Tag Archive for: New Testament

Skeptics often challenge believers by claiming that the “evidence” for Christianity would never hold up in a courtroom. It’s hearsay, they contend, and since these witnesses can’t be cross-examined, the case would never even see the inside of a courtroom. For many unfamiliar with the legal system, this challenge seems solid. After all, why should we trust our eternity to a message that wouldn’t pass muster in a court dealing with comparatively less important issues?

Christianity On Trial

A bit of reflection shows the problem with this line of reasoning. First, it doesn’t take into consideration that we know many things that could never be “proven” according to the rules of evidence in a courtroom. Just about any historical event that is beyond the lifetime of living persons would suffer from similar problems, as well as problems of authenticating documents and physical evidence relating to the case. Yet, we have little doubt that these events occurred.

More importantly, the legal system provides the right to see and confront one’s accusers, and the related right to cross-examine them about their testimony, for a reason – “confrontation” is a reliable way to test evidence, to ensure that it is credible. But there are other ways to assure oneself that a person’s testimony is credible. In the case of the early martyrs, the way they demonstrated credibility – steadfastness in the face of persecution – is even more reliable.

On the Witness Stand

Consider: if a witness testifies that he saw the defendant point a gun at the victim and fire the fatal shot, the defense will want the right to test the reliability of the testimony. But what will they test? Generally speaking, the prosecution will take one of two possibles tacks. They will either, show that the witness is mistaken the witness is lying. Either way, their testimony isn’t very damaging to the defendant.

In preparing to cross examine, a skilled attorney need more oratory. He also needs to plot out an approach. If he wants to show that the witness isn’t mistaken, he will inquire into the types of things that could cause a mistake: how well does the witness know the defendant? How long did he see him? Were there impediments to clear viewing? How did the stress of the event affect the witness’ ability to perceive the event? Were drugs or alcohol a factor and if so, to what extent did they effect the witness’ ability to observe and record what occurred? Each of these avenues may prove productive in undercutting the conclusion the witness reached.

But if the witness says the defendant is his brother and he saw him a few feet away with nothing blocking his view, then alleging that the witness is “mistaken” will not be very productive. That leaves the other possibility, that the witness is lying. What is the relationship of the witness to the defendant? Does the witness stand to gain financially or otherwise by seeing the defendant convicted? What is the witness’s reputation in the community for honesty and integrity? Perhaps the witness is a “jailhouse snitch” who is trying to get out from another charge by telling the police what they want to hear. Or, by contrast, maybe the witness is the defendant’s brother who just happened to be present when the defendant committed the crime and is unwilling to lie for him.

Could the Martyrs Have been Telling the truth?

So, when skeptic’s refuse to even consider the testimony of the early martyrs, saying it’s hearsay, they are misunderstanding the point of cross-examination. The strength of a person’s testimony can be shown even more reliably by their behavior as it relates to that testimony. To put it bluntly: is he willing to die for it?

The skeptic will immediately object: but many people are willing to die for false beliefs? Yes, that’s true, but that is not the situation when we consider what those first martyrs faced. This group of men and women knew Jesus and witnessed the fact and circumstances of his death. This was their testimony: he died a gruesome death, he was later placed in a sealed and guarded tomb, and after three days he began to interact with them in a resurrected body.

If we had them on the witness stand, which of the challenges would we pursue. Mistake would not take us very far. No attorney with any sense would claim that Jesus survived the crucifixion or that the man the apostles saw after the resurrection was not Jesus. Jesus was well known to these individuals, and they witnessed the “effectiveness” of Rome’s favored way of ensuring a tortured and humiliating death. The tomb was empty and even if an imposter had tried to play Jesus’ role, he would not have been able to fool the apostles. That would be like telling the defendant’s brother that he actually saw someone else commit the murder – not a likely way to persuade anyone.

Perhaps then the apostles were lying. They knew Jesus had died on the cross but they wanted the world to believe that he had escaped death. They knew this was false but persisted anyway. How would a skilled attorney cross examine these witnesses? He would begin with the basics: is there a motive to lie? Do the apostles stand to benefit in some way, either financially, emotionally, or through the acquisition of power? Do the apostles have some animus against the “other side?” Are there prior inconsistent statements or actions that would undercut their present testimony? How committed are they to the position they are taking?

Having cross-examined countless witnesses, I for one would not want to take on these witnesses. Committed? They went to their deaths rather than retract their claim – “okay, you’re right, we just really wished that he was the Messiah, so we fabricated this whole thing.”

Prior inconsistencies? Quite the contrary. The change in their behavior shortly after Jesus’ death – from meek and broken to brave and bold – corroborates their testimony.

Animus against the other side? They preached a message of love, forgiveness and reconciliation. They gave unto Caesar the things of Caesar.

Motive for gain? Hardly. Insisting that Jesus was the Messiah brought them nothing; in many cases it took from them what little they had. They gained no position, nor power, nor wealth, nor anything else of earthly value.

Where does the cross-examiner go? Indeed, nothing they did on a witness stand could possibly add to the force of their “testimony” by remaining faithful . . . unto death.

They Wouldn’t Have Died for Lie

The missionary Jim Elliott once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Having witnessed the risen Lord, the early martyrs had a level of confidence in their message that few today can manage. They were neither fools nor liars. Indeed, it is rather the fool who refuses to acknowledge the power of their witness.

Recommended Resources:

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

The Top Ten Reasons We Know the NT Writers Told the Truth mp3 by Frank Turek

The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

How Can Jesus be the Only Way? Mp4, Mp3, and DVD by Frank Turek

 


Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he worked for 33 years. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.

 

When you encounter Jesus in the gospels, it’s not hard to see why the world would be a better place if everyone was more like him. And in the gospels, Jesus is pro-life. In fact, life is the issue for Jesus. ‘Life’ is why Jesus came into the world.

The Bible is About Life

The Bible’s most famous verse even says:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NIV)

Humans weren’t originally created to face death (Romans 5:12), and Jesus hates death – that’s why he conquered it (Romans 6:9; 2 Timothy 1:10). Jesus’ mission is to bring dead people to life (Mark 10:45; John 5:24; 1 Timothy 1:15) – that’s why he came.

So when our world, and our leaders, say that it’s actually better for some innocent people to be killed and moved from life-to-death rather than from death-to-life, we can know that they are not in agreement with the most loving person in history.

Most people want Jesus on their side. But, as Greg Koukl writes:

“What we cannot do, though, is reject the Gospel accounts out of hand and then advance our own personal opinion of the Jesus of the Gospels, since there will be no Jesus left to have a personal opinion about” (para. 17).

So, here is what the gospels say about Jesus, and the beginning and end of life.

Jesus, the Gospels, and the Beginning of Life

In the gospels, we are chronologically introduced to Jesus when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her that she will miraculously conceive (Luke 1:26-38).

Then we see an example of an unborn baby (John the Baptist – about 22-24 weeks gestation) alive and leaping in the womb (Luke 1:41-44), because of the news that Jesus is going to be born.

Mary is also called “mother” by Elizabeth (Luke 1:43) before Jesus is even born, which presumes the existence of a human being for Mary to be the mother of.

The infancy narrative of Luke’s gospel affirms life in the womb.

In addition, we have a couple of verses in the gospels where Jesus himself (now all grown-up) specifically mentions scenarios of pregnant women.

Speaking about future difficulty, Jesus says: “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!” (Mark 13:17 NIV)

Jesus sympathizes with the hardship that comes with pregnancy and motherhood, particularly during difficult times, and we know how accommodating Jesus is of the women who follow him and listen to his teaching.[i]

Jesus champions women in the gospels. But Jesus is also a champion of the birth of human beings. He says, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” (John 16:21 ESV)

Jesus recognizes the pain that comes with pregnancy, but he also says that the joy of a human being born into the world is greater than this agonizing pain – to the point that the anguish of pregnancy is not even remembered when measured against the birth of a new human being into the world.

Jesus’ statement in John 16:21 is non-particular and absolute. He is saying that there is joy when any human being, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), is born into the world. Jesus views human life too highly for us to say that he is anything other than pro-life.

And Jesus is also clear that testing circumstances and the inevitability of suffering is no reason not to live (John 16:33). In fact, the meek life Jesus himself chose to live demonstrates this (just read Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and Philippians 2:6-8). Life in-and-of-itself is precious to Jesus and not to be discarded.

The only time Jesus says someone would be “better off” not to be born is when he speaks about Judas (Mark 14:21) – someone who is not innocent, and someone of whom Jesus is foreknowingly aware of the consequences for his betrayal.

Jesus, the Gospels, and the End of Life

Jesus’ mission is to bring dead people to life, and this is patterned in the gospels when Jesus raises a little girl (Mark 5:41-42), a young man (Luke 7:14-15), and a weak-and-ill grown man (John 11:43-44) from the dead.

In our culture, we hear the argument that some (weaker) people are better off dead because the suffering that they will continue to face in their lives is ‘intolerable’. The argument presents death as the best, and even the only, ‘solution’.

Those whom Jesus healed all eventually died again. But he never treated death as the ‘solution’ for their situations.

Jesus admits that life will be hard: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NIV). But “take heart” connotes perseverance, endurance, and trust in God – the opposite of opting for death.

Opting for death as the solution to life’s sufferings is not on Jesus’ radar. In fact, Jesus is the only (truly) innocent person who needed to face physical death to fix the problem of suffering. And even in his story, life triumphs over death.

The gospel message in its most basic form is that Jesus came to save us from death and give us life. But those who champion death as a solution want the reverse: they want death to ‘save’ someone from life.

Such an attitude is an affront to the love of Jesus, because it runs completely counter to the power of the gospel message. Jesus came that people may have life (John 10:10), which you can’t have if you opt for death as a solution.

Societies that Pursue Jesus Flourish the Most

‘Life’ is not a peripheral issue for Jesus. If ‘life’ matters to history’s greatest person, it should matter to us. Peoples and nations who have followed the principles that matter to Jesus have succeeded in history. Pray that Jesus would be placed at the heart of our society. Apart from him, we are told by the God-man himself that we can do nothing (John 15:5). Pray that our nation would value life. Life matters.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (John 1:4 NIV)

References:

[i] For more on this see, Rebecca Mclaughlin, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women (Austin, TX: Gospel Coalition, 2022).

Recommended Resources:

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)        

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

 


Sean Redfearn is a former Community Youth Worker who now works for Christian Concern in Central London, UK. He completed an MA in Religion at King’s College London, is in the process of completing the MA Philosophy program at Southern Evangelical Seminary, and is a 2022 CrossExamined Instructor Academy graduate. Passionate about Jesus, he is grateful for the impact that apologetics has had on his faith.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/4dzGX9y

By Al Serrato

We all intuitively seek the best explanation for a set of facts or circumstances. It’s called abductive reasoning. Detectives make use of this method of reasoning when endeavoring to solve a crime; they put the pieces together so that a picture of what occurred emerges in sufficient detail to have confidence that it is true. Parents do it when they notice that a freshly baked pie has a piece missing and little Johnny has crumbs on his fingers and fruit staining his lips. Perfect knowledge is not required to know with sufficient certainty what occurred.

Abductive Reasoning in Christian Apologetics

As it relates to apologetics, abductive reasoning is a formal way of supporting the case for the validity of Christian truth claims. Though there are dozens of pieces of evidence to support the belief that the Resurrection took place, many apologists will make the case using a “minimal facts” approach. These generally undisputed facts include that Jesus lived, that he was put to death on a Roman cross, that his tomb was later found empty, and that his followers experienced encounters with him which were, simply put, life changing. These followers included skeptics who knew him well, such as his brother James; zealots who were persecuting his followers, such as Paul; and numerous men and women who had been following him during his earthly ministry.

A Cumulative Case

What best accounts for these well-established facts? Could it be they were all hallucinating? That makes little sense as we know that hallucinations do not occur in mass settings. Were they simply mistaken about who it was they were seeing? This too lacks explanatory appeal as mistaken identification is not plausible for family members and close friends and certainly not for many such people. Was it simply wishful thinking? While his followers no doubt missed him dearly, it is not reasonable to conclude that they would face death by insisting that he was still alive, when they knew he was not. Nor would wishful thinking explain the change in those who were initially persecuting Jesus’ followers, nor for those who only became followers after his death. Seeing that the cumulative case points to the fact of the Resurrection can be a powerful way to support the faith.

Losing the Case Before the Courtroom

But many remain unconvinced. When I have encountered such people, I have found that by and large they do not employ abductive reasoning as described above. They have not assessed and considered the piles of evidence from history to determine what other reasonable inference would better fit the known facts. Instead, they begin with the presupposition that miracles – which of course include resurrection from the dead – simply cannot occur. Consequently, any explanation of the historical facts and events which posit a miracle are to be rejected out of hand. The case is lost before it is even considered.

In short, many argue that relying on the possibility of a miracle is simply an admission of ignorance. If you cannot first explain how the miracle occurred, they argue, you should not be able to rely on it.

We can know THAT it happened without knowing HOW it happened.

This challenge to provide an explanation for the “best explanation of the facts” – that is, to explain the miracle – is clever but misplaced. There are many circumstances in which we can know something to be true, or to work, without knowing how it is that this is so. Take our ability to reason or our native sense of fair play: I make use of these things even though I have no way of explaining how reason works, or why I should be able to rely on it to reach true conclusions. I cannot explain how I know that “playing fair” is something that should matter to me. Consciousness is another example: in operating rooms around the world, anesthesiologists make use of drugs that can put people “under” and then restore them to consciousness without knowing how it is that this occurs. They understand the effect these drugs have on the cellular level, and they can measure differences in brain wave activity, but understanding how a grouping of brain cells goes from conscious to unconscious and back is still beyond scientific understanding. Though not usually considered as such, consciousness and reason are themselves “miraculous” – no sufficient naturalistic processes can account for them.

So, if the evidence that a man was put to death and then appeared again in a re-animated and enhanced body is sufficiently credible, then the fact that we cannot currently “explain” how it occurred does not prove that it did not occur. Consider for a moment the many medical “miracles” that have occurred. There are countless cases in which a disease process stops, or reverses, for reasons that are unclear, at least at present. As knowledge and technology advance, some of these miracles will be explained through naturalistic mechanisms. But how can the skeptic possibly know that this will always be the case? Would this not require perfect knowledge on his part, in order to know with certainty that departures from the laws of nature can never occur?

There is nothing wrong with wanting to know more, with seeking more knowledge and more information to get the “how” questions answered. There is nothing wrong with trying to rule out all naturalistic explanations before considering the supernatural. And it may be, in the end, that additional knowledge will modify, or perhaps even change, some of our views.

But refusing to go where the evidence leads because of a belief that supernatural events are “impossible” is a reflection of underlying bias, not an expression of enlightened thinking.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Miracles: The Evidence by Frank Turek DVD and Mp4

Two Miracles You Take With You Everywhere You Go by Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)

Debate: What Best Explains Reality: Atheism or Theism? by Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, and Mp3 

 


Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he worked for 33 years. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.

 

I am often asked which books I recommend for defending the reliability of the Gospels/Acts and Christianity in general, so here is my list. It is not exhaustive, but it will definitely give you a good start.

The categorized as “mandatory” are more basic, while some of those labeled as “recommended” or “supplementary” delve into more profound and scholarly content. Any item marked with a * can be accessed for free online as PDF files. A significant number of these works are downloadable from http://historicalapologetics.org, http://books.google.com, or http://archive.org.

Mandatory Reading:

Author Book Title
Bennett, Edmund The Four Gospels from a Lawyer’s Standpoint
Lewis, CS Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism (Essay in Christian Reflections)
McGrew, Lydia Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels
Paley, William A View of the Evidences for Christianity
Pitre, Brant The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ
Williams, Peter J. Can We Trust the Gospels?

Recommended Reading:

Author Book Title
Bauckham, Richard Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 2nd edition
Blomberg, Craig The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel
Blomberg, Craig The Historical Reliability of the New Testament
Boyd, Greg & Eddy, Paul Rhodes The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition
Hill, Charles E. Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy
Kennedy, Titus Excavating the Evidence for Jesus: The Archaeology and History of Christ and the Gospels
Kruger, Michael J. & Kostenberger, Andreas The Heresy of OrthodoxyHow Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity 
McGrew, Lydia Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels & Acts
McGrew, Lydia The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage
McGrew, Lydia The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices
Paley, William Horae Paulinae, or the Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul
White, Jefferson Evidence and Paul’s JourneysAn Historical Investigation into the Travels of the Apostle Paul

Supplemental Reading:

Author Book Title
Bernier, Jonathan Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition
Ramsay, William St. Paul the Ancient Traveler and Roman Citizen
Smith, James *The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul

Reference Reading:

Author Book Title
Carson, DA and Moo, Douglas An Introduction to the New Testament 
Hemer, Colin The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History
Lardner, Nathaniel The Credibility of the Gospel History, 17 volumes
Norton, Andrews Internal Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels
Norton, Andrews The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)

When Reason Isn’t the Reason for Unbelief by Dr. Frank Turek DVD and Mp4


Erik Manning is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is an educational channel built to help inspire people’s confidence in the text of the New Testament and the truth of the Christian faith. 

Originally published at: https://bit.ly/4dG4gyQ

 

Because Paul crisscrossed paths with many folks, some repeatedly, it’s quite enlightening to compare how these people are portrayed in the book of Acts with what Paul hints at in his own letters. Among these characters, Timothy stands out as a particularly intriguing figure.

In 1 Corinthians 4:17, Paul mentions sending Timothy, his “beloved and faithful child in the Lord,” to jog the Corinthians’ memory about Paul’s ways in Christ. Now, from this passage alone, it’s a bit tricky to figure out if Timothy was sent before the letter or with it. In 1 Corinthians 16:10-11, though, Paul makes it clear that Timothy was dispatched before the letter was penned. He talks about Timothy’s impending arrival as something distinct from when the Corinthians would receive the letter itself – “When Timothy comes, …”

Contradictory Accounts?

Now, when you stack these two passages side by side, a puzzling question pops up. If Timothy was sent first, why didn’t he show up first? And if he did arrive first, why bother sending instructions afterward on how to welcome him?

The most sensible answer is that Timothy, even though sent ahead, must have taken a more roundabout route to Corinth. The quickest way from Ephesus, where Paul was writing, to Corinth would be by ship, covering the distance in a jiffy with a favorable wind. But, as we dig into Luke’s account in Acts 19:21-22, we discover that Timothy, when leaving Ephesus, opted for the overland route, traveling up through Macedonia.

We stumble upon these coincidences that weren’t orchestrated but fit together seamlessly. Paul’s letter doesn’t mention a word about Timothy’s trek through Macedonia, and Acts doesn’t bring up Paul’s letter. Yet, Acts offers the only sensible explanation for these offhand remarks Paul makes in his letter, creating this neat puzzle where the pieces just click into place.

How Did The Philippian Church Know Timothy?


But there’s more about Timothy. When Paul writes the church at Philippi, he says:

“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel” (Philippians 2:19-21).

In this passage, it’s pretty clear that the Philippians knew Timothy and had seen him working alongside Paul. The nifty part is how there’s this subtle and smooth connection between what’s written in Philippians and the story in the book of Acts. So, in Acts 16, Paul starts traveling with Timothy, a convert from around Lystra and Iconium. After that, the Acts story gets into Paul’s travels across Asia Minor to Troas and then Macedonia.

When they hit Philippi, the story dives into Paul’s missionary adventures, detailing his struggles and hardships. Acts 17 continues the journey, covering Paul’s move from Philippi to Thessalonica, where things get pretty heated, and he has to leave. Then comes this sneaky part: the brothers secretly send Paul and Silas to Berea at night, and when they get there, they hit up the Jewish synagogue. That’s when Timothy pops back into the picture:

“Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there” (Acts 17:14).

So, even though Timothy wasn’t explicitly mentioned during the journey, Acts 17:10-15 shows that he was indeed rolling with Paul at Berea. Silas gets more spotlight in the story, but Acts hints that Paul had more buddies along, including the author himself. This revelation about Timothy being there in Berea fills in the gaps and explains how the Philippians knew about Timothy’s skills and saw him working hard with Paul, like a son with his father.

What’s interesting is that Acts doesn’t just say Timothy was in Philippi. You have to connect the dots by piecing together Timothy’s role from different mentions in Acts. It’s not like the author of Acts was trying to be all sneaky and create a link with Philippians. Instead, this connection adds weight to the idea that the author of Acts really knew Paul’s life inside out, including his friends and moves during that time.

Paul Alone In Athens

But wait, there’s another nice example of an undesigned coincidence in this same passage. So, in Thessalonica, Paul’s ministry gets interrupted by a rowdy bunch of Gentiles riled up by the local Jews, prompting a quick escape with Silas for Berea (Acts 17:10). When the troublemakers catch wind that Paul’s still preaching in Berea, they show up, causing a ruckus. Paul has to skedaddle to Athens in a hurry, leaving Silas and Timothy behind (Acts 17:14). Now, Acts doesn’t spill the tea on why Paul left Silas and Timothy hanging. But then, 1 Thessalonians 3:1-5 gives us the missing piece:

“Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith…”

Turns out, under the circumstances, Paul sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to check on the folks there and report back while Paul was busy in Athens. This neatly clears up the unexplained bit in Acts, making sense of the separation from Silas and Timothy.

Timothy’s Mixed Upbringing

Here’s another neat example of undesigned coincidences, from Paul’s second letter to Timothy, where describes Timothy rather than mentioning his travels:

“…and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:15)

Clearly, Paul’s talking about the Jewish scriptures here, but he doesn’t give any hint as to how Timothy, who wasn’t circumcised until after his conversion as a young man (as mentioned in Acts 16:3), got to know them. The missing piece of information falls into place when we check out Acts 16:1:

“Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.”

Seems like Timothy’s Greek dad wasn’t on board with the whole circumcision thing. But his Jewish mother made sure he got schooled in the scriptures of her people. Paul even names his mother and grandmother in 2 Timothy 1:5.

Timothy’s Knowledge Of Paul’s Persecutions

But there’s more! In 2 Timothy 3:10-11, Paul talks about how Timothy followed his teachings, behavior, and experiences, especially the tough times in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. Now, the Antioch here isn’t the famous one in Syria, but a different one in Pisidia. Acts 13 in the Bible says that Paul and Barnabas got into trouble there, stirred up by the locals. They had to skip town and faced more problems in Iconium, so they moved on to Lystra and Derbe.

In Acts 14, it mentions Paul getting stoned and dragged out of the city by angry folks from Antioch and Iconium. This lines up perfectly with what Paul mentions in 2 Timothy 3:10-11 about the persecutions he faced in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. It matches not only in the cities but also in the order Paul talks about them.

Here’s another cool tidbit: In Acts, Lystra and Derbe are often mentioned together, just like in 2 Timothy. But, interestingly, Paul doesn’t face any troubles in Derbe, and sure enough, it’s not mentioned in the list of persecutions in 2 Timothy. So, there’s a perfect match between what Paul says and what happened in Acts.

Now, Paul also implies that Timothy saw or at least knows about these persecutions. Acts backs this up. In Acts 15:36, it says Paul went on a second journey to check on the folks he converted during the first trip. In Acts 16:1-2, we find out that Timothy, a disciple from Lystra, was well-regarded in the community. This suggests that Timothy might have been converted during Paul’s earlier visit when all the tough times were going down. So, it looks like Timothy was there, or at least very aware of what Paul went through in those cities.

What This All Means

Does the fact that these passages don’t match up exactly, and they’re scattered throughout without sounding alike, make you think someone’s trying to trick us? Or does each one just fit naturally where it is? If it’s the latter, it’s pretty unlikely that someone cooked up these connections on purpose. These accounts sound like what we would expect if different people, at different times and places, are sharing different parts of the same story.

Think about it this way: Imagine someone trying to copy an important document, but they change a few words here and there to make it seem original. We can see this happening with some writings from the second century, like the “Gospel of Peter,” where they use phrases almost identical to ones found in well-known Gospels to make their writing seem legit:

  • “And one of them brought a crown of thorns and put it on the head of the Lord.” (similar to Mark 15:17)
  • “And they brought two malefactors, and they crucified the Lord between them.” (similar to Luke 23:32-33)
  • “And in that hour the veil of the temple in Jerusalem was rent in twain.” (similar to Mark 15:38)
  • “But who shall roll away for us the stone …?” (similar to Mark 16:3)
  • “Whom seek ye? Him that was crucified? He is risen and gone.” (similar to Mark 16:6)

Here, the similarities are on purpose to make it seem real. But when we look at Acts and the Pauline letters, they’re not like that. They don’t match word for word, and they’re connected in more subtle ways. This makes it pretty impressive evidence that they’re telling us the truth about what really happened, without needing to fake anything.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

The Top Ten Reasons We Know the NT Writers Told the Truth mp3 by Frank Turek

The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

 

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Erik Manning is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is an educational channel built to help inspire people’s confidence in the text of the New Testament and the truth of the Christian faith. 

Originally published at: Is Jesus Alive?

In part 1 of this series, we looked at a few Old Testament passages that people often misinterpret. In part 2 we shift to the New Testament. It’s worth noting that sometimes the error is just an innocent mistake. It’s not always from bad intentions, or false teachers, or heretical theology. Sometimes there are malicious forces at work here, but often it’s just well-meaning people getting confused about what the Bible says. The list of verses below is just a sample of commonly misinterpreted texts. There are many more too choose from, but I’m willing to bet that if you are a church-goer you’ve heard at least one of these misinterpretations before.

Matthew 7:1

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

This is perhaps the most quoted verse of Scripture surpassing even John 3:16. The love of God is succinctly portrayed in the one-verse Gospel message of John 3:16 and this was considered a beautiful redeeming truth to be shared and enjoyed – perhaps more than any other verse until now. In recent times, the most prized message in Scripture is more often to abstain from “passing judgment.” So Matthew 7:1 has risen in popularity. But this anti-judgement verse does not promise freedom from judgment. For all will eventually be judged by God (Revelation 20:11-15). Nor does it even disbar judgment between believers (Matt. 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 5:12-13; 1 Tim. 1:20). Rather, in context, this verse cautions against hypocrisy. The immediate passage following this one chastises hypocrites who attempt to remove a speck from another man’s eye when all the time there is a plank in his own (Matt. 7:1-5). This verse communicates a boomerang effect to one’s actions consistent with the rest of the Sermon the Mount – and this verse is part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).[1]. Scripture encourages Christians to judge sin, at least among believers – “let judgment begin with the church” (1 Peter 4:17). Now, Christians shouldn’t be condemning other people to hell, or acting on their own initiative (individually) to disbar people from becoming Christians. In those senses Christians “shouldn’t judge.” But Matthew 7:1 isn’t saying to never judge anyone else, it’s saying to never judge in this hypocritical and condemning ways. We should still use judgment to exercise church discipline, to administer righteous verdicts and punishments, to recognize and extinguish sin, to distinguish between truth and error, discern between wise and unwise, and identify good and evil.

Matthew 10:28

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

The problem that rides on this verse is that Satan gets too much credit. One may think, from this verse, that Satan is the one to fear, the one who can “destroy both soul and body in hell.” This misunderstanding seems to be more the product of poor theology than malicious exegesis. For the One who is truly Lord over Hell is not Satan but God (1 Chron. 29:11-14; Ps. 103:19). God is sovereign over everything—hell included. Satan is but a prisoner; God is the warden (Job 1:6-12; Rev. 20:1-3, 10). God is to be feared above all else, above even Satan.

Matthew 18:19-20

Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

This little passage is one of the most victimized in all of Scripture. First, this verse is often used to justify all shades of “health and wealth” theology, namely the belief that God must give believers whatever they ask (no matter how self-centered it may be) as long as they ask God in groups. The second offense is a little more innocent. Christians often quote verse twenty as an invocation of God’s presence be it at prayer meetings, worship services, or whatever else. The answer to both of these problems is, again, context. Matthew 18:15-20 is about church discipline. And the reason the numbers “two or three” are mentioned is because those are the numbers of witnesses that would testify in the case of a legal or religious offense. To prevent “he said she said” arguments, two or three witnesses were brought forth to establish trustworthy testimony (Deut. 17:6; 19:15; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19; Hebr. 10:28). Moreover, since only God has the ultimate authority to judge (Deut. 32:39; Rom. 12:19), any human judgment over other men was to be done with God’s conferred authority. And in these verses we see God conferring His authority for judgment only to groups of believers, that is, to a church, the “body of Christ.” God’s presence to creation is a universal fact (Ps 139:7-12; Jer. 23:23-24; Acts 17:27-28). So, He hardly needs to be invoked at prayer meetings or at church services (recognized, yes, but not invoked). His presence is mentioned here in reference to His conferring authority to believers for the exercising of judgment within the church.

Revelation 3:15-16

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

These verses do not mean that God prefers spiritual coldness (disbelief, hostility, inactivity, uselessness) to lukewarm spirituality (hypocrisy, casual Christianity). That interpretation would mean that God wills disbelief (or hostility, inactivity). Thus God not only permits disbelief, but He prefers it. That is, He wants it. This idea is dangerous enough in that it suggest that God is guilty of evil, but it also presents a stiff challenge to Scriptures such as 1 Timothy 2:4 which says, “[God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” Such a misinterpretation also suffers contextual blindness. John was addressing the wealthy Church of Laodicea which was inconveniently located south of Heiropolos, known for its therapeutic hot springs, and north of Colossae with its cold refreshing waters.[2] Laodicea, not having an adequate water source of its own brought water in from these outside sources. Thus the water they acquired was lukewarm and dirty by the time it reached them. John, therefore, is drawing the contrast between the therapeutic hot springs and the revitalizing cold springs–both good options–and between these two is the feted lukewarm water of Laodicea.

Revelation 3:20

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

This verse is usually treated as an evangelistic invitation, however the context reveals that John is still talking to the Church at Laodicea. That is, John is addressing believers. This knocking and calling is not unto salvation, for that much is already assured to these believers. Instead the invitation is to a deeper fellowship with God.

Stay tuned for Parts 3 in this series!

Endnotes

[1] This boomerang affect is visible in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (See also Matt. 7:2, 12).
[2] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation Rev. Ed. in The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 109-10.


Recommended resources related to the topic:

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)
The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)
Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3 and Mp4)
Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Is the Bible Historically Reliable? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, Mp3 Download.
How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide
How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (MP3 Set), (mp4 Download Set), and (DVD Set)

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John is a licensed minister with earned degrees from Charleston Southern (BA), Southern Evangelical Seminary (MDiv), and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (ThM, PhD). His doctorate is in philosophy of religion, minoring in ethics. As a new addition to Crossexamined in 2023, John brings a wealth of experience to the team including debating atheists, preaching the Gospel, teaching apologetics in schools and churches, publishing books and articles, and creating websites. John is also a teaching fellow with Equal Rights Institute and president of Pella Pro-Life in his hometown of Pella, Iowa. There he resides with his lovely and brilliant wife Hillary Ferrer, founder of Mama Bear Apologetics. Together they specialize in cultural apologetics with an emphasis on family-based apologetic training.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/3r0C5qp

By Brian Huffling

Many people don’t know how to study the Bible, or even where to begin. The Bible is a long collection of books that contains much about ancient history, difficult concepts, and is very intimidating for people who want to read it but don’t know where to start. This article will describe some of the principles of interpreting the Bible (hermeneutics) that are taught in basic Bible college and seminary classes (but are easy enough for anyone to understand). This is not a 12-step method to anything, it is simply a sound method to examine the biblical text. Well, it is a 3-step method: observation, interpretation, and application.

OBSERVATION

When we read a passage, we typically want to ask, “What does it mean?” But there is a more basic question we should ask first: “What does it say?” It is easy to read into the text something that is not there (this is called eisegesis), often because we simply put words there that aren’t but think they should be. For example, John 20:19 says: “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” It is often stated that Jesus walked through a wall or the door. However, the text doesn’t say that. It simply says the doors were locked and Jesus appeared to them. Maybe he walked through the door or wall, or maybe he just showed up. We have to observe the text carefully. There are various aspects of the text to observe.

One major area to observe is genre. For example, narrative is treated differently than poetry or didactic literature (such as the epistles). Narrative simply describes what happened, whereas didactic literature prescribes what should happen (in other words, it gives commands). Of course there can be narrative in epistolary literature (or vice versa), but the point is that one needs to be careful, for example, not to make an imperative out of a simple description.  It is also arguably the case that one should not use parables to base his theology. This is debated, but the point is that we should be aware of the type of genre we are reading when doing interpretation.

Another aspect of the text to observe is the historical and cultural context. For example, Revelation 3:15-16 says, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” People often say that Jesus would rather you be completely dedicated to him or not dedicated at all. (Does the latter even make sense?) Actually, what we know from historical information is that the the area being referred to (Laodicea) had hot water pumped in from hot springs and cold water pumped in from cold springs. People went to the hot springs for healing (like being in a hot tub) and went to the cold springs for refreshment (something I would never do as I hate cold water), so the Laodiceans tried to get that water for themselves. However, by the time the water got to Laodicea, it was lukewarm and nasty and when people drank it it would make them vomit. Jesus is saying that he wanted the Laodiceans to be spiritually healing or refreshing. Rather, what the church there had to offer was spiritually nasty. Historical knowledge here clarifies the text for us.

It is also imperative to observe the textual and literary context, that is, what comes before and after the passage you are looking at. We get into trouble when we start looking at passages without understanding the context in which they are in. Sometimes we don’t have to go back to the beginning of the book, but we should at least start with he literary unit in which our passage is found. The chapters and verses don’t necessarily determine that, so pay attention to what the text is saying. Does the passage start with a conjunction such as “but” or “and?” Then it’s a good idea to see what preceded that conjunction.

In looking at the textual and literary context we can observe the structure of the passage. Are words, phrases or sentences in a certain order or pattern? For example, we should be on the look out for chiasms. Chiasms are structures that have an ABCBA order. Sometimes it could have an ABBA order, such as in Romans 10:9-10, which says: “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” Notice the mouth/heart/heart/mouth structure. The middle part of the chiasm is meant to emphasize the author’s point. Look at the below chiasm from the flood story:

Such a long chiasm is hard to identify, but if we start to see patterns in the wording of the text and in a certain order, it can be found. While the story of the flood is typically thought to be about judgment, the focal point of the flood story is actually that God remembered Noah. The entire Book of Mark is actually a chiasm. The below image is taken from my Hermeneutics class notes by Dr. Tom Howe:

Another area to observe is terms. This particular area of observation is difficult not to blend with interpreting (asking about the meaning). However, we have to observe what terms are (and are not) used. As you probably know, the Bible was not written in English. Almost all of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with some areas being written in Aramaic (such as much of Daniel with the rest being Hebrew—something that itself needs to be observed), and the New Testament was written in Greek. Word studies are very popular, and many times all of Bible study is simply reduced to a word study, which it should not be. But it should be part of our study. It is important to know what underlying original word was used, if we can, when doing a Bible study. Some people are more trained at this than others, but it is a goal we should have.

When observing terms, we need to look for terms that are repeated. Such repetition of terms can show the structure of the book or passage. Such as the word “immediately” in Mark. The word “immediately” is used 5 times in Matthew, and fewer than that in Luke and John. But Mark uses it over 40 times. Why is that? It is obviously an important term for him. Let me put that into a graphic for you:

We should also observe terms that are difficult to understand, such as “predestination.” Figure of speech is also important to observe. Sometimes it is debatable as to whether a text is a figure of speech or not. There are some rules that can help discover if something should be taken as a figure of speech. For example, if something for whatever reason cannot be taken literally, then it should be taken as a figure of speech—such as when Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper that the bread and wine was his body and blood. If something would be an immoral command from God, such as when Jesus said to eat and drink his body, that should be taken as a figure of speech. Of course, these examples are debatable between Catholics and Protestants, but the general rule holds true that when something cannot be taken literally, it needs to be taken as a figure of speech.

We also need to take note of words that are unfamiliar to us, such as “talent.” When we read, for example, in the parable of the unforgiving servant, that the servant owed ten thousand talents, we need to know what a talent is. (This gets blurry with our second step, interpretation.) Some translations, such as the NIV, translate “ten thousand talents” here as “ten thousand bags of gold.” One talent was about twenty years worth of wages. More on this in the next section, but the point is we need to be aware of these words—in other words, observe them.

INTERPRETATION

This is the step we generally start with but shouldn’t: what does the text mean? Back to the “talent” story. We observed that the word used in the parable of the unforgiving servant is “talent,” but the NIV says “bags of gold.” A talent was about 20 years worth of wages. If the average wage is around $45k, then that’s $900k. I don’t know how much a bag of gold is worth, but we’d have to multiply $900k by 10k for it to be accurate in talents. My iPhone calculator got an error when I did that. Ten thousand talents was more money than the known world had then, and ten thousand was the highest number in Greek. The point was actually that the amount of money the servant owed was unimaginable. Ten thousand bags of gold just doesn’t seem to be a good translation. This is an example of both the observation and the meaning of a word.

Another example is the word “power” in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” The word for “power” in Greek is dynamis, from which we get the word “dynamite.” Some today, even popular commentators, say that the gospel, like dynamite, blows up sin. The problem with this view is that dynamite didn’t exist in the first century, so that can’t be what Paul meant. It simply means “power” or “ability.” This is a good example of what not to do in interpretation: import a later meaning into an earlier word. Remember, a text can’t mean what it never meant. This particular issue is called the fallacy of reverse etymology (etymology is the study of how words change over time) or anachronism.

Don’t know Greek? There are tools to help. Let me illustrate with a couple that I used before I studied Greek. I used to listen to a popular teacher and in one of his sermons he quoted Acts 2:24 to argue that Jesus went to hell. The text says this: “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (the KJV from which he was using says “pains”). According to this teacher, since Jesus was in pain, then he must have been suffering, which wouldn’t have happened in heaven, so he must have been in hell. I was looking at that passage one day in my newly purchased Hebrew and Greek study Bible that used Strong’s Dictionary number system. The word “pain” had a number by it, so I looked it up. It said the word was “odin.” I also had just gotten the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (this is not an endorsement of TDNT as it is said to be pretty liberal, but it can be helpful in some ways), and looked up the word there. Basically, TDNT said that the word referred to birth pain, and that Peter was making an analogy here between a woman not being able to hold her baby in, but at the right time she gives birth, and death not being able to hold Jesus, but at the right time was forced to let go of him. It does not mean Jesus was in pain. Lessons: look words up. Get some tools.

But, as mentioned, word studies are not the only aspect of Bible study. When doing interpretation, we have to not only examine the meaning of particular words, but how words relate to other words. The former is merely grammar and the latter is syntax. This requires a knowledge of grammar as well as parts of speech and how words relate to each other. This is why simple word studies, while obviously useful, is not the only part of the game. Words aren’t in isolation, but relate to other words. Let me give you an example of how it is important to see how words relate to each other.

Several years ago in a Ph.D. class on philosophy of history, my professor, Mike Licona, said that we should not take the saints being raised in Matthew 27 literally because if we did, it would result in a problem in the text (this issue has since become a hot issue for him and the issue of inerrancy). Here’s the text: “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:51-53, ESV). Do you see the problem? I have read this passage for years and never noticed it. The context of the passage is Christ’s death. When was the curtain torn, and when did the earth shake? At his death—Friday. When did the tombs open and when were the saints raised? Friday. When does it say they came out of their tombs? After his resurrection—Sunday! That’s a natural reading of this translation. I haven’t seen any other English translations say it differently. The text seems to say that they were raised and the tombs were opened at the same time as the other events. But it seems to say that they didn’t come “out of their tombs until after his resurrection.”

I didn’t like this and was distracted by it. So, I stopped listening to the lecture (sorry Mike), and went to the Greek. Long story short, here was my solution: the word for “and” is kai in Greek and has several meanings, such as “even.” When it means “even” it tends to be emphatic/explanatory. In this case it could mean, “the saints were raised even coming out of their graves.” This seems to emphasize the physical nature of the event and that it wasn’t merely spiritual. Then, we could re-punctuate the sentence to read, “the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, even coming out of their tombs. After his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” I actually asked Mike if this was an acceptable answer as he knows Greek much better than me, and he said yes, as long as the word for “after” (meta) can start a new sentence. It can, an actually does a lot in narrative. Such a solution maintains proper Greek and English grammar and syntax. But it requires seeing how words relate to each other. It also requires observation and interpretation. (Some may object to such an answer as it appears to make the saints “resurrected” or first fruits before Jesus, but such is not necessary. The text does not imply they were raised immortal like Jesus. Remember, Jesus was not the first person raised from the dead. Elijah raised someone as did Jesus—Lazarus.)

I use this example to show a couple of things. One, don’t be married to any single English translation. Look at other translations (although I haven’t found an English translation that doesn’t have this particular problem here) and look, to whatever capacity you can, at the original languages. Two, the punctuation is not inspired (neither are the chapters and verses). In other words, read the text freshly and see if there are other ways to understand it and if the meaning changes.

One last note on interpretation and meaning. There can only be one meaning (although there can be many applications of that meaning: see below). While it is common for teachers to go around the room and ask their students, “What does this passage mean to you,” it is a bad question. It can’t mean to one person something that it doesn’t mean for all. It can have a different significance, but the actual meaning is fixed. (For a discussion on the issue argument the meaning is subjective or unattainable due to our biases, see my article on standard hermeneutics books as well as my article on historical objectivity.) While there are debates about what a given passage means, there can be only one right answer. It is up to studious interpreters to discover that meaning through the hermeneutical process. More could be said about interpretation, but let’s move on.

APPLICATION

Application is basically the “so what” part of the process. The question to ask here, after we have asked what does it say and what does it mean, is “how does this passage apply?” Unfortunately, sometimes people want to skip to this step first. Of course we have to know what the text says and means before we can ask how it applies to us. There are certain principles to keep in mind when trying to apply the text. Perhaps it is best up front to state that the text does not always have an application for us. Sometimes the text is informative for us and tells us about what happened, but it doesn’t always have an application. When the text says something like, “this king did this, and then this,” there really is no application, just information. In such instances, it is important not to try to wring out an application when there really isn’t one. Having said this, it is important to point out that even if there is no direct application, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

It’s easy to apply commands: just do or don’t do something. Although, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether a command is meant to be for a certain culture and time or whether it’s mean to be universal. For example, is the issue of head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 meant to be universal? What about men not having long hair in verse 14? Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:12-14, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” Is Paul saying women shouldn’t teach or exercise authority over a man always, or just in that culture and time? Whatever that text means, the reasoning behind it seems to be universal. Paul gives two reasons for what he said: (1) the order of creation, and (2) who was deceived. If the reasons are universal, then the prohibition would seem to be so as well.

Things aren’t as straightforward with narrative. We have to be careful to not make a description into a prescription. Narrative simply is a narration of what happened. Of course, it can contain other genres, but when we are looking at pure narrative and not a command to us, we have to be careful how we apply the text, if it can be applied. If it is simply a description of what happened, we can’t necessarily make it a prescription of what should happen. For example, the fact that Gideon put out a fleece to discern God’s will is not a command for us to. The fact that Elijah and other people in the OT were called supernaturally by God does not mean we can say that’s how God normally operates or “calls” people today. Here are some other pitfalls to avoid with application:

Analogizing: analogizing is what we just referred to with the call of Elijah. Just because God called Elijah does not mean that he calls us. This “call” is often analogized between Israel’s prophets and people today, but such an application is illicit. We simply can’t say that because God did something in ancient Israel that he does so today.

Allegorizing: Allegorizing is when we take a literal event and make the application allegorical. For example, we can talk about the person who “loosed his donkey for Jesus” when he entered Jerusalem. I once heard someone say he heard a pastor talk about “loosing your donkey for Jesus.” I guess that’s supposed to mean you are making what you have available for Jesus, but the text is talking about an event that actually happened. It is not a command.

Spiritualizing: Spiritualizing is similar to allegorizing. It takes literal events and gives a spiritual significance. A popular example of this is to present the story of Jesus calming the storm for the disciples and say “Jesus stills the storms of life.” There are a few problems with this. One is that this was a literal storm and was not meant to say that Jesus actually stills the storms of life. It isn’t talking about spiritual storms or tough times: it’s talking about a storm! Secondly, Jesus doesn’t still the storms of life if that means that he stops the storm like he did in the story. To say that he stills the storms of life is not only to state something that is false but to endanger someone’s faith who expects him to still his storms.

So what do we do to apply the text? One thing is to do what the text says to do if it is issuing a command. If it’s narrative, it’s to see what universal principle can be applied. In the story of David and Goliath, it is a spiritualization to say that we should go and slay the Goliaths in our lives. The biblical passage is talking about a literal person named Goliath. It is not giving a command, but describing something that actually happened. But we can glean universal principles. In this story that principle could be that God is faithful to the promises he makes and to his covenant. Here are some other principles from which to see how to apply the text:

  1. Is there an example for me to follow?
  2. Is there a sin to avoid?
  3. Is there a promise to claim?
  4. Is there a prayer to repeat?
  5. Is there a command to obey?
  6. Is there a condition to meet?
  7. Is there a verse to memorize?
  8. Is there an error [theological] to mark?
  9. Is there a challenge to face? (Howard Hendricks, Living by the Book, chapter 44)

The New International Application Commentary is an excellent commentary series to use to bridge the gap between the biblical times and ours to see if and how the text can be applied.

One last word about application: while the meaning is one, the application can be many since there are many situations in which to apply the text.

TOOLS FOR STUDY

If one is going to study the Bible, it is best to understand the tools that are available. Resources that this 3-step method is based on include Methodical Bible Study and Living by the Book (Living by the Book has a workbook).The most important tool is the Bible itself. There are hundreds of English translations of the Bible but there are generally 3 categories of translation philosophies: essentially literal (A.K.A. formal equivalence), dynamic equivalence (A.K.A. functional equivalence), and paraphrase. It is very important to use an essentially literal Bible for Bible study (see Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation for a discussion on this), and I would argue for reading it too, but a good dynamic equivalent translation can be ok for reading. Paraphrases have even been recommended by good interpreters, but mainly to see the general sense of the passage. The front matter in your Bible should explain what translational philosophy it holds to. Essentially literal Bibles include the King James Version, The New King James Version, the New American Standard Bible, the English Standard Version, the Christian Standard Version, and the like. Dynamic equivalent translations include the New International Version, the Good News Bible, and the New English Translation. (The NET is worthwhile for its 60,000+ notes, and is available free at Bible.org.) Paraphrases include The MessageThe Living Bible, and as I like to point out to my students, the Cotton Patch Gospel, that tells the story of Jesus from the vantage point of southerners in the U. S. (he is born in Gainesville, GA and escapes to Mexico).

Then there are commentaries. Commentaries are useful in many ways, but ideally should be consulted after your own study so you aren’t biased in a certain direction. There are two basic types of commentaries: critical (technical) and non-critical (non-technical). A commentary is critical if it discusses textual issues such as variations between different manuscripts of the original languages, or discusses the original languages in general. Some commentaries go into a great deal of detail and others don’t. Sometimes you just need a brief overview of an issue. For that I recommend The Bible Knowledge Commentary,  The Expositor’s Bible Commentarythe Tyndale Old Testament Commentary and the Tyndale New Testament Commentary (as a set here)The NIV Application Commentary is another non-technical commentary. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, and The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (as a set here) is also very good. It is non-technical in the text but has technical/critical information in the notes. The IVP Bible Background Commentary (separate for OT and NT) is good for giving . . . the background, as are the The Lexham Geographical Commentary on the GospelsThe Lexham Geographical Commentary on Acts through Revelation, and The New Testament in Antiquity. There are actually commentaries on commentaries. These are basically long annotated biographies but with more information on the pluses and minuses of each set. See for example the Old Testament Commentary Survey,the New Testament Commentary Survey, and Commentary and Reference Survey. For a free and very useful resource, see Daniel Akin’s “Building a Theological Library.” It is not necessary to buy a complete set. As the commentary surveys and and Akin’s site show, some commentaries in a set are better than others, thus, it might be more beneficial if cost is an issue to buy certain individual commentaries. It is also important to pick up a good Bible dictionary and encyclopedia. There are a number of those in each category.

I can’t have a section on study tools and not mention Logos. There are many electronic software programs for Bible study. I have used Logos since 2004 and don’t want to try to do Bible study without it. I have required Logos in a couple of my classes as well, and the students love it too. Not only does it offer original language tools, it has incredibly complex search capabilities for the Bible, as well as the other books in your Logos library. And it is just that: a library. They have tens of thousands of books and tools. Other programs are good and there are debates about which is best, but I have used and love Logos. Others programs are BibleWorksOlive Tree, or Accordance (only for Mac). Good free software is Blue Letter Bible and e-Sword.

CONCLUSION

What has been said hardly scratches the surface of biblical interpretation. It is certainly incomplete, but only mean to give some pointers and hopefully motivation for doing Bible study. This article is not meant to make Bible study seem hard, but to show that it takes work and offer some hopefully helpful tips. If you want to understand this system better, I encourage you to get Methodical Bible Study and/or Living by the Book. Thanks for reading, and please subscribe!

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)

The Top Ten Reasons We Know the NT Writers Told the Truth mp3 by Frank Turek

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)

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J. Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar

Original blog: https://bit.ly/3xgtCia 

 

By Jason Jimenez

In a recent conversation with a Christian friend, he shared how several unexpected killjoys had sprung up in his life and dragged him down to a dark place. Since then, my friend has struggled to find joy in his life.

What about you? Are you finding it hard to be joyful in life?

The reality is, we could all use more joy in our lives. Which leads me to share with you the first of five steps to living a more joyful life.

The first step is to seek joy from God. 

Joy is a gift from God. It doesn’t come from people or objects in the world. You might get temporary relief or happiness. But the joy the Bible speaks of is so much more. As we read in the Bible, joy has to do with a deep state of gladness, cheer, and contentment. In the Lexham Bible Dictionary, “joy” is “closely related to gladness and happiness, although joy is more a state of being than an emotion; a result of choice.”

David declared that it’s in the presence of God that there is “fullness of joy” (Ps. 16:11). In Nehemiah 8:10, we read that we find strength in “the joy of the Lord.” In Galatians 5:22, Paul lists “joy” as a byproduct of the Holy Spirit.

If you want more joy in life—look no further. Look to God.

The second step is to acknowledge and cherish the eternal blessings you have as a child of God:

  • You are forgiven and have peace in Christ– “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:13-17).
  • You are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit – “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).
  • You have a living hope in Christ – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5).

The third step is bringing balance into your life.

You’ve heard the saying, don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s next to impossible to appreciate the joy you have as a Christian if you live a hurried-up life filled with stress. In the book of Philippians, Paul writes, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:6-7).

We can’t overlook that Paul wrote the words “don’t be anxious” while in prison. Despite the various trials and the ups and downs, Paul still found joy amid some of his darkest hours. That, my friend, is joy!

It would be great that every time you feel worried or anxious, you simply pray for it to go away, and just like that, it’s gone! But, as you very well know, that’s not reality. We may not like it, but it’s in hardships and feeling depressed that God’s joy is made so much more real to us.

So, offer up prayers of thanksgiving to help eliminate any worry or stress that might be preventing you from living a life of joy.

The fourth step involves setting boundaries with certain people who suck the joy out of you.

Setting boundaries is a hard thing to implement for anyone. Starting with the fact that no one likes confrontation. And secondly, most of the “joy suckers” in our lives are people we have no choice but to be around. They can be a family member—a co-worker.

So, the obvious thing is not to overreact and pull away from everybody. What you want to do is assess your relationships and determine who is the most self-centered, critical, argumentative, and who tends to push your buttons. In a nutshell, who leaves you feeling drained and discouraged most of the time?

Once you’ve realized who the “joy suckers” are, the next challenge is to draw the necessary boundaries to protect you from allowing this person to steal your joy. As mentioned in step one, joy is a choice. You may not always have a choice who you are around. But you do have a choice how you interact with them and they with you. So, make sure you bathe your relationships in prayer and seek wise counsel before setting certain boundaries.

The fifth step is to enjoy life today!

It’s easy to take for granted what we have in our lives. I’ll admit that when I get impatient with people or with work-related stuff, I can miss out on enjoying life. Just the other night, I told my wife how I needed not to lose sight of enjoying the simple moments in life. Whether it be throwing the football with one of my kids or sipping a cup of coffee with a friend. I need to be more sensitive and aware of counting my blessings every day.

How about you? What are some blessings you’ve received from God that you need to appreciate more?

As you seek to implement these five steps to achieving a more joyful life, seek to add the prayer from Paul below to enrich your motivation.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)     

Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek

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Jason Jimenez is President of STAND STRONG Ministries and author of Challenging Conversations: A Practical Guide to Discuss Controversial Topics in the church. For more info, check out www.standstrongministries.org.

Original blog: https://bit.ly/3N574aM

 

By Ryan Leasure 

This article is part 6 in a nine-part series on how we got our Bible. Part 1 dealt with inspiration and inerrancy. Part 2  looked at Old Testament development. Part 3 investigate the Old Testament canon and the Apocrypha. Part 4 considered attributes of the New Testament Canon. And Part 5 inquired into the early church’s reception of the New Testament Canon. This post will consider the manuscript tradition and preservation of the New Testament text.

No Original Autographs

Sadly, none of the original autographs remain. Most likely, they wore out after constant usage and copying. Now, all that we possess are copies of copies of copies—a lot of them actually. Yet these copies differ in lots of different places. But do these differences render our Bible unreliable? Bart Ehrman thinks so. He asks:

How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God if in fact we do not have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by scribes—sometimes correctly but sometimes(many times!) incorrectly?[1]

In response to Ehrman’s objection, I’d like to quote the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Article X reads:

We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.

In other words, through the manuscript tradition, we can recreate the original texts with a high degree of accuracy. The reason for this accuracy is that we have 5,000+ extant Greek NT manuscripts (and thousands more in other languages).

Important Early Manuscripts

While listing all the manuscripts would be an impossible task, allow me to highlight some of the more prominent ones:

P52

P stands for “papyri” taken from a reed-like plant in the marshes of Egypt. All the oldest NT manuscripts are on papyri. P52 is probably the oldest surviving manuscript and most likely dates to the second century. The manuscript is extremely small (about the size of a credit card), and contains portions of John 18:31-33, 37-38 on a two-sided fragment. It was discovered in 1934 and is currently housed in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England.

P66

This manuscript contains almost a complete copy of John’s Gospel. The manuscript contains 104 in tact leaves and fragments from forty other leaves. This manuscript dates to somewhere between the late second and early third centuries. It is currently housed in the Bodmer Library in Cologny, just outside Geneva, Switzerland.

P75

This manuscript contains most of Luke and John’s Gospels and dates somewhere between the late second and early third centuries. Discovered in the 1950s, this manuscript made a significant splash in the text criticism world as it closely resembles the fourth century Codex Vaticanus, demonstrating that the copying of early scribes wasn’t as uncontrolled and inaccurate as many previously thought. This manuscript is housed in the Vatican Library.

P45

This manuscript is a highly fragmented portion of a four-Gospel and Acts codex (book with pages) and dates to somewhere between the late second and early third centuries. It was originally 220 pages, but only thirty survive. This codex, along with others like P46 demonstrate that the early church started collecting their canonical texts into single book forms. No early codex, for example, contains the canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Peter or Thomas. This manuscript was discovered in the 1930s and is housed in the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin, Ireland.

P46

This manuscript contains eight of Paul’s letters and Hebrews. Many in the early church thought Hebrews was Pauline, so it was often lumped in with his other letters. This manuscript is very early and probably dates to the second century, though third century is a possibility. It was discovered in the 1920s in the ruins of an old monastery in Egypt. Fifty-six leaves are housed in the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin, Ireland, and thirty are at the University of Michigan.

Codex Sinaiticus

Unlike the previous manuscripts, this one is on parchment (stretched and dried animal skins) and is extremely elegant. It dates to the fourth century. The manuscript includes about half of the OT, Apocryphal texts, the entire NT, the Shepherd of Hermes, and the Epistle of Barnabas. It contains over four hundred leaves of parchment measuring 13 x 14 inches in size. In 1844, Constantine Tischendorf supposedly discovered it in a waste basket that was set to be burned in a fire to keep the monks warm. Along with Vaticanus, this manuscript is the best one in our possession. It is currently housed in the British Library in London.

Codex Vaticanus

Similar to Sinaiticus, Vaticanus dates to around the middle of the fourth century. It contains almost the entire OT, Apocryphal texts, and almost the entire NT (parts of Hebrews and Revelation are missing). Most text scholars regard Vaticanus as the most trustworthy manuscript of the NT. As mentioned previously, it relates closely to P75. This manuscript has been housed in the Vatican Library since the 15th century.

Texual Variants

With thousands of manuscripts comes thousands of textual variants (about 500,000 in total). A variant is simply a different reading in the text. And as Bart Ehrman likes to point out, “There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”[2] While there are only about 138,000 words in the New Testament, Ehrman’s quote is misleading. First off, we wouldn’t have any variants if we only had one manuscript. With 5,000+, we’re bound to have thousands upon thousands of variants. And second, Ehrman wrongly compares the total number of variants in ALL the manuscripts to the total number of words in only ONE complete manuscript.

Peter Gurry has calculated that when you add up all the words in the 5,000+ manuscripts, and divide it by the total number of variants, you come out to “just one distinct variant per 434 words copied.”[3] That’s a far cry from having far more variants than words in the NT.

Types of Variants[4]

With all the variants in the manuscript tradition, how do scholars determine which readings represent the original text? To help you make sense of this process, I think it will be helpful to place the types of variants into four different categories:

1. Neither Meaningful nor Viable

This category represent variants that don’t change the meaning of the text and obviously don’t reflect the original reading. For example spelling errors are easy to detect and aren’t original to the text. Or, occasionally a scribe got careless and repeated a word like the scribe who copied Galatians 1:11: “For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.” These types of variants make up about 75% of all variants (roughly 400,000 variants).

Even Ehrman admits, “To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.”[5]

2. Viable but not Meaningful

These variants could reflect the original, but they don’t affect the meaning of the text. Variants of this sort include synonyms, different spellings, changes in word order, and the like. Allow me to offer you a few examples:

  • John 1:6 either reads, “There came a man sent from God.” Or it reads, “There came a man sent from the Lord.” Either could reflect the original, but meaning remains the same.
  • The movable nu is either present or absent in several instances. This variant is equivalent to the English use of the article “a” or “an.” No translation is affected.
  • Sometimes John has two n’s and sometimes it has one n. It can be spelled either way. This could be equivalent to spelling it “color” or “colour.” Technically, both are acceptable. But again, the spelling of Ἰωάννηςdoesn’t affect translation.
  • One popular group of synonyms are words translated as “and” (καὶ, δέ, τέ). The variants could reflect the original, but the translation and meaning are not affected.
  • Word order changes don’t affect meaning either because Greek is an inflected language. Meaning, the form of the word determines its place in the sentence. For example, I can write “God loves you” twelve different ways in Greek (θεός ἀγαπᾷ σε / θεός σε ἀγαπᾷ / σε ἀγαπᾷ θεός / σε θεός ἀγαπᾷ / ἀγαπᾷ θεός σε / ἀγαπᾷ σε θεός / ὁ θεός ἀγαπᾷ σε / ὁ θεός σε ἀγαπᾷ / σε ἀγαπᾷ ὁ θεός / σε ὁ θεός ἀγαπᾷ / ἀγαπᾷ ὁ θεός σε / ἀγαπᾷ σε ὁ θεός). That is to say, changes of word order don’t affect translation.

3. Meaningful but not Viable

These variants would change the meaning of the text, but they obviously don’t reflect the original. For example, most John 1:30 manuscripts reads, “after me comes a man.” One manuscript, however, reads, “after me comes air.” And I don’t think John the Baptist was talking about some bad locusts he ate. This variant would change the meaning, but it obviously does not reflect the original. The copyists simply left out a letter (ἀήρ vs. ἀνήρ).

Again, Erhman remarks, “Most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the results of mistakes, pure and simple — slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another.”[6]

Of all textual variants, 99% of them fall into these first three categories. The remaining 1% fall into the final category.

4. Meaningful and Viable

These variants would change the meaning of the text and they very possibly could reflect the original. Furthermore, most Bibles include these variants in their footnotes. Let me give you a few examples of what these variants look like and the process that textual scholars go through in making their decisions:

Mark 1:2

Either it reads: (A) “as it is written in Isaiah the prophet” or, (B) “as it is written in the prophets.”

Most of the early manuscripts (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Bezae) support reading A. Later Byzantine texts support B. This one seems pretty straight forward to me. A is the more difficult reading because the following quotation comes from both Isaiah and Micah. Therefore, it’s easy to see how a later scribe would try to smooth this out by changing “Isaiah” to “the prophets” because of a perceived mistake in the manuscript he was copying. Since it’s the more difficult reading, and since it is well represented among the earliest manuscripts, reading A is to be preferred.

Luke 22:43-44

Either: (A) it includes Jesus agonizing and sweating drops of blood in the garden, or (B) it omits it.

The manuscript evidence is somewhat divided on this issue. Good manuscripts support both A and B, although church father quotations support A. Moreover, its difficult to understand why a scribe would insert this scene if it wasn’t original to the text. On the flip side, it’s easier to make sense of why a scribe would omit the scene because it makes Jesus look weak compared to other Christian martyrs who boldly went to their deaths. Option A seems like the better reading in my opinion.

Romans 5:1

Either it reads: (A) “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” or, (B) “let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Most of the early and better manuscripts favor reading B. That said, the context of Romans 5 suggests that A would be a better reading. In other words, Paul doesn’t seem to be exhorting the believers to pursue peace with God, but declaring that they already have peace with God. The difference is one letter (ἔχομεν or ἔχωμεν), and they would have sounded almost identical as they were read aloud. It’s easy to see how a copyist mistakenly heard the wrong word as someone read it aloud to him as he copied the text. Therefore, A seems like the better reading.

A Reliable Text

I hope these examples give you a little idea of what the process of textual criticism looks like. I should also note that none of the meaningful and viable variants leave any Christian doctrine hanging in the balance. That is to say, the Trinity isn’t up in the air if a Bible translator chose the wrong variant. God’s word is redundant (in a good way) so that every major Christian belief is well-represented across a wide spectrum of texts. Thus, while biblical scholars are less than 100% certain in a few places, you can have confidence that God’s word has been reliably preserved.

The next post will look into the history of the English Bible.

Notes

[1] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 7.

[2] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 90.

[3] Peter Gurry, Myths and Mistakes, 196.

[4] These categories come from Dan Wallace.

[5] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 207.

[6] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 55.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3 and Mp4)

The Footsteps of the Apostle Paul (mp4 Download), (DVD) by Dr. Frank Turek

Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by J. Warner Wallace (Book)

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Ryan Leasure holds a Master of Arts from Furman University and a Masters of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Currently, he’s a Doctor of Ministry candidate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3KPYR8v

 

By Brian G. Chilton

For nearly ten years, I have been honored to bring you reasons for believing in the resurrection of Jesus. I now find myself at the end of a terminal degree in theological and apologetic studies.[1] For some, advanced education tends to cause one to doubt one’s position over time. However, that has not been the case for me and the resurrection of Jesus. Over the last few years, I have found five new compelling reasons for believing that the resurrection of Jesus was a legitimate historical event. These five arguments may or may not be new to the reader, but they became new to me through my research and are newer than some of the previous arguments given about the resurrection in previous articles. Without further ado, consider the following five new arguments for the resurrection of Jesus.

Unexpected Nature of the Resurrection

The first argument is one of the best pieces of evidence for the resurrection that I had never before considered. That is, no one in Jesus’s day expected the Messiah to rise from the dead. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Jewish leaders argue that the disciples stole the body of Jesus (Matt. 28:11–15). Of all the alternate theories of the resurrection, this is by far the most compelling. Regardless of whether one holds that the disciples stole the body of Jesus, invented the story, or feigned Jesus’s death, there is one aspect that skeptics fail to consider. No one in the first century anticipated the imminent resurrection of Jesus. This is evident in Jesus’s encounter with Martha at Lazarus’s tomb. Recall that when Jesus asked Mary if she believed that Lazarus would rise from the dead, she said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (Jn. 11:24). Martha’s response represented the typical position of the Pharisees and the Essenes. Josephus notes that the vast majority of the population in first-century Israel were Pharisees.[2]

N.T. Wright provides two reasons why the resurrection was unexpected in the first century. On the one hand, believers living in the times of Second Temple Judaism anticipated that the resurrection would bring about the “restoration of Israel … [and] the newly embodied life of all YHWH’s people.[3] On the other hand, no one in the period connected the Messiah with resurrection.[4] The concept of the Messiah resurrecting on the third day, though it may be reflected in the OT texts to a degree, was not in any way expected by believers at this time. Thus, the lack of anticipation for a resurrection delivers a fatal blow to any theory that projects the early Christians as being those who staged such an experience. Why stage something that they did not believe would happen in the first place?

Multiple Independent Sources

When it comes to any event of history, it is important for one to possess multiple source attestation. The more eyes one has on an event, the more accurate the truth can be preserved. When it comes to the resurrection, we have multiple sources pointing to the resurrection of Jesus being a historical event. First, we have the four independent sources found in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all provide unique accounts of Jesus’s resurrection appearances. Matthew reports Jesus’s post-resurrection meeting with the disciples in Galilee. Mark reports the women at the tomb and their mysterious encounter with the angels at the tomb. Luke provides multiple accounts that are not preserved in the other Gospels, including the two disciples’ encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24:13–35). John affords multiple stories not included in the other Gospels, including Thomas’s encounter with Jesus (Jn. 20:24–29), Jesus’s encounter with the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus’s reinstatement of Peter (Jn. 21:15–19), and Peter asking Jesus about John’s ministry (Jn. 21:20–23).

In addition to the Gospels, a fifth source is found in the early creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3–9. The early creed provides additional information concerning the resurrection appearances of Jesus. It tells of Peter’s meeting with the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 15:5), the meeting between Jesus and James (1 Cor. 15:7), and his appearance to over 500 (1 Cor. 15:6). A sixth source is found in the sermon summaries of Peter in the book of Acts (Acts 2:14–41 and 3:12–26). A seventh source is found in the sermon summary of Stephen (especially in Acts 7:52 and 7:59–60). Finally, an eighth source is found in the sermon summaries of Paul. In the first sermon summary of Paul, he even speaks of Jesus’s empty tomb (Acts 13:29). Max Wilcox has convincingly found numerous Semitisms within the sermon summaries in Acts 1–15 that are largely not found in the remainder of the book.[5] Thus, the sermons of these chapters stem from earlier summaries that predate the composition of the book of Acts. Since a good estimate of the dating of Acts is the mid-60s, then it can be said that these summaries are much earlier. The fact that they speak of the resurrection of Jesus provides one more reason to adopt it as a genuine event of history.

Extremely Early Testimony

The study into the early creeds of the NT is gaining steam. Though he may claim otherwise, NT scholar and self-professed atheist-leaning-agnostic Bart Ehrman wrote that Paul received the creeds (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:3–9) while in Jerusalem in AD 35 or 36.[6] He goes on to say that “the traditions [Paul] inherited, of course, were older than that and so must date to just a couple of years or so after Jesus’s death.”[7] Since the early creeds wholeheartedly affirm Jesus’s literal bodily resurrection, then this provides firm evidence that the earliest disciples believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. Paul’s sermon summary also affirmed the belief that the tomb of Jesus was empty, as noted previously. With many, if not the majority, of the early creeds, we are talking about them circulating just a few months to a few years after Jesus’s crucifixion.[8] The creeds found in the Pauline epistles stemmed from the information Paul obtained from his interaction with the Jerusalem Church a couple of years after his conversion (Gal. 1:18). He spent two weeks with Peter and James learning about the teachings and doctrines of Christ. As C. H. Dodd notes, “we may presume they did not spend all the time talking about the weather.”[9] Thus, the proclamation that Jesus had risen from the dead came very early from the place where Jesus had been crucified. The details from the early sermon summaries of Acts and the creeds in Paul’s epistles make for a full and compelling case for the early preaching of the resurrection. When pieced with the first argument, it is difficult to find any other explanation outside of the fact that Jesus literally rose from the dead.

Unique Early Eschatological Christology

Finally, it has been observed that the earliest Christology is the highest Christology.[10] Additionally, early Jesus traditions endorse the idea that Jesus spoke of an eschatological figure who would usher in the kingdom of God. This eschatological figure is known as the Son of Man. The Son of Man arguably constructs the Christological core of Q—a theoretical Gospel that precedes the canonical Gospels.[11] Part of this early tradition includes Jesus’s comment that as “Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matt. 12:40).[12] The Son of Man figure is almost exclusively found in the teachings of Jesus. Thus, this was a unique teaching of Jesus. Not only does the Son of Man figure connect with Jesus being God’s regent who brings God’s kingdom to earth, but it also speaks of his glorification which relates to his resurrection. Therefore, early Jesus preaching of the resurrection was remembered and preserved by the early disciples because of Jesus’s literal fulfillment of this unique and unexpected promise.

Conclusion

Some of these arguments may be new to you and some may not. Some of these aspects will be further fleshed out in my pending dissertation. Nonetheless, the unique and unexpected nature of the resurrection, the early preaching of the resurrection, multiple sources, and Jesus’s early eschatological identification with the resurrection all speak strongly to the probability that Jesus literally rose from the dead on the first Easter Sunday. My hope is that these arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, in addition to the classic arguments, strengthen your faith and offer you hope that there is a life beyond this mere mortal existence.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)

Notes

[1] That is, providing I successfully defend my dissertation.

[2] Josephus contends that the Pharisees were so loved, and the Sadducees were so despised that the Sadducees would adopt certain notions from the Pharisees to find favor with the populace. Josephus, Antiq. 18.15–17.

[3] N. T. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 205.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Max Wilcox, The Semitisms of Acts (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1965), 171.

[6] Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2012), 131.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 266.

[9] C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments, 2nd ed (London, UK: Hodder and Stoughton, 1944), 16.

[10] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), x, 235.

[11] For a full discussion of the issues concerning this topic, see John S. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2000), 388–395.

[12] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scriptures come from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2020).

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Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as a pastor in northwestern North Carolina.

Original blog: https://bit.ly/3Mwb6bS