The early church learned of Jesus through the Apostles’ verbal teaching and later their writing. Eventually, the church accepted the Old Testament as Scripture because Jesus seemed to accept it as scripture. As the church gathered writings about Jesus, they created a criteria for which writings would be considered Scripture: 1) Apostolic Origin – related to someone who knew Christ, 2) Orthodoxy – the teachings align with the other teachings of Jesus’ followers, 3) Widespread Usage within the early church communities, 4) Antiquity – written in the first century. Early Church Councils at Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) helped establish a unified canon of New Testament scriptures. To discern truth, United Methodists teach that truth is found primarily in scripture and that scripture is interpreted through tradition, reason, and experience.

Scripture - 2 Timothy 3:16-17