January 11 - Boom! It's a Canon

January 11 – Boom! It’s a Canon

The teachings of Gnosticism made one thing abundantly clear. Christians couldn’t come against it unless everyone was on the same page. Now, while this might have been difficult at the time, the gift that it gave us was an order of scripture that we can believe God had in His hands.

Because of Marcion’s teachings, the church came down strongly on the side of the truth of Hebrew Scriptures. There was no question that Yahweh from the Old Testament was who Jesus revealed in John 8:58. These were the inspired words of God. So, they were all in with the traditional Hebrew scriptures.

But after that they needed to know what came next. There was still a lot of oral tradition, Gnostics claimed that they had received secret messages from Jesus and there were many, many writings traveling the circuits of the Roman Empire. There had to be a way to discern what God had inspired.

Now, the truth of the matter was, that for quite some time there were at least twenty writings that the Church had as foundational. The four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s thirteen letters, 1 Peter, 1 John and the Revelation. Hebrews, James, 2 & 3 John and Jude were accepted by a large number of Christians. Three other books, 2 Peter, the Revelation of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas were also at the top of the list.

Three questions had to be asked. Is an apostle responsible for the book? Do churches regularly accept the book and use it? Does the book agree with what is generally known about God?

The Revelation of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas were discounted pretty quickly and set aside. By 200 AD, the Canon (which means ‘measuring stick’) was set into place.

If you question the veracity of books like Mark and Luke, it was well known that Mark traveled with Peter and in fact was probably acting as Peter’s secretary when writing that Gospel. Luke traveled with Paul and James and Jude, who weren’t apostles, were actually Jesus’ half brothers.

So, we have a Canon set into place. Christians have a written authority with which to dispute the Gnostic’s teachings. All is right with the world.

Information taken liberally from:
Jones, T. P. (1999). Christian History Made Easy. Torrance, CA: Rose Publishing.