Who Was Jesus?

Influential British Philosopher Bertrand Russell echoed a common sentiment about Jesus in his famous essay Why I am not a Christian-

“Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if he did we know nothing about him.”

He was not alone in his thinking. There are many who doubt the historical accuracy of Jesus, but here are the facts-

· Biblical records about Jesus were written by eyewitnesses within forty years of the events that occurred.

· The Biblical accounts of Jesus agree with evidence from secular and Jewish historians of his time.

· Luke, one of the Biblical authors who wrote about Jesus, mentions thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, nine islands, and several ancient rulers in his accounts about Jesus and the early church. He never makes a single historical error about any of them!

· There 5366 manuscripts used to translate the New Testament of the Bible. Compared to the 643 manuscripts available to translate Homer’s Iliad, the Bible is a very reliable historical record.

· Even without these many manuscripts, almost the entire new testament could be recreated just from quotations from the church fathers.

All of these facts together show that the Bible is indeed an accurate historical record. Ultimately the only way to know if Jesus was real, or if He was who the Bible says He was is to look for yourself.

Ready to take a small step of faith?

Jesus on judging others-

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

Matthew 7:1

Jesus on treating others-

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 22: 39

Jesus on salvation-

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

The WORD

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Word of the LORD. It's a HUGE concept. The Word of the LORD is completely sovereign. Nothing tops it. It's the most important thing in all of existence. God's word is an extension of Himself. The gospel of John begins with the words "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Christ and the Word of God are inseparably the same in a way that is so very mysterious.

The Word of the LORD is living and active. It is sharper than a sword. Man needs it to survive as much or more than food (after all, man does not live on bread alone!). It has the power to create something from nothingness. He spoke in the beginning and things came to be just because He spoke! Amazing!!

God's Word is vast and powerful. His Word is eternal, which causes this crazy backwards paradox. His Word is perfect and Holy and complete, but He gives it to incomplete and sinful men to speak and to handle. How does that make sense? How can something so great and eternal come from something so flawed and finite? He has placed eternity in our hearts, and yet we are so concerned with temporary things.

God give us the grace to handle your Word rightly today. Amen.

It's been a long time...

I know, I know, it's been along time, but I am still living and active. Check out this passage I found in 2 Peter-

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

I love how the name of the LORD there is Majestic Glory. This passage is so poetic and powerfully validates the prophetic word. Prophets are still speaking His Word and I see the Church is beginning to listen. I see the Lord is raising up a whole new generation of Prophets to speak His Word. I'm super excited about it. Someone recently spoke a Word from God to my Corps about our kids becoming prophets. Wow. The times are exciting. They are transitioning to something new the Church hasn't experienced in a long time, or maybe never before. All I can say is- exciting!

All glory and praise to YHWH our God, the Majestic Glory!

Thanksgiving thoughts...

So at the daycare we've been trying to press into the brains of the preschool class why we actually celebrate Thanksgiving. For some reason I've been finding it really interesting, so although you probably know, please allow me to refresh you.

So some pilgrims came to North America long before it had been really settled by western society to find religious freedom from the Anglican church. The winter after they arrived proved to be quite harsh. Their houses and shelters did not do enough to keep them warm and there was not enough food to go around and as a result, many died. The following spring, however was quite fruitful. The natives helped them big time by teaching them how to hunt and gather and plant foods like corn. The pilgrims prospered and the harvest was plentiful or something like that. So the governor called for a feast to celebrate and give thanks to God for all He had done for them.

There area a few reasons why this story is so interesting to me. I think it's a pretty important piece of Church history, as they were the first group of Christians to settle in North America. What's also so fascinating is the mass amount of religious content in the story. The name "pilgrim" is literally a person on a religious journey. The fact that the Holiday is called "Thanksgiving" assumes that these religious people were giving thanks, most obviously to God. What's also overlooked and incredibly interesting is that these celebrated pilgrims were Puritans, an ultra conservative group of Christians. You could quite justifiably label them "extremists." In our society, being a super conservative Christian isn't often looked at positively, yet we follow in their footsteps by celebrating Thanksgiving with them every year. Really, if we take a serious look at it's roots, Thanksgiving is a strong Christian holiday where we observe the feast of the Puritan pilgrims and are meant to follow in their footsteps by giving God our own thanks for what He has done for us.

One more interesting point- The story of Thanksgiving points out that the Church's first relationship with the American natives was a very positive one, with cooperation and acceptance across the board. They even invited the Natives to join their feast of giving thanks to God. Very incarnational and relational. Possibly even a postmodern(ish?) attempt at evangelism?

Anyway, those are just some interesting points I've been observing in the story of our religious feast of Thanksgiving. What are your thoughts?

Living life loudly

The other day I was really tired while driving to work. It had been a long week and a long weekend before. That made driving difficult. I needed to get to work, but I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. So I began to shout and sing loudly to keep myself from falling asleep.

I think that past morning was kind of a parable of my life recently. In order for me to remain spiritually awake and alert, I need to shout to the LORD and sing loudly. Shouting is often a great way to let your spirit express itself to God. Samuel Logan Brengle, one of the Salvation Army's early holiness theologians, once wrote an article about shouting that became part of his book Helps to Holiness. He says that nothing scares off the forces of Hell more quickly that a hearty, loud, honest shout of praise to the LORD. There's something about being loud to the LORD that excites our spirits and frightens the enemy.

So I'm going to shout. I need to sing praise and do it loudly. I need to shout and hoot and holler for the LORD, because I haven't been, even though I've wanted to, and I spiritually fell asleep. My life became drudgery and difficult and completely unsatisfying. I need to shout because it feels a little more like the abundant life Christ came to give me. Lord, help me to never be afraid to publicly shout your praises. Amen.

Simple Holiness

There's been quite a bit of talk on holiness here at Seattle Temple recently, so I though I'd blog a little on it.

Holiness can be a complicated issue. There are a lot of theologians out there with their different takes on the gift and how we receive it, and there's a lot of complicated terminology around holiness. The truth is, holiness is the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He went to the cross, took our sins upon himself, and defeated the power of sin on the cross. Then He rose from the dead and now lives to God in eternal and completely abundant life. If we believe in faith that His victory was won for the sin in our lives, He will respond by removing our sinful nature. That is complete grace working in response to our faith. It's hard to believe, but that's why faith is required. We don't feel like He has taken away our sin because the enemy doesn't want us to feel that way. The enemy works hard to convince us of the lie that we are controlled by sin, but the truth is, if we believe in faith that Jesus can take away our sin, we can live a life of freedom from the enemy. He will still tempt us, but we have to understand that temptation is no longer because we are sinful, it's a temptation from the enemy that we have victory over. By the power of God, we don't have to sin. We are free to do what we want. And if we do sin, Christ is our advocate in Heaven to provide forgiveness and freedom. Just know that your sin was defeated on the cross and all that holiness is, is simply believing in faith that this is true.

All is peace. All is balanced.

YHWH is teaching me.

All is peace. All is balanced. There is no chaos, there is no unbalance.

There is only YHWH. YHWH is peace. YHWH is balance.

What seems to be chaos and disorder is only a small part of God's balance and peace.

You see, YHWH is eternal and He holds time in His hand. We are bound by time and are forced to flow through only a part of it. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "He has made all things beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." We are eternal, but we only see a small picture of eternity. However, then we shall know Eternity just as we are known (1 Corinthians 13). I say all is peace because, looking at eternity as a whole, it is balanced and peaceful. Only, what we see as balance isn't always what YHWH sees as balance. We assume that balance must be equality, i.e .5+.5=1. This is balance, but so is .7+.3=1. They both end in one whole, but if you only see the means, you cannot possibly understand the end. YHWH sees all and knows the whole, but we only see some of the parts. So what seems unbalanced ends in goodness and peace, but man cannot find out what He does from beginning to end.

That's all kind of deep and complicated. Maybe one of these days I'll get it better and be able to explain it more simply. What do you think?