The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. He is the creator of everything that exists: time, space and matter. In our life group studying apologetics, we recently watched this video from William Lane Craig. It is a great reminder that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that a creator exists. May we be reminded of these truths and be drawn to worship Him! Therefore, there exists a Personal Creator of the universe, who, sans the universe, is timeless, spaceless, beginningless, changeless, necessary, uncaused, and enormously powerful.
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Enjoy this short video from Lee Strobel, and may it encourage you this Christmas season that the birth of our savior is an historical event! In the video below, Frank Turek gives a 4-point summary of how we can know that Christianity is true:
You can find it on Amazon here. Interested in digging into apologetics with others from Cold Springs Church? Pastor Steve teaches an online course starting again this fall! Email Pastor Steve if you are interested. We don't have any of the original writings of any of the books of the New Testament (the original writings are called autographs). What do do have is many, many copies. Textual criticism is the science of determining the original words by looking at the numerous manuscripts. Here are few of the important facts: 1. We have about 5,600 Greek manuscripts. 2. There are over 400,000 textual variants in these Greek manuscripts. 3. 99% of these variants are either not meaningful or not viable… and therefore inconsequential. 4. The fewer than 1% of the variants that are meaningful and viable do not affect or call into question a single Biblical doctrine. If you want to learn more about textual criticism, here are some short videos below. Are there contradictions in the Gospels? J. Warner Wallace writes, "Reliable eye witnesses never agree on every detail." In fact, he asserts that if they did agree in every detail they would not be considered reliable but instead guilty of collusion. The Gospels complement each other, and their differences authenticate them as legitimate eye witness testimony. Check out the short video below with J. Warner Wallace. There's also a short video with RC Sproul on Bible contradictions in general - see below. Want to dig deeper? Check out J. Warner Wallace's website: coldcasechristianity.com/ And if you'd like to read an article about errors in the whole Bible, Norm Geisler has a great article online here. Another great resource is a book by Gleason Archer called Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. You can find it on Amazon here. Is Christianity based on a made-up Jesus? Or a historical Jesus? The early Christian Church actually existed (and was thriving!) well before ANY of the New Testament was written. The Christian faith exists not because of the Bible, but because of the resurrection of Jesus. Want to dig into the historical evidence for Jesus outside of the New Testament? Here are a few videos below. And if you'd like to read an article by J. Warner Wallace, you can do so here. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is the resurrection of Jesus an historical event? What is the evidence? William Lane Craig writes: “There are four facts agreed upon by the majority of scholars who have written on these subjects which any adequate historical hypothesis must account for: Jesus’ entombment by Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection. Now the question is: what is the best explanation of these four facts? Most sholars probably remain agnostic about this question. But the Christian can maintain that the hypothesis that best explains these facts is “God raised Jesus from the dead.” The Apostle Paul wrote: And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. -1 Corinthians 15:14 The historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is absolutely essential to the Christian faith. If Jesus was raised from the dead, all the promises of God are true, for Jesus has proven Himself to be the none other than God in the flesh. If you’d like to read a fascinating article by William Lane Craig, you can find it here. A few days ago my son emailed me an article titled “The Walls of Jericho did Tumble Down, New Study Finds”. I’m always encouraged to hear about new archaeological evidence that supports the Biblical account of history. And one quote from the article: ''When we compare the archeological evidence at Jericho with the biblical narrative describing the Israelite destruction of Jericho, we find a quite remarkable agreement,'' -Dr. Bryant G. Wood, an archeologist at the University of Toronto One more reason why the Christian faith is intellectually reasonable? Archeological finds continue to provide evidence that the Bible is historically accurate. If you’d like to watch a short (10-minute) video on archeology and the Bible, you’ll find it below. J Warner Wallace was a cold case homicide detective in Los Angeles. And he was not a Christian. His Christian friend told him to use his detective skills to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to find out if they are reliable eyewitness accounts. What happened? J Warner Wallace became a Christ-follower! He summarizes four tests that he was trained to apply to eyewitnesses. He applied these tests to the Gospels and realized that they are trustworthy accounts, and therefore Jesus really is God in the flesh who died and rose again. Here are the four tests:
Following Jesus is intellectually satisfying because the Gospels are reliable eyewitness accounts of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Check out the short video below with J Warner Wallace! Is the Bible a reliable source of information about historical events? Many people would say “no” simply because the Bible records miracles: Walking on water, turning a few fish and loaves of bread into a feast to feed thousands, turning water into wine, and the list goes on. But as we already established, miracles are possible if God exists. And the evidence is overwhelming that God does exist! So if miracles are possible, are the miracles written about in the Bible historically accurate? All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. -2 Timothy 3:16 Below is a short video that answer the question “Is the Bible reliable?” I hope you enjoy it! |
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