Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we're all about providing sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and on today's episode, I invited my friend Mike Riccardi to join me in answering a key question we've gotten here quite a bit at For the Gospel. Why isn't the Bible being added to anymore? Or asked another way, you know, why is the Bible the 66 books we refer to today? And then one more version we've had is why is the canon closed? And for those of you that are thinking, what in the world is a canon, or what do you mean by that? It's referring to a compilation of documents or books, holy religious writings in that sense. And people ask, well, why is it closed? Why is the Bible over in a sense? And this is God's word to us. Mike's going to talk about that. He is a faithful pastor at Grace Community Church and now a full-time faculty member at the Master's Seminary in beautiful California. He's a faithful brother, holds a PhD, and his emphasis was on the atonement of Christ. So we really should have him on to talk about that, that, and much more. But for now, Mike, welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, brother. It is a joy to be with you.
SPEAKER_00Well, our audience asked a lot of questions about the Bible recently, and we want to answer as many as we can. One of the most common, why is the Bible closed, or why is the New Testament canon closed? And our ministry is all about sound doctrine for everyday people. We love to bring the cookies down from the top shelf, so to speak. And you've been a pastor and an outreach pastor at that at Grace Church for some years now. You've preached all over, you have a PhD. I know that you would say there's better guys who can convey these truths, but I I would say I'm grateful it's you on today because you could play with the scholars in the PhD world, but you've also been a pastor and a shepherd of people who really don't care about all the big words. They've probably not read a single book that you've dealt with in some of the PhD programs, but you're able to convey the truth to them in the same way. And so I want to ask you first and foremost, pastorally, and just as a Christian, what role does the supernatural play in all of this? If we're talking about a book that we believe is from God, and we were to say, you know, well, the Bible's closed, or even in the sense we trust the Bible, talk about the kind of faith that takes, and there being a greater power and a greater authority in our lives, and even at work to preserve the Bible, all of these years, speak to the supernatural element of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I mean, right away, the the Bible is not just any other book. The Bible is a book that's come about by supernatural means, by its own testimony, right? Baseline fundamental bibliology is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, and all scripture is breathed out by God, inspired by God, um, and is profitable for correction, training, teaching, reproof, all that. You know, the fact that that this word, this book, is uh God's own word breathed forth, uh, means that something supernatural has gone on. And 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21 tells us that as well, when it says, know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. And so, really, the what whatever the scripture is, it is uh given by the inspiration of God, by the breath of God, through God's authorized um mouthpieces, the prophets uh who speak from God what they are revealed. And they don't just make stuff up and say, Oh, I got this impression, but they were moved, the spirit the text says there, they were moved by the Holy Spirit, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And sometimes we use the term superintended um for for that term in that in that verse there, that it wasn't that it was all divine dictation, though, of course there was some dictation. It wasn't that it was you know God overriding the wills of men as they wrote, but that God, through the the meticulous providence and sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, worked along with the minds and the personalities and the wills of each writer of scripture to write what those writers wanted to write, but nothing other than what God also intended to write. And so there's this dual authorship that is by definition supernatural. And I think it's important to say that, you know, uh yeah, belief in the scripture and really being a Christian requires you to submit your mind to the lordship of Jesus Christ. If you approach this as, okay, satisfy my intellectual curiosity, meet the bar of my own standard of my reasoning, and then I will do God the favor of granting him my belief, then you really are still the Lord of your mind. And you're not in submission to the Lord of the script, uh of uh Lord of the scriptures to lordship of Christ. You need to, you need to recognize that God speaks and we respond, um, not okay, I have this standard that God must meet. At the same time, I don't want to make the claim that it's just, well, we it's faith is this leap in the dark, and that there's just we got to trust it, and there's no reason to believe it at all. Faith is we don't believe in rationalism, where the test of truth is whatever we can determine by our own reasoning, but we also don't believe that faith is irrational or that Christianity is irrational either. And so there are reasons to believe, um, to the point that there are there are no reasons not to believe. So it's not something that is purely rationalistic, but it's not something that's irrational either.
SPEAKER_00So good. What a great balance, too, that you strike between all of that. And I think that answers the question for the person who thinks, oh, well, so I'm just supposed to believe blindly in this book. You go, well, there's some real logic and reason. And yet, you know, I know, I think a lot of our audience knows too, that there are PhD'd professors at Princeton and Yale and Harvard, and many people who logically can sit there and make arguments or read scripture. There's even apologists that will sit there and give you eight reasons why the resurrection is true. And there you go. Look at the evidence. And someone could still say, okay, yeah, I guess Jesus was a man. Yeah, apparently he came out of that tomb. But uh, yeah, I don't I don't believe in him. They don't submit to him, they don't obey him. There's something supernatural that has to take place for someone to come to saving faith, and yet there still is logic and reason that's there. Could you give us a brief glimpse of the first 300 years or so of the church when the Bible is considered completed? You get the Apostle John who finishes things up, let's say, and then you have this council. People may know it as the council of Nicaea, and sometimes people think the average person might say, Well, so I'm supposed to believe by faith in this book. Well, okay, who decided that this is the Bible? And they may think like there was this council, and guys got together and they're like, Okay, he's out, we don't like him. This Paul guy, he's okay, he's in. Hey, this Mike guy, he's out, we didn't like him anyway. You know, how how do we get the Bible and how does the canon become established in the early years of the church?
SPEAKER_01Sure. I mean, that takes a little bit of spade work because there is a New Testament and an Old Testament, and Old Testament canonicity and New Testament canonicity are not unrelated, but they're you know pretty distinct historically. Um, when you think ultimately, fundamentally, my approach to canonicity is to say I'm with Jesus, right? So I believe the books that Jesus believes were words from God and authoritative for the followers of God. Uh, I believe that if and basically the argument is that Jesus in his life affirmed the Old Testament canon by referring to different books of the Old Testament, um, by you know, quoting the creation narrative and the marriage, uh, the marriage narrative in Genesis 2, and saying things like in John 10, 35 that the scripture cannot be broken, and he appeals to Noah and the Ark. And he says that the how how else should this be unless the scriptures are going to be fulfilled? So he has this sense of the authoritative binding nature of what he had as the Old Testament. And then in, especially in the upper room discourse in John 14 and John 16, he is telling the disciples as he prepares to leave the earth that he is going to not be with them any longer, but he's going to send the Holy Spirit, who will guide them into all truth, will bring to their remembrance things that that he wants them to remember. He'll they'll take of mine and and, or sorry, the spirit will take of mine and disclose it to you so that they remember what's gone on, and so that even the things that they're not remembering and recording, but you know, even as they give further revelation, uh, you know, they're authorized from Christ Himself. And so then the question becomes okay, what Old Testament canon did Jesus affirm? And it's pretty well attested historically that the Old Testament that Jesus affirmed was the 39 books of the Old Testament that that we have. There are there are some questions about Apocrypha. I know you want to get into that maybe in a minute. Um, but for the most part, it's pretty easily to demonstrate historically that by the time of the first testament or the first um the first century, Jesus is dealing with what the Hebrew canon was in its 39 books that we have today. And then really, when we talk about Nicaea and the role of the first couple hundred years in church history, we're talking about New Testament canonicity because here, after a 400-year period of silence, here comes you know the birth of Messiah, the promised you know, uh prophecies coming fulfilled, and then agents of revelation, which there had not been for 400 years. John the Baptist is the first prophet for a while, and then of course Jesus authorizes the apostles uh to deliver his revelation. Basically, in the first several hundred years, what you have is well, we would we would expect that the apostles themselves knew what books were legitimate and what writings were scripture. Uh Luke uh himself refers to um, excuse me, uh Peter refers Paul refers to Luke as scripture in First Timothy 5. Um Peter refers to Paul's letters as on par with scripture when he says that unstable men distort them like the rest of the scriptures. So even the apostles in the New Testament had a sense of what we're writing isn't just our writing, but it's the scripture breathed out by God. And then there, you would expect their disciples, the disciples of the apostles, into that second uh generation of followers of Jesus, had a pretty good idea of what was authoritative scripture and what wasn't, right? Not everything that Paul wrote was perfectly inspired. He speaks of letters that he wrote to the church in Corinth that are not preserved for us by history and thus you know not inspired for the benefit of all the church uh in all ages. So they're they're making these discriminating choices. And what you have in you know the 70 AD through to about 170 AD is you have the disciples of the apostles making affirmations of these books, they're just quoting um the books of Romans and First Corinthians and so on uh as authoritative in their in their own writings. And so the I the thought is if these guys who were disciples of the first apostles are regarding these works as authoritative so as to quote them, then you know that's a consideration. And then eventually you get into around 170, 180, you have the heretic Martian who basically says, uh the old testament's garbage, and God, that God of the Old Testament is just a wrathful, evil God. And so we're gonna start cutting out some things. And he basically has a New Testament canon, and in arising out of a response to that error, you know, you have um what's called the Moratorian canon in around 170 or so, they've got which is like a collections of Hebrews, James, or all the books rather, except Hebrews, James, First and Second Peter. Um Irenaeus, you know, in AD 185 mentions 21 of the 27 books of the New Testament, uh, Hippolytus uh from 170 to 235 mentions 22. So there are there are the the disciples of the apostles almost unanimous about about on about 20 to 22 of the 27 books. And then there are questions about some of them because you know the the question on the book of Hebrews whether it was written by an apostle, it's because it's anonymous. There were questions about that. There were questions about the book of James, um, because it seemed like James was uh contradicting Paul about the faith alone principle. And so the guys had to hammer that out, and we they found out no, it's not really any contradiction, it's just emphasizing, you know, the the you know, Paul is emphasizing the the instrument of justification, whereas James is repres is emphasizing the evidence of justification and things like that. So that eventually, by uh, you know, the your fourth century coming into you know the the Nicene Council and things like that, and then there's the council of Laodicea in 363, then there's Athanasius' letter of 368 or 367, you wind up being able to say the church does not establish the canon, but it does recognize the canon by saying, okay, what did the earliest disciples you know just receive as authoritative? And then are there good reasons for accepting these five or six books that are held in dispute? And then eventually it was, yes, there are those good reasons. And then there are reject reasons for rejecting like the Gnostic gospels of Thomas and Peter and things like that. So that's a quick, quick overview.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think in that you're very thorough just walking people through a rebuttal to the statement, oh yeah, some guys got together, you know, whenever they felt like it and decided who's in charge and who's the boss. And people do that even now, and getting upset over power structures and attacking everything under the sun. People do that with the authority of scripture and think, yeah, this book's just a bunch of letters thrown together by a bunch of dudes that decided one day, well, we're gonna decide what's the Bible and what's not. They remove the supernatural element, but they also remove the logic and the order that you've just walked us through in history. I want to go to another aspect of uh, you know, canonicity and arguments for or against inclusion of certain books. One of the collections of writings is considered the Apocrypha, and we would see this in the Catholic Bible. People have asked, well, why wouldn't we believe that the Apocrypha is inspired by God? Or why wouldn't you know the Apocrypha have been considered at that time? Why don't you speak to that and maybe even some of the misunderstandings? Or we ask questions in a certain way, and it's we're kind of asking the wrong question about something because we're not even sure about all the facts. Kind of wash away some of the clouds with the Apocrypha.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, so I I think you know, the the Apocrypha, sometimes they're called the Deuterocanonicals, are a collection of historical books in between you know the completion of Malachi in the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. And these intertestamental books are, you know, uh, I think valuable writings in terms of the history of um that community of Israel as they waited for a prophet to arise, you know, since Malachi and you know, unto John the Baptist. And they didn't have it. And the the most important thing, I think, about that notion is that the Apocryphal writers themselves, like the writers of the books of 1 Maccabees, for example, uh, acknowledged that there was no prophet that had arisen. So one of the reasons for rejecting the Apocrypha as inspired is because the writers of the Apocrypha themselves give indication that they understand that no prophet had arisen in Israel, that they were still in this quiet period, this period of divine silence where the where God stopped speaking in Malachi. So for them themselves to say there's no prophet here, and hasn't been one, is to say there is no revelation-bearing agent in the community of faith today. We are simply receiving the revelation we've been given. We're not being given new revelation. So it's as it's they've they've admitted it themselves. I think another important point is uh that you know a lot of reasons that the the Apocrypha is sort of put forth as canonical is because the the Catholics, you know, say it is. But it's important to recognize that the Catholics did not uh canonize the Deuterocanonicals, the Apocrypha, until the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s. So it's not as if the Catholic Church was all like from its inception, say the Catholic Church comes into its somewhat modern-day form and a little bit after 500 AD. It's not as if in 500 AD, you know, there is an authoritative pronouncement from the Pope or whatever that the Apocrypha is part of the Old Testament canon. It's they may have believed that it was, but there was no sort of official ruling until 1546 to 63 in the Council of Trent, which was a response to the Protestant Reformation and their rejection of the apocryphal books because their content was not consistent with um you know biblical principles, which of course the Reformation recovered. Interestingly enough, right, the the present Catholic Bible is developed from the Latin Vulgate translations. So the English translations of the Catholic Bible today are on the are translated from the Latin rather than Hebrew and the Greek. And this and the scholar, the church father who did the translation of the Latin Vulgate was Jerome, Jerome, who was working on it in the early 400s. And Jerome himself, as he writes his introduction to the wisdom of Solomon and the book of Ecclesiasticus, apocryphal books, actually says this, you know, this uh these books, these Deuterocanonicals that I'm translating now, are not on the level of inspired scripture. They are historical books that have value for the church, but they're not with like the other 39 books that I just translated. So it's it's hard to see like how the translator of the what would become the basis for the Catholic Bible could say the apocryphal books are not inspired, they're just historical and they're of use for you know the the edification of believers, just like you know, any any book that you read today is useful for education edification, but not infallible and inspired. Hard to see how he could say that, and Catholics could say, no, um, these really are from God. So those are just a couple of considerations for why the Apocrypha really isn't um to be, there's no good historical or internal theological reason to accept them as inspired. The reason that they were eventually accepted as inspired by the Catholic Church, there was a theological agenda to establish Roman dogma against Reformation teaching that had sprung up in the 16th century.
SPEAKER_00Man, so good and so clear. Another one, how reliable are today's translations and you know, how do we know that they're accurate? Here's the pastoral angle to this. You get a person who comes up to you at Grace Church, or somebody comes up to me at Shepherd's House and says, Hey, you know, what uh what should I think about this translation or that? Which one should I be using? Are there a few that are my go-tos? And, you know, how do I know what's accurate? Speak to that briefly and pastorally. How do you encourage and affirm and give uh a little bit of peace, maybe, or comfort to someone who's angsty about whether or not their Bible is accurate since we're so far removed from that era?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, some sometimes you hear people say, Well, I can't trust the Bible because it's been translated so many times. And I think that what people think translates. Translation is well, there was a translation of the Bible done, you know, in Latin in 420, and then somebody translated from the Latin into their language in say 600 something, and then somebody translated from that into their language a couple hundred years later. And then it's almost like the telephone game where people think it's like, well, the original, well, that was the original, and then there was the first translation, and everything is derivative of that. But that's not the way translations work. Every translation that is worth anything, I mean, maybe there are some translations of this, but any translation that's worth anything is going back to the actual original uh inspired Hebrew and Greek. So it's yes, there are many translations, but it's translated from the same original, not from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Um, you say, well, wait, we we do we have the original autographs? No, we don't have the original like autographs, manuscript manuscripts that the the apostles actually wrote on, but we have copies of those originals to a degree of certainty and accuracy in the neighborhood of 99 plus percent of you know, we know that we have the original readings, even if we don't have the original copies. With that said, right, then there are like just a whole host of English translations, and why are there so many? And you know, if there are so many, are they really any of them to be trusted? I mean, shouldn't there just be one translation? And the reality is this translation um is taking an ancient text and it's trying to make it understandable for an audience and a linguistic community, uh, you know, millennia removed from the original. And so um there's a reason to represent the English version of the English translation of the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic um now today, as opposed to when King James did it in 1611, right? There are certain phrases in the 1611 King James that are literally unintelligible to native English speakers. And so, you know, I think there's probably we've probably fallen off on the other side of that horse, where it's just everybody's got a translation and it's sort of almost even like a marketing, um, honestly, a money uh thing. And but good translations in English do exist, horrible translations in English exist as well, but good translations do exist, like the English Standard Version, like the uh New King James, like the New American Standard, like, and I'll give a plug for the the newly minted Legacy Standard Bible. The LSB, there you go. Yeah, where they are deciding we are going to be as literal as possible. We're going to represent word by word, form by form, what the original text said. And even if it's a little bit difficult to understand or it's not like a super clear readable thing, more important than readability is accuracy. What good does it do to be able to read something really well if it's not actually what the original said? But teams of scholars from different denominational backgrounds, from different educational uh backgrounds have gotten together over the years in these different translations that I just mentioned, and they have um they have researched painstakingly with the best linguistic sources that are available. And to the point that, I mean, as somebody who reads the original, I'm I'm better in Greek than I am in Hebrew for sure, but still read the original. You know, what you see in the New American Standard 95, and that now the LSB um legacy is so remarkably accurate to the original that the average English speaker should be able to know that when you hold your English Bible in your hands, you are holding a faithful representation of the original language, whose again, whose reading we are 99.98% certain of in every case, and where there are deviations. It's like the difference between, you know, Jesus said versus he said, where it where he is obviously referring to Jesus. Like there are very minor uh you know copyist differences and things like that. So you hold in your hand a faithful translation representation of the original uh Greek and Hebrew that God breathes out by the Holy Spirit. Is there a difference? Is there some you know uh something that you lose in translation? Well, by nature, right? There's there's there's nothing like knowing a language versus reading it in translation. Um, and so that's why we insist that you you know you ought to press yourself into a study of the original language, but but you know, really, I mean, again, those four NKJV, ESB, NAS, and LSB are really uh super, super close to the original to the point where you should feel really confident. Excellent.
SPEAKER_00Really well said. All right. Last two questions that I want to get out of you. First, this is again probably a brief practical answer for you as a pastor. When someone comes along with a better translation, you got like the passion translations become really popular now. Brian Simmons sort of said, Hey, the Holy Spirit's given me a real good revelation of the original, so much so that you know he doesn't have a PhD for real, does not have a lot of scholarship to back him, is not consulting with the great scholars and translators of today. And so, but he comes along and it's a really popular translation because it's very emotive and it's obviously endorsed by Bethel and a lot of those groups, and so they like their version. Then you got like the Book of Mormon, claiming, you know, God's given a new and better revelation to this prophet or that guy or this guy. And and one time I was talking with a Mormon not long ago, actually, and he said, Oh, no, no, no, I don't believe that the Book of Mormon replaces the Bible, it's a it's an accompaniment to the Bible. I believe the Bible too, and it's sort of this affirming thing, it's just another testament. Why would we reject that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it goes back to this notion that the the canon, the canonicity issue is on the basis of Jesus, affirmation of what came before and authorization of what comes after. And again, back in in John 14, John 16, I'm gonna send my spirit, he's going to move these holy men, like 2 Peter 1 says he's gonna do, and they're gonna speak exactly what I tell them. He's gonna take of mine and disclose it to you, and you're gonna write that down. So the question is excuse me, the question is uh, who did Jesus authorize? Well, he authorized the apostles and prophets of that first century, and and he did not author, I mean, and then when the revelation that he gave those apostles and prophets in that first century was complete, then there are no more apostles and prophets. And so if there are no more apostles and prophets as the revelation-bearing agents of the new covenant, then there are there is no more prophecy, there is no more inspired scripture to be given, you know, um, for the church, to be a rule of of life for the church. So uh you say, how do you know that there are no more apostles and prophets? Well, I mean, that that's a very that's a very long answer, but the the short version of that answer is in in the book of Ephesians, chapter two, verse 20, Paul has been talking about the one new man, the church. Christ is, you know, uh broken down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, reconciled them both into one body, you're no longer strangers and aliens, but Gentiles are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household, the church. And then he says, verse 20, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple of the Lord. So what he says there is that the apostles and prophets, the revelation-bearing agents of the new covenant community, are the foundation of the church. The church is built upon the word. Uh, kind of going back to uh, you know, a point we were making earlier. The the church does not give us the word of God. The church has not established the canon. The word of God gives us the church. The church is the result of the regenerating power of the word of God and the life-giving, sufficient strengthening that the word of God gives to the believers day by day, that the church recognizes the word that God has given, not establishes it. So the word makes the church, not the church makes the word. But back to Ephesians 2.20. If the word, therefore, if the apostles and prophets, as the revelation-bearing agents of the New Testament, of the New Covenant community, are the foundation and the church is built on top of that foundation, then when that foundation is laid, then those apostles and prophets are done. When you think about a building whose, you know, when you say the foundation is laid and we can build the building on top of the foundation, you know, you don't can, you know, you're not continuing to build the foundation all throughout the parts of the building of the building. That's right. No, the foundation is done, and that's that. Well, the church is still being built today, as God adds to our number, you know, those who are believing in his son. But the foundation of the church was laid uh in that first century. So that when the apostle John wrote his final, you know, uh words in Revelation, there were no more apostles. Paul says he was the last of the apostles, 1 Corinthians 15. Uh the requirement for an apostle was that you were you visibly saw the risen Lord Jesus and that he uh authorized you to go and and be sent into the into the world as his as his uh agent. So you don't have anybody visibly witnessing the resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ. You you have Paul saying he was the last apostle. And then and so when John dies in the first century or at the end of the first century, uh there are no more apostles. The foundation of the church has been laid, there is no more revelation through the apostles and prophets, and uh therefore there is nothing to be added. So when somebody comes along and says, no, God has given me inspiration, he's given me um, you know, this translation or this additional book, we say, well, God has not authorized anybody since the apostle John uh to be an apostle or a prophet, a revelation-bearing agent of communication to his his church. What we have now are preachers and teachers who labor in giving uh explanation of the already revealed revelation, but not in giving new revelation. The spirit illumines already revealed revelation, but he does not give new revelation. And so we would just uh we would just say, you know, Christ has not authorized you to speak on behalf of him to his church and and you in the foundation that has already been laid.
SPEAKER_00Well said. Really well said. Mike, what books or resource would you recommend for someone who's looking to get a jet tour on this subject? They've heard all that you've said, they're going, man, I that's really helpful. I want to know more, I want to dig in, I want to know for myself and be able to answer these questions like Mike. And maybe sorry, I have to say you got to be like Mike, but the the Bible, Mike. What book would you recommend?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh probably the the best place to go is Michael Kruger's two books, The Question of Canon and Canon Revisited. And I always get the order mixed up when he wrote which. I think Canon Revisited was actually the first book, and then the question of canon was the next one. Um, but Michael Kruger has done excellent, excellent work from a scholarly perspective on canonicity issues. And if you want to real, really dig in, that's the spot to go. Um a more like a more like uh overview introduction, and is it well, is my colleague Nathan Boosnitz's book, Reasons We Believe, where he is giving 50 uh lines of evidence for which Christians believe the scriptures, the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and so on. But he's giving those evidences from a presuppositional framework. So he's not saying it's all the evidence is perfectly self-determining. He's understanding the authority of scripture and the role of faith, as you mentioned at the beginning, in determining all this. But then he does an excellent job of just uh pulling the historical sources together and giving you a rough outline of why we should believe the Bible that we have. So reasons we believe by Nathan Buzenitz, and then the canon revisited and the question of canon by Michael Kruger.
SPEAKER_00Well said. And thank you, brother Mike. Thank you for your wisdom on this subject. Where can people hear more of your sermons or be blessed by ministry resources that you're putting out for their own growth and edification?
SPEAKER_01Thanks, man. Yeah, uh www.thracelifepulpit.com is a uh a website devoted to the sermons that I preach in my adult fellowship group alongside Phil Johnson here at Grace Church. Um most of most everything that I've done is on on there uh for audio, and many of them, almost all of them, are also transcribed as well. Um and then, you know, for a long time I was part of the uh the Cripplegate blog uh for 10 years and writing articles there. And so thecripplegate.com is a uh a spot where you can find some of my writing.
SPEAKER_00Awesome, man. Thank you so much for your ministry and our prayer for you listening is that this episode would give you the right theological foundation for why the Bible is trustworthy, why it's closed, why you don't need to be listening for God to tell you more stuff or grabbing your pen to write out more authoritative scripture, but that you could simply go to his word and let it dwell within you richly, like Paul the Apostle calls the church to do. Thank you again for being with us today on the For the Gospel podcast. To learn more about how we're providing sound doctrine for everyday people, go to www.forthegospel.org. Our newest free teaching series on dating, courtship, sex, and marriage is out, and it's completely free on our YouTube channel. It's called DTR, as in defining the relationship, and it's perfect for your teens, your college students, and small groups. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter, and we'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.