Tag Archive for: J. Warner Wallace

¿Cómo pueden ser los evangelios relatos de testigos oculares si ellos incluyen cosas que los escritores no vieron?

¿Cómo pueden ser los evangelios relatos de testigos oculares si ellos incluyen cosas que los escritores no vieron?

Mi viaje hacia el cristianismo comenzó cuando examiné los evangelios con el fin de analizar las palabras de Jesús. Yo estaba interesado en Jesús nada más como una fuente de sabiduría antigua y mi curiosidad hacia su persona me hizo empezar a examinar cuidadosamente los evangelios. Me impresionó de inmediato la presencia de lo que yo llamo “Apoyo involuntario entre testigos”; una característica que a menudo veo en varias declaraciones de testigos en la escena del crimen. Esto me hizo examinar los evangelios con mucho más detalle y eventualmente apliqué los principios del Análisis de Declaración Forense (Forensic Statement Analysis) al Evangelio de Marcos.

Escribí Cold-Case Christianity desde la perspectiva de un detective de casos congelados (casos sin resolver durante muchos años) examinando las declaraciones de los autores de los evangelios y probando su credibilidad como testigos presenciales. Sin embargo, varios escépticos han cuestionado esta premisa fundamental y han cuestionado si los evangelios son relatos de testigos presenciales en primer lugar. Una objeción importante es el hecho de que los escritores de los evangelios a menudo incluyen información de eventos que simplemente no podrían haber observado personalmente (es decir, los relatos del nacimiento en Mateo o Lucas y varios momentos en donde Jesús es descrito estando solo). ¿Cómo pueden los evangelios ser relatos de testigos si se incluyen hechos que los autores no pudieron haber presenciado? Al leer las declaraciones de testigos presenciales de casos congelados que fueron investigados originalmente hace décadas, encuentro que estas declaraciones incluyen tres tipos de información de primera mano:

Experiencia de primera mano

Los testigos presenciales incluyen descripciones de eventos y sucesos que ellos personalmente observaron y experimentaron.

Acceso de primera mano

Los testigos presenciales incluyen descripciones de eventos y sucesos que no observaron personalmente, pero estaban al tanto debido a la información proporcionada a ellos por alguien más en ese momento.

Conocimiento de primera mano

Los testigos presenciales incluyen descripciones de las condiciones culturales generales y verdades que eran parte del conocimiento común de la época, a pesar de que ellos no tenían experiencia directa u observación en la que basarse.

Es cierto que, en la mayoría de las cortes de los juicios criminales, la “experiencia de primera mano” y el “conocimiento de primera mano” suelen ser las únicas partes del testimonio que son admitidos como evidencia. La parte del testimonio que yo llamo “acceso de primera mano” no se toma en cuenta por ser “de oídas” (porque la fuente original de esta información no está disponible para el interrogatorio). Pero esto no significa que la información de esta categoría sea falsa o inválida. Existen una serie de condiciones en las que estos “testimonios de oídas” son admisibles en los casos penales, pero el estándar de aceptación en los procesos penales está cuidadosamente diseñado para ofrecer la máxima protección posible a los que están siendo acusados de cometer un delito. Preferimos tener a un centenar de personas culpables libres que condenar a una persona inocente. Por esta razón, queremos ser capaces de interrogar cuidadosamente a los testigos que están proporcionando información acusatoria.

Pero este alto estándar asociado con el testimonio de oídas es completamente irracional al examinar las afirmaciones de los testigos relacionados con los acontecimientos históricos. Una vez que un testigo presencial de un evento histórico muere, todo lo que este testigo dijo ya no está abierto a un interrogatorio. Bajo este estándar de la corte, tendríamos que ignorar todo lo que no puede ser declarado por un testigo viviente (y por lo tanto interrogado cuidadosamente). Si aplicamos esta norma a nuestra vida personal, ninguno de nosotros podría tener confianza en nuestra propia historia familiar más allá de nuestros padres o abuelos que aún viven. Es un estándar inaceptablemente alto al examinar las afirmaciones de los testigos relacionados con los acontecimientos históricos. Los testigos presenciales aportan información a la luz de su propia experiencia personal y su observación, su propio acceso a la información de otros testigos vivientes, y su propio conocimiento profundo de la cultura en la que viven. Me parece que esto es cierto en todos los casos en que he trabajado. El hecho de que un testigo presencial opte por proporcionar información de “acceso de primera mano” no desacredita lo que ellos están proveyendo de “experiencia de primera mano” o “conocimiento de primera mano”. De hecho, la inclusión de datos adicionales simplemente proporciona al investigador más datos para investigar, corroborar y presentar al jurado.

 

J. Warner Wallace tiene una trayectoria de más de 25 años como policía y detective, posee un Master en Teología por el Seminario Teológico Golden Gate Baptist y es profesor adjunto de Apologética en la universidad de BIOLA.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2mjmBwg

Traducido por José Giménez Chilavert

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How a Cold-Case Atheist Detective Became a Case-Making Christian

How a Cold-Case Atheist Detective Became a Case-Making Christian

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By Terrell Clemmons

I think it may be true,” Jim Wallace said to his wife, Susie. He was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

“What may be true?”

“Christianity.” Why did she need to ask? He’d been obsessed with the subject for several weeks now, talking her ears off on multiple occasions. It had all started at Saddleback Church during an otherwise normal Sunday morning service. A friend, a fellow police officer, had been inviting him for months, and he’d finally acquiesced. Susie liked the family to attend church, and although Jim had no use for religion, he loved his wife deeply and placed a very high priority on marriage and family. As for church, he didn’t get it, but he was fine going along for her sake.

Jim managed to ignore most of the sermon, but his ears did perk up when Pastor Rick Warren mentioned some wise principles Jesus taught that could be applied today. He’d described Jesus as “the smartest man who ever lived.” This guy Jesus might have some information I could use workwise, Jim thought. He’d always been open to learning from any ancient sage whose wisdom had stood the test of time. So the following week he dropped $6.00 on a Bible at B. Dalton bookstore and leafed straight to the New Testament Gospels. He wasn’t interested in anything but the red letters. What did Jesus say?

As Jim read, though, he was soon struck by something else. By this time in his career as a police officer and crime investigator, he had interviewed hundreds if not thousands of eyewitnesses and suspects and had read countless written testimonies. The Gospel accounts, he was surprised to note, bore a striking resemblance, not to the mythology or moralistic storytelling he’d always believed them to be, but to actual eyewitness accounts, something with which he was intimately familiar. His investigator’s curiosity was piqued.

Opening an Investigation

Since he’d shown a knack for interviewing early in his career, Jim had received special training in a variety of investigative techniques. One of them, a methodology called Forensic Statement Analysis (FSA), was especially designed to scrutinize eyewitness testimonies to detect deception and other manner of falsification. Wow, Jim thought, wouldn’t it be cool to try to apply this discipline I do at work to one of the Gospels?

He was in his element now. He started with the Gospel of Mark. For a full month, he meticulously picked it apart, hanging on every word, and in spite of deep skepticism going in, ultimately came to the conclusion that the Gospel writer Mark had penned the eyewitness account of the Apostle Peter, exactly what traditional Christianity has held all along. Pressing on, he subsequently reached the conclusion that the other three Gospels also gave every appearance of being exactly what they purported to be—authentic, eyewitness accounts written by men who genuinely believed what they were writing.

Personal Crossroads

This was a wholly unexpected development. At this juncture, Jim’s well-honed drive to uncover truth ran square up against his lifelong aversion to all things religious. The only son of a divorced, cultural Catholic mother and atheist father, Jim had been an avowed atheist all his life. And he was quite happy with it. Religion had always been just plain silly to him, and as a shrewd cop for whom skepticism was a skill that got you home at night, he had a very low threshold for silliness. Christianity might be a useful delusion for some, or an area of weakness for others, but nothing beyond that. Worse, despite his love and respect for Susie as a quiet believer, he’d badmouthed the few people he’d known in the department who were Christians. Now, as a follow-the-facts-wherever-they-lead investigator, he had to contend with the possibility that there might be something to this “garbage” after all.

By now, he was on much more than an intellectual exercise. The Scriptures he’d been examining contained certain claims that were supremely unsettling to a contented atheist. There were supernatural claims, claims about authority, claims about exactly who was God. And some of Jesus’ teachings, if you took them seriously, were devastatingly convicting. What do I do with the claims of Jesus related to his own divinity? And the claims of Jesus related to the nature of my heart?

As an atheist, he’d always felt like he was a good guy. He’d made his own rules for what was appropriate, and according to them, he was living a good life. He wasn’t hurting anybody. He was even devoting his life to stopping the bad guys who were. He didn’t believe in heaven, but if there was one, he was fairly confident he would make it in. But Jesus said differently. Who was right?

“I knew that I was standing on the edge of something profound,” he wrote in Cold Case Christianity.

I started reading the Gospels to learn what Jesus taught about living a good life and found that He taught much more about His identity as God and the nature of eternal life. I knew that it would be hard to accept one dimension of His teaching while rejecting the others. If I had good reason to believe that the Gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts, I was going to have to deal with the stuff I had always resisted as a skeptic. What about all the miracles that are wedged in there between the remarkable words of Jesus?… And why was it that I continued to resist the miraculous elements in the first place?

These were imposing questions, threatening to upheave everything he’d believed all his life.

Sometime during this Gospel investigation, a friend gave him a copy of Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis. After reading it, Jim, ever obsessive once onto the trail of something, went out and bought everything C. S. Lewis had written. One quote from God in the Dock resonated powerfully when he read it and never left him afterwards. “Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, is of infinite importance,” Lewis wrote. “The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” It made such perfect sense. The big-question issues of life, Jim thought, those are the ones I should be spending my time on. The most important thing he could do right now was to answer the question, Are these Gospels divine?

All his adult life, he’d instructed jurors to stay evidential in their examination of what happened. “Live and breathe what the evidence dictates to you,” was the inviolable rule. And just as jurors must make decisions based on the evidence, not personal predispositions, so, he knew, must he. And after a full investigation, he found that the evidence strongly suggested that the Gospels were, in fact, divine. And if they were, it followed that Jesus was right and he was wrong. He knew that to reject this truth any longer would be perilous. He accepted it as transcendent truth and began making life adjustments accordingly.

Case-Making Christianity

Jim became a Christian, not because he had any life problem he needed to fix—he was quite happy with his life—but because he became convinced that Christianity is true. “It’s not convenient for me. It’s not always comfortable, and it doesn’t always serve my purposes. There are times when my brokenness would like to take a shortcut, but I’m stuck with the fact that this is true,” he says. “And like any transcendent truth, you’re either going to measure yourself by it, or you’re going to reject it to your own peril.”

But don’t get the idea that he’s a reluctant convert. He immediately plunged with Wallace-esque drive into full-bore Christian case-making: he enrolled in seminary and seven years later completed a masters in theology. He also served part-time as a youth pastor, all the while still working full-time as a detective. Out of his passion to train believers, particularly young people, to become case-making Christians, he created PleaseConvinceMe.com [coldcasechristianity.com current site] as a place to post and discuss what he was discovering about the evidence supporting Christianity.

The website draws fire at times because Jim doesn’t limit himself to presenting Christian principles for a Christian readership. Quite to the contrary, he regularly puts forth objective truth claims about reality, making the case that Christianity is true, not just true for him and maybe true for you, but transcendently true for everyone at all times.

And he’s amassing formidable evidence to support the claim. Much of it is objective and rational—that’s what draws the fire. But there is also that which is subjective and personal, but no less real. Case in point: this formerly angry atheist who had been ever ready to tell any bothersome Christian why he didn’t accept all that “hooey” engages his detractors with remarkable patience, occasionally hearing echoes of his own younger voice. As a toughened cop and softened believer, he can now “take a punch and deliver a kiss. I no longer have a desire to respond with anger,” he explains. “Not because I’m more clever tactically, but because I think that God has done something in my own life. That God who I discovered was true evidentially, I’m also discovering in my own life is true evidentially. Because he’s changing me.” •

Christian Case-Making 101

Cold Case Christianity

Jim Wallace keeps a leather bag packed beside his bed. His callout bag holds the tools he’ll need if he’s called to a homicide scene during the night—a flashlight, digital recorder, notepad, etc. It also contains an investigative checklist representing years of distilled wisdom gleaned from partners, classes, training seminars, and his own years of experience. His new book, Cold Case Christianity, offers a metaphorical toolkit for both Christians and skeptics and invites them to retrace with him the steps he took when he applied his investigative tools to the Gospels years ago. The real-life detective stories he uses to illustrate the principles will be an added delight for TV crime-show fans. Cold Case Christianity will:

  • Give you ten principles of cold case investigation and equip you to use them to evaluate the claims of the New Testament Gospel authors. Applying these principles will help you gain a firmer handle on the historic evidence for Christianity.
  • Provide you with a four-step template for evaluating eyewitnesses to determine if they are reliable, and walk you through applying these steps to the eyewitness Gospel accounts, showing how they more than adequately pass forensic muster.

The historic truth claims of Christianity are under assault from all directions, but when pressed, they withstand the most scrupulous of investigative techniques. Jim Wallace is passionate about getting this information out, and about training Christians to become skilled case-makers for Christianity. “Most other theistic worldviews are deficient in the very areas where Christianity is strong,” he says. “We have great reasons to believe what we believe.”

—Terrell Clemmons

 

Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

This article was originally published at salvomag.com: http://bit.ly/2VUTDDS

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So the Next Generation will Know

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Whether you’re a Christian parent, youth leader, or educator who works with Generation Z, you got to listen to this interview. As powerful ideas in our increasingly secular culture shape more of this generation, trusted leaders must share what they know about Jesus in ways that will reach them. Frank interview J. Warner Wallace and Sean McDowell about their new book. This book is backed by the latest research and first hand experience, and it shows how to share biblical truth with a generation that desperately needs to hear it in a way that draws them in instead of pushing them away. Make sure you listen to this insightful interview.

If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at  Hello@CrossExamined.org.

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Book Review So the Next Generation Will Know by Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace

Book Review: So the Next Generation Will Know by Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace

By Timothy Fox

You’ve probably seen the statistics and heard the concerns. Young people are leaving the church in greater numbers than ever. While the youth of every generation share many common characteristics, this generation – dubbed Generation Z – faces new and unique challenges thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones and easy access to the Internet. Young Christians are constantly bombarded with differing ideas and worldviews, all that are competing with the faith of their parents. It’s easy to give up and lose hope. But if you love this next generation, you can’t and you won’t. That’s why Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace have written So the Next Generation Will Know: Preparing Young Christians for a Challenging World. This book aims to help parents, teachers, and anyone else with a passion for young people to prepare the next generation for the unique challenges they will face.

Content

Next Gen consists of eight chapters divided into two sections. The first section provides a greater understanding of Gen Z and their specific needs. Chapter 1 gives general statistics about Gen Z and why they abandon Christianity. It also explains the critical ingredients to keeping young people connected to the church. Chapter 2 explores the unique characteristics of today’s youth – both positive and negative – and how to leverage them to form meaningful relationships with the young people in our lives.

Chapter 3 focuses on a recurring theme of the book, how imparting truth requires a genuine relationship. It examines obstacles that hinder Gen Z from connecting with others, like consumerism and social media, as well as how to counter them. The chapter ends with ten strategies for connecting with Gen Z, such as engaging in their world and setting appropriate boundaries. Chapter 4 provides ways to equip the next generation with a fully-formed Christian worldview, which includes strengthening your own theological and apologetic foundation first.

The second section of Next Gen offers practical steps to prepare Gen Z for their unique challenges. Young people are not content with simply being given information, but they want to know why it is true and why it is important. This is the main idea of chapter 5 and the principle “two ‘whys’ for every ‘what.’” Chapter 6 explains the difference between teaching and training young people, how training requires a purpose or a goal. And if we give them a challenge, they will rise to it.

Chapter 7 explores specific ways to challenge young people, like taking them on worldview missions trips and teaming with ministries such as Maven Truth (read Tim Stratton’s experience with Maven here). Once you have established a challenge, Chapter 8 outlines how to prepare your young people for it, using things they already encounter in their lives, like pop culture and current events. Finally, the Appendix contains lots of additional resources to help you to train young people.

Assessment

So the Next Generation Will Know is not just another apologetics answer book. Neither is it merely theoretical. Instead, it offers direct instructions to help you equip young people to internalize their Christian faith. While it is a short book – just under 200 pages – it contains plenty of research, statistics, and personal experiences from McDowell and Wallace, both having spent many years working with youth. If you are a parent, teacher, youth worker, or simply someone who has a passion to equip the next generation to stand strong in the Christian faith, So the Next Generation Will Know is the perfect resource for you.

So the Next Generation Will Know releases May 1, 2019. For more information about the book and exclusive pre-order offers, click here.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2GzFZvn

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The Clash of Christianity and Culture

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Detective and apologist J. Warner Wallace hosts this episode of the Cross Examined Official Podcast. During this episode he discusses the following topics:

How Media Consumption Threatens the Future of Christianity (It’s Not What You Think).
Why Young Ex-Christians Are Ex-Christians, According to the Latest Research.
Three Reasons Why All Americans Should Want Their Politicians to Be Religious.
The Good News for Christians From An Otherwise Bleak Pew Study.

Don’t miss this special edition of the Cross Examined Show!

Keep us busy by sending your questions to Hello@CrossExamined.org and don’t miss this episode!

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Cómo sabemos que Jesús realmente murió

¿Cómo sabemos que Jesús realmente murió?

A recent podcast listener offered the following objection: Couldn’t the disciples have been wrong about Jesus’ death? After all, when Paul was stoned by the Jews of Antioch and Iconium (in Acts 14 ) they dragged him out of the city and left him for dead. “ But the disciples surrounded him and he got up and went into the city ” (verse 20). If the disciples were wrong about Paul, couldn’t they have been wrong about Jesus too? As I always say, anything and everything is possible, but not everything is reasonable. There are good reasons to believe that the disciples were not wrong about Jesus’ death:

  1. Prolonged contact

Unlike the contact with Paul after his stoning, the disciples had intimate and prolonged contact with the body of Jesus. We tend to read the following verses very quickly:

Mark 15:43-46

“ Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the council… bought a linen cloth, and taking it off, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock…”

But stop and think about it for a minute. The disciples had to remove the nails, take the body down, carry it a distance to the tomb, prepare the body thoroughly with ointments and spices used on such occasions, wrap the body, and then place it in the tomb. While we can read the procedure in minutes, it takes much longer to actually complete. Surely the disciples were also deeply grieving over Jesus’ death. In all this prolonged contact with his body, do we really think that they didn’t go out of their way to prove to themselves that he wasn’t really dead? During all this time, is it reasonable to believe that they wouldn’t have noticed the three uncomfortable characteristics of dead bodies? I’ve been around enough dead people to recognize the characteristics that appear when a heart stops beating:

Temperature drop

When the heart stops beating, the body begins to grow cold. In the time it would take to prepare Jesus for the grave, the disciples would certainly have noticed this characteristic of death.

Rigidity

When blood is not circulating, the body begins to stiffen. Dead bodies begin to feel and behave differently than unconscious bodies with a beating heart.

Lividness

Gravity begins to act on the lack of blood circulation. When the blood remains in those extremities closest to the ground, the pigmentation is noticeable.

In all the time it took to prepare Jesus’ body, with all the time the disciples had in contact, is it reasonable to think that they would not have repeatedly checked to see if he was still breathing and that they would not have noticed the three uncomfortable characteristics of dead people?

  1. Unexpected corroboration

John , a disciple of Jesus, grew up as a fisherman. I doubt he had any medical training. However, look at what he reports in his Gospel:

John 19:32-34

“ The soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man, and of the other man who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance, and immediately blood and water came out .”

John seems to record an aspect of Jesus’ body that is common when people are fatally wounded. Critical injuries typically cause people to go into circulatory shock, a condition I commonly see at the scenes of assaults or accidents. When people die from their wounds, their death is usually accompanied by Pericardial or Pleural Effusion , a condition that causes water to accumulate around the heart or inside the lungs. It appears that the illiterate fisherman is reporting this condition in his Gospel.

Do you think he could have done this intentionally in an effort to mislead us, or is it more reasonable to attribute his description to a true observation?

  1. External confirmation

History tells us that Roman soldiers were to pay a terrible penalty if they allowed a capital criminal to escape or avoid the sentence to which he was sentenced. For this reason, Roman soldiers were ruthless and meticulous in carrying out their orders with precision . Look again at how the Bible describes the death of Jesus:

John 19:31 – 33

“ Then the Jews, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath day (for that Sabbath day was a high day), begged Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they did not break his legs .”

According to non-Christians at the scene, Jesus was dead on the cross.

  1. Connection with eyewitnesses

Look at the description of Jesus’ burial given in Mark’s Gospel. Note Joseph of Arimathea’s description:

          Mark 15:42-46

“When evening came, (for it was the Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath,) Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God, came and went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised that he was already dead; and when he had brought the centurion, he asked him if he were already dead. When the centurion had informed him, he gave the body to Joseph. Joseph bought a linen cloth, took it off, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of rock. He rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.”

It appears that Mark is describing the same scene as John, but Mark includes a character that John omits. Why does Mark, writing many years before John, include Joseph? It stands to reason that Joseph was still alive when Mark wrote his account; Mark may be including Joseph so that early readers can contact Joseph as a living eyewitness who not only saw the crucifixion, but also touched and wrapped Jesus’ dead body.

The experience the disciples had with Jesus was very different from the experience the disciples had with Paul at the time of his stoning. The disciples simply “stood around” Paul after the stoning; they did much more with Jesus’ body after his crucifixion.

 

J. Warner Wallace is the author of Cold-Case Christianity, has a career spanning more than 25 years as a police officer and detective, holds a Master of Divinity from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and is an adjunct professor of apologetics at BIOLA University.

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2Sa4Df1

Translated by Raul Jaramillo

Edited by Maria Andreina Cerrada

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La Deidad de Jesús no es una leyenda tardía

La Deidad de Jesús no es una leyenda tardía

Como no creyente, sospeché que las historias sobre Jesús se volvían más elaboradas y grandiosas con el paso del tiempo. Por eso era tan importante para mí leer los primeros documentos relacionados con Jesús; esperaba que los relatos iniciales retrataran a Jesús como un maestro sabio, pero nada más. Desde luego, no esperaba que Jesús fuera representado como Dios hasta mucho más tarde en la historia. Pero descubrí justamente lo contrario. Los primeros testigos describen a Jesús como divino y claramente lo adoraron como Dios. Esta representación de Jesús aparece constantemente en los escritos de cada estudiante sucesivo y líder cristiano fiel a través de los primeros años de la historia cristiana. A continuación, un breve resumen de las primeras descripciones de Jesús:

La Deidad de Jesús no es una leyenda tardía

Bernabé, compañero de Pablo (c. 70-130 d.C.)

“Él es el Señor de todo el mundo, al que dijo Dios en el principio del mundo: Hagamos al hombre a imagen y semejanza nuestra”.

Ignacio, obispo de la Iglesia de Antioquía (c. 110 d.C.)

“Dios mismo se manifestó en forma humana para la regeneración de la vida eterna”.

Clemente de Roma, el obispo de la Iglesia en Roma (c. 120 d.C.)

“Hermanos, es lógico que deben pensar en Jesucristo como de Dios – como Juez de

los vivos y los muertos”.

Ireneo, Obispo de la Iglesia en Lyons (Actualmente), Francia (c. 180 d.C.)

“De esta manera Él manifiesta en términos claros que Él es Dios, y que Su venida fue en Belén… Dios, entonces, se hizo hombre, y el Señor mismo nos salvó”.

“Él es Dios, porque el nombre Emmanuel indica esto”.

“¿Cómo pueden ser salvos si no fue Dios quien obró su salvación en la tierra? ¿O cómo pasará el hombre a Dios, si Dios no hubiera venido primero al hombre?”

Clemente de Alejandría, maestro cristiano de renombre en Egipto (c. 195 d.C.)

“¡Oh, el Gran Dios! ¡O el Hijo perfecto! El Hijo en el Padre y el Padre en el Hijo… Dios el Verbo, que se hizo hombre por amor a nosotros”.

“Nada, entonces, es odiado por Dios, ni tampoco por la Palabra. Por tanto, son uno — es decir, Dios. Porque Él ha dicho: “En el principio el Verbo estaba con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios”.

“El Verbo mismo, que es el Hijo de Dios, es uno con el Padre por igualdad de sustancia. Es eterno e increado”.

Hipólito, presbítero líder en la Iglesia en Roma (c. 205 d.C.)

“Aunque soportó la cruz, volvió a la vida como Dios, habiendo aplastado la muerte”.

Tertuliano, apologista cristiano apasionado en Cartago, África del Norte (c. 207 d.C.)

“Nosotros los que creemos que Dios realmente vivió en la tierra, y que tomó sobre sí la humilde condición humana, con el propósito de salvar al hombre, no pensamos como aquellos que rehúsan creer que a Dios le importe algo…. Afortunadamente, no obstante, es parte del credo de los cristianos el creer en el hecho de que Dios sí ha muerto y que, sin embargo, Él está vivo hoy y para siempre”.

Orígenes, alumno famoso de Clemente de Alejandría (c. 225 d.C.)

“Nadie debe sentirse ofendido que el Salvador también es Dios, al ver que Dios es el Padre. Del mismo modo, ya que el Padre es llamado Omnipotente, nadie debe sentirse ofendido de que el Hijo de Dios también se llama Omnipotente. Porque de esta manera, serán ciertas las palabras que Él dice al Padre: “Todo lo mío es tuyo, y lo tuyo, mío; y he sido glorificado en ellos”.

“El Hijo no es diferente del Padre en sustancia.”

Note que la descripción de Jesús no cambia con el tiempo. Jesús no se hizo más divino con el paso de los años. Jesús era Dios desde los primeros relatos y Él fue adorado como Dios desde el principio. Incluso los no creyentes del primer siglo observaron que Jesús fue adorado como Dios desde los primeros días. Plinio el Joven (61-112 d.C.), el gobernador de Bitinia (d.C. 112) y un senador romano, escribió al emperador Trajano pidiendo orientación sobre cómo se debe tratar a los cristianos en su provincia. Él dijo que los cristianos estaban “reunidos en un cierto día fijo antes de que se hiciera de día, cuando cantaban en forma alternada un himno a Cristo como a un dios, y se comprometían a un juramento solemne, a no hacer malas obras, a no cometer nunca fraudes, robos, adulterios, a no mentir ni negar la fe”. Está claro, incluso a partir de esta referencia pagana, que los primeros creyentes adoraron a Jesús como a Dios.

William Lane Craig, en su libro, Reasonable Faith: Truth And Christian Apologetics (La fe razonable: la verdad y la apologética cristiana), escribe: “Los estudios realizados por académicos del N.T. como Martin Hengel de la Universidad de Tubingen, CFD Moule de Cambridge, y otros han demostrado que después de veinte años de la crucifixión; la Cristología de que completamente proclamaban a Jesús como Dios encarnado ya existía… el sermón cristiano más antiguo, el relato más antiguo de un mártir cristiano, el informe pagano más antiguo de la Iglesia, y la oración litúrgica más antigua (1 Corintios 16:22) todos se refieren a Cristo como Señor y Dios”. Eso es muy poderoso. La Deidad de Jesús no es una creación tardía o una atribución legendaria. Los primeros creyentes, en los primeros capítulos de la historia cristiana, proclamaron que Jesús es Dios.

 

J. Warner Wallace es autor de Cold-Case Christianity, tiene una trayectoria de más de 25 años como policía y detective, posee un Master en Teología por el Seminario Teológico Golden Gate Baptist y es profesor adjunto de Apologética en la universidad de BIOLA.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2U24Qx0

Traducido por Jorge Gil Calderón

Editado por María Andreina Cerrada

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Does Religion Really Matter in America?

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The latest Gallup poll shows a continuing decline of religious influence in America. A dramatic shift has taken place in America related to the way we view religious beliefs. Hidden in the data from the Gallup research lies a clue to the reason for this change in public opinion. Why do fewer Americans think religion matters? Listen to the podcast to hear the answer to this question. Frank and Detective J. Warner Wallace tackle this issue and others in this episode. Don’t miss it!

Keep Frank busy by sending your questions to Hello@CrossExamined.org and don’t miss this episode!

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J. Warner Wallace_ Different Answers to The Question “Why Are You a Christian”

J. Warner Wallace: Different Answers to The Question “Why Are You a Christian?”

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By Wintery Knight

I sometimes think about the horrible experiences I had encountering “normal” Christians in American churches after having become a Christian on my own through reading the New Testament, reading apologetics, and watching William Lane Craig debates. I heard a lot of different reasons to be a Christian from the church Christians, and what struck me was 1) their reasons had nothing to do with objective truth, and 2) their reasons hadn’t prepared them to have serious conversations about Christianity with non-Christians.

Well, J. Warner Wallace recently posted an episode of his podcast about this, and I thought that this might be useful to people who (like me) were confused by what they found in the church.

LAPD homicide detective Jim Wallace examining an assault rifle

Here is the video:

And he has a blog post about it, where he explains all the responses to the question “why are you a Christian?” which he got from the church – none of which were like his answer for why he became a Christian.

Here are some answers that were not like his answer:

I Didn’t Become a Christian Because I Was Raised in the Church
I didn’t come from a Christian family. I wasn’t raised in the church or by people who attended church regularly. While students often tell me this is the reason they’re Christians, this wasn’t the case for me.

I Didn’t Become a Christian Because My Friends Were Christians
I also didn’t know any Christians. I was never invited to church by anyone as a child, and although I knew Christians in my college years, none of these folks ever invited me to church either. My friends were all happy atheists. I didn’t become a Christian to be part of a club.

I Didn’t Become a Christian Because I Wanted to Know God
I can honestly say I had no interest in God growing up, while in college, or while a young married man. I felt no “hole” in my life, had no yearning for the transcendent, no sense something was missing. I was happy and content. I didn’t become a Christian to fulfill some need.

I Didn’t Become a Christian Because I Wanted to Go to Heaven
I was also comfortable with my own mortality. Sure it would be nice if we could all live forever, but that’s just not the way it is. Live life to the fullest, enjoy your friends and family while you have them, and stop whining. I didn’t become a Christian because I was afraid of dying.

I Didn’t Become a Christian Because I Needed to Change My Life
My life prior to becoming a Christian was great. I had a meaningful and fulfilling career, a beautiful family, an incredible wife, and lots of friends. I wasn’t struggling and looking for a solution. I didn’t become a Christian to stop beating my wife or to sober up.

I’m sure that all my readers know that Wallace is a homicide detective and an evidentialist. He handles evidence and builds cases with evidence, and that’s how he approaches his worldview as well. So he didn’t answer any of those.

Wallace’s answer was different:

[…][A]lthough these reasons might motivate students to start their journey, I hope these aren’t the only reasons they’re still here. I’m not sure any of these motivations will suffice when push comes to shove, times get tough or students face the challenges of university life. In the end,truth matters more than anything else. I’m not looking for a useful delusion, a convenient social network, or an empty promise. I just want to know what’s true. I think the students I met in Montreal resonated with this approach to Christianity. They are already members of the Church, have friends in the group, understand the importance of a relationship with God and the promise of Heaven. Now they want to know if any of this stuff is true. It’s our job, as Christian Case Makers, to provide them with the answer.

I’m actually much harder on church Christians than he is because I found that the more fideistic the Churchian, the less you could count on them to act like authentic Christians. I have never met an evidential apologist who was soft on moral questions or tough theology, for example. To me, if you have an evidentialist approach to Christianity, then you have no problem with things like a bodily resurrection of Jesus, with exclusive salvation through faith alone in Christ alone, with a literal eternal separation from God called Hell, and so on.

What about people in other religions? Well, if evidence is your first concern, then it doesn’t bother you that someone of a different religion won’t be saved. For example, I like my Mormon friends, but I know that they’re wrong in their belief in an eternal universe. When I present evidence to them for the beginning of the universe, they just tell me that science isn’t as important to them as the burning in the bosom, their family, their community, etc. Well, if those things are more important to you than knowing the truth about God as he really is, then I’m fine with whatever God decides to do with you when you eventually get old, die and face judgment.

A truth-centered approach to life makes you indifferent to what people think of you. And that’s something that we could all use as Christians, especially those Christians who are more driven by feelings than by facts. A lot of people raised in the church drop out because they go somewhere (e.g., college) where they are made to feel bad for being different. That’s not a problem for evidentialists. We like to be right. We don’t care what people who are wrong think about us. Christians should all read 1 Corinthians 4:1-4, and accept the fact that being truth-centered isn’t going to make you popular.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2UJtRhQ

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¿Por qué los pastores deben ser apologistas

¿Por qué los pastores deben ser apologistas?

If you search the pages of Scripture looking for a list of “offices” (leadership positions within the Church), you are likely to find eight roles described in the New Testament: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers (Ephesians 4:11), elders, deacons, and bishops (1 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Timothy 3:8-13, Titus 1:6-9). One thing you will never find on any biblical list of leadership positions is the office of “apologists.” Why is this position missing from the scriptural list? Wouldn’t it be wise for every church to have a trained and qualified  advocate for the Christian case ?

I can tell you from personal experience: as I travel around the country, very few church leaders seem to be interested in apologetics, and even fewer have studied in this area. In fact, many seminaries do not even offer apologetics courses as part of their Master of Divinity programs (the bachelor’s level sought by pastors). The reason the role of apologist is not found in New Testament leadership listings is not because it is not important enough to be represented in a separate office within the Church. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The responsibility to be an apologist is assigned to all of us as Christians .

God wants each and every one of us to be “always prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks a reason for the hope that is in [us]” (1 Peter 3:15). Our personal responsibility to be an advocate of a case for Christianity is not set aside in an office for the same reason that our personal responsibility to pray is not set aside in an official office within the church. There are no churches with official “prayers” for the same reason that there are no official advocates of the church; this responsibility is given to all of us as Christians. It is fundamental to our identity. If you are a Christian, you are an advocate . Not every Christian must be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, elder, deacon, or bishop, but every Christian must be an apologist.

The New Testament assumes that every apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, elder, deacon, and bishop will be a good advocate of the Christian case, and the assumption (outlined in 1 Peter 3:15) is so fundamental that it is not assigned as a separate office. Sadly, we have failed to see the fundamental nature of advocating the Christian case (despite the directive in 1 Peter and the numerous examples of the discipline offered in the book of Acts). Few pastors have embraced the study of apologetics as part of their daily spiritual discipline, and even fewer have modeled this important aspect of the Christian life to their congregations. I do not write this as an abstract criticism, but as a reflection of my own personal experience.

By the time I graduated from seminary, I was already pastoring. Although my personal journey to faith was largely dependent on my own investigation of evidence, my seminary experience did not confirm the importance of apologetics as a Church leader. In fact, my home Baptist seminary did not offer a single course in Christian Case-Making. For the first few years as a youth pastor, I did not explore apologetics with my students. After a year or so, I realized that my students were not prepared for college and struggled easily once they left the safety of our youth group. I committed to returning to apologetics as a primary responsibility, and for the next ten years (as both youth pastor and senior pastor) I taught and modeled Christian Case-Making in my group on a weekly basis.

There are  some pastors who understand the fundamental nature of apologetics and have modeled this responsibility to their congregations. They have preached, written, and even taken their message online as apologetic pastors. I have been compiling a list of these pastors so you can see what this type of leadership looks like in the Church (thanks to Frank Turek, Brett Kunkle, Greg West, and Brian Auten for helping me with this list):

Anthony Weber, Church of the Living God  in Traverse City, Michigan.

Bobby Conway, Life Fellowship Church  in Huntersville, North Carolina. 

Brian Chilton, Huntsville Baptist Church in Huntsville, North Carolina.

Carl Gallups, Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Milton, Florida.

Christopher Brooks, Evangel Ministries in Detroit, Michigan.

Dan Kimball, Vintage Faith Church  in Santa Cruz, California.

David Robertson, St. Peter’s  Free Church, Dundee, Scotland.

Derwin Gray, Transformation Church  in Indian Land, South Carolina.

Edgar Andrews, Campus Church  in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, UK.

Erwin Lutzer, Moody Church  in Chicago, Illinois.

Jack Wellman, Mulvane Brethren Church  in Mulvane, Kansas.

Joe Boot, Westminster Chapel  , Toronto, Ontario.

Mark D. Roberts, Laity Lodge  in Leakey, Texas.

Matt Rawlings , Christ ‘s Community Church  in Portsmouth, Ohio.

Mike Spaulding, Calvary Chapel  in Lima, Ohio.

Phil Fernandes, Trinity Bible Fellowship  in Silverdale, Washington.

Rice Broocks, Bethel World Outreach Church  in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church  in New York City, New York.

Todd Wagner,  Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas .

Voddie Baucham, Grace Family Baptist Church  in Spring, Texas.

I’m sure there are many more apologetic pastors, but in putting together this list, each of us lamented its brevity. Wouldn’t it be nice if a blog like this couldn’t even be written? Would it be great if the potential list of apologetic pastors were so long that it couldn’t be succinctly outlined? Perhaps it’s time for all of us, as members of congregations across the country, to encourage our pastors to develop a discipline and practice of personal apologetics. But before we demand this of others, let’s make sure each of us accepts our personal responsibility to be the best advocates of the Christian case we can be.

 

J. Warner Wallace is a Cold Case Detective , Cold Case Christian Advocate , Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview , and the author of Cold-Case Christianity , Cold-Case Christianity for Kids , God’s Crime Scene , God’s Crime Scene for Kids , and Forensic Faith .

Original Blog: http://bit.ly/2NWpnkn

Translated by Maria Andreina Cerrada

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