9. “What is your authority for deciding what books belong to the Bible? It can't be the Bible itself, because in no book of the Bible are the contents of the Bible listed. So it must be an authority outside of the Bible itself, and the only possible authority is the church established by Christ.”¹⁶

The above ignores the greatest of all authority, Almighty God Himself! The only authorization for truth is truth itself. Truth cannot and need not be authenticated by anything else. An apple is an apple because it is an apple, not because some self-appointed counsel declares it an apple. A mother does not become a mother when some panel declares her such. She is a mother by virtue of reproduction of life.

The Bible was producing spiritual life in all who trusted in the Christ of the Bible, long before a council appointed themselves as the authority to sit down and decide it was indeed the Bible.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and efficient and keener then any two-edged sword, and extending even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints also and of marrow, and a discerner of the thought and intentions of the heart.

I Peter 1:23 For you have been reborn, not from corruptible seed but from incorruptible, through the word of God who lives and abides forever.

I Peter 1:25 But the word of the Lord endures forever. Now this is the word of the gospel that was preached to you.

The authority of the Bible lies within itself in such subjects as accurately fulfilled prophesies, scientific correctness and most especially on the subject of the miracle of the new spiritual birth of believers in Christ (and thus present salvation).

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, ”Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

I Peter 1:23 For you have been reborn, not from corruptible seed but from incorruptible, through the word of God who live and abides forever.

II Corinthians 5:17 If then any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the former things have passed away; behold, they are made new.

The truth is, the Bible stands alone as the measuring instrument for all else.

 Acts 20:32 And now, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, who is able to build you up, and to give the inheritance among all the sanctified.

The apostle Paul instructed Timothy to study the scriptures, the word of God, not scriptures plus tradition in order to be “approved by God”.

 2Timothy 2:15 Use all care to present thyself to God as a man approved, a worker that cannot be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

The Holy Spirit commended the people of Berea for searching the scriptures, not Roman Catholic tradition.

Acts 17:11 Now these were of a noble character than those of Thessalonica and they received the word with great eagerness, studying the Scriptures every day to see whether these things were so.

The Lord Jesus admonished the Jews of His day to search the scriptures not traditions. In fact, the Lord's argument with the Pharisee was that they had nullified the word of God by placing their traditions over it...identical to the Roman Catholic position.

John 5:39-40 You search the Scriptures, because in them you think that you have life everlasting. And it is they that bear witness to me, yet you are not willing to come to me that you may have life.

 Matthew 15:3 But he answered and said to them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?. . .”

Note these important verses from the Holy Spirit:

2 Corinthians 1:13 “For we write nothing to you that you do not read and understand.”

Proverbs 22:20-21 Have not I written for you the “Thirty,” with counsels and knowledge, to teach you truly how to give a dependable report to one who sends you?

I Thessalonians 5:27 I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.

¹Karl Keating, Catholics, Fundamentalists, and the Bible, (Los Angeles, Franciscan Communications), p.11