He is RISEN!
R: Recorded Accounts -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc.
I: Identifiable Change -- Simon Peter denied knowing Christ 3 times leading up to His crucifixion. Somehow, Peter ended up being crucified upside down because he wouldn't renounce Christ...and he didn't feel worthy to be crucified the same way Jesus was. Saul hunted and killed Christians, but he had an encounter with Jesus and became Paul, one of the heroes of our faith. Out of 12 apostles, one killed himself, one was boiled alive (John) but didn't die so he was exiled and wrote Revelation. The other 10 were martyred. If it were a lie, someone would have been like "I'm lying, please don't kill me!"
S: Sunday Worship -- Shift from the Sabbath (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday) worship.
E: Eye-Witnesses -- People saw Him after the fact. Thomas touched His scars. Over 500 people were reported to have seen Him afterward. The two men on the road to Emmaus saw Him, but didn't know it was Him at first. They told someone, who told someone, who told someone...who told me :)
N: No Body -- Produce a body, Christianity dies. Nobody even tried to fake it! Nobody disputes that the tomb was empty.
Have I seen Jesus? No. Have I heard His voice to where I can say "that sounds like Jesus"? No. Do I believe He is risen? Absolutely YES.
Jesus was God incarnate. He didn't come to earth for a crown. He came for a cross. Don't get it twisted...He is coming back, and this time He is coming to conquer. Whose side are you on?
For the Kingdom,
Stuart
Hmm... I feel like I should respond to this since I think this was directed at me. As I said, I am not as familiar on this topic; I'm more comfortable dealing with the idea of theology philosphically within the context of the stories I know. So for the moment, let me just say this:
ReplyDelete-Quoting religious texts is only going to get you so far. As I said, accounts from that far back can be quite sketchy at times. Everything must be taken with a grain of salt. Furthermore it is an edited text, and also one filtered by translation. Also, it's not even entirely consistent with itself. Naturally, the more unusual claims require more independent scruntiny.
-You seem to be assuming that honesty equals truth. They could simply be earnest but wrong. This is by no means a rarity in humanity.
-The problem with having people tell people who then tell people and so on, is that the message invariably gets jumbled along the way.
None of these are particularly gotchas, just things to keep in mind. It's not as simple as you've laid out. I would like to explore this further, but there's an awful lot to take in to appropriately comment on this global issue. I like to stick with what I know, so until then, I'll stay [relatively] quiet on those details.