Of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation (Article V)

Article V - Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation

The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation;

so that whatsoever is not read therein,

nor may be proved thereby,

is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith,

or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those

canonical books of the Old and New Testaments of whose authority was never any doubt in the church.

The names of the canonical books are:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, The First Book of Samuel, The Second Book of Samuel, The First Book of Kings, The Second Book of Kings, The First Book of Chronicles, The Second Book of Chronicles, The Book of Ezra, The Book of Nehemiah, The Book of Esther, The Book of Job, The Psalms, The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, Cantica or Songs of Solomon, Four Prophets the Greater, Twelve Prophets the Less.

All the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive and account canonical.

Strictly speaking, the Bible isn’t A book.  The Bible is an anthology, a collection of (in this case) 66 different books, authored by dozens of different men, and written over the course of anywhere from 700 to 3500 years depending on which scholar you prefer to believe.

Some of the Bible’s authors were highly respected priests and prophets (like Samuel).  Some were seemingly random guys who professed a calling from God, came out of nowhere, did their thing, and then disappeared back into obscurity (like Amos).  Some Biblical writers were highly educated and well-connected (Luke and Paul for examples).  Some were near illiterate members of the 1^st century working class (Peter). 

With the exception of a couple of Paul’s letters in the New Testament, you can find some “expert” who will dispute the authorship and authenticity of every book in the Bible.   Some people sincerely believe that the entire Bible is a conspiracy of fiction put together by a Catholic committee.

But I, and my church, and millions of Christians like us believe that the Bible is the actual Word of God Himself, the Holy Scripture [that]  containeth all things necessary to salvation.

How can we (and you) trust our souls to the words of a disputed ancient anthology?

See what I did there?

I described the Bible in a way that implied that every element was unreliable.  I never offered any evidence for why the testimony of multiple writers would be LESS reliable than the testimony of just one.  But if you were iffy on the topic, you’d think that it was.

Now think for yourself.  Which is MORE reliable, the testimony of one witness or the corroborating testimony of 3 or 4 dozen witnesses?

We trust the Bible.  I stake the fate of my soul and the purpose of my life on the integrity of the Bible because the authors of the books of the Bible present a single, unifying theme.  There is a common mind behind all of their works.  (And some of these writers had never read the works of the others.)

But what about the time lapse between books?  

Yeah.  The dispute over the age of books has been a major source of skepticism.  Critics point out that the oldest fragments of the Old Testament only date back to the 2^nd century B.C. which isn’t that old for a collection that begins “In the beginning….”

Critics also note that the oldest fragment of the New Testament dates 125 A.D., that somewhere around 80-90 years after Jesus was crucified.  The criticism is that these can’t be eyewitness accounts.  The witnesses would’ve be dead.

I have a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  (No, I’m not rambling. Stay with me.)   My books says that Shakespeare died in 1616, but the earliest copyright on the book is 1980.    How can I believe a book dated 366 years after the supposed author of its plays died?

Because I know that my copy of Shakespeare is just a copy.   All the copyright date tells me is that the original stories were completed and circulating BEFORE 1980.

We don’t have the original manuscript of any of the books of the Bible.  The dates of our COPIES do not tell us when the Bible was written. The dates of the copies do tell us that the New Testament was completed and circulating well before 125 A.D.  The dates of the copies assure us that the Old Testament is OLDER than 2 B.C.

The early leaders of the Church poured over the books, testimonies, and evidence available in the first 300 years after the Resurrection and affirmed what the descendants of eyewitnesses had been affirming for centuries.  The 27 books of the New Testament and the 39 books of the Old Testament are the Word of God, just like the big red volume on my bookshelf is the words of Shakespeare.*

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:   20, 21) 

The arguments against the authenticity of the Bible as God’s Word are based on more assumptions, presumptions, and leaps of logic than even faith requires.   

The Bible on your coffee table may contain errors in translation, after all neither Jesus nor Moses spoke English.  (Actually nobody spoke English during the time the Bible was being written.)  So, in some verses there are legitimate questions about which English term best fits which Greek or Hebrew word.

But those mini-arguments aren’t what drive churches apart.  The big, looming question is:  Did God really deliver His Word through all those different dudes in all those different settings?

No.  No.

The question REALLY is, COULD God do it? 

Is it reasonable, rational, or logical to believe that all those texts by all those people are really the product of ONE supernatural source?

In other words, is the Bible too complicated to be Divinely authored?

In other, other words: Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?  (Jeremiah 32:27)

The answer already given is:  Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. (Jeremiah 32: 17)

If you believe that God is love, then believe the Bible that told you, God is love (1 John 4: 8, 16)

If you believe that Jesus lived, and taught, and defended the powerless, then believe the Bible that told you of Jesus.

You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. (John 5: 39)

You embrace the parts of the Bible that bring you comfort and hope and make you feel good about yourself and the future.  Well then you don’t get to redact the other parts that make you feel uncomfortable and sinful and concerned about judgment for how you live.  

Same book.  Same God.  Same truth.

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5: 17, 18)

The Bible is the Word of God, the testimony of Jesus Himself.  If you reject the Bible, you turn your back on aspects of Jesus that are non-negotiable.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? …”

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.  (John 6: 60-66)

Don’t do that.  Hold to Jesus.  Hold to the Word made flesh.  Hold to the Word. 

Then Jesus said to the twelve,  “Do you also want to go away?”  But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” (John 6: 67, 68)

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

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*To my fellow English nerds: I am aware that I open up a possible argument of whether or not Shakespeare claimed some of Bacon’s work as his own.    My point about copies and copyrights still stands.

BIBLICAL RELIABILITY & THE MYTH OF SHAKESPEARE

On the bookshelf in my home office is a book titled The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.  This book claims to contain the word of a 16^th century British author.  However, the copyright date makes it abundantly clear that this book was published in 1980.  On top of that, further analysis shows that the book is the 3^rd edition, clearly a copy of a copy copied by an earlier scribe.

If my house was the main site of research into this alleged “Shakespeare,” and the third edition of his Complete Works was the only copy found in excavations, would we still believe in Shakespeare?

Would we conclude that since the oldest surviving copy was printed in 1980 then obviously its quotations were unreliable?    

Would professors of the Shakespearean mythos profess that our belief in Shakespeare as an author is far too literal since multiple editors writing hundreds of years after Shakespeare’s death had obviously added their own words to his plays?  

Would experts argue that the same man could not have written of honest witches in the book of Macbeth and of a peacemaking priest in the book of Romeo & Juliet? 

Would scholars applying critical literary analysis conclude that Shakespeare was a myth, that no one could have written that many plays in a time before laptops? 

Nah. 

Because obviously the copyright date doesn’t give the original date that a text was written.  It only tells when a particular company pressed another set of books.  Obviously finding a copy of an author’s words doesn’t tell us when his words were originally written down.  Obviously, finding copies made 100 years after the fact only proves that 100 years after the fact people were STILL making copies.  Obviously, a circa 1980 copy of Shakespeare’s words doesn’t mean that Shakespeare didn’t live and speak in the 1600’s.  It just proves that what he wrote was important enough for people to preserve it over hundreds of years as opposed to all the other things written during the same time period that have been ignored and lost to time.

Obviously.

Obviously?

Then why isn’t it obvious that the date of a copy of the gospels only tells you the date the previous copy was copied down?  It doesn’t tell us the date of the original eyewitness’s narrative.

Why isn’t it obvious that finding a 2^nd century copy of a copy of Jesus’ words doesn’t prove that Jesus was misquoted?  It just proves that Jesus’ words were important enough to keep repeating and sharing via the only printing method available----- hand scribed copies.

It’s obvious that only fool or a rabid conspiracy theorist would use my 1980 copy of Shakespeare to question the authenticity of the Bard of Avon?

However, if you use a single scrap of a single page which doesn’t even claim to be the original manuscript and just happened to not get lost with the millions of other undiscovered 1^st century scrolls  to claim that you know when the Bible was ORIGINALLY written down, you’re not a fool.  You’re not a rabid conspiracy theorist.   You’re a scholar and a theologian.

Obviously.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

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