Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000051S
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00:01 - Imagine going into a room to make a big presentation
00:03 and you know for sure nobody wants you there, 00:07 and they're probably gonna laugh you to scorn 00:09 when you're done making the presentation. 00:11 The question is, would you still be willing to do it, 00:15 and what would it take to make you willing to persist? 00:19 That's on today's Authentic. 00:22 [upbeat ambient music] 00:43 A few years ago, 00:44 our crew was filming in the city of Jerusalem 00:46 and I had a free morning 00:47 to go and explore the old city by myself. 00:50 Now, if you ever get the chance to do this, 00:51 I highly, highly recommend it. 00:54 It's one of the oldest cities in the world, 00:56 easily one of the most significant, 00:58 so much history has transpired 01:00 in the streets of old Jerusalem 01:01 that you'll find something interesting around 01:04 just about every corner. 01:05 So on this particular morning, 01:07 I decided to compare two different places 01:10 that might be the spot where Christ was crucified. 01:14 The first was easily the more famous of the two, 01:17 an old church dating back to the time of Constantine. 01:20 Constantine's mother, Helena had traveled to Jerusalem 01:23 to look for the tomb of Jesus, 01:25 and when she thought she found it, 01:27 she built a church over that spot. 01:29 Now, her original building isn't there anymore 01:32 because the site has been through a lot of trauma 01:34 since it was first built in the 300s. 01:37 It was destroyed by fire in 614 when the Persians invaded, 01:41 and then rebuilt by the Byzantines a few years later in 630. 01:45 In the eighth century, it suffered an earthquake, 01:48 it was damaged terribly and again, in the ninth. 01:51 In the 11th century, 01:53 a Muslim Khalif had the building torn down, 01:55 and on it went over and over and over. 01:58 So the building you find there today 02:00 is absolutely not the original. 02:03 But you know it's not really the building 02:05 that draws people anyway, 02:06 it's more what people think they're gonna find inside. 02:09 When you first walk in, [intense ambient music] 02:11 on your right, there's a steep staircase 02:13 leading up to the top of a rocky prominence, 02:15 although you can't really see the rock 02:17 because the church is built over it, and they say, 02:21 when you're up on top of that staircase, 02:23 you're actually standing on Golgotha, 02:24 the hill where Jesus was crucified, 02:27 and there's this place where you can kneel down 02:29 and reach through a hole in the floor 02:31 and supposedly touch the exact spot where it happened. 02:36 Then down below that, 02:37 at the bottom of the staircase backed by the entrance, 02:40 there's a pink slab of stone 02:42 where they say Jesus was embalmed 02:44 before they put him in a tomb. 02:45 Now that one is a lot more suspicious 02:48 because we know for sure 02:49 that the current stone on that location 02:51 was installed in the 1800s. 02:53 So I know it's not the real thing. 02:56 Go a little deeper into the building 02:58 and you'll find a large room with a big structure 03:01 where they say, 03:02 you can actually visit the spot where Jesus was buried, 03:04 his tomb is supposedly inside. 03:07 And as you can imagine, there's almost always 03:09 a huge line of people waiting to see this. 03:11 So if you're gonna go, 03:13 you should probably go first thing in the morning 03:14 and even then plan to be in line for quite a while. 03:18 So that's one location, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 03:22 where some people believe Jesus was crucified and buried. 03:25 And to be honest, personally, I'm not sure I believe it 03:28 because I guess I've explored the ancient world 03:31 a little too often to just believe whatever I'm told. 03:34 2000 years is a really long time 03:37 to accumulate tradition for cities to change. 03:40 But of course, on the other hand, I'm not an archeologist 03:42 and I'm not even a professional historian. 03:46 Of course, for me what matters most 03:48 is not where these things happened, 03:50 but the fact that they did happen. 03:53 So after spending a bit of time 03:55 at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, 03:57 I went outside the old city 03:59 on the north side by the Damascus gate, 04:02 and I made my way to the bus station, not to catch a bus, 04:05 but to catch a glimpse 04:06 of something they call Gordon's Calvary. 04:09 Around the back of the station, 04:10 there's this small hill with a couple of indents 04:13 that kind of look like eyes 04:14 and there's a small feature that kind of looks like a nose. 04:18 So some people believe that was the side of the crucifixion 04:22 because "Golgotha" means the place of the skull. 04:26 Now to the left of that hill 04:28 is a small park with a tomb in the side of another hill, 04:31 which people call The Garden Tomb. 04:33 And in my opinion, 04:35 the hill behind the bus station seems more likely 04:38 than the Church of the Holy Sepulcher 04:40 for a number of reasons. 04:42 But again, I'm hardly an expert, 04:44 there's a really good chance I'm wrong, 04:46 which doesn't bother me 04:47 because the location isn't the point, 04:50 [tranquil ambient music] although I will say this, 04:52 wherever the location was, 04:55 it was designed to maximize shame. 04:57 We often picture Jesus crucified on top of a hill, 05:00 but what the Bible actually says 05:02 is that he was crucified at Golgotha, 05:05 not necessarily on Golgotha. 05:08 It seems far more likely to me 05:10 that he would've been crucified by the public roadway 05:13 that ran along the bottom of the hill 05:15 because that would be more embarrassing 05:18 and they could use Jesus as a warning to anybody else 05:21 who might be tempted to defy the Roman empire. 05:24 In fact, just a few decades earlier, 05:26 the Romans had crucified something like 2000 rebels 05:30 along the major roadways outside of Jerusalem 05:33 for exactly that reason. 05:35 So when Christians sing that well known hymn, 05:38 "The old rugged cross", 05:39 and they say, "on a hill far away", 05:42 well, there's a good chance they're wrong, 05:44 it's probably "by a hill far away". 05:47 Yet again, it's not really the location that matters, 05:50 it's the fact that it happened. 05:53 The passage of time 05:54 and a widespread familiarity with the story 05:57 has dramatically dampened the visceral impact 06:00 of what they actually did to Jesus. 06:03 You and I are used to seeing crosses on church buildings 06:06 or dangling from necklaces and earrings, 06:08 and we easily forget what a serious problem the cross was 06:12 for those earliest of Christians, 06:14 the man they said was God in human flesh 06:17 had just died the most humiliating death possible, 06:20 hung naked in front of the world 06:23 and hung between two obvious reprobates 06:26 in order to make his death seem well, even more shameful. 06:29 Good men did not die on crosses. 06:32 Crosses were for the scum of the earth, 06:34 which is the reason that Roman citizens like Paul 06:37 were never crucified. 06:39 Paul you'll remember was beheaded. 06:42 Now, historically we think that crucifixion 06:45 was invented by the ancient Assyrians 06:47 or the ancient Babylonians, 06:49 and it was designed to be as torturous 06:51 and sadistic as possible. 06:53 The Persians continued to use crucifixion, 06:55 and then Alexander the Great adopted it from them 06:58 after his conquests in the East. 07:01 The Phoenicians picked it up from the Greeks, 07:03 and then the Romans got it from them, 07:06 and then the Romans practically made an art form out of it. 07:09 In fact, in the minds of most people, 07:11 the Romans kind of own the art of crucifixion. 07:15 It could take days for a victim 07:18 to finally succumb to the cruelty of a cross. 07:20 You would be dehydrated, you would be bleeding, 07:23 and you would be riving in agony as you hung from nails 07:26 that were strategically placed to maximize pain. 07:30 In the end, you died from asphyxiation 07:32 because you were suspended in a way 07:34 that would make it impossible to breathe 07:36 if you didn't push yourself up to take a breath, 07:39 and to push yourself up, 07:41 you had to put pressure on your feet, 07:43 which had also been nailed to the cross. 07:46 Then after that, you would sink back down 07:47 to hang from your nail pierced hands 07:49 or wrists to be technical. 07:52 It created a grizzly dance of death up and down, 07:56 up and down for days on end until your legs gave out 08:00 and you finally suffocated. 08:02 And sometimes to speed things up, 08:04 the Romans would break your legs, 08:06 which made you suffocate faster. 08:08 Needless to say, crucifixion is probably 08:11 the most sadistic method of execution ever devised. 08:16 And the early Christians 08:17 were telling people their God had died like that. 08:22 They insisted that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, 08:25 the one who was supposed to liberate the nation of Israel, 08:28 but then he died at the hands of these pagan oppressors. 08:31 So needless to say, it wasn't an easy sell. 08:35 By this time, the Jews had been living in the shadow 08:37 of gentile empires for 100s of years, 08:40 starting with the Babylonians. 08:42 And the Roman occupation of Palestine 08:44 was a particular unwelcome experience. 08:47 Now, it's true, the Jews had a number of legal privileges 08:51 that other conquered nations didn't have 08:53 because at one point, they offered support to Julius Caesar, 08:56 but for the most part, 08:58 the Jewish experience with the Romans was brutal. 09:02 This was their covenant territory, 09:04 the one that rightfully belonged to them 09:06 because it was given to their father Abraham by God himself. 09:10 It was supposed to be an exceptional place, 09:12 a nation where the faith of the one true God 09:14 could be on full display so that gentile nations could see 09:18 how superior the God of Israel was. 09:21 So to be occupied by a gentile presence was humiliating, 09:25 and for somebody to say 09:27 that messiah had been murdered by Romans, unthinkable. 09:31 And in just a few moments I'll be right back 09:33 to show you more, so don't go away. 09:38 [tranquil ambient music] - Life can throw a lot at us. 09:41 Sometimes we don't have all the answers, 09:44 but that's where the Bible comes in. 09:47 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 09:50 Here at The Voice of Prophecy, 09:52 we've created the Discover Bible guides 09:54 to be your guide to the Bible. 09:55 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 09:58 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions, 10:01 and they're absolutely free. 10:03 So jump online now or give us a call 10:05 and start your journey of discovery. 10:08 - There's this ancient collection of poems 10:11 dating way back before the birth of Christ, 10:13 decades before Jesus was born, and it's apocryphal, 10:17 which means you're not gonna find it 10:18 in the pages of the Bible. 10:20 Some people call this ancient book 10:22 the Psalms of the Pharisees, 10:24 but most people call it the Psalms of Solomon. 10:26 And one of the major themes this book deals with is the hope 10:30 that God was going to deliver his people from the gentiles. 10:33 Here's a little snippet from the 17th poem 10:36 in the collection, a poem 10:37 that's actually looking forward to the coming of Messiah. 10:40 It says, "Behold, O Lord, 10:42 and raise up onto them, their king, 10:44 the son of David. 10:45 At the time in the witch thou seest, O God, 10:48 that he may reign over Israel thy servant 10:50 and gird him with strength, 10:51 that he may shatter unrighteous rulers, 10:53 and that he may purge Jerusalem 10:55 from nations that trample her down to destruction. 10:58 Wisely, righteously he shall thrust out 11:01 sinners from the inheritance. 11:02 He shall destroy the pride of the sinner 11:04 as a potter's vessel." 11:07 So you can see to many people's way of thinking, 11:09 messiah was supposed to drive the Romans out of the land, 11:12 but this brand new sect 11:14 of Christians was suddenly insisting 11:15 the man the Romans had executed 11:17 in the most humiliating way possible, 11:20 well, they were saying that was messiah, 11:23 and that was really unpopular because it didn't make sense 11:26 from the perspective of most people. 11:29 In fact, the entire life of Christ 11:31 caused quite a bit of cognitive dissonance 11:33 for people who had been marinating in the ideas 11:36 that you find in books like the Psalms of Solomon. 11:40 I'm reminded of that story in John chapter one 11:43 where Philip tries to convince his friend Nathaniel 11:45 that Jesus was Messiah. 11:48 Here's how that story goes, starting down in verse 43 11:50 where it says, "The following day, 11:54 Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, 11:56 and he found Philip and said to him, 'Follow me.' 11:59 Now, Philip was from BethSaida, 12:01 the city of Andrew and Peter. 12:03 Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, 12:05 'We have found him of whom Moses in the law 12:07 and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, 12:10 the son of Joseph.' 12:12 And Nathaniel said to him, 12:14 'Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?'" 12:17 You see, it turns out 12:18 that Nathaniel was from the village of Cana, 12:20 the place where Jesus turned the water into wine, 12:23 and the village of Cana was right next door to Nazareth. 12:26 So there's a pretty good chance 12:27 that Nathaniel knew what that town was really like. 12:31 [tranquil ambient music] You and I 12:32 placed a little bit of a halo over Nazareth 12:33 because it's the hometown of Jesus. 12:35 But back in the day, 12:36 well, Nazareth wasn't making lists of places 12:39 people wanted to live, and it certainly wasn't a place 12:42 you'd expect to find a national hero. 12:45 Messiah was supposed to sit on the throne of David. 12:48 He was supposed to occupy a place of political prominence, 12:51 so it seemed far more likely to most people 12:53 he'd be born in a place like, well, Jerusalem. 12:58 So right from the beginning, 12:59 Jesus was defying most people's expectations, 13:03 and the cross was the most confusing development of all. 13:05 I mean, how could messiah die like that? 13:09 Let me read you another famous Bible story, 13:12 this one from the Gospel of Luke, 13:14 and this is something that happened 13:15 after Jesus was crucified. 13:17 This takes place on the road to Emmaus 13:20 where two of Jesus followers are trying to comprehend 13:22 what just happened with the death of Christ. 13:26 And suddenly the risen Jesus joins them, 13:28 but they don't know who he is. 13:30 Verse 17. 13:32 "And he said to them, 13:33 'What kind of conversation is this 13:35 that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?' 13:39 Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered 13:41 and said to him, 'Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? 13:45 And have you not known 13:46 the things which happened there in these days?' 13:48 And he said to them, 'What things?' 13:51 So they said to him the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, 13:53 who was a prophet, mighty indeed 13:56 and word before God and all the people, 13:59 and how the chief priest and our rulers 14:00 delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him. 14:04 But we were hoping 14:06 that it was he who was going to redeem Israel." 14:09 Now, that's a really important thought 14:10 because it shows us what people expected messiah to do. 14:14 He was supposed to get rid of the Romans. 14:16 And even after Jesus rose from the dead, 14:19 the disciples still kind of thought that might happen. 14:22 I mean, just listen to what they said in Acts chapter one. 14:27 "Therefore, when they had come together, 14:29 they asked him saying, 'Lord, 14:31 will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?'" 14:35 So the idea that a man 14:37 who was shamefully crucified by the Romans 14:39 could possibly be messiah, 14:41 believe me, it wasn't an easy sell. 14:44 [tranquil ambient music] There was almost nobody 14:46 in the ancient world 14:47 whose culture would let them accept that idea, not the Jews, 14:51 not the Greeks, and not the Romans. 14:55 Which brings us to one of the most important things 14:57 the Apostle Paul ever wrote 14:58 found in the book of First Corinthians, 15:01 and I think we're gonna read quite a bit from this passage 15:04 because modern Christianity has mostly forgotten 15:07 just how scandalous 15:08 the idea of a crucified Christ really was. 15:11 Modern Christians talk about the crucifixion. 15:14 We read about the crucifixion, 15:15 we watch dramatic movies about the crucifixion, 15:18 we sing beautiful songs about it, 15:21 But our understanding 15:23 is now 2000 years removed from the actual event 15:26 and the visceral impact of what happened to Jesus 15:29 has been largely blunted to the point 15:31 where we scarcely realized 15:33 just how hard it was to preach the message of Christ. 15:37 I mean, we think that our postmodern world 15:39 makes preaching difficult, 15:40 but that's a cakewalk compared to the world 15:43 that our first century counterparts faced. 15:45 Here's the way that Paul describes it 15:47 in 1 Corinthians 1, he writes, 15:50 "For the message of the cross is foolishness 15:53 to those who are perishing, 15:55 but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. 15:58 For it is written: 15:59 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise 16:01 and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' 16:04 Where is the wise? 16:05 Where is the scribe? 16:07 Where is the disputer of this age? 16:09 Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 16:12 For since, in the wisdom of God, 16:14 the world through wisdom did not know God, 16:16 it pleased God through the foolishness 16:18 of the message preached to save those who believe." 16:22 So right out of the gate, 16:23 Paul tells us that the cross makes no sense, 16:26 not humanly speaking, 16:28 not unless you see it from God's perspective. 16:32 And you know that's still true today. 16:34 When you hear the way 16:35 that some people describe what happened, 16:36 it's obvious they don't really grasp how important this was. 16:40 This is not the way 16:41 most people would write the story of redemption 16:43 because it presents a very unlikely hero. 16:47 Paul continues in verse 22, where he says, 16:50 "For the Jews request a sign 16:52 and the Greeks seek after wisdom, 16:54 but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block 16:58 and to the Greeks foolishness." 17:01 So why does he say that? 17:02 Well, we've already seen that the Jews of his day 17:05 we're expecting something quite different. 17:08 But there is something else here, 17:09 and I'll be right back in a moment to share that with you. 17:13 [upbeat ambient music] - Here 17:16 at The Voice of Prophecy, 17:17 we're committed to creating top quality programming 17:20 for the whole family, like our audio adventure series, 17:22 "Discovery Mountain". 17:24 "Discovery Mountain" is a Bible based program 17:27 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 17:29 Your family will enjoy the faith building stories 17:32 from this small mountain summer camp [indistinct]. 17:35 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 17:37 and fresh content every week, 17:39 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 17:45 - Back in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, 17:48 there's a passage that made it really hard 17:50 for Jewish folks to accept the idea 17:52 that messiah could die such an ignoble death. 17:55 It's Deuteronomy 21 and 22, where it says, 17:59 "If a man has committed a sin deserving of death 18:01 and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, 18:04 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, 18:07 but you shall surely bury him that day 18:10 so that you do not defile the land 18:12 which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance: 18:15 for he who is hanged is accursed of God." 18:19 So in light of that, you've gotta ask yourself, 18:22 how could anybody accept 18:24 [tranquil ambient music] Jesus was God's anointed? 18:26 Would God really allow his son to be crucified 18:29 like a common criminal hung on a tree, 18:31 which would only prove that he was cursed? 18:34 It was a pretty bitter pill to swallow, 18:36 which is why Paul tells us that his Jewish audience 18:38 had a lot of trouble accepting him. 18:41 And on top of that, 18:42 the Greeks thought that the idea of God's son 18:44 dying on a cross was ludicrous 18:46 because the Greeks were wisdom seekers, 18:49 and that's not how they perceived the universe. 18:51 I mean, how could a man on a criminals cross 18:54 be the offspring of the immortal, invisible God 18:57 whose very thought gave birth to the universe? 19:00 The ancient Greek philosophers actually rejected the idea 19:03 that the supreme God made this world at all 19:05 because the world's too imperfect, 19:08 and this man was supposedly God in human flesh? 19:12 It was too demeaning, too dirty, 19:14 too common for the Greek mind. 19:16 And so the very first Christians really had a hard job. 19:20 The Romans could hardly bow 19:22 the need to a man they crucified. 19:24 The Greeks could not believe that such a common ignoble man 19:27 could possibly be a path to God, 19:29 and the Jews could not get past 19:31 what seemed to be the complete disappointment 19:33 of their national aspirations. 19:36 So when you get to the early second century, 19:38 there was a man by the name of Justin 19:40 who was a disciple of Socrates and Plato, 19:43 but eventually converted to Christianity. 19:46 In one of his better known works, 19:47 he talks about a Jewish man 19:49 who wanted to ask questions about Jesus. 19:51 So Justin shared 19:52 some of the Old Testament scriptures about messiah, 19:55 and then the Jewish man says this, 19:58 "Be assured", he says, 19:59 "that all our nation waits for Christ, 20:01 and we admit that all the scriptures 20:02 which you have quoted refer to him. 20:05 But whether Christ should be so shamefully crucified, 20:07 this we are in doubt about. 20:10 For whoever is crucified is said in the law to be accursed, 20:13 so that I am exceedingly incredulous on this point, 20:17 it is quite clear indeed that the scriptures announced 20:19 that Christ had to suffer, 20:21 but we wish to learn if you can prove it to us, 20:24 whether it was by the suffering cursed in the law." 20:28 So here's what I'm really driving at, 20:30 [tranquil ambient music] somehow 20:31 that first generation of Christians 20:33 took the message of Christ to the entire Roman Empire 20:36 in the space of one single generation. 20:39 And when Paul took the message 20:41 to the synagogue in Thessaloniki, 20:43 the reception was so hostile that it actually caused a riot. 20:46 And their number one complaint, they said, 20:49 "These who have turned the world upside down 20:51 have come here too." 20:54 So ask yourself this, 20:56 how in the world did an unlikely band of misfits 20:58 with a very unpopular message 21:00 manage to disrupt the entire Roman empire? 21:05 I mean, these early Christians were outsiders, 21:08 they were nobodies. 21:09 The religious authorities in Jerusalem 21:11 rejected these people, 21:12 and they were more likely to be slaves in a Roman household 21:15 than actual Roman citizens. 21:17 These people had no status, 21:19 they had no legal recognition, and they had no respect. 21:23 So how did they manage in the words of an angry mob 21:26 to turn the world upside down? 21:28 In the book of Colossians, 21:29 which was probably written around 62 AD, 21:32 Paul casually mentions 21:33 that the gospel had been delivered to all the world, 21:37 a reference to the world of his day or the Roman Empire. 21:41 How in the world did these people pull that off? 21:44 To be a Christian was to be an outcast, a fool. 21:47 In fact, there's this ancient work of graffiti 21:49 found on the Palatine Hill in Rome, 21:52 crude drawing of a man with a donkey's head 21:54 dying on a cross. 21:56 And the inscription says, "Alexamenos worships his God." 22:00 It was meant to make Christians look stupid, 22:02 and frankly, this was the opinion most people had. 22:05 So you gotta wonder why the disciples did it. 22:08 I mean, why share the story of Christ? 22:11 It was a belief system just about everybody rejected 22:14 because to our way of human thinking, it doesn't make sense. 22:18 It's not the way that most people think about God. 22:21 And so you're not gonna preach something like this 22:23 unless you really believe it. 22:26 [tranquil ambient music] Why else would you risk 22:27 utter humiliation every single day of your life? 22:30 Why would you risk the wrath of the Romans 22:32 and the distinct possibility 22:33 that you could be put to death like Jesus was? 22:36 Why would you cling to the idea of a suffering messiah 22:39 when you'd be laughed out of the room 22:40 by the most respectable philosophers in the world? 22:44 I mean, the odds against the success of the early church, 22:49 almost insurmountable. 22:51 And yet today, 22:52 about a third of the planet claims to be Christian. 22:55 There was just something about Jesus, 22:56 something about that cross 22:58 that showed these people what God was really like. 23:01 He was nothing like the God's from Mount Olympus, 23:03 the ones who toyed with people's lives. 23:05 He was not like the immovable mover 23:08 that Aristotle talked about, 23:09 so removed from human experience 23:11 that you can't expect to make contact. 23:14 Jesus was willing to humiliate himself, 23:17 sacrifice himself for us. 23:22 The Son of God completely overturned 23:24 every single expectation we had. 23:26 He was willing to suffer 23:27 the most embarrassing death conceivable 23:29 if it meant that he could bridge the gap between 23:31 the throne of God and you 23:34 so completely has God identified with us 23:37 that he's chosen to be one of us, 23:39 to live like us, to suffer like us, to die like us 23:43 if it means that he can have you back. 23:47 And to see him alive after he died, 23:49 to know that he holds the keys of death 23:51 and tells us that we no longer have to fear the grave, 23:55 that changes everything. 23:57 I'll be right back after this. 24:02 [tranquil ambient music] - Are you searching 24:05 for answers to life's toughest questions, 24:07 like, where is God when we suffer? 24:10 Can I find real happiness? 24:11 Or is there any hope for our chaotic world? 24:15 The Discover Bible Guides 24:16 will help you find the answers you are looking for. 24:18 Visit us at biblestudies.com 24:21 or give us a call at 888-456-7933 24:26 for your free Discover Bible Guides. 24:29 Study online on our secure website 24:32 or have the free guides mailed right to your home. 24:34 There is never a cost or obligation. 24:37 The Discover Bible guides are our free gift to you. 24:40 Find answers and guides like, 24:42 "Does my life really matter to God? 24:44 and a second chance at life?" 24:46 You'll find answers to the things that matter most to you 24:48 in each of the 26 Discover Bible guides. 24:51 Visit biblestudies.com and begin your journey today 24:55 to discover answers to life's deepest questions. 25:03 - And we're back from the break. 25:04 Hey guys, bring me that book over there, 25:07 the one on the, 25:08 yeah, the big one on the far left. 25:09 Yeah, I should have gotten that during the break. 25:11 Here it is. 25:12 "Foxe's Book of Martyrs". 25:14 It's probably the most famous work ever written 25:16 about the fate of many early Christians. 25:20 It begins by showing us 25:22 that only one of Christ disciples died from natural causes. 25:26 The rest were put to death because of what they preached. 25:29 Andrew was crucified in the British Isles, 25:31 Thomas was impaled on a spear, 25:34 Peter was crucified upside down 25:36 just outside the city of Rome. 25:38 James was tossed off a building 25:40 and then had his head smashed in with a club. 25:42 I mean, this goes on for 100s of pages. 25:45 And in the Bible, Paul spends an awful lot of time 25:48 talking about the hardships he had to put up with. 25:51 He was pelted with stones and left for dead, 25:53 shipwrecked, imprisoned, and then he ended up on death row 25:57 and all of that for a really unpopular message, 26:00 a message that ran completely contrary 26:03 to the way most of us think. 26:05 [intense ambient music] And still 26:06 all these ancient believers 26:07 really thought this was worth it. 26:10 Other religious movements have come and gone, 26:12 but for some reason, 26:13 whatever these ancient people found in Jesus, 26:16 and the story of the cross has made this 26:18 into one of the most enduring faiths in the whole world. 26:22 And here we are living in the midst of a civilization 26:24 that to a large extent, 26:25 those ancient believers helped us build. 26:28 But today, 26:30 most of us have no idea what this book actually says. 26:33 So here's what I wanna suggest, 26:35 listen, I know some people are also willing to die for a lie 26:39 because every so often you hear of some apocalyptic cult 26:42 that goes up in flames, 26:43 from Heaven's Gate in San Diego, 26:46 to the Solar temple in Quebec. 26:48 So a willingness to die 26:50 doesn't necessarily mean that what you believe is true, 26:55 but you will notice 26:56 all those little cults have come and gone, 26:58 and the teachings of Christ 26:59 are still here after 2000 years. 27:02 I mean, you might be skeptical, 27:05 you might not believe this story, 27:07 but at least you should know for yourself 27:09 exactly what you're skeptical about. 27:12 So maybe it's time instead of reading 27:14 what people write about the Bible 27:15 to have a look for yourself. 27:17 Because I mean, what if this book turns out 27:20 to be exactly what you've been looking for your entire life? 27:24 What if the claims of Christ are true? 27:27 What if that really was God in human flesh 27:30 on the side of the road that day all those years ago? 27:34 At least you owe it to yourself to have a look 27:37 and examine those claims from firsthand sources. 27:40 Thanks for joining me today. 27:42 I'm Shawn Boonstra, 27:43 and this has been another episode of Authentic. |
Revised 2022-10-13