Coming up today on renewing your mind.

Since there are so many books that together comprise the sacred

scripture, the first question that we encounter is how do we know that the

right books have been included in this collection or library of books that we

call the sacred scripture?

If we're going to claim that the Bible is absolutely true and trustworthy, we need to provide a credible answer to that one question that skeptics have asked for centuries.

Each Saturday here on renewing your mind, R.C. Sproul is providing us with an overview of systematic theology, helping us solidify our doctrines of God, man, sin, salvation, and our doctrine of scripture.

Today, R.C. has a history lesson for us as he explains how the books of the Bible were recognized.

I have in my hand today a book and on the side of this book the title of the book is

printed and it says, holy Bible.

If you ever wondered where we got the word Bible, it comes from the Greek word

Biblios, which is the Greek word for book, and so we are talking here about a holy book.

However, if we look more carefully at the nature of the Bible, we see that though this is all bound up into one volume, in reality, what we have here is not a single book, but rather a volume that includes a collection of 66.

It's a library of books. Since there are so many books that together comprise the sacred scripture, the first question that we encounter is how do we know that the right books have been included in this collection or library of books that we call the sacred scripture?

And that question is the question of Canon.

We often speak of the Canon of scripture.

And that word, again, comes from another Greek word, Kanon, which is the Greek word for measuring rod or norm.

And so when the Bible is called the Canon of scripture, it means that these books together are included in that volume that functions as the supreme measuring rod or the supreme norm or authority for the church.

There's a Latin phrase, there's a Latin phrase for everything in theology. There's a Latin phrase that has been used frequently over the centuries to describe the Bible, and it goes something like this that the scripture is the Norma, Normans at Sinai, Normativa.

Now you notice one form of the word norm appears three times in that little expression, Norma, Normans, which means the norm of norms at Sinai, Normativa, and without norm.

It's a norm or the standard of all standards, and it has no peer, no other norm by which it is judged.

Well, when we get to this whole question of Canon, the question we're facing here is different from what we've looked at thus far.

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