carthage. It 00:04:24.709 --> 00:04:28.230 says 393 and 397. So those are ADs. And you can 00:04:28.230 --> 00:04:31.029 take your little pen and you can write AD after 00:04:31.029 --> 00:04:33.389 it to remind yourself. So does anybody know what 00:04:33.389 --> 00:04:37.009 AD means? It's being replaced or they're trying 00:04:37.009 --> 00:04:40.649 to replace it. So I'll give you a hint. What 00:04:40.649 --> 00:04:45.509 is the actual Latin? Anno Dominus? Dominus? Whatever. 00:04:45.750 --> 00:04:48.709 Anyway. Yeah. And it means in the day of our 00:04:48.709 --> 00:04:54.540 Lord. Okay. So this is after Jesus' birth. Originally, 00:04:54.579 --> 00:04:56.420 the calendar was calculated that Jesus' birth 00:04:56.420 --> 00:05:00.879 was in 0 B .C. slash A .D. That's what they calculated. 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:03.079 They later figured out they got it a little bit 00:05:03.079 --> 00:05:08.199 wrong, so that is not exactly right. But the 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:11.519 point is, so 393 years after the birth of Jesus. 00:05:11.660 --> 00:05:14.620 So, first question, was Jesus alive at that time? 00:05:18.350 --> 00:05:20.930 The answer is no. People do not live 393 years 00:05:20.930 --> 00:05:24.689 in recent history. So he was not alive. He was 00:05:24.689 --> 00:05:29.610 crucified at the age of between 30 and 35. But 00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:33.029 then he was born. He came back to life. He was 00:05:33.029 --> 00:05:34.670 resurrected on the third day, so he's alive, 00:05:34.829 --> 00:05:37.990 but he's in heaven alive and present with believers. 00:05:38.970 --> 00:05:42.310 Were any of the disciples alive at this time? 00:05:43.009 --> 00:05:47.089 No. So again, people don't live 393 years anymore. 00:05:47.389 --> 00:05:49.949 There was a time way back before Noah's Ark when 00:05:49.949 --> 00:05:54.850 that happened, but it doesn't happen now. So 00:05:54.850 --> 00:05:59.250 in 393 and 397 AD, the canon was essentially, 00:05:59.370 --> 00:06:01.509 as we have it, the 27 books of the New Testament 00:06:01.509 --> 00:06:05.769 were kind of named, sealed, recognized. So we're 00:06:05.769 --> 00:06:07.449 going to be looking at the process of how that 00:06:07.449 --> 00:06:11.720 happened. So when they looked at that in 393 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:14.420 and 397 AD, when they met in Carthage, which 00:06:14.420 --> 00:06:16.540 is a city, and Hippo, which is another city, 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:19.060 when they met, they had some criteria. You see 00:06:19.060 --> 00:06:21.399 the dashes right there? Those are the criteria 00:06:21.399 --> 00:06:24.620 that they used, except for the last one, which 00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:28.220 is an explanation. So the first one says apostolic 00:06:28.220 --> 00:06:32.720 age. So it's apostolic origin from the apostolic 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:39.740 age. What's an apostle? What is an apostle? Okay, 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:41.819 nope, that's not the actual definition of an 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:43.819 apostle. That's more like the definition of disciple. 00:06:44.379 --> 00:06:46.240 And the disciples, the apostles were disciples 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:49.100 too. Or is that the one where they actually were 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:51.779 with Jesus? Yeah, so that's what they're looking 00:06:51.779 --> 00:06:54.060 for, people who had firsthand knowledge of Jesus' 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:55.779 experience. To be an apostle, that was one of 00:06:55.779 --> 00:06:58.019 the things you had to have. The actual word apostle 00:06:58.019 --> 00:07:00.819 means, this is for candy later, I guarantee you 00:07:00.819 --> 00:07:02.160 I'll ask this question later, so you might want 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:03.980 to make a note. Are you with me, Natalie? Okay. 00:07:04.259 --> 00:07:07.639 An apostle means a sent one. It's a person sent 00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:13.600 by God. Okay, so the apostolic age was that time 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:16.519 at which they were alive, right? Does anybody 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:20.040 know approximately when John died? John, the 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:22.319 disciple, he was the last one. Want to take a 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:33.540 stab at it? No. No. So he was killed in the AD 00:07:33.540 --> 00:07:39.480 90s. AD, Anno Domini, 90s. So he lived almost 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:41.480 to the second century, but he didn't make it. 00:07:43.420 --> 00:07:47.600 So all of the books then that they were allowing 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:49.120 as the New Testament would have had to have been 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:53.319 written whenever he died, mid -90s, whatever 00:07:53.319 --> 00:07:55.399 that was. Otherwise they wouldn't be from the 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:57.800 apostolic age. So anything that was written after 00:07:57.800 --> 00:07:59.360 that, they would have ruled out, no matter how 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:01.839 good it was. If there wasn't an apostle alive 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:03.459 when it was written, they would rule it out. 00:08:05.139 --> 00:08:07.199 And then you see the next dash says, had to have 00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:10.100 been generally accepted by the church and in 00:08:10.100 --> 00:08:13.560 continuous use in worship services. So the church 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:16.300 had expanded by this time to thousands of churches 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:19.879 all across the Middle East, into Turkey, Ethiopia, 00:08:20.459 --> 00:08:23.000 right? All over the place, there were churches. 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:26.699 And the church as a whole had to recognize the 00:08:26.699 --> 00:08:29.980 book in question, not just a little pocket. Three 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:31.959 or four churches in one city doing it, that wouldn't 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:34.259 have been enough. or even a hundred churches 00:08:34.259 --> 00:08:36.200 in one small country, that would not have been 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.139 enough. It had to have been recognized all over, 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:41.159 and the churches generally accepting it and using 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:45.860 it in worship services. Which meant that in order 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:47.740 for that to be true, the teaching of the books 00:08:47.740 --> 00:08:50.779 had to hold together. In other words, one couldn't 00:08:50.779 --> 00:08:52.860 contradict another, or they'd question it. They'd 00:08:52.860 --> 00:08:55.299 be like, why do we have this one? This one contradicts 00:08:55.299 --> 00:08:58.600 the other one. And then also they had to agree 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:01.580 with the teachings of Scripture. And what are 00:09:01.580 --> 00:09:04.320 the teachings of Scripture at this point in time? 00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:09.460 What Scripture did they have? The Old Testament, 00:09:09.659 --> 00:09:11.740 right? So everything in the New Testament had 00:09:11.740 --> 00:09:13.980 to line up with the Old Testament in order to 00:09:13.980 --> 00:09:15.980 make it work. Again, they would have tossed it 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:19.360 out. So, so far we've got, had to have been written 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:21.519 during the life of John. During that age, he 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:24.620 was the last disciple to die. It also had to 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:26.820 have been accepted by the church and in continuous 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:30.789 use in the churches throughout. And then, It 00:09:30.789 --> 00:09:33.490 had to make sense with each other and agree to 00:09:33.490 --> 00:09:36.370 the Old Testament. And then lastly, they were 00:09:36.370 --> 00:09:38.570 looking for, this one's a little harder, they 00:09:38.570 --> 00:09:41.769 were looking for it to be inspired by God. So 00:09:41.769 --> 00:09:45.309 the books had to display self -evidencing quality. 00:09:45.690 --> 00:09:47.230 So in other words, in the book, you should be 00:09:47.230 --> 00:09:52.190 able to see the words of God. And the power to 00:09:52.190 --> 00:09:55.840 transform lives. So if you've ever been reading 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:58.100 in the New Testament and you saw, wow, that really 00:09:58.100 --> 00:10:00.059 speaks to me, then you know what they're talking 00:10:00.059 --> 00:10:02.820 about, right? And so if you get into a book like 00:10:02.820 --> 00:10:04.620 Jude, for example, and you would read that, it's 00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:06.759 very short, just a couple of paragraphs basically, 00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:08.639 and you go like, this is really not changing 00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:10.440 my life. I don't see how this is going to change. 00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:11.700 Then they would not have called that scripture, 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:15.340 okay? So that's what they were looking for. It's 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:18.720 harder because somebody might think, one person 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:20.299 might think it seems inspired, another person 00:10:20.299 --> 00:10:21.919 might think it not, and they had to sort that 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:26.350 out. So whatever the belief for inspiration was, 00:10:26.629 --> 00:10:29.950 whatever, why ever they wanted that, all of the 00:10:29.950 --> 00:10:33.730 books that were named were said to have it. So 00:10:33.730 --> 00:10:35.049 we're going to see some by the time we're done. 00:10:35.110 --> 00:10:37.049 We're going to look at a few books that didn't 00:10:37.049 --> 00:10:39.049 get the rubber stamp. They didn't get agreed 00:10:39.049 --> 00:10:41.610 to. And the main reason was because it didn't 00:10:41.610 --> 00:10:44.759 seem like they were from God. But again, these 00:10:44.759 --> 00:10:47.840 books were written while John was still alive. 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:49.980 So if the books were written while John was still 00:10:49.980 --> 00:10:52.559 alive and then put into use, so you know who 00:10:52.559 --> 00:10:55.000 John was, right? He's one of the sons of thunder. 00:10:55.419 --> 00:10:59.100 And so he would have said, hold up now. This 00:10:59.100 --> 00:11:02.399 is going a way that I don't agree with. This 00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:05.259 is not what Jesus taught while he was alive. 00:11:05.980 --> 00:11:09.399 So then these books that met those criteria would 00:11:09.399 --> 00:11:14.730 form the canon. Haley, do you know why they were 00:11:14.730 --> 00:11:19.309 called the canon? Okay, it says the word means 00:11:19.309 --> 00:11:23.710 measure or rule because all of the other books 00:11:23.710 --> 00:11:26.210 or all other writings, everything would be measured 00:11:26.210 --> 00:11:30.190 by that. So the 27 books that we have, if somebody 00:11:30.190 --> 00:11:32.049 came to you tomorrow and gave you a book and 00:11:32.049 --> 00:11:34.870 it was called the Gospel of Thomas and they said, 00:11:34.909 --> 00:11:37.629 this is just as good as the Bible. Would you 00:11:37.629 --> 00:11:40.549 start reading it and adding it in and believing 00:11:40.549 --> 00:11:43.850 it just like God's word? You shouldn't. That 00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:48.309 would be a mistake, right? And then if you picked 00:11:48.309 --> 00:11:51.049 it apart enough, what you'd find is it's not 00:11:51.049 --> 00:11:53.610 from God. It doesn't line up with the other books 00:11:53.610 --> 00:11:56.149 of the New Testament. There's some weird things 00:11:56.149 --> 00:11:58.750 in there, right? But you don't need to do that 00:11:58.750 --> 00:12:00.730 because you have 27 books of the New Testament 00:12:00.730 --> 00:12:03.340 that are already solid. They are the canon. Okay. 00:12:03.620 --> 00:12:05.320 So there's a guy. I'm going to try to pronounce 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:06.620 that guy's name. Mike, you want to try to pronounce 00:12:06.620 --> 00:12:08.820 that guy's name? Oh, where? It starts with a 00:12:08.820 --> 00:12:12.779 capital A right there. Just below these form 00:12:12.779 --> 00:12:14.679 the canon, and then he's got a gap, and then 00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:20.259 it says a. Athenianus. That's not bad. Athenianus. 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.259 Athenianus. There's an S. You're skipping the 00:12:24.259 --> 00:12:29.830 middle S. Athanasius. Yeah, Athanasius. So in 00:12:29.830 --> 00:12:33.970 367 AD, he was the bishop of Alexandria. Does 00:12:33.970 --> 00:12:37.230 anybody know what a bishop is? Like the chess 00:12:37.230 --> 00:12:41.570 piece. Yep, and why was it? And that is correct. 00:12:41.870 --> 00:12:45.490 Okay, and so why is it there in chess? To protect 00:12:45.490 --> 00:12:49.250 the queen. That's interesting, but that's not 00:12:49.250 --> 00:12:51.450 where I was going with that. But anyway, so the 00:12:51.450 --> 00:12:55.009 bishop is like... A leader over multiple churches. 00:12:56.309 --> 00:12:58.669 So it might be their senior church and they planted 00:12:58.669 --> 00:13:02.370 ten other churches, for example, or whatever. 00:13:02.909 --> 00:13:06.210 It is not expressly a biblical position. The 00:13:06.210 --> 00:13:08.409 Bible doesn't command us to have bishops, but 00:13:08.409 --> 00:13:10.009 it does make a lot of sense for organization. 00:13:10.049 --> 00:13:14.970 We don't have bishops, but it would be one who 00:13:14.970 --> 00:13:20.269 had authority over multiple churches. So if New 00:13:20.269 --> 00:13:22.210 Heights planted... New Heights North and New 00:13:22.210 --> 00:13:23.809 Heights South, and they were still running out 00:13:23.809 --> 00:13:25.490 there somewhere or whatever, they might call 00:13:25.490 --> 00:13:26.629 me and say, hey, what do you think about doing 00:13:26.629 --> 00:13:28.049 this? What do you think about that? I might say, 00:13:28.090 --> 00:13:29.389 no, I don't think that's a good idea. Or, yeah, 00:13:29.429 --> 00:13:32.509 I think it's a good idea. But we don't really 00:13:32.509 --> 00:13:35.210 do bishops per se. We do have a Southern Baptist 00:13:35.210 --> 00:13:39.490 who calls himself bishop. So my pope. Say again? 00:13:39.649 --> 00:13:42.590 My pope. Like the pope. Yeah. And so the pope 00:13:42.590 --> 00:13:44.649 rules over the bishops who rule over multiple 00:13:44.649 --> 00:13:46.409 churches. That's how the Catholic Church is set. 00:13:46.549 --> 00:13:49.809 But it doesn't really, it's not biblically commanded 00:13:49.809 --> 00:13:53.019 to be that way. But he was a bishop, meant he 00:13:53.019 --> 00:13:54.879 had a lot of authority over a bunch of different 00:13:54.879 --> 00:13:57.360 churches, and he was in Alexandria, so he was 00:13:57.360 --> 00:13:59.740 the leader of the churches in Alexandria. And 00:13:59.740 --> 00:14:03.460 he made a list of 27 books, and they are exactly 00:14:03.460 --> 00:14:06.820 as we have them right now. So the first time 00:14:06.820 --> 00:14:09.019 we really see the 27 books in the New Testament 00:14:09.019 --> 00:14:13.580 was in 367 AD, 30 years roughly before they met 00:14:13.580 --> 00:14:16.759 to decide for sure. He's also the first person 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:22.750 to ever use the word canon. Then in 400 AD, there 00:14:22.750 --> 00:14:25.669 was a listing made, the canon of the New Testament. 00:14:25.789 --> 00:14:31.570 So when they met in Carthage in 393 and Hippo 00:14:31.570 --> 00:14:37.590 in 397 AD, remember those numbers, right? Later, 00:14:37.610 --> 00:14:41.009 the term canon became common. So they weren't 00:14:41.009 --> 00:14:43.009 saying, we're going to make this the canon per 00:14:43.009 --> 00:14:45.350 se. They were saying, we're going to decide what 00:14:45.350 --> 00:14:48.509 books work and what don't. And then somebody 00:14:48.509 --> 00:14:50.850 coined the idea of calling it the canon, and 00:14:50.850 --> 00:14:55.750 then now it's stuck. There's a guy named Eusebius. 00:14:56.450 --> 00:14:58.990 There's another name for you. Does anybody know 00:14:58.990 --> 00:15:04.149 who Constantine was? Who was Constantine? He 00:15:04.149 --> 00:15:07.210 was a Roman emperor. What did he do that was 00:15:07.210 --> 00:15:11.190 really significant? He built Constantinople. 00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:17.519 Do you know why he built Constantinople? This 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:19.799 sounds maybe, and it might have been his real 00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:20.799 motivation, I don't know his real motivation, 00:15:20.980 --> 00:15:23.460 but he was trying to build a Christian capital 00:15:23.460 --> 00:15:27.179 of the empire. So he had been converted to Christ 00:15:27.179 --> 00:15:30.100 by his own profession. His grandmother, I think 00:15:30.100 --> 00:15:31.980 it was, was Christian, and then he was converted 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:34.259 to Christ, and he said Rome will now be a Christian 00:15:34.259 --> 00:15:38.179 nation. And its capital will be in Constantinople. 00:15:38.299 --> 00:15:40.940 So he built the new capital. Except it didn't 00:15:40.940 --> 00:15:43.929 work. Because after he moved to Constantinople, 00:15:44.009 --> 00:15:45.210 they just said, we're just going to keep Rome 00:15:45.210 --> 00:15:47.690 as our capital. So then it divided the empire, 00:15:47.850 --> 00:15:49.889 basically, is what happened. But Constantinople 00:15:49.889 --> 00:15:52.649 became the seat of Christianity, in a sense. 00:15:53.009 --> 00:15:56.029 And Eusebius lived there. And he started researching 00:15:56.029 --> 00:15:58.289 the history of the books that were being put 00:15:58.289 --> 00:16:00.769 forward as scripture. So Constantine wanted to 00:16:00.769 --> 00:16:03.889 know, what is our real, really, what is the Bible? 00:16:04.049 --> 00:16:05.889 We've got the Old Testament. We know what that 00:16:05.889 --> 00:16:09.809 is. What is the New Testament, right? So he told 00:16:09.809 --> 00:16:11.490 Eusebius, I want you to figure out, look at all 00:16:11.490 --> 00:16:13.690 these books and figure out which ones work and 00:16:13.690 --> 00:16:16.950 which ones don't. So what's interesting is, so 00:16:16.950 --> 00:16:21.210 this is 325 AD, Eusebius had access to many writings 00:16:21.210 --> 00:16:24.649 of the Christian church fathers. So this would 00:16:24.649 --> 00:16:29.269 be like the guys that were the first pastor of 00:16:29.269 --> 00:16:35.000 each church. help start multiple churches in 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.379 an area, that kind of thing. And their writings 00:16:37.379 --> 00:16:40.600 referenced the books of the Bible, the New Testament 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:44.159 books. So Tertullian, for example, which is a 00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:45.820 really famous guy, you can go read some of his 00:16:45.820 --> 00:16:48.159 stuff. It's hard to read, but it's really cool. 00:16:50.139 --> 00:16:53.860 He quoted from 23 of the 27 books of the New 00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:57.399 Testament. So now think like this. You're Eusebius, 00:16:57.440 --> 00:16:58.940 you're going to the library, you're finding all 00:16:58.940 --> 00:17:02.039 these writings, and you know... that Tertullian 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:07.339 is the Christian father of hundreds of churches 00:17:07.339 --> 00:17:08.960 and everybody recognizes him with authority and 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:11.720 you read his writings and he's quoting from 23 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:14.240 of the 27 books of the New Testament, then that 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:17.599 adds credence to those 23 books. Does that make 00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.259 sense? It makes sense that those 23 books are 00:17:20.259 --> 00:17:23.640 solid if that guy who's been around, who met 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:27.779 John, who talked to all these pastors and other 00:17:27.779 --> 00:17:29.799 disciples that lived for a little while longer 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:32.799 and things like that, that he quoted 23 of the 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:36.779 books, that means they probably were solid. In 00:17:36.779 --> 00:17:39.079 fact, the vast majority of the New Testament 00:17:39.079 --> 00:17:41.519 could be reconstructed on the quotes from the 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:44.000 church fathers alone. So, in other words, if 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:46.400 we did not have any copies of the New Testament, 00:17:46.559 --> 00:17:51.200 over probably 60 -70 % of the New Testament could 00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:55.799 still be pieced together from letters and writings 00:17:55.799 --> 00:17:59.319 of the church fathers who were writing while 00:17:59.319 --> 00:18:02.019 John was still alive. Are you following the logic 00:18:02.019 --> 00:18:05.279 now? So that's really solid. That means that 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:07.779 they believed already that these books were solid, 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.480 and they would quote, like it says over there 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:14.299 in the letter to the Corinthians, in the 37th 00:18:14.299 --> 00:18:16.259 verse, because they didn't have chapters back 00:18:16.259 --> 00:18:18.200 then or whatever, or like it says over there 00:18:18.200 --> 00:18:23.269 in the letter, The Acts of the Apostles, and 00:18:23.269 --> 00:18:25.710 they were quoting whole sections of Scripture. 00:18:26.230 --> 00:18:28.869 And so if we lost the New Testament copies, we 00:18:28.869 --> 00:18:30.750 still would have had most of the New Testament, 00:18:30.789 --> 00:18:33.410 even before they decided what worked and what 00:18:33.410 --> 00:18:36.750 didn't. The vast majority of the New Testament 00:18:36.750 --> 00:18:40.130 could be reconstructed. So Eusebius divided the 00:18:40.130 --> 00:18:44.730 books into three categories. I'm sorry, really 00:18:44.730 --> 00:18:47.529 four categories. The canonical, which means the 00:18:47.529 --> 00:18:51.160 ones that are in. The widely spread. which means 00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:53.619 the ones that were accepted all over the world 00:18:53.619 --> 00:18:58.140 at that time. The rejected or spurious, so there's 00:18:58.140 --> 00:19:00.359 like, eh, most people don't think this belongs 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:04.359 in there. And then heretical, which means it's 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:07.200 God -awful. It's Antichrist teaching. Don't have 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.549 anything to do with it, okay? And then this is 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:12.029 the list, but you don't have to memorize this 00:19:12.029 --> 00:19:13.670 or anything, but you might need a candy later. 00:19:13.970 --> 00:19:17.549 Under canonical, the four Gospels, Acts, the 00:19:17.549 --> 00:19:20.009 14 letters of Paul, including Hebrews, which 00:19:20.009 --> 00:19:21.369 is significant because we don't know if Paul 00:19:21.369 --> 00:19:23.910 wrote Hebrews or not, right? So he included it 00:19:23.910 --> 00:19:26.450 as Paul wrote it. 1 John, 1 Peter, and Revelation. 00:19:26.990 --> 00:19:31.289 So those were that early. He said, those I know 00:19:31.289 --> 00:19:35.869 for sure. then James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 00:19:35.869 --> 00:19:38.150 John were widely accepted. So most of the church 00:19:38.150 --> 00:19:41.710 are using those, he would say. And then in the 00:19:41.710 --> 00:19:45.309 Asperius, Acts of Paul, that's not the Acts of 00:19:45.309 --> 00:19:47.130 the Apostles, it's a different book, Acts of 00:19:47.130 --> 00:19:51.690 Paul, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Diodice, 00:19:51.829 --> 00:19:58.089 and the Apocalypse of Peter. So those are books 00:19:58.089 --> 00:20:03.279 that have been around since at least 325. AD, 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:07.759 and he said, no, these don't line up for whatever 00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:13.720 reason. And that's one direction of how things 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:16.700 really got moving to push people to decide what 00:20:16.700 --> 00:20:19.039 the 27 books were. But there was another one. 00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:25.660 In AD 135, Catholicism was based out of Rome. 00:20:26.530 --> 00:20:29.809 And a man named Marcion came to Rome and he made 00:20:29.809 --> 00:20:31.990 a huge gift to the church. He said, I'm a Christian. 00:20:32.069 --> 00:20:33.650 I'm rich. I want to give you a bunch of money. 00:20:34.549 --> 00:20:38.190 He gave them 200 ,000 sesterces, which is like, 00:20:38.269 --> 00:20:42.329 I mean, 10 lifetimes worth of money for them. 00:20:42.869 --> 00:20:44.490 Right? So it's all the money a man can earn in 00:20:44.490 --> 00:20:46.369 10 lifetimes. Huge gift. It'd be like somebody 00:20:46.369 --> 00:20:49.470 making a gift of like 5 billion now. You know, 00:20:49.470 --> 00:20:51.650 it's just like, it's a ridiculous amount. Okay? 00:20:52.150 --> 00:20:55.410 So when he did that, he right away got real popular. 00:20:56.299 --> 00:20:58.720 And everybody thought, man, this guy, Marcion, 00:20:58.779 --> 00:21:02.880 he's awesome. Marcion proceeded to create his 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:06.680 own canon. Ten of Paul's letters he used, ten 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:10.880 of them only, and the Gospel of Luke. But he 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:15.259 edited those ten letters of Paul and the Gospel 00:21:15.259 --> 00:21:17.720 of Luke to exclude any references to the God 00:21:17.720 --> 00:21:22.680 of Judaism. So he would say Jesus' God the Father 00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:26.740 was not the God of the Old Testament. So you 00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:28.759 can see that real problems began to develop. 00:21:29.380 --> 00:21:32.720 So then that pushed the church to say, well, 00:21:32.740 --> 00:21:34.480 we have to know what's right and we have to know 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:35.980 what's wrong because just because some guy gives 00:21:35.980 --> 00:21:39.160 us $5 billion doesn't mean we're going to throw 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:41.380 out all of these teachings that we've been teaching 00:21:41.380 --> 00:21:45.059 for the last 300 years. So it became a real problem. 00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:49.640 So during the second century, most churches possessed 00:21:49.640 --> 00:21:51.920 and acknowledged a canon that included the four 00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:55.440 gospels. The Acts, the 13 letters of Paul, including 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:59.039 Hebrews, 1 Peter, and 1 John. The seven books 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:01.859 still lacked general recognition. Hebrews was 00:22:01.859 --> 00:22:03.920 borderline, so actually Hebrews was not one of 00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:07.799 those 13 books. James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, 00:22:07.980 --> 00:22:10.500 Jude, and Revelation. So most churches everywhere 00:22:10.500 --> 00:22:12.859 were using, but they were excluding those ones. 00:22:13.019 --> 00:22:15.799 Even though there were, like up here at the top 00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:17.440 you see, he included Revelation and Hebrews. 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:21.640 So there was a debate. In about A .D. 180, we're 00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:23.660 almost at the bottom of the page. In about A 00:22:23.660 --> 00:22:26.740 .D. 180, Arrhenius passed a history of the Gospels 00:22:26.740 --> 00:22:29.420 that he had learned from Polycarp, who had in 00:22:29.420 --> 00:22:31.980 turn learned from John. So this was a direct 00:22:31.980 --> 00:22:36.819 source. John taught a man named Polycarp. Apparently, 00:22:36.859 --> 00:22:40.680 what was his name? Polycarp. Right? Like, go 00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:42.940 to the pond and catch two carp? That's Polycarp. 00:22:42.940 --> 00:22:44.819 Or one carp that's actually two carp, like two 00:22:44.819 --> 00:22:49.059 heads? Polycarp. Okay? Anyway, so John taught 00:22:49.059 --> 00:22:56.200 Polycarp, and Polycarp taught Irenaeus, I think 00:22:56.200 --> 00:22:57.599 is actually pronounced the way you see it there. 00:22:58.019 --> 00:23:02.599 And then he passed on the history. I know some 00:23:02.599 --> 00:23:05.039 of this stuff is a little bit tedious, but you 00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:07.240 need to see the pattern of how this goes. So 00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:11.519 this is what he said from the intranet. Mark, 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:13.559 having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote 00:23:13.559 --> 00:23:16.319 down accurately, though not indeed in order, 00:23:16.700 --> 00:23:19.680 whatsoever he remembered of the things said or 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:22.240 done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:25.519 nor followed him. So Mark was not a disciple 00:23:25.519 --> 00:23:28.119 of Jesus, he says. But afterwards, as I said, 00:23:28.180 --> 00:23:31.000 he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:32.900 the needs of his hearers. So Peter was going 00:23:32.900 --> 00:23:35.759 around taking the teachings of Christ and delivering 00:23:35.759 --> 00:23:39.079 them to people as they needed, but with no intention 00:23:39.079 --> 00:23:41.559 of giving a connected account of the Lord's discourse. 00:23:41.859 --> 00:23:45.160 So Peter was not trying to tell everybody everything 00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:47.670 that Jesus did. or connect everything together 00:23:47.670 --> 00:23:53.769 that Jesus did. Peter wasn't doing that. So that 00:23:53.769 --> 00:23:56.430 Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some 00:23:56.430 --> 00:23:58.589 things as he remembered them. So he just wrote 00:23:58.589 --> 00:24:00.410 down everything that Peter was saying, and he 00:24:00.410 --> 00:24:03.049 didn't make any mistakes in doing that, because 00:24:03.049 --> 00:24:06.049 he did it while he was with Peter. Or he was 00:24:06.049 --> 00:24:08.670 careful of one thing, not to omit any of the 00:24:08.670 --> 00:24:10.930 things which he had heard, and not to state any 00:24:10.930 --> 00:24:14.920 of them falsely. So then, Matthew wrote the oracles 00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:17.759 in the Hebrew language and everyone interpreted 00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:25.160 them as he was able. So then later, there's another 00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:27.339 guy who writes down a similar account and his 00:24:27.339 --> 00:24:29.859 facts are a little bit different. And so we still 00:24:29.859 --> 00:24:32.000 debate to this day which one was written first, 00:24:32.099 --> 00:24:34.579 the book of Matthew or the book of Mark. We don't 00:24:34.579 --> 00:24:37.559 know for sure. But what we got from this guy 00:24:37.559 --> 00:24:41.059 who got it from Polycarp, who got it from John, 00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:45.890 right? was that the book of Mark was written 00:24:45.890 --> 00:24:48.410 on the teachings of Peter. Remember who Peter 00:24:48.410 --> 00:24:53.210 was, right? Like Jesus' right -hand man. He made 00:24:53.210 --> 00:24:54.769 the good profession. He's the first one who said, 00:24:54.890 --> 00:24:57.009 you are the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus 00:24:57.009 --> 00:24:58.690 said, upon this rock I shall build my church. 00:24:58.809 --> 00:25:00.990 Not talking about Peter as a rock, but the profession 00:25:00.990 --> 00:25:03.930 of faith. So Peter was the guy. Jesus handed 00:25:03.930 --> 00:25:05.730 him the keys. He became the leader of the church 00:25:05.730 --> 00:25:08.680 in Jerusalem. And then later... He had a guy 00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:11.180 named Mark, and as Peter was teaching, Mark was 00:25:11.180 --> 00:25:13.480 writing down the things that Peter talked about. 00:25:14.519 --> 00:25:18.859 And Peter, the other guy who tells the story, 00:25:18.940 --> 00:25:21.200 says that Peter said, this says this, I'm just 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:22.779 going to read a little snippet of it. And they 00:25:22.779 --> 00:25:24.660 say that Peter, when he had learned through a 00:25:24.660 --> 00:25:26.779 revelation of the Spirit of that which had been 00:25:26.779 --> 00:25:29.980 done, was pleased with the zeal of the men, in 00:25:29.980 --> 00:25:31.920 other words, that they wanted to know more, and 00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:34.279 that the work obtained the sanction of his authority 00:25:34.279 --> 00:25:36.200 for the purpose of being used in the churches. 00:25:36.380 --> 00:25:39.390 So Peter said, yeah. This book is a good summation 00:25:39.390 --> 00:25:41.470 of the teaching that I've been teaching. Take 00:25:41.470 --> 00:25:44.670 this book, which was Mark, and give it to everybody. 00:25:45.410 --> 00:25:48.289 Okay, this letter, stories, whatever, covers 00:25:48.289 --> 00:25:51.210 a pretty good job. All right? So modern scholars 00:25:51.210 --> 00:25:53.690 still think that Mark was written first and then 00:25:53.690 --> 00:25:55.990 Matthew, which does line up with what the other 00:25:55.990 --> 00:25:59.309 guy said. But we don't really know. We don't 00:25:59.309 --> 00:26:03.190 have a copy of Mark in Hebrew. Okay? All right. 00:26:03.230 --> 00:26:09.099 Now we're back on this. Yes, exactly. And I'm 00:26:09.099 --> 00:26:11.819 sure we'll look at that probably in two weeks. 00:26:12.279 --> 00:26:15.960 So now we're down to thinking about why this 00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:19.519 works. We don't have the whole picture, but let's 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:21.279 say you're talking with somebody. Are you with 00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:23.240 me, Natalie? Let's say you're talking with somebody, 00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:25.839 and you're trying to explain how we know that 00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:31.240 the New Testament works. You now know that all 00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:35.420 of the books that were made canonical were written 00:26:35.420 --> 00:26:37.740 in the life while John was still alive. That 00:26:37.740 --> 00:26:40.039 was one of the standards that they used. The 00:26:40.039 --> 00:26:42.119 standard of had to be inspired by God, that's 00:26:42.119 --> 00:26:44.559 a little harder, right? Had to be life -changing. 00:26:44.680 --> 00:26:46.799 Both those things are a little challenging, right? 00:26:47.539 --> 00:26:50.460 But had to be not just a council of people came 00:26:50.460 --> 00:26:52.700 together to decide to do it, but had to be generally 00:26:52.700 --> 00:26:55.519 accepted by all the churches everywhere. Now 00:26:55.519 --> 00:26:57.359 that really resonates with me because I'm telling 00:26:57.359 --> 00:26:59.920 you, it's the church that's in charge. It's not 00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:03.039 the individual. It's not the pastor, right? It's 00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:05.720 the church that's in charge. And when the church 00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:08.859 is really being the church, God does amazing 00:27:08.859 --> 00:27:11.559 things. And when the church just lets the pastor 00:27:11.559 --> 00:27:14.140 do the work or just lets some self -help book 00:27:14.140 --> 00:27:16.400 do the work or things like that, it doesn't really 00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:19.400 work. The church is in charge. So the church 00:27:19.400 --> 00:27:23.380 was already using the books in question by 393 00:27:23.380 --> 00:27:28.099 and 397 AD when they set those lists. So that's 00:27:28.099 --> 00:27:31.759 the first thing. Then another interesting argument 00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:37.299 is... So the book of John is the book that makes 00:27:37.299 --> 00:27:40.119 the most sense. Why do you think of the Gospels? 00:27:40.299 --> 00:27:44.740 What are the four Gospels, Haley? Matthew, Mark, 00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:47.539 Luke, and John. So of those four Gospels, if 00:27:47.539 --> 00:27:50.000 I say John, it makes the most sense that we have 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:52.920 the book of John. Why would I say that? Because 00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:56.740 it's on the page. Yeah, why is it on the page? 00:27:57.380 --> 00:28:01.259 Because John actually walked with Jesus. Right, 00:28:01.299 --> 00:28:04.230 and so did Matthew. But we'll come back to that 00:28:04.230 --> 00:28:07.230 in a second. John was the guy that they described 00:28:07.230 --> 00:28:11.089 as the beloved brother of Jesus. He's the guy 00:28:11.089 --> 00:28:14.650 who laid back on Jesus at the Last Supper. So 00:28:14.650 --> 00:28:17.710 he's the guy. He's right in there, right in the 00:28:17.710 --> 00:28:21.190 thick of it. So a book or a letter, a lengthy 00:28:21.190 --> 00:28:23.569 letter, whatever story that he wrote firsthand 00:28:23.569 --> 00:28:25.849 of what he saw, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't 00:28:25.849 --> 00:28:28.390 it? Who was Matthew? He's the other disciple 00:28:28.390 --> 00:28:31.430 of Jesus who's got a book. Who was he? He was 00:28:31.430 --> 00:28:35.390 a tax collector. a Jewish tax collector. So if 00:28:35.390 --> 00:28:37.990 you're going to write a book talking about Jesus, 00:28:38.289 --> 00:28:43.390 are you going to claim to be a Jewish tax collector? 00:28:45.529 --> 00:28:47.730 Unless you actually are a Jewish tax collector, 00:28:47.890 --> 00:28:49.430 right? You see what I'm saying? So there's no 00:28:49.430 --> 00:28:51.730 reason. Why would they do that? They could have 00:28:51.730 --> 00:28:55.589 picked anybody. Name the book Peter. If it was 00:28:55.589 --> 00:28:57.450 fake, name it Peter. That would make a lot of 00:28:57.450 --> 00:29:00.109 sense. Peter was there. Or James, the brother 00:29:00.109 --> 00:29:02.130 of Jesus. That would make sense because he eventually 00:29:02.130 --> 00:29:03.630 came around to Christ and became the leader of 00:29:03.630 --> 00:29:04.609 the New Testament church. If you're going to 00:29:04.609 --> 00:29:06.970 fake it, the point is you wouldn't pick Matthew. 00:29:07.450 --> 00:29:09.450 See what I'm saying? So that's an argument for 00:29:09.450 --> 00:29:12.769 how we know that that's right. So that leaves 00:29:12.769 --> 00:29:16.730 Matthew and John. What about Mark? We already 00:29:16.730 --> 00:29:18.430 talked about him a little bit. Was he a disciple 00:29:18.430 --> 00:29:23.119 of Jesus? No. He was a disciple of... Peter, 00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:25.460 right? So he was learning from Peter the teachings 00:29:25.460 --> 00:29:27.480 of Jesus, and then he was delivering them. So 00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:29.880 he was a disciple of Jesus as a Christian, but 00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:32.519 he was a follower, not of Jesus directly, but 00:29:32.519 --> 00:29:38.099 of Peter. And who else was he? Nobody. He was 00:29:38.099 --> 00:29:41.180 literally nobody. So why would you pick Mark? 00:29:41.759 --> 00:29:46.160 Why use a book that Mark wrote? But then we have 00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:48.319 the church fathers saying the reason Mark wrote 00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:50.519 the book was because he was a guy who could write 00:29:50.519 --> 00:29:53.460 that was attached to Peter, who was attached 00:29:53.460 --> 00:29:55.799 to Jesus. And Peter's teaching it, and Mark's 00:29:55.799 --> 00:29:58.220 writing it down, and he had Peter to check with. 00:29:58.400 --> 00:29:59.779 He could say, well, I wrote this. And Peter's 00:29:59.779 --> 00:30:02.019 like, yeah, that's okay. That's fine. I wrote 00:30:02.019 --> 00:30:04.339 this. You said this, and I wrote that down. Yeah, 00:30:04.380 --> 00:30:06.859 that's fine. I did say that. So he had it checked 00:30:06.859 --> 00:30:10.400 by who? By Peter, who was the guy who was with 00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:15.890 Jesus. So that makes Mark solid. You can't get 00:30:15.890 --> 00:30:17.369 away from calling it Mark because Mark's the 00:30:17.369 --> 00:30:19.470 one who wrote it, right? Even though it doesn't 00:30:19.470 --> 00:30:21.849 say he wrote it specifically in the text. I've 00:30:21.849 --> 00:30:24.670 heard about stuff like something like that because 00:30:24.670 --> 00:30:28.910 the guy I was listening to, he was talking about 00:30:28.910 --> 00:30:33.990 how we have that eyewitness evidence and proof. 00:30:34.369 --> 00:30:37.490 And he said one of the things that I've never 00:30:37.490 --> 00:30:40.650 really thought about until he said that is the 00:30:40.650 --> 00:30:43.670 resurrection of Christ, we have the eyewitnesses. 00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:47.700 And he said, why back then would they use a female 00:30:47.700 --> 00:30:50.920 as an eyewitness? Exactly. Because sexism was 00:30:50.920 --> 00:30:54.220 so bad back then. Women weren't allowed to talk 00:30:54.220 --> 00:30:56.839 unless they were talked to. So he's like, why 00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:00.559 would they use a female as an eyewitness to the 00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:04.480 resurrection of Christ? Exactly. So there you're 00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.519 talking about, that's an apologetic, that's a 00:31:06.519 --> 00:31:09.319 proof of the resurrection. So here we're talking 00:31:09.319 --> 00:31:11.700 about a proof of the Bible, the proof of the 00:31:11.700 --> 00:31:13.319 New Testament. And so we went through Matthew. 00:31:13.849 --> 00:31:15.069 Matthew doesn't make a lot of sense as a Jewish 00:31:15.069 --> 00:31:17.950 tax collector. Mark is nobody knows Mark. Like 00:31:17.950 --> 00:31:20.230 he was nobody. He was a follower of Peter's and 00:31:20.230 --> 00:31:21.950 he was good at writing. Basically what it comes 00:31:21.950 --> 00:31:24.289 down to. And then you got the last one that is 00:31:24.289 --> 00:31:26.750 Luke. Who was Luke? He was a physician. Yeah, 00:31:26.769 --> 00:31:29.109 he was a physician. An educated man. So it makes 00:31:29.109 --> 00:31:30.730 sense that he could do research and he could 00:31:30.730 --> 00:31:32.630 write. He could interview people. All those things 00:31:32.630 --> 00:31:35.029 were true. And then when did he come to Christ? 00:31:38.109 --> 00:31:43.859 Paul led him to Christ later. No, no. So Paul 00:31:43.859 --> 00:31:48.779 led Luke to Christ, right? And then Luke interviewed 00:31:48.779 --> 00:31:51.500 everybody that was still alive and put the book 00:31:51.500 --> 00:31:53.420 of Luke together. So they're firsthand accounts 00:31:53.420 --> 00:31:54.859 of the other. They're not his firsthand accounts. 00:31:54.920 --> 00:31:56.839 He didn't see them. They're what he interviewed. 00:31:57.039 --> 00:31:59.579 And then Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which 00:31:59.579 --> 00:32:01.480 is the first book of the apostles, as a history 00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:05.000 of what happened after Jesus' death, right? So 00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:07.819 what I'm getting at is this is one of the interesting 00:32:07.819 --> 00:32:10.259 arguments for the authorship of the Gospels. 00:32:10.730 --> 00:32:13.430 Because while John makes a lot of sense, Matthew, 00:32:13.509 --> 00:32:16.470 Mark, and Luke, if you're going to fake it, you 00:32:16.470 --> 00:32:21.069 wouldn't choose them. So that's a good argument 00:32:21.069 --> 00:32:23.950 for why they make sense. Interestingly enough, 00:32:24.190 --> 00:32:25.930 those other books that we listed, and there are 00:32:25.930 --> 00:32:27.329 a bunch of others that we didn't list, like the 00:32:27.329 --> 00:32:29.990 Acts of Paul, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, the 00:32:29.990 --> 00:32:31.910 Deodecae, and the Apostle Peter, remember that 00:32:31.910 --> 00:32:36.470 list? All of those books give a credation for 00:32:36.470 --> 00:32:40.710 who wrote them. The book of Barnabas, guess who 00:32:40.710 --> 00:32:44.750 wrote it? Allegedly Barnabas, right? At the very 00:32:44.750 --> 00:32:46.789 beginning of the book, it says written by Barnabas, 00:32:46.789 --> 00:32:50.329 right? But is that how people write if they're 00:32:50.329 --> 00:32:52.589 going to write a letter to somebody or even a 00:32:52.589 --> 00:32:55.670 book? Like you might have a byline, like it might 00:32:55.670 --> 00:32:58.210 say by Mark, right? If you're going to have, 00:32:58.210 --> 00:32:59.750 you might have a byline, but you don't in your 00:32:59.750 --> 00:33:03.670 letter go, I am, and I'm writing, and this is 00:33:03.670 --> 00:33:07.380 why, you know, you don't do that. So they believe 00:33:07.380 --> 00:33:10.200 a lot of those books are pseudepigraphal, which 00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:12.319 means somebody faked that somebody else wrote 00:33:12.319 --> 00:33:13.920 them. So we have books that were supposedly written 00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:16.640 by Peter, including that one, and they're fake. 00:33:18.460 --> 00:33:22.180 All right, so Natalie, here's the bonus question 00:33:22.180 --> 00:33:25.240 right here. Are you ready? So if a man wrote 00:33:25.240 --> 00:33:31.099 a book in 150 AD and it was godly, as far as 00:33:31.099 --> 00:33:32.460 you can tell, it didn't seem like there was anything 00:33:32.460 --> 00:33:34.819 wrong with it, based on the standards that they 00:33:34.819 --> 00:33:37.660 used to determine. What could be in the New Testament 00:33:37.660 --> 00:33:39.960 and why couldn't that man's book be in the New 00:33:39.960 --> 00:33:46.640 Testament? I'm asking you to process. Can you 00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:50.039 come up with why? Remember the standards of what 00:33:50.039 --> 00:33:55.099 was allowed to be in the New Testament? Apostolic 00:33:55.099 --> 00:33:59.140 age, right? So it had to be written during the 00:33:59.140 --> 00:34:02.839 life of John. So if it was written in 150, even 00:34:02.839 --> 00:34:06.589 if it was called the Acts of Peter, or Gospel 00:34:06.589 --> 00:34:09.150 of Thomas, or whatever, it couldn't be included 00:34:09.150 --> 00:34:11.869 because it wasn't written during the apostolic 00:34:11.869 --> 00:34:18.309 age. So if I go tomorrow and I write what appears 00:34:18.309 --> 00:34:21.170 to be a perfectly good New Testament book, it 00:34:21.170 --> 00:34:24.449 cannot be included because there's no apostolic 00:34:24.449 --> 00:34:27.309 authority. John's not alive anymore, and before 00:34:27.309 --> 00:34:31.090 him, Peter, James, they're all gone. There's 00:34:31.090 --> 00:34:33.829 no apostolic authority anymore for them to go, 00:34:33.869 --> 00:34:36.630 yeah, this one works. We don't have that. So 00:34:36.630 --> 00:34:38.829 then the canon of the New Testament was sealed 00:34:38.829 --> 00:34:40.389 at the end of the book of Revelation. You can't 00:34:40.389 --> 00:34:46.590 add to it. So if a book is pseudepigraphal, even 00:34:46.590 --> 00:34:48.690 if it claims to be written by Mark or claims 00:34:48.690 --> 00:34:50.250 to be written by Luke or claims to be written 00:34:50.250 --> 00:34:53.789 by Jesus, it all would be wrong. It's all not 00:34:53.789 --> 00:34:56.489 allowed because it has to have apostolic authority. 00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:02.079 So the most likely conclusion from the fact that 00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:04.860 all these books were widely accepted everywhere 00:35:04.860 --> 00:35:08.800 very early on while all of the apostles are still 00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:14.380 alive is what? In other words, the apostles would 00:35:14.380 --> 00:35:17.019 go to church on Sunday and a book would be read. 00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:24.460 Yeah. And if they were there and the shepherd 00:35:24.460 --> 00:35:29.449 of Hermas was read, they would say, no. This 00:35:29.449 --> 00:35:33.150 is not Jesus' teaching. But if they were there 00:35:33.150 --> 00:35:38.650 and say, the book of John is read, they'd be 00:35:38.650 --> 00:35:43.949 like, this is Jesus' teaching. So the apostles 00:35:43.949 --> 00:35:46.550 were able to, in the churches, they weren't in 00:35:46.550 --> 00:35:50.530 every church. By the time of the 90s, only John 00:35:50.530 --> 00:35:53.690 was the only one left. He was in Ephesus. So 00:35:53.690 --> 00:35:56.389 he wasn't everywhere, but the point is that he 00:35:56.389 --> 00:35:58.679 was still alive. And if somebody started teaching 00:35:58.679 --> 00:36:00.820 out of a fake book, he would have said something. 00:36:01.219 --> 00:36:05.619 And so the assertion is that because while they 00:36:05.619 --> 00:36:07.820 were still alive, they accepted these teachings, 00:36:07.980 --> 00:36:12.440 these teachings are accurate. So that's the apologetic 00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:15.139 argument. The apologetic argument is threefold. 00:36:15.340 --> 00:36:17.179 That last one I made, which is they were still 00:36:17.179 --> 00:36:20.280 alive, so they could say yes or no. And not only 00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:24.079 them, but like, so Polycarp, right? So Polycarp 00:36:24.079 --> 00:36:26.360 would be like, no, this is not what I heard. 00:36:27.239 --> 00:36:30.460 This doesn't work with what we learned, you know, 00:36:30.460 --> 00:36:34.340 kind of thing. And the church fathers that were 00:36:34.340 --> 00:36:36.440 quoting these 27 books, they would say, no, no, 00:36:36.460 --> 00:36:38.219 no, that other thing, I'm not quoting that. I 00:36:38.219 --> 00:36:39.920 don't quote the shepherd of Hermas because that's 00:36:39.920 --> 00:36:42.159 crap. That's not Jesus' teaching. That's not 00:36:42.159 --> 00:36:43.940 what we had. That's not the book that Luke wrote. 00:36:44.039 --> 00:36:46.179 That's not the book that Mark wrote. They would 00:36:46.179 --> 00:36:48.500 say, no, we have a limit to what we'll quote 00:36:48.500 --> 00:36:51.079 from. And while they quoted 23 of the New Testament 00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:52.980 books and almost to the point that you could 00:36:52.980 --> 00:36:55.219 recreate them, they never quoted from any of 00:36:55.219 --> 00:36:58.329 that other crap. They never quoted from it. And 00:36:58.329 --> 00:37:01.190 so it's solid is the point. So the first one 00:37:01.190 --> 00:37:03.949 was they accepted it in their lifetime on call 00:37:03.949 --> 00:37:06.190 phone. They accepted it in their lifetime. The 00:37:06.190 --> 00:37:10.750 second one was why would they use people to support, 00:37:10.969 --> 00:37:12.909 to write the books? If they were going to lie, 00:37:13.070 --> 00:37:15.929 they would use names of people that everyone 00:37:15.929 --> 00:37:18.989 would naturally accept, not just the names of 00:37:18.989 --> 00:37:21.889 the people who actually wrote them, right? And 00:37:21.889 --> 00:37:25.590 then third. is that when the books were canonized, 00:37:25.590 --> 00:37:28.070 when the New Testament was set, they used a very 00:37:28.070 --> 00:37:34.989 strict set of criteria. So just simply speaking, 00:37:35.170 --> 00:37:37.329 if there was a book that looked pretty good, 00:37:37.449 --> 00:37:42.889 was it more likely to wind up in or out? Out, 00:37:43.190 --> 00:37:45.949 right? Even some of the books that looked really 00:37:45.949 --> 00:37:48.730 good wound up out. They even questioned very 00:37:48.730 --> 00:37:51.550 thoroughly some of the books that we know that 00:37:51.550 --> 00:37:53.980 they did determine were in. They said, well, 00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:56.639 3 John, yes. And probably, I think with 3 John, 00:37:56.699 --> 00:37:58.679 it was a question that's so short. Does it really 00:37:58.679 --> 00:38:01.980 impact lives? Is it inspired by God? It's basically 00:38:01.980 --> 00:38:03.900 a paragraph and a half. Is it really worth it? 00:38:04.139 --> 00:38:05.579 That's the kind of thing, probably, they were 00:38:05.579 --> 00:38:07.500 having a conversation. But they decided, yeah, 00:38:07.539 --> 00:38:09.400 it is from God. It does change lives. It seems 00:38:09.400 --> 00:38:12.519 to be inspired. And the church fathers accepted 00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:14.719 it. The apostles accepted it. So we accept it. 00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:16.960 And that's how that went. So if you're going 00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:21.260 to, like, if you get a vast encyclopedia, There's 00:38:21.260 --> 00:38:23.539 seven books for A and seven for B and seven for 00:38:23.539 --> 00:38:26.099 C and seven for D and so on. And you get to fill 00:38:26.099 --> 00:38:28.219 this whole room with an encyclopedia. You expect 00:38:28.219 --> 00:38:30.739 that most things would be in there. But when 00:38:30.739 --> 00:38:33.440 you have a concise encyclopedia that's like this 00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:36.500 thick, it's one book and it's that thick. And 00:38:36.500 --> 00:38:39.199 it's like written by 40 people that say that 00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:40.679 they did everything they could to make sure that 00:38:40.679 --> 00:38:42.519 only the most important stuff is included in 00:38:42.519 --> 00:38:44.099 there. Then when you start flipping through it, 00:38:44.139 --> 00:38:47.480 you expect to find important stuff, right? Not 00:38:47.480 --> 00:38:49.960 anything like what's in that giant batch of books. 00:38:50.400 --> 00:38:53.840 Just the most important stuff. Right? And that's 00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:57.019 what we've got. We've got bodies of men that 00:38:57.019 --> 00:39:00.739 went together to say, you know, better we err 00:39:00.739 --> 00:39:04.159 on the side of caution. Better we kick it out. 00:39:04.579 --> 00:39:07.900 Even miss the other way and like say, this could 00:39:07.900 --> 00:39:10.420 be of God, but we're just not sure. So it's out. 00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:13.820 And that's how they were doing it. And so we 00:39:13.820 --> 00:39:15.260 have every reason to believe that the New Testament 00:39:15.260 --> 00:39:18.059 is solid. Okay? All right. So I'm going to ask 00:39:18.059 --> 00:39:22.059 some questions. Are you ready? Where were the 00:39:22.059 --> 00:39:25.059 two councils held in which they decided the 27 00:39:25.059 --> 00:39:36.519 canonical books? Five. Four. Three. Two. Carthage 00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:43.800 and Hippo. Okay. How much was the gift of Marcion 00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:53.579 to the church in Rome? Stop helping now. 200k. 00:39:54.340 --> 00:39:56.820 200k, that's right, which is a lot of stinking 00:39:56.820 --> 00:40:04.920 money. Okay. Of the Gospels, which Gospel did 00:40:04.920 --> 00:40:10.539 Marcion keep when he created his false canon? 00:40:12.559 --> 00:40:18.989 Five. That is correct. Sorry. I was trying to 00:40:18.989 --> 00:40:20.710 be nice and not hit your sister. I won't be so 00:40:20.710 --> 00:40:28.989 nice next time. Okay. What parts, generically, 00:40:29.110 --> 00:40:30.989 generally speaking, what parts of the Gospel 00:40:30.989 --> 00:40:41.269 of Luke did Marcion cut out? Some of the good 00:40:41.269 --> 00:40:46.519 ones. Go ahead. Yes. References of God as presented 00:40:46.519 --> 00:40:52.800 in Judaism. Now I'm just throwing candy at you 00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:55.219 because I want to. Okay, I missed that last one. 00:40:55.380 --> 00:41:03.860 All right. Okay, so we talked about the apostles. 00:41:03.980 --> 00:41:08.760 Which one of the writers of the four gospels 00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:14.320 was a doctor? It's not on the paper. gonna have 00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:21.340 to know that's right I baked it off your head 00:41:21.340 --> 00:41:25.980 to Haley I am so good it was accidental but I 00:41:25.980 --> 00:41:28.500 probably I'm gonna try again though I'm enjoying 00:41:28.500 --> 00:41:30.739 helping you again you should not answer my questions 00:41:30.739 --> 00:41:40.840 so all right okay What was the name of the guy 00:41:40.840 --> 00:41:44.139 that Constantine asked to verify which book should 00:41:44.139 --> 00:41:51.519 be in the New Testament? Go. I don't know what 00:41:51.519 --> 00:41:52.980 you just said, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong. 00:41:55.340 --> 00:42:01.960 Oh, no, not Tertullian, but you're close. Can 00:42:01.960 --> 00:42:10.619 you get it, Natalie? It is, yeah, however you 00:42:10.619 --> 00:42:17.380 pronounce it. Eusebius. Hold on. I don't know 00:42:17.380 --> 00:42:18.860 if you can have peanut M &M's, but at least they're 00:42:18.860 --> 00:42:26.699 not chocolate. Did it? I'm so sorry. This is 00:42:26.699 --> 00:42:30.280 my candy. It's your kind of candy, yeah. No, 00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:32.659 I'm pretty sure you got this from me. Oh, did 00:42:32.659 --> 00:42:35.420 you donate it, maybe? This is all donated candy. 00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:44.869 Okay. One of the spurious books named after a 00:42:44.869 --> 00:42:54.289 shepherd. You didn't have to write it down. It's 00:42:54.289 --> 00:43:01.710 on the paper. Nope. That's the Diadochi. It's 00:43:01.710 --> 00:43:04.250 the Shepherd of Hermas. It's the one right next 00:43:04.250 --> 00:43:10.269 to it. Okay. Yep, one or the other. What does 00:43:10.269 --> 00:43:16.150 the word canon mean? Bow to the authority of. 00:43:18.469 --> 00:43:23.030 No. That's why they use it, but it means measure 00:43:23.030 --> 00:43:26.210 or rule. Because all others had to bow to the 00:43:26.210 --> 00:43:28.530 authority. That's why they use it. Oh. Sorry. 00:43:28.750 --> 00:43:30.610 I read a little bit of Firehead. Yep, you jumped 00:43:30.610 --> 00:43:32.869 on it. Okay. It's a large metal tube that you 00:43:32.869 --> 00:43:36.949 fire things at. Yeah. How many books are in the 00:43:36.949 --> 00:43:45.980 New Testament? Today. Go. Correct. Sorry. If 00:43:45.980 --> 00:43:46.980 you'd have left your arm down, it would have 00:43:46.980 --> 00:43:58.320 hit your elbow. Okay. Okay. Of all of the criteria 00:43:58.320 --> 00:44:00.960 used to determine whether or not a book could 00:44:00.960 --> 00:44:05.219 be called part of the New Testament, which was 00:44:05.219 --> 00:44:11.369 the hardest to determine? Yep. That's right. 00:44:13.130 --> 00:44:14.889 I'll just be the one who really likes candy in 00:44:14.889 --> 00:44:24.050 this room. Okay. Alright. Okay. This one's harder, 00:44:24.150 --> 00:44:27.010 and it's only sort of on the paper. Adults can 00:44:27.010 --> 00:44:29.110 answer too if you want. At least I'll let you 00:44:29.110 --> 00:44:31.869 take a stab out of it. One of your friends says 00:44:31.869 --> 00:44:35.050 that they are unsure of the certainty of the 00:44:35.050 --> 00:44:36.849 New Testament, that the New Testament is reliable. 00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:40.980 Make one good argument for how you know it's 00:44:40.980 --> 00:44:44.099 reliable. RJ, go. Their eyewitness accounts. 00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:50.579 Okay. Their eyewitness accounts used by generally 00:44:50.579 --> 00:44:54.239 unreliable people. Or not unreliable, but... 00:44:54.239 --> 00:44:58.360 Generally... Common people. Okay, ordinary people. 00:44:58.579 --> 00:45:09.650 Okay. Yes. All right. Let's see. I think I've 00:45:09.650 --> 00:45:16.429 run out of questions. Okay, I got it. So according 00:45:16.429 --> 00:45:24.590 to the writings of the church father that I read 00:45:24.590 --> 00:45:36.070 to you, who authenticated the book of Mark? Who 00:45:36.070 --> 00:45:42.139 said? Yes, that's good. It's genuine. John? No, 00:45:42.159 --> 00:45:44.619 not John. It was written during his lifetime, 00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:48.599 however, but it was not John. Luke? Nope. I'm 00:45:48.599 --> 00:45:52.300 going to give you a piece of candy. I like guessers 00:45:52.300 --> 00:45:53.980 almost as much as I like people with the right 00:45:53.980 --> 00:45:59.420 answer. Constantine? No, it was Peter, right? 00:45:59.500 --> 00:46:03.519 Mark was Peter's master. Oh, that's right. Peter 00:46:03.519 --> 00:46:05.769 was Mark's master. Did you say Peter? Yeah. I 00:46:05.769 --> 00:46:12.429 apologize. I did not hear you say that. All right. 00:46:13.170 --> 00:46:18.210 All right. I did not, but I can. What does AD 00:46:18.210 --> 00:46:29.610 stand for? Yeah. Any adults want candy while 00:46:29.610 --> 00:46:31.739 I'm giving away candy? Do you want some candy? 00:46:31.880 --> 00:46:37.099 No, I'm good. You should always have some candy 00:46:37.099 --> 00:46:39.960 in your pocket. It's always a good idea. You 00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:41.539 can bribe them to do their chores and stuff. 00:46:41.739 --> 00:46:47.199 Anybody else? Okay. So here's an interesting 00:46:47.199 --> 00:46:49.199 question that's a little off topic, but a question 00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:51.159 for discussion. Why do you think it is that the 00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:56.460 world wants to do away with the BCAD labels for 00:46:56.460 --> 00:46:57.840 the calendar, even though they've been that way 00:46:57.840 --> 00:47:00.059 for 2 ,000 years? Why do you think they would 00:47:00.059 --> 00:47:03.440 want to do away with that? Because they like 00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:08.099 to get rid of old things? Eh, maybe. I think 00:47:08.099 --> 00:47:11.980 it's because the calendar itself testifies that 00:47:11.980 --> 00:47:14.719 the birth of Christ was possibly the most important 00:47:14.719 --> 00:47:18.219 event in history. And if you just say before 00:47:18.219 --> 00:47:20.599 the common year and the common year, then you 00:47:20.599 --> 00:47:35.820 eliminate Jesus from the calendar. In the Greek, 00:47:35.960 --> 00:47:42.480 it's actually Amen. But it looks like Amen. That's 00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:45.880 why we transliterated it to Amen. So let it be. 00:47:49.699 --> 00:47:53.820 Questions? All right. Remember, the reason we're 00:47:53.820 --> 00:47:56.619 now authenticating the New Testament is because 00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:04.619 We have determined that only a monotheistic faith 00:48:04.619 --> 00:48:09.059 makes sense with the ten character qualities 00:48:09.059 --> 00:48:11.840 of God that we picked out from our study of creation. 00:48:13.780 --> 00:48:16.179 So if you're forgetting what the ten characteristics 00:48:16.179 --> 00:48:18.539 are, or you need to refresh your memory, go back 00:48:18.539 --> 00:48:20.460 to your old worksheets, or I'll text them to 00:48:20.460 --> 00:48:23.099 you if you want me to or whatever. But the point 00:48:23.099 --> 00:48:32.829 is, if... If a person wants to be real, if they're 00:48:32.829 --> 00:48:35.269 going to actually be willing to think and process 00:48:35.269 --> 00:48:38.869 and decide for themselves, then they would have 00:48:38.869 --> 00:48:41.030 to be able to look at creation and you should 00:48:41.030 --> 00:48:42.650 be able to lead them to get those characteristics 00:48:42.650 --> 00:48:46.090 and say, well, this makes sense. And then you 00:48:46.090 --> 00:48:48.230 could go through and say, well, atheism doesn't 00:48:48.230 --> 00:48:50.769 make sense because... agnosticism doesn't make 00:48:50.769 --> 00:48:52.929 sense because polytheism doesn't make sense. 00:48:53.429 --> 00:48:55.010 Pantheism doesn't make sense. Anything that they 00:48:55.010 --> 00:48:57.110 would, or they could say, well, I kind of believe 00:48:57.110 --> 00:48:59.570 that, you know, God is everywhere. Which one 00:48:59.570 --> 00:49:03.570 is that, by the way? God is everywhere and in 00:49:03.570 --> 00:49:11.809 everything. It's pantheism, okay? And so that's 00:49:11.809 --> 00:49:13.369 what I kind of believe. Everybody is kind of 00:49:13.369 --> 00:49:15.230 God. We're all kind of God. Everything is God. 00:49:15.329 --> 00:49:17.880 Sticks are God. Chairs are God. I kind of believe 00:49:17.880 --> 00:49:19.980 everything is God. That's pantheism. Well, that 00:49:19.980 --> 00:49:23.719 doesn't work. And you can show how that doesn't 00:49:23.719 --> 00:49:27.099 work, so the traits of God is unique, individual, 00:49:27.860 --> 00:49:31.980 powerful, engaged, intelligent. Sure, if you're 00:49:31.980 --> 00:49:36.260 not intelligent. So you show that, and then you 00:49:36.260 --> 00:49:40.000 ultimately get down to monotheism is the only 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:43.780 thing that works. Islam throws out the New Testament. 00:49:46.699 --> 00:49:48.480 Although, here's an interesting thing. Islam 00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:49.840 throws out the New Testament. Do you know what 00:49:49.840 --> 00:49:52.820 the Quran teaches about Christianity, however? 00:49:54.400 --> 00:49:57.000 The Quran says, if you want to know about God, 00:49:57.099 --> 00:50:06.079 ask a Christian. So, there you go. That's why 00:50:06.079 --> 00:50:08.059 we're doing this, is to be able to defend our 00:50:08.059 --> 00:50:10.960 faith. Ultimately, you can always go to the Bible. 00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:12.920 You can always share your testimony. But the 00:50:12.920 --> 00:50:15.960 truth is, your testimony is a weak... form of 00:50:15.960 --> 00:50:18.280 apologetic because you're the only one who can 00:50:18.280 --> 00:50:20.000 know it. You can say, well, I was in a dark place 00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:23.860 and all of a sudden, you know, God came in. I 00:50:23.860 --> 00:50:25.780 could tell you fantastic things the day that 00:50:25.780 --> 00:50:27.639 happened, the day that I got saved, for example, 00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:29.900 and some of it is pretty crazy. Like if you didn't 00:50:29.900 --> 00:50:31.639 know me, you'd be like, I don't know if that's 00:50:31.639 --> 00:50:37.579 real, you know, but that doesn't help people 00:50:37.579 --> 00:50:40.420 come to a saving faith. People need to be able 00:50:40.420 --> 00:50:43.659 to ask themselves, you know, how do we know what 00:50:43.659 --> 00:50:46.440 the Bible says is true? Not just because it's 00:50:46.440 --> 00:50:48.480 proved itself time and time and time again, because 00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:50.960 lost people don't feel that way. They don't think 00:50:50.960 --> 00:50:52.579 that the Bible has proved itself true time and 00:50:52.579 --> 00:50:56.179 time again. Do you know what archaeology exists 00:50:56.179 --> 00:51:00.000 that disproves the Bible? Or anything about the 00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:05.079 Bible? None. To this late date, all the archaeology 00:51:05.079 --> 00:51:07.019 that people have found always supports what the 00:51:07.019 --> 00:51:10.139 Bible says. In fact, there have been times where 00:51:10.139 --> 00:51:12.179 they go like, oh, that can't be. There's a guy 00:51:12.179 --> 00:51:18.639 where... Paul is hauled before a governor to 00:51:18.639 --> 00:51:21.699 be sentenced, to be checked on his faith and 00:51:21.699 --> 00:51:22.960 sentenced. And they said, well, that guy was 00:51:22.960 --> 00:51:25.579 never governor in that part of the world. So 00:51:25.579 --> 00:51:27.340 this proves the Bible wrong. So everything that's 00:51:27.340 --> 00:51:29.219 in the Bible is wrong because Paul was never 00:51:29.219 --> 00:51:31.619 governor in that part of the world. Paul could 00:51:31.619 --> 00:51:32.800 not have been in front of that guy because that 00:51:32.800 --> 00:51:34.699 guy was never governor in that part of the world. 00:51:35.480 --> 00:51:39.860 And then way later, after he made that argument 00:51:39.860 --> 00:51:43.679 for like 500 years, some guy was going through. 00:51:44.199 --> 00:51:48.039 old inscriptions in one of the oldest libraries, 00:51:48.219 --> 00:51:50.179 probably in the Vatican or wherever, and found 00:51:50.179 --> 00:51:53.739 proof that that guy ruled in that region of the 00:51:53.739 --> 00:51:56.440 earth for two years. Which meant that not only 00:51:56.440 --> 00:51:58.980 did that support the Bible then, but on top of 00:51:58.980 --> 00:52:01.219 that, that meant that they knew exactly when 00:52:01.219 --> 00:52:03.500 Paul was there and before him within two years. 00:52:04.340 --> 00:52:06.420 There's a story in the Bible where Jesus is going 00:52:06.420 --> 00:52:08.440 into a city and elsewhere one of the disciples 00:52:08.440 --> 00:52:10.920 says, in the other gospel, says he was coming 00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:13.869 out of a city. And the two cities are different. 00:52:14.190 --> 00:52:16.050 Well, there's a point at which you leave the 00:52:16.050 --> 00:52:18.550 one city on the old Bible map. There's a point 00:52:18.550 --> 00:52:19.949 at which you leave the one city and enter the 00:52:19.949 --> 00:52:22.409 new city. And so because of those two writings, 00:52:22.630 --> 00:52:26.190 we know within about 80 feet where Jesus performed 00:52:26.190 --> 00:52:31.269 that miracle. That's amazing. Archaeology always 00:52:31.269 --> 00:52:34.789 supports the Bible. I'm sure we'll get to that 00:52:34.789 --> 00:52:37.789 later. But the point is we need to be able to 00:52:37.789 --> 00:52:40.909 show people why we believe in what is written 00:52:40.909 --> 00:52:43.769 there. More than just our personal experience. 00:52:43.889 --> 00:52:46.530 I am absolutely convicted because God has spoken. 00:52:46.690 --> 00:52:50.769 No one else can do that. So, okay. Well, let's 00:52:50.769 --> 00:52:52.570 pray in closing and it will be done. And then 00:52:52.570 --> 00:52:54.269 we have to find something. We're going to get 00:52:54.269 --> 00:52:55.610 invaded by kids. We're going to put this away 00:52:55.610 --> 00:52:58.170 before they think that's a snack and buy a snack. 00:52:58.550 --> 00:53:00.530 Before they come in here all hungry and stuff. 00:53:00.650 --> 00:53:02.170 Yeah, they'll be coming in here. We can give 00:53:02.170 --> 00:53:03.829 them cookies, but I'm not giving them candy personally. 00:53:05.110 --> 00:53:07.750 Father in heaven, we do thank you for the evidences 00:53:07.750 --> 00:53:13.260 that are so prevalent. Like, exhaustive. They 00:53:13.260 --> 00:53:15.420 are everywhere. They are everything that a person 00:53:15.420 --> 00:53:17.780 needs. I know that Romans 1 says that people 00:53:17.780 --> 00:53:19.659 are without excuse when they don't recognize 00:53:19.659 --> 00:53:22.500 the God of heaven, they recognize that you are 00:53:22.500 --> 00:53:25.559 in charge, recognize that what the Bible says 00:53:25.559 --> 00:53:28.960 about you is true. And our job should not be 00:53:28.960 --> 00:53:31.440 to ask whether what the Bible says about you 00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:34.219 is true or not, but our job is simply, as Christians, 00:53:34.280 --> 00:53:36.340 to save the Holy Spirit in us, the conviction 00:53:36.340 --> 00:53:38.739 of the Holy Spirit, knowing who we are, Our job 00:53:38.739 --> 00:53:41.239 should be to say, how can we apply it to our 00:53:41.239 --> 00:53:44.280 lives? How can we live what we're told to live? 00:53:44.800 --> 00:53:47.960 How can we, like if we see a question between 00:53:47.960 --> 00:53:50.639 this verse and that verse, like Paul says that 00:53:50.639 --> 00:53:53.360 we are saved by grace through faith and not of 00:53:53.360 --> 00:53:56.840 works. And James says, faith without works is 00:53:56.840 --> 00:53:59.039 dead. And so we have to look at those two things 00:53:59.039 --> 00:54:02.099 and say, how do they mesh? How do they go together? 00:54:02.590 --> 00:54:05.269 And that lets us paint a very succinct, very 00:54:05.269 --> 00:54:07.349 tight picture of what we are supposed to be as 00:54:07.349 --> 00:54:09.030 Christians. And I pray that we'll do more and 00:54:09.030 --> 00:54:10.650 more of that. We'll spend more time in the Word, 00:54:10.670 --> 00:54:12.349 more time meditating, more time praying, more 00:54:12.349 --> 00:54:15.030 time listening to the God of the universe. 1 00:54:15.030 --> 00:54:16.989 Corinthians 2 says that we are not just given 00:54:16.989 --> 00:54:20.170 writings to read or experiences to have, but 00:54:20.170 --> 00:54:22.630 we are given the mind of Christ. And if we have 00:54:22.630 --> 00:54:24.550 the mind of Christ, we know that Jesus was all 00:54:24.550 --> 00:54:26.949 about what you would have him do. And so, Lord, 00:54:26.989 --> 00:54:28.409 we want to be all about what you'd have us do. 00:54:29.090 --> 00:54:32.340 Help us do just that. Heal our hurting. Guide 00:54:32.340 --> 00:54:35.360 us as we go. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you 00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:42.400 very much. We're all done with this. We'll have 00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:43.900 a homework assignment. We have to go win somebody 00:54:43.900 --> 00:54:48.480 to Jesus using apologetics. Just kidding. I'm 00:54:48.480 --> 00:54:51.019 not sure our retention percentages will be high 00:54:51.019 --> 00:54:56.320 enough to actually count on that. It's funny. 00:54:56.420 --> 00:54:57.739 As soon as I open the door and come in here, 00:54:57.780 --> 00:55:00.840 the uncalled phone rings. I make that call. Hey. 00:55:01.579 --> 00:55:03.699 If we grab the jelly, can we real quick make 00:55:03.699 --> 00:55:05.119 a mushroom dough sandwich? I'll help.