 Yes. Good morning, Nina. Okay. So we will be beginning a new course today. So we all together had Old Testament survey last time and this is something very different. This has to do with serious theology, the things that we believe as Christians, you know, from the Bible, why we believe those things? What are the scriptures backing up all of these doctrines that we hold on to? And for us, these doctrines are so important, you know, that we are willing to even die for our faith. So why do we believe what we believe? Where are the scriptures which state that these doctrines are true? So all of those things, you know, see this very foundational, that's why this topic is called doctrinal foundations. We literally base our faith on these things. So it is important for us to know this, but it's not going to be Old Testament survey. It's not going to be a set of stories. This is going to be theology. And plus it's two hours. Okay. So we have two hours class. So I need you to concentrate. All right. So we cannot always have storytelling. So this is theology and we are Bible college students. So please do focus. And just like I said last time, just another reminder, if anyone is not feeling well or someone is feeling rather sleepy, you can go upstairs and, you know, sleep. But here in the class, nobody is to put down their head on the desk. All right. So no putting down your head on the desk here in the class, you can go and do it upstairs. All right. And please do try to concentrate. And yeah, whenever I ask you to read out any scriptures, you know, you could take turns reading out because that will kind of maybe keep you alert for a little bit. Okay. So those are just the preliminaries coming to the topic, which actually is not at all a bad topic because we will discover so much about what the Bible has to say about the different aspects of life. Okay. So we will be learning a lot. We will get to know what the Bible has to say about God. We'll get to know what the Bible has to say about the Bible itself. We'll get to know what, you know, the Bible has to say about angels, about hell, about salvation. And these are all the things for the sake of which we became followers of the Lord, right? I mean, because these things matter to us. These are what we, you know, build our life on our families on. So there is a lot that we can gain from this subject. Okay. So let's approach it in that spirit. So systematic theology is the, you know, main name of the course. What do we mean by the word theology itself? Theology is the study of God because in Greek the word theos meant God. So theology is the study of God. What do we mean by biblical theology? Because you see what we are going to be doing now is systematic theology. So just for us to have some clarity, biblical theology and systematic theology are slightly different. And what we are going to be doing here in our course is not so much biblical theology. It is going to be systematic theology that we are going to be doing. So what exactly is biblical theology? That basically is where scholars, you know, take each doctrine of the Bible and they look at how that particular doctrine developed from the time of the early church, you know, down through the ages, through each of the, you know, periods of time. What did people think about that doctrine? How did they interpret the scriptures? So how did the doctrine develop over time is what they would be looking at in biblical theology. So they're mainly interested in finding out how did this whole idea develop? How did people look at the scriptures at different phases in history? So that's more like a historical view of theology. And that is not what we would be doing in our class today and throughout this course. So we are not really going to be looking at biblical theology and how each doctrine was traced through history. Rather, we will be looking at what all the scriptures of the Bible have to say about each topic. So if we take the topic of sin, we will look at the entire Bible, look at all the scriptures that are available on this topic of sin. And then we will try to summarize and find out, okay, these are the main things that the Bible says about sin. So we are trying to approach in a systematic manner each individual topic so that we will have a clear picture about what the Bible says about each individual topic. So that's basically what we are going to be doing. So we are not going to be tracing, you know, the historical development of each doctrine through the ages. That would be biblical theology. Rather, we will approach this topic systematically and look at what the Bible has to say on different topics like sin and salvation and Trinity and all of that. So some of the, you know, if you look in your textbook, which you will be receiving, I think probably next class. All right, so those who are online, it will be posted. So, you know, today, at some point of time, I will be posting it in the Google stream page. So you will have those notes and then those who are on the e-platform, I will post that for you as well. So you will have the notes. The notes are not very detailed. They are more like a very brief outline. So those of you who want to read up on these things in greater detail, the textbook for you would be by Wayne Grudem. That would be W-A-Y-N-E Grudem, G-R-U-D-E-M. And that's very easily available, you know, in the internet. So in fact, even if you were to just type the name Wayne Grudem and systematic theology into your Google search, you should be able to get a copy of the textbook. So that contains all of the details in your class notes. What we've done is try to summarize and very briefly outline those notes. So all you will find in your class notes is a very brief outline of what is mentioned in great detail in your Wayne Grudem book. Okay, so that would be your basic textbook, which you would be using for systematic theology. Now, just like last time, you know, your assessments for those of you who are online, it would include multiple choice questions. So we'll cover about maybe six different doctrines and we will have an assessment and then we would have another six doctrines. And then we would have the final assessment and it would all be multiple choice for those of you who are online. Those of you who are here in the class, you of course would be having written papers. So maybe if we have time, we could just talk about that during your break time. Okay, so yeah. So coming to systematic theology, let's take an example. Okay, when we look at only some scriptures on a particular topic, we may not really get a very clear opinion about what the Bible says about that particular topic. But on the other hand, if we take the effort to look at all of scripture and see right from Genesis up to Revelation, what all of the Bible passages have to say about that particular topic, our idea about that particular concept becomes clearer. What do I mean? There are some people who point to certain verses alone and they say, oh, salvation has been designated by God only for some people. It's not for everyone. Okay, so they base their doctrine having looked at only some scriptures. On the other hand, if you were to look at all of the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, then we would understand that God has not designated salvation only for a limited number of people, but in fact for all of mankind. Okay, so like that, there are some very important issues which come up. So rather than focusing on some scriptures alone, we are attempting to look at all of scripture right from Genesis to Revelation where before deciding upon any particular topic. So people who talk about limited atonement and unlimited atonement, they will point to those who talk about limited atonement. They'll point only to some scriptures and say, see based on this, if we say that God has predestined some people for salvation and the rest of them have been destined for hell is what they would say. But then when we have a wider scope, when we cover all of scriptures, we see that what they are saying is not quite true. Okay, so these are all these are some of the things. So systematic theology helps us in getting clarity about such things. In what other way is systematic theology useful. It is also very, very helpful when we are trying to deal with new questions, which probably have not been, which probably were not issues, let us say in earlier generations. If we have a clear understanding of what the Bible has to say about each topic, then we will be able to better answer new questions which come along. For instance, I mean, today there is a lot of controversy at least in the West, not so much here in our country, but at least in the West regarding this whole issue of gay marriages and all of that. And they will pick up scriptures from Genesis and they would pick up scriptures, you know, from Deuteronomy and then they would give their interpretation to support gay marriages. Now this was not an issue which was there earlier in earlier generations, but if you have done something like systematic theology and really gone through all of the verses which talk upon marriage, which talk about gender issues, then we would have a clearer picture of how to answer a question like that. Another issue regarding, you know, fertility treatments for couples who are not able to have children. Now you have new embryo technologies coming up. So now we would have to consider the question, what does God have to say about life? When does life begin? And if you were to, you know, get involved in embryo technology, to what extent are you going against biblical principles or is it in line with biblical principles? All of these questions can be answered only when you have a clear overall picture of what all of scripture is saying about that particular issue. So these are some, you know, practical reasons that we can put forward to explain why systematic theology is important and why we need to study it. Now when we are doing our course, we will obviously not be able to get into all of the topics which are there in the Bible. So we would be focusing on just the main doctrines, you know, however, later on your own, if you're interested, you know, you could study further, you could maybe get into, you know, greater details about many of these other issues, you know, which are now coming up. So, all right. So just having briefly looked at why it is important for us to study systematic theology, we will now get into the main doctrines. Okay, so today we will try to cover the doctrine of the word of God. That would be the very first doctrine, which we will be covering. Next class, we will look at the doctrine of God, but today we will begin with the doctrine of the word of God. Now, when we say word of God, we could mean it in many different ways. The first is the word of God is basically the speech of God, right? That's the word, when we say word of God, we're basically talking about what is what is God said, what are the words of God, what he has spoken. And word of God comes to us in many different ways. First, maybe the very first initial mention in the Bible about word of God would be when God speaks during creation. He gives out a set of commands, and even as he speaks, those things which he's speaking about, they come into existence, they come into being. So, those are the very first words of God, which are recorded in the Bible. So maybe we could just look at one example. If you could have someone read out Genesis chapter one, verse nine, and what does God say over there and what happens? Genesis one, nine. Okay, so God speaks and he says, let the water behave in a particular way. And it says, it was so. What God spoke happened. When God commanded, it automatically came into being. There was no resistance, no opposition. God spoke and it was so. So we see that there is power in the word of God. The word of God has the power to create. The word of God has the power to make things come into existence. Then another example would be God not just speaking out a command to nature, but God speaking to humans. And maybe we could look at Genesis chapter two, verse sixteen. If someone could read out Genesis two, sixteen. We see that God commanded the waters and the waters obeyed. Now here God is commanding this man whom he has created. And over here, this human, this man is given the choice either to obey or if he chooses to, he can even disobey. So God's word has the power to create. God's word has the power to make whatever he wishes to happen. But in spite of who he is, in spite of the power in his word, in this case, when it comes to humans, when he gives a command, he also gives them the choice to choose whether they will obey or not. The waters when he said, let the waters be gathered. The waters did not have any choice. They just came into being. What he said happened. But on the other hand, humans are given a privilege. And why? Because they are created in his own image in the same way he has the freedom to choose. In the same way he has the right to decide for himself what he wishes to do. He wanted humans to have that same privilege. And so here, when God speaks directly to humans and he gives them a word, they are also allowed the freedom to reject that word if they choose to. Another kind of word of God that we see is what God communicates through the prophets. One example maybe can be Deuteronomy 1818. If someone could read out Deuteronomy 1818. So another way that God's word comes to us is through the prophets. Because God says, I will raise up prophets for you and I will put my words in his mouth. So God's word is spoken directly into creation. God's word is spoken directly to people sometimes like Adam and Eve. God's word is also spoken through the prophets. And finally God's word also comes to us in written form. That's the main mode of communication upon which we rely upon today. So that would be Exodus chapter 31 verse 18. If we could have someone read out Exodus 31 18 where God's words are being given in written form. Now the interesting thing about Exodus 31 18 is that the words of God are being given in written form. And who is doing the writing God himself writes those words. So it's not Moses who writes down the words. God himself writes the words of the 10 commandments and he gives it to the people. But on many other occasions it's not God literally writing. He gives the responsibility to Moses and to other people to write down what he is saying. So maybe we could look at Deuteronomy 31 9 if someone could just read out Deuteronomy 31 9 please. So in the earlier instance we saw God literally writing out the words on his own. Here we have Moses writing down the words which God is giving. So these are all the different ways that we see God's word being communicated. And then there's another manner in which we see God's word being manifested. Can anyone think of what that could be? We talked about God's words in Derek's speech. We talked about God's words in speaking to people. We talked about God's word coming through prophets. We even saw it in the written form of the Bible. Any other way that we see God's word being presented. Anything comes to your mind when you say God's word. How else in the New Testament how did the word of God come? Came in the person of Jesus Christ. So that is another way that we see God's word being manifested literally in the person of Jesus Christ himself. So all along throughout the Old Testament God kept communicating through words, through people who conveyed his message again through words. But now word literally became a person so that you could get to know everything there is to know about the word of God. All you have to do is look at the person, this person Jesus, how he is living, how he is conducting himself, how he treats people. What he believes about life, about the world, about sin. You just have to look at him and then in him you would know all the words of God. Everything that God thinks, everything that God feels it's all demonstrated by the living breathing word of God that is Jesus Christ himself. So that's one final manifestation. In fact, the complete manifestation of God's word is literally contained in the person of Jesus Christ. So these are all the different ways in which we see the word of God being communicated to us. But of course here, I mean, when we are doing this doctrine of the word of God, our main focus will be on the written word, what they call the canon. Now how many of you are familiar with this term canon? Have you come across it before? And I don't mean the camera canon, C-A-N-O-N. Now what exactly is canon? If you were to just look at normal English, the word canon stands for a rule or a law or a principle which is widely accepted as being correct. Like for instance, the canon against murder. Almost every society in the world will accept the basic fact that murder is wrong. So there is a very clear universal canon that killing a person is wrong and it should be punished. All societies everywhere will accept this canonical rule that murder should be punished because it is a very serious crime. So a canon is like a standard. All societies will agree to the standard that murder should be punished. You can't just take it lightly. It is something serious. So when we speak about canon in terms of scripture, we are saying that the Bible has set a standard. It's a standard that has been set and now all people everywhere, all over the world must live by the standards set by this canon. What this canon is telling, people should follow. What this canon is saying, according to that they should live their life. So the scripture is a standard. It's a canon that has been set. So we could say the canon literally just means a law or a set or a rule. We could also say that the word canon is talking about the scriptural standard that has been set for the entire world. There's a third sense in which the word canon is used. It basically talks about the Bibles, the books which are there in the Bible, the biblical books. So we have the differentiation between canonical books and non-canonical books or you would say extra canonical books. Canonical books are the ones which are there in the Bible. Like you have Jude, you have Matthew, you have Mark, then you have Job. These are all the canonical books because they are all the books which are contained inside the canon, the canon which is the measure of what is correct, of what is spoken by God. Extra canonical books are the other writings. A lot of people have written a lot of other books but we don't include them inside the canon because we don't believe that they are setting the divine standard of what God wishes to communicate to people. So in the third sense the word canon basically means which books are inspired and directly given by God as the words of God and what are all the other writings which should not be regarded as directly words of God but just good thoughts which people are communicating. So canon in its very narrow sense can be taken as words which are literally from God, divinely inspired words, those would be called canon. So whichever book is regarded as having been literally given by God inspired by him, such things would be included in the canon. On the other hand all the other writings of people, however good those writings may be, they would not be considered as part of the canon because it is believed that those were not directly inspired by God and those are not directly his words but just rather the thoughts of people which they have put down in writing. So if I were to ask you, what are the three ways in which the term canon is used? Would you be able to recollect what they are? The three different ways in which this word canon is used. So just keep that in mind. I will not ask you because some of you are looking a little nervous, wondering whether there is a question coming up but no, just keep that in mind. So canon can be understood in these three different ways. In the Bible itself you have many books mentioned which are not in the list of biblical books. For instance, if you were to go to Numbers chapter 21 verses 13 to 15, yeah okay fine maybe you could just read verse 14. If someone could read out Numbers 21 verse 14, yeah sorry I was not listening because I was distracted but then yeah, it mentions over here about Book of the Wars of the Lord. So some godly person wrote down an account, a historical record of all the wars which were fought. Now this is a good book. It talks about something that God has done. It's probably written by somebody in leadership, in spiritual leadership. But this particular book was not included in the canon. So when you're reading your Joshua and Judges, you don't find this book in the list of biblical books because this was just a historical record written by some person and it was not really the inspired word of God. Okay, so this particular book is not mentioned in the Bible. Another very familiar example, in the book of Joshua does anyone know about a book that is mentioned over there in the book of Joshua but that book is not there in the Bible but it's mentioned in the book of Joshua. It is mentioned in Joshua chapter 10 verse 13. In Joshua 10-13, you have something called okay maybe you can read out the verse if someone could read out Joshua 10-13. So in the book of Joshua, it talks about how God did a great miracle and caused the earth's rotation to slow down so that both the sun and the moon were appearing in the sky at the same time for a brief amount of time. So God did that because he wanted to accomplish something by doing that. So that is recorded in the book of Joshua. Obviously this is a good book, a godly book. It talks about the miracles of God but that book is not mentioned in the canon. When we open our Bible today, we don't see a book of Joshua. We see Joshua, we see judges but we don't see Joshua in the list. So there are many, many words written down by people but there were some words which were literally regarded as coming from God. God permitted them as being written down as directly from him. Those words were considered inspired words of God because God wanted to use those particular words to speak to us through the generations like right up to the end of time. So you see, we have to take whatever was finally included in the Bible in the canon. We need to take those books of the Bible very, very seriously because there were a lot of very good books available. In fact, if you were to go on and look at many of the other examples in the Bible, you have Solomon writing down a whole bunch of books. So in 1 Kings chapter 11 verse 41, it talks about the acts of Solomon, something that he wrote. In 1 Kings chapter 4, it talks about the proverbs which he wrote. He wrote books on animals and plants. Then we have something very similar to kings and chronicles. We have something called records of the kings of Israel, records of the kings of Judah. There's also something called the historical records of Iddo, the seer. All these are things written by Godly people but they were not considered inspired word of God. So what happened? Why were those things were not... They would have written those things also in the scrolls, right? They didn't have any other method of writing down. Everything important that was written down was written down in a scroll. So why were those scrolls not included along with your kings and chronicles and said this is also God's scripture? Because God was very clearly communicating to his prophets through the ages saying this is inspired, this is not inspired. This is just a good writing but that is not inspired. So God very clearly clarified through the ages what should be considered as the holy divine scrolls and the rest of the other scrolls would be just written records. They would be books but not on the same level as this. So we cannot dismiss any book of the Bible saying, ah, book of Esther, just it's like one fairy tale story. We can't dismiss it like that. We can't take a look at Song of Solomon and say, Song of Solomon is talking about a man and a woman. Oh, how worldly. Can't dismiss it like that. God decided what is going to be regarded as inspired and what is going to be just a human writing and we need to... So by the time that the time of Jesus came by that time all the Jews were very, very clear on which scrolls are the scripture of God. There was no doubt about it. All of these particular books are the scripture. They all were very, very clear about that. And so when Jesus, whenever he spoke, whenever he referred to the Old Testament, he always quoted from these particular scrolls. You don't find him, you know, quoting from some other... We don't find him talking from the Acts of Solomon. We don't find him talking from the records of the kings of Judah. Rather he only speaks from these scrolls which have been authorized and designated as the inspired word of God. Okay, so which is why we also accept only these particular books as the Old Testament books. Okay, so we need to keep that in mind. What else? Yeah, maybe we can look now a little more specifically at what... how the Old Testament canon developed and then at how the New Testament canon developed. So Old Testament canon, one of the first things we saw, right? The two slabs of stone on which God himself wrote the Ten Commandments, those were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant. We see that in Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 5 where it says that these commandments which God himself had written down, those two slabs of stone were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant and just a minute. How did God clarify as to what had to be included? I'm just assuming that in those back in those days, when Moses and Joshua and all of these people were in leadership and they were writing down the things that needed to be written. In the same way, he was communicating so many things to them. He probably also would have just told them in their heart, in their mind as to what should be regarded as divine. And so they were careful to pass that on to future generations saying these particular scrolls must be preserved and regarded as scripture. And so they would have made sure that every generation would be very, very clear about the distinction between the biblical scrolls and the other scrolls which would just be general writings. So I suppose the spiritual leaders in each generation would have made it very clear to the following generation which scrolls should be regarded as the inspired word of God and the rest of them would just be regarded as general writings because we don't have any written records from that time talking about how they decided what was inspired and what was not inspired. They would have just gone by what their prophets and their leaders would have told. So I'm just assuming that God would have told Moses directly. God would have told Joshua directly. God would have spoken to Isaiah and Ezekiel and all of these people telling them this should be regarded as inspired word of God. And so those scrolls would have probably been kept separately in a separate place and not just mixed up with all of the other writings which were there. Yes. So yes, if there are any other questions, those of you who are online please post it over here in the chat. When it catches my eye at least I'll be able to answer the question. So Old Testament canon, how did it develop? The very first thing that we see is that there was something literally written by the hand of God and placed inside the Ark and that was supposed to be a reminder to the people that there is a covenant which God has made with them. God did not give them just 10 commandments. We know that, right? I hope we covered that in the Old Testament survey. God did not give them just 10 commandments. He gave them how many? 613 laws. So if you were to count all of the laws which are there in your Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy it actually comes to 613 laws that God gave. So the covenant which God made with the people was actually included that many laws which they had to keep. However, 10 of them were written by the hand of God himself and placed inside the Ark of the Covenant. Now after that, Moses wrote some more important words and he places those next to the covenant, next to the Ark. Doesn't place them inside, he places them beside maybe we can actually read that. Deuteronomy chapter 31 verses 24 to 26. Deuteronomy 31, 24 to 26. So here he places it next to the Ark of the Covenant. So you see anything that they regarded as being scripture as being inspired where God had said this should be regarded as my words. They were very careful to place those things right next to the Ark of the Covenant. Okay, so then later on we have in fact Moses he says in Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 1 to 2 he says do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you because he understood very clearly that these are commands of the Lord your God not just human advice, not just human instructions they are the commandments of God himself and so he says these things which have been written down don't add anything to it and don't subtract from it because whatever God is given, God is given you can't just cancel out what God has said so do not subtract from it and do not add any extra words to it is what he says and then after his time Joshua goes and adds some more words so was Joshua deliberately disobeying what Moses said no, Joshua also received authorization from God to write down more additional things and so he adds to whatever has already been written and we find that in Joshua chapter 24 verses 25 to 27 you know if someone could read out that Joshua 24, 25 to 27 so now over here in this particular case whatever he is writing, he is writing it down on a huge stone the wordings are all carved on the stone and so some things were placed next to the ark some things were placed inside the ark some things were carved out on stones these are all the different ways in which the initial writings were recorded and stored and then gradually over time someone would have copied it out neatly into scrolls and began storing them in a series of scrolls so these are all the different ways in which the initial writings were preserved very very carefully because these are the words of God himself to his people so finally we of course come to the prophetic time which is when I think they would have started using the scrolls on a larger scale you have 1st Samuel 10, 25 where it talks about Samuel giving the duties of kingship he lists it down then we come to 2nd Chronicles 26, 22 where it says that Isaiah wrote specifically about the story of Uzair we have Jeremiah 32 where it talks about Jeremiah recording the words of God which God asked him to write down maybe we could look at that, Jeremiah 30 verse 2 we will take a break of course but just to know if you can finish this one thing Jeremiah 30 verse 2 so God clearly says write in a book all the words I have spoken to you so from time to time God would say I am giving you words to write down, write them down record them, carefully preserve them and so these particular things which God is telling them those became holy scripture they became part of the canon the rest of the writings were clearly kept separately and they were never regarded as canon and so this process continued on and on until the time of Malachi and so book of Malachi was written around 435 BC so around 435 BC is when the last final words of God were recorded and then the Old Testament was closed so nobody could add anything more no additional scrolls were accepted because after that nobody God did not come to anyone and say I am speaking to you and I have a message to my people through you, write it down that did not happen after that so around 435 BC is when the Old Testament canon was closed and sealed off so we will continue after the break it is 9.51 so at 10 o'clock if we can all just log back in thank you