The Sean McDowell Show - The Case for Sola Scriptura You Probably Haven't Heard (Michael Kruger)

Episode Date: October 10, 2026

Can we actually get back to what the apostles wrote? That question sits underneath every other question about the New Testament. Before you ask whether the story is true, you have to ask whether you have the story at all. Dr. Michael Kruger came to Biola to walk me through it. His own interest started in a crisis, sitting at nineteen in an intro to New Testament class at UNC Chapel Hill taught by a young Bart Ehrman. CHECK OUT: The Sean McDowell Collection (manuscriptshop.com/seanmcdowell) CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) CHECK OUT: Consider Supporting the Ministry! (https://seanmcdowell.org/give) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: X: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org  Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

I think this topic needs more attention because it gets at the issue of not just what the Bible is, but it gets at how the Bible functions. There's probably a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings of what Sola Scriptera means. So define it for us, if you will. Soul Scribura is not, the Bible is my only authority. Soal Scripura is that the Bible is the highest authority. There's nothing above it. There are other authorities we should consider, other factors that should play into our understanding of things.

But the Bible is the ultimate standard. Why is it the ultimate standard? because it's the only infallible standard. And every other standard has the possibility of airing. What is Soliscriptura? Why is it so important? And why should all followers of Jesus embrace it? Michael Kruger, I can't think of anybody more qualified to weigh in and talk about this

because of your study of the second century. You're studying the New Testament. You just gave a lecture to the Biola Talbot faculty yesterday about Sol Scriptura. Why are you interested in this topic? Yeah, it's so central. I mean, anybody interested in the doctrine of scripture often talks about issues like inspiration and inerrancy, and that's great. Those topic needs to be addressed. But I think this topic needs more attention because it gets at the issue of not just what the Bible is, but it gets at how the Bible functions. And that's a different question. Now, I'll argue that how it functions flows from what it is, but soul scripture really gets at the heartbeat of what do we do with the Bible once we have it? How does it supposed to operate in our lives?

and most people associate Sola Scripura with a reformation, narrow reformation issue. I want to suggest it's bigger than that. I think it guards against many more things than what we think. Okay, good. So let's define it because right away there's probably a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings of what Sola Scripter means. So define it for us, if you will. Yeah. Well, in this context, just real briefly, people hear the term Sola only.

That's right. And they think, well, that must mean that the Bible is my only authority. It's the only thing I ever consider. or something I ever look at. So I don't need to consider creeds. I don't need to consider confessions. I don't have to consider the history of the church. It's just me and my Bible under a tree somewhere. So that kind of idea often sort of is a misunderstanding of Soliscriptura. People think Soliscriptura just means that I have the Bible alone is the only thing I ever think about. And I want to suggest that's really not what the definition is. Soliscriptura

is not the Bible is my only authority or the only thing I consider. Soliscriptura is that the Bible is the highest authority. There's nothing above it. There are other authorities we should consider, other factors that should play into our understanding of things. But the Bible is the ultimate standard. Why is it the ultimate standard? Because it's the only infallible standard.

And every other standard has the possibility of erring. So it's not saying the Bible is the only thing we consider or that the Bible is only thing we have. It's saying the Bible is the ultimate standard for all that we do. So here's definition. I think I wrote it down carefully from what you said yesterday. Correct me if it's wrong. But scripture alone is the word of God. and therefore the only infallible rule for life and doctrine.

Yes. Is that correct? That sounds right, yeah. Okay, so notice it's for life and it's for doctrine, not for science, not for history. None of that is thrown in here. Why would that not be included in this kind of definition? I actually included implicitly. When I say life and doctrine, that is decidedly not an attempt to separate life between the secular and the sacred.

In fact, as I said in the lecture yesterday, and of course I know you were there, I made it very plain that when we talk about the Bible being the ultimate authority, it's the ultimate authority over everything, not just theology, not just church, not just our little idea of what a Christian life is. It's over how we think about business and economics and the arts and sports and medicine. It's over all disciplines. Now, as I also call it, that doesn't mean it speaks to all disciplines in the same way. To say the Bible's our highest authority doesn't mean it teaches me how to build a bridge

or how to do quantum physics or, you know, what makes a good pick in my stock portfolio. But I would say the scriptures still are the foundation for how we think about those things. And the scriptures at least have implicit influence on those things because it lays the foundation for why they're intelligible. So the Bible is over all things, but not over all things in the same way, of course. So what other authorities then do you think Christian should have and would Protestants point towards? and how would you compare them to Scripture as being the ultimate authority? Yeah, so one of the ideas that I think soul of scripture guards against is what I would call individualism, okay? And individualism is this idea that whenever I think about how to understand the Bible or use the Bible in my life, that I just simply, you know, sit under a tree somewhere with the Bible.

I never consider what my pastor says, never consider what church history says, never consider what other interpreters have said. it's just me starting from scratch. And by the way, there's people who actually say that they do this. They want this to be the way they do it. And they think that's what Soul Scripture requires of them. I want to suggest that that leaves out a massive amount of things in our life that we should consider. And I also would point out that the reformers did not see it that way when they articulated Soul of Scripture in the early centuries of the Reformation. You know, this idea that the reformers were anti-church is not true. They were citing the church fathers all the time in defense of what they believe. to simply saying the church had lost its way. And so we ought to care what the church historically

has said. We ought to care about the major creeds of confessions. Those ought to be significant guides. So when we talk about other authorities, I would say those are all key influences on us, but they never trump scripture, right? So no creed is is scripture, but that doesn't mean I don't care what the church has said for generations about things. So I want to take into consideration, the Nicene Creed, the Kalsodonian crete, and beyond that as a way of saying that, that I'm not the first ever look at the Bible. The other thing it guards against is the idea of original doctrine. So, you know, someone goes, I've now discovered a new doctrine that no one knew about before. I'm like, nah, that's that, no, right? You know, there's not this idea of

sort of innovation now. We want to be happy to be on original in our theology. It's interesting here you say that because I sat through, gosh, three chapels a week here at Biola for four years. And there's a few chapels to stand out. And John Mark Reynolds, gave a chapel. I don't remember what year it was. And he was to like, basically emphasizing, don't be original. Don't come up with new ideas. Your job is to faithfully and creatively pass on the truths that have been passed on to you. And that just stuck with me. So when it comes to our spiritual life when it comes to the scriptures, scripture alone is the authority. But when I'm going to interpret the authority, I better look at what the church fathers have said. I better look at

what scholars say, but ultimately the authority is in the scripture itself. Yes. What about things like science? That's a kind of authority, a way we can know things about the world, that at points may intersect with the scriptures. How would soul scripture say we look at things like history and science and other disciplines? Yeah. So this is where we want to realize we want to have a robust doctrine of general revelation, right?

God reveals himself in the book of Scripture and in the book of creation. And whatever is true about creation is true, and it can help adjust our interpretations of Scripture. And sometimes Scripture helps us interpret the world. So these two cross-pollinate. Now, as you know, there's a lot of complications there. There's a lot of layers to that. And people get very nervous, and we say natural revelation can correct understanding of their scripture, as if, you know, it's over the Bible, no, because it's God's revelation. okay so if i think i'm understanding the world in a certain way you know that you know you could look at a

passage just as classic example of course with galileo that when the sun rises it means that the earth is the center of the solar system but no it turns out the sun is and i have to use natural revelation to help correct my interpretation of the bible that's entirely legitimate at the same time we also have to be very careful because when we look at the facts on the world so to speak sometimes we we take what people are saying are the facts of the world that may not actually be the facts of the world, and we're letting those overturn plain teachings of scripture, and we want to make sure that, of course, doesn't happen. Good.

That's a tough way to look at it. So, does the Bible teach soul scriptura? Because sometimes people eject, like, you know, the word Trinity is not in the Bible. Well, the word Bible, I don't think is in the Bible, if I'm not mistaken. Well, the term tabiblia is the book, but you're right. The term Bible is not in the way we use it in the Bible. That's right. So where does it come from?

Why should we embrace it in terms of the Christian faith? Yeah. Well, so many places we could get into in terms of why we get soul scripture from the scriptures. Certainly, the word of God as being the ultimate standard for anything is built into the scriptural witness, right? There's no higher authority than God. So obviously, God's word is the higher authority. The question is where you get God's word, right? Obviously, in prior generations, we acknowledge biblical generations, you could get God's word through the live revelation given to prophets that the apostles are speaking right there. standing in front of you, God's word effectively. But the question is, do we have those features now? Or we have prophets and apostles today speaking that way. Obviously, we would argue from the Bible, we don't. So the only place you have access to God's word is in the scriptures. The other thing

I would say, though, about Solo Scriptura and where you get it from is I would argue it's downstream from other doctrines. So I think it flows naturally from the doctrine of inspiration and actually from the doctrine of inerrancy. And I know those two overlap a lot in people's minds, understandably. But inspiration is just simply saying that when we have the words of the Bible, we have the words of God. Inerrancy is simply saying that when I have the teachings of the Bible, I have teachings that are true. They're not false or not in error. Both those things feed into the doctrine of soul of scripture. Obviously, why is scripture alone our highest authority? Because it's God. What could be higher than God, right? So obviously, if we believe in inspiration,

then we have scripture as our highest authority. But inerency also plays a role. Why is Scripture our highest authority? Because it's the only thing we have access to that doesn't err. church councils can err you know humans can air people can make mistakes the scripture doesn't have that so it flows downstream from inspiration and inerrancy and if you don't have inspiration inerrancy school scripture is not going to make sense okay so this is not answering the question of which scriptures are inerrant and inspired that would be a separate conversation but soul scripture is saying if something is scripture it is the highest authority the canon question maybe differences with Roman Catholics and Orthodox. That's a separate question from Sol Scripture itself.

It is, but a very important separate question. Agreed. Yes. So, yes, you want to distinguish those two questions in terms of the conversation you're having with somebody and, hey, we're talking about this, not that. But eventually you're going to have to get to that. That's right. Which is if we're going to say Soliscriptura and we're going to say scriptures are high a standard, then the next question is, well, as you noted, is, well, which books are Scripture? Unless we can answer that intelligibly, you have no Soliscriptura. And this is why the Protestant world needs to have a very robust understanding of canon. And of course, you know that's one of my main areas.

And why do I care about canon? Because if you can't establish which books are from God, then their function doesn't matter. Why don't we care about the function of a book? I don't even know which books are from God. You can't have a doctor of scripture without a scripture to use. And so canon really matters. Okay. If we have time, we can circle back to that question.

You want to get through some myths about soul of scripture. Yes, absolutely. But in some ways, if I understand the argument, what you're saying is scripture is the word of God. It's God breathed. And we all get this from our Jewish heritage that when God speaks, it carries authority with it by its nature and the highest authority. And you gave an illustration essay I thought was great about when somebody swears on the Bible.

Explain that and tie it to why God would be the highest authority. Yeah. So one of the things that people often don't realize about ultimate authorities or highest authorities is that by definition they have to be self-authenticating. What do we mean by that? What do we mean by that is that we establish ultimate authorities on themselves, because if we didn't, they wouldn't be an ultimate authority. So they have to be in some sense self-referential, okay? And that's different than we have it. We establish other truths, right? Lots of times when we establish a certain proposition, we just say, I believe in proposition A because I believe that it's confirmed by proposition B, right? But when it comes to an ultimate authority, obviously it's somewhat self-referential. And so the analogy I gave was how we sworefeyer. And so the analogy I gave was how we swear in a court of law. You put your hand on the Bible and you say, I swear to tell the whole truth, nothing about the truth. So help me, God. Why do we do that? It's obviously a symbolic act. But we do it by saying, I'm going to appeal to a higher authority than me for the truth of what I'm saying. I'm relying on something else. And the issue I brought up was, what would happen if God swore?

Who would you swear by? And it really highlights the issue because it seems how silly it would be if God swore by something other than himself because you realize, well, you're missing the point because it has to be something, you know, there's nowhere higher for God to go. So he ends up having to swear by himself, which sounds like a weird phrase to us. How do you swear by yourself? Well, we don't get to do that. God gets to do that. He's our highest authority. So built into Soliscriptura is, in my opinion, is a self-authenticating nature of scripture. They go hand in hand. The Bible's highest authority by definition has to be self-authenticating. Okay. So why do you not believe that there's living prophets today that speak truth. Would this be going to the Hebrews 1-1, one passage, or why would

you explain that? And why couldn't there be prophets that still speak, but are just below scripture on some level? Yeah, this is a massive topic and a complicated one. And I have a number of good colleagues and friends around that have different views on this than me, and I want to be very generous about it and careful with, you know, those different views out there. what I want to protect is this idea of something coming up alongside in the modern day competing with Scripture as our ultimate authority or maybe even, God forbid, trumping Scripture, okay? So inasmuch as we can say that God leads, God guides, and some people even use the term God speaks today in such a way that he's blessing his church and leading his people and so forth.

And as long as that is preserved under Scripture, then I think there's a good good bit of flexibility there that I'd want to allow for the way people are interacting with God and feel like God is leading them. Now, I know that some people push it further than that. And some want to say, no, we have modern day prophets just like Isaiah, just like Elijah. We have modern day apostles, just like Paul and Peter. Well, I'd have to say, I'm not there. I feel like that's crossing over a biblical line. Why do we think that we don't have apostles today in the way we did in the first century? Well, part of the reason is because of what constituted someone who was an apostle. To be an apostle in the first century, you had to have seen

the risen Lord. Jesus had to have had a resurrection appearance to you. And so you don't, you, you don't see any evidence that that is something that's a perpetual office. In fact, not only is it out of sync with the New Testament as a perpetual. Hey listeners, it's Kelly from Life Audio. We know life gets busy, and sometimes it's easy for your faith to get pushed to the side. That's why we created the good word A free weekly newsletter designed to give you a moment to slow down, be encouraged, and reconnect with what matters most, God's Word. Inside, you'll find devotionals, guided prayers, podcast recommendations, and other faith-filled content we think you'll love.

No ads, no clutter. Just good content to help you stay rooted in God's Word throughout your week. Sign up for The Good Word today at life audio.com forward slash the good word. That's life audio.com forward slash the good word. But when we get into the second century, for example, which I've done a good bit of work on the second century, we don't see the second century church fathers looking at each other as fellow apostles, or that there's apostles in their day, or that there's still people around who can speak that way. On the contrary, it's all retrospective.

They're always looking back to the age of the apostles. And that shows you they view the apostles as having an authority that's not repeatable. And of course, when Matthias is selected to replace Judas, he was with Jesus the whole time, seen the risen Lord. Exactly. First Corinthians 9, Paul says, am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the risen Lord? Yeah. Okay, fair enough.

So in some ways, just to make sure that I tie this together, soul scriptura is downstream from inspiration and inerrancy. Absolutely. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't have a robust doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy, soul of scripture is going to seem nonsensical. Think of it this way.

If the Bible is not infallible, if the Bible can make mistakes, then Soliculture doesn't make any sense because it can err and I can err. The Bible makes mistakes. Church counsels make mistakes. Now you're on an equal playing field where it makes no sense to elevate one over the other. The only reason you elevate Scripture over other things is if you think Scripture's distinctive in some way in terms of its authority. One of the ways it's distinctive in its authority is it speaks for God in a way that doesn't err.

And to at least two lines of reason I can think of is number one that you laid out that if if God speaks and he's the highest authority, what God says necessarily is the highest authority. Correct. But then we have the followers after the apostles themselves looking back using the text as if it's the highest authority and it's inspired. So we kind of have a historical argument for it. Oh, absolutely. And a theological argument. Yeah. Actually, the historical argument for Soliscriptura is really strong. and the way the scriptures function in the early church functioned in a way that no one was trying to compete with it as an equal authority to scripture.

Sort of the later ideas of papal authority competing with scripture was so much further downstream and distance from those early centuries. When we go back to those early centuries, we can see a really robust distinction between present-day ecclesiastical pronouncements and Scripture. Scripture was always over it. That's amazing. Okay, now I know some people are thinking this is a Protestant doctrine that came in, you know, the Reformation. We'll circle back to that. But yesterday you gave three things to protect against. Yes.

And you described how I like the way you were to, you said, and correct me if I'm wrong, the soul scripture guards us against the tendency of the human heart to set up authorities instead of God's word and the quote of our hearts are idle factories. Yes. And then you gave three that, uh, I think our facts. essay. And the first one seems the most obvious, but you said Soliscriptura guards against traditionalism. Yes. And what do you mean by traditionalism and how does Soliscriptura guard against that? Yeah. So one of the things I really wanted to highlight in the lecture and you captured it well is that Soliscriptura is protecting us against more than we think. And but there's still the most obvious thing it's protecting us from in its historical context at least, which is traditionalism.

Traditionalism is essentially raising church practices, church teachings, church ideas up to the level of Scripture, so that under the heading of we've always done it this way, we've always thought this way, this is the way we've done it for generations, now is on par with Scripture in such a way that it can trumpet and conflict with it. Obviously, in the days of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was the example of traditionalism. Okay, that's not surprising, that they had basically taken the teachings of the church and elevated them alongside Scripture, which allowed them to come up with doctrines like purgatory and certain doctrines of Mary and so on. The reformer said, wait a second, you're getting these doctrines from places outside of Scripture, and you shouldn't have anything binding us other than Scripture. Now, one of the big takeaways of that reality of guarding against traditionalism is a recognition that we're not done with traditionalism even within Protestantism. and Protestants have their own version of traditionalism. And the idea that, well, we're so glad we're not like the people back in the days of the Reformation. No, we are.

You know, anybody who's been in church for more than about one month knows that churches have their own versions of traditionalism and man-made rules. So the point of Soul Scripture is that no one gets to bind your conscience but God. So it is a, Soul Scripture is the protection of Christian liberty. What you think and what you do, only God can. tell you that, not just human beings. And so churches have authority, yes, but they only have authority in as much as they're submitting themselves to God's word. They don't get to Trump God's word. They don't get to be over you in a way that makes them a little God. Okay, so this idea was new to me that you said yesterday, that you said soul scripture protects Christian liberty.

Yes. I think many people, including many, probably Protestants and other Christians, would feel like, okay, wait a minute. If this is my highest authority, now I lack liberty. Right. than other kinds of experiences or beliefs or however we understand liberty. You're saying it's the opposite. So explain what you mean by that preserving liberty. So sometimes people hear the term liberty, they think, oh, I get to do whatever I want. Exactly. That's not what the definition should be. Liberty is the freedom to do the things that were made to do. Freedom and freedom to be who we are made to be, who God wants us to be. So liberty should be defined as how should I live in such a way that I manifest God's image in my life as much as possible?

in them as Christ-like as much as possible. So what tyranny is is not someone, tyranny is not merely having rules. Tyranny is having someone govern you that doesn't have the right to. That's tyranny. Tyranny with someone is over you that doesn't have the authority to be over you. Being under God's rules is freedom. Being under man's rules is tyranny. Being under God's rules is life, being under man's rules or death. So the point of Soloscriptura is that it protects us from the tyranny of human beings. God's the one that can lead us. Human beings should not be little gods. Anybody who's been around different versions of tyrannical leadership, also in the church, knows this, is that there is a tendency in the human heart to set up other idols in place of God.

And guess what? The number one idol we want to set up in place of God, us. And so the real ruler of some churches isn't God. The real ruler of some churches is human tradition and human beings. And that's an impressive life. And you don't want to be under it in soul of scripture. or protects you from it. I can imagine right now there's some atheists who are saying things like, wait a minute, you're saying, I've got to follow your God and thinking of Christopher Hitchens, who's like, the Christian God is like a celestial North Korea. Now, we're not going to address that right now.

I just want to say this is a kind of objection that people will bring up. Absolutely. Fair enough, there's a time and place for that. There's also the misconception that freedom's just doing whatever you want. But I can't tell you how much I love hearing you say this is I'm very careful to find freedom. Actually, let me take a step back. When I'll ask students, even in Christian circles, define freedom. You'll often hear something like, do whatever you want without restraint.

And I had some Christian students described to me. They said, the most free person would be somebody alone in an island doing anything they want. Well, if that's what freedom is, then yes. But if there's a God who made us to be in relationship. And his commandments actually help us operate and live according to his. design, then that person is least free because they're not in the loving, caring relationships that we're designed to have. And so Sol Scriptura, preserving that liberty is such a unique element I need to add to that that I think is powerful. I think a lot of people will miss. So I love that.

And let me let me add to that. Please. You mentioned someone like a Christopher Hitchens who thinks God's a tyrannical monster because of all his rules. What's ironic about that is that Christopher Hitchens still has rules. And everybody has rules of life. What's good, what's bad, what's right, what's wrong, what should and shouldn't be. In fact, one of the reasons he's so mad at the God of the Bible is because he thinks the God of the Bible violates certain norms that he thinks should be there. But now the question is, well, who's making Christopher Hitchens' rules? It's not God. That means the person making the rules is Christopher Hitchens. So now you have someone who is basically their own God or someone else is their God. And I would just simply challenge that. It's not about whether you have rules.

has them. Everybody has to have some moral standard for things. The question is, is it gods or is it human? And Soliscriptura says it needs to be gods. And it's not only just rules that everybody has. Everybody has some authority. That's exactly right. That's really what it gets back to. It could be self, could be my feelings, it could be culture, it could be my church. It could be some standard that they're appealing to. It could be science. It's inescapable. We all have an authority. And Sol Scriptura is the claim that there's a God who has spoken. And by definition, if he is God and he's spoken, carries with itself the highest authority. Okay, so one, maybe are there, I'm not actually to call it a particular church or an individual,

but is there a way to be like more practical of how somebody could even look at their own church and be like, oh my goodness, we have embraced this traditionalism above soul scriptura. Like what does that kind of look like in practice for that to play out? Oh, so complicated. There's several ways it can manifest itself. That's the first time you've sighed and all the questions I've asked. You're like, oh, you're killing me, McDowell. No, it's a great question.

It's just so complicated to think about to answer it. So basically you're asking, what are some ways Christians become traditionalists? Yeah, that's there. And I'll mention several. Some churches are really, really value confessions, okay? Confessions of faith, doctrinal statements, things that they hold to. Like, we're from this confession of faith or that confession of faith. Excuse me, I trust they can edit that out.

No, you're good. We might even leave it in there for folks just so they know we're having a real conversation here. I'm a real conversation with my sneeze here. Forgive me for my sneeze. No, what I was saying was that there are certain denominations that really value confessions of faith. And I'm in those. I value confessions of faith. I have firm a confession of faith.

And nothing wrong with that. But I think everybody knows in those contexts, those confessions, can become more and more authoritative and more and more authoritative, where at least functionally, they never say this, it almost is as authoritative of scripture. And what I always want to remind people is that confessions can be wrong. They can be mistaken. You can take exceptions to them because they're not the Bible. You cannot take exceptions to the Bible, but you can take exceptions to confessional statements. Other traditionalism is cultural rules. People in churches who end up saying, this is what a Christian looks like, this is what a Christian does, this is how they act,

This is where they send their kids to school. This is where they do certain things, where you add all these rules that aren't demanded by Scripture. There's a word we have for that in our context. It's called legalism. Can I guess? Yeah, legalism. Okay. So when someone says, how do I battle legalism?

Do you realize that Sol of Scriptura is the way you battle legalism? You can battle legalism a lot of ways. But you realize that the heart and soul that legalism is saying is that we have authority that's as binding on you as the Bible. And as soon you can only punch a whole thing. in that if you have something to punch a hole in it with. And that's the doctrine of soul scripture, is that you cannot bind my conscience with anything other than God's word. So that's a couple of examples of, I think, how traditionalism still has a sway in Protestant circles. And by the way, it is really interesting that when I talk with people who have

deconstructed to the point of deconversion, legalism is like one of the most common threads that just shows up that we're dying on secondary hills. Oh, yeah. That scripture maybe gives us liberty on. So that's really helpful. And people forget that this is addressed by the Bible. We have examples of food sacrifice to idols in these early epistles by Paul where that was a place of Christian liberty where people were really upset that you would eat food sacrifice to idols. And Paul's like, guys, this issue is, you can disagree over this. This is neither here nor there, right? Someone who has a conscience says, okay, I won't do it, but someone's free to do it. That's a classic example. We need more of that. We need more recognition that there's things that people

make a main issue that are just not a main issue. And Paul clearly pulls out in First Corinthians like you're talking about certain things like sexual immorality. Like that is not an issue we can agree to disagree on. He distinguishes between what we call on Adioffera, this sort of secondary stuff versus the core truths that God's word does lay down. In other words, Paul is distinguishing effectively what God binds you versus man's tradition. He separates the two, as did Jesus. And he does that in Romans 14 as well. But people can go and read those. So the first area that soul scripture protects us against is traditionalism. The second one is the opposite. You hinted at this earlier is individualism. Yes. It's interesting. People ask me, which of the three do you think

Protestants suffer the most from? I keep hopping around. Like, we just went through the traditionalism thing. I'm like, man, maybe that's the big one. But then now we come to the individualism one, and I'm like, well, maybe that's the big one. Because individualism is so prominent too. And as I define a moment ago in a very simplistic way, individualism is a complete removal of yourself from any sort of history of the church, creedal tradition of the church. It's just you and your Bible, starting from scratch. And what people don't realize is it sounds like soul of scripture on the surface. At first glance, you're like, it's just the Bible. That's all I have here. But what a person really has is their Bible. And what I mean by that is they have their private understanding of the Bible.

And their private understanding of the Bible is basically, it's not the Bible as their ultimate authority. It just becomes that they are their ultimate authority. And so you end up having a veneer of Solo Scriptura. But in reality, it's not Solo Scriptura. It's just you as the ultimate authority, which is why when we interpret the Bible, it's best done in community. Amen. It's best done corporately, both in the modern day corporately and historically corporately. So one of my big speeches, and all my church history friends are happy to hear the speech, is that we've got to do better in the Protestant world on church history. And we've got to position ourselves in the large swath of what God has done for 2,000 years. It can't just be that my only reference points for

what to believe about the Bible are my grandma and my local pastor. And if those two people are saying it, well, then there it is. I mean, there's more to look at than that. And I think we need to do better as Protestants in that area. I don't know which one is bigger. It's running through the back of my mind when you said it. And maybe in different circles within Protestantism. And correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe, maybe you're reforms, so you can tell me like McDowell, you know, you got this wrong. Maybe in reform circles, there could be a tendency towards traditionalism. Maybe in Pentecostal circles, there could be a tendency towards individualism. Yeah, fair enough. Different groups have different tendencies, yeah. Although I suspect in Pentecostalism, there's still going to be

certain traditions that are held on to that they practice. Exactly. You can find legalism anywhere. I think that's right. It's an equal opportunity problem. Almost all denominations have. have that as an issue at some level. So part of the reaction of the reformers was against this traditionalism. And then the critique in some ways we talked about this is just me and my Bible. And then it makes an individual believer the authority. Exactly. This is not what Soul Scripts teach us. Although most people think it is. And they defend their private little religious life. Think about it. What if someone was able to just construct their entire Christian world by themselves? Like what I think the Bible means, what I think the Bible says, how I understand it, what I want to do, what how I read these texts. And it's just this little isolated universe you've created for yourself. That is not the biblical vision for Soul Scriptura. Yes, the Bible is the only thing in play, but that's not supposed to be how it happens. The Bible is the highest authority, not the only one. And the Bible itself teaches that wisdom is found in many counselors. The Bible itself teaches that there's the great sort of cloud of witnesses that have gone before you that need to be looked at. So I think individualism is a major problem. And I

I think it's an American problem in particular. See, I'm glad you just said that because I was about to say there's something culturally in our expressive individualism moment. Totally. Be yourself. Live your truth. Even social media's ideas present yourself to the world. Yes. And there's kind of even the idea of identity is just disconnected from anything other than who I want to be.

Yep. And so I think there's still traditionalism. There's still individualism. But culturally speaking, I would say the individualism. is probably far stronger seeping into the church. I think that's right. And by the way, our Roman Catholic friends are pointing this out about Protestants. Fair enough.

They're like, hey, guys, this unmoored, free-for-all is not working among you Protestants. And they're not wrong. That doesn't mean you should be Roman Catholic, but they're not wrong about the critique. And we need to hear the critique. There is too much sort of individualistic, isolated, non-contextual Christianity that needs to be. addressed. And so we need to hear that critique in recover a more robust recovery of some of the early positioning of the church. So Soul Scripture is not that scripture is the only authority. It's that it's the highest authority. Correct. It's not that I only read the Bible. And I don't also

pray or go to church or have fellowship or solitude or other spiritual discipline. Commentaries or listen to the history of the church or creedal statements. Exactly. Exactly. And it's also not just solo me and scripture. That's a complete misunderstanding of it. We just look back in the Old Testament and, of course, in the New Testament itself, it's never my individual interpretation or understanding of what God said apart from the community and certain corrections that are built in. Yeah, so the corporateness thing is something that just needs more attention. So, look, not only is America an individualistic society, but lots of times when we think about sharing the gospel with people. It's, it's very much about sort of individual conversion,

individual decisions. And those are all real, real things. A person has to personally follow God and put their faith in God. Joining the church doesn't make you a Christian. At the same time, is it possible we've talked so much about individualistic things? We're not talking corporately enough. And I think there's a recovery of an ecclesiology maybe that's needed there. I love that. Good stuff. Yep. So the three we got to protect against with soul scripture is traditionalism. Yep. And ironically, gives us Christian liberty. Love that. Yep.

Flipside protects against individualism. This third one, I completely did not see come, but it made sense once you explained it, is that soul scripture guards against existentialism. Yes. So existentialism could be defined as instead of scripture as my ultimate authority, my experience with God is my ultimate authority. My encounter with God is my ultimate authority. My feelings are my ultimate authority.

So what existentialism does is basically just kicks the Bible to the curb and says, who needs a dusty old book anyway, what real religion is and what, at least for Christians, what they think real Christianity is, is an encounter with Jesus in the here and now, right, that I'm interacting with God in the present, not looking at some book that's about the past. And so existentialism is a defined philosophical category, but there's a Christian existentialism that's really there and has historically been there. and it is a violation of Solo Scriptura. Soliscriptura would say, no, your feelings are not your highest authority.

Your divine encounter is not your highest authority. What you think is happening to you in a spiritual experience is not your highest authority. That, too, has to be interpreted through the lens of scripture. Now, one of the things I mentioned in the lecture yesterday is that what makes existentialism hard to pin down is that there's an element of truth in it. Is it not true that the Christian life has an experiential dimension to it? Of course. Do you not have an encounter with God in the present day in prayer and in other ways? Yes.

But the idea that that could rise up to such a level of guidance for you that you put scripture aside, that's where the danger lies. So this gets into like private revelations and secret revelations and secret traditions that are outside the Bible through this divine encounters. Okay. So individualism still holds up the Bible as authoritative, but it's my interpretation of the Bible, which kind of maybe makes it the self. really, but they're still saying my interpretation.

At least the Bible still is the authority. It's in play. Existentialism is now, my experience of God, my encounter with God becomes the authority itself above. So that one of the three, it would seem to me, would be the least common, at least in evangelical circles. Nobody would own that. Now, how many people actually do that? I don't know how to answer that question.

So I think you're right in evangelical circles, but not in broad Christian circles. So one of the things that's interesting is the way. existentialism has manifest itself in mainline liberal denominations historically. Now, we think of mainline liberal denominations now is entirely spiritually bereft, right? But historically, people forget, particularly early 20th century, that mainland liberal denominations were very spiritually engaged. They were very concerned about morality. They just didn't believe in core doctrines. And I mentioned Rudolph Boltman in the lecture. You know, here's a guy who has got no evangelical bone in his body, all right? But he is very much.

spiritual. He's very much engaged in about divine encounters. And he describes them and frames them, not around the Bible, but about a present-day personal encounter with the living God. And so was, was Bolman an atheist? No. Was Bolman, he wasn't even a deist? He was a, at least in his own mind, he was a Christian. Okay. Now, we don't think he was a Christian in the sense that he embraced true doctrines, but he was in his mind, he was a Christian, just that he didn't think the Bible played a meaningful role. So you're right. Evangelicals maybe aren't quite there, but there's versions of it in evangelicalism. Very, very, very, very much about spirituality, very much about a spiritual experience. We see that. And it's sort of Oprah Winfrey style. You know, you know, I can talk about Jesus.

I can talk about faith and I can talk about spiritual experience. But the last thing I talk about is the Bible. So obviously you're in favor of, you're reformed, you're in favor of spiritual experiences that people have to know God personally. Yeah. But those are always filtered through, does it match up with scripture? So if I interpret something differently, somehow my experience was off, and that's not the authority, is the approach for you. So things like to me, I look at near-death experiences, I personally have done a ton of shows and research in this. I find them totally compelling. Great. They have to be under the rubric of scripture. Absolutely. So when somebody reports something, it's like, oh, wait a minute,

it's one thing to have an experience that doesn't contradict scripture. Right. And it's another thing to say, oh, no, I had this experience of reincarnation. I'm like, timeout, this needs to be under the rubric of Scripture. That's exactly right. That's how you would approach those kind of spiritual things. Is that fair? Yeah.

So all of life is subject to God's revelation and God's word. So whether I'm trying to think about how to think about economics or sports or politics, I also have to think about my experience in light of God's work. and what I feel and what I think's happening and how I'm interpreting my prayer life and so forth. So yes, we're not saying that Christian life does not have experience real dimensions. Of course it does, but never divorced from, right, and certainly not trumped over Scripture. And then when that happens, we've all seen it happen historically, things go walkie fast. And some of the most famous cults have come from people who've had private religious experiences

that have become so dominant in their private revelations that Scripture is no longer really a factor anymore and they become their own thing. Which I think really do indicate that they never really believed in the authority of scripture to start with. In other words, they never affirmed soul of scripture. I mean, I say this all time. I'm curious if you would agree with this and how this would fit into soul scripture. I say, really, the big issue today is biblical authority.

Yeah. That's the heart of the question. So we could talk about whatever moral issue, people are debating in the culture. What is my authority I'm going to lean to on that? It really comes back to biblical authority. And that's the heart of soul scriptura. Yeah, I mean, I think we all would agree that one of the core doctrines of Christianity, and I mentioned this in my lectures, was that God speaks, and that when God speaks, it's a way he builds a relationship with his people.

That's what his speaking is doing. And the most important thing a Christian can ever do is listen to their Lord when he speaks to them. And so if we don't have the Word of God, we're a drift at sea. And so the Word of God's authority, as you put it, is central to the health of the church. And this is why this doctrine has to be recovered. And I've done my work in canon. Canon is not about Soul Scripture per se, but canon lays the foundation for Soul Scripture, because if we can know which books are from God, then they can function as our highest authority.

And so you need the canon discussion to undergird Soul Scripture up, and they really go hand in hand. I'm glad you brought that up. We only have a little bit of time, but where would you start to take that from a Protestant perspective? Because we have Scripture as the highest authority. And then the question you get and I get all the time is, how do we know we have the right scriptures? Yeah. And we could come back and do a deep dive in this. We had this conversation a little bit before maybe six months ago. But where would you take that as kind of part two to this? Yeah. So lots of ways to go there. So, but if the scripture is the highest authority over everything, then it's also the highest authority over how I authenticate it. Okay. And this is one of the points that make in my book canon revisited for those who love it or maybe those who disagree. Fair enough. But it is the point I make, which is that if scripture is the highest authority, then scripture has to be the guide for how I even authenticate scripture. Okay, I think that's in inevitability. I think of Scripture's highest authority, soul scripture, it leads to a self-authenticating Bible. So the reason I had these two parts of my lecture yesterday is because they hang together. So when we talk about a self-authenticating Bible, that doesn't mean historical evidences don't play a role. But just like I interpret my experience through the scriptures, I also interpret my historical evidence of the scriptures. In other words, historical evidences are not some so, you know, axiomatic thing outside the Bible that stands over the Bible. It's part of God's world, and I can examine the historical evidence as

but never in such a way that I treat them as some external authority over God's Word. But I think once you start doing that, you can see the historical evidence for these books, all going back to apostles, for example, is really, really strong. And I think that can give you reasons for thinking, yes, we have the right books. And now I can let them function in my life as my authority. So that's just one piece of the canonical puzzle. But I think the starting place is the key there. You don't start by saying, okay, how do I prove the canon from some other third place on the scene

and then kind of, you know, sort of, you know, in some Cartesian way, make a, make a proof of it. I don't think that that's the way you can do that with the Bible. I think you have to, in fact, consider the Bible as you authenticate it. And some of those just quick, some of those indicators authentically would be the power, would be the beauty, would be the, what are some of the other terms that just set it apart? Yeah. So when we talk about how the Bible authenticates itself, one of the ways is what I just mentioned, is that the Bible itself says the apostles matter. So I can go and see what you. which books are from apostles. Okay, so that's part of the puzzle. Okay. But then I can look at the books

themselves and see qualities in those, the Indicia, the Latin phrase we talked about yesterday, the indicators that it's from God. And you're right. There's three that historically been mentioned by patristic sources and theologians, the beauty and excellency of Scripture, the power and efficacy of Scripture, and the unity and harmony of Scripture. And it's that third one that I think gets most of the attention and rightly so. This book, to have such unity among us different disparate parts over thousands of years by so many different authors, you explain that on a human level. I think that is a divine quality. I think that's a book. You can look at the Bible and see it's got God's fingerprints over it by that feature in it.

That's not a feature I'm inventing. That's not a feature I wish we're there. It's a feature that's actually there. And that speaks to us divine origins. Some of the unity and diversity is what's key. We can get lost when we just focus the diversity. Yep. We'd also get lost when we overemphasize the unity and miss some of the differences. But even this is a topic that would take aside. But I've been reading so many different books in their entirety recently. And it's just struck me how commonly that salvation is by faith alone. Yes. So even see like in Acts, in Acts 16, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall

be saved. Hebrews chapter 4, those who enter his rest are those who believe. It's all over Romans. John 629, what work must you do? Believe in the one whom he has sent. There's radical differences from John to Hebrews to the other books, but that common thread amongst others is one that points towards its unity. What a remarkable common threat. I mean, does the natural person decide they're going to be saved this way? Almost universally, and you see

this in other Greco-Roman religions, you're saved by your duty, you're saved by your practice, you're saved by your good works. The idea that you have that thread of unification throughout these Christian texts is stunning, given the ancient context they're in. You're right, because every other faith is works based on some fashion. It's unique to Christianity that it's a gift and grace is beautiful, but in some ways, it's counterintuitive. We want to earn things. All right. But with that said, what about immediately people are thinking, okay, what about the Mormon claim? Moronite 10-4, read the Bible. I'm sorry, if you read the book of Mormon and you approach it in the right prayerful state, you will just know, kind of experientially and see that it's true. Yeah. What would your response be to that?

Yeah, there's been a number of folks over the years that I think have misunderstood what has historically been meant by a self-authenticating Bible, and they think it's just a form of existentialism. Or another way to say it is they think it's a form of subjectivism, the idea that I have an experience, I have a feeling, and therefore it proves the Bible's true. And therefore it looks like Mormonism because of the burning in the bosom that you supposedly have that tells you the Book of Mormons from God. But that's definitively not the argument. that may be a misunderstanding of what a self-authenticating Bible means, but it's not what historically it's meant. The doctrine of self-authentication doesn't say that I believe the Bible's word of God because I have an experience with the Spirit. I'm not even really realize the spirits in doing what he's doing. The argument is that there's objective qualities that are really

there in the Bible that one could recognize with the help of the Spirit, but you don't put the qualities there. The qualities are not merely the thing that's in my mind or heart. They're actually in the Bible itself. Now, that doesn't mean there's not a subjective dimension to that, but there's a subjective dimension to anything because it's a person ascertaining that thing. So you could say there's a subjective dimension to examining historical evidence because isn't it isn't in a person that's examining the historical evidence and has to assess that historical evidence, but doesn't make historical study subjectivism any more than examining the Bible for its divine qualities is subjectivism. So these are very different things. In Mormonism has

its own version of this, but that is decidedly not what's going on with a self-authenticating doctrine. And you also talk about how it has a book would have the beauty and excellency of Christ. Yes. As I read the Mormon scriptures, they don't elevate Christ. I would argue that they actually lower Christ and contradict what we find in the Gospels and Acts and the other books. And then we could bring in apologetics from the outside on top of the self-authenticating nature. And if somebody goes, well, I think it's self-authenticating, let's look at the data. Let's look at the evidence, and that comes into play as well.

It's not like you can't examine that claim. In other words, just because someone claims their books are self-identicating, doesn't mean that can't be examined. So if someone says, my books have unity and harmony, okay, well, let's have a look. Let's see if they do. Fair enough. All right. So last question.

In some ways, you probably answered this. But somebody goes, all right, soul scripture. It's a fancy term. Who cares? How would you in some just say, here's why we need this? That would be the equivalent of saying, Oh, God is spoken? Who cares? It's really the same point.

I mean, if someone says the God of the universe exists, he's real, he made everything, and he made you, and he's got something to say to you, and the person goes, yeah, I don't care. If that's a person's reaction, and the problem isn't with God, the problem is in here. The problem is with that person, because there's something broken there to think that the God of the universe speaks and you don't really care what they say. Solo Scriptura is basically saying that God has spoken. It matters what he says because he's God and that the best thing we can do is listen to him. And if we listen to him, we recognize it. If he's God, he's the highest authority in our lives. And as we said, why else does it matter?

Because that's where freedom is. That's where life is. If God made us and he has something to say, why would we think that's a bad thing? If he's a good God, then what he says to us is a good thing. It's a declaration of good news. So if someone goes, who cares about Social Scripture, I'm like, well, don't you care that God has spoken? Don't you care that he might have good news for you? And that he might give you the path of life and freedom.

that would be what I would say. I love that you brought it full circle with freedom. It's about liberation. If there's a God who has made you and wants to be in relationship with you and this God has spoken, then the single best way to know about that God and the path to freedom are to read and study and think about and meditate on the words that God has spoken. For me, I've always believed that my whole life, but growing in reading the scriptures, growing in that conviction just changed the way I approach and read the scripture.

and just have a hunger to get into them. And I know you do as well. You have a blog called Canon Fodder. Yep. I read it, share it all the time on Twitter and other areas. Happy to do it. It's great stuff. Your book Canon Revisited, any other books you've written on the topic of canon or on

Soul Scriptura that would relate to this conversation you want people to know about. I wrote another book called The Question of Canon with Interversity, which is different from Canon Revisited. Canter Revisited is the book most people talk about where I talk about this self authenticating model. That's not what question of canon is about. It's about thinking of canon as innate to Christianity rather than a later imposition. So it's dealing with different historical issues. People might find that interesting. And then I think you may have alluded to my book on the second century. I can't remember if you said that. But I have a book called Christianity at the crossroads where I talk about

second century Christianity. I get into canon issues there too amongst other things and about the way scripture function in the life of the earliest Christians. All right. I'm thinking about having you back. I want people to comment on here. In due time, we won't worry out. We've done two shows recently on like maybe five or seven or ten reasons why Protestants got it right about the canon. Okay, we'll do it. And the point would not be to stir up the hornets nest, but the point would be that that's what you think is really true. Yeah. And that's what you think followers of Jesus should embrace. And it's an important question. So comment if you want us to come back and have that conversation and in due time, we will. But thanks for coming on. Thanks for a lecture at Biola.

Always enjoy it. Folks, before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got a lot of shows. coming up. We're going to keep revisiting near-death experiences, evidence for the Bible, intelligent design. I got some other tours coming up of some places that I think will surprise you. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we have full classes on the stuff we've discussed here. SoulShip, Tura and Canon, information is below. We'd love to have you in person or distance study apologetics. We'll see you next time. Are you seeking to deepen your faith and embrace your identity in Christ? Then tune into the Bot and Beloved Christian podcast hosted by me, Kirby Kelly. Join me each week as we dive into

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