The early church did not pick books it liked. It recognized books that were already doing the work of Scripture in the churches, and it used three tests to tell those books apart from later rivals. A book had to come from an apostle or someone close to the apostles. It had to agree with the teaching the churches had already received. And it had to be in wide use across the churches. The famous lists of the fourth century came at the end of that process. They did not start it.
This study builds that explanation one step at a time, so that by the end you can explain it in your own words to someone who has heard the opposite. It draws on a Jude 3 Project podcast conversation between Lisa Fields and Dr. Jarvis Williams, associate professor of New Testament interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can work through it alone in one sitting or with a group over one long session or two shorter ones. If you are leading a group, the practice near the end is the center of the study. Leave at least twenty minutes for it.
Williams begins with an honest caution: “the question of canon is extremely complicated and complex.” He does not claim to have every answer. He does claim that some answers are well supported. This guide keeps both halves of that caution in view.
The distinction everything rests on
The word “canon” means a recognized standard. When Christians speak of the New Testament canon, they mean the 27 books the church receives as Scripture. The confusion this study addresses comes from blurring two verbs: recognize and create. If a council created the canon, then the books have whatever authority that council gave them, and no more. If the churches recognized the canon, then the authority came first, and the lists only reported it.
An analogy may help. A dictionary does not invent the word “neighbor.” Its editors record a word people were already using, and they describe how it was used. In the same way, a list of books can describe what communities were already reading as authoritative. The analogy breaks at one important point. Dictionaries follow popular usage wherever it goes. The early church did not simply count votes. As you will see, it applied tests that could rule out a popular book. Keep the idea of recording, and let the rest of the analogy go.
Williams puts the starting point plainly: “There was in fact a process that led us to the point in history where we got a canon.” A process can be studied. The rest of this guide walks through its stages in order.
Before moving on: write one sentence describing how you have always pictured the New Testament coming together. Keep it. You will return to it at the end.
Step one: the writings carried weight before anyone made a list
Recognition did not begin in the fourth century. It shows up inside the New Testament itself. Read 2 Peter 3:15-16 slowly. The KJV of verse 16 says that in Paul’s epistles “are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” The word “wrest” is older English for twisting something out of shape.
Look closely at the phrase “the other scriptures.” The writer places Paul’s letters in the same category as the Scriptures that false teachers were distorting. Williams draws exactly this point from the passage. He says it shows that the New Testament writers believed what they wrote for the churches stood alongside the Old Testament Scriptures.
Now read Colossians 4:16: “And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.” Paul expects his letters to travel. A letter written to one church was meant to be read in another.
Be careful about what these verses prove. They do not give a list of books. They show that, very early, some Christian writings were treated as authoritative and were shared between congregations. That is the soil the later process grew from.
Observation prompt: In 2 Peter 3:16, what problem is the writer worried about? Is he worried that Paul’s letters lack authority, or that people misuse writings that already have it? How does your answer affect the claim that Christians only decided much later which books mattered?
Step two: why the question became urgent
If the churches already valued these writings, why did they need to decide anything? Williams answers with a change in circumstances. While the apostles were alive, they could answer false teaching by writing another letter. After they died, Williams observes, “they’re not around to physically refute that heresy.” The churches had only what the apostles left behind.
Then rival writings appeared. Williams names the Gospel of Thomas as one example of gospels that seemed to compete with what the churches taught. Under that pressure, he says, “theological heresies make the church come to the point when they have to make a conscious decision to acknowledge what books are authoritative and what books are not authoritative.”
This step explains the timing. The church did not draw up a list because it suddenly wanted control. It drew lines because other writings were claiming the same authority and teaching something different. A community that receives a message from its founders has to decide, sooner or later, which documents actually carry that message.
Step three: the three tests
Williams describes three criteria the early Christians used after the apostolic age. Each one answers a different question about a book.
Where did it come from?
A book had to be written by an apostle or by someone who knew the apostles. The reason is time. As Williams puts it, “you cannot consider a document that was written after people who knew the apostles were dead.” A later writer could claim apostolic authority, but he could not have the apostles’ firsthand knowledge.
Luke is the useful test case, because Luke was not an apostle. Williams notes that the Book of Acts shows Luke traveling with Paul, and that Luke had access to eyewitnesses of Jesus. Read Luke 1:1-4. Luke says he writes about things handed down by those “which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word” (Luke 1:2). The gospel describes its own sources, and they point back to the people who were there.
Does it agree with what the churches already received?
A book could not contradict the teaching found in writings the churches already recognized. Williams says “there had to be a uniformed teaching throughout the churches” in the documents they affirmed. His example is a document written in the second century that challenged the resurrection of Jesus. It fails twice: it is too late, and it contradicts the apostolic writings on a central point.
Paul shows this test already at work in Galatians 1:8: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” The message was the standard. Even an impressive messenger could not overrule it.
Was it used across the churches?
Williams says the churches held that “the document in question must be used in a widespread way throughout the church, scattered throughout the ancient Mediterranean world.” This is where the Gospel of Thomas fell short. Williams explains that it “was a gospel that was not used by a widespread group of Christians,” but by a small sectarian community. He adds a fair caution: such texts are often called Gnostic, but scholars debate whether that label fits.
Williams points to one more kind of evidence for wide use. Later readers can check what the church fathers were citing in their sermons. Irenaeus is one of the fathers he names. If preachers in many places quote the same books as authoritative, that tells you which books the churches were actually living by.
A common slip: the three tests are not three hoops a council invented in a single meeting. They describe how the churches reasoned over a long period. That is why Williams presents them as a summary of the process, not as a rulebook handed down on one date.
Step four: the lists that came at the end
Only now do the famous dates enter. Williams describes Bishop Athanasius sending an Easter letter, which he dates to 367 AD, naming the 27 books of the New Testament. The wording matters. Williams stresses that Athanasius did not announce his own personal selection. “He wrote a letter suggesting that these are the 27 books that are recognized by the churches.”
Williams then points to the Synod of Carthage in 397 AD, which he calls “a relatively small regional council.” In his account, Carthage did not create a canon. It said, in effect, “these are the books that have already been recognized as the New Testament canon.” Lisa Fields frames the same point in her question to Williams: “They were affirming what the early church already accepted.”
Williams also corrects a popular assumption about the Council of Nicaea. Some name it as the defining council for the Bible. He says Nicaea was debating other matters, not just Scripture. And he admits a real gap: which councils played which roles is “not nicely and neatly laid out for us in history.” Notice that this gap does not help the conspiracy version. The tidy story of one vote on one day is missing for everyone.
The misconceptions to expect
The first misconception says that a long process means a made-up result. It reverses the logic. A book voted in on one afternoon would be easier to suspect than books tested by use, origin and teaching across many communities for centuries.
The second says that because politics existed, politics produced the canon. Williams grants the first half: “it was hard to separate religion from politics” in the ancient world. On the second half he answers, “I think that’s a bit misleading.” He argues instead that “there were massive theological reasons” behind the decision. The sequence supports him. A group seeking power would rarely wait centuries and then confirm the reading habits of churches scattered around the Mediterranean.
The third says the canon was a white man’s project. Williams calls this “absolutely incorrect,” pointing to African figures such as Augustine of Hippo and Athanasius himself. The paired article on this topic treats that claim in more detail. For this study, simply note that the bishop most associated with the 27-book list led a church in Africa.
One more distinction belongs here. Williams also believes God inspired the apostles and guided the churches to recognize what was authoritative. That is a claim of faith. History can show who wrote the lists and when. It cannot prove God’s guidance. What history can show is that the human process looked like recognition, not invention, and that fits his belief without proving it.
Practice: explain it in five minutes
The goal of this practice is simple. By the end, you should be able to explain the formation of the New Testament without notes, in the right order, and answer one hard follow-up question fairly.
- Build the sequence. On a blank page, write the four steps from memory: writings carry weight early; pressure makes the question urgent; three tests sort the books; late lists report the result. Next to each step, write one piece of evidence from this study.
- Run the tests. Make two columns, one for the Gospel of Luke and one for the Gospel of Thomas. Write the three tests down the side. Fill in each box using only what Williams says and what Luke 1:1-4 says. Where you lack information, write “not covered” instead of guessing. That habit is part of the skill.
- Explain it out loud. Pair up, or record yourself if you are alone. Take five minutes to explain how the New Testament came together. The listener says nothing until the time is up.
- Take the strongest objection. The listener then raises one serious challenge, such as: Weren’t the people applying these tests already biased toward the books they liked? Answer it honestly. You may need to admit what the tests cannot do. They cannot prove inspiration. They can show that the churches had reasons for their choices that did not depend on favoritism, and that those reasons ruled some writings out.
For leaders: let people struggle a little with step one before helping. The goal is recall of the logic, not of dates. If someone’s explanation starts with Carthage, gently ask what came before it. That single question usually reveals whether the main distinction has landed.
If you want to read further, Williams recommends a readable treatment by his colleague Rob Plummer and a more demanding historical study of the canon’s formation by F. F. Bruce.
Questions for conversation
- Look back at the sentence you wrote at the start. Which step in this study most challenges or confirms that picture?
- Why does it matter whether the councils recognized the books or created them? What would change about the authority of Scripture if they had created them?
- Of the three tests, which seems hardest to fake, and why? Which seems most open to dispute?
- 2 Peter 3:16 worries about people twisting writings that already carry authority. Where do you see that same danger today, inside or outside the church?
- Williams admits that the role of the councils is not neatly documented. Does that admission make his account more trustworthy to you, or less? Explain your reasoning.
- What is the difference between saying history supports the canon and saying history proves God inspired it? Why might keeping those claims separate make your witness stronger?
Jude 1:3 urges believers to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” The word “delivered” assumes the faith came first and was handed on. The story of the canon is the story of the churches guarding what they were handed. Before your next conversation about it, try one thing: start with step one, not step four, and see how differently the question sounds.