Going deeper
Canon
In plain words
The list of books that belong in the Bible and carry God's authority.
The Bible is not one book but a library of sixty-six. So who decided which books are in it? The word for the list is canon, which means a measuring rule. Christians believe God gave the books, and over time His people recognised them. The church did not make these books holy. It recognised the books God had already given.
Go further Growing
Jesus spoke of everything written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:44), the three parts of the Hebrew Bible. Peter puts Paul's letters alongside the other Scriptures (2 Peter 3:15-16). Paul thanks God that the Thessalonians received his message as the word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
A common claim is that a powerful council picked books to suit itself centuries later. In fact, most New Testament books were already widely read as Scripture long before any council listed them. For you this means you can trust that the Bible you hold is the book God gave, and read it with confidence.
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The Greek kanon meant a rod or ruler, and came to mean the rule of faith and the list of authoritative books. Early Christians asked whether a book came from an apostle or close companion, agreed with apostolic teaching, and was used across the churches. A list matching our twenty-seven New Testament books appears in a letter of Athanasius in 367.
Christians differ on the Old Testament. Protestants follow the Hebrew Bible's thirty-nine books. Catholic and Orthodox churches also include books called the Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books, such as Tobit and the Maccabees. All agree on the twenty-seven books of the New Testament and on the books of the Hebrew Bible. Your local church can tell you which edition it uses and why.
My verses
Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
And we continually thank God because, when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as the true word of God—the word which is now at work in you who believe.
From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.