Is the New Testament True? The Writers Abandoned Long-Held Sacred Beliefs

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Writers Abandoned Long-Held Sacred Beliefs

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they abandoned many of their long-held sacred beliefs and practices and adopted new ones. What’s more they did not deny their testimony under persecution or threat of death. We’ll explore this as we wrap up the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

Documents

They didn’t just say it, they backed it up with dramatic action

Virtually overnight they abandoned many of their more than 1,500 year old sacred beliefs and practices. Among the institutions they give up are the following:

The animal sacrifice system – they replace it forever with the one perfect sacrifice of Christ

The binding supremacy of the Law of Moses – they say it’s powerless because of the sinless life of Christ

Strict monotheism – they now worship Jesus, the God-man, despite the fact that
1) their most cherished belief had been “Hear O Isreal: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Dt 6:4) and
2) man worship has always been considered blasphemy and punishable by death.

The Sabbath – they no longer observe it even though they’ve always believed that breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death

Belief in a conquering Messiah – Jesus is the opposite, he’s a sacrificial lamb (at least on his first visit)

That’s quite a dramatic change.

And it’s not just the New Testament writers who do this. Thousands of Jerusalem Jews, including Pharisee Priests, convert to Christianity and follow the New Testament writers in abandoning these treasured beliefs and practices.

J.P. Moreland helps us understand the magnitude of this,
“[The Jewish people] believed that these institutions were entrusted to them by God. They believed that to abandon these institutions would be to risk their souls being damned to hell after death. Now a rabbi named Jesus appears from a lower-class region. He teaches for three years, gathers a following of lower- and middle-class people, gets in trouble with the authorities, and gets crucified along with thirty thousand other Jewish men who are executed during this time period.
But five weeks after he’s crucified, over ten thousand Jews are following him and claiming that he is the initiator of a new religion. And get this: they’re willing to give up or alter all five of the social institutions that they have been taught since childhood have such importance both sociologically and theologically… Something very big was going on.”

How do you explain these monumental shifts if the New Testament writers were making up a story? How do you explain them if the Resurrection did not occur?

Surprising New Beliefs and Practices

Not only do these new believers abandon their long-held beliefs and practices, they also adopt some new radical ones. These include:

Sunday Worship - a work day, as a new day of worship

Baptism - as a new sign that one was a partaker in a new covenant (as circumcision was a sign of the old covenant)

Communion - as an act of remembrance of Christ sacrifice for their sins. Communion is especially inexplicable unless the Resurrection is true. Why would Jews make up a practice where they symbolically eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus?

What’s more, the writers of the New Testament endured persecution and even death for all this and none of them recanted their testimony.

If you ask me, this is all good evidence that what they wrote was true.  What do you think?

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Unembellished Miracle Accounts

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Unembellished Miracle Accounts

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they described the miracles they witnessed like other historical events: with simple, unembellished accounts.  We’ll explore this as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Legend or History?

Embellished and extravagant details are strong signs that a historical account has legendary elements. For example, there’s a legendary account of Christ’s resurrection that was written more than 100 years after the actual event. It’s from the apocryphal forgery known as the Gospel of Peter. It says,

“Early in the morning, as the Sabbath dawned, there came a large crowd from Jerusalem and the surrounding areas to see the sealed tomb. But during the night before the Lord’s day dawned, as the soldiers were keeping guard two by two in every watch, there came a great sound in the sky, and they saw the heavens opened and two men descend shining with a great light, and they drew near to the tomb. The stone which had been set on the door rolled away by itself and moved to one side, and the tomb was opened and both of the young men went in.
Now when these soldiers saw that, they woke up the centurion and the elders (for they also were keeping watch). While they were yet telling them the things which they had seen, they saw three men come out of the tomb, two of them sustaining the other one, and a cross following after them. The heads of the two they saw had heads that reached up to heaven, but the head of him that was led by them went beyond heaven. And they heard a voice out of the heavens saying, ‘Have you preached unto them that sleep?’ The answer that was heard from the cross was, ‘Yes’”

This account includes a walking, talking cross and people with heads that reached up to heaven.  Those are the kinds of embellished details that we find in legendary accounts.  The New Testament resurrection accounts contain noting like that.  The Gospels give matter of fact, almost bland descriptions of the resurrection.

Mark described it this way…

“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:4-8)

Here’s Luke’s account

“They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:  ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”  Then they remembered his words.” (Luke 24:2-8)

Here’s Matthew’s

“There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.  The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.  The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” (Matt 28:2-7)

Matthew’s account was a little more dramatic, but nothing like a walking, talking cross.

Not What You Would Expect

The resurrection is the central event of Christianity.  If it was a made-up story designed to convince skeptics, then the New Testament writers would have made their accounts longer with more detail.  They would have probably said that they witnessed Jesus physically rising from the dead. That would have certainly been dramatic and moving.  Instead they get to the tomb after he has risen and they make no attempt to dress up their discovery with exaggerated descriptions or talking crosses.

Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t even say anything about the theological implications of the resurrection and John only does so in one sentence.  It seems that the gospel writers were concerned with getting the history correct, not inventing some new theology. Their level-headedness is also on display with the other miracles they record.  Something to think about.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Writers Challenged Readers to Check Out the Facts

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Writers Challenged Readers to Check Out the Facts

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they challenged their readers to check out verifiable details, even about miracles.  We’ll explore this as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

Documents

Luke, Peter and Paul all clearly stated that what they wrote was true.  Of course anyone can say that but they also called on their readers and listener’s own recollections of what they were talking about.  What’s more they challenged them to check out things that could easily be verified.  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Paul wrote to the people in the city of Corinth that there were 500 eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus, “most of whom are still alive” he said. (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)  He was saying, “You can go ask these witnesses today and verify what I’m saying.”

Paul made another claim to the Corinthians that he wouldn’t have made unless he was telling the truth.  In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul declared that he previously performed miracles for them.  Speaking of his own qualifications as an apostle, someone who speaks for God, Paul reminded the Corinthians that, “The things that mark an apostle – signs, wonders and miracles – were done among you with great perseverance” (2 Corinthians 12:12)

Why would he write that to the Corinthians unless he really had done miracles for them?  Certainly they knew if he had.  He would have destroyed his credibility completely be asking them to remember miracles that he had never done for them.  It seems to me what he wrote must have been true.

If I was making something up, I wouldn’t state a whole bunch of things that people could easily check out and find to be untrue.  The New Testament’s original readers were in a better position to verify the facts and since they found it to be credible, I believe we can too.

For a refresher on when the New Testament documents were written, see here.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Divergent Eyewitness Details

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Divergent Eyewitness Details

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they included details which might be seen as contradictory.  How is that evidence that that what they wrote is true?  I’ll explain that as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Contradictions?

Critics are quick to cite the apparently contradictory Gospel accounts as evidence that the Gospels can’t be trusted for accurate information. For example, Matthew says there was one angel at the tomb while John mentions two. Isn’t this a contradiction that blows the credibility of these accounts? No, divergent details actually strengthen the case that these are eyewitness accounts.

How so? First, notice that the angel accounts are not actually contradictory. Matthew does not say there was only one angel at the tomb. But why did Matthew mention only one angel if two were really there? For the same reason two different newspaper reporters covering the same event choose to include different details in their stories. Two independent eyewitnesses rarely see all the same details and will never describe an event in exactly the same words. They’ll record the same major event (Jesus rose from the dead) but may differ on the details.

In fact when a judge hears two witnesses giving the same word-for-word testimony, what does he rightly assume? Collusion – the witnesses got together beforehand to make their stories agree.

So it’s perfectly reasonable that Matthew and John’s accounts have differences, they were both recording eyewitness testimony. Maybe only one angel spoke. Maybe one was more prominent than the other. We don’t know. We just know such differences are common among eyewitnesses.

J. Warner Wallace is a cold-case homicide detective and a former atheist.  He’d heard testimony in cases for years and when he looked in depth at the New Testament gospels he was struck very strongly by the eyewitness nature of the accounts.

No Collusion

It’s clear that the New Testament writers didn’t get together to smooth out their testimonies. That means they certainly were not trying to pass off a lie as the truth. If they were making it up they’d be sure to be consistent. But such harmonization didn’t happen, and this confirms the genuine eyewitness nature and independence of each writer.

So even though some of the details differ, this is what we’d rightly expect from eyewitnesses, if we think about it.  While others may think that these divergent details harm the credibility of the writers, I think they actually reinforce their truthfulness. There was no conspiracy, they just each reported the events as they saw them. What do you think?

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Verifiable Historical Details

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Verifiable Historical Details

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they included many historical details that can and have been verified.  Today (in my 50th post here on the blog) we’ll explore that as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

Documents

Suppose someone wrote a book in 1980 describing your hometown as it was that year.  In the book the author correctly describes:

  • Your town’s politicians
  • it’s unique law and penal codes
  • the local industry
  • local weather patterns
  • local slang
  • the town’s roads and geography
  • it’s unusual topography
  • local houses of worship
  • area hotels
  • town statues and sculptures
  • the depth of the water in the town harbor

and numerous other unique details about your town that year.

So if the author claimed he had visited your town that year, or said he had gotten good information from people who had been there –
would you think he was telling the truth?  I think so, because he provides details that only an eyewitness could provide.

Well that’s the kind of testimony we have throughout much of the New Testament.

Acts

Luke includes the most eyewitness details.  In the second half of the book of Acts he displays an incredible knowledge of local places, names, environmental conditions, customs and circumstances that only an eyewitness would know.

Classical scholar and historian Colin Hemer chronicles Luke’s accuracy in the book of Acts verse by verse.  He identifies 84 facts in the last 16 chapters of Acts that have been confirmed by historical and archeological research.

Roman Historian A.N. Sherwin-White said of Luke’s accuracy in Acts, “For Acts the confirmation of history is overwhelming… Any attempt to reject its basic historicity must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”

The Gospel of Luke

What about Luke’s Gospel?  Luke names 11 historically confirmed leaders in the first three chapters alone.  Listen to all the details he includes at the start of chapter 3.

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.  And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ” Luke 3:1-3

Would you add all of those verifiable details if you were making it up?

F.F. Bruce said, “A writer who thus relates his story to the wider context of world history is courting trouble if he is not careful; he affords his critical readers so many opportunities for testing his accuracy. Luke takes this risk, and stands the test admirably.”

Frank Turek and Norman Geisler share another historically accurate detail that can be found in Luke 22:44. That’s where Luke records that Jesus was in agony and sweat drops of blood the night before the crucifixion.  Apparently, Jesus was experiencing a rare stress-induced condition we know today as hematohidrosis. That’s when tiny blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress, thus allowing blood to mix with sweat. Since Luke probably didn’t know of this medical condition 2,000 years ago, he could not have recorded it unless he had access to someone who saw it.

The Other Gospels

Since Luke seems to be telling the truth, then so are Mark and Matthew because their gospels tell the same basic story, and Craig Blomberg did a similar study on John’s Gospel and he came up with 59 historically confirmed or at least historically probable details.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly believe the New Testament writers have passed the historical test. If they were making it up they wouldn’t have included so many details, and they wouldn’t have gotten them right. The New Testament is the stuff of history, not fiction.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Resurrection Details That Would Not Have Been Invented

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Resurrection Details That Would Not Have Been Invented

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they included details surrounding the resurrection of Jesus that they would not have invented.  We’ll explore that today as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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In addition to including embarrassing details regarding themselves and Jesus, the New Testament writers also recorded events relating to the resurrection that they would not have made up.

The Burial of Jesus

They record that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling council that had sentenced Jesus to die for blasphemy. Considering the bitterness some Christians harbored against the Jewish authorities, why would they put a member of the Sanhedrin is such a favorable light?

And why would they have put Jesus in the tomb of a Jewish authority? If Joseph didn’t really bury Jesus, the story would have been easily exposed as a fraud by the Jewish enemies of Christianity. But no one ever denied the story

The First Witnesses

All four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, say that the first witnesses of the empty tomb and those who first learned of the resurrection were women. Luke even admits that one of those women, Mary Magdalene, had been demon-possessed. This would never be included in a made up story.

Not only would a once demon-possessed person make a questionable witness, but women in general were considered unreliable witnesses in the first century. A woman’s testimony carried no weight in a court of law. These witnesses would only hurt your attempt to pass off a lie as the truth.

The Conversion of Priests

“Why didn’t the risen Jesus appear to the Pharisees?”, is a popular question asked by skeptics. The answer might be that it wasn’t necessary. This is often overlooked, but many priests in Jerusalem became believers. Luke writes, “The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” (Acts 6:7) These priests eventually initiated a controversy that took place later in the Jerusalem church. It says that during a council meeting, “some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.’” (Acts 15:5)

The council resolved the issue, but the point is, Luke would not have included those details if they were fiction. Everyone would have known Luke was a fraud if there were not significant converts from the priests and Pharisees. Why would Luke have given them an easy way to expose his lies with unnecessary details at that?

The Explanation of the Jews

The Jewish explanation of the empty tomb was that the disciples stole Jesus’ body. Matthew says, “this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.” That means Mathew’s readers and the Jews themselves would know whether or not he was telling the truth.

Again, why would he give his readers such an easy way to expose his lies?

Put yourself in the New Testament writer’s sandals as you consider these details.

If you didn’t read my series of posts on the evidence for the resurrection last Easter, I encourage you to do so this year.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of the Quoting of Jesus

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of the Quoting of Jesus

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they carefully distinguished Jesus’ words from their own. Even though quotation marks were not in use in first century Greek (nor were red letters), the New Testament  writers distinguished Jesus’ words very clearly.  Most Bibles today that have Jesus’ words in red letters are almost identical in that respect, showing how easy the New Testament writers made it to see what Jesus said and what he didn’t say.  Why is that important?, you ask.  We’ll explore that today as we get back to the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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What is the Significance?

Why is this important that the New Testament writers clearly distinguished Jesus’ words from their own?  Because it would have been very easy for them to solve first century theological disputes by just putting words in Jesus’ mouth.  Imagine if you were just making up the “Christian story” and trying to pass it off as the truth.  If therefore there came some disputes in this church you started, if some people in the church started arguing for things you didn’t agree with, wouldn’t you simply make up more quotes from Jesus to convince stubborn people to see things your way?

There were disputes in the first century over things like the necessity of circumcision, the obeying of the law of Moses, the practice of speaking in tongues, and the role of women in the church.  Those things may sound familiar as some of them are still disputes today.  So imagine you were a church leader in the first century, a writer of the New Testament, and you had made the whole thing up.  All the saying of Jesus in the gospels you just made up. So think how easy it would have been to end all debate on these controversial issues by just making up more quotes from Jesus.

Paul could have just written in his first letter to the church in Corinth that Jesus said such and such about speaking in tongues.  But neither Paul nor any of the other New Testament writers ever did that.  They stayed true to what Jesus said and didn’t say.  Paul did quote Jesus a few times but not on those controversial issues and on one occasion he went out of his way to explicitly distinguish his own words from those of Jesus (1 Cor 7:10-12).

Ask yourself, Why would the New Testament writers have been so careful about the words of Jesus if they were not telling the truth?

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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The Earth is More Unique Than We May Want to Think

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Design | Leave a comment

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The Earth is More Unique Than We May Want to Think

In previous posts I’ve laid out the evidence for the uniqueness of Earth and how unlikely it is that life exists here on our planet and even in our universe. While the Sci-Fi geek in me finds the idea of life on other planets a very interesting idea, the odds are just heavily against it.

Design

In a very popular article on the Wall Street Journal, Eric Metaxas recently wrote about how “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God”.  The tag line is “The odds of life existing on another planet grow ever longer. Intelligent Design, anyone?”

He shares how Carl Sagan said in 1966 that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life, the right kind of star and a planet the right distance from the star. So given the incredibly large number of planets in the universe, the odds seemed good to find many planets capable of supporting life.   With the odds being seen as that good, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was started in the 1960s with a great deal of optimism.  The earth must be pretty run of the mill, like in Star Trek or Star Wars. They thought they were sure to find evidence of other intelligent life soon by listening for intelligent signals from space.

So how has the search gone? As Metaxas says, “the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening.”  Congress defunded SETI in 1993, though it has gone on with private funds. Yet, to date, nothing has been found.  Why not?

We’ve Learned a lot More About the Universe

Since the ’60s we’ve learned a lot more about the universe and how it works.  It has become clear that there are a lot more factors that go into making a planet capable of supporting life.  The number of necessary factors grew from 2 to 10, to 50.  And as the number of factors grew, the number of likely planets having all of those factors shrank.  Today we know of more than 200 factors necessary for life.

Even proponents of SETI have acknowledged this.  In 2006 Peter Schenkel wrote in a piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine that, “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest… We should quietly admit that the early estimates… may no longer be tenable.”

When you look at the odds, science seems to point to the fact the life here on earth isn’t just some random accident. Common sense tells me that the earth and the life that lives on it is miraculous.  It is the creative work of an amazingly intelligent God.

What’s the Response to this Scientific Evidence?

So what is the response to this scientific evidence that points to the earth being very unique?  What is the response to it seeming to show that it is very unlikely that our lives here are the result of random chance?

One of the responses to the Metaxas article was someone writing that we invented math, anyway, so we don’t really need to listen to the implications of the odds.  That’s not a very scientific or reasonable response, if you ask me.

NASA seems to want to continue to promote the early SETI optimism.  They recently produced three Exoplanet Travel Bureau posters.


As a Geek.com article puts it, “Each poster has a cool fictionalized rendering of people visiting the planet and a slogan to draw you in and make you wish you could start planning a trip.”   The last one says, “Relax on Kepler-16b”.  Like Tatooine in Star Wars, this planet has two suns.  The poster says, “The land of two suns, where your shadow always has company.”  Sounds like a nice place to visit, right?But just how relaxing would it be on this planet?

As Geek.com puts it, “NASA is taking some liberties with this one.”  Actually, I think they’re taking some liberties with all of them. In the small print on the bottom of the poster NASA does provide the real facts.  It says, “Depicted here as a terrestrial planet, Kepler-16b might also be a gas giant like Saturn. Prospects for life on this unusual world aren’t good, as it has a temperature similar to that of dry ice.”  That’s 100 to 150 degrees below zero!  Though that does help me to have a better attitude about our Wisconsin winters, that doesn’t sound very relaxing to me.

What’s Your Response?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t keep trying to learn more about our universe and the planets out there, but I don’t think we should have high hopes of finding other habitable planets. What we have learned makes me very appreciative of the incredibly unique world that I believe God created for us to live on, and, of course, appreciative for our very lives.

What do you think?

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Psalm 19:1

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One Year Anniversary and What’s Ahead in 2015

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Case Making, Introduction, Reasons for Hope 315 Ministry | Leave a comment

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One Year Anniversary and What’s Ahead in 2015

January 1st was the one year anniversary of this blog and the Reasons for Hope 315 ministry.  I’d like to say thanks to all of you who have been reading my posts, whether you read one or all 45. I hope that what I’ve researched and written has been helpful to you in some way, as it has been to me.

2014

2014 was a good year for me and the ministry.  In addition to starting the blog, I got to speak and share some of the evidence for Christianity in my home church and two other churches.  I’m thankful to pastor David Parks and the other pastors for those opportunities.  I got to share evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and the historical reliability of the New Testament and it’s claims about Jesus. I also completed my apologetics course through Biola University.  I found the material to be very helpful and thought provoking and I have shared and will be sharing more of it here.

2015

So what’s ahead for Reasons for Hope 315 in 2015? I will continue to blog here at least once or twice a month, as time allows. My focus will shift somewhat to sharing seminars in local churches.  In addition to what I already have prepared to share on the resurrection and the historical reliability of the New Testament,  I will soon be putting together a session on the evidence from creation and the design of life and the universe.  These three key areas of evidence will be the basis of the seminars I will be offering.  I will offer it as about a four hour seminar or as three separate sessions.  I have the first church already lined up, starting later in January.

Please pray that God will continue to guide me and that he will use the evidence he has provided to lead people to Christ and to strengthen the faith and confidence to share of those of us who already know him. I’ll be praying that he’ll give us all opportunities to have conversations with people about the reasons for the hope that we have in him.

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)

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Why X-Mas Isn’t Taking Christ out of Christmas

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Christmas | Leave a comment

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Why X-Mas Isn’t Taking Christ out of Christmas

Some people might think that saying “X-Mas” instead of “Christmas” is a way of taking Christ out of the holiday but that’s not the case.  The use of what looks to us to be the letter X as an abbreviation for “Christ” has a long history, not with secularists but with religious scribes and scholars.

This is because in Greek, the language of the New Testament, “Christ” is spelled as you see to the right, in red.  It is pronounced Kris-toss (short o). The first letter is a Chi, pronounced Kī (long i).  Because of this, scribes and scholars have used a Chi (X) to abbreviate “Christ” for at least 1,000 years.

While I was in Bible college I often abbreviated “Christ” with an “X” while taking notes, as well as using “Xian” for “Christian”.  I continue to use this today, including my “xmas budget” spreadsheet that I’ve used for years.

So have a Merry X-Mas and feel free to share this with others this week to remind them what Christmas is really about and why you’re celebrating.

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