Books that do not belong in the Bible?

Out of curiosity, how long has it taken you to preach it all the way through?
Ed

 

I dont think it is a travesty to have not preached over certain books of the bible, so long as one is following the leading of the Holy Spirit for the topic of his sermons.

However, in private reading, I feel it is very important. I have just recently resolved to read the few parts of the OT that I dont think I have ever read.

If my pastor tells me in good faith that he hasn't been lead to preach over the "he begats", then I will take him at his word.

 

"Judge not, lest ye be judged"

I think I read that too........but I'm sure that only pertains to mere mortals

 

Well, SOME churches, but not many Baptist ones, use the lectionaries that work through a three-year cycle of readings. But even those do not get the entire Bible, nor do they touch on some of the minor prophets, etc. I guess you could say that most churches of the mainline Protestant and Catholic use the lectionary approach, and its proponents do argue that one of its values is that the preacher is forced to get off his favorite passages and deal with other material. I just never wanted to be that bound to someone else's plan; I preferred my own planning. Clearly I preferred the Pauline epistles, the Gospels, the Psalms, Acts, and the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea to other writings. But really, in the end, those books I had never used were those which were largely imprecatory in nature -- e.g. Nahum, Zephaniah, etc. I did preach out of every New Testament book, but of course some much more than others.

 

I can't think of a single book of the 66 that I would want to see out of the Bible. I have found something valuable and meaningful in all of them -- they are all equally God's word. Even the "begats" are important because they show God's attention to detail, and intersting things like Rahab being in the line of Jesus.

What Luther may have thought about James or Revelation has zero effect on my own views of the Bible.

 

his personal struggles aside, I think the main differnce between Luther and us is he was much more honest.

We all doubt, maybe not in the same way, maybe not outloud or on paper, but every time we sin, we are exchanging God for something lesser.

If we believed his word at the time, we wouldnt do that.

In this way, I have prolly taken most of the bible out.

 

Keep Studying youll need it: So pack a lunch. LOL

 

Whenever I read Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) I always wonder about it. What does it signify? Some say it is about the "Bride of Christ" (Christians).
Father Mulcahy on MASH told a soldier reading it "Solomon had a lot to sing about". I don't think it should be omitted, though. There has to be a reason why it is there.

 

Regarding just the OT canon, Justin Martyr noted that the Church had a different Old Testament than that of the Jews. Today's Protestant Church presumably has the same Old Testament the Jews had, while the Roman Catholic Church has one presumably more like the one Justin Martyr mentioned, including the books generally included in the Septuagint.

Justin Martyr also accused the Jews of mutilating the Old Testament. What is interesting is that one of his accusations of mutilation regards the text of Ps. 96:10, where he claimed the original said that "the LORD reigns from the tree," i.e., from the cross, but interestingly this reading cannot be found in any Hebrew or Greek copies today.

So are we right in following the traditional Hebrew Old Testament Canon? If the early church followed an Old Testament Canon that included the 7 deuterocanonical books generally included in the Septuagint, were they wrong? And what about the alleged factual errors in some of the deuterocanonical books? It is interesting that these deuterocanonical books were interlaced into parts of the OT Canon, not just appended to the traditionally received books.

In NT Greek MSS that contain the pseudepigrapha, the pseudepigraphal books are generally not interposed within the 27-book Canon which we refer to today, but rather simply appended after Revelation, indicating the books' secondary nature of importance.