The society,
internationally and locally in South Africa, are corrupt.
There is fierce battle
for truth and authenticity.
It is a given in
today’s world that Christianity is mistrusted, under suspicion and belittled. Anything
remotely connected to Christianity is instantly suspicions and anathema. The
sordid sad history of the Church with the crusades are partly to blame, but not
entirely. The entire world ethos is antagonistic towards the pure undiluted
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Have you considered the
claims of Christianity? Have you considered the evidence for the Cross? I
submit to you that it is satisfactory, authentic and reliable.
What authentic and reliable
evidence are available about those things that happened 2000 years ago? There
is no better evidence available than the Scriptures themselves. And then you
have corroborating and contemporary documents as well.
Let us just consider
the uniqueness of the Scriptures. We should not only read the New Testament in
isolation although that will bring us a very long way. I am convinced that an
honest open-minded seeker/skeptic should also read the Old Testament [O.T.] –
because Christ is foreshadowed there. In other words, He is “hidden” if you
will, in the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament.
Do we have contemporary
and corroborative write-ups about Christ? In other words, do we have ancient
documents that refer to Him? Reliable documents? Authentic documents? I submit
to you that those documents are there. This write-up of mine is not a treatise
about His crucifixion and resurrection, but just to whet your appetite and
present a short cogent argument for those claims. I have considered it and have
accepted it in my life. He changed my life and He works everyday in my life to
change it to His likeness. I suggest to you that you should use this write-up
to start your own open-minded investigation.
If you don’t have a
Bible, please go out and buy one. The alternative is to download one from the
internet and I suggest that you download the New International Version.
A few days after His
ascension into heaven on a cloud [there were eye witnesses for that event] His
disciples and other people were gathered in a room in Jerusalem and were
discussing these things that happened. They were discussing the crucifixion;
there were thousands of people in Jerusalem that gathered for the yearly
Passover celebrations. The judicial killing of Jesus took place just outside
the walls of Jerusalem and were a public spectacle – outside on a hill He hang
on a cross flanked by two criminals. People walked past and saw it, and
ridiculed Him. Now, a couple of weeks later there was this gathering and Peter
got up and he was addressing the people in attendance. He just knew that the
death and resurrection of Christ was going to be extremely controversial. I ask
you to take your Bible and turn to the Book of Acts the whole of chapter 1 and
then concentrate on verses 21 – 26. That is the crux of the claims of
Christianity: the death and resurrection of Christ. If you can break that, you
break Christianity. You will find the same argument in Corinthians chapter 15.
The logic is pure and convincing.
The tools and insights
of academic biblical scholarship deepen our engagement with the Scriptures as a
living text in a modern world.
The images below will guide you to search the internet for these sources and then you should engage with it. I am not going to do that for you – this is the challenge for you to take and run with it. I am confident that you will do that and that you will not be intellectually and spiritually lazy - this last remark is intended for Christians as well as non-Christians.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment