What are the Holy Scriptures? Part 1

The first chapter of the 1689 London Baptist Confession sets the stage for the rest of the confession by establishing what the foundation is for it's doctrine, namely the Holy Scriptures. The first paragraph serves almost like a thesis statement for the rest of the chapter. Having made its point of the certain, infallible rule for faith and obedience, the Confession continues into paragraph 2 of the first chapter by identifying positively what precisely is the holy canon of Scripture.

Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament, which are these:

OF THE OLD TESTAMENT:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

OF THE NEW TESTAMENT:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation.

All of which are given by the inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.

In this paragraph of the 2nd London Baptist Confession, we have a positive statement as to what consists of the Holy Scripture. Protestants would recognize that this list matches the table of contents of their Bibles. But how did we ever get to the point of having this library of books and letters that we now know as our canon? That's actually quite a story, one I hope to address over the next few blog posts.

But wait a minute! Some readers might have glanced at their table of contents and noticed that this list is missing books. That is the subject of paragraph 3, which is the negative statement, namely what is not considered Holy Scripture.

The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon or rule of the Scripture, and, therefore, are of no authority to the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings.

The Christian Scriptures have quite a history, and great divisions have occurred in part because of what has even been questioned as Scripture. The very canon of the New Testament was actually born out of such a controversy in the second century. I hope in the next few blog posts to provide a simple, yet educating, retelling of the fascinating journey of how we arrived at the canon of Scripture we have today.