Every now and then, books are found attributed to apostles or other biblical figures. Examples include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), and the Gospel of Philip. There are also alternative writings on the Acts of the Apostles, such as the Acts of Peter and the Acts of Paul. Furthermore, there are apocryphal revelations, attributed to Peter and Paul, among others.
Reliable?
The questions that arise are: Are these writings authentic? And: Should they have been added to the canon of the Bible? Is the Bible actually complete? And do some books currently included in the Bible belong there, since other, more recently discovered books sometimes contradict what we find in Scripture.
God guards
The stakes are high. Behind all these questions lies the core question: has God kept His Word, as He promised (Jer. 1:12)? God’s Word stands fast (Ps. 119:89; Isa. 40:8), so much so that it is said that heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will not (Matt. 24:35).
Only Scripture
In these blogs, I want to move beyond human traditions and let God’s own representatives (apostles) speak. They declare that they were the ones who gathered the Scriptures, and that this was not done hundreds of years later by church councils. What we now know as the Bible is the Scriptures gathered and compiled by the apostles. They were eyewitnesses and delegated by Jesus Christ himself. They knew the importance of their mission because very soon there would be a decline in Christianity and a massive departure from the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim.6:3; 2 Tim.4:3).m
God is God
If God is truly God, then it stands to reason that He has preserved the most precious thing there is: His Word. A believer is someone who trusts what God has spoken and promised. Then you will not be put to shame (Rom. 10:11). It is better to trust God than man (Ps. 118:8). But how could that be if His Word is not trustworthy?