Entering into the authority of the scriptures

When Jesus was tested in the wilderness, his retort to Satan’s temptations was, “It is written.” That was his authority—the written word.

What gave this authority to the canon? It was the speaker, who was God (and still is).

This opens up in my mind two ways of approaching the reading of the Bible. The first is the way of faith. Every Christian who expresses trust in God through Christ and his Spirit approaches God’s word ready to hear from God personally. It’s an exchange of communication between persons. But for the one who has not yet started this journey of faith, how do they enter into the Scriptures to begin with?

It is difficult for many who want to grasp the claims of the Bible on its own terms. Many feel and think the claims of biblical authority are circular, which is true (as is any claim to a basic authority—i.e., reason is true because reason tells me it’s true, experience is true because experience shows me it’s true, and traditions are true because they say they are true). Likewise, Christians believe that the Bible is God’s word because the Bible tells us it’s God’s word. That’s circular reasoning. But like I mentioned, this ultimate claim is supported by other factors to provide greater coherence. We have also experienced the power of God’s word, so we are reasoning from experience as well. Furthermore, those throughout history have accepted the canon as the canon of Scripture. An argument from tradition helps bolster this acceptance that God’s word is God’s word. At least, that’s what a Christian might say after being convinced and testing it for themselves.

But for those who are searching these matters out, how do they do it? Well, you should not test from the outside, asking questions to the insider like chatting through someone’s window about their kitchen on the other side of the house. You are invited to enter into it on its own grounds and presuppositions, experiencing it from within the framework. In a sense, this is true of many propositions—they are best tested generously from within themselves.

The best way for someone starting to investigate the Bible’s claims is to enter into the whirlpool of scriptural authority through Jesus. The historic events of Jesus’ death and resurrection might be considered the doorway into accepting the authority of the Bible. The event of the resurrection validates the claims of Jesus, namely his authority and lordship. Thus, in his authority and lordship, he validates the claims of the authority of Scripture on its own terms because the Scriptures are what Jesus refers to as authoritative. So we should say, we trust and accept the authority of the Scriptures because they are accepted as such by Jesus, whose own authority is established by the historic event of his resurrection.

Still, some would argue that this is still circular reasoning. After all, aren’t we basing our understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus on the Bible in the first place? True. However, when we come into the historic events and claims of Jesus, we are first of all treating the Bible as a collection of historical documents. Then, when we understand the historical claims, we are enabled (on its own terms) to understand its claims as the authoritative word of God. This is important in the quest for truth. Truth must obviously adhere to reality. History is a form of recording reality (events and such). So for many who are seeking to start understanding the Bible, these matters are what matter. And the historical claims of the biblical documents are also what separate it from being lumped in with other ‘religious texts’ such as the Quran, Bhagavad Gita, or the Book of Mormon, etc. The historicity of other such texts is unverifiable or tenuously linked to history.

On top of this, readers beginning this journey must remember (or learn) that the ‘Bible’ is not one book but a collection of historical writings from a plurality of authors over many, many centuries and in a variety of genres. What a new reader is perhaps intuitively asking is whether or not the story is coherent. When considering the plurality of the Bible’s nature, it should become clear there is a coherence made all the more remarkable by its nature as a library or collection. At this point, we are not even restricting ourselves to the New Testament gospel accounts, but even (or primarily from the NT point of view) the Old Testament prophecies and predictions as well. When the apostle Paul writes of the death and resurrection of Christ, he says it happens according to the Scriptures, and he is referring to the Old Testament. This is to emphasize again to the new reader of the Bible (and if you, dear reader, have the privilege of guiding a friend or acquaintance through the Bible, then don’t forget to teach them…) that the Scriptures aren’t a single self-referential book, but a library of books across time and genres, written by multiple authors. There are many authors who refer to each other and also to independent historical events. So this makes the argument of circular reasoning into more of a picture of a web with multiple connection points that are somewhat independent of each other but create a cohesive whole. I think that’s a more helpful image because it can help undermine what people would consider an invalidating argument from circular reasoning. This taps into a framework of coherence, so that it’s not solely resting on a claim of “the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says it is,” true as that is (or at least, as reasonable a claim as that is). For others, it may be more helpful and provide more explanatory power to remind them of the coherence of the plurality of the Bible’s authors and writings.

But also, the historic events of the death and resurrection of Jesus can be verified or attested to externally. These verifying documents are not large nor do they include many details such as the resurrection or otherwise, but are brief summary statements. Still, they lend some credence to our argument and historical grounding to the text.

These points of historicity are to highlight the greater weight of external justification (that’s to say, history has happened whether we realize it or not, which in this case is a source of evidence) relative to internal justification (that things cohere from within the worldview).

When the journey progresses into faith, however, and when we talk of the Bible as God’s word, we are talking about the personal expression of God’s mind and heart to people. It is a personal experience, that is to say, from one person to another (not a subjective experience as could be interpreted). So you could sum up the Bible, as people have poetically done, as God’s love letters to his people. That’s what they are! And they can only be such because they are the personal words of a loving God. When we push through some of the intellectual hurdles regarding circular reasoning and authority and such, we must not then fall into the temptation of treating the Bible and its reading as a merely intellectual exercise. It is a deeply relational exercise. This is highlighted by the difference between saying, “The Bible proves God’s existence” versus, “The Bible proclaims who God is.”

So, entering through the doorway that is the historic death and resurrection of Jesus will prove a much more helpful point of entry (as the source of authority) compared to the way some people enter into this discussion—by trying to figure out the historic development of the canon of Scripture itself. That’s just crazy. It’s the wrong door! It’s not even a door, more like climbing through a window with an aluminium flyscreen on it. You can do it, for sure, but it’s not helpful, and you’ll probably end up disliking the house you’re entering into. Much better to be welcomed into the house as intended—through the front door: Jesus.

There is nothing wrong with trying to understand the development of the canon itself; in fact, it is highly encouraged. But you do it for the right reasons. Or maybe better put, you’ve got to do it in the right order. The Scriptures themselves point to the historic event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s where you’ve got to start. But it is also good, after you’ve understood and grasped the lordship of Jesus and the authority of the Scriptures thereafter, to study how those Scriptures came into being. Understanding the formation of the canon can be a helpful supplement to a strong faith and further strengthen one’s faith.

In my time talking to people who want to learn about the Bible, Jesus, and matters of faith, however, the topic of canon formation is something many bring up. It seems to be an obstacle they struggle with. The problem with tackling this issue is that people have a vague sense of the plurality of authors, time periods, and writings, but lack a sense of coherence.

What this shows me, at least, is that people basically haven’t read the Bible but have heard (as if it’s some sort of secret) that the Bible wasn’t written by one person, that there were copies of the text, and that there isn’t just one gospel, but many! The irony is that these very factors, when understood correctly, can bolster one’s faith, but ironically, with little understanding, people think these matters undermine the faith. This, in my opinion, is something to be mindful of for people searching the Scriptures to discover Jesus.

Which is why the apostle Paul puts it, to paraphrase: first things first—the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Start there. That’s the foundation for faith.