Resurrection Of Jesus Bible Quotes

In the Bible, the opposite of Sin, with a capital 'S,' is not virtue - it's faith: faith in a God who draws all to himself in his resurrection.

What happened to Jesus after he was crucified? A historical reconstruction It is an undeniable fact that the New Testament Gospels present the crucifixion and the resurrection as the pivot upon which Christianity is based. However, this notion is most surprising when we take into consideration that this postulation was never part of Jesus's teaching. Certainly the evangelists 'Mark' and 'Matthew' do hint at these strange happenings, but it is a noted fact amongst the majority of the biblical scholars that these sequences were added several centuries after the original Gospels were written, and this was done so that the political editors of these Gospels could adapt the writings according to their political and theological needs...

In its mythology, Mithra, the Persian god of light and wisdom, was born of a virgin in a cave on the 25th December and later, as an adult, undertook long voyages for the purposes of illuminating mankind. His disciples were twelve; he was betrayed, sentenced to death, and after his death, he was buried in a tomb from which he rose from the dead. The Mithrian religion also states that at the end of all time, Mithra will come again to judge the living and the dead. In this religious cult, Mithra was called the Saviour and he was sometimes illustrated as a lamb. Its doctrine included baptism, the sacramental meal (the Eucharist), and the belief in a saviour god that died and rose from the dead to be the mediator between God and mankind. The adherents of this religion believed in the resurrection of the body, universal judgement, and therefore in heaven and hell.

The way of Jesus is thus not a set of beliefs about Jesus. That people ever thought it was is strange, when we think about it — as if one entered new life by believing certain things to be true, or as if the only people who can be saved are those who know the word "Jesus". Thinking that way virtually amounts to salvation by syllables. Rather, the way of Jesus is the way of death and resurrection — the path of transition and transformation from an old way of being to a new way of being. To use the language of incarnation that is so central to John, Jesus incarnates the way. Incarnation means embodiment. Jesus is what the way embodied in a human life looks like.

I always wondered why it took "three days" for significant things to happen in the Bible--Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus spent three days in the tomb, Paul spent three days blind in Damascus--and now I know. From earliest times, people learned that was how long they had to wait in the dark before the sliver of the new moon appeared in the sky. For three days every month they practiced resurrection.

We all look for strategies or techniques that will free us from the pain of relationships and the hard work good relationships demand. We hope that better planning, more effective communication, clear role definitions, conflict resolution strategies, gender studies, and personality typing--to name just a few -- will make the difference. There may be value in these things, but if they were all we needed, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection would be unnecessary or, at best, redundant. Skills and techniques appeal to us because they promise that relational problems can be fixed by tweaking our behavior without altering the bent of our hearts. But the Bible says something very different. It says that Christ is the only real hope for relationships because only he can dig deep enough to address the core motivations and desires of our hearts. Most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship.

I was over in Australia during Easter, which was really interesting. You know, they celebrate Easter the exact same way we do, commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children that a giant bunny rabbit … left chocolate eggs in the night. Now … I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. I've read the Bible. I can't find the word "bunny" or "chocolate" anywhere in the fucking book.

No books is more fascinating than the Bible. And no books are less fascinating than most of our commentaries on the Bible. Nothing is more formidable and unconquerable than the Church Militant. But nothing is more sleepy and sheepish than the Church Mumbling. Christ's words roused His enemies to murder and His friends to martyrdom. Our words reassure both sides and send them to sleep. He put the world in a daze. We put it in a doze.

We should linger here for a moment, for it summarizes a main theme of Paul’s letters: God’s unexpected move—Jesus’s death and resurrection—places Jews and Gentiles on equal footing with God.

It isn’t Easter,” he said, “but this week has caused me to think a lot about the Easter story. Not the glorious resurrection that we celebrate on Easter Sunday but the darkness that came before. I know of no darker moment in the Bible than the moment Jesus in his agony on the cross cries out, ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’ Darker even than his death not long after because in death Jesus at last gave himself over fully to the divine will of God. But in that moment of his bitter railing he must have felt betrayed and completely abandoned by his father, a father he’d always believed loved him deeply and absolutely. How terrible that must have been and how alone he must have felt. In dying all was revealed to him, but alive Jesus like us saw with mortal eyes, felt the pain of mortal flesh, and knew the confusion of imperfect mortal understanding. “I see with mortal eyes. My mortal heart this morning is breaking. And I do not understand. “I confess that I have cried out to God, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ ” Here my father paused and I thought he could not continue. But after a long moment he seemed to gather himself and went on. “When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? “I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. “In your dark night, I urge you to hold to your faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. “Jesus suffered the dark night and death and on the third day he rose again through the grace of his loving father. For each of us, the sun sets and the sun also rises and through the grace of our Lord we can endure our own dark night and rise to the dawning of a new day and rejoice. “I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to rejoice with me in the divine grace of the Lord and in the beauty of this morning, which he has given us.

The greatest jail break in all of history occurred on Easter morning. Therefore, we must remember that whatever our prisons might be and however impenetrable they might appear, your jail break is just a prayer away.

The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be easily fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom n love.

The Bible says he was raised not just after the blood-shedding, but by it. This means that what the death of Christ accomplished was so full and so prefect that the resurrection was the reward and vindication of Christ's achievement in death.

The kingdom, Jesus taught, is right here--present yet hidden, immanent yet transcendent. It is at hand--among us and beyond us, now and not-yet. The kingdom of heaven, he said, belongs to the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful, and those who hunger and thirst for God. It advances not through power and might, but through missions of mercy, kindness, and humility. In this kingdom, many who are last will be first and many who are first will be last. The rich don't usually get it, Jesus said, but children always do. This is a kingdom whose savior arrives not on a warhorse, but a donkey, not through triumph and conquest, but through death and resurrection. This kingdom is the only kingdom that will last.

Without a beginning I am pouring the whole of my existence into the building of endings, while the cross and the resurrection declare that God is incessantly building beginnings from the collapse of endings.

She inhaled deeply—and sneezed. Stupid allergies. “Gods bless you,” Rishi said. Dimple arched an eyebrow. “Gods?” He nodded sagely. “As a Hindu, I’m a polytheist, as you well know.” Dimple laughed. “Yes, and I also know we still only say ‘God,’ not ‘gods.’ We still believe Brahma is the supreme creator.” Rishi smiled, a sneaky little thing that darted out before he could stop it. “You got me. It’s my version of microaggressing back on people.” “Explain.” “So, okay. This is how it works in the US: In the spring we’re constantly subjected to bunnies and eggs wherever we go, signifying Christ’s resurrection. Then right around October we begin to see pine trees and nativity scenes and laughing fat white men everywhere. Christian iconography is all over the place, constantly in our faces, even in casual conversation. This is the bible of comic book artists . . . He had a come to Jesus moment, all of that stuff. So this is my way of saying, Hey, maybe I believe something a little different. And every time someone asks me why ‘gods,’ I get to explain Hinduism.” Dimple chewed on this, impressed in spite of herself. He actually had a valid point. Why was Christianity always the default? “Ah.” She nodded, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “So what you’re saying is, you’re like a Jehovah’s Witness for our people.” Rishi’s mouth twitched, but he nodded seriously. “Yes. I’m Ganesha’s Witness. Has a bit of a ring to it, don’t you think?

The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible. These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as 'the father of the American Revolution.'... Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe. [The Christian Nation Myth, 1999]

It should not be assumed that the Quran is the Islamic analogue of the Bible. It isn’t. For Muslims, the Quran is the closest thing to an incarnation of Allah, and it is the very proof they provide to demonstrate the truth of Islam. The best parallel in Christianity is Jesus himself, the Word made flesh, and his resurrection. That is how central the Quran is to Islamic theology.94

If I had to sum up the gospel I should have to tell you certain facts: Jesus, the Son of God, became man; he was born of the virgin Mary; lived a perfect life; was falsely accused of men; was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God; from whence he shall also come to judge the quick and the dead. This is one of the elementary truths of our gospel; we believe in the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the life everlasting.

Logos (The Biblical Manuscripts/Canon of Scriptures) & Rhema (The Person/Life/Words/Death/Resurrection of Jesus Christ): The 'special' & 'ultimate' revelation of God. Without these revelations God would be unsearchable, unknowable, and inscrutable." ~R. Alan Woods [2013]

Indeed, in Scripture, no two people encounter Jesus in exactly the same way. Not once does anyone pray the “Sinner’s Prayer” or ask Jesus into their heart. The good news is good for the whole world, certainly, but what makes it good varies from person to person and community to community. Liberation from sin looks different for the rich young ruler than it does for the woman caught in adultery. The good news that Jesus is the Messiah has a different impact on John the Baptist, a Jewish prophet, than it does the Ethiopian eunuch, a Gentile and outsider. Salvation means one thing for Mary Magdalene, first to witness the resurrection, and another to the thief who died next to Jesus on a cross. The gospel is like a mosaic of stories, each one part of a larger story, yet beautiful and truthful on its own. There’s no formula, no blueprint.

When I say theologically mature, I mean just this: formed by the Bible, proudly Trinitarian, grounded in justification by grace through faith, dedicated to the person of Jesus Christ, convinced of his incarnation as Son of God, recognizing his death on the Cross as redemption from sin for the whole world, boldly convinced of the truth of the Resurrection, and committed to a worldwide mission of witness in Christ's name.

To be in resurrected bodies on a resurrected Earth in resurrected friendships, enjoying a resurrected culture with the resurrected Jesus—now that will be the ultimate party! Everybody will be who God made them to be—and none of us will ever suffer or die again. As a Christian, the day I die will be the best day I’ve ever lived. But it won’t be the best day I ever will live. Resurrection day will be far better. And the first day on the New Earth—that will be one big step for mankind, one giant leap for God’s glory.

The clear message of the Bible is that there is nothing we can do to make our hearts clean before a holy God. We can work constantly, pray fervently, give extravagantly, and love sacrificially, but our hearts will still be stained by sin. This is why the Bible teaches that faith alone in Christ alone is the only way to salvation from sin. Faith is the anti-work. It’s the realization that there is nothing you can do but trust in what has been done for you in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Faith is the realization that God’s pleasure in you will never be based upon your performance for him. Instead, God’s pleasure in you will always be based upon Christ’s performance for you.

We can trust the Bible because it points us to the most important events in human history: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

You do not need to work towards being the person that God wants you to be.  He has already transformed you through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  You are the After Picture.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Have we ever considered that God is so enraptured with beginnings that He permits the pain of endings so that we can experience the exhilaration of beginnings?

He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.

The good news of the gospel is that God has poured out on Jesus the wrath that we deserve, so that we may not perish. The death and resurrection of Jesus give us every reason to hope in the mercy of God!

Now Christianity proposes a completely different account of how history comes to a climax and what precisely constitutes the new order of the ages—which helps to explain why so many of modernity’s avatars, from Diderot to Christopher Hitchens, have specially targeted Christianity. On the Christian reading, history reached its highpoint when a young first-century Jewish rabbi, having been put to death on a brutal Roman instrument of torture, was raised from the dead through the power of the God of Israel. The state-sponsored murder of Jesus, who had dared to speak and act in the name of Israel’s God, represented the world’s resistance to the Creator. It was the moment when cruelty, hatred, violence, and corruption—symbolized in the Bible as the watery chaos—spent itself on Jesus. The resurrection, therefore, showed forth the victory of the divine love over those dark powers. St. Paul can say, “I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, nor any other creature can separate us from the love of God,” precisely because he lived on the far side of the resurrection.

So the idea of being “lifted up” has everything to do with Christ’s crucifixion, a crucifixion that surely has in view his resurrection and ascension into glory that has come by way of the cross. And it is through this great work (atoning sacrifice) on the cross that Jesus will draw “all men” to himself, meaning that he will draw to himself men from every tribe, tongue, and nation (both Jew and Gentile), which is a common theme in this gospel account (cf. 6:44).

When we recognize that all of us, of whatever sexual orientation, are created by God, that we are all fallen sinners, and that we can all be redeemed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, homosexuality will no longer be a divisive issue.

And what about the willingness of the disciples to die for their belief that Jesus was alive – even after He had been murdered as a criminal? Some have claimed that Elvis Presley rose from the dead, but how many would be willing to die for such a teaching?

Over and over again, Harriet read the story about Lazarus in the Bible, but it refused to address even the most basic questions. What had Lazarus to say to Jesus and his sisters about his week in the grave? Did he still smell? Was he able to go back home and carry on living with his sisters, or was he frightening to the people around him and perhaps had to go off somewhere and live by himself like Frankenstein's monster? She could not help thinking that if she, Harriet, had been there, she would have had more to say on the subject than Saint Luke did.

The gospel that Paul is proclaiming in Romans does not center on the issue of sexuality. It focuses on the universality of sin and the free grace of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the essence of the Christian message. Idolatry, Not Sexuality

Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either. You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue. If you don’t think demons are real, try planting a church! You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy. If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God. A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness. The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. The unsexy reality of the pastorate is that it involves hard work—the heavy-lifting, curse-ridden, unyielding employment of your whole person for the sake of the church. Pastoral ministry requires dogged, unyielding determination, and determination can only come from one source—God himself. Passive staff members must be motivated. Erring elders and deacons must be confronted. Divisive church members must be rebuked. Nobody enjoys doing such things (if you do, you should be not be a pastor!), but they are necessary in order to have a healthy church over the long haul. If you allow passivity, laziness, and sin to fester, you will soon despise the church you pastor. From the beginning of sacred Scripture (Gen. 2:17) to the end (Rev. 21:8), the penalty for sin is death. Therefore, if we sin, we should die. But it is Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in our place for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to take to himself the penalty of our sin. The Bible is not Christ-centered because it is generally about Jesus. It is Christ-centered because the Bible’s primary purpose, from beginning to end, is to point us toward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Christ-centered preaching goes much further than merely providing suggestions for how to live; it points us to the very source of life and wisdom and explains how and why we have access to him. Felt needs are set into the context of the gospel, so that the Christian message is not reduced to making us feel better about ourselves. If you do not know how sinful you are, you feel no need of salvation. Sin-exposing preaching helps people come face-to-face with their sin and their great need for a Savior. We can worship in heaven, and we can talk to God in heaven, and we can read our Bibles in heaven, but we can’t share the gospel with our lost friends in heaven. “Would your city weep if your church did not exist?” It was crystal-clear for me. Somehow, through fear or insecurity, I had let my dreams for our church shrink. I had stopped thinking about the limitless things God could do and had been distracted by my own limitations. I prayed right there that God would forgive me of my small-mindedness. I asked God to forgive my lack of faith that God could use a man like me to bring the message of the gospel through our missionary church to our lost city. I begged God to renew my heart and mind with a vision for our city that was more like Christ's.

Despite two millennia of Christian apologetics, the fact is that belief in a dying and rising messiah simply did not exist in Judaism. In the entirety of the Hebrew Bible there is not a single passage of scripture or prophecy about the promised messiah that even hints of his ignominious death, let alone his bodily resurrection.

Our real problem is not the pervasiveness of the darkness but a failure of the light. Light always dispels darkness. The glorious light of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ is still sufficient and available to those who reject self-reliance and return to His plan for biblical leadership. This return can reignite the radiance of the Gospel in transforming power.

Suppose that members of a religious movement, such as Christianity, maintain that the existence of some powerful god and its goals or laws can be known through their scriptures, their prophets, or some special revelation. Suppose further that the evidence that is available to support the reliability of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations is weaker than that God is hypothetically capable of producing. That is, suppose that Christians maintain that Jesus was resurrected on the basis of the Gospels, or that God’s existence can be known through the Bible, or Muslims insist on the historical authenticity of the Koran. Could God, the almighty creator of the universe, have brought it about so that the evidence in favor of the resurrection, the Bible, or the Koran was better than we currently find it? I take it that the answer is obviously yes. Even if you think there is evidence that is sufficient to prove the resurrection, a reasonable person must also acknowledge that it could have been better. And there’s the problem. If the capacity of that god is greater than the effectiveness or quality of those scriptures, prophets, or special revelations, then the story they are telling contradicts itself. 'We know our god is real on the basis of evidence that is inadequate for our god.' Or, 'The grounds that lead us to believe in our god are inconsistent with the god we accept; nevertheless, we believe in this god that would have given us greater evidence if it had wished for us to believe in it.' Given the disparity between the gods that these religious movements portend and the grounds offered to justify them, the atheist is warranted in dismissing such claims. If the sort of divine being that they promote were real and if he had sought our believe on the basis of the evidence, the evidential situation would not resemble the one we are in. The story doesn’t make internal sense. A far better explanation is that their enthusiasm for believing in a god has led them to overstate what the evidence shows. And that same enthusiasm has made it difficult for them to see that an all powerful God would have the power to make his existence utterly obvious and undeniable. Since it’s not, the non-believer can’t possibly be faulted for failing to believe.

By God’s design, the Scripture presents the messiah in terms of a mosaic profile that can only be discerned after the pieces are assembled. Paul tells us why in 1 Corinthians 2:6–8. If the plan of God for the messiah’s mission had been clear, the powers of darkness would never have killed Jesus—they would have known that his death and resurrection were the key to reclaiming the nations forever.

Peter and John Before the Council ACTS 4 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and  l the captain of the temple and  m the Sadducees came upon them, 2greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming  n in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3And they arrested them and  o put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4But many of those who had heard the word believed,

It's through the cross that we reach the resurrection. We should be absolutely sure of this truth, and we should keep this cross hidden and not place it on the shoulders of others. It is our cross we have to carry. It is the one God has given us to go through into His resurrection. This is the one we should keep hidden. But there are crosses and crosses, some of our own making. These we should immediately discard. Some permitted by God for our sanctification. These we can share for they are also for the sanctification of others. True, we can help to carry other people's crosses and they can help to carry our crosses, but the operative word is "hidden." The Lord said, "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men," and "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Mt 6:16-18) Our very hiddenness becomes a light if we do not complain, if we carry our cross manfully, ready to help in the carrying of other people's crosses. Then we become a light to our neighbour's feet because we become an icon of Christ—shining!

ACTS 4 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and  l the captain of the temple and  m the Sadducees came upon them, 2greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming  n in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3And they arrested them and  o put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4But many of those who had heard the word believed, and  p the number of the men came to about five thousand.

I’m not going to tell you this is God’s judgment… but I have to wonder. The Rapture comes after the Tribulation… that’s New Testament. I don’t remember the Bible being very clear on that…” “There wasn’t a bulleted list?” “Heh…” “Well, I figured with the ten commandments the lord liked to keep things itemized…” “Less than you’d think… anyway, this fits the build.” “Resurrection?” “Not… really. But depending on how you look at it, Jesus was a Zombie, right?

Scripture moves through human history like the breath of God. The evolution of language does not render God's words fallible, nor does it negate his power to preserve. An inerrant Bible exceeds all doctrines of Christianity, transcending the deity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his death, or his resurrection; for God’s words bring these truths to us. God literally magnifies his written word above his name. God's words project himself. Inspiration without preservation would be worthless.

Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of the damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment... these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs. Away with the miserable nonsense which people talk in this day who tell us that the ministers of the gospel should never speak of hell.

What makes the Bible’s miracle stories so compelling is the idea that God cares about people’s suffering, not simply their “spiritual blindness” or “spiritual poverty” but also their actual blindness and actual poverty. The apostle Paul insisted to the Corinthian church that the physical resurrection of Jesus, as witnessed by more than five hundred people, portends the resurrection of all who have died, all who have suffered, and that without it “our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’s sayings in the other gospels about the “kingdom of God” are rendered as “kingdom of heaven”; since many read Matthew first, when they find Jesus talking about “entering the kingdom of heaven,” they have their assumptions confirmed and suppose that he is indeed talking about how to go to heaven when you die, which is certainly not what either Jesus or Matthew had in mind. Many mental pictures have grown up around this and are now assumed to be what the Bible teaches or what Christians believe.9

Most of Jesus’ life is told through the four Gospels of the New Testament, known as the Canonical gospels, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are not biographies in the modern sense but accounts with allegorical intent. They are written to engender faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the incarnation of God, and not to provide factual data about Jesus’s life. This left the door of exaggeration open. And through that door all kinds of mystical non-sense crept in and made place right alongside the good philosophical teachings of Jesus.

to the world. God created both body and soul, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both body and soul. The work of the Spirit of God is not only to save souls but also to care and cultivate the face of the earth, the material world. It is hard to overemphasize the uniqueness of this vision. Outside of the Bible, no other major religious faith holds out any hope or even interest in the restoration of perfect shalom, justice, and wholeness in this material world. Vinoth Ramachandra, a Sri Lankan Christian writer, can see

Thomas has already been portrayed as loyal but pessimistic. Jesus did not rebuke Thomas for his failure, but instead compassionately offered him proof of His resurrection. Jesus lovingly met him at the point of his weakness. Thomas’ actions indicated that Jesus had to convince the disciples rather forcefully of His resurrection, i.e., they were not gullible people predisposed to believing in resurrection. The point is they would not have fabricated it or hallucinated it, since they were so reluctant to believe even with the evidence they could see.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it for so many years of Bible reading, but I didn’t.  Paul didn’t teach the Gentiles not to follow the law, he didn’t teach people not to have their sons circumcised (in fact he himself had Timothy circumcised in Acts 16:3).  And Paul himself kept the law.  Otherwise, James would have been telling Paul to lie about what he was doing.   So we traded Christmas for Sukkot, the true birth of Messiah during the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a shadow picture of Him coming back to reign for a thousand years.  When we keep that feast, we are making a declaration that we believe He was, is, and is coming.  We keep Yom Kippur, which is a declaration that we believe that Yeshua is the salvation of the nation of Israel as a whole, that “all Israel shall be saved.”  We keep Yom Teruah, the day of Trumpets, which occurs on “the day and hour that no man knows” at the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon during the 7th biblical month of Tishri.  We traded Pentecost for Shavuot, the prophetic shadow picture of the spirit being poured out on the assembly, as we see in the book of Acts,  just as the law was given at Mt Sinai to the assembly, which according to Stephen was the true birth of the church (Acts 7:38) – not in Jerusalem, but at Sinai. We also traded Easter for Passover, the shadow picture of Messiah coming to die to restore us to right standing with God, in order to obey Him when He said, “from now on, do this in remembrance of Me.”  We traded Resurrection Sunday for First Fruits, the feast which served as a shadow of Messiah rising up out of the earth and ascending to be presented as a holy offering to the Father.  In Leviticus 23, these are called the Feasts of the LORD, and were to be celebrated by His people Israel forever, not just the Jews, but all those who are in covenant with Him. Just like at Mt Sinai, the descendants of Jacob plus the mixed multitude who came out of Egypt.    We learned from I John 3:4 that sin is defined as transgression of the law.  I John 1:10 says that if we claim we do not sin we are liars, so sin still exists, and that was written long after the death of the other apostles, including Paul.  I read what Peter said about Paul in 2 Peter 3:15-16 – that his writings were hard to understand and easily twisted.  And I began to see that Peter was right because the more I understood what everyone besides Paul was saying, the more I realized that the only way I could justify what I had been doing was with Paul’s writings.  I couldn’t use Yeshua (Jesus), Moses, John, Peter or any of the others to back up any of the doctrines I was taught – I had to ignore Yeshua almost entirely, or take Him out of context.  I decided that Yeshua, and not Paul, died for me, so I had to

Studying the book of Revelation has been one of the most paradigm-shifting experiences I’ve had in the last ten years. I’ve known that the Bible talks about suffering. But I’ve never seen how godly suffering has such significance in God’s plan of redemption and judgment. This has revolutionized my thinking, because I don’t like to suffer. But if Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension mean anything, then I must let my eyes of faith rather than my pain sensors dictate how I process suffering. I must, like the Moravians, follow Jesus wherever He goes.

Years ago, I happened upon a television program of a “prosperity gospel” preacher, with perfectly coiffed mauve hair, perched on a rhinestone-spackled golden throne, talking about how wonderful it is to be a Christian. Even if Christianity proved to be untrue, she said, she would still want to be a Christian, because it’s the best way to live. It occurred to me that that is an easy perspective to have, on television, from a golden throne. It’s a much more difficult perspective to have if one is being crucified by one’s neighbors in Sudan for refusing to repudiate the name of Christ. Then, if it turns out not to be true, it seems to be a crazy way to live. In reality, this woman’s gospel—and those like it—are more akin to a Canaanite fertility religion than to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the kingdom she announces is more like that of Pharaoh than like that of Christ. David’s throne needs no rhinestone. But the prosperity gospel proclaimed in full gaudiness in the example above is on full display in more tasteful and culturally appropriate forms. The idea of the respectability of Christian witness in a Christian America that is defined by morality and success, not by the gospel of crucifixion and resurrection, is just another example of importing Jesus to maintain one’s best life now. Jesus could have remained beloved in Nazareth, by healing some people and levitating some chairs, and keeping quiet about how different his kingdom is. But Jesus persistently has to wreck everything, and the illusions of Christian America are no more immune than the illusions of Israelite Galilee. If we see the universe as the Bible sees it, we will not try to “reclaim” some lost golden age. We will see an invisible conflict of the kingdoms, a satanic horror show being invaded by the reign of Christ. This will drive us to see who our real enemies are, and they are not the cultural and sexual prisoners-of-war all around us. If we seek the kingdom, we will see the devil. And this makes us much less sophisticated, much less at home in modern America.

The Bible is an ancient book and we shouldn’t be surprised to see it act like one. So seeing God portrayed as a violent, tribal warrior is not how God is but how he was understood to be by the ancient Israelites communing with God in their time and place. The biblical writers were storytellers. Writing about the past was never simply about understanding the past for its own sake, but about shaping, molding, and creating the past to speak to the present. “Getting the past right” wasn’t the driving issue. “Who are we now?” was. The Bible presents a variety of points of view about God and what it means to walk in his ways. This stands to reason, since the biblical writers lived at different times, in different places, and wrote for different reasons. In reading the Bible we are watching the spiritual journeys of people long ago. Jesus, like other Jews of the first century, read his Bible creatively, seeking deeper meaning that transcended or simply bypassed the boundaries of the words of scripture. Where Jesus ran afoul of the official interpreters of the Bible of his day was not in his creative handling of the Bible, but in drawing attention to his own authority and status in doing so. A crucified and resurrected messiah was a surprise ending to Israel’s story. To spread the word of this messiah, the earliest Christian writers both respected Israel’s story while also going beyond that story. They transformed it from a story of Israel centered on Torah to a story of humanity centered on Jesus.

Jefferson then distilled and enunciated these “essentials” in several personal works he shared with friends, his “Syllabus,” and two extracts from the Bible: “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth,” and “The Life and Morals of Jesus,” sometimes called the “Jefferson Bible.” In these works Jefferson disputed core Christian doctrines while he omitted references to miracles and Jesus’ resurrection. Although his own spirituality apparently grew later in life, he remained a religious skeptic and on the fringes of unitarianism in his beliefs. Throughout his life he opposed religious orthodoxy and intolerance, and the government’s subversion of religion for political gain. “To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed,” Jefferson wrote Benjamin Rush, “but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.”90

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  hAccording to his great mercy,  ihe has caused us to be born again to a living hope  jthrough the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to  kan inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and  lunfading,  mkept in heaven for you, 5who by God’s power are being guarded  nthrough faith for a salvation  oready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by  pvarious trials, 7so that  qthe tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes  rthough it is tested by  sfire—may be found to result in  tpraise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 uThough you have not seen him, you love him.  vThough you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

Born Again to a Living Hope 3 g Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  h According to his great mercy,  i he has caused us to be born again to a living hope  j through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to  k an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and  l unfading,  m kept in heaven for you, 5who by God’s power are being guarded  n through faith for a salvation  o ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by  p various trials, 7so that  q the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes  r though it is tested by  s fire—may be found to result in  t praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 u Though you have not seen him, you love him.  v Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining  w the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

The church's theology bought into this ahistoricism in different ways: along a more liberal, post-Kantian trajectory, the historical particularities of Christian faith were reduced to atemporal moral teachings that were universal and unconditioned. Thus it turned out that what Jesus taught was something like Kant's categorical imperative - a universal ethics based on reason rather than a set of concrete practices related to a specific community. Liberal Christianity fostered ahistoricism by reducing Christianity to a universal, rational kernel of moral teaching. Along a more conservative, evangelical trajectory (and the Reformation is not wholly innocent here), it was recognized that Christians could not simply jettison the historical particularities of the Christian event: the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, there was still a quasi-Platonic, quasi-gnostic rejection of material history such that evangelicalism, while not devolving to a pure ahistoricism, become dominated by a modified ahistoricism we can call primitivism. Primitivism retains the most minimal commitment to God's action in history (in the life of Christ and usually in the first century of apostolic activity) and seeks to make only this first-century 'New Testament church' normative for contemporary practice. This is usually articulated by a rigid distinction between Scripture and tradition (the latter then usually castigated as 'the traditions of men' as opposed to the 'God-give' realities of Scripture). Such primitivism is thus anticreedal and anticatholic, rejecting any sense that what was unfolded by the church between the first and the twenty-first centuries is at all normative for current faith and practice (the question of the canon's formation being an interesting exception here). Ecumenical creeds and confessions - such as the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed - that unite the church across time and around the globe are not 'live' in primitivist worship practices, which enforce a sense of autonomy or even isolation, while at the same time claiming a direct connection to first-century apostolic practices.

But it was never actually that big a deal. Jenkins didn't really disbelieve in the Resurrection: he merely questioned the historical veracity of the New Testament narratives. It was mildly interesting: one side saying "I really believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and that the Bible gives a journalistically accurate account of the circumstances surrounding his birth," and the other saying "I also really believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but I think that the story of Mary and Gabriel may be a legend." A real disagreement, an important one, but not a fundamental fault line along which a church can split. The people who think that the stone really was rolled away, and the people who think that it was rolled away in a very real sense are clearly part of the same religion. But it is hard to see how people who think that it doesn't particularly matter whether or not the stone was rolled away, provided we live in the way that Jesus would have wanted us to, are part of the same religion; or, indeed, of any religion at all. I think that this is what some evangelicals think some liberals think. I think they may be right.

The Resurrection MATTHEW 28  m Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and  n the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2And behold, there was a great earthquake, for  o an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 p His appearance was like lightning, and  q his clothing white as snow. 4And for fear of him the guards trembled and  r became like dead men. 5But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6He is not here, for he has risen,  s as he said. Come, see the place where he [1] lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold,  t he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8So they departed quickly from the tomb  u with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9And behold, Jesus  v met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and  w took hold of his feet and  x worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid;  y go and tell  z my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.

For as the Father has life in himself,  zso he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27And he  ahas given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not marvel at this, for  van hour is coming when  ball who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29and come out,  cthose who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. Witnesses to Jesus 30 d“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and  emy judgment is just, because  fI seek not my own will  gbut the will of him who sent me. 31 hIf I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. 32There is  ianother who bears witness about me, and  jI know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. 33 kYou sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. 34Not that  lthe testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35He was a burning and  mshining lamp, and  nyou were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. 36But  lthe testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For  othe works that the Father has given me  pto accomplish, the very works that I am doing,  qbear

Paul also never quotes from Jesus's purported sermons and speeches, parables and prayers, nor does he mention Jesus's supernatural birth or any of his alleged wonders and miracles, all of which one would presume would be very important to his followers, had such exploits and sayings been known prior to the apostles purported time. Turning to the canonical gospels themselves, which in their present form do not appear in the historical record until sometime between 170-180 CE, their pretended authors, the apostles, give sparse histories and genealogies of Jesus that contradict each other and themselves in numerous places. The birth date of Jesus is depicted as having taken place at different times. His birth and childhood are not mentioned in 'Mark,' and although he is claimed in 'Matthew' and 'Luke' to have been 'born of a virgin,' his lineage is traced to the House of David through Joseph, so that he may 'fulfill prophecy.' Christ is said in the first three (Synoptic) gospels to have taught for one year before he died, while in 'John' the number is around three years. 'Matthew' relates that Jesus delivered 'The Sermon on the Mount' before 'the multitudes,' while 'Luke' says it was a private talk given only to the disciples. The accounts of his Passion and Resurrection differ utterly from each other, and no one states how old he was when he died. In addition, in the canonical gospels, Jesus himself makes many illogical contradictions concerning some of his most important teachings.

Jesus himself remains an enigma. There have been interesting attempts to uncover the figure of the ‘historical’ Jesus, a project that has become something of a scholarly industry. But the fact remains that the only Jesus we really know is the Jesus described in the New Testament, which was not interested in scientifically objective history. There are no other contemporary accounts of his mission and death. We cannot even be certain why he was crucified. The gospel accounts indicate that he was thought to be the king of the Jews. He was said to have predicted the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven, but also made it clear that it was not of this world. In the literature of the Late Second Temple period, there had been hints that a few people were expecting a righteous king of the House of David to establish an eternal kingdom, and this idea seems to have become more popular during the tense years leading up to the war. Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius all note the importance of revolutionary religiosity, both before and after the rebellion.2 There was now keen expectation in some circles of a meshiah (in Greek, christos), an ‘anointed’ king of the House of David, who would redeem Israel. We do not know whether Jesus claimed to be this messiah – the gospels are ambiguous on this point.3 Other people rather than Jesus himself may have made this claim on his behalf.4 But after his death some of his followers had seen him in visions that convinced them that he had been raised from the tomb – an event that heralded the general resurrection of all the righteous when God would inaugurate his rule on earth.5 Jesus and his disciples came from Galilee in northern Palestine. After his death they moved to Jerusalem, probably to be on hand when the kingdom arrived, since all the prophecies declared that the temple would be the pivot of the new world order.6 The leaders of their movement were known as ‘the Twelve’: in the kingdom, they would rule the twelve tribes of the reconstituted Israel.7 The members of the Jesus movement worshipped together every day in the temple,8 but they also met for communal meals, in which they affirmed their faith in the kingdom’s imminent arrival.9 They continued to live as devout, orthodox Jews. Like the Essenes, they had no private property, shared their goods equally, and dedicated their lives to the last days.10 It seems that Jesus had recommended voluntary poverty and special care for the poor; that loyalty to the group was to be valued more than family ties; and that evil should be met with non-violence and love.11 Christians should pay their taxes, respect the Roman authorities, and must not even contemplate armed struggle.12 Jesus’s followers continued to revere the Torah,13 keep the Sabbath,14 and the observance of the dietary laws was a matter of extreme importance to them.15 Like the great Pharisee Hillel, Jesus’s older contemporary, they taught a version of the Golden Rule, which they believed to be the bedrock of the Jewish faith: ‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the message of the Law and the Prophets.

Biblia pamoja na historia vinatwambia kuwa mitume kumi na wawili wa Yesu Kristo waliamua kufa kinyama kama mfalme wao alivyokufa, kwa sababu walikataa kukana imani yao juu ya Yesu Kristo. Mathayo alikufa kwa ajili ya Ukristo nchini Ethiopia kwa jeraha lililotokana na kisu kikali, Marko akavutwa na farasi katika mitaa ya Alexandria nchini Misri mpaka akafa, kwa sababu alikataa kukana jina la Yesu Kristo. Luka alinyongwa nchini Ugiriki kwa sababu ya kuhubiri Injili ya Yesu Kristo katika nchi ambapo watu hawakumtambua Yesu. Yohana alichemshwa katika pipa la mafuta ya moto katika kipindi cha mateso makubwa ya Wakristo nchini Roma, lakini kimiujiza akaponea chupuchupu, kabla ya kufungwa katika gereza la kisiwa cha Patmo (Ugiriki) ambapo ndipo alipoandika kitabu cha Ufunuo. Mtume Yohana baadaye aliachiwa huru na kurudi Uturuki, ambapo alimtumikia Bwana kama Askofu wa Edessa. Alikufa kwa uzee, akiwa mtume pekee aliyekufa kwa amani. Petro alisulubiwa kichwa chini miguu juu katika msalaba wa umbo la X kulingana na desturi za kikanisa za kipindi hicho, kwa sababu aliwaambia maadui zake ya kuwa alijisikia vibaya kufa kama alivyokufa mfalme wake Yesu Kristo. Yakobo ndugu yake na Yesu (Yakobo Mkubwa), kiongozi wa kanisa mjini Yerusalemu, alirushwa kutoka juu ya mnara wa kusini-mashariki wa hekalu aliloliongoza la Hekalu Takatifu (zaidi ya futi mia moja kwenda chini) na baadaye kupigwa kwa virungu mpaka akafa, alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo. Yakobo mwana wa Zebedayo (Yakobo Mdogo) alikuwa mvuvi kabla Yesu Kristo hajamwita kuwa mchungaji wa Injili yake. Kama kiongozi wa kanisa hatimaye, Yakobo aliuwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa mjini Yerusalemu. Afisa wa Kirumi aliyemlinda Yakobo alishangaa sana jinsi Yakobo alivyolinda imani yake siku kesi yake iliposomwa. Baadaye afisa huyo alimsogelea Yakobo katika eneo la mauti. Nafsi yake ilipomsuta, alijitoa hatiani mbele ya hakimu kwa kumkubali Yesu Kristo kama kiongozi wa maisha yake; halafu akapiga magoti pembeni kwa Yakobo, ili na yeye akatwe kichwa kama mfuasi wa Yesu Kristo. Bartholomayo, ambaye pia alijulikana kama Nathanali, alikuwa mmisionari huko Asia. Alimshuhudia Yesu mfalme wa wafalme katika Uturuki ya leo. Bartholomayo aliteswa kwa sababu ya mahubiri yake huko Armenia, ambako inasemekana aliuwawa kwa kuchapwa bakora mbele ya halaiki ya watu iliyomdhihaki. Andrea alisulubiwa katika msalaba wa X huko Patras nchini Ugiriki. Baada ya kuchapwa bakora kinyama na walinzi saba, alifungwa mwili mzima kwenye msalaba ili ateseke zaidi. Wafuasi wake waliokuwepo katika eneo la tukio waliripoti ya kuwa, alipokuwa akipelekwa msalabani, Andrea aliusalimia msalaba huo kwa maneno yafuatayo: "Nimekuwa nikitamani sana na nimekuwa nikiitegemea sana saa hii ya furaha. Msalaba uliwekwa wakfu na Mwenyezi Mungu baada ya mwili wa Yesu Kristo kuning’inizwa juu yake." Aliendelea kuwahubiria maadui zake kwa siku mbili zaidi, akiwa msalabani, mpaka akaishiwa na nguvu na kuaga dunia. Tomaso alichomwa mkuki nchini India katika mojawapo ya safari zake za kimisionari akiwa na lengo la kuanzisha kanisa la Yesu Kristo katika bara la India. Mathiya alichaguliwa na mitume kuchukua nafasi ya Yuda Iskarioti, baada ya kifo cha Yuda katika dimbwi la damu nchini India. Taarifa kuhusiana na maisha na kifo cha Mathiya zinachanganya na hazijulikani sawasawa. Lakini ipo imani kwamba Mathiya alipigwa mawe na Wayahudi huko Yerusalemu, kisha akauwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa. Yuda Tadei, ndugu yake na Yesu, aliuwawa kwa mishale alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo. Mitume walikuwa na imani kubwa kwa sababu walishuhudia ufufuo wa Yesu Kristo, na miujiza mingine. Biblia ni kiwanda cha imani. Tunapaswa kuiamini Biblia kama mitume walivyomwamini Yesu Kristo, kwa sababu Biblia iliandikwa na mitume.

An Orthodox priest, a friend of mine, telephoned me and told me that a Russian officer had come to him to confess. My friend did not know Russian. However, knowing that I speak Russian, he had given him my address. The next day this man came to see me. He longed for God, but he had never seen a Bible. He had no religious education and never attended religious services (churches in Russia then were very scarce). He loved God without the slightest knowledge of Him. I read to him the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus. After hearing them, he danced around the room in rapturous joy proclaiming, “What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ!” It was the first time that I saw someone so joyful in Christ. Then I made a mistake. I read to him the passion and crucifixion of Christ, without having prepared him for this. He had not expected it and, when he heard how Christ was beaten, how He was crucified and that in the end He died, he fell into an armchair and began to weep bitterly. He had believed in a Savior and now his Savior was dead! I looked at him and was ashamed. I had called myself a Christian, a pastor, and a teacher of others, but I had never shared the sufferings of Christ as this Russian officer now shared them. Looking at him, it was like seeing Mary Magdalene weeping at the foot of the cross, faithfully weeping when Jesus was a corpse in the tomb. Then I read to him the story of the resurrection and watched his expression change. He had not known that his Savior arose from the tomb. When he heard this wonderful news, he beat his knees and swore—using very dirty, but very “holy” profanity. This was his crude manner of speech. Again he rejoiced, shouting for joy, “He is alive! He is alive!” He danced around the room once more, overwhelmed with happiness! I said to him, “Let us pray!” He did not know how to pray. He did not know our “holy” phrases. He fell on his knees together with me and his words of prayer were: “Oh God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You of Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all of my heart.” I think that all the angels in heaven stopped what they were doing to listen to this sublime prayer from a Russian officer. The man had been won for Christ!

A few years ago, a couple of young men from my church came to our home for dinner. During the course of the dinner, the conversation turned from religion to various world mythologies and we began to play the game of ‘Name That Character.” To play this game, you pick a category such as famous actors, superheroes or historical characters. In turn, each person describes events in a famous character’s life while everyone else tries to guess who the character is. Strategically you try to describe the deeds of a character in such a way that it might fit any number of characters in that category. After three guesses, if no one knows who your character is, then you win. Choosing the category of Bible Characters, we played a couple of fairly easy rounds with the typical figures, then it was my turn. Now, knowing these well meaning young men had very little religious experience or understanding outside of their own religion, I posed a trick question. I said, “Now my character may seem obvious, but please wait until the end of my description to answer.” I took a long breath for dramatic effect, and began, “My character was the son of the King of Heaven and a mortal woman.” Immediately both young men smiled knowingly, but I raised a finger asking them to wait to give their responses. I continued, “While he was just a baby, a jealous rival attempted to kill him and he was forced into hiding for several years. As he grew older, he developed amazing powers. Among these were the ability to turn water into wine and to control the mental health of other people. He became a great leader and inspired an entire religious movement. Eventually he ascended into heaven and sat with his father as a ruler in heaven.” Certain they knew who I was describing, my two guests were eager to give the winning answer. However, I held them off and continued, “Now I know adding these last parts will seem like overkill, but I simply cannot describe this character without mentioning them. This person’s birthday is celebrated on December 25th and he is worshipped in a spring festival. He defied death, journeyed to the underworld to raise his loved ones from the dead and was resurrected. He was granted immortality by his Father, the king of the gods, and was worshipped as a savior god by entire cultures.” The two young men were practically climbing out of their seats, their faces beaming with the kind of smile only supreme confidence can produce. Deciding to end the charade I said, “I think we all know the answer, but to make it fair, on the count of three just yell out the answer. One. Two. Three.” “Jesus Christ” they both exclaimed in unison – was that your answer as well? Both young men sat back completely satisfied with their answer, confident it was the right one…, but I remained silent. Five seconds ticked away without a response, then ten. The confidence of my two young friends clearly began to drain away. It was about this time that my wife began to shake her head and smile to herself. Finally, one of them asked, “It is Jesus Christ, right? It has to be!” Shaking my head, I said, “Actually, I was describing the Greek god Dionysus.

The bible therefore teaches us to always ensure that our hearts are not filled with hatred and on the contrary they should be filled with joy and love so that we can be campaigners of peace. This is how Jesus wants us Christians to live. He himself ensured that the state of his heart was not affected by the bad things that people he had come to save did to him before killing him of the cross. He was so kind that even after resurrecting he came back to ensure that they had eternal salvation.

What is the difference between my view and the classical Christian perspective? I am convinced that there are not multiple comings and multiple returns of Christ, but only one decisive coming at the end of the world, which includes the resurrection, the rapture, and his appearance in the sky!

A line has been drawn that the followers of Jesus may not cross over. We are the people of resurrection, not death.

Jesus’ first followers in the New Testament, who believed that the coming Messianic king had already come once and that the first fruits of the future resurrection had occurred, often treated the future kingdom as also present. We recognize that just as the king has both come and will come again, his kingdom has already invaded this world but remains to be consummated. Where the other Gospels use “kingdom of God,” Matthew uses “kingdom of heaven” with just four or five exceptions. This Jewish expression appears elsewhere and reflects the Jewish use of “heaven” at times as a respectful and roundabout way of saying “God.” ◆

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” John 11:25-26

Jesus’ institution of the new covenant in his blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sin, is a dividing line. The complex of events including the cross, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit at Pentecost brings the arrival of the kingdom’s redemptive life, by which time John had been executed. John is the greatest of those born during the OT era because of his crucial role in preparing the way for the Messiah and his kingdom. John’s mission was great because of the greatness of the one he introduced. Those in the kingdom of heaven are greater because of their privilege to have actually entered the kingdom of heaven.

And Jesus said unto them, The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: for neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

Human life was reduced to slavery and the soul-ruled earthly realm through Adam’s fall but is now awakened to lordship in the heavenly realm of spiritual realities through the knowledge of our co-resurrection with Christ. ([See Col 3:1-11.] We theologically created the idea of man being “sinful by nature” as if humans are flawed by design. In fact it is a distorted mind-set that we inherited from Adam that Jesus had to free us from. “Your indifferent mind-set alienated you from God into a lifestyle of annoyances, hardships, and labors, sponsored by the law of sin and death that lodged in your bodies hosting a foreign influence, foreign to your design; just like a virus that would attach itself to a person.” Col 1:21  There is nothing wrong with our design or salvation, we were thinking wrong. [See Isa 55:8-11, Eph 4:17, 18 and also Eph 2:1-11.])

And Jesus said unto them, "The sons of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: for neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

7But whatever were gains to me I now consider lossm for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowingn Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christo 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,p but that which is through faith in1 Christ—the righteousnessq that comes from God on the basis of faith.r 10I want to knows Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings,t becoming like him in his death,u 11and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrectionv from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal,w but I press on to take holdx of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.y 13Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behindz and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press ona toward the goal to win the prizeb for which God has calledc me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The same thing could be said of the Bible as a whole. The crucifixion-resurrection, after all, isn’t just one event among many in the life of Jesus. It’s the event to which the whole Old Testament looks forward. From God’s making of animal-skin clothing for Adam and Eve, to the sacrificial system under the Mosaic Law, to the representative suffering of Israel’s king, to Isaiah’s prophecy of a Suffering Servant of the Lord, to Zechariah’s prophecy of a Stricken Shepherd, the Old Testament longs for its fulfillment in a King who would suffer, die, and triumph.

Spoke of his departure” (Luke 9:31); “Tell no one . . . until the Son of Man is raised from the dead” (Matt. 17:9; cf. Mark 9:9). Though in different ways, each of these Gospel writers makes clear what the transfiguration was about. Coming after Peter’s confession, there is affirmation from heaven that Peter has identified Jesus correctly (“This is my Son”). Coming after Jesus’ prediction of his death, there is indication of the resurrection and ascension. The subject of the discussion is at least as important as the glory of the event.

Names in the bible are significant. e.g. David means, beloved by God and man. And so king David was. Jesus asks who do you say I am? A question to his disciples, but also all of us? He says the father's name is to be hallowed (see the Lord's prayer) and that he and the Father are one. So we should meditate on the holiness of his names. There are hundreds of names for God. They each provide a rich blessing of description. One such name is: God of Wonders The hymn says "God of wonders, beyond our galaxy, You are holy." It is worth thinking on any wonders, however seemingly small, that we are blessed with in life. God operates in both the magnificent out of the ordinary (e.g. Acts 2:19) and in the everyday. This God of resurrection wonder (Eph 1:20) not only raised Christ, but daily raises up those in need. His blessings are new every morning. He not only is a creative life giver at the beginning (Is 44:24), but continues to be now. He promises that all things can be made new (Is 42:9) and all creation is groaning like a woman in birth pains for it. He and His kingdom are coming little by little, wonder, by wonder for he is the God of wonders and is truly wonderful.

The Bible reads like a collection of books about people caught up in exodus and exile. It is a book that shows the destruction of imperialism and war. It shows how innocents suffer. The climax of the book is the suffering innocent saviour crucified on a tree. But, God is not done there, it is also a story of resurrection, redemption, and hope. It is the story of people with good news to share by words and action. It is counter-culture and more relevant now than some may realise. In an age of wars and rumours of war, an age of refugees in exile and mass exodus, it speaks of the need for love and compassion. The early followers of Jesus were famous for love and not hate. So while the extremists, the religiously ignorant, the politically cold, the divisive nationalists and the greedy arms dealers fuel the world's problems, and beat the war drums, let us the people of new birth be lights in the darkness and voices in the wilderness. Let us live and sing the song of love, for truly His banner over us is love. It is to that beat we march and in His name, not the gods of hate and war, but the God of love, the Prince of Shalom (peace). Soli Deo Gloria. Amen

The significance of establishing those two facts (1) that Jesus claimed to be God and (2) that He rose from the dead is this; if Jesus said that he was God but he wasn’t, then he was either a lying heretic or else he was crazy. If that were the case, there’s no way God The Father would resurrect Jesus from the dead knowing that doing so would vindicate his blasphemous claims and lead many people astray. God would never raise a heretic and a blasphemer, but if God did raise Jesus from the dead, then God implicitly put his stamp of approval on everything Jesus said and did. If Jesus rose from the dead, then that means God The Father agreed with Jesus’ claims for which his enemies killed him as a blasphemer. If God The Father raised Jesus from the dead then that means He agrees with Jesus’ claims to be divine. If that’s the case, then whatever Jesus teaches carries a lot of weight.

To love one another as He loves us, is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. For it is love that kills our outward man’s ways; buries him in baptism; and causes our inward-man (named Jesus) to resurrect on the inside of us!

Jesus did not reveal a “potential” you, he revealed the truth about you so that you may know the truth about yourself and be free indeed! In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God did not redeem a compromised replica of you; he rescued the original, blueprint you, created in his radiant mirror likeness! Any other ‘self’ you’re trying to find or esteem will disappoint! Reckon your ‘DIY-law of works-self’ dead, and your redeemed self co-raised and co-seated together with Christ! This is freedom indeed!

What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.

Hebrews 6 1So let’s push on toward a more perfect understanding and move beyond just the basic teachings of the Anointed One. There’s no reason to rehash the fundamentals: repenting from what you loved in your old dead lives, believing in God as our Creator and Redeemer, 2teaching about baptism,* setting aside those called to service through the ritual laying on of hands, the coming resurrection of those who have died, and God’s final judgment of all people for all time. 3No, we will move on toward perfection, if God wills it. C6 It’s clear that Jesus wanted His people to grow and mature in faith. Those who don’t move beyond the basics—tasting the gifts and powers of the new creation, partaking in the Spirit and the word of God—and then fall away bring shame to Jesus and produce nothing but briars and brambles. There is no stagnant life in the Kingdom. Either you grow and produce a blessing or you languish and descend into a curse. Be warned.

We may only be reading from the New Testament one paragraph of Paul, but as we get close to that reading and look not only at it but through it we can see the entire sweep of Paul’s vision, of the biblical narrative focused now on Jesus and his messianic death and resurrection.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

When we attack sin, we are either attacking idols outside the church and calling sinners to repentance, or attacking idols inside the church and calling sinners to repentance. While there is a crucial difference between talking to a corpse and talking to a resurrected corpse, the sin is still sin. And the sin is always a crutch or a cover: an attempt at finding safety, security, comfort, peace, meaning in something or someone other than Christ. And almost always, those crutches were snatched up from family, friends, television, celebrities, etc., grasping for what looks safe or what looks cool.

3) Chrislam is an Obvious False Teaching that Has Entered Christianity: Marloes Janson and Birgit Meyer state that Chrislam merges Christianity and Islam. This syncretistic movement rests upon the belief that following Christianity or Islam alone will not guarantee salvation. Chrislamists participate in Christian and Islamic beliefs and practices. During a religious service Tela Tella, the founder of Ifeoluwa, Nigeria’s first Chrislamic movement, proclaimed that “Moses is Jesus and Jesus is Muhammad; peace be upon all of them – we love them all.’” Marloes Janson says he met with a church member who calls himself a Chrislamist. The man said, “You can’t be a Christian without being a Muslim, and you can’t be a Muslim without being a Christian.” These statements reflect the mindset of this community, which mixes Islam with Christianity, and African culture. Samsindeen Saka, a self-proclaimed prophet, also promotes Chrislam. Mr. Saka founded the Oke Tude Temple in Nigeria in 1989. The church's name means the mountain of loosening bondage. His approach adds a charismatic flavor to Chrislam. He says those bound by Satan; are set free through fasting and prayer. Saka says when these followers are set free from evil spirits. Then, the Holy Spirit possesses them. Afterward, they experience miracles of healing and prosperity in all areas of their life. He also claims that combining Christianity and Islam relieves political tension between these groups. This pastor seeks to take dominion of the world in the name of Chrislam (1). Today, Chrislam has spread globally, but with much resistance from the Orthodox (Christians, Muslims, and Jews). Richard Mather of Israeli International News says Chrislamists recognize both the Judeo-Christian “Bible and the Quran as holy texts.” So, they fuse these religions by removing Jewish references from the Bible. Thereby neutralizing the prognostic relevance “of the Jewish people and the land of Israel.” This fusion of Islam with Christianity is a rebranded form of replacement theology (2) (3). Also, traditional Muslims do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, they do not believe Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world. Thus, these religions cannot merge without destroying the foundations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. References: 1. Janson, Marloes, and Birgit Meyer. “Introduction: Towards a Framework for the Study of Christian-Muslim Encounters in Africa.” Africa, Vol. 86, no. 4, 2016, pp. 615-619, 2. Mather, Richard. “What is Chrislam?” Arutz Sheva – Israel International News. Jewish Media Agency, 02 March 2015, 3. Janson, Marloes. Crossing Religious Boundaries: Islam, Christianity, and ‘Yoruba Religion' in Lagos, Nigeria, (The International African Library Book 64). Cambridge University Press. 2021.

This can sometimes degenerate into the Romantic or existentialist idea, a kind of parody of the theology of grace, that sees the only good deeds as those that ‘come naturally’, those in which one is being ‘true to oneself’, living ‘authentically’ in the sense of there being a close fit between deep intention and practical action. The trouble with that, of course, is that it would be all right if we were already at the goal in the sense of already being completely filled with the spirit, already raised from the dead; but at the moment we are still on the way, in via. The resurrection has not already occurred, except in the case of Jesus, and for that reason moral effort (always with the Pauline proviso, ‘not I, but God’s grace’; compare 1 Corinthians 15.10) is still essential.

If you really stop and think about it, even Jesus prayed a prayer in Gethsemane that wasn't answered the way He wanted it to be. Did He not believe enough in the Father? Did he not pray long enough, or hard enough, or with enough faith? Of course not! The mere thought is ridiculous. And so I wonder if maybe we need to shift our focus away from rosy platitudes that are, quite honestly, easier to say than the alternative---the hard work of keeping our hearts open in the pain. Recognizing that God is with us, whether or not He calms the waves." Aunt Charlotte patted Alice's hand once more. "And that's not to say fear is what God wants for us, because I don't believe that's true. But it is to say you aren't alone in it, Alice. Not hardly. God has never left you, and I haven't either." "You're right..." Alice's voice trailed off as she cozied deeper into the sofa. "I've never thought about it like that before, but even Jesus prayed there'd be some other way than the suffering He endured, and He was the Son of God. And even Lazarus died eventually. Death always comes before resurrection. All this time, I've been so focused on praying my mom back to health that I've missed out on the big picture. It's not about whether I pray fervently enough to unlock some blessing through the right combination of words. It's about God walking with us in our brokenness---a brokenness the Bible warns that in this world, we will all endure. Maybe instead of trying to sidestep the pain, I need to fill it instead, and ask God to help me find a way through.

However much the Bible insists on the historicity of these events, it never treats them as mere pieces of raw data—admittedly, rather surprising raw data—the meaning of which we are free to make up for ourselves. It is as important to know what these events mean as to know that they happened.

The issue of the Bible’s reliability is crucial. It is via the Scriptures that the church historically has claimed to understand matters of faith and life, from God’s creation of all things out of nothing to the significance of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ to the ultimate consummation of all things toward which history is moving. If the Bible is unreliable in what it teaches about these things, the church is left to speculate and has nothing of value to speak to the world.

different perspective. Matthew looks at Him through the perspective of His kingdom; Mark through the perspective of His servanthood; Luke through the perspective of His humanness; and John through the perspective of His deity. The Book of Acts chronicles the impact of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior—from His Ascension, the consequent coming of the Holy Spirit, and the birth of the church, through the early years of gospel preaching by the apostles and their associates. Acts records the establishment of the church in Judea, Samaria, and into the Roman Empire. The twenty-one epistles were written to churches and individuals to explain the significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ, with its implications for life and witness until He returns. The NT closes with Revelation, which starts by picturing the current church age, and culminates with Christ’s return to establish His earthly kingdom, bringing judgment on the ungodly and glory and blessing for believers. Following the millennial reign of the Lord Savior will be the last judgment, leading to the eternal state. All believers of all history enter the ultimate eternal glory prepared for them, and all the

It is important to observe in the Bible not only what it contains, but also what it omits. One interesting feature of the New Testament is that Jesus never asked anyone to tell Him about the circumstances of his sins. He knew men to be sinful, so the details of their trespasses, be they small offenses or huge crimes, did not interest Him. Instead of probing in dirt, He went from one man to another saying, “Be of good cheer, son; be of good cheer, daughter. Your sins are forgiven.” Another important feature is that no one ever said to Jesus, “Please, forgive me,” or, “I am sorry.” On the last evening all the apostles fled and one denied Him. Later, when the resurrected Lord appeared to them, it would have been appropriate for them to ask His forgiveness. None did. Whoever looked into Jesus’ face saw there so much love and goodness that he felt, “With Jesus forgiveness is self-evident. His willingness to forgive me is much greater than my readiness to ask for forgiveness. His wish for me to be saved is far greater than my own. His desire for my fellowship in heaven is greater than my wish to go there.” They did not approach Jesus with words of apology, but only trusted in His goodness.

The Bible verses that comfort me most are two verses that are not in the Bible.” First, I am happy that the Bible never mentions Jesus asking anyone what sins they had committed, how many, of what gravity, under what circumstances, with what complicity. He met sinners and told them, “Be of good cheer, son or daughter, your sins are forgiven.” Second, what I appreciate is that the Bible records no instance in which anyone apologized or asked Jesus for forgiveness during His earthly life. On the last evening before His crucifixion, the disciples had forsaken Him and one had denied Him. Afterwards, when they met their resurrected Lord, they should at least have said, “I’m sorry.” But whoever looked into the face of Jesus saw so much kindness, so much love, such a willingness to forgive, that he knew there was no need to ask.

For many years scholars have considered it highly significant that Paul, our earliest “witness” to the resurrection, says nothing about the discovery of an empty tomb. Our earliest account of Jesus’s resurrection (1 Cor. 15:3–5) discusses the appearances without mentioning an empty tomb, while our earliest Gospel, Mark, narrates the discovery of the empty tomb without discussing any of the appearances (Mark 16:1–8). This has led some scholars, such as New Testament expert Daniel Smith, to suggest that these two sets of tradition—the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus after his death—probably originated independently of one another and were put together as a single tradition only later—for example, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. If this is the case, then the stories of Jesus’s resurrection were indeed being expanded, embellished, modified, and possibly even invented in the long process of their being told and retold over the years.