The Development of the Bible: An Interview with Michael Kruger

Here's an excerpt from The Development of the Bible, an interview with Michael Kruger from the February issue of Tabletalk:

Tabletalk: How can Christians be sure that the Bible we have is the one that God wanted us to have?

Michael Kruger: There are lots of reasons to be confident that the books in our Bibles are the ones God intended. First, Christians have argued that inspired books contain certain "divine qualities" that set them apart from other books. Such qualities include beauty and excellency, power and efficacy, and unity and harmony. Because of the activity of the Holy Spirit, we can be confident that individual Christians and the church as a whole would have been able to recognize these qualities.

Second, we have excellent historical evidence that shows that these books were recognized early and widely by God's people. As noted above, the New Testament books were well established even by the second century. Thus, it seems that God's people were quite able to recognize which books were from God, and they did so at a very early time.

And, on top of all of this, Christians put their trust in the sovereignty and providence of God over such matters. If God desired that His church possess the proper books, we can be confident that He would sovereignly bring it about.

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