Mentoring the New Believer - Lesson 7

Okay, well so much for going faster through the material. But that's okay. We’re just going to do what we're going to do. Just real briefly, what the rest of the talk does, it just encourages people to confess their sin. It's not that hard to do. You're not telling God anything he doesn't already know. There is a defining moment to confess your sin. And the talk goes to Psalm 51 and kind of shows how David confesses; encourage them to do the same and then receive his forgiveness. Know that you are fully forgiven. Yes, sir. (Unidentified class member: You mentioned the Devil and the whole thing. We have a lady in our church who’s been talking to my wife, and she just became a believer (so we think). And she has this idea that somehow Satan (it's a weird idea where it came from), Satan’s controlling her and making her think things and do certain things. And so, you mentioned Satan…would you distinguish, since he's not omnipresent, would you distinguish that, like demons…) Dr. Mounce: I don't know a whole lot about spiritual warfare other than what I've experienced. And so, I know that there's a difference between possession and oppression. I don't think that a believer can be possessed, but a believer certainly can be oppressed. That's always the distinction that I've heard. I don't know. I'm sure Gary talks about it in that class, but I don't know what it is. Satan can't make her do anything if she's a believer. (Unidentified class member: So, have you gotten a lot of pushback for somewhat endorsing Neil Anderson?) Well, I don't know if he endorses Neil Anderson.

 I mean, other than to acknowledge there is such a thing as spiritual warfare, we've not ever had any emails or anything like that. But spiritual warfare is,, we all know it's a very real thing. But I don't know specifically about that. Gary is so good at what he does, and it's so biblical that it would be…I know there's controversies in that whole arena. Well, we've not received any hate mail for it at all.

A couple of topics that I wanted to open up for discussion on. And the next time I teach this class, this whole discussion of Gary’s spiritual warfare, and this is going to be my first point. So I got out of order. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was the whole issue of defining sin. The talk defines sin as missing the mark. The only other way that I know to help a new believer understand what sin is, is to define it relationally. There's rules to any relationship, right? Since Christianity is just a relationship between us and God, the same kind of thing that holds true in my relationship with my kids, and it's true, my relationship with my wife, at one level is going to hold true with my relationship with God. And just as certain kinds of behavior can damage my marriage or damage my relationship with my kids, so also, when I do certain things that will damage my relationship with God. More and more, I like using relationships in terms of defining and trying to move from human examples that we all understand to examples with God. But, you know, in my relationship with Robyn, one of the rules is faithfulness. I violate that. The relationships damage.

 Being courteous, being respectful, building her up. We all know there are rules to relationships, human relationships. So it makes sense that to define sin as a violating of the relationship between us and God. Do you have any other ways in which you have found that it's helpful to define sin, again, to someone who doesn't have any background in church (won't know what the word means?) (Unidentified class member: I always try to distinguish like sin of commission and sin of omission, and just talking through that helps.) Dr. Mounce: Meaning some sins are things you do, and other sins are things you don't do? (Unidentified class member continues:  …that we should do and yet we don't do, and God calls us to. And that , you know, affects the relationship.) Dr. Mounce: I cross that out of my notes, but I put it back in since you said to put it in.  You know, I know we’re not talking about accidental sins, because if it's an accident, I'm not sure it's a sin; but intentional sins and doing things that end up hurting people that were accidental would be another kind of distinction that might help. But any other ways that you have found to define what sin is? Victor. (Class member: Just simply in a more, to illustrate I would say that it's like a cancer that, it's eating you up and it grows if you don't deal with it; you need to get rid of it as soon as you see it…but something  that damages you…) (Another class member: Wouldn’t that go back to something that you drew  up on the board?) Dr. Mounce: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. (Unidentified class member continues: …where a person don’t confess, you know, to get rid of it.  But they hide it, and it grows, like you said, in cancer.)

 Dr. Mounce:  Lack of confession means that that sin is going to slowly and surely take over their entire life and destroy it. There's very few things sadder, I think, than a Christian who's hanging on to sin, who just refuses to admit it. Everyone knows it. Everybody can see it. ‘I don't have a temper,’ you know, that kind of stuff. And it’s kind of like, ‘just let it go, for goodness sakes alive.’ (Unidentified class member: Do you think that person really realizes…(unintelligible)… they might not realize…) Dr. Mounce: They probably realize it up here. But see, this is this is the process that as it gets worse, it gets harder and harder to see because we justify ourselves, right? I mean, that's how we keep sinning. We justify it; we deserve whatever; we need it; or that person hurt me. It does get harder and harder and harder to deal with these sins. Do they ever get to the point that a person doesn't see it? I don't know. (Unidentified class member: Doesn’t the Bible say the wages of sin is death…maybe they should die with it.) Dr. Mounce: That's scary, though. I mean, Roman 6 has stated to the church; it’s not talking to non-Christians; it’s talking to people who are part of the communities that you sin, you die. Yeah. (Unidentified class member: The cancer is helpful in terms of understanding the effects of sin, but I'm not sure how communities understand. In our culture it seems like, you know, 20 years ago you could convince somebody that they were sinners pretty easily. Now nothing’s a sin anymore.) Dr. Mounce: Right. So that's why there is a discussion in the lecture on relativism. You know  ted.com. Have you seen that? It's a great website. It's an organization that's been around for 20 years to help people share ideas, and they video them and [00:07:31] they’re all up there. ‘Ideas worth sharing’ is the tagline for the site. And I was watching one last night where it was taught with some psychological behavior, and the speaker was from the Netherlands. And he said, ‘you know, I want to get up, I want to talk about values, but really, I can't really talk about values because, you know, what is important to me or is right to me is not necessarily important or right to you.’ And he goes on this two- or three-minute discussion on complete total relativity. So I turned it off and went to another one. Yeah, that's the world that we live in. That's why it's so important to say who determines the center of the bullseye, and in Christianity it’s God, and the center is his character. And he made us and he redeemed us. He owns us, and therefore he has a right to determine where the center of the bullseye is. When someone comes along and says, ’well, that's maybe good for you, but it's not good for me. It's like, that's really…no, you've denied yourself, taken up your cross, and follow Christ. You have to follow what he says. So that's why that whole discussion of the center of the bullseye eye is so important, because we do live in an unbelievably relativistic society. In the hotel where I stay, I notice under the desk they would say, ‘we want to serve you (or something), and tell us which book of faith you would like.’ And then it lists like eight different…Quran. They’ve got. They’ve got a Quran. They have a new American Standard. I didn't see a King James, not that it’s different from the New American Standard.

(Unintelligible comment by class member). Dr. Mounce: No, it's the Murano (phonetic). The Book of Mormon, I'm sure, was one of them. Yeah, that's just the world we live in, this world our kids grew up in. So when we tell them, ‘hey, that's right or that's wrong,’ you know, they go, ‘what planet did you come off? There's no such thing.’ (Unidentified class member: The other problem too is that when a lot of people are doing that thing, it makes it seem right; in particular, if they're in the church). Dr. Mounce: Nobody does anything wrong in the church. The church is perfect. (Class member continues: It doesn’t have to be a lot of people in the church, but it’s people in leadership, people in leadership). Dr. Mounce:  No one in leadership would ever do something wrong. Yeah, no, it's hard. I mean, that's the interesting thing about, you know, the one hand you say confessions, the easiest thing in the world; and the other thing is the hardest thing in the world. Because it's so easy. It's easy, and it's hard because when I finally say my anger is wrong, that means that I understand there's something that is deficient in my character that has to be worked on. I was thinking back on your question, JC. I think there probably is a point at which a person in the church has sinned for so long that they simply can't see it any longer. Of course, then what you have to do when someone is living in constant, obvious sin, you have to wonder if they're really a believer.  Now it's not my job to determine that. But what I used to preach was that when someone is living in sin, I'm not going to pass judgment. That's God's job. He says, ‘don't do it.’

[00:10:39] But I am not going to treat them as a Christian. I'm going to assume that they're a nonbeliever, and I'm going to preach salvation messages to them. And I just think you have to do that. So, I mean, I'm thinking of people in my past that are so consumed with their sin. I don't know at this point whether they know it or not, because we all get blind spots, right? We've got to be careful of casting stones because there, I'm sure there's things in all of our lives where some point in time God's going to shine his Holy Spirit on it and we're going to go, ‘oh, good grief, I did that? Oh, I am envious. I didn't know.’ So, I mean, there's blind spots too. (Unidentified class member:  For me, my ministry is Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous. And we have a 12 Step program, which is the God-given program, where in Step 5, we have to be honest to ourselves, confess to ourselves, to God…(unintelligible). And my point is this: to thine own self be true. If you don't have honesty, you fail the program, period. Nobody can continue to live a lie).  Dr. Mounce: I'm thinking of someone I know that is not an alcoholic, but I may want to talk to you afterwards, because I don't know how to get through to him. And he clearly has an alcohol problem. And when you ask him about it, he says, ‘nope.’ I said, ‘well, with every major decision that you've made that's bad, there was alcohol involved, on an alcohol problem. He’ll never get past Step 5. (Class member continues: It could be, well, you're not going to get past Step 1. But he could have a problem once a year in alcohol).

 (Unidentified class member: I had a definition I used with children all year because I was an elementary school teacher. It’s sin is any way that we hurt God, ourselves, or others. And then I would say our actions, our attitudes; I would try to use alliteration, especially with dealing with children. And we only talk about hurt. And you know what? What are some of the ways that we have felt hurt ourselves.?; where the way that we hurt our parents…(unintelligible)…in the same ways we have hurt God). Dr. Mounce: Oh, okay. Any way we have hurt God ourselves, and others… (Class member continues:  Sin is any way we have hurt God, ourselves, or others).  And then II would try to use a word by our actions…) Dr. Mounce: That's what I was looking for. (Class member continues: Actions, our attitudes). (Other unintelligible conversation follows).  Dr. Mounce:  Okay. So, here's the cool thing about teaching. I'm going to put that in my book, and I'll get all the credit for it. Oh, he's so wise. No, I won't. I always give credit. Okay. Yeah, that's very good…(unintelligible)…because I think instinctively, because we get hurt, we know when we've hurt other people. We know that something was wrong in that. A kid doesn't have to understand something about that honesty is part of the character in God. All they have to know is that when someone's been dishonest with them, it hurt them. Yeah, I like that. Thank-you.

(Unidentified class member: You could also say blocking yourself from the sunlight of the Spirit. So if you're saying that your whole world before you just turned gray, wait a minute, there’s no sunlight here).  Dr. Mounce: Okay. So different ways to define sin, an important thing to be able to do.

I do have one discussion. I need to do this; this is the only other time I'm going to do it. But I just want to disagree with Wayne on something. And again, the only reason I'm doing this is this topic won't come up with new believers. But if your mentors are using him, this is going to raise a few eyebrows. And it has to do with the doctrine of inherited sin. It’s page 494. I'm just going to mention this. I'm going to leave it up to your systematics prof to spend more time on it. There's a couple of different doctrines. One’s total depravity. Total depravity is not the doctrine that you are as bad as everything can be, right? The doctrine of total depravity is that every aspect of your life has been affected by sin. So your conscience, your speech; the total doesn't mean there's nothing redeeming in you at all. It just means every aspect of who you are has been affected by sin. That is a biblical doctrine. The other one, the one that's related is generally called the doctrine of original sin. And Wayne wants to use a different word. He talks about original guilt. He talks about inherited corruption, original pollution. He jumps around with names. The doctrine of original sin is that Adam and Eve were not created with the propensity towards sin, that when they looked at moral choices, there was nothing dragging them down, influencing them to do the bad.

 But when they chose to sin, they affected what it was to be a human being. And so that human beings now all have a propensity to sin. That's the doctrine of original sin, right? It’s not a level playing field for us because of what Adam and Eve did. We inherited this tendency towards sin, which in every one of our cases takes hold, and we sin. So far, so good. No problems. Wayne doesn't actually use the word, but my understanding is that he is a federalist, and the doctrine is called (I learned it as federalism); he has different things for it. In the doctrine of federalism that Wayne is going to be talking about, he’s going to say, not only were you born with a tendency to sin, but you were born guilty of sin. And I don't think he's right. (Unidentified class member with unintelligible comment). Dr. Mounce: He relies heavily on David ‘in sin did my mother conceive me,’ and I just think it's poetic literature. David was going out of his way to truly confess that he had done wrong. I just don't agree with this. Federalists hold that we were all present in Adam and Eve, and therefore their sin is our sin. And so it's not just inherited. We were there. It builds on a view of humanity that sees us as a whole and not as a bunch of individuals. And so, we were present in Adam and Eve. We sinned when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree, and therefore we were guilty in 8008 B.C. or wherever it was. And so, when you're born, you are actually born, not with a tendency to sin, but you were born with sin.

And I don't think he's right. But he goes, and there's quite a bit of discussion on that in here. So I wanted you to be aware that that is going to be one of the things. You know, the Romans 5 passage: ‘for by one man's disobedience many were made sinners (that’s Adam). So by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous,’ (which is Adam, the Adam and Christ comparison). And that's what the discussions about. So just want you to be aware that it's in there and it goes on for about four pages. So if you're mentors start using this, you need to be aware of that.

The other thing that was really helpful in here, by the way, is the whole doctrine of the unpardonable sin. On page 506 he's got a really good discussion of the  unpardonable. It’s not in my experience, but I've been told that there are…it’s pretty common for a new believer to have heard somewhere that there is a sin that is not forgiven, and they’re afraid that they've committed it. Have you ever come across this? All right. He goes through, and I'd always thought that the unpardonable sin was dying, not having received Jesus. And Wayne convinced me that's not the right definition because the Pharisees had already committed the unpardonable sin, right?; the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So it's a sin that is committed in life, not in death. He says ‘the unpardonable sin is when the person has a clear knowledge of who Christ is, that they've made a willful and an intentional, purposeful, informed rejection of that, and they are willing to slanderously attribute the work of the Spirit to say, you know, with the Pharisees, they knew Jesus;

they had seen his miracles; they had heard his message; they willfully rejected Jesus and said that his power was because it was from Beelzebub and not from God. And it was within that context that Jesus says, you know, there's all sin would be forgiven except the sin against the Spirit. That's the unpardonable sin. Apparently, what happens is that some people have put themselves beyond the reach of God's ordinary means of bringing people to repentance. So evidently there is a point in time where people (and this is why the Hebrews 6 passage is so important too), you know, people that have had a community experience of the church, who have heard the things of God, who have seen the work of the Spirit, and then say they actively, willfully, intentionally, purposely reject the message; and even go so far as to say it’s satanic, it's not God. Evidently what happens is God says, ‘fine, I'm done with you. No more Holy Spirit. It's an unpardonable sin.’ And so there's no more drawing of that person to God. Now, the two qualifications, of course, and I don't remember Wayne making the first one, is that we have no idea who has and who has not done this. And we all have read stories of great “sinners” that have turned to God. And so while the person may have committed the unpardonable sin and the Spirit is done working in their life, we have no idea who that is. And so it's not our place to simply say, ‘I'm done preaching to you. You're never going to hear it.’ You don't know. (Unidentified class member: Does that mean that turns us over to our reprobate mind?) Dr. Mounce: Now, the Romans 1 passage is not about believers. It's about unbelievers. And these are people that knew these things about God…I mean[00:21:59] it’s a great passage to point out; Romans 1 about people who knew things about God that rejected him, and so God turns them over to, and then there's a whole list of sins he turns them over to. But it's the same kind of thing where, it's Paul saying, ‘I think what gave them over to the sin means is that the Spirit says, I'm done working with you.’ But of course, we don't know who that is or when that would happen.  The second thing, and the more important thing in evangelism, is that if someone's afraid they've committed the unpardonable sin, they haven’t. The very fact that they think they might have done it shows a level of spiritual sensitivity that no one that the Spirit had left could possibly do. So the very fact that they're worried about it is a great sign. It means you haven't done it. (Victor: class member: . So do you think the Pharisees never  had this thoughts…) Dr. Mounce: Apparently, I mean, they’re not things I fully understand, but apparently, at least the Pharisees that were standing there saying Jesus was demonic, had gone over the line. Other the Pharisees, you know, Nicodemus, the one hadn't gone over the line. There's no way for us to know who's committed the unpardonable sin. But what we can say to a new believer, is that if you think you've done it, you definitely haven't. (Unidentified class member: What about the Catholic belief suicide is unpardonable?) Dr. Mounce:  Yeah, he goes into discussion of venial and mortal sins. It's a good discussion. Basically, there is no sin that can separate us from the atoning work of Christ on the Cross except for continued unbelief to death, right?

And apparently, the unpardonable sin. So suicide is not a mortal sin. The Bible doesn't make that kind of distinction. (Unidentified class member: Yeah, but if I kill myself, I can't ask for forgiveness.) Dr. Mounce: Are you going to go to heaven, JC, with any unforgiven sins? Or do you ask for forgiveness so fast when you sin that there's no way that you're going to die with unconfessed sin? We're all going to die with unconfessed sin. But that unconfessed sin affects the relationship. It doesn't affect your salvation, your standing before God. I came across this when I first started teaching at Azusa 20 years ago, and I had had no experience with the Wesleyan traditions except I’d gone to a Free Methodist church. And I met a guy named Jeff Gilmer. We became good friends (that’s why I happen to know his name), and he came in and, I still don't know what the point was, but he was, I've never seen anyone as scared in my life. And he was terrified. He just started confessing sins to me. I'm going, ’oh, I don't even know you, what is going on here?’ But he was just, I mean, he was out of control in fear. Well, he had been raised in the old Nazarene tradition, and he had connection with the old Nazarene. Old Nazarene. And I checked this with quite a few Nazarenes. They were all taught that if they sinned, they lost their salvation. And if you sinned and didn't confess, and then died, you went to Hell. This is what was propelling Jeff. I said, ‘Jeff, have you ever heard what justification is?’ He goes, ‘no, what is it?’ And, you know, I went through justification. I mean, all the things we talk about in the talk 1 in this book.

 And he had never heard it. He had never heard about the work of the Spirit in his life, of preserving him, of keeping him safe, of being the down payment of the inheritance. He’d never heard about reconciliation and adoption. Nothing. How did you grow up a church and not know these things? But he had, all the all he was told was that if he sinned and died unconfessed, he went to Hell. It is a part of the historical traditions in some of the Wesleyan denominations. So, all that to say to your question, I'm sure I will have unconfessed sins when I die; there'll be things that either I haven't got around to confessing or I'm not aware of, or something. That doesn't affect my eternal destiny. Those things just affect my relationship. I mean, my answer anyway; suicide's not a good thing, but it's not the unforgivable sin. It's your last mistake you're going to make. (Unintelligible conversation between Dr. Mounce and class members). I should tell you I'm not being too flippant on this. There was a suicide in my extended family, and we were with the children of the person who killed himself. And my grandma, not thinking, was talking in the car after church about suicide was a mortal sin, and anyone committed suicide, you know, is going to go to Hell. The man’s son was sitting right there, and we…’grandma, grandma, shut up.’ Grandma was up front talking away.

 And finally we got home. She realized what she had said, and she felt just absolutely horrible. We took the son aside and talked to him, and he understood that grandma was wrong. Suicide is a horrible thing; it’s ultimate rejection and all that kind of stuff. It's a hard thing, as you all probably know. (Unidentified class member:  Well, we're living in unconfessed sin; couldn’t that be like committing suicide on the installment plan…I mean, you know it, you still do it, every day, every day). Dr. Mounce, (joking): Well, speak for yourself.  I'm a professor…; you don’t think I sin, do you?  It’s this progression business, isn't it, that, you know, okay, we get reconciled and justified? We enter into a relationship with God through Christ, through faith. So the relationship’s established, but the quality of that relationship is based on certain things. Forgiveness, if you do not forgive those who have sinned against you, neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your sins. And that doesn't mean you're going to lose his salvation. It means that that relationship is being damaged. And so as people continue to live in sin, it's like any relationship; as you continue to be unfaithful to your spouse or continue to treat your spouse with anger or whatever be the case, at some point out here you start kind of wondering, was I ever justified? If sin is so much a part of my life, do I have any assurance that I'm really a child of God? I think that's where this process goes. That's why I said earlier, when there's people in your church that are living in sin and refuse to do anything about it, you're not the judge. But you also can't stand up there and give them the assurance that they're going to go to Heaven no matter how they live their lives.

 (Unintelligible conversation between unidentified class member and Dr. Mounce.) (Another unidentified class member: If a person continually lives in sin, he’s most likely not a believer.) Dr. Mounce:  Well, that’s the message in 1st John, isn't it? Yeah, that one who’s born of God doesn't continually sin… (Unidentified class member continues:  …put in degrees of sin here because like, people can live in sin of procrastination all their life…) Dr. Mounce responds: That’s not a sin…well, I haven’t made up my mind yet! (Class member continues…ruining their relationship…and then we say they’ve never been born again in the 20 years I know the person is still holding everything off.) Dr. Mounce: The answer is, we know this, We're not the judge. That's not a judgment we make. But that's hard for a pastor, I think, because, you know, you're supposed to test spirits. So, if somebody wants to be a deacon or elder in your church, and in one area of the life they’re living in sin, you have to make a judgment. That's part of the demands of leadership. (Unidentified class member: You were saying that indicates that this person...) Dr. Mounce: Well, you know, Romans 6: Should we continue in faith that sin can abound? You know, absolutely not. We are not to be comfortable with ongoing sin in our lives. 1st John 3 says the one who is born of God doesn't continue in sin. At some level there needs to be a recognition that if someone is in fact living in sin, it is not becoming more like Christ, is not confessing and dealing with issues, but instead is just getting worse and worse or never changing at all.

 I think theologically, the decision that you make is that they can have no assurance of their salvation. You think of someone who is lived in anger for 40 years, I don't know whether they're a believer or not. It's not my call. But I do know that I could preach a sermon of assurance with them in the audience and make it very clear, without talking directly to them, that there's no way in the world that they can know for sure that they're going to Heaven; because if sin has so consumed their lives, then they've lost one of the most important tests of your assurance, right? The three full tests of assurance of faith in 1st John is in the character of God. It is in the growth and sanctification, and it is in the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, right? And what's hard is that each one of those you can be deceived of. There will be people at the Judgment Seatr who said, ‘I didn't do all these things.’ And Jesus said, ‘depart from me, you workers of iniquity.’ I listened to that little discussion on the recording the other day and how I said it last time. I'll just be biblical from now on… ‘depart from me’. So you can think you became a Christian, but you could deceive yourself. The character of God cannot be relevant to you because you’re not his child. And, you know, Mormons talk about...what's their phrase...the burning in the heart, the warming in the bosom. They have this deep inner conviction that they are right. That's the thing about assurance; each one of them individually, there are copycats; they can be wrong, but it is in all three of those together that there's assurance.

 So that's why I'm saying, I mean Paul, ‘I continue to pummel my body, thus having preached the Gospel, I'd be denied the reward.’ And I think the reward is salvation. So even Paul understood that he had to push through to the end. And so if you don't push through to the end and if you let sin consume you, then I think what we do as preachers is that we say you can't have an assurance. And on our standpoint, we can't assume they actually are believers, but it's not our call. (Unidentified class member: It’s very important, I know, that doesn't sound that biblical, but you have to have different kinds of grades of sin… one person can be late…that is a sinful tendency, or you can say it’s a sin.  So when he's constantly living in sin, being always late for a meeting…or he's always, can be, being distracted on a computer is sin, or being…playing Solitaire on a computer on your job.) Dr. Mounce:  Yeah. Okay. Alright. That’s just being deceitful.  Yeah. So, page 501… (Class member continues: So some things are just, again, not as bad as others.) Dr. Mounce: Page 501...Are there degrees of sin? And he talks about legal guilt, relational conflicts; and he does a really good job of saying, you know, at the legal stage, any sin will send you to Hell. Any sin, no matter how big or small it is, will violate your relationship with God and you will go to Hell.

 But once you become a Christian, once you truly become a Christian, the sin doesn't affect your legal standing. And so sin from that point on, there are things that have greater ramifications for your relationship with God, and sins that have less ramifications in your relationship with God. So that's how he distinguishes it. So he would say, yes, there are different degrees of sin for the Christian in terms of the damage they can do. My wife would much rather I lie to her than I cheat on her. Both are wrong, but one has greater consequences in the relationship. (Unidentified class member: Plus also, in terms of our positions as leaders, really dealing with sins we can see, manifest. Because that person could be at home on the computer playing cards or looking at porno...we don't know that. That could be for 20 years.) Dr. Mounce: And, you know, the really cool thing is that we don't have to; conviction’s the work of the Spirit. (Class member continues: No, I meant in terms of assessing whether that person...) Dr. Mounce: When you talk about leadership? (Class member continues:   You got a person that looks crystal clean,  but you got a person over here that's been doing stuff that you don't know about, and you pick that person…) Dr. Mounce:   1st Timothy 5: be very, very slow to appoint elders because the sins of some go before; in other words, the sins of some are obvious. The sins of others lag behind. It takes a while to notify them. And also, the reverse is also true. He goes on to say that the good deeds of some are not immediately apparent.

 I mean, you could pass over someone in looking for leadership in your church, and you may not even see all the good they're doing while of the good of others is visible. So go slowly. And the other position paper that I talked quite a bit about, the pace at which you should get to know people, instill the wrong people in leadership. That was it for the stumble chapter. The thing that’s so important is to help the new believer not be discouraged. These things are going to happen, but the fact that there's conflict can often be a good thing because it gives you a chance to kind of see where you are; look at the patterns that you've established through your life and then deal with those patterns. Confession is a defining moment in their life, and if they dig in their heels and don't want to confess to God that something is wrong, they're going to be absolutely miserable their entire life. All right.

Lesson 4 is a first half of a two-part Lesson. Four is listening to God, which is mostly the Bible, and number 5 is speaking to God, which is prayer. These are topics with pages of pages of notes, of questions that could come up, but I try to restrict my thoughts. Let me just summarize the sermon. You guys can look at the workbook. I use Psalm 19. Psalm 19, the first 6 verses are general revelation. The rest is specific revelation, if you know those terms. But the whole point for new believers that they have to learn to listen to God, and there's two basic ways you listen to God. I'm looking at my sermon notes right now.

There's general revelation; that’s information about God that all people can see at all times. This is developing the habit, developing a discipline of looking at nature, or for me, nature is the big thing; but there's different things for different people. Well, learning to see God in the things that are created. All right. So we'll go down to our dock at night; the skies are beautiful. It is like the Milky Way goes right up and down the Pend Oreille River. You can see literally the Milky Way reflected in the river. What do you say to your son at that point?  You train them, right? And you train them to talk about the beauty of God and the majesty of God and the grandeur of God. And you see God in Orion's belt. You see God in the stars. You see God is so...and then you can move to saying God is as loving as he is powerful. If you can kind of begin to imagine the power that it took to create all this, he’s just as loving as he is powerful. For a new believer it’s not something that’s preached a lot. But I think it's just a healthy discipline. I love Spring when you can see more shades of green than you could possibly describe when the trees are starting to come out. I mean, every tree has got a different shade of green. And what's going on? Well, it's a tribute to the diversity of God, to the variety, to the creativity of our God. I mean, people need to learn to see God, not in the trees, because that's Pantheism, or even Animism. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech.

Night after night they display knowledge.’ There's a lot of stuff that new believers can gain by learning to look at Creation differently. But most of the lesson is what's on specific revelation. Specific revelation is what you can learn about God through the Bible, right? I've often wondered what, even especially a nonbeliever thinks when they walk in our churches. Do you ever put yourself in their shoes? Okay, you walk in and there's someone at the door greeting them. Okay, that's nice, I guess. It’s a little invasive. You know, I kind of want to sneak in the back and see what this place is about. And then they sit down. And all of a sudden everybody stands up and then they start singing songs. And what's that all about? And then maybe someone gets up front; he opens his book, and he starts reading. I wonder what they're reading. In Boston the church was heavy laden with tradition, and they had a Bible. I mean, it had to be that thick. It had to be six inches thick. And the gal who read it had a very raspy voice She would take up “hear the word of the Lord.” You know, if I weren’t  a believer; I was a believer and I was halfway out the door.  It scared me. And then they start reading it; then the New Testament, you go, what's new? Is there an old? What's new about the new? I mean, you got to understand; there was a poll taken, this was 15 years ago, where they said at the end of some football stadiums is a big sign that says John 3, and a colon,. and 16.

What does that mean?  The number 1 guess it was John Madden's weight. No, really, this was the survey. They didn't know why there was a colon, but they thought John Madden weighed 316lbs. The second most common guess was that it was directions to the toilet. The same survey said in the Bible there is a person that's swallowed by a whale. Who is it? And 76 (my memory may be faulty), but it was a huge majority of the people answered Pinocchio. Everyone knows Pinocchio's in the Bible…isn’t Pinocchio in the Bible? Never underestimate how little people know in your church, right? (Unidentified class member: Was that in the church?) Dr Mounce:  No, this was just in culture. See, it used to be, you know, a hundred years ago, we could preach totally differently because people learned to read by reading the Bible, right? They all had primers. The primers were Bible passages. You learn to read by reading the Bible. I mean, there was so much a part of the culture that people knew things. We live in a culture that doesn't know the Bible at all. You know that the majority of kids and youth groups believes that the Bible teaches reincarnation. Where do they get that from? They get it from, as far as I can tell, Herod. Well, they'll say ‘where in the Bible does it say that? Well, Herod said that John the Baptist had been risen from the dead. That's reincarnation.’ And that was the explanation I was given. The degree of ignorance about the Bible in today’s culture is mind boggling. We ignore that at our own peril. That's what's so hard about this chapter.

 You can't assume that this person knows anything. I think it's in the workbook. I had to say, okay, when you say John 3:16, the Bible is broken into different books. The books are generally named after the person who wrote them, like John and Matthew. And chapters of books are broken into chapters and chapters are broken into verses. So the way they refer to a verse, something in the Bible, is the name of the book; chapter, period; and the verse. And then sometimes you get an answer back, what’s a Bible? Culture doesn't know what this thing is anymore. And so that's what makes this chapter so difficult. So, it was a real question of what to cover in this sermon because of the level of ignorance in society. What I decided to do is to talk about the doctrines of inspiration, authority, canon history, and the Bible being trustworthy. I go through it briefly, but here was my concern: where did this come from and why should it make any difference to me? I think that's the question that a new believer needs to be exposed to.  Okay, they responded to a message of Jesus, but they don't know the relationship…many don't know the relationship between the Bible and Jesus. And they start to read it and they're going to be reading some really bizarre stuff right? I mean, there’s weird stuff in the Bible, right? I'm not getting much emotion here. Yes, there’s are some Really, really…like, this guy that died and went into a tomb and came back to life. That's weird. And then back here, they're killing everyone. Men, women and children. Animals. There's a lot of stuff in here. And I think what they need to know is at a very rudimentary level, where this came from and why it's so important.

The problem in covering this lesson is that there are so many questions that could come out of this. It's just been my experience that this is a real problem at a chapter because of that. The main thing is the doctrine of inspiration is the doctrine of source, right? We believe that this came from the very mouth of God. And I use 2 Timothy 3:16-17. So it comes from God. Number2, because we believe this comes from God, it carries his authority. This is how I said it: that assuming that the new believer would, for some reason be agreeing with me, I say, ‘doesn't make any difference whether God appears here and says it is good to praise the Lord, or whether I read Psalm 92:1, it is good to praise the Lord. They both have the same authority in my life.’ So talk about where it comes from; it’s authority. And then, I get a bit into canonicity. And again, I try to keep it from being a lecture. But we're all aware that there are people out there that are constantly telling people that the church got it wrong, that these aren't the right books. Right? (Unidentified class member: Whether it's been manipulated.) Dr. Mounce: Yeh, that's point four. I still remember when I was in seminary walking downtown Pasadena, and there was a bookstore with a big sign about the lost books of the Bible, and how the church had been so evil at removing these books from the Bible. And they were just as important as the other ones. And about every ten years, some other person (I’ll be nice), comes along, says the same thing, you know, about every ten years. And it's always the same thing. It’s always the New Testament Apocrypha.

It's always the Gospel of Thomas. It's the same thing over and over and over and over. It's kind of like they sell a lot of books and there's kind of a lull period, and then they go, ‘oh, Da Vinci Code, you know, because it's always worked before. It's always sold a lot of stuff before. Let's do it again.’ So that idea that the church blew it when it came to deciding what books are in here is all around. And then the other thing is what you were getting. And that gets us more Da Vinci Code, that it's been the church changed it. For example, liberalism will say Jesus taught the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man (but it wouldn't say man now; the brotherhood of all).  What would they say? What’s the gender-neutral word for brotherhood? Y’all, right! Anyway, the way it was stated when I was in seminary was the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all people. And then that evil Paul came along and Paul changed everything. And he made it doctrinal and not relational. (Unidentified class member: No, the good one is King James? He changed it). Dr. Mounce: King James changed it.  No, I don't want to go down there, although the Catholic Church would certainly say that, right? Because, I mean, part of the point of the King James translation was to develop a non-Latin Bible that could separate the Church of England from the Church of Rome. So actually, back then, probably that was being said. So anyway, so those are the four things that I talk on. I count one, two, three, four, five. There's seven chapters in Wayne's book that cover this lesson.

That's how much data there is. The word from chapters two through eight. Let me show you a resource. And this is the most important thing I think I can show you. It happens to be one of my classes, but if you go to discipleship, and you go down to growing deeper, there is my New Testament Survey class. This is the one that I taught here last year over three weeks, and the first three talks in this class are on Bibliology how the Bible is written, can we trust it, and how do we get it (how did it come through the centuries?) This is 3 hours of stuff on these topics, and obviously I can't cover it now. I'm going to say a few things, but if you start getting a lot of questions, where did the Bible come from? Why do I trust it? Should I trust it? How do I believe the church got it right? How do I believe they didn't change it? How do I believe the church got the right books. The answers are all in those talks. I want you to be aware of that resource. But let me just cover a few of these things and give you just some real fundamental answers. Number 1, can you trust your Bible? (Unidentified class member: Yes.) Dr. Mounce: Why? Unidentified class member: I believe that it’s God’s word.) Dr. Mounce:  Oh, really? The Mormons say their book’s God's word. Muslim’s say their words God’s word. That's right. Go to the hotel, the Mirano, and you'll find that little slip of paper with all these other claims. That’s not to say that's not a valid argument. But for someone raised in a pluralistic society, an anti-authoritarian society, there has to be something else that we can give them. And of course, if they've got the Spirit in them, they're going to figure it out, or at least they're going to be open to it.

They're going to respect JC as their pastor, and he says, ‘I believe it. And I believed it my whole life; that's going to really mean something to someone who's been saved in his church. But let me just give you a couple of things. Can I trust my Bible? One of the things is out there that we're all aware of is people said, ‘well, the Bible's full of mistakes.’ Right? ‘The pastor's up there and he's reading the Bible, and he's expounding the Bible and applying the Bible. But why should I trust it.?’ People are going to be told that there's contradictions and inconsistencies in the Bible. And I think we have to make it very clear that there aren't. And the easiest way to do that is to very gently say, ‘can you show me one?’  I used to have this thing where you get involved in this discussion, you go, ‘really?’ I did this in college. ‘Really? Oh, no. Oh, my faith is shattered. What? Show me one.’ ‘Oh, I just… they're all over the place.’ ‘Well, really, if they’re all over the place, It won’t be hard for you to find one, will it?’ ‘Well, actually, I don't know where any are.’ Then how do you know there’s any mistakes?’ The point being, you will hear this, but people don't know…there are problems. If you've been in this business long enough, you know there are some places in the Synoptics, it's kind of hard to get them together. But in terms of helping someone start to learn to trust the Bible, and if you say they've been told that there's mistakes in it, say, ‘where are they? Did the person who told you they’re mistakes ever show you their mistakes?’ ‘Well, no.’

Well, I'm here to tell you that there aren't mistakes in the Bible, and that person probably is just saying that. And so, again, it's just dealing with the ethos of the age that we live in. Ask him where these “mistakes” are. You can point out things like a lot of passages that appear to contradict each other are simply misinterpreted, and that if you sit down and you really work and see what the Bible says, you're going to find that it agrees with itself. It doesn't ever disagree with itself. A great example is to show (this may be too much for a non-Christian), Abraham believed God and is credited him as righteousness; Paul uses it to prove that justifications by faith; James uses it to prove that justification’s by works. The simple harmonization is that they mean something different by justification, and again, that's too much for a new believer. But I think you can honestly say, ‘look, there are places that at first you kind of go, what? If you're not for me, you're against me. If you're not against me, you're for me. Well, which one is it, Jesus?’ And if you say just look at these texts, and you really work to understand them, you're going to find that they don't really contradict each other. So I just think we have to be aware of that. So you can trust your Bible. But the real question is why does JC believe it? If you're working with a new believe, and you're saying we can trust the Bible, it doesn't have mistakes, ultimately, they're going to want to know why you trust it. And this is one of those things that happened in my teaching career that…I probably have taught this topic in college 100 times.

It’s just that we taught four Introduction to Bible study classes a semester. So I taught the same stuff eight times a year, which is exhausting. (Unidentified class member: It’s Azusa?) Dr. Mounce: It’s Azusa, yeah. They don't have the teaching load they used to have. We used to teach a lot. So I taught it and taught it, and year after year went by, and I don't know, it was until like the sixth or seventh year I was there that a student came to me, said, ‘you've been talking about trusting your Bible. Why do you trust your Bible?’ And I didn't have an answer. That's a good question. Why do I believe? And I think in working through that answer for yourself, that's what the new believer’s going to need. They're going to want to know why you trust it so much. This is the answer that I came up with, that I tell people, ‘Bill, why do you trust the Bible?’ Number 1: it says it's from God. Your answer: the Bible says it's from God. And a person could say something like, ‘well, do you believe everything you're told?’ ‘Well, no, actually, I don't.’ But if the Bible didn't say it was from God, it the Bible didn't say I could trust it, I wouldn’t. So my starting point is that it says it's from God. It says that it’s trustworthy. All Scripture is breathed out by God, is profitable for teaching, for correction, and training in righteousness, right? 2 Timothy 3:16-17.  So if the Bible never claimed to be an authority, I probably wouldn't treat it as an authority. But my starting position is it says it's authority, it says it's from God. By the way, this is just real personal on my part.

 So you may have different reasons why you believe…this is nowhere in your notes, by the way if you're looking.

The second reason that I believe the Bible is from God is that I think it makes sense. That's always an interesting argument because when you say that something is rational, when you say something makes sense, people don't think in terms of faith. That's science, right? Science is rational. Science explains reality. And so, we give way to science. But I think believing the Bible is from God is internally consistent and is the main way in which I listen to God. I think that makes more sense than anything else. It’s rational. For example, how does the world explain evil? It's all a matter of social, economic and educational things, right? I mean, the only reason we have evil is that we have people that aren't trained; they’re not educated or they're poor. This is the humanist answer for evil in the world. It's all external. Does that make sense to anybody? Does that explain why China made 3 million machetes so the Rwandans could slaughter each other? Really, that's an issue of education? See, that's no explanation of evil. But when I read in the Bible that there actually is a demonic power who hates God, who wants to usurp his authority, who wants as many followers as possible, and that he was involved in the destruction of our first mother and father and continues to work in the lives of all people to turn them to his kingdom and not to God’s, I gotta go, ‘I can understand 3 million machetes.’ Have you guys read the Bishop of Rwanda, that book? You really need to read it. It's a terrifying book. And I got to meet him. I was at a conference and he was speaking on forgiveness and said, ‘well, if anybody understands forgiveness, this guy's got to understand forgiveness, more than I do anyway.’

We got an hour; we turned in names and then prayed, and Robin and I got picked. So, we got an hour with him. And I said, ‘How? How do you forgive?’ And he said, ‘you can't. It's a God thing. You'll never be able to forgive on your own. All that you can do is that God give you the ability to forgive.’ Great advice, by the way, because long as you try to muster up enough strength to forgive those people that have hurt you, you'll never get there, but rather you just turn it over to the Lord and say, ‘give me a forgiving heart, please; help me to want to forgive; help me to forgive.’ See, when I look at things like evil, when I look at things like good, When I look at things like beauty, the world has no answer for those things. It doesn't explain them. The Bible does. So, one of the reasons I believe the Bible is that it just makes sense to me. If this book said, ‘well, you know, I had a vision of a white salamander, oh, no, they were golden glasses. Oh, no, they were some…’ And it goes through seven different ways of explaining. I'm not going to believe it, right? It doesn't make sense to me. This makes sense to me.

The third reason that I think the Bible is trustworthy, that it’s from God, is this inner confirmation of the Holy Spirit, which I think is, as you and I live longer in the faith, becomes more and more important to us. I think I can come to the position that even if there were many, many, many, many mistakes in this book, I’d still believe it, because to not believe it would just be stupid.

 I mean, the inner witness of the Spirit for 51 years has been such that I just trust it. It doesn't mean I don't struggle with it. ‘Vengeance is mine, I’ll repay’ says the Lord. Nahhhh, you don't do a good enough job. God is a horrible avenger; did you notice that? He's a terrible avenger. He's way too patient, right? He takes way too long to deal with problems, and he's never harsh enough with them. He never punishes people enough (just, of course, for me; and I deserve his patience). So obviously, the Bible is wrong. It's saying we've got to turn vengeance over to God. I'm much better meting it out, right? I hope that's not the Holy Spirit raising your hand (laughing). We look at this verse, and on one level we go, ‘no, God, you do a lousy job with vengeance. Sometimes you wait till their death.’ But down deep, the Holy Spirit’s going ‘now, Bill, I know you're hurting, but, let me take care of this; let me take care of that person. You can trust me.’  No, no, no, no, no, no.’‘Okay.’ ‘Yes, You can trust me.’ That is the Holy Spirit works. Is this the inner witness of the Spirit, just slowly but surely confirming that the words of this book are true? So I think if you share that with the new believer, they're going to go, ‘okay, I believe you. And I look forward to the day when I believe it more; and I believe it more; and I believe it more.’ I think there's other arguments that people must hear, things like the word prophecy and stuff like that. But these are the things that have meant the most to me in my life.

The Bible says it's from God and it's trustworthy. It makes sense. And ultimately, it's the inner witness of the Spirit that nailed that coffin shut a long time ago. Wayne's got a great discussion of this on page 79. Let me just read you a little bit, because I think this is really an important issue. If you teach in college at all very long, you realize there's only two or three questions that most kids have, right? I used to go to youth groups and have question answer time afterwards. And kids only care about two things, right, as far as I can tell, like what's God's will for my life, and can I sleep with my girlfriend? I just developed answers for those two questions, and I pretty much could handle a youth group (I guess that's why I wasn't asked to a lot of youth groups). But I did have a lot of kids come into my office when I was teaching at Azusa, and it would go something like this: ‘Oh, Dr. Mounce, I just met Sallie Mae.’ (Dr. Mounce interjects as an aside: does anyone know one Sallie Mae?  I can't use Sallie Mae, that’s a mortgage company). ‘Suzy, I just love Suzy so much.’ And I said, ‘well, tell me about it.’ And then they go, ‘ahhhh, I love Suzy so much.’ And the whole time I’m thinking, ’why are you telling me this? What is it that you are needing that is pushing you to profess your love for Sally (sic)?’ And they always would, time after time, with the same point; they would get done talking about their love for Sallie. And I would ask them, ‘is Sally a believer?’ Or they said, can I marry her...(unintelligible). The answer is always the same;, do you believe the Bible? do you believe that God loves you and that his way is best? His will is clear on this one, right? That you cannot be an unequally yoked. You just can't. You see, what they were saying, is, ‘I'm not sure I trust it. I'm not sure I trust it.’ So what they need to hear from you and from me is that we trust it, especially in those areas that are difficult, like vengeance or other areas; we still trust it. And what will happen, I think, with the new believers, they will pick it up (Grudem - 79). “Ultimately, the truthfulness of the Bible will commend itself as being far more persuasive than other religious books. It'll be more persuasive because in the actual experience of life, all of these other candidates for ultimate authority, Book of Mormon, the Koran, are seen to be inconsistent or to have shortcomings that disqualify them, or the Bible will be seen to be fully in accord with all that we know about the world around us, about ourselves, and about God. That as time goes by, we get a greater and greater assurance and deeper conviction that the Bible is the only ultimate authority.” New believers need to know that I'm honest. Okay? So I'll put them in your words…that, by the way, would be a great position paper, wouldn’t it, for  the class? That'd be a great paper for you to write up: why do you trust the Bible? No Sunday School answers…l was watching 60 Minutes the other day and a corpsman, I think he was a Marine; he and his brother were serving together in the same battalion, which is against the rules.

They were interviewing the brothers, and they said, ‘are you honest to your mom when you write back about what things are going on?’ And one of the brothers said, oh no, we church it up.’ Did you ever read that expression,? I've never heard it before, but what a fabulous expression. We church up. In other words, we're not honest. We gloss it over. We try to hide the truth. We massage it. We church it up. Anyway, if you write a position paper, don't church it up.  Alright? Think of someone who doesn't have your history, doesn't have your background, doesn't have your relationships, perhaps doesn't have parents that are believers, perhaps wasn't raised in the church. How would you encourage them to trust the Bible? By the great position paper. I think one of the other questions that comes up a lot, just because it's part of the culture, is why do you believe that we got the right books in here? Because you understand Catholics have a different group, right? They have a whole 13 other books. We call them the Old Testament Apocrypha. Luther's the one who got rid of basically for Protestants. So the Catholic Old Testament has additional 13. It's 13, isn't it? (Unidentified class member: It's 13 that were in the 400…) Dr. Mounce:  Okay. All right. And then there's another set of books called the New Testament Apocrypha, which is like Gospel of Thomas is the most famous example. And so there are people out there. They're going to be thinking, okay, my pastor or my friend or my mentor believes this, but I've heard that these aren't the right books. And there were books that were left out. And what do we do about that? Why did the church pick up the books they did, and why did they leave out the ones? [01:06:58] And I’m focusing here more on New Testament by the way, but the Old Testament is a slightly different issue. There's three tests, apparently, that the early church used for deciding whether a book went in the Canon or not. If you keep these three in your head, they're really easy to share. Number 1 is who wrote: the apostolic authorship. And so Matthew comes along. They know Matthew is an apostle, so they accept his writing. Mark was not an apostle, but according to tradition, he's writing the memoirs of Peter. So the second Gospel is really Peter, and Peter was an apostle, so they accepted it. So if an apostle wrote it, it was accepted right away into the Canon. It's interesting; the Gospel of John is an interesting case because the first really big heresy of the church, Gnosticism, used John a lot, and there was some real desire to dump John because the false teachers were using it so much. Well, because everyone knew that the Apostle John had written it, they couldn't dump it. And one of the criteria for accepting into a Canon was authorship, apostolic authorship. So, of course, you know, Luke and Acts, not an apostle. We don't know who wrote Hebrews. There are some books that had issues because of authorship issue, but this got a lot of them. (Unidentified class member: Wasn’t James one of the last ones…) Dr. Mounce:  James is because of number 2. The second thing they looked at was (this is my word), but the harmony of doctrine and tone. In other words, they said, ‘does this book agree with the other books that we've already accepted as authoritative?’ Does it sound the same (that’s what I mean by tone)? Does it sound the same? What I always did, and not that I’ve had this discussion a whole lot, but when somebody will come up and say ‘the Gospel of Thomas should have been in the Bible.

We say, ‘have you ever read it?’ And usually, they haven't. If you just read it, you'll see that it doesn't belong. It just sounds so different. Gospel of Thomas was written about 180 A.D. It was not written by Thomas. It's got a hundred years between it and the events over a hundred years. It doesn't agree. There's a book in the Old Testament Apocrypha called Ben Sirach. It’s in the Catholic Bible, not in the Protestant. And you look at it and it reads a little like Proverbs; it's a little different, but it reads a little like Proverbs, and you go, ‘well, it's not a big deal, you know, it's not a big deal. We should put this in our Bible’, until you get to the chauvinists’ favorite verse, and Ben Sirach, you know what it is? Evil had its origin in woman. Ben Sirach is a misogynist. Ben Sirach hates women. It's everywhere in his book. And so he blames the origin of evil on Eve. Paul, 1 Tomothy 2 and Genesis 3, says it's Adam. So you have a firm contradiction. This is not an exegetical issue. They just believe different things. And so when they looked at these books, they look…does it agree in doctrine; does it agree in tone. And you can even read books like The Shepherd of Hermes and the Didache that were probably at the end of the 1st Century. They sound different. They know that they're not an authority, that they're quoting the authority. They're just different. But that's one of the tests they had.

The other test they used was usage, and it was usage in the church as a whole. And this is very, very important. When the councils got together, I mean, this is one of the early decisions the church had to make:

 what books are authoritative? One of the things they did was they said, ‘well, what has your church accepted? In which books do your people hear the voice of God? The charge would be made that a couple of stodgy old academics up in a corner somewhere made a bunch of decisions and forced it on the church. In actuality, it was the church that made the decision, because the church as a whole either used these books or didn't use these books. So, for example, some of the churches we know treated Shepherd of Hermes as part of the Bible. Other churches didn't. And in the discussion, they decided to drop it because too many churches didn't use it. Too many people thought it wasn't from God. Now Shepherd of Hermes is actually a decent book. I mean, not aware of any heresy in it. The Didache is the catechism. It's kind of an “introduction to theology” book; but it's a really good book. But enough people said, ‘no, we like it, but it's not from God in the same way that Matthew, Mark and Luke and John are from God.’ And so it wasn't accepted. You can see why books like 2nd and 3rd John trouble had getting into the Canon because they were written to an individual church somewhere, and they would not have been known around the ancient world as having been written by John. You know, Hebrews struggled here. Luke and Acts did a little, but not a whole lot. I'm not aware of much canonical issues with them. The doctrine and tone, for example, gave 2nd Peter problems. The Greek of 2nd Peter is really different from the Greek of 1st Peter; and about half of it is almost identical to Jude, and it's just weird.

 And so there was some question about whether it was really from Peter and should be believed; continuous usage in the church heard stuff like 2nd and 3rd John. So, there was some debate. The vast majority of the New Testament was accepted very, very quickly. We generally date the New Testament Canon at 398 A.D. In other words, it took almost 400 years before we finally got an absolute list equal to our 27 books. But in actuality, almost all the books in the New Testament were accepted as authoritative almost instantly because of these things. That's the normal date that's given. That's the earliest list of the 27 books in The New Testament that we have. The list that come out of 150 are little different, but it was only a few of the books that were causing problems. (Unidentified class member: Was that another group of 50 or 60 bishops?) Dr. Mounce: Yeah, it was another group of bishops or whatever they were called, but then they were just reporting what the church had accepted. Anyway, does that help? If someone says, ‘well, why do we have the books of the Bible?’ It's based on who wrote them; do they agree with the rest of the Bible; and did the church as a whole agree to them? That tends to take care of most issues on this.

(Unidentified class member asks a question about the Old Testament.) Dr. Mounce: The Old Testament canon is different. I don't know much about it. Basically, the church let the Jews determine their own Canon. That was what happened, and I think it was Jamnia. I think the date’s 98 A.D. I know I’m pulling way out of the back of my mind. (Unidentified class member: That wasn't set in stone in Nicaea, 325?) Dr. Mounce:  Well, Nicaea’s the beginning of the 300s, yes. But in terms…he asked about the Old Testament Canon,

 What happened in the Old Testament is Christianity comes along, says their fulfillment of the Old Testament, Messianic hope. The Jews had not yet established their Canon. They had established, you know, the Tanakh, a Torah of the first five books. They had established the Nevi’im, the Prophets, the Major and Minor Prophets. There is some indication that in terms of the writings, you know, the phrase Tanakh, you know what I’m using? Okay, the Ketuvim which are the writings, Psalms, Job, that kind of stuff; there is some indication that the Jews had not decided yet which books really were in that part of the Canon. Christianity comes along and that pushes their buttons; all of a sudden you've got people claiming to be fulfilled Jews. They have to decide for sure what defines a Jew. So the Jews officially closed their Canon in 98 AD, Council of Jamnia. They picked up the books the Protestants have. The Old Testament Apocryphal books are all a little different. They were written later. They were written in Greek, not in Hebrew, and they were never fully accepted by the church. Even in the early church fathers, they knew that Ben Sirach and Daniel and the Dragon, and in some of these other books, that there was something different about them. But they were interspersed all the way through the Bible. If you look at, like the Latin Vulgate, you'll find these 13 or whatever it is, books scattered throughout, in their chronologically correct place. But again, the church always knew there was something different about them. It wasn't until around Luther that it really got to be a problem, because there were some teachings that were based on Apocryphal books that Luther didn't like; like Purgatory came out of, I think its 2nd Maccabees; Indulgences came out of one of the books.

 And what Luther did was that he took these 13 books that weren't written in Hebrew, they were written in Greek, and he put them between the New and the Old Testament. Very clever move. He couldn't be accused of taking the books out of the Bible, but he segmented them out and said that there's something different about this. And within about a hundred years, Protestant Bibles had dropped them entirely. So, I mean, quick shot, that's  the Old Testament Canon. But basically, the church let Jews determine their Canon, and the Jews determine the ones that are in the Protestant Canon now. Okay? And hopefully those are some answers that you'll be able to give to people on trusting the Bible and why we got it. There's some really good books out there that are pretty interesting. Clint Arnold just came out with one in Zondervan.  Clint Arnold, he’s a professor at Talbot down in Southern California. It's not a big book, and he's got lots of pictures. So he illustrates all kinds of cool stuff. And what I think it's called How We Got Our Bible, or something like that. So there's good resources out there to help you know this stuff. So the 4th talk is on Listening to God, and it's helping the new believer become aware of the Bible and why it's so important to listen to it, to read it, and to obey. Okay? Alright. Well, let's take a break and I want to come back and talk about a non-controversial topic like prayer.