The Season’s Big Question

Canon Means Recognized Not Chosen

The Old Testament Foundation

How New Testament Writings Spread

Three Tests Early Christians Used

Debates Then Fourth Century Confirmation

Can You Trust The Process?

A Question To Sit With

Next Up Bible Translations

Jacqui 0:11

Greetings, listeners. Who decided what's in the Bible? Was it one person, a group of people, or something else entirely? That's a fair question. And even if you've never said it out loud, you've probably wondered. Today we're going to answer that. Well, welcome everyone. I'm your host, Jacqui Adewole, and this is the Bible Basics Podcast, where every two weeks we break down the basics of the Bible into understandable bite-sized chunks. If you've been with us for this season, you know that we've been working on one big question. What is the Bible? We've talked about what kind of book it is, the story running through it, and who wrote it. Now we're asking, how did all those writings end up together in one book? How did we get the Bible we have today? And here's something we don't always think about. The Bible wasn't assembled in a day. The writings that make up the Bible were written over about 1,500 years by many different people in different places and in different languages. So this question really matters. How did all of these writings come together? And how did people know which ones truly belonged? Let's start with the word you may have heard, canon, C-A-N-O-N. It just means the official collection. It's the list of books recognized as the inspired word of God. Now let's pause on that word, recognized, for a second. You'll often hear that these writings were recognized, not chosen. There's a real difference there. Choosing suggests someone had the power to decide which writings were true or trustworthy. Recognizing means these writings were already true and trustworthy, and the church was simply acknowledging that. Christians believe God inspired these writings. The job of the early church leaders was to recognize which writings carry that God-given authority, the authority to be trusted as his word. And that work actually began with the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible. The Old Testament, also referred to as the Hebrew Bible, was already recognized and used by the Jewish people long before Jesus was born. Jesus himself quoted from it. His earliest followers knew it and trusted it. So when the Christian movement began, it already had a foundation of scripture to stand on. Then, starting around 50 AD, the writings that became the New Testament began to appear. Eyewitnesses and close companions of Jesus wrote down what they'd seen and heard. These writings started circulating among early Christian communities. And as they spread, these communities had to ask, which of these do we actually trust? Early church leaders weren't working from a formal checklist, but over time a few patterns became clear. First, did a writing line up with what they already knew about God? Did it fit the accounts that had been passed down? Or did it point in a completely different direction? If a writing pointed somewhere different, it was set aside. Second, did it connect back to the apostles? Was it written by someone who knew Jesus or someone closely connected to those who did? Matthew was one of the twelve disciples. Luke, who not only wrote the book of Luke but the book of Acts as well, carefully gathered eyewitness accounts. And Paul, who wrote all those letters, he had a direct encounter with Jesus that shaped everything he wrote. And that connection mattered. Third, was it widely trusted and used? These weren't hidden writings. They were read aloud in gatherings. They were copied by hand and shared from one community to another, not just in one place, but across different regions. In Europe, Africa, Asia, across different cultures, different languages. That kind of agreement over that much distance and time means something. I think about this sometimes. When I first started reading the Bible, one of my quiet questions was, is this the real thing? And what settled me wasn't an argument. It was learning that communities across completely different parts of the world, with nothing connecting them except their faith, kept landing on the same writings. That kind of consistency is hard to explain that away. Now, it's also worth knowing, not every writing was instantly agreed on. Some were discussed, some were questioned for a time. And that careful process is actually part of why people came to trust what we have. Over the first few centuries after Jesus, this recognition became more and more settled. Church leaders eventually gathered, not to invent a list, but to confirm what communities were already doing, to recognize, not choose. And by the end of the fourth century, that confirmation was complete. The 66 books we hold today were formally confirmed as the canon of Scripture. Now you might be wondering, okay, but how do I know they got it right? That's a fair question. Here's what I'd offer. The process wasn't rushed. It happened over generations across different places, among communities that didn't agree on everything, but kept coming back to the same writings. And Christians believe God was at work in that process, not just inspiring the writers, but guiding the people who recognized these writings for what they were. That God didn't speak through scripture and then leave people to figure the rest out alone. He stayed involved. So when you open your Bible today, you're holding something that was carefully preserved, widely tested, and passed down through generations of people who treated it as sacred. Now I know that doesn't answer every question, but it does give you a place to start. Here's something to sit with this week. Has a question about the Bible ever kept you from opening it? What would it look like to pick it up anyway? In this next episode, we're moving on to part two of this season, and we're starting with something that trips up a lot of people: Bible translations. Why are there so many? And does it matter which one you use? That's where we're headed next. Until then, keep reading, keep seeking, and keep growing in your faith.