Meditations

Question on moody radio on March 23, 2019 on openline:

How was the order of the New Testament determined that is in our English Bible?

Dr James Coakley:

That’s a very good question. Most of the time, people are surprised that it’s not by when they were written, it’s often by size. Romans start out as one of the largest of Paul’s letter and we get smaller and smaller as we go, so it’s not on a linear chronological timeline

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

First, you have the gospel, there’s some sort of chronology,  then you get Acts. When I teach Acts, I always tell everyone, here’s what I want you to do, I want you to read the first verses of Romans and see if you know what this means if you don’t have the book of Acts, it’s the great bridge from the gospels to the epistles. And then you get the letters, so you got the story of Jesus, the story of the church, the letters to the church and then the culmination with Revelation, so it’s size and chronology at the same time.

Dr James Coakley:

There’s a little bit of both but the idea is Galatians is probably one of the early ones, how come it’s not first that we read the book of Acts, it’s because they were smaller than Romans, Romans is a very key book.

Dr Michael Rydelnik:

So that’s how it was and I think that’s really important but I think there are other books that are the in-between books.