Yearly Archives: 2011

The Apocrypha

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You may have wondered why the Roman Catholic Church includes books in their “canon” that are not in our Protestant Bibles. They include books written in the Intertestamental Period (the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew in our Bibles). These are known as The Apocrypha.

Protestants have not included the books of the Apocrypha in the canon. These are regarded as Deuterocanonical books or books on a secondary (deutero) level to Scripture.

It was not until 1546 at the Council of Trent that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon (with the exception of 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh). It is significant that the Council of Trent was the response of the Roman Catholic Church to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation because the books of the Apocrypha contain support for Catholic doctrines such as prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Greg Bahnsen entitled, “The Concept and Importance of Canonicity.”

In terms of the previous discussion, then, what should we make of the Roman Catholic decision in 1546 (the Council of Trent) to accept as canonical the apocryphal books of “Tobit,” “Judith,” “Wisdom,” “Ecclesiasticus,” “Baruch,” “I and II Maccabees”?

Such books do not claim for themselves ultimate divine authority. Consider the boldness of Paul’s writing (“if anyone thinks he is spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write is the commandment of the Lord” — I Cor. 14:37-38; if anyone “preaches any other gospel that what we preached to you, let him be accursed” – Gal. 1:8). Then contrast the insecure tone of the author of II Maccabees: “if it is poorly done and mediocre, that was the best I could do” (15:38). Moreover, when the author relates that Judas confidently encouraged his troops, that boldness came “from the law and the prophets” (15:9), as though this were already a recognized and authoritative body of literature to him and his readers. (This is also reflected in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus.) I Maccabees 9:27 recognizes the time in the past when “prophets ceased to appear among” the Jews.
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Sola Scriptura (4)

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Continued from part 3 27 in the New, over a period of about 1,500 years. So how is it that all these 66 books ever got together in the Bible?

LUTHER AND JAMES

Early on in his ministry, Martin Luther had a problem with the Epistle of James. Luther, standing against the known world with the revelation of sola fide or justification by faith alone, encountered many in the Roman Catholic Church quoting the book of James to dismiss him. Luther, for some time could not reconcile James’ words in chapter 2 of his epistle, with Paul’s clear words in Romans and Galatians. He concluded that James was merely “an Epistle of straw.”

This has led some to argue that Luther did not believe that the Bible was inspired by God, for, they say, how could he believe the Bible is the Word of God and then say that the book of James was a “strawy Epistle?”

Yet these folk confuse a couple of issues that need to be distinguished carefully.

If anyone believed in the inspiration and authority of Scripture, is was Luther (remember Worms!!). He said, “The Scriptures never err!”

But there was a period in his life (though he changed his mind later) when he had real questions about James. But this is the point we need to see Luther’s question was not about whether the Bible was inspired, but whether the Epistle of James is supposed to be included in the Bible.

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A Simple Prayer Plan

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There are two ditches on the side of the road of Christian life. One ditch is lawlessness (antinomianism), and on the other side, the ditch of a harsh and hostile legalism that binds spiritual chains around us. Both of these extremes should be avoided always. Yet there is a road to walk if progress in sanctification is to be made, and as the saying goes, to fail to plan is to plan to fail.

Prayer Plan: No one wishes for something introduced only with good intentions, to then become a yoke of slavery on the neck. We must always remember that a failure to hold to a plan strictly does not mean our relationship with God is severed our soured in some way. Our performance is not the basis of our standing before God. The gospel of Christ is. Justification is by grace alone through faith alone in the Person and work of Christ alone.

Having said stressed that and made that very clear, it has to be said that it is very much a good thing to have a plan for prayer.

I read the following article by Mike Riccardi at the Cripplegate website and thought some excellent points were made:

In his classic, Desiring God, John Piper diagnoses that a main hindrance to prayer is our lack of planning. He tells us,

Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the main reasons so many of God’s children don’t have a significant life of prayer is not so much that we don’t want to, but that we don’t plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned.

But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing’s ever ready. We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure.

And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don’t plan a vacation, you will probably stay home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.

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