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We deny not the ministry of the Church as an external means to move us to embrace the word of God, but we deny the authority of the Church to be the principal means. When we call the Scriptures Canonical, we call them not so passively, because they are received into the Canon by men,Continue reading “The Self-Attesting 66 Book Canon”

With the collapse of Evangelical textual criticism, (See Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Jr.’s post on “The Initial Text is a Unique Defeater for Modern Evangelical Text-Criticism”) taking inventory of the last 140 years (1881 to the present) of theological formulation is inevitable. One might ask, “How early in the textual critical process did scholars realizeContinue reading “Admitting That It’s Over”

When I was a kid growing up in the 60’s, when it was time to go to church, I would grab my Bible and head for the car. There was only one Bible. It was God’s Word. It was the same Bible my dad carried and that the pastor would preach from. The pastor wouldContinue reading “The Decline of Ecclesiastical Diction and Finding Our Way Back”

The rigors of textual critical work were the obligatory work of the Reformation theologians as they confronted their Roman Catholic counterparts and their own textual critical inquiry and polemic. Rather than asserting a retardation of critical work due to this struggle, the reality of this tension stimulated and indeed demanded critical inquiry. There was noContinue reading “Andrew Willet (1562-1621): Text Critical Concerns in Romans 1:32”

How much will this argument be enforced, when we further consider, of many other particulars revealed in Scripture, which none but God could possibly know? As that there are three that bear record in heaven, 1 John 5:8, 1 Tim. 3:[1]6, John 1:14. That God was manifested in our flesh, so as the alone MediatorContinue reading “Thomas Ford, 1667, and more reasons why Scripture must be from God”

“How one interprets the Bible depends wholly on one’s a priori acceptance of the Scripture as God’s Word” (4). “The ‘house of the Lord’ [Ps. 27:4] has always been the best place to do theology” (26). “Like so many other things God allows in his providence, the ‘industrial grade’ bible exists for the Church to grow strongerContinue reading “Select quotes from the Introduction of “An Exegetical Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text””

That true holiness consists especially in the inward impressions and dispositions, which make a man meet for communion with God, and in the inclinations, and carriages of the soul towards God immediately, such as mere Moralists never knew. There’s a fountain and a root within, from which springs all that honesty, and integrity, and purityContinue reading “Thomas Ford, 1667, on True Holiness and Inspiration, the “finger of God””

The former part, Shewing the Rational Grounds upon which Protestants believe Scripture to be inspired of God, etc. Scripture is (as it calls itself) s Light, and therefore is best seen in ,and by, and of itself, though there be nothing else to show it. Hence it is, that when we have said as muchContinue reading “Thomas Ford, (1667), Scripture’s Self-Evidence: To prove its Excellence, Authority, and Certainty in itself”

Lutheran John Gerhard (1582-1637), regarded as the greatest living theologian of Protestant Germany, writes of the Scriptures, That the word itself has power to convert Gerhard finds an unambiguous doctrine of Scripture, for many texts speak of the word of God as life, light, saving power, and the like (Psalm 119: 109, John 5:39, 6:63,Continue reading “Lutheran John Gerhard (1582-1637) on “the word of God as life, light, saving power, and the like””

(C. G. De la Mothe , a Protestant exile from France, shows that personal utility or ecclesiastical usage was not grounds for Canonicity in the Early Church. The Contemporary Church would do well to follow the truth contained in Lamothe’s writings when approaching the current textual and version debate.) The third proof drawn from theContinue reading “Claude Groteste De la Mothe (1647-1713), 1694, on Inspiration Establishing Canonicity”