TruthMatters_SJ
What If We Didn’t Have the Gospels? We have a variety of means by which we can determine the truth of Christianity or any other religious or faith claim. These include whether (1) the person making the claim is sincere; (2) the person has no material incentives for fabrication; (3) the claim has been corroborated …
Recall the richest king of the Bible: Solomon. He wrote the book of Proverbs, which showed us his great wisdom. He had amassed a fortune, yet he didn’t obey the Lord. He married women of other religions and eventually came to worship their gods. In Ecclesiastes, we see the outcome of his missteps as he …
Continue reading "Evidence of the Light and Love of the Son"
An interesting and rather embarrassing aspect of the Bible is that its forty or more authors never attempt to shield us from the (sometimes ugly) truth. In fact, the ugly truth is what differentiates the Gospels from the Gnostic texts, which were written much later. In the Gnostic Infancy Gospel of Thomas (140-170 AD), the …
Continue reading "Evidence for Jesus’ Divinity from Peter, James and Paul"
I sat next to a pastor on a plane around 2012 and he read part of the following passage to me and asked me whom it described. Isaiah 53 was written around 700 B.C. and to me, it quite clearly describes Jesus. In fact, it's one of the most frequently cited passages by the Jews …
Continue reading "Is the Suffering Servant the Nation or People of Israel? No!"
“The great difficulty is to get audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity simply because you happen to think it true.” – CS Lewis In a conversation I had with philosophy professor Tim McGrew, he asked me which place I thought starting a new religion would be successful: Mecca (Saudi Arabia) or Milwaukee, Wisconsin. …
Continue reading "Evidence for Early Christian Persecution: Reasons to Believe"
The prophet Daniel lived between 605 B.C. and 530 B.C. He and his fellow Israelites were captives in Babylon under the King Nebuchadnezzar. After correctly explaining one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, he was given a position of power under him. He often prayed to God while in this position and the Lord gave him numerous …
Continue reading "The Biblical Prophecy that Changed the World!"
According to the New Testament, after Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, he felt remorse so he killed himself. We have two accounts of this action, which were written by (or attributed to) Matthew and Luke. Skeptics often point to the two accounts of Judas’ death to claim the New Testament contains conflicting …
Prior to his decades-long ministry, Luke reports in the book of Acts that St. Paul (who was then called Saul) hunted and persecuted people of “the Way,” which he considered to be a false and blasphemous movement against the God of the Jewish people, whom he dutifully worshipped. He stood at the feet of St. …
Continue reading "10 Tips from St. Paul for Christian Debates with Nonbelievers"
God disrupts lives to build heroes. Modern skeptics sometimes question whether Moses really existed. They cite a lack of much archaeological evidence for the Exodus and disputes among scholars on its timing and which Pharaoh was in power. The oldest piece of extra-Biblical evidence we have is the Merenptah Stele, which places Israel in Canaan …
An important lesson can be learned when considering what we know of Joseph of Arimathea. The Bible tells us that he was a member of the Sanhedrin, which is the group of Jewish leaders who convicted Jesus to death on the cross. The Bible also tells us that he asked Pontius Pilate for Jesus’ body, …