Which came first? The Bible or the Church?

alf the bat­tle, in any dis­cus­sion with any anti-Catholic, is com­ing to an agree­ment on basic facts. If you can­not agree about the things that are true, it’s futile going fur­ther. That is where you must begin. Now, I would have thought that the answer to the ques­tion in my title was self-evi­dent and long-since set­tled. Here’s why. Look at how St. Paul opens 1 Corinthi­ans:

Paul, called to be an apos­tle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sos­thenes our broth­er, unto the church (ἐκκλησίᾳ) of God which is at Corinth …

Wait! let’s stop right there. Paul address­es his let­ter to the church (ἐκκλησίᾳ) at Corinth. Did you catch that, dear read­er? That must mean there was … a church (ἐκκλησίᾳ) at Corinth! The get­ting of wis­dom can be an unpret­ty thing.

Now, we can for­get, for the time being, whether that church was the Catholic church or some oth­er church. We don’t need to dis­pute that with any­one at this point. The impor­tant point is that some church was around, because Paul comes right out and says that that is his audi­ence.

And the oth­er thing to be not­ed is that there is no book of 1 Corinthi­ans around at the time; for if there were, it would be odd that Paul was writ­ing 1 Corinthi­ans. What’s he doing that for? So there’s a church (ἐκκλησίᾳ), but there’s no com­plet­ed New Tes­ta­ment.

Appar­ent­ly, this sim­ple obser­va­tion is not quite as known, under­stood, and accept­ed as I had thought it would be. Google some vari­a­tion of the words in my title and you’ll find pages of hits address­ing the sub­ject. Here, for exam­ple, is an excerpt of a dia­logue between Fr. Dwight Lon­ge­neck­er and Protes­tant apol­o­gist John Mar­tin on that very ques­tion. “Thomas” of Faith and Rea­son devotes a 2010 blog arti­cle (here) to the ques­tion. The appro­pri­ate­ly-named Mr. Matt Slick, Protes­tant apol­o­gist, attempts to nuance the dis­cus­sion, here. Mr. John Mar­tignoni, here, has an entire hour-long YouTube video with the same title I do.

Baby steps.

DON’T KNOW MUCH CHRONOLOGY

Now, here’s fair­ly reli­able break­down of the date when each of the 27 books of the New Tes­ta­ment was writ­ten [source]:

James—50 A.D.
1 Thessalonians—52–53
2 Thessalonians—52–53
Galatians—55
1 Corinthians—57
2 Corinthians—57
Romans—57–58
Philippians—62–63
Colossians—62–63
Philemon—62–63
Ephesians—62–63
Luke–63
Acts—64
1 Timothy—65
Titus—65
2 Timothy—66
Mark—66
Matthew—67
Hebrews—671 Peter—67–68
2 Peter—68
Jude—68
Revelation—68
John—85
Epis­tles of John—90–95

Again, we must lay aside any pre­sup­po­si­tions we have about which church was the orig­i­nal church. We need not wor­ry whether the Catholic Church was­n’t around until the fourth cen­tu­ry. (Some peo­ple main­tain entire blogs to try to prove this fool idea.) No. Let’s stay on page one here, just for now. And on page one, did you notice that the first book of the New Tes­ta­ment is writ­ten around 50 A.D., and the last is writ­ten around 95 A.D.—just before the first cen­tu­ry ebbed into the sec­ond? In oth­er words, the New Tes­ta­ment took forty-five years (near­ly half a cen­tu­ry) to write. Imag­ine that!

Where was the church dur­ing these forty-five years? Did it not exist until after 95 A.D.? Was there no church to speak of in the first cen­tu­ry, exist­ing con­cur­rent­ly with the writ­ing of the New Tes­ta­ment?

Hard­ly. In fact, if you read the New Tes­ta­ment, you’ll dis­cov­er that all sorts of ref­er­ences are made to a church that has exist­ed dur­ing the peri­od of these forty-five years of com­po­si­tion.

1 Tim­o­thy 3:15: “But if I tar­ry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought­est to behave thy­self in the house of God, which is the church (ἐκκλησία) of the liv­ing God, the pil­lar and ground of the truth.”

Acts 2:47: “And the Lord added to the church dai­ly such as should be saved.” [Note: the Greek ἐκκλησία does not appear in this text but is an inter­po­la­tion of the Protes­tant KJV for τὸ αὐτό, “their num­ber”; I take up this point fur­ther below.]

Acts 9:31: “Then had all the church­es (ἐκκλησία) rest through­out Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edi­fied.

1 Tim­o­thy 4:14: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was giv­en thee by prophe­cy, with the lay­ing on of the hands of the pres­bytery (πρεσβυτερίου).” If there is no church yet, how is it that there is a pres­bytery? Are we to believe there’s a pres­bytery but no church for them to be pres­byters of?

In fact, we know exact­ly when the church start­ed, at the lat­est. (The Catholic teach­ing is that the Church prop­er­ly begins on Cal­vary. The Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church §766, cit­ing both Lumen Gen­tium and St. Ambrose, says that the Church “was born from the pierced heart of Christ hang­ing dead on the cross.”) In the writ­ten record of St. Luke, Acts Chap­ter 2, on Pen­te­cost (around the year 33 A.D.), the Holy Ghost descends in “cloven tongues like as of fire,” St. Peter gives a homi­ly and tells “all the house of Israel” to “repent and be bap­tized,” and “the Lord add[s] to the church dai­ly such as should be saved.”

Now, note, as I said above, that St. Luke does not use the Greek word ἐκκλησία in Acts 2. But he does use it in Acts 5, when Peter rebukes the cov­etous Ana­nias and Sap­phi­ra. Upon Peter’s rebuke, both fall down dead. Acts 5:11 says, καὶ ἐγένετο φόβος μέγας ἐφ’ ὅλην τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, “And great fear came upon all the church.”

So there is a church that already has exist­ed by the time Peter rebukes Ana­nias and Sap­phi­ra, hav­ing been born either at the Cross, or on the Day of Pen­te­cost, in 33 A.D.—sev­en­teen years before the first book of the New Tes­ta­ment was writ­ten, and six­ty-two years before the last book of the New Tes­ta­ment was fin­ished.

The church exists before the Bible does.

HE DON’T CLAIM TO BE AN A‑STUDENT

Now, per­haps you’ll say I’m triv­i­al­iz­ing all this. No one dis­putes the chronol­o­gy. The dis­pute is over whether the “church” that came before the Bible was the Catholic Church. The dis­pute is over whether the Catholic Church “gave us” the Bible. Real­ly?

Well, watch what hap­pens when I attempt to have the dis­cus­sion with the loopy Kevin Failoni in the com­box on Out of His Mind. (Out of His Mind is run by one Mr. Tim­o­thy F. Kauff­man, an ex-Catholic so twist­ed into a knot of mythol­o­gy he makes John Bugay look like a mar­vel of rea­son and intel­lec­tu­al depth.) Believe it or not, I have edit­ed our exchange for the sake of brevi­ty.

Failoni: God gave us his infal­li­ble word, not the church.

[Not sure whether he means that God did not give us the Church or that the Church does not give us the “word”.]

Alt: The idea that “God’s infal­li­ble word” just dropped out of the sky some­how, and the church did not pre­cede it, is sil­ly and ahis­tor­i­cal.

Failoni: Real­ly? Or is it sil­ly to believe that the church exist­ed before the Word? Scrip­ture says in the begin­ning was the Word. Sor­ry: God’s Word was with Him in the begin­ning.

Now, what I try to do at this point is clar­i­fy whether he is talk­ing about Christ rather than the Bible. If the loopy Mr. F can assure me that he means that Christ, rather than the Bible, was “with God in the begin­ning,” our exchange can come to an end. But watch what hap­pens:

Alt: Well, yes, that’s true, if by the Word you mean Christ. But you meant the Bible, right? The Bible didn’t exist in the begin­ning with God. The Church does not pre­cede Christ, but the Church does pre­cede the Bible—at least, the Bible as we have it today, Old Tes­ta­ment plus New Tes­ta­ment.

[Now watch the com­i­cal way in which Mr. F avoids the ques­tion by swing­ing, Tarzan-like, into a for­est miles away.]

Failoni: Scott, we have dif­fer­ent views. A church will nev­er be more impor­tant to me than the word of God. Protes­tants see what hap­pens when—[watch the change of terms here:] tra­di­tion is ele­vat­ed over the word of God. Things that you accept from your church—see the change again?]—we see as clear idol­a­try, destruc­tion of the 2 sacra­ments of God, a false gospel, and all that Rome has piled on the cross through so-called devel­op­ment through tra­di­tion. [Head-desk.] Calvin said Jesus was left half-buried in the church. [What was the ques­tion I asked, again?] Cypri­an and Ori­gen and Jerome con­tribut­ing might­ly. All I know is the ex Catholics on this site looked at the word of God and walked from Rome. The truth will set you free, Scott. I hope you will sep­a­rate from that sys­tem where grace is a tool to mer­it eter­nal life and place your trust in the Word.

Did you fol­low any of that? And why is he con­stant­ly switch­ing back and forth between “church” and “tra­di­tion,” as though the two words are inter­change­able? If they are, that would mean that Christ may as well have said, “On this rock I will build my tra­di­tion” (Matt. 16:18). But the Greek word there is ἐκκλησίαν, “church”; not παραδόσεις, “tra­di­tions.” Does Mr. F have suf­fi­cient knowl­edge of bib­li­cal Greek to be able to tell us that ἐκκλησίαν and παραδόσεις are inter­change­able? These are the ques­tions.

But at this point, rather than inter­ro­gate him on his faulty Greek trans­la­tion, I try to recall the poor man to the top­ic at hand. And note, in bold, my very impor­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Alt: I think we can agree that the church pre­ced­ed the Bible, even if we dis­agree about which church that is.

Failoni: Say­ing the church cre­at­ed the Bible is like say­ing the courts cre­at­ed the con­sti­tu­tion. The church is the off­spring of God’s word.

So I can only assume at this point that by “God’s word,” the loopy Kevin Failoni does mean the Bible, and not Christ. So what did he mean when he said that “God’s word was with him in the begin­ning”? That there was a com­plete copy of the Scrip­tures, pos­si­bly the King James, up in heav­en before God said, “Let there be light”? I ask him again, very sim­ply this time. And watch how ser­pen­tine the exchange gets from this point on. Note that I con­tin­u­al­ly use the word “Bible” to clar­i­fy my mean­ing, where­as Mr. F uses the word “Christ” or “Jesus” in order to deny it. One would be excused for think­ing that, in Mr. F’s mind, the word “Christ” is just a syn­onym for “Bible.”

Alt: So the full Bible exist­ed in 33 A.D.? When Paul wrote to “the church in Corinth,” the Bible was already com­plete?

Failoni: Jesus is the same Word that spoke the world into exis­tence, long before the church. In the begin­ing was the Word, and the Word as with God, and the Word was God. … God from eter­ni­ty past spoke the world into exis­tence by his word. And then He spoke to us through His Son, logos, the incar­nate Word in who we believe. Now you can believe as the Reformed do the Word exist­ed before the church.

Yeah, but John 1:1 is talk­ing about Christ, not the Bible. John is only talk­ing about the divin­i­ty of Christ here [see Matthew Hen­ry]. He’s not talk­ing about the his­tor­i­cal ori­gin of Scrip­ture [see John Gill, who opens his dis­cus­sion of John 1:1 by say­ing, “this is not said of the writ­ten word”].

Alt: I’m sim­ply say­ing that Christ’s church exist­ed before the Bible was fin­ished and before its canon was deter­mined.

Failoni: 1 Corinthi­ans 4:6: “Now these things, brethren, I have fig­u­ra­tive­ly applied to myself and Apol­los for your sakes, so that you may learn to not go beyond what is writ­ten. [What does that have to do with any­thing?] … The courts did­nt cre­ate the con­sti­tu­tion, and the church didn’t cre­ate the Word of God. It can only stand under it, receive it, and pass it on. It can’t add its words to it. And that was Rome’s down­fall.

Alt: So the Bible just popped into exis­tence in 33 A.D. and any­thing writ­ten after 33 A.D. should not be in the Bible? Or is your argu­ment that Paul’s let­ters exist­ed before he wrote them?

Failoni: Not sure what your point is.

[You need to be very slow with Mr. F. Start at the begin­ning, try not to let him wan­der off, and repeat your­self often. Have lots of smelling salts at hand for when you pass out.]

Alt: My point is that the com­plet­ed Bible did not pre-exist the New Tes­ta­ment church. The New Tes­ta­ment church began ca. 33 A.D. The last book of the New Tes­ta­ment was writ­ten just before 100 A.D. So for the first two gen­er­a­tions of the church, there was no Bible as we have it today. There was the Old Tes­ta­ment, and there was an incom­plete set of New Tes­ta­ment texts that cir­cu­lat­ed around, whose canon­ic­i­ty was still to be deter­mined. I’m not mak­ing a the­o­log­i­cal point. I’m mak­ing an his­tor­i­cal point.

Failoni: Canons aren’t deter­mined, they just are. [They just “are”? How does that work exact­ly?] You’re try­ing to tell me that the courts made the con­sti­tu­tion what it is. No. The prophets did­n’t can­on­ize, the apos­tles nev­er can­on­ized. The canon is God-breathed word. It is. [That explains it. The Bible is just there.] There was a work­ing NT canon long before the church put it in a binder.

[In a “binder”? What, did St. Jerome run off to Sta­ples?]

Alt: You’re leap­ing 1000 miles beyond my point again. But a canon is a list of books. That’s the def­i­n­i­tion of the word. There is no such thing as a Bible that “just is.” The Bible came into exis­tence at a par­tic­u­lar point in his­to­ry, and some­one had to make a deci­sion about which texts would go in it, and there was a church around for many years before that. These are just his­tor­i­cal facts that there is no point in dis­put­ing. [Note my con­ces­sion here in order to alle­vi­ate any fear Mr. F might have that accept­ing the his­tor­i­cal point some­how implies pop­ery.] It doesn’t mean you’re Catholic to say that any more than it means you’re Chris­t­ian to say that there was a per­son named Jesus who lived at a par­tic­u­lar point in his­to­ry. All it means is you accept his­to­ry for what it is. The Bible is the end result of a process that occurred in his­tor­i­cal time; it didn’t just show up one day.

[Yes. For one thing, it had to be writ­ten.]

Failoni: There is a say­ing in Protes­tantism, God said it, I believe it, that set­tles it. Faith comes from hear­ing God speak His Word of Sal­va­tion in His Son. This is not some­thing that bub­bles up inside the holy church but as word that comes to us.

Alt: Not talk­ing about the spir­i­tu­al source of scrip­ture. I am talk­ing about the time in his­to­ry it was writ­ten rel­a­tive to the time in his­to­ry the church began. This is a point of chronol­o­gy.

[Now watch how Tarzan swings off again.]

Failoni: Deut. 4:2 is clear that His word was to have final say in all mat­ters. Jesus dealt harsh­ly with the Mag­is­teri­um of his day, the Judaiz­ers. [Actu­al­ly, the Judaiz­ers came lat­er and were rebuked by Paul, but nev­er mind.] You are in a church that has ele­vat­ed itself and its tra­di­tion above the Word of God teach­ing as doc­trines the com­mand­ments of men. [Facepalm.] The church is the off­spring of the Word of God. Jesus points men to scrip­ture telling them in it is eter­nal life. Again we don’t say the con­sti­tu­tion was giv­en to us by the courts. The church can only receive the gospel and pass it on.

Alt: I am try­ing to make this easy for you. I am not talk­ing about the author­i­ty of scrip­ture. I am talk­ing about when it was writ­ten. I am not talk­ing about Judaiz­ers or Phar­isees or the Cor­ban Rule or tra­di­tion. I am mak­ing what I should think is a very sim­ple and lim­it­ed point. The Church came into exis­tence ca. 33 A.D. The ear­li­est guess­es place the writ­ing of the first book of the New Tes­ta­ment around the late 50s A.D. What I am saying—all I am saying—is that 33 A.D. came before 60 A.D. And for­get whether that church was the Catholic Church or not. That does not mat­ter to my point. There was a church on earth before there was a com­plet­ed New Tes­ta­ment on earth. This has noth­ing to do with any­thing oth­er than chronol­o­gy. … If this is not true, then what on earth did Paul mean when he addressed his let­ter “to the church in Corinth”? If Paul is address­ing the church in Corinth, that means that there is a church in Corinth. It also means there’s no book of Corinthi­ans yet, oth­er­wise why is Paul writ­ing it?

[At this point, an inter­lop­er arrives.]

Eric W: Why is it so impor­tant for Kevin to get the chronol­o­gy? It is only Prov­i­den­tial co-exis­tence of the “church” with the actu­al­ly writ­ten books. The authors of the NT books are nec­es­sary to the writ­ten books by a “sup­po­si­tion of God’s will.”[ EW is try­ing to make this a dis­pute over phi­los­o­phy.] You want to wrench a chrono­log­i­cal admis­sion from Kevin to build an argu­ment for church author­i­ty. [Actu­al­ly, I specif­i­cal­ly denied that that was my point. Remem­ber?] It doesn’t work with Kevin. Kevin knows that the Bible is author­i­ta­tive because it’s inspired by the Holy Spir­it. The Holy Spir­it is free to inspire in any his­tor­i­cal con­text.

Alt: If Reformed the­ol­o­gy is true, first-cen­tu­ry chronol­o­gy won’t change that truth. So why deny it? I know that the Bible is author­i­ta­tive because it was inspired by the Holy Spir­it. I’m not deny­ing that. What I am say­ing, how­ev­er, is that the Holy Spir­it inspired the Bible through the process of his­to­ry, and that the process occurred with­in the New Tes­ta­ment church. You don’t have to accept that this church was the Catholic church in order to admit that. You do, how­ev­er, have to admit that the New Tes­ta­ment does not just show up ful­ly-formed from the Holy Spir­it, ante­ri­or to the church that Christ found­ed, as if it were Athena pop­ping out of the head of Zeus.

[Now Mr. F will give the game away and admit his real fear in all this. With a swing­ing per­for­mance by Tarzan again.]

Failoni: Why don’t you just come out and make your argu­ment how you believe the Roman church has the infal­li­ble author­i­ty to not only inter­pret scrip­ture but to mit­i­gate sal­va­tion for its peo­ple through the acts of the church. And while you’re there, describe to us why you think the Roman church can put itself between the Word and the Spir­it in bring­ing sal­va­tion to man, and why sec­ondary caus­es is the decider in the eter­nal life of a per­son, instead of the Holy Spir­it who the scrip­ture tells us blows where and how He wills. Explain to us how infant bap­tism through the Priest­craft of ex opere oper­a­to pro­duces faith in a baby.

Alt: Kevin, what on earth does the fact that there was a church around for 25 years before the first NT book was writ­ten have to do with ex opere oper­a­to and the spir­it blow­ing where it wills? This has to do with 33 A.D. com­ing before 60 A.D. Do you deny the his­tor­i­cal record, Kevin? It’s as sim­ple as that. You don’t have to admit to any Catholic doc­trine in admit­ting that 33 A.D. comes before 60 A.D. You only have to admit to the cal­en­dar.

Failoni: The canon of scrip­ture is no more a prod­uct of the church then the con­sti­tu­tion is a prod­uct of its courts. Reformed always hold the Word of God pre­cedes scrip­ture and com­mu­ni­ty. It does­n’t say in the begin­ning was the com­mu­ni­ty, it says in the begin­ning is the Word.

[Once again, Mr. F has tried to con­fuse the issue by pulling out John 1:1, which has to do with the deity of Christ, not the ori­gin of the New Tes­ta­ment in his­to­ry. That is the exe­ge­sis we read in Reformed the­olo­gian John Gill. Does Mr. F have learn­ing that would super­sede Gill in Reformed think­ing?]

Alt: Kevin, you have this back­ward. You can’t use con­sti­tu­tion and courts as an anal­o­gy for the sim­ple fact that the Con­sti­tu­tion was com­plet­ed before the first court came into ses­sion. It is the exact oppo­site with the Bible and the church. The church came into exis­tence on Pen­te­cost ca. 33 AD. The first book of the NT would not be writ­ten for at least anoth­er 25 years.

Failoni: Covenant is canon. Get that? [No. It’s pseu­do-aca­d­e­m­ic gob­bledy­gook.] … The Word of God pre­cedes all, and the plan of redemp­tion through the covenant of grace [is] inscrip­turat­ed in the canon. … That’s why we say the church is the off­spring of the Word of God. So can you please make your broad­er point?

Alt: I think you’re try­ing to read more into what I said than is there. I said that the church exists before the New Tes­ta­ment exists. I didn’t say that the church has author­i­ty over God’s word; I said that there is a church before there is a New Tes­ta­ment. I didn’t say the New Tes­ta­ment is not covenan­tal; I said there is a church before there is a New Tes­ta­ment. I didn’t say the New Tes­ta­ment was a prod­uct of human doings; I said there is a church before there is a New Tes­ta­ment. I didn’t say that some­how the canon is still open; I said there is a church before there is a New Tes­ta­ment. This is not com­pli­cat­ed. I agree that “the church is the off­spring of the Word of God,” if by “Word of God” you mean Christ. But if by “Word of God” you mean a com­plet­ed Bible, Old Tes­ta­ment and New, with its canon deter­mined, no, the church comes first. That doesn’t mean that the church has author­i­ty over the Bible. It means that if you were Doc Brown and set your DeLore­an to arrive in the Holy Land on Octo­ber 1, 40 A.D, you would find a church, you would find apos­tles, you would find Chris­tians, but you would not find a sin­gle book of the New Tes­ta­ment any­where, sim­ply because it had not been writ­ten yet.

Failoni: And your point is? At some point you’re going to have to make your point.

Alt: Kevin, I’ve made my point over and over and over again. The point is this: The church exist­ed on earth before the New Tes­ta­ment exist­ed on earth. My point begins and ends there.

Failoni: I have told you the Reformed posi­tion from the begin­ning that the Word of God pre­ced­ed the church. But you con­tin­ue to assert the church came first.

Alt: We must define our terms. By “word of God” do you mean Christ or the Bible? Because if you mean “Christ,” then you are right. If you mean “Bible,” then you are wrong, and not only wrong, but cul­pa­bly and igno­rant­ly wrong.

Well, the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ued for a lit­tle while after all that, but no more fruit­ful­ly. Mr. F nev­er did admit that there’s a church before there’s a Bible. That small thing was just too threat­en­ing a point for him to grant.

DON’T KNOW MUCH CHURCH HISTORY

But that is what most con­ver­sa­tions are like with the loopy Mr. Kevin Failoni. And that is why most con­ver­sa­tions in com­box­es are bane­ful and why I most­ly avoid them. But the mar­vel to me in all of the above is this: that a dis­cus­sion about whether or not the Bible came before or after the church in his­tor­i­cal time pro­ceed­ed as though it were a dis­cus­sion of whether the church gives us the Bible out of an author­i­ty inher­ent in itself. Lay­ered over that was a con­stant wan­der­ing back and forth of the terms “Bible,” “Word of God,” and “Christ,” as though all these things were coter­mi­nous. This is exact­ly why I say that one must, as a first prin­ci­ple of apolo­get­ics, get one’s facts right and terms right. You can’t talk of “the Bible,” “the Word of God,” and “Christ” as though the words are all inter­change­able. You can’t treat a dis­cus­sion of dat­ing the Bible and the church in his­tor­i­cal time as though it were a dis­cus­sion of church author­i­ty rel­a­tive to Scrip­tur­al author­i­ty. Those are two sep­a­rate con­ver­sa­tions.

Even the lim­it­ed claim, however—the church comes first in his­tor­i­cal time—Mr. F had to deny and run from: as though, once con­cede it, he might as well con­cede the sub­se­quent dis­cus­sion about church author­i­ty; as though the chrono­log­i­cal claim, of itself, were a cru­ci­fix to a vam­pire.

But lurk­ing behind the resistence is a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of what the Bible is, and how we get the Bible. No one dis­putes that the Bible is the Word of God or that the Holy Spir­it inspired its authors. But it does not just drop out of the sky, ful­ly formed, on Pen­te­cost. The Scrip­tures are not just there; canon is not some­thing, as Mr. F puts it, that “just is.” Rather, the Holy Spir­it works through his­to­ry, through men, and—this is key—through the Church. That is what Mr. F was resist­ing; and a sim­ple his­to­ry les­son expos­es it.

God gives us the nation of Israel first, and only through it the Old Tes­ta­ment; God gives us the Church first, and only through it the New Tes­ta­ment. The Word of God oper­at­ed, pri­or to Scrip­ture, through the nation of Israel and through the Church. The canon was not com­plete until two gen­er­a­tions after Pen­te­cost. After that, some­one had to decide what went into the canon; the Holy Spir­it had to inspire some­one to get the list right. Why Romans and not the Pro­to­e­van­geli­um of James? Why Gala­tians and not the Epis­tle to the Laodiceans? There is a church first, then 27 books take 67 years to write, then some­one choos­es those par­tic­u­lar books, before we can speak of “the Bible.”

You must begin here. It is impor­tant to get this right. Even if it means—especially if it means—that you need to start by point­ing out that there was a church for almost a quar­ter cen­tu­ry before any­one wrote a sin­gle New Tes­ta­ment book.

Catholi­cism, and its spe­cif­ic teach­ing about the nature of Church author­i­ty, are not clinched in this way. But a lin­ger­ing Protes­tant mis­un­der­stand­ing of what the Bible and the canon are is destroyed by it.