In part one, I discussed the Biblical canon and debated along the lines of if the Biblical Canon was closed. This time will be a bit different. I was in a few discussions before and have heard what they teach in many churches and what they teach in many seminary schools: "The Bible canon is 66 books and the books are sealed, with no new revelation to come." Where did we come up with the teaching that there are only 66 books within GOD's Word?

The Church has been physically divided by man's differences, and have fallen into the following categories with the following Biblical Canon:

Protestant Churches: 66 books
Lutheran Churches: 66 books (however, Martin Luther made an attempt to remove the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon)
The Roman Catholic Church, & Eastern Catholic Churches: standard 66 plus the deuterocanonical books
Ethiopic Churches: 81 books (contains Enoch, Jubilees, and three books of the Meqabyan)

...and the list goes on....

Full dogmatic articulations and the closing of the Church Canons were not made until the Council of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for British Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Greek Orthodox.Is it biblical, traditional, or just an assumption? Is it accurate or deceiving?

I guess my question is this: Who decided your Bible's number of books, and was GOD involved in this?

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And we are to do nothing?

What about this?

James 2:16-18 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
And we are to do nothing?

Gosh NO!!!

Once have received Grace (God's Riches At Christ's Expense) We then have to overcome. We have to overcome our flesh. What has happened to us on the inside, (in our spirit) now has to work its way out to the outside. In Paul's writings, he says we are saved, we are being saved and we will be saved. It takes us the rest of our lifetimes, as we move (sometimes slowly and painfully) towards perfection and holiness.

The scripture you bring from James, is so poignant Hez, is a perfect example, "go be warm and well fed.." My friend on arriving back in the UK from missions in Africa, had nothing, so went to her church, who rejoiced and prayed and spoke blessings over her. Yet she went home with no milk for her baby..and her church basically said . ...Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled! This is not showing love, giving her money would have been showing love, not praying for her. Love is action,. Christ showed His love by dying for us.
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We are to overcome temptation, we are to put aside our wants and to put others first. We are to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices, not to abuse ourselves with wine and fornication as the pagans do, or let our hearts become full of malice and envy, bitterness or strife.

We are called to do everything in love. In loving one another, God's love becomes complete in us. We are called to train ourselves like top athletes, so that we can overcome. We are to be slaves of righteousness, our minds are to be in captivity to the Word of God. These are all part of our works, which shows our faith. Yet we do it together, God and us, He helps us, He purifies us like fine gold (which can be very painful), He lives His awesome life through us. We walk in love, and His love shines out of us. So that we can become perfect as He is perfect.
The foolishness of your question ignores the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He came not only to be the seal of your salvation, but to empower you to work the work of the Kingdom of GOD. You celebrate the Sabbath rest, and thats nice and dandy. We regard the Lord's Day, which is the first day of the week. Interestingly enough, that is technically a "work day". This is purposely so for us as Christians, because we are not called into a rest now, but a work. A work to spread the Gospel. Christ's last words to us was a commandment to go and work for the Kingdom. That work is Apostolic/Evangelistic work, not personal. Your laws are for personal work, but Revelations 20's judgments are about Christ's mandate to work spreading the Gospel of the Kingdom of GOD.

Those are two TOTALLY different set of works!!
Trevor,

Hez's question is not foolishness, but a reasonably question, which is truthful, faith without works is dead. As emphasised in James. I know Luther desparately tried to have the Book of James removed from the Canon, for this reason alone.

The works that we are called to walk in are prepared for us before the creation of the world. and I assure you we are not all called to spread the Gospel, some do not even know what the gospel of Christ is! Paul asks ...are all evangelists? are all are prophets? No, of course not, but WE are ALL called to walk in the way of Christ, in LOVE. Working out our salvation in fear and trembling, first and foremost. Unless the Kingdom of God is within us, how can we show others the way.
1) We are all called to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom, but I never said that we are to all do it the same way. Every soldier in the Army doesn't do Infantry, but they are all apart of the battle in some way; every Doctor doesn't do surgery, but all are apart of your healthcare in some way; every Minister is not an Evangelist, but all are apart of the spreading of the Gospel and building of the Kingdom of GOD in some way. I always say this to people about myself: "I can evangelize, but I'm no Evangelist". If a person claims to be a Christian, and they don't know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then what type of Christianity are they claiming?????

2) Hez's question is foolish not for the words he placed there, but for the purpose and heart behind it. Luther was in error due to his zeal which resulted in the "5 Solas":

# 1 Sola scriptura ("by Scripture alone")
# 2 Sola fide ("by faith alone")
# 3 Sola gratia ("by grace alone")
# 4 Solus Christus or Solo Christo ("Christ alone" or "through Christ alone")
# 5 Soli Deo gloria ("glory to God alone")

# 5 & #4 are dynamic and true:#3 & #2 can be twisted into error if one does not watch carefully. Luther was one guilty of that; #1 is off altogether, for the Bible never taught such. Yest even with the truths of what was mentioned, you must understand the heart of the words mentioned by Hezekiah. His notion is that Christians think "now that we're saved, we can live how we please, and do nothing all because we are not bound by the Torah anymore", and that not true at all. We are to perform works, but what kind of works, and by what authority?
Hi Trevor,
It would take a dissertation to explain how the 5 tenets of the reformation come about, and another dissertation to explain exactly what the five tenets mean, of which I am sure that I would still not do justice to Reformers' body of work. So I won't attempt to address your point there. :o)

However,

His notion is that Christians think "now that we're saved, we can live how we please, and do nothing all because we are not bound by the Torah anymore", and that not true at all.

Can we blame him? What does Christendom show, the health and prosperity gospel, pastors having affairs, teaching on tithing that robs the poor to give to weathly pastors, for flash cars and big houses. He only needs to read the media, to see that some pastors do not even give to Caesar what is Caesar's by the huge tax breaks that then goes into their own back pocket!

We are to perform works, but what kind of works, and by what authority?


The works we are to perform have been prepared for us to walk in before the foundation of the earth. Once we have entered into the Sabbath Rest of Christ, and walk in Love. He does the work, not us, we cannot strive to work for God, with all the best intentions in the world, it just becomes us doing works! in our own strength !

Our justification and sanctification is what is important to God, through the threefold matrix of salvation, which is totally encompassed in perichoresis, hypostasis and finally theosis.

As I said already, unless the Kingdom of God is within us, how can we show others the way?
Very interesting points. I would say this though: how can we blame him? Simple: true Christianity does not teach that, and the whole Church is not going down the tubes! People amplify the problems all while ignore scriptures that say "where sin abounds, grace much more abounds" and "Lord open his eyes so that he may see that there be more for us than against us".I'm not saying everyone is doing it right, but its not fair to exaggerate to a point where you are only clinging to scriptures that say "there are none righteous, no not one", because then you come to a witch-hunt. There are men righteous in the land, and those men are people who live according to the teachings of the Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers, and live by the Gospel of true Evangelists.

As for our justification, after that happens, the question is "then what?" An Evangelistic mindset says that such an event is the most important thing to GOD, while honestly yet mistakenly undermining the truth that "maintenance is just as important as establishment." After initial salvation, its your job to keep going forward in the gift, lest you be counted as a wicked servant. The parable of the sheep vs the goats was a parable that had two sets of believers: those who actually obeyed their Master, and those who didn't.
Wonderful.

Yes. Isn't He just.

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