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Did the Church Create the Bible?

How do we know which books belong in the Bible?Did the early Church create the canon—or did it simply recognize what was already Scripture? In this video, I address the common claim that Christians cannot know which books belong in the Bible without the authority of the Church. I argue instead that Scripture itself gives us the boundaries, categories, and criteria for the canon—and that the Church’s role was never to grant authority, but to receive it. I begin with the Old Testament, where Jesus refers to Scripture as “Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms”—the well-known threefold division of the Hebrew Bible. Even the book of Sirach presupposes this fixed corpus while excluding itself from it. The New Testament era did not inherit an undefined Old Testament. I then turn to the New Testament. While Scripture does not provide a formal table of contents, it clearly teaches that apostolic writings are the Word of God and must be received as such. Paul speaks of his own preaching and letters as the Word of God, Peter explicitly refers to Paul’s letters as “Scripture,” and the Church is said to be built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets—not the other way around. Finally, I show that this is exactly how the earliest Christians understood the canon. In 1 Clement, Old Testament Scripture, the words of Christ, Paul’s letters, and even Hebrews are all treated as equally authoritative—without appeal to a council or later ecclesiastical decree. If the Church determines the canon rather than recognizing it, then Scripture is no longer inherently the Word of God. But if Scripture is God’s Word by nature, then the Church stands under it—not above it. That is the biblical and historical picture of the canon. #BibleCanon #SolaScriptura #AuthorityOfScripture #EarlyChurch #ChurchHistory #NewTestament #OldTestament #ChristianApologetics #ReformedTheology