The Origin of the Western Five

[gbausc]

Shlama Akhi,

I was not putting words in your mouth. I wrote: "Surely you do not believe any book of scripture is worthless." It was a sort of question to find what your position really is concerning scripture.

You wrote:

I've never believed there's anything magical or critical to our faith contained within the ink of a written word.

I do not subscribe to the magical
view of scripture. That is a far cry from "scripture critical to our faith".
"Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." How would the gospel be preached today if the Bible had never been written? Romans 10:17
How would we know anything about God or His Son? How would we be saved? How are we saved, but by hearing the written word preached?

Surely the COE preaches the scriptures to the people and people hear and are converted by faith, through The Holy Spirit's work in the heart and soul of the hearers. The Spirit authored the written word and He works through it to regenerate the spirit and soul with life eternal. The written word is essential to our faith; even Philemon, Jude and Revelation. If you can hear The Spirit's voice, you need to ask Him to speak to you about the origin and value of those books.
According to 2 Tim. 3:16, Philemon is profitable for instruction in righteousness. Just what part is for us to discover. I have found something miraculous in every one of the 27 books of The NT, but I cannot give that to you. You must find that yourself.

You wrote:

It is the CHURCH that decided upon the scriptures.

Divine authorship is not decided by the church. That is a fact independent of us. We are to receive what God has written if we have faith in Him.If we exclude a book He has written as scripture, we deny Him to that extent. That should frighten us.

It seems to me we would need watertight arguments for excluding a book from the canon to avoid the danger of
"refusing Him that speaks from heaven." Hebrews 12:25
ayms Nm Nme llmd Nm Nm latsn Na

If a book can be shown to be of first century, Apostolic, harmonious with received scripture, glorifies our Lord, edifies the saints and commends itself to the spiritual believers catholic as Divine, there is no good reason to exclude it from the collection of books received as Holy Scripture.

You and I are the church. Everyone who has faith in The Messiah and His Father is the church. We have as much authority to decide these things as any has.
We share One Lord, One faith, One Baptism, One Body, One Spirit and One Mind.

We agree in spirit and heart, even though our brains may differ. Thank God we are not saved by our brains. Few of us would agree on anything.

The people of any church should have the opportunity to decide for themselves by careful and prayerful consideration and reading if they believe a book that may be scripture is indeed scripture.

I can hardly say more on the matter, therefore I hope I will not.

Grace & Peace,

Dave