It Is Written: The Old Testament of Scripture Alone | Rom. 3:1-2, Acts 7:37-39, Luke 24:25-27, 44-49

Lord's Day: December 28, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: It Is Written: Scripture Alone Topic: Scripture Scripture: Romans 3:1–2; Acts 7:37–39; Luke 24:25–27, 44–49; John 10:27–28; 1 Corinthians 14:21; John 1:45; Matthew 22:40; Romans 3:21–22; Acts 13:15; 10:43 1Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. Romans 3:1–2 Opponents of Protestantism falsely claim that there is no evidence in the early church for the Protestant Old Testament canon. This betrays history, church history, and the competing criteria that were used—especially in the early church—to recognize the books of the Old Testament. I. There were two primary competing criteria in the early church used to identify the Old Testament: 1. Which books were part of the Hebrew canon that the Jews used, and which Christ and His Apostles affirmed? Rom. 3:1-2, Acts 7:37-39, etc. 2. Which books did the (early) churches read in church and deemed edifying?[1] This is less precise. The church does not define God’s Word—God’s Word defines the church. II. The Protestant Canon of the Old Testament The overwhelming testimony of the Jews was that they held to an exclusive, 22/24 book canon of the Old Testament, matching the Protestant canon—apart from any "infallible" authority/council defining their canon—and Jesus and the Apostles quoted it to them repeatedly and demonstrated how He fulfilled it, refuted them with it, appealed to it as the highest authority, held them accountable to it, without ever debating which books were inspired.See “The Apocrypha Disproves Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy,” https://faithalone.net/topical-articles/articles/catholicism/apocrypha.html. III. Hebrew Bible—Tanakh—has three sections: Torah (Law), Nevi’im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings) Apocrypha are not included in the Hebrew Bible. IV. The 22/24 Hebrew canon and threefold subdivision of the Old Testament is found in numerous ancient Jewish and Christian sources, and in the Old and New Testaments. Anglican John Cosin (1594-1672) lists over 76 Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox sources, authorities, councils which rejected/distinguished the Apocrypha, in A Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture, https://confessionalbibliology.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/The_Works_Of_John_Cosin_Scholastical_his.pdf. V. The New Testament uses synecdoches and shorthand phrases like “the Law and the Prophets” to denote the entire Old Testament. Also "the Law," “the Prophets,” “all the Prophets,” "the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms" Old Testament also uses canonical synecdoches. We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am: ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church4712 Montana Ave El Paso, Texas 79903 Contact us at: web: ThornCrownCovenant.Churchcall/text: [phone]email: [e-mail] Scripture quotations marked LSB are from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com [1] John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry, Scribes and Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible (Crossway, 2022), p. 120.