It is your "apparent" knee-jerk responses that says much about your thinking and nothing about my beliefs. It seems that you won't accept ANY answers because your mind is already made up. The church RECEIVED the writings from the Apostles as the word of God and it was their authority that gave the believers the assurance that they were being taught the truth and that their obedience to them was expected. The church was not the arbiter of what would be acceptable to them. They were in submission to the Lord and His word and to those who denied the authenticity and authority of the word, "And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. (II Thess. 3:14)
“It is your “apparent” knee-jerk responses that says much about your thinking and nothing about my beliefs.”
No. Your posts speak for your beliefs. And in those posts you REPEATEDLY get things that are dead wrong:
[In your last post]: “Do you mean to imply that this puts the church in authority OVER and ABOVE the word of God?”
[And]: “I can imagine a scene where a group of clergy are sitting around with a pile of scrolls telling God which writings HE inspired they would accept and which ones they reject! NOPE.”
[And]: “I noticed, though, that you hedged your bets...”
Those are all errors on your part - and those are just three - that are more in the post!
“It seems that you won’t accept ANY answers because your mind is already made up.”
If my mind is made up, it’s because the truth is already known. Remember how I’ve asked in various threads about Biblical proof that Matthew wrote an inspired book? Did anyone ever post any evidence of that? No. There is no such verse. None. It doesn’t exist. That’s just the fact and it will NEVER change.
“The church RECEIVED the writings from the Apostles as the word of God and it was their authority that gave the believers the assurance that they were being taught the truth and that their obedience to them was expected.”
The Church WROTE the writings first under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And the Apostles do not restrict the Word of God to what is written - Paul makes that clear in his own written words!
“The church was not the arbiter of what would be acceptable to them.”
The Holy Spirit guided the Church.
“They were in submission to the Lord and His word and to those who denied the authenticity and authority of the word, “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. (II Thess. 3:14)”
You still failed to answer my question. There are no such vesres anywhere in the NT. Never have been. Never will be.