1. Is it important to consider that the earliest Christians did not agree on which 1st century books and letters were divinely inspired scripture? Why or why not?
2. Who is authorized to write Scripture in the first place?
3. Where did the collection (or “canon”) of the New Testament come from?
4. Who decided which works counted as scripture and which didn’t?
5. What authority was this decision based on?
6. When was the canon closed?
7. Is knowing this history important?
8. How do we know the New Testament as a whole, or the individual books and letters, are really scripture, since none of the books and letters are self-attesting (they don’t claim to be divinely inspired)?
9. Even if the books and letters of the New Testament were self-attesting, many books and letters from the 1st century claim to have been divinely inspired, but obviously weren’t. How can we tell the difference?
10. There are only two examples of New Testament writers quoting each other as scripture (1 Tim 5:18 and 2 Peter 3:16). But without some independent basis to establish one or the other as scripture, we still cannot know that one or the other is scripture, can we?
11. Why doesn’t a loop of mutual attestations work to authoritatively establish a book or letter was divinely?
12. Are there objective ways we can tell what is or is not scripture? What are they?
13. A potential scripture being emotionally inspiring doesn’t work, since lots of writings are emotionally inspiring (like MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”), but aren’t considered scripture on that basis, right?
14. Relying on the Holy Spirit to reveal to the heart of each reader whether a given book or letter is scripture doesn’t work either, since we could be mistaken in our inspiration or be otherwise misled, couldn’t we?
15. Does it matter that the first Protestants in the 16th century removed books from the Old Testament canon that conflicted with their understanding of Christian doctrine?
16. Does it matter that the first Protestants in the 16th century removed books from the New Testament canon that conflicted with their understanding of Christian doctrine?
17. Can you disprove the Book of Mormon is scripture? How?
18. Why aren’t there any New Testament verses guiding us in how God will reveal what is or is not scripture?
19. Most Protestants don’t read a purported scripture then ask God to reveal whether it really is scripture, do they?
20. Instead, Protestants accept the modern canon of the New Testament on the traditional canon settled in the 3rd century, right?
21. How do we know whether that tradition of the canon itself was divinely inspired?
22. If you must look to something outside of scripture in order to establish what is scripture, doesn’t that undercut the doctrine of “scripture alone” as the sole rule of Christian faith?
23. If the New Testament canon was settled through a divinely inspired tradition, doesn’t that mean its possible for Christianity to consist of more than the doctrine of “scripture alone”?
24. If you believe in the existence of one divinely inspired tradition, isn’t it possible there are other divinely inspired traditions?

1. How should Christians interpret scripture?
2. Who has the authority to decide what a given verse means, or doesn’t mean?
3. What scriptures establish that “scripture alone” is the sole rule of Christian faith?
4. 2 Tim 3:16-17 doesn’t work because just because all scripture is divinely inspired, it doesn’t mean nothing else is, right?
5. At the time 2 Tim was written, the only “scripture” that existed, and to which Paul makes explicit reference in the letter (2 Tim 3:14-15), is the Old Testament. But we would not argue that the Old Testament alone is sufficient for salvation, would we?
6. The actions of the Bereans in Acts 17:11, also doesn’t provide a scriptural basis for the doctrine of “scripture alone” either, does it?
7. The Bereans accept Paul’s oral teaching on Christian tradition as authoritative, then test it against the Old Testament, right?
8. Isn’t this a much different prospect that claiming that doctrine can only come from scripture, specifically the New Testament?
9. Given the lack of explicit scriptural support of the doctrine of “scripture alone,” doesn’t that necessarily mean that the doctrine is self-defeating?
10. If you must look to something outside of scripture in order to establish the authoritative meaning of scripture, doesn’t that undercut the doctrine of “scripture alone” as the sole rule of Christian faith?
11. How can you tell if the Holy Spirit is leading you to the truth without some standard outside yourself to judge whether you have the truth or not?
12. Should we be concerned that the doctrine of “scripture alone” as the sole rule of Christian faith did not exist before the 16th century?
13. Should we disregard the ways scripture was interpreted by the most ancient forms of Christianity?
14. Should we disregard those moderns forms of Christianity claiming to maintain the interpretations developed by the earliest Christians?
15. How explicit does a doctrine have to be in Scripture before it can be called doctrine?
16. Where does Scripture tell us what is absolutely essential for us to believe as Christians?
17. Did God intend supposed Christian offshoots, like Mormons, to be able to interpret scripture for the purpose of starting an obviously non-Christian religion?
18. What do you make of this quote from the 16th century: “[T]here is no one of the heresies which have torn the bosom of the church, which has not derived its origin from the various interpretation of the Scripture. The Bible itself is the arsenal whence each innovator has drawn his deceptive arguments.”
19. Does it matter that the first Protestants in the 16th century changed the meaning of some scripture from previous ancient translations to fit their understanding of Christian doctrine?
20. Does it matter that this is still occurring in modern Protestant translations of the Bible?
21. Does it matter that most Protestants have never read the entire Bible, let alone the New Testament, yet still claim to be Christians?
22. Is it important to consider that 40% of Protestants don’t read scripture more than once a week, yet still claim to be Christians?
23. Is it important to consider that 12% of Protestants never read scripture, yet still claim to be Christians?
24. Given God’s perfection, and His repeated admonitions in scripture that there is only one “truth,” doesn’t it stand to reason that only one interpretation of scripture can be 100% correct?
25. And if so, doesn’t it stand to reason that there is a way to determine what scripture definitively means?
26. And following that, doesn’t it stand to reason that someone has definitive authority, from God, to authoritatively determine what scripture means?
27. How should we interpret verses like 2 Peter 1:20, which says: “First of all, you must understand this, that no prophesy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation”?

Issue 3: The Question of Tradition

1. Jesus never wrote anything down, instead preferring to teach orally. Is this important?
2. The majority of the Apostles never wrote anything down. Is this important?
3. Is it important to consider that, therefore, the doctrine of “scripture alone” was an impossibility for most of Christian history?
4. For the first approximately 1500 of Christianity, the vast majority of Christians could not read. How did the faith spread?
5. For the first approximately 1500 of Christianity, the vast majority of Christians were poor, struggling to survive, and had no time time to read (even if they could). How did the faith spread?
6. If God intended Christianity to be a “religion of the book,” wouldn’t he have waited until Christians were capable of reading before sending Jesus?
7. Is it interesting to consider that someone can be Christian without owning or reading scripture?
8. Instead of supporting a “scripture alone” approach, doesn’t scripture itself support the doctrine of authoritative Christian tradition?
9. How do you interpret verses like 1 Cor 11:2?
10. How do you interpret verses like 2 Thess 2:15?
11. If Paul tells the earliest Christians to follow authoritative Christian traditions, why shouldn’t we?
12. Would it be fair to say that Protestants rely on their own traditions, rather than on “scripture alone”?
13. Where does it explicitly say in scripture to build churches?
14. Where does it explicitly say to have music at church services?
15. Where does it explicitly say to hold church services on Sundays?
16. Where does it explicitly say to accept the interpretations of a “pastor” or “minister” as authoritative?
17. Given Protestants’ departure from the first 1500 years of Christian tradition, do they bear the burden to explain why their traditions should be followed?
18. How do we know that God is a trinity?
19. How do we know that Jesus is the Son of God?
20. How do we know the Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead?
21. If these ancient Christian traditions, not explicitly spelled out in scripture, were authoritative and correct, then why are others suspect?
22. If the most ancient Christian churches attested to the doctrine of divinely inspired tradition, would that be worth investigating?
23. If there was a Christian church today claiming to maintain the most ancient Christian traditions, would that be worth investigating?
24. Does it make sense for Jesus to establish his church, teach his Apostles directly, give them the Holy Spirit, and then for the followers of those same Apostles to immediately get it wrong and perpetuate their errors until the truth could be rediscovered by Europeans based on their own interpretations of scripture 1500 years later?

Issue 4: The Question of the Church

1. What is the use of infallible scripture without an infallible and authoritative interpreter?
2. Does someone have the authority to definitively settle theological controversies? If not, why not?
3. Does the New Testament discuss this authority? Where?
4. Why doesn’t it make sense for the New Israel, the Church, to be a concrete visible society, just like the Old Israel?
5. Why should we discount contemporaneous witnesses to this visible structure, like Ignatius of Antioch (writing in 110AD: “[L]et all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishops as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters (priests) as the Sanhedrin of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church.”)?
6. Does instruction to oversee or discipline the behavior of members of a community suggest a hierarchical structure?
7. Why didn’t Jesus mean what he said to the Apostles in Matt 28:18-20 (“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”)?
8. Doesn’t the phrase “all nations,” mean the Church established by Christ be universal, that is to say, worldwide and unified (Romans 12:5)?
9. The most ancient forms of Christianity have held for thousands of years since the time of Christ, based on both scripture and tradition, that Jesus making Peter the “rock” of the Church was to place him in a special position of authority. Why are they wrong?
10. The most ancient forms of Christianity have held for thousands of years since the time of Christ, based on both scripture and tradition, that Peter being given the “keys to the kingdom,” like in scriptures like Isa. 22:15-22, was to place him in a special position of authority. Why are they wrong?
11. The most ancient forms of Christianity have held for thousands of years since the time of Christ, based on both scripture and tradition, that Jesus giving Peter the exclusive instruction to “bind and loose,” which denotes judicial authority to decide what was forbidden or allowed in Jewish tradition, was to place him in a special position of authority. Why are they wrong?
12. The offices of priests (Acts 14:23), bishops (1 Tim 3:1-3), and deacons (1 Tim 3:8-13), are all discussed in scripture as being existent in the earliest form of Christianity. Why does it make sense to depart from this structure now?
13. Why didn’t Jesus mean what he said to the Apostles in John 16:13 (“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”)?
14. Why didn’t the Apostles receiving the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) guarantee the Apostles guidance into “all truth” as Jesus had promised?
15. Just as Moses laid hands on Joshua as a visible sign of the conferring of authority (Num 27:22-23; Deut 34:9), so too the Apostles laid hands on their successors to pass on their own authority to the next generation, according to both scripture (2 Tim 1:6; 5:22; Titus 1:5, etc.), and tradition, according to the most ancient forms of Christianity for thousands of years since the time of Christ. Why are they wrong?
16. The most ancient forms of Christianity have held for thousands of years since the time of Christ, based on both scripture and tradition, that baptism is more than just a public declaration of faith. Why are they wrong?
17. The most ancient forms of Christianity have held for thousands of years since the time of Christ, based on both scripture and tradition, that the Lord’s Supper is more than symbolic. Why are they wrong?
18. Is it important to consider that there are hundreds (or thousands) of different Protestant sects, none of which trace their traditions back to the time of Christ and the Apostles?
19. Did God intend for there to be 1000s of Christian sects, each with their own views on what scripture means?
20. Or did he intend for there to be one unified Christian church?