Is the Bible Reliable?

Posted on October 4, 2013 by dkoop

Explore GodWe’re continuing our series Explore God!  Each campus will explore the topic, “Is the Bible Reliable?”   I hope you can join us!  Below is an article from www.ExploreGod.com to get us thinking on the topic.

Christians believe the Bible speaks truth about God. But is the Bible reliable?

Nearly two billion people on earth call themselves Christians. They belong to thousands of groups and sub-groups that each differ significantly in doctrine and practice. One commonality in all these groups, however, is the conviction that the Bible is authoritative and reliable. Consider what the Catholic catechism says:

The inspired books [the Bible] teach the truth. “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.”1

Every major denomination of Christianity affirms a similar commitment to the authority and inspiration of the Bible. They may do so with different words and emphases, but in the end all Christians look to the Bible as a source of truth about God, themselves, and what they must do in order to be in a proper relationship with God. Is their trust in the Bible well-founded? Is the Bible reliable?

Full Reliance

Let’s first consider what it means to rely fully on someone or something. Every day we rely on things we do not fully know or understand. In fact, we put our lives on the line regularly based simply on trust.

Over the last two years I have probably taken around one hundred flights. I put my life in the hands of engineers, mechanics, pilots, air-traffic controllers, and others I do not know. Why? Because many reliable people report to me—in religious lingo, they “bear witness”—that air travel is the safest way of getting from Point A to Point B.

I don’t perform the pre-flight inspection myself to make sure the plane is air-worthy. I trust the pilots. I don’t make sure the fuel is uncontaminated. I trust the manufacturer. I don’t verify the pilots’ credentials. I trust the company that employs them.

Is my trust well-placed? Well, I’m glad to report I’ve had one hundred safe take-offs and landings.

It’s not too far-fetched to say that when it comes to some of the most important issues in life, we rely on only a few witnesses. For example, I don’t have any proof that my mother is truly my mother. As important as that is in forming who I am, I believe my mother is my mother based on only a few faithful people whom I trust. I have not had DNA tests run to prove the claim; I live my life every day depending on what a few witnesses tell me.

Likewise, I don’t have any proof that my wife loves me. She tells me she does, and she acts in ways that are consistent with love, but it could all be a ruse. But still I live every day as if it is true. I depend on it. I rely on her.

My point is this: Every day we depend on a few trustworthy people when it comes to some of life’s most important issues. We bet our lives and happiness on them—and we do so without any scientific, objective proof. Instead, we simply trust others to tell us the truth.

Whether you regard the Bible as reliable probably depends on the people you trust.  There are two billion Christians who rely on the Bible to tell them the truth about God. They have staked their lives on it. They “bear witness” that it is true.

But they are not alone. There are scholars, historians, and archaeologists who have studied the Bible in depth and testify that it is trustworthy. Let’s consider what just one of these fields—biblical archaeology—has to say.

Biblical Archaeology

Hebrew Bible specialist Ron Hendel defines biblical archaeology as the “rigorous correlation of textual data from the Bible and material evidence from archaeology.”2This correlation is not only possible; it helps to make sense of both the biblical texts and the material evidence. In fact, when archaeologists recover the remains of a human culture, it is best when those results can be studied alongside other ancient, roughly contemporary texts.

Dozens of magazines and journals are dedicated to biblical archaeology.3 These journals would not exist if there were not a lot of data to correlate with the remains of material culture. Archaeology helps to clarify and confirm much of what we find in the Bible, and the Bible helps to clarify and confirm much of what archaeologists discover.

Archaeologists have been digging in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia for hundreds of years. They have recovered and analyzed countless artifacts from human culture. But only 5 percent of the sites mentioned in the Bible have been excavated—and none of those sites have been exhausted. There is still a lot of work to do. This means that there are limits to what archaeology can tell us—though it does corroborate parts of the biblical text.

For example, archaeology confirms that camels were indeed domesticated during the time of Abraham as Genesis indicates (Genesis 24:10–64), but it cannot affirm that God spoke to Abram to establish a covenant with him (Genesis 12:1–3).4Archaeology confirms that the villages of Galilee had synagogues during the time of Jesus (e.g., Luke 4:16–30),5 but it cannot affirm that on a given day Jesus preached this or that sermon there.

This fact is why written texts are inherently so important. To put it simply, archaeology can’t dig up everything that happened in the past—and it certainly can’t dig up God. Since the Bible is fundamentally about God and his actions to rescue and repair the world, archaeology by nature must remain silent on the most important parts.

But while it cannot fully prove or disprove the Bible, the more we dig up, the more the truth of the Bible’s account of people, places, and customs becomes clear.

The Bible’s Reliability

In the end, we can say the Bible is reliable as what God intended. To recognize this, we must also acknowledge what it was not intended to be. It is not a complete guide to the flora and fauna of the Holy Land. It is not a medical manual for the treatment of diseases and injuries.

If we try to make the Bible what it is not, then we violate the purpose for which God gave us the Bible in the first place. To say the Bible is reliable is a statement of faith. We cannot prove it any more than we can prove a mother’s love. Like most of the important stuff in life, we take it on faith.

This means that the Bible can be trusted as what it claims to be. No more. No less. It can be viewed as what billions of people trust it to be: a collection of books inspired by God and “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”6

What do you think?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

·        Footnotes
  1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, (New York: Doubleday, 1994), paragraph 107.
  2. Ron Hendel, “Giants at Jericho,” Biblical Archaeological Review 35, no. 2 (2009), 20.
  3. Biblical Archaeological Review and Biblical Archaeology  are two examples.
  4. Ken A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 338.
  5. Evans, 38–62.
  6. The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, 2 Timothy 3:16.
Written by David Capes, PhD
Posted in Explore God | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Israel September 2013

Posted on October 2, 2013 by dkoop

A group from The Ridge Fellowship was invited by Dr Furgeson and Dr Lewis Alexander from Intimate Life Ministries to Israel.  Pictured are Lewis Alexander, my wife Niki and my Dad.
1 Bethlehem 2013-09-23 

Several other pastors and ministry leaders to assess the possibility of working with and supporting some churches, schools, and ministries in the Holy Land to impact more people with the gospel.  The idea is to literally fulfill Acts !:8 “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”    

 

2 JSB Kindergaten class 2013-09-24

The first day we spent time in Bethlehem. Pictured above is a kindergarten class at Jerusalem School Bethlehem.  It’s a Christian school that’s serving the Arab population in Bethlehem. Pictured to the right is Jamison Creel, the school’s superintendent.  He’s from Alabama and a huge Crimson Tide Fan!  We can help this school in many ways.

4 Jack Sara and his wife 2013-09-24

Then we went to Bethlehem Bible College.  This is an interdenominational school that prepares students to become teachers, pastors, youth directors and more.  There are opportunities to partner with them to impact the Holy Land.

Pictured above is the President Jack Sara with his wife.  Below is my wife, Niki.

3 Bethlehem Bible College 2013-09-24

Then we went on to Jerusalem, below is the Wailing Wall, or Western Wall. It is all that is left after the Roman’s destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70 AD.  Many still go an pray there.

5 Western or Wailing Wall 2013-09-24

Below, we are on the Mount of Olives overlooking the old city of Jerusalem.

6 Jerusalem 2013-09-24

This is Judean Wilderness or dessert at sun set.  This is where Jesus fasted for forty days and nights.  (Matt 4:1, Mark 1:13, Luke 4:2)
7 Judean Wilderness 2013-09-24

Pictured below is Skull Hill or Golgatha, it is one of the places thought that Jesus was crucified. Just out side the city walls on a busy street.  Notice the two depressions into the rocks behind Niki’s head that look like a skull. (Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, Luke 23:33 & John 19:17)

8 Skull Hill Golgaltha 2013-09-25

 

The Garden Tomb.  One of the sites where it is believed Jesus was buried.  This was a newly hewned tomb as the bible indicates with a rolling stone that went in front of it.  (Matt 27:60, John 19:41)

9 Garden Tomb exterior 2013-09-25

Inside the Garden Tomb, pictured below is Aaron Alexander, Lewis’s son.  He will be a basketball coach for the Jerusalem Bible School that was mentioned above.

10 Garden Tomb interior 2013-09-25

 

 

 

 

 

Notice the red cross, in the back ground, its an ancient cross painted by early Christians that worshiped there.

Communion at the Garden Tomb.  below are my dad, Niki & Pastor Brian Shobert from Life Point Church in Longview Tx.

11 Communion at Garden Tomb 2013-09-25

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is Dr Lewis Alexander doing a relational training for the teachers at Jerusalem School, Bethlehem.   A contemporary church meets in that room as well.  I was privileged to give the message at the church that weekend.

12 Lewis training teachers 2013-09-25

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Next day we got to go the Church of the Nativity. Pictured below is the exterior.

13 Church of Nativity exterior 2013-09-25

It’s thought to be the oldest church still in existence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is Inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  The church was built over the traditional site of the manger.

14 Church of the Nativity Bethelem 2013-09-25

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is the grotto or cave below where it is believed that Jesus was born.  In that region stables were often in caves.

15 Grotto Church of Nativity 2013-09-25

Other facts that I did not know about Bethlehem in the present day:  The Christian population of Israel is about 2%.  So there is a lot of work to be done!  Of the 2% most of Christian’s live in Bethlehem.  However a wall was built around Bethlehem with strict military check points in or out.  This was due to a some fighting that took place there with the Second Intifada.

Personally I am grieved that the people there, especially the Christians are not free but literally prisoners in their own city.

16 Tomb of Samuel 2013-09-26

The next day we headed north toward Samaria and stopped at a place called the Tomb of Samuel.  It is that place that the Prophet Samuel visited frequently near Ramah. (1 Samuel 7:15-17)

 

 

 

From there we went to Mount Gerizim.

Mt Gerizim is also called the Mount of Blessing in the Old Testament. You can read about it in (Deut. 11:29, Deut. 27:12, Josh. 8:23, and Judges 9:7)

17 Mt Gerazim 2013-09-26

In Samaria was where the Northern Kingdom of Israel was located, until it was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC.

In the New Testament era, it was where the Samaritans of Jesus day lived and had a temple there.

This was the place that is mentioned by the Woman at the Well, who was a Samaritan.

John 4:19-21
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  NIV

18 Mt Gerazim 2 2013-09-26

 

18 Mt Gerazim 3 2013-09-26

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture below was the city of Sychar where the Samaritan woman was from, the church with the red roof was built over Jacob’s well where Jesus and the Samaritan woman talked.

19 Sychar 2013-09-26

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture below is the capital  of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, behind Niki and I are the ruins from the palace that king Omri built.  (1 Kings 16:23-24)  It was also inhabited by the infamous King Ahab and Jezabel who also lived there.  (I Kings 18-22) 

20 Samaria 2013-09-26

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other great work in the area is Holy Land Trust.  Pictured below with me is its founder Sam Awad.

22 Sammy Awat 2013-09-27

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hebron.  where Abraham is buried, behind the green bars is thought to be his tomb.

23 Hebron Tomb of Abraham 2013-09-27

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were there the Jewish people observed  Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles.  The white tent below is where a Jewish family lived for a week. (Lev. 23:34, Deut. 16:13-16)

24 Sukkot tent in Arad 2013-09-27

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below Church of the Holy Sepulche, thought to be the place where Jesus was buried.

25 Church of the Holy Sepulchre 2013-09-28

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we went south the the Dead Sea region, in the Rift Valley.

Pictured below is the Nature Preserve at En Gedi.  The natural springs are not only beautiful, but are lush for a desert and draw lots of animals.  In the Old Testament it was one of the places David hid from Saul.  (1 Samuel 23:29- 24: 22)

26 En Gedi Wilderness 2013-09-28

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27 En Gedi Upper Falls 2013-09-28

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured with me Jamison Creel. He served as our tour guide and is the superintendent of the Jerusalem School of Bethlehem and the pastor of a local contemporary church that meets there.  He is a man of God and has a great ministry in the Holy Land.

28 Jamison Creel 2013-09-28

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Dead Sea which is the lowest place on earth:  1,388 feet below sea level! As well as the saltiest body of water, 10 times as salty as the ocean.  In the bible it’s called the Salt Sea and mentioned at least 10 times.  Also near by was the community of Qumran where the dead sea scrolls were found.

29 Dead Sea 2013-09-28

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured below is the Mediterranean Sea, near the modern day city of Tel Aviv.  In the Old Testament  it was called Joppa.  It’s where Jonah got on a ship to run. (Jonah 1:3) In the New Testament its where Peter stayed for a time, did the miracle of raising Tabitha from the dead and saw a vision that changed his ministry focus. (Acts 9:36-11:13)

30 Mediterranean Sea 2013-09-29

 

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of the trip was to foster some ministry partnerships in order to return in the future.  The hope of future trips is to have half of the trip seeing sites like above and the other to serve in the schools, ministries and communities.  The Ministry leaders there said that as American believers our “presence” there speaks volumes and is an encouragement to them.  Are you in interested in going?  We will return March 11-16, 2014 which is Spring Break.

Darrell

www.RidgeFellowship.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Was Jesus Resurrected?

Posted on September 27, 2013 by dkoop

Explore GodWe’re continuing our series, Explore God.  Each campus will be examining the question, Is Jesus God?  To get us thinking on the topic, here is an article from www.ExploreGod.com

On January 3, 2003, at California Polytechnic University, two prominent philosophers held a public dialog centered on the question, “Did the resurrection of Jesus really happen?”

One of the thinkers was a former skeptic who had written his doctoral dissertation on the subject. The other was brilliant British philosopher and at-the-time atheist Dr. Antony Flew.2 The two scholars had been friends for more than twenty-five years, and the discussion was open and transparent.

During the debate, Flew confessed his “disinclination” to believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ could be a plausible, historical event. In some sense, Flew was stating the obvious: the idea of a man who had been dead for three days coming back to life doesn’t fit anything we know about reality.

Our experience with death is that it’s final. We know no exceptions to that rule. Our science does not have a place for the reversal of death in a body that has been dead for more than forty-eight hours.

In the case of Jesus’ resurrection, isn’t it more likely that we are dealing with a fictional story concocted two thousand years ago? Why should we give it any credibility at all?

For that matter, how can anyone embrace the idea that a resurrection really happened? Has any thoughtful person been able to do that without completely surrendering their reason?

To do so would require the event to be placed in a category of its own. What grounds have intelligent people found to warrant a belief in the resurrection of Jesus?

The Importance of the Question

When we consider the implications of the claim that Christians have made, we understand that a good bit is at stake. Christians asserted that a one-of-a-kind event had happened: Jesus of Nazareth—who had been crucified by Roman soldiers—was alive again three days later and appeared to many of his followers.

If this claim is true, then a genuinely unique thing has happened, possibly setting apart Jesus from all other religious teachers and leaders in a very distinctive way. If the assertion is false and the resurrection did not happen, the Christian message is emptied of its meaning.

The earliest Christian writer, the apostle Paul, recognized this and wrote the following in about 56 CE—only approximately twenty-five years after Jesus’ death:

If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain . . . If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied . . . If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.3

The validity of the entire Christian faith truly rests on this issue: Did the resurrection of Jesus actually happen?

But whether you’re a Christian or not, this historical question is worth a thoughtful assessment.

Putting the Puzzle Together

Obviously the resurrection of Jesus is not a “fact” in the sense that we have photographic accounts or video recordings of the event itself, but it is surrounded by a group of historical facts. These facts are like pieces of an historical puzzle that one must assemble when contemplating the resurrection.

The first piece is this: Jesus of Nazareth died outside Jerusalem by crucifixion at the order of Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor in Judea, in about 30 CE. He was buried in Jerusalem. These facts are seldom challenged by historians.

Furthermore, an unbroken Christian presence in Jerusalem since the death of Jesus virtually assures the identity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the site of Jesus’ tomb.4 That is not a piece of knowledge that Christians would have been likely to forget or would have failed to pass on from one generation to another.5

Here’s another piece to the puzzle: On the third day after Jesus’ crucifixion, his tomb was reported to be empty. Though this proves nothing if taken alone, it must be considered with the evidence.

Had the body been in the tomb, it would have been relatively easy for the religious authorities who opposed the early Christian movement to silence believers by producing Jesus’ body. If the tomb were not empty, surely someone would have known. The first proclamations of Jesus’ resurrection began only a short walk from the place he had been buried; the tomb could have been checked relatively easily.

An early explanation given for the empty tomb was that Jesus’ disciples had stolen his body so they could claim he had been raised from the dead. You can find this theory even in early Christian literature.6

The issue some have found with this explanation is that the earliest followers of Jesus lived radically changed lives based on their belief in his resurrection; some even suffered martyrdom on account of their faith. This does not seem to be behavior consistent with people who were knowingly perpetuating a fraud.

Interestingly, the fact that such a theory was propagated in the first place serves mainly as an indicator that the tomb was indeed empty.

Then there are the reports from many of the early followers of Jesus that they had actually seen him and spent time with him after the discovery of the empty tomb. According to Christian writings produced only twenty-five years or so after the death of Jesus, claims were made that Jesus had appeared to several individuals and to groups of people ranging from ten to five hundred at a time.7

Perhaps these claims could be dismissed as false, but one would be left trying to understand why a large number of people would willingly die rather than simply admit to the fraud.8

The origin of the Christian movement itself is yet another piece of the puzzle that should be considered. The Christian church traces its history back to Jerusalem in the days just following Jesus’ crucifixion. The stories that relate this origin describe those early Christians as committed to a belief that God had raised Jesus from the dead, a belief that was at the core of the movement’s beginning.

The real question is this: How do all these puzzle pieces fit together?

A Divine Explanation?

Resorting to divine intervention should never be our first choice in explaining an event.

However, in this case, natural explanations of these facts have not been able to fit the puzzle pieces together in a way consistent with what we know of human behavior. This has led some thoughtful and intelligent people to conclude that the only way to adequately account for each aspect of the story is to accept that the resurrection of Jesus really did happen.

Consider the puzzle pieces yourself. How do you best put them together?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

Footnotes
  1. Gary R. Habermas, Did the Resurrection Happen? A Conversation with Gary Habermas and Antony Flew (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009), 45.
  2. A year later, Flew announced he had come to believe in the existence of God, though not in a Christian sense. See Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperOne, 2008).
  3. The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, 1 Corinthians 15:14–19, 32.
  4. “Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” Sacred Destinations, last updated February 21, 2010, http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/jerusalem-church-of-holy-sepulchre.
  5. Although the church was built over the site several centuries later, the authenticity of the location remains a reasonable assumption.
  6. The Holy Bible, Matthew 28:11–15.
  7. Ibid., 1 Corinthians 15:1–8.
  8. Alternatively, some have suggested that these “appearances” of Jesus were merely hallucinations of his followers as a result of their grief or shock following Jesus’ death. However, the fact that groups of people claimed to have shared the same experience removes some of the explanatory power of that psychological approach.

Written by Robert Creech, PhD

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Is Jesus God?

Posted on September 25, 2013 by dkoop

Explore GodWe’re continuing our series Explore God!  Each campus will explore the topic, “Is Jesus Really God?   I hope you can join us!  Below is an article from www.ExploreGod.com  to get us thinking on the topic.

According to recent studies, the majority of the world’s population believes in God or a universal deity.1 Of course, people describe God in very different ways: personal deity, transcendent divine, higher power, or universal spirit. Nonetheless, we believe something or someone is above humanity and the universe as we know it. So when a particular person professes to be God, it’s a big deal. And Jesus—the Jewish teacher who lived in the first century CE—did just that.

There are more than enough reasons to believe that Jesus was not and is not truly God. For starters, it’s hard to imagine any human being actually embodying God. What would that look like? How does God become a person? Does this God-person go back and forth between spirit and human? Can this God-person get sick and die as a human? That wouldn’t be very God-like.

Besides, doesn’t Christianity believe in only one true God? Then how could Jesus be God? Does this have something to do with the Trinity? And why would God become a person in the first place?

These are all mind-blowing questions. But let’s suppose for a minute that God can become a human. He is God, after all.2 If he can create the universe, he can certainly enter into it. If he did become a human, how would he act? What would he do? What would he say? And are the things Jesus did and said the kinds of things we would expect from God?

Is Jesus God? Billions of people believe so. And his life has certainly altered the course of human history. Let’s explore the possibility.

Jesus’ Character

The first thing to take into account is character. What was Jesus like? Two characteristics leap from the pages of the recorded accounts of his life: self-discipline and compassion.

Jesus demonstrated tremendous self-discipline in order to accomplish his task, taking pains not to be distracted by this world. He shunned crowds to spend time alone in prayer, refused to be crowned king by enthusiastic but misguided followers, and stood silent before his scheming accusers. His compassion was exemplified in his gracious attitude toward outcasts; his association with Samaritans, Gentiles, and Romans—all of whom Jews despised; his embrace of the poor and ritually unclean; and his forgiveness of those who executed him.3

But while these are admirable qualities, they don’t prove anything yet.

Jesus’ Miracles

The Bible records Jesus performing many amazing miracles, which are described as “signs through which he revealed his glory.”4 Jesus healed people physically and psychologically, turned water into wine, calmed raging storms, multiplied food, walked on water, and even resuscitated people after they had died.5 But his greatest miracle was his own resurrection.6

Jesus’ followers claimed they literally saw Jesus back from the dead. It’s always possible that they were hallucinating or that it was all a hoax. But then we’re still left wondering why Jesus’ tomb was empty. What happened to Jesus’ body, and why was it never found?

If Jesus’ death and resurrection was a plot contrived by his disciples, why do the four resurrection accounts in the Bible have apparent inconsistencies? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would have made sure to get their stories straight. And why do they reveal women as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection? In the ancient world, women were not considered credible witnesses. No one making up this story would have missed that detail.

Of course, no one can prove that the resurrection or any of Jesus’ miracles truly happened, but the evidence is compelling and worth considering.

Jesus’ Claims

Most provocative, though, is the fact that Jesus actually claimed to be God. For instance, Jesus used the following titles to describe himself: Son of God, Messiah, Lord, and Son of Man—all designations with divine implications in Jewish culture.7

He also made explicit statements about his divinity. In fact, Jesus could hardly have been more direct: “I and the Father are one,” he said.8 “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”9

Consider a few other radical actions. Jesus accepted worship, prayer, and faith from his followers. Jesus forgave sins committed against God—an ability traditionally reserved only for God. While Old Testament prophets grounded their authority in God—“Thus says the Lord”—Jesus often grounded his authority in himself: “Truly I tell you.” And Jesus claimed that a person’s response to Jesus himself determined one’s eternal destiny.10

No wonder Jesus caused such an uproar—big enough that you and I are still talking about him almost two thousand years later.

A Great Moral Teacher

Many people suggest Jesus was simply a great moral teacher, and indeed Jesus’ character, teachings, and good deeds support this. But no great moral teacher (e.g., Buddha, Muhammad, or Gandhi) has ever professed to be God.

Author C. S. Lewis summarizes our challenge:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.11

So what do you think? Lunatic, demon, or God?

www.RidgeFellowship.com

·         Footnotes
  1. In the diverse landscape of the United States alone, 92 percent of adults said they believe in God or a universal spirit. Only 5 percent explicitly said, “Don’t believe in God;” the other 3 percent responded, “Don’t know/other.” Even among those who do not affiliate themselves with any particular religious group, 70 percent responded that they believe in God or a universal spirit. See Pew Research Center, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant,” June 2008, http://religions.pewforum.org/reports#.  Furthermore, according to the World Christian Database of Gordon-Cromwell Theological Seminary, today, only approximately 12 percent of the world population identifies themselves as atheist or agnostic. Statistics can be found athttp://www.religionfacts.com/religion_statistics/religion_statistics_by_adherents.htm.
  2. Most people refer to God with male pronouns (e.g., “he” and “him”), not because they think God is a male, but because they believe God to have a mind or personality in some way. English does not have neuter personal pronouns (besides the impersonal “it”), so according to traditional usage, “he” and “him” will have to suffice.
  3. For examples of each of these characteristics, see The Holy Bible, Luke 5:15–16, John 6:15, Mark 14:60–61, Luke 19:1–9, John 4:4–42, Matthew 15:21–28, Luke 7:1–10, Mark 1:40–45, and Luke 23:33–34.
  4. The Holy Bible, New International Version © 2011, John 2:11.
  5. For examples, see Mark 7:31–37, Mark 1:21–28, John 2:1–11, Mark 4:35–41, Matthew 14:13–33, and John 7:11–17.
  6. All four gospel accounts record the resurrection. Perhaps the most shocking and realistic account is Mark 16:1–8.
  7. For examples, see John 5:16–27, Matthew 7:21–23, and Mark 14:61–62.
  8. The Holy Bible, John 10:30.
  9. Ibid, John 14:9.
  10. For examples of these actions and sayings, seeLuke 24:52, John 16:23, John 14:1, Mark 2:5–10, Matthew 5:21–22, and Matthew 25:31–46.
  11. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2001)
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