The missing link in our testimonies

"Non-believer. Met Jesus. Now going to heaven." What's been left out?

I love hearing about how God has worked in people's lives. Whether it's someone giving a testimony in church, an article someone's written on Fervr, or just an informal conversation, it's always encouraging to hear personal stories of people coming to faith.

However, I think there's often something missing. Have you noticed when we tell or write our testimonies, they follow a formula that goes something like this:

1. I was lost in sin
2. I became a Christian and have been saved by Christ
3. I will go to heaven to be with him

That sounds about right ... doesn't it?

What's missing?

Of course, the above three points are true and important to tell people about! But what I think is missing is the bit between becoming a Christian (point 2) and ultimately going to heaven (point 3). In other words, we should talk about what's happening right now as we live in anticipation of Christ's return. 

In his letter to the Colossians, the apostle Paul says:

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Colossians 2:6-7 (NIV)

Paul was writing this letter to the church at Colossae about 1,950 years ago. He was reminding the people that being a Christian wasn’t simply deciding to follow Jesus; they had to continue to know Jesus more and more. And it's exactly the same for us. 

Grow like a mango tree

Say I plant a mango seed in my garden, I give it some water and sunlight and a little shoot comes out of the ground. That's nice, isn't it? But it's not going to grow juicy mangoes as a little tiny shoot. It has to grow up into a big, strong tree and continue to grow before it can bear fruit. The tree also has to have good strong roots so that it will stand fast against the wind and the rain.

We're a bit like that imaginary mango tree. We've been planted as a seed. Then we decide to follow Jesus and a little shoot pops out of the ground. If we leave it as that, it remains very fragile. But if we grow in our faith, if we make deep strong roots in the ground, we will bear fruit and stay strong. 

There's going to be tough times in our lives. Life isn’t easy being a Christian. The rain, the wind and the hail might come, but if we have strong roots in God’s word, and continue to grow in the knowledge of him, we can stand strong.

How do we grow stronger in Christ?

Earlier in his letter, Paul tells the Colossians:

"...we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might..." Colossians 1:10-11a (NIV)

Again, the image of the tree comes through, and Paul highlights three key things - we need to be bearing fruit (living a Godly life), growing in our knowledge of God and being strengthened by him. So how do we do that?

Just like we can't earn our salvation, we can't grow in Christ on our own either. We need to ask God to help us to grow in our knowledge of him. That means to begin with, it's important we pray regularly to him.

Just as important is reading the Bible - studying God's word for ourselves as well as hearing it explained by others, because the Bible is the primary way God has chosen to speak to his people.  

I think we should do both of these things individually and with other Christians. It's important to encourage each other in our faith and knowledge of Christ, but also for each of us to spend time alone with God.

Ready to tell your testimony again?

Next time you're ask to tell your story of coming to faith in Jesus, be sure to explain not only how you became a Christian, but how you're continuing to live in him: to bear fruit, to be strengthened and to grow in your knowledge of God. 

My prayer for all of us is that just as we received Christ Jesus as Lord, we continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith we were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Did Jesus really exist?

What proof do we have that Jesus was a real person who lived on earth?

In recent years some people have questioned the actual existence of Jesus. Some claim that the idea of a Savior was manufactured by certain people and it ended up becoming a religion.

The problem with this thinking is that there are simply too many biblical and extra biblical writings that attest to the real person we know as Jesus Christ, who lived and died in the first century.

A misguided idea

First, it is absurd to believe that in the first century thousands of people would devote themselves to a person who never existed. By AD 100, about 65 years after Jesus had been on earth, there were some 25,000 people who called themselves Christians—named after Christ who they believed in. Many of these Christ-followers were persecuted not just by governments but by family and friends. Some even gave up their lives as martyrs for this person. Would so many people do this for a person who had never lived? And within 200 years (AD 300) the faithful band of Jesus-followers grew to over 20 million.   It is inconceivable that such a large following would have lasted had it been based on a phantom Christ.

The evidence of the New Testament

Of course we also have the reliable evidence of the New Testament, which records the life and teachings of Jesus. Peter, one of his disciples, wrote a letter in the early 60s just before his martyrdom under the Emperor Nero in AD 64 or 65. He writes,

We were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes when he received honor and glory from God the Father. (2 Peter 1:16-17).

Peter was referring to the time he was present at the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus was visited by Moses and Elijah. He was attesting to the reality of Jesus as an eyewitness of his existence. We have 13 letters of Paul, 4 Gospels, the book of Acts, and other New Testament books that attest to the historicity of Jesus. Many of the writers of the New Testament wrote within a generation of Jesus’ life and were either eyewitnesses to or familiar with eyewitness accounts of Jesus.

Evidence from other sources

But beyond the New Testament accounts there are those of “secular” writers—writings that verify that Jesus the Christ did in fact live. For example, the historian Josephus wrote The Antiquities of the Jews in AD 93. In book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3, he writes,

About the time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man…He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him.

Josephus also referred to “James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ.”

Pliny the Younger was one of the world’s great letter-writers. Ten volumes of his correspondence have survived to the present. He wrote to the Emperor Trajan concerning the Christians of his province in AD 112, revealing how a non-Christian viewed Christianity. He writes about Christ-followers that “they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god.”

Cornelius Tacitus, born about AD 56, became a Roman senator and is considered the most reliable of ancient historians. In his Annals of AD 116 he makes statements about the death of Christ as a historical fact.

And many others, like Suetonius, another Roman historian (AD 120); Lucian of Samosata, a Greek satirist (AD 170); and Mara Bar-Serapion, a Stoic philosopher (AD 70) confirmed in written history that Jesus of Nazareth lived and died.

The trouble with two minute Christians

When we say 'yes' to following Jesus, do we really know what we're committing to?

Becoming a Christian the way you make two minute noodles can ultimately lead to becoming a two minute Christian.

I like things that are quick and simple. For that reason I like camera phones. In the old days, if you wanted to take a photo you had to buy a camera, a roll of film, take 24 photos, take your film to a camera shop, wait an hour, collect your photos and then manually put them into your photo album. You’ll find Instagram is much quicker. 

How many of us want to make our own pasta from scratch? You’d need eggs, flour, a whisk, a rolling pin, hands to knead dough and a time machine to go back to 1957, the year before someone invented instant noodles. I prefer two minute noodles because they take precisely two minutes. Because I like things that are quick and simple, I like microwaves over ovens, elevators over stairs and liking a Facebook status instead of having to write out a comment. 

Paul in Romans 10 is describing how to be saved. It too seems quick and simple:"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved". Later he says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Easy!

'Raise your hand to be saved'

Growing up, I saw many young people put their hand up and go forward at evangelistic meetings to be saved. I was so excited to know my high school friends were now walking with Jesus. The only problem was many of them didn’t walk with Jesus at all. After they went forward to be saved, their lives didn’t seem to change. They didn’t get involved in church community or any form of discipleship and the decisions they made didn’t appear to reflect that Jesus was now King of their lives. I read these verses in Romans and thought they must be saved because they’d confessed with their mouth that Jesus was Lord. At least they’d confessed something with their mouth even if it didn’t seem to make any difference to their lives.

What were these teens really inviting Jesus to do? Were they inviting Jesus to be their King or were they just asking him to give them a free ride to heaven? Many of these teens were looking to be saved the way you make two minute noodles. They were looking for the quickest, easiest and most convenient way to be saved without making Jesus Lord. Unfortunately becoming a Christian the way you make two minute noodles ultimately leads to becoming a two minute Christian.

The Christian road is long

It's been a number of years since then and I'm not completely sure where all of those young people are today or what their walk with God is like now. It's not for me to decide which of these young people were saved or not. But what I would like to see is people deciding to follow Jesus for the right reason - because they want Jesus to be the Lord and the leader of their lives.

We should think carefully about the words 'Jesus is Lord'. Lord means supreme master, leader or king. Sure you want to go to heaven, but do you want Jesus to be the leader of your life? Do you want to make his mission your mission? Do you want him to be in charge of all the areas of your life? Becoming a Christian isn’t as simple as raising your hand, saying a prayer and adding boiling water. Becoming a Christian is about following Christ, inviting him to be the leader of your life and making his cause your cause. 

Rescuing the shipwrecked

Why God wants us to reach out and help the lost.

Imagine you're in a shipwreck. The raging torrents of the sea have smashed your ship and now just pieces of floating debris remain. The rain hammers down on you and the waves toss you over and over.

You reach out for something - anything that will help you stay afloat, to stop you being swept down to your death. Your hand grabs something firm. You pull yourself closer to it. It's a lifeboat.

You climb up and into the little boat and let out a huge sigh of relief. The rain is still pouring down, and the waves are still rocky, but are so much safer and better than when you were out there on your own.

But you weren't the only one on the ship. There were hundreds, thousands on board - now they're helplessly gasping for breath. It's only a matter of time before their bodies give up, before they drown.

You have a choice: do you paddle on and try and make your way to dry land, or do you call out to those drowning around you, and help them get onto the lifeboat so that they, like you, can be saved?

A life or death situation

The situation I've described is an illustration of what things are like for us Christians. Of course, like any analogy it does fall down in some respects, but I think the main idea is true. All humans are in a shipwreck - ever since humankind fell at the garden of Eden we've all been dying, drowning because of our sin. But some of us have been rescued and are on that lifeboat - God has shown mercy and love and has rescued us from our drowning. We're not back on dry land yet - we still experience hardships, but we can find comfort in the fact that we are safe in the arms of Christ and will one day be taken to be with him forever.

But there's others around us who are still drowning. They're desperately trying to survive on their own but they know, deep down, that death is inevitable. Some of them see the lifeboat, they see what Christ offers and they come onboard. Some see in your face that something has happened to help you find comfort in the storm, but they can't see the lifeboat, they can't see Christ. Others don't even seem to notice you're there at all, and  are instead intent on saving themselves, or even more bizarrely, pointlessly chasing after money and other treasures from the ship as they slowly come closer and closer to death.

It's an eternal life or death situation, and you have the chance to tell these people of how they can be saved. Will you?

Will you reach out to help?

I don't know about you, but I find this whole illustration really confronting because it makes me realize that telling others about the salvation I've found in Jesus is not a big enough priority in my life. All too often I shy away from sharing my faith - even mentioning it - with non-Christian friends because I'm afraid of awkwardness or ridicule or rejection. People seem to be getting on fine on their own. I forget that they are drowning. I forget that unless they experience God's saving grace they will spend eternity in hell.

The book of Acts follows some men and women who did share their faith in Christ, who saw those who hadn’t come to faith as drowning in their sin and in need of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

• Peter and John were on trial in Jerusalem, but boldly told everyone listening of Jesus the Saviour: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12, NIV).
• Stephen, was being stoned to death for proclaiming Christ, but still felt compassion for his killers , crying out: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." (Acts 7:60, NIV).
• Paul and Silas, were in jail and saw that the jailer earnestly wanted to be saved from sin, and told him: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved - you and your household." (Acts 16:31).

We need to be more like these early Christians and see that people without Christ are drowning and need to be told of the salvation that can be found in Jesus Christ our Lord.

It's an eternal life or death situation. So are you going to get out there and tell people the gospel?

Why are Christians persecuted?

Why are so many believers put in prison, beaten, or worse?

A church leader in Vietnam is taken to the police station to be beaten and interrogated. A young girl in Pakistan, falsely accused of ripping pages from the Koran, is arrested as a mob shouts “Kill her!”. A widow in Colombia grieves the murder of her husband, assassinated by rebel guerrillas because of his bold gospel activity. And in the news right now, Christians are being attacked in Iraq, Nigeria and many other parts of the world.

Christians face persecution for their faith in Jesus every day. But why? The answer is different depending on what country you’re talking about, but most countries fit into one of the following three categories:

Communist politics

Basically, communism is a political system based on control. Communist governments seek to control everything, including the church. They are fearful of the Christian church, because the gospel is the power of God to transform lives. And so they put restrictions in place for the church, seeking to control the people and intimidate pastors through imprisonment and beatings. But this cannot stand in the way of the Spirit of God, and so the movement of the gospel in communist countries faces further opposition from government authorities because they cannot control or stop the spread of the gospel.

Other Religions 

According to the more radical streams of Islam, apostasy (rejecting your religion) is a crime that demands the death penalty. When a Muslim converts from Islam to Christianity, they are seen to be bringing shame on their family, and abandoning their heritage, their very identity. For to be an Iranian, or an Egyptian or from any other Islamic country is to be Muslim. Conversion to Christianity is a massive insult in Islam, and so believers with a Muslim background face incredible opposition not only from the government and the Sharia law courts, but also from their family and friends.

Wars and conflict

In some countries, there are civil wars or other conflicts that result in Christians facing opposition for their faith. These are countries where the governments attempt to provide protection for Christians, but a rebel army is hostile to the gospel.

Christians have always been persecuted

If we want the real reason for persecution, however, we need to look at what Jesus says: “if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first…if they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:18,20).

As a follower of Jesus, I look at the persecuted church and at Jesus’ call to costly faith and I ask myself “Am I willing to live this out at any cost? Is Jesus really worth living and dying for?”

The apostle Paul thought so. He said “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Paul lost everything for Jesus. He was persecuted, abandoned, insulted and yet he could still hold to the hope of the gospel and declare that “I consider that these present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

The gospel calls us to lay it all down at the cross, to forsake life itself so that we might gain Christ and be found in him. This is such a challenging message for us because we hold on to our life so tightly. So are we willing to let go? Will we join our persecuted brothers and sisters by being willing to suffer for the gospel in Australia?

“Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel” 2 Timothy 1:8.

Am i Too sinful to be saved?

Is it possible someone could be out of reach of God?

Are you ever tempted to think that some people you know will never become Christians?

Maybe it's because they swear all the time, tell crude jokes, get drunk, are obsessed with greed, follow another religion or are just really anti-Christian. Maybe they’re your schoolmates, friends or even family members.

Sometimes, it just seems like they're so far away from the truth of the gospel and the way God wants us to live that it would be impossible for them to even turn up one week at Youth Group, let alone accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking this way. But the Bible clearly shows us that there is no one too lost for Christ to save.

In Chapter Five of Luke’s gospel, Jesus called Levi (Matthew) the tax collector to become his disciple. Tax collectors worked for the Romans and also frequently committed fraud against their own people for personal gain. And yet Jesus called him. When Jesus met with other tax collectors at Levi's house, the local teachers of the law asked him"Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus' reply was"It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Jesus didn't think the tax collectors were too sinful to be saved. That's why he was hanging out with them, so that they, like Levi, might repent of their sin and follow him.  

In God's eyes, all of us have sinned against him. We're all just as bad as each other, having rejected his authority and perfect plan for us. We need to remember that we are no better than the other sinners around us - the only difference is we have repented and experienced the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is full of stories about the most sinful, lost and unlikely people turning to God. People like King Nebuchadnezzar, who was forcing people to worship him but ultimately admitted his sinfulness and praised the God Most High. People like the thief on the cross, who after living as a criminal accepted Jesus' lordship just moments before death. People like the apostle Paul, who was actively persecuting Jesus' followers and ended up becoming one himself, and leading many more people to him.

If you're reading this and you think you're not good enough for God, hear this: it's not about what you've done. All of us are sinful and are only made pure through the death of Jesus Christ.

And as you interact with the people in your life, remember that no one is too lost for Christ to rescue them. Everyone is a potential child of God. We are saved by God’s grace alone.   

Is there historical evidence for Jesus?

“Is there proof that Jesus really lived?”

Have you been asked this question? Chances are if you have, like many of us, your reply was “Ummm …?” Recently I went to KYCK (a Christian youth convention in Sydney, Australia) on behalf of Fervr and sat in on John Dickson’s seminar titled Why can we trust the history of Jesus?. John gave us a “proof pack” that you can carry around with you and “unpack” for your curious friends when needed.

Proof 1: Jesus’ life is a historical study

“Most people have no idea how big a discipline this is”, John said while showing a photo of himself in Macquarie University’s library standing in front of a large section of books near the entrance door. John, who has a PhD in history from Macquarie University says all these books are, “about religion, origins of Christianity, historical Jesus, commentaries. God’s messing with everyone’s heads because it’s the first thing in the library you come to.” He continued, “I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say: there are more books in our library on the historical Jesus than on the figures of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar combined”.

Proof 2: Sceptics are the minority of historical scholars

John explained the three types of historical scholars. Apologetic scholars use their skills to prove Jesus and only account for about 10% of scholars. Sceptical scholars use their skills to disprove Jesus and also only account for about 10% of scholars. “The vast majority of scholars is in the middle. They’re not trying to disprove Jesus, they’re not trying to prove everything about Jesus. They are studying Jesus the way we study Julius Caesar … varied and in a measured way. And they are the vast majority, I’d say over 80% of the literally thousands of scholars dedicated to the historical Jesus.”

The media picks and chooses which historical evidence they highlight, usually ‘news headline’ ideas like Jesus was married to Mary Magdeline. “When people come up with some crazy idea, it’s worth just pausing and wondering, “What part of scholarship does it come from?”. Probably the tiny, sceptical wing of scholars.”

Proof 3: Jesus is mentioned in non-Christian historical sources

Our two top sources are:

Tacitus – our best source for Roman antiquity. In 60 AD, Tacitus recorded that a major fire broke out in Rome. Christians were blamed for starting the fire (even though no one believed the Christians actually did it) so he tells his readers where Christians come from. “Christians derived their name from a man called Christ, who, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition, thus checked for the moment, broke out afresh not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but also in the City of Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world meet and become popular.” (Annals 15.44).

Josephus – A highly educated Roman aristocrat, general and priest. He references Jesus twice in his manuscript which is now titled Jewish Antiquities (90AD).

The first reference has been accused of having biased lines inserted into it by Christians. John provided the following paragraph – minus the Christian “edits”– which most secular scholars agree wasn't in Josephus’ original manuscript:

“At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so.” (18.63-64)

The second reference:

“And so Ananus the High Priest convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others, and delivered them up to be stoned” (20.200)

So what’s the advantage of knowing these sources? John says, “The broad narrative of Jesus as a teacher, a healer, who had disciples and a brother, who was executed, and his disciples continued to revere him after the execution – we can know all of that even if we didn’t have a Bible.”

Proof 4: The New Testament was written soon after Jesus’ death

As a comparison, here are some historical figures and the earliest writings about them:

• Muhammad (AD 570-632) – first written biography 125 years after death.
• Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) (448-368 BC) – first records 350 years after death.
• Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) – first remaining records 120 years after (but best records 400 years after).
• Emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37) – first written about 77 years after death.

“All New Testament documents were written within 65 years of Jesus and some within 20 [years]. Now, I don’t know if that sounds impressive to you but for historians this is marvellous,” John said. “The last New Testament text a lot of secular scholars say is the Gospel of John. They reckon it was written in the 90s AD, about 65 years after Jesus – that’s the latest, the biggest time gap in the New Testament. But that biggest time gap in the New Testament is still closer in time than our very best source for the emperor of the time – are you holding that in mind? It’s 77 years to the emperor at the time of Jesus before we’ve got our best account of [the emperor’s] life. It’s only 65 years before we have the very last New Testament reference to Jesus.”

Proof 5: The New Testament is a collection of individual sources

Look at your Bible. The 66 books inside are contained in one convenient book. However, when they were written, most of their authors didn’t know about the other books. “When Mark wrote his Gospel, he did not know what was in the letters of Paul. And when Paul wrote his letters, he certainly didn’t know what was in the Gospel of Mark because the Gospel of Mark hadn’t been written yet. So what does that mean? It means they wrote two independent sources. The Gospel of John looks like it was written without knowledge of the other three Gospels and so forth.”

This fulfils the important historical test called the Criterion of Multiple Attestation. This says “when independent sources say roughly the same thing about a person or an event, the reliability of that person or event is amped up if the sources are independent of each other”.

Therefore, Tacitus + Josephus + the Gospels + Pauls letters + other New Testament sources = higher reliability for the history of Jesus.

Proof 6: Archaeology backs up the Gospels

Some archaeological evidence for the Gospels:

• Limestone bowls, ritual baths, tomb burial techniques and the lack of pig bones in the rubbish dumps proved that Galilee was inhabited by Jews.
• A synagogue was found at Magdala, Galilee (dated first century) – “Magdala” as in Mary “Magdalene” means that this was the synagogue that Mary Magdalene attended.
• A pool that has the remains of five colonnades by the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem was uncovered that matches the description of the pool of Bethesda mentioned in John 5.
• Steps and beautiful stones that belonged to a pool that matches the description of the pool of Siloam mentioned in John 9.
• Mosaic inscription stating “God Jesus Christ” at Megiddo, Israel.

So pull out this proof pack when you need to and in the right circumstances. It’s good to remember John’s words at the beginning of his talk, “History doesn’t help you be a Christian … It’ll help you answer questions of those who doubt the whole Jesus thing”.

Would you stand up for God if your life was in danger?

Lessons in perserverance from a Turkish prison cell

When Ercan Sengul committed his life to Christ in the Muslim nation of Turkey, some saw it as turning his back on his heritage and nation.

Ercan sat in a dark, dank prison cell surrounded by cell mates. He had been arrested by local police who said that he’d “insulted Islam” by distributing books for a Christian publisher.

A test of faith

Ercan cried out to God, begging to be rescued. He knew that he’d done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be there. When he became a Christian, he said he would do anything for God, and had meant it. But what about now?

Broken before God, Ercan wept and worshipped. He told God in his heart, “I really meant it.” Ercan began to preach three hours each day in prison. He learned that God allowed him to be imprisoned to give him a new mission field!

Ercan was in prison for thirty days until witnesses admitted that police had pressured them to sign statements, and the judge found no evidence of any crime.

Are you willing to do anything for Jesus?

The arrest has furthered Ercan’s witness. Since his release, many who shared his cell have visited his church, asking about the God who gave him peace while locked in prison. Ercan still joyfully gives out Christian books, knowing he could be arrested.

Most Christians would admit that suffering is not exactly what we have in mind when we say we want to be used by God. Sure, we want to live out our faith—but to the point of persecution? What if we feel hurt? Cheated? Ripped off?

We must be willing to prayerfully seek God in the midst of our desperation. The moment we do, we find prayer changes our perspective. We begin to see opportunities for growth. We receive hope. We find promise amidst pain. Eventually we begin to discover our current situation, however unfair and undeserved, may be part of God’s plan after all. When we pray for God’s perspective on persecution, we can find the courage to be obedient at all costs.

"Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains". Ephesians 6:19–20

God loves sinners… do you?

We need to work hard at loving all people - the good and the bad

Country and Western movies are fun. I remember watching them on Saturday afternoons when I was young. I honestly thought that there was a time when the world was black and white. It was while watching these movies that I learnt that the world has always been colourful, it just took a while to work out how to capture it on film!

In Country and Western movies, it’s always obvious who the goodies and baddies were. The goodies rode the white horse with the white hat and the white jacket. The baddies? They had the black gear on the black horse. From the beginning until the end it was always obvious who was who.

In Luke 18:9-14 it seems obvious. The Pharisee was a good guy. The Tax Collector was a bad guy. Finished.

Not according to Jesus.

This parable is all about what it means to be justified before God. It’s a legal term referring to a declaration of innocence before a judge. Who is the one who goes home justified before God? It’s not the good guy. It’s the bad guy who cries out to God for mercy. The good guy was trusting in his own goodness. He had too small a view of God and too high a view of himself. The bad guy recognised he was a bad guy – and knew that the only chance he had of standing before God was based on His mercy. The Tax Collector knew that he was lost. The Pharisee was lost too… but didn’t realise it.

Being justified is based on where our confidence is placed. Is it in you or is it in Jesus?

Verse 9 is a key verse to the Parable. Jesus tells this parable to some who were confident in their own righteousness and looked down on others: people just like the Pharisee. The problem for us is that we unknowingly pray a prayer like the Pharisee. We say: “Thank you God that I’ve responded to you like the Tax Collector. Thank you that I’m not like other people: like Pharisees and other religious nuts.” When we pray like that we need to be reminded not to be self-righteous.

Where is your confidence?

How do you treat the ‘sinner’ that comes into your youth group/church?

How do you treat the self-righteous religious person that comes into your midst?

Why you shouldn't stay quiet about being a Christian? are you embarrassed by Jesus?

It’s easy to be embarrassed about being a follower of Jesus.

Maybe you have a Christian group at school and you’re a little bit embarrassed so don’t turn up? Or maybe you’ve never filled out the ‘Religious Views’ bit on facebook?

It’s easy to understand that we are sometimes embarrassed, or even ashamed to follow Jesus: Jesus himself says that his followers will be hated on his account. What will help you to be unashamed to follow Jesus?

A long history of ridicule  

At the centre of Christianity is the death of Jesus upon a cross. 2000 years ago, the cross was considered a pretty horrific symbol and so to say that you worship a Jewish guy who was crucified was considered foolish.

There’s an ancient graffiti sketch in Rome of an early Christian, Alexamenos, worshipping Jesus. The picture mockingly shows Jesus as half man/half donkey hanging on a cross. The ancient world looked on in ridicule at the death of Jesus upon a dirty piece of wood.

It’s into this type of context that Paul writes in Romans 1:15-16 that he iseager and unashamed to preach Jesus. What made it possible for Paul to have that type of attitude? Why was he unashamed when it was so easy to be ashamed?

The word ‘gospel’ means ‘good news’. In Romans 1, Paul understands that the gospel of Jesus really is good news.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17 NIV)

Don't be ashamed of the Gospel

Paul wasn't ashamed of The Gospel, and here's why:

1. It is the power of God... – although the cross of Jesus looks weak, the good news of the gospel is that at the cross God shows his power. At the cross, Jesus powerfully defeats sin, Satan and death. The message and word of Jesus is how God shows his power in this world.
2. ...for the salvation of everyone who believes – the gospel of Jesus is so powerful that WHOEVER believes it will be saved by Jesus. The offer of God in the gospel is to be rescued from the judgement that we rightly deserve for our rebellion against God. Paul knows that everybody needs to hear about Jesus, and Paul knows that God wants to save people as that message goes out.
3. ... and it reveals a righteousness from God – this term could mean a number of things, one of the meanings of this phrase in Romans is the right standing that people can have before God. It’s clear that all have sinned and are unable to make themselves righteous by obeying the law. God makes a righteousness available that is not about obeying the law, but about having faith. Faith and trust in Jesus, the one who – as he dies on the cross – takes upon himself what we deserve for our sin.

Paul knows that in the gospel of Jesus, we see the power of God, that saves all who believe, through faith in Jesus and the righteousness that he brings. This really is good news. He’s not ashamed of it.

Neither should we be embarrassed by Jesus! At home, school and on the internet when we’re tempted to be embarrassed about Jesus, we need to remember that the gospel is good news! We need Jesus, and all people need Jesus. So, don’t be ashamed to be a follower of Jesus. 

Why the Historical Jesus Matters

Suppose one day an astronaut from some far-off galaxy entered my office. Suppose our space traveler was interested in the cultures and religions of the earth, and asked me: "What is this thing called Christianity? Could you tell me please what it is?" I don't know what all I would say in response, but I know what my opening line would be: "Let me tell you about a person whose name is Jesus."

This thought experiment has theological implications. Christian faith begins with Jesus, with stories about who he was and what he did. This is the same impulse that caused the early church, some 30 to 40 years after its founding, to write the Gospels. Christian thinking, worship, and practice must be rightly related to Jesus. If our beliefs and practices are out of touch with the Jesus who actually lived in [Judea and Galilee] centuries ago, Christian faith is in serious trouble. It has no plausible foundation.

Of course the object of Christian faith is not "the historical Jesus," if that means what later theology would call the humanity of Jesus. The object of our faith is the triune God, who is revealed in human history, and especially in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, is not the man Jesus but was incarnate in human history as "the historical Jesus."

The quest for the historical Jesus: three major phases

Nevertheless, questions about who Jesus was and what he said and did are crucial for Christians. Our faith is not a dropped-from-the-sky code of behavior or a set of timeless teachings from a guru. Ours is a religion of history, a faith whose vital essence consists of great revelatory actions of God in human history, preeminently the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of the Son of God (Heb. 1: 1).

So we need to know about Jesus: Who was he? How did he view himself and his mission? What did he do and say? Why was he crucified? Was he really raised from the dead? What was it about Jesus that brought the Christian church into existence? For most of Christian history, these questions were answered by simply accepting uncritically what the four canonical Gospels said about Jesus. No major differences were expected or detected between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus who actually lived-or, indeed, between the historian's "Jesus of history" and the church's "Christ of faith."

But a German scholar named H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768), often considered the founder of "the search for the historical Jesus," brought this long era to a close. Reimarus wanted to discover who Jesus was by entirely rational means, i.e., by historical research unfettered by dogmatic considerations or ecclesiastical control. Other notables in what has come to be called the "Old Quest" were David Friedrich Strauss, author of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined(1835), and Ernest Renan, who wrote Life of Jesus (1863). The culmination of the Old Questwas Albert Schweitzer's famous Quest of the Historical Jesus (1909). Schweitzer's own proposals about Jesus no longer command assent, but his lasting contribution was his critique of his predecessors. He showed conclusively that their "Jesus" was largely a fantasy made in their own image.

The next period in the "quest" is sometimes called "No Quest," largely because of the influence of Rudolf Bultmann.¹ In The History of the Synoptic Tradition (1921), Jesus and the Word (1926), and other influential works, he argued that it is impossible for scholars to come to know much about Jesus. Accordingly, the main object of study for Bultmann and his disciples was not so much Jesus as the early church. Indeed, Bultmann stressed the importance for his own day of the preached kerygma of the early church, although many believe that the way he interpreted that message had more to do with existential philosophy than it did with Christianity.

Then in the 1950s a much heralded "New Quest" for the historical Jesus began, under the influence of such scholars as Ernst Kasemann, Gunther Bornkamm, my own Claremont colleague James M. Robinson, and (a few years later) Edward Schillebeeckx. The contemporary continuers of the tradition of the New Quest are such figures as Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Burton Mack, and the members of the Jesus Seminar. What seems to unite the contemporary scholars just noted is: (1) the fact that their "Jesus" — not always for the same reasons — largely seems to float above his own Jewish background; (2) their insistence that Jesus was not an apocalyptic or eschatological teacher; and (3) their eager willingness to entertain almost any ideas about Jesus, however bizarre, except orthodox ones.

But another group of contemporary scholars, sometimes called the "Third Quest," is also at work: people like Martin Hengel, John Meier, E. P. Sanders, Ben Witherington, and N. T. Wright.² They emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus, and consider him an apocalyptic prophet who announced the coming of the Kingdom of God. These folk have no unified theological agenda — they include Catholics and Protestants, liberals and evangelicals — but they all emphasize the importance of the death of Jesus. They ask: What was it about Jesus that caused him to be crucified?

Jesus is a now "hot topic." Many Jesus books have been written in the past 15 years, including at least one by a journalist who is in effect reporting on the current state of Jesus studies.³ This may be partly due to the media-savvy work of the Jesus Seminar. Indeed, one of the reasons I agreed to serve as integrator of this issue of Theology, News and Notes is a conversation I had three years ago with a retired Presbyterian schoolteacher. She had seen Robert Funk, cochair of the Jesus Seminar, on television. She was deeply worried by what he said and in effect was asking me whether it was still intellectually possible to be a believer in Jesus. It certainly is. I hope our essays can show, at least in part, why it is.

What did Jesus think about himself?

One way of approaching the question of the reliability of the picture of Jesus painted in the four Gospels is to ask: What did Jesus think of himself? The traditional way of answering this question, especially in the period before Reimarus, was simply to quote the Christological statements in John's Gospel, e.g., "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), or "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). But many biblical scholars deny that these words constitute the ipsissima verba of Jesus. These statements, and the many other high Christological statements made about Jesus throughout the Gospels (they say) tell us more about the faith of the early church at the time the Gospels were written than they do about the actual teachings of Jesus.

Is that true? Well, it is true that the Gospels are statements of faith rather than "facts-only" biographies of Jesus. (The writer of John even admits as much; see John 20:31.) It is also true that John's Gospel was the last canonical Gospel written, and thus was the furthest removed from the events it describes. As even the early church recognized, it is a more overtly theological interpretation of Jesus than were the synoptics. Moreover, if Jesus spoke and taught in Aramaic, then since the New Testament was written in Greek, almost none of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels constitute his ipsissima verba.

But a convincing case can be made that much of the material in the Gospels that implies a high Christology can in some form be traced back to Jesus, and that he implicitly claimed the high status that the church attributed to him. Here is one telling fact about the earliest Christians: They practiced worship of Jesus. Early Christian prayers were addressed to Jesus, one preserved even in Aramaic ("Maranatha"), which attests to its earliness (1 Cor. 16:22; see also 2 Cor. 12:8; 1 Thess. 3:11-13; 2 Thess. 2:16-17; 3:5; 16; Acts 1:24; 7:59-60). There were also doxologies addressed to Christ, or to Christ and the Father together (Rom. 16:27; cf. 2 Cor. 1:20; 2 Tim. 4:18; 2 Peter 3:18; Rev. 1:5-6, 13; cf. 7:10), and hymns of praise to Christ (Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Tim. 3:16; cf. Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). In Matthew's Gospel, after the resurrection, Jesus is worshiped (proskynesis) by Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:9) and by the 11 disciples on the mountain (28:17).

Richard Bauckham argues that the transition from prayers and thanksgiving to Jesus to actualworship of Jesus (cf. Acts 13:2) was a smooth and perhaps not even conscious process; there is no evidence of anybody in the earliest Christian community contesting it. He says: "The role which Jesus played in the Christian religion from the beginning was such as to cause him to be treated as God in worship."⁴

If Bauckham is correct, why is it so? Perhaps the early Christians worshiped Jesus soon after the resurrection in part because Jesus himself was conscious — at least in some sense — of his divine status and implicitly communicated that fact, by his words and deeds, to his followers. (This is not to say that Jesus thought of himself in terms of the credal definitions that came centuries later.) This claim can be supported by attending to sayings of Jesus that even radical critics like Bultmann, Norman Perrin, and the members of the Jesus Seminar consider authentic.⁶

For example, consider this statement:

But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you (Luke 11:20; par. Matt. 12:28).

Bultmann enthusiastically accepted the authenticity of this text. While it does not claim divinity, it amounts to a claim by Jesus to be exorcising demons as the agent through which the reign of God enters history. Note the parallel to Exodus 8:19, in which the Egyptian magicians confess their inability to duplicate the plague of gnats, and declare: "This is the finger of God."

Notice also how Jesus took upon himself the authority to relativize, deemphasize, and even in places rewrite Old Testament Law:

Listen to me, all of you, and understand; there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile (Mark 7:14-15).

The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28).

Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead (Matt. 8:22).

All three of these texts are accepted as authentic by the critics, and all three amount to radical revisions of Old Testament Law. In the first, Jesus is relativising the Jewish dietary laws. In the second, Jesus is taking upon himself the authority to reinterpret the Sabbath laws. And in the third, Jesus is opposing and correcting Mosaic Law. Proper burial of one's relatives was one of the most sacred duties in [Judean] Judaism (see Gen. 50:5-6; Lev. 21:2-3; Tobit 4:3). Jesus was saying that following him took precedence even over that duty.

Other points could be made,⁷ but the conclusion is that Jesus must have considered himself and his own teachings to have divine authority. He believed that salvation had arrived in his own person and ministry. Notice also (here we are relaxing a bit the methodology of using only texts considered authentic by radical critics) that Jesus took upon himself the divine prerogative to forgive sins (see Mark 2:5 10; Luke 7:48); spoke to God with apparently unheard of and puzzling intimacy with the Aramaic term Abba (perhaps "Papa"⁸); claimed to be the "Son of Man" who would judge all things and determine our final status before God; and claimed at the trial scene to be "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mark 14:61-62).

Was Jesus resurrected?

The question of the status or person of Jesus pushes us inevitably toward the resurrection. Although I cannot argue the point here, theologically orthodox scholars have made a powerful case in recent years for the reality of Jesus' resurrection from the dead — indeed, his bodily resurrection.⁹ Once it is established that Christians rationally presuppose a worldview called supernaturalism — God exists, created the world, and has the power and interest occasionally to intervene in human history — a strong case can be made for the resurrection. (Supernaturalism is opposed to the naturalism or Deism that many critics of the resurrection presuppose.)

It is important to note that the earliest Christians unanimously and passionately believed that Jesus was alive. It was this belief that caused the Jesus movement to survive and thrive (unlike, say, that of John the Baptist or even bar-Kochba a century later). This conviction allowed Christians to overcome both the discouragement of their leader's death, and later persecution. For another, the criticisms of the empty tomb tradition and of the appearance stories that are typically given by critics can, in my view, be answered. Finally, opponents of the resurrection face one huge embarrassment: No one has ever produced a plausible naturalistic explanation of what happened after the crucifixion that accounts for all the accepted facts (e.g., Jesus was crucified and died; early Christians believed in the resurrection). None of the explanations that have been suggested — wrong tomb, swoon, hallucination, mistaken identity, myth — have any compelling evidence in their favor, and many are so weak as to collapse of their own weight once spelled out.

So the claim that Jesus really was raised from the dead by God looks to be, for supernaturalists, by far the best explanation of the evidence. (I am not claiming that the resurrection by itself proves authentic all Jesus' words and deeds in the Gospels; this is a separate issue.)

Now I have discussed only two out of many important issues relevant to the historical Jesus, and them only briefly. But my point is that the study of Jesus, carefully done, can provide (what radical New Testament criticism cannot do and does not want to do) a plausible basis for Christian teaching and worship. And it is crucial that it do so, since one's views about Jesus Christ are at the heart of the Christianity that one holds. They influence what one will say about virtually every other theological topic — the Trinity, creation, providence, sin, redemption, ethics, ecclesiology, and the sacraments.

Although theologically orthodox Christians must keep their critical faculties alive, they also approach Scripture with a hermeneutic of trust. This is irritating to nonbelievers and radical critics, who see no reason to treat the Bible any differently than any other book. But (as Thomas Oden argues¹⁰) if God decides to offer salvation to human beings through Jesus Christ; and if Jesus Christ is primarily mediated to people of later generations via written texts; then it follows that God will not allow the testimony of those texts to be massively misleading or false. Obviously, this argument raises issues that cry out for discussion but, for lack of space, I cannot explore them here. Suffice it to say that in my opinion there needs to be, and in fact is, a strong link between the Jesus whom we find in the Gospels and the Christ whom we Christians worship.

"Let me tell you about a person whose name is Jesus." This, again, is what I would say to our hypothetical space traveler who wants to know about Christianity. I would begin by telling stories about Jesus, the same stories that the apostles and their followers told and wrote down and that have come down to us today. To tell anyone what Christianity is, we must begin with Jesus — with the Jesus who lived in our midst, with "the historical Jesus."

Endnotes

1 Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1951), 11. This despite the fact that Bultmann said a great deal about Jesus in Jesus.

2 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), xiv.

3 Charlotte Allen, The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus (New York: Free Press, 1998).

4 Richard Bauckham, "Jesus, Worship of," The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 815.

5 Rudolf Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 162.

6 The first is accepted by Norman Perrin and rated pink ("Jesus probably said something like this") by the Jesus Seminar. See Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus ( New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 149-150, and Robert Funk et al., The Five Gospels: The Search for theAuthentic Words of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 36. The second is also colored pink by the Jesus Seminar. The third is colored pink by the Jesus Seminar and accepted as authentic by Perrin.

7 See Royce Gruenler, New Approaches to Jesus and the Gospels (Grand Rapids, Mich: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1982), 19-108.

8 This point has been disputed by James Barr. See "Abba isn't 'Daddy'," JTS 39 (1988) and "Abba, Father," Theology, 91, no. 741 (1988). For a response to Barr, see Gordon D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 408-412. My own claim is that we have lots of Jewish prayers from the first century, and none of them address God as Abba, except those of Jesus.

9 In an official publication of Fuller Seminary, I gladly mention George E. Ladd's classic, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1975). See also Gerald O'Collins, S. J., Jesus Risen (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), William L. Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), and Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993).

10 Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life; Systematic Theology, Vol. II (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), 212.