Today, we think once more of the event to remember which we described in this post from five years ago.
Early on the first day of the week, some women came to the tomb where the lifeless body of Jesus had been placed. It was empty. It had been opened–not by any human hands but by an angel. It wasn’t opened to let Jesus out. The tomb was opened so that people might see that it was empty. The followers of Jesus were not expecting him to be alive again. At first, they couldn’t believe it. Powerful people tried to find the body or to convince the public that it had been stolen. But they could not.
Now, over 2000 years later, there are still those who try to deny the resurrection. The evidence is there. The friends of Jesus were not expecting the resurrection, but after they had seen him alive, they spent the rest of their lives telling others about it. Even when they were tortured and killed for preaching the resurrection, not one of them ever recanted. Without a body, the powerful enemies of Jesus could not disprove the resurrection.
As we are waiting for the new day, we want to share this post from five years ago.
Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man who had a new tomb carved into a stone hillside. This was not a pauper’s grave. Only the rich and powerful could afford such a burial place, and it was soon to become a temporarily borrowed tomb.
The first man to use it was not a wealthy man. He grew up as the son of a carpenter and had no home to call His own. He had a small group of friends who deserted Him at the last minute. His thousands of admirers quickly sought to get rid of Him when He didn’t overthrow the Romans as they expected.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). A regular challenge to Christianity is that it’s a group of weak people. Those who make this challenge don’t understand the difference between being meek or weak. These words are not synonyms but very different concepts.
The word translated as “meek” is “praus” in Greek. According to a Greek dictionary, it means “power under control as in a soothing medicine, a gentle breeze, a broken colt horse.” Nelson’s Bible Dictionary explains, “Meekness is an attitude of humility toward God and gentleness toward men, springing from a recognition that God is in control. It is strength and courage under control, coupled with kindness.”
The current crisis in Ukraine is because a very weak man (Putin) has control of the Russian military. He follows other weak men, such as Hitler, in bringing pain and suffering to innocent humans while he sits in comfort far away from where his weakness is being displayed. He is an example of power that is not under control.
We see the classic example of meekness in Jesus Christ. Christ shows His meekness in a plea to all of humanity, “Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
The yoke Jesus calls us to take on is being kind, gentle, fair, forgiving, and peaceful. It is not giving up power but putting it under God’s control. Those who are weak don’t know how to live except by violence and abuse. When Jesus was on Earth, no one accused Him of being weak. Instead, people said, “What is this, for with authority and power He commands … and the fame of Him went out into every place in the country around” (Luke 4:36-7).
Considering meek or weak persons, the Bible contains stories about meek heroes and weak people. For example, Abraham meekly gives his nephew Lot the first choice in dividing the land given to him. Lot takes advantage of Abraham’s strength to support his own weakness (Genesis 13:7-9). Joseph shows meekness in dealing with his treacherous brothers (Genesis 45:3-5). Saul, in his weakness, could not handle David’s success (1 Samuel 18:7-9). Simon wanted Paul’s power and tried to buy it (Acts 8:9-24). Governor Felix was too weak to handle the truth (Acts 24:24-27). King Agrippa was too weak to become a Christian (Acts 26:27-29).
Jesus showed meekness in the extreme by how He faced death. John 10:17-18 quotes Jesus saying that no one could take His life from Him, but He had the power to lay it down. When Peter demonstrated weakness by taking out a sword and slashing away at his enemies, Jesus told him to put the sword away. He said, “Don’t you think I could pray to my Father and He would give me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:50-54). As a Christian, I am weak only when I don’t have the strength to measure up to the meekness that being a Christian requires.
I will never reach the meekness of great Christians of the past. I marvel at Paul, who changed from being an opponent of Christ to one of the meekest men who ever lived. I have not always shown meekness and have sometimes been very weak. Even Paul struggled with the challenge of being a Christian. Read Romans 7:14-8:2. The yoke Jesus offers is easy because God helps us. He is looking to save and not condemn us.
The teachings of Jesus Christ show incredible intelligence and wisdom of design, including the separation of church and state. In Matthew 22:15-21, Jesus responded to a question about this issue by saying, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Romans 13:1-7 instructs Christians to submit to and honor local authority, but there is no command for the Church to get involved in political activity. The Roman government was one of the most brutal and abusive political systems to ever exist on this planet, but Christians did not attempt to change it politically.
The Russian war on Ukraine has shown the consequences when churches get involved in politics. The Russian Orthodox Church has 260 million adherents, half of them living in Ukraine and half in Russia. The Russian leader of the Orthodox Church is Patriarch Kirill, who has supported Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. As a result, 350 Russian Orthodox priests have rebelled against Kirill, and the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine have left the control of Kirill to form the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The fundamental problem is that the Orthodox Church has moved away from the Bible as a source of authority, replacing it with human patriarchs who dictate doctrine and follow traditions. Relying on human wisdom and politics instead of God’s Word has resulted in the Orthodox Church’s present situation.
Jesus taught a message of peace, love, and service to fellow human beings no matter their politics or national identity. When humans depend on human values instead of God’s Word, the result is conflict at all levels. The situation in Ukraine is a lesson for Christians throughout the world. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The separation of church and state is not only biblical but essential to the well-being of the followers of Jesus.
The “Does God Exist?” ministry is about life. We maintain that a successful life full of meaning and value is a life lived according to what God has told us in His Word. Our secular world tries to tell us that believing in God and following the Bible and its teaching are foolish and irrelevant to life. However, the evidence doesn’t support that view. Avoiding the things that bring heartache, misery, alienation, and frustration is often a matter of speaking a few of the hardest words to say.
One of the things that we fail to say is the simple phrase “I love you.” The Bible tells us that God is love, and 1 Corinthians 13 devotes a whole chapter to emphasizing the importance of love. It is difficult for us to express love because it puts us at risk. The biblical concept of love uses the word “agape,” a self-sacrificing kind of love. Being able to say “I love you” is essential for family relationships. Saying it to a child when there is a conflict or to a spouse when there is disagreement is vital to a rich relationship. Saying “I love you” with agape sincerity shows that we value the person and is fundamental to building and enriching relationships.
Another phrase that is hard for us to say is, “I have sinned.” No one likes to admit they were wrong. We want to blame others when we make a mistake. This started with Adam saying, “the woman you gave me, she gave it to me” (Genesis 3:12). Eve carried it on with “the snake deceived me” (Genesis 3:13). We also try to distance ourselves from the situation, as Cain did with “am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). Admitting sin is difficult because it means we are imperfect and needy, shattering our claim of independence.
The Christian system advocates admitting our mistakes. James 5:16 tells us to “Confess your faults to one another.” A marriage in which one partner can never admit they made a mistake is a marriage that misses the joy and love God intends for it to have. When was the last time you admitted to your mate or your children that you have made a mistake or told them “I love you”? God expects us to be humble enough to speak words that enrich our relationships, even though they may be the hardest words to say.
I recently received an email from a preacher struggling with his faith. One of his main stumbling blocks is believing what he calls “the wild and impossible Bible stories.” Here are some questions which challenged his faith: “Can you really believe a guy could live inside a whale for three days?” “Do you believe that a guy could build a boat, put in two of every species of life on the planet, and sail around for a long time?” “I can’t believe God stopped the Earth from rotating to allow a battle to continue.” These are the same challenges that atheists have made against the Bible, but it is unusual to have a preacher raising these questions. So we need to make three points about these Bible stories.
#1) Many times, people make invalid assumptions about Bible stories. An example of that is the flood of Genesis 6-8. The point of the story is clear. Humans rebelled against God, and God caused/allowed a catastrophe to wipe out those who rejected Him. The Bible does not say the waters were level over the Earth and flooded uninhabited places. Questions about where the waters came from or where they went after the flood are a problem only if you assume the waters were level over the entire globe. The flood had natural causes and not miraculous ones.
#2) The occurrence of unusual phenomena does not discredit the Biblical account. For example, one of the “wild and impossible Bible stories” is found in Joshua 10:10-14, which says the Sun and Moon provided light for Joshua and his army to defeat the Amorites. If you assume that the Earth stopped rotating, that would have disastrous consequences for the whole planet. The passage’s context shows that various unusual astronomical things were going on. Verse 11 tells of great stones falling and killing people, perhaps hailstones. This is rare, but it can happen. God could act to provide sunlight and moonlight to continue for the length of the battle. The Bible speaks in everyday, non-technical language describing this incident from the viewpoint of Joshua. Perhaps God provided a way to refract or reflect sunlight and moonlight to the battle scene. If only the Sun were involved, there would have been no need to mention the Moon in verse 12. (We have suggested some other possible explanations before.) Verse 14 tells us the event was a most unusual one and identifies it as God using a process.
#3) Is God capable of performing miracles? If you don’t believe He can, then you have to reject the resurrection of Christ. A few stories from the Bible are identified as miracles. The story of Jonah is a miracle of God equivalent to raising Lazarus from the dead. The Bible does not say that a whale swallowed Jonah. Jonah 1:17 tells us, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.” That was a miracle, not a whale, shark, or plesiosaur.
Even if you reject all Biblical miracles, not all Bible stories are miracles. A man killing another man with a stone and a sling is entirely possible and does not require a miracle. Rising from the dead after three days is not possible and has to be a miracle. You can reject it if you choose, but if God is God, He can perform miracles. That makes the resurrection of Christ a matter of faith. God acted miraculously in some biblical accounts, but in other cases, He used natural processes–even unusual ones. The so-called “wild and impossible Bible stories” are not a valid reason to discard the Bible as a collection of fairy tales.
Jesus Christ preached a message of change. However, people had a resistance to change from the religious system they were in, even though it was impossible to follow completely. One had to keep many rules, and no person was justified by the law no matter how well they kept the requirements. In Acts 15:10, Paul referred to it as a ”yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.” In Galatians 3:10-11, Paul referred to it as a curse.
The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – 7 finds Jesus talking about the old way of doing things and teaching people to change. Despite that, in Acts 6:14, the religious leaders objected to the teachings of Jesus by which He attempted to change their religious practice. We all know that led to them crucifying Jesus.
Christianity opposes racism, and Jesus demonstrated that (John 4:1-29). Christianity opposed sexism and prejudice (Galatians 3:27-28 ), but even today, we have people who refuse to accept what Jesus taught. They refuse because of their resistance to change, so racism and misogynistic practices still exist. A major reason why people refuse to become Christians is because they oppose change, even when they know their current way of living is negative.
The “Does God Exist?” ministry is based on evidence. The evidence is massive that Jesus lived, was the Son of God, and taught a new way of life. The evidence shows that alternative lifestyles opposed to Christianity don’t work. The evidence is that worship does not work when confined to buildings and rituals and certain times of the day.
People tend to be comfortable with the status quo, but Christianity calls us to something better. Read 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 and realize that change needs to begin now by our choice because ultimately change will happen, and resistance to change will not stop it.
A problem we face in this ministry is that no matter what we do, our material becomes dated. We have had an excellent response to our new video series on archaeology and the Bible titled “Beyond Reasonable Doubt.” However, recent archaeological journals have reported new finds that offer more archaeological support for the Bible and its historical integrity.
Archaeologists have discovered an inscription containing the name “Jerubbaal” at Khirbet al-Rai near Lachish in the Judaean Foothills. The inscription was in a grain silo dated to the 12th or early 11th century B.C. Judges 6:32 mentions Jerubbaal as a name given to Gideon. Earlier, in the same area, archaeologists found an inscription on the floor of a city believed to be the biblical Shaarayim dating to the early 10th century B.C. This inscription has the name “Eshbaal.” That was the name of Saul’s son who challenged David’s kingship in 1 Chronicles 8:33 and 2 Samuel 2-4. These inscriptions show that those names were in use at the very time of the biblical references.
Another interesting archaeological support for the Bible has to do with the Philistines. It is well-known that pork was a taboo for the Israelites but a mainstay of the diets of the Philistines, Greeks, and Romans. Archaeological digs in Israelite cities do not show any bones of pigs, but digs involving cultures other than the Israelites contain massive numbers of pig bones. Understanding that fact adds importance to Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, who, at his lowest point while in “a far country,” took a job feeding pigs.
Archaeological digs in Arabia are showing increasing evidence that Christianity was highly successful by the fifth or sixth century A.D. The move to monotheistic texts is attributed to Christians who rejected the paganism that was a part of Arabia at that time.
Recent finds have more archaeological support for the Bible and its historical integrity. They heavily challenge the skeptics who suggest that the Bible is only a bunch of ancient Jewish myths and historically unreliable. The controversy between biblical minimalists and maximalists has prevented a clear picture of how much evidence shows that the Bible is credible and reliable. It is not only an expression of God’s will for humanity, but it is a record with historical integrity.
What is the number one reason why people have trouble understanding the Bible? It isn’t the language. It isn’t what translation you use. Also, it isn’t because you need a high level of education to make sense of it. Jesus taught things that are easy to understand. On the other hand, Satan leads us to say the Bible is too hard to understand to justify why we are not following what it says. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus was talking to common folk like us. The Jewish scholars may have had a hard time understanding His message, but the common folks did not.
Think of what is hard to understand in today’s world. Can anyone make sense of the war in Ukraine and the mindset of the Russian leaders who are bringing such pain and suffering to innocent people? Why do evolution and “survival of the fittest” have such an attraction to people of the world? Why are we obsessed with video games that bring images of fighting, death, and destruction into our homes? Why is sexual misconduct front-page news every day? The physical world doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Until you get your mind around the fact that the Bible and the teachings of Jesus are devoted to the spiritual, you will struggle with it. Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world” and “don’t worry about tomorrow.” The idea of “agape” love has meaning only if you understand the spiritual and are not hung up on material desires. If you think the Bible is too hard to understand, you are probably thinking only of the material realm.
A classic example of material thinking is confusion about the concept of heaven and hell. In 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, Paul writes about the change that takes place when we die. This passage uses two Greek terms: “psychikon soma” refers to our physical body, and “pneumatikon soma” refers to our spiritual body. If you picture heaven and hell as physical places, you will get confused. This passage makes it clear that it is our spiritual makeup that inherits hell or heaven, depending on the choices we make in life.
Jesus offers freedom from all the misery and fears of this physical existence. That is REAL freedom. If you think the Bible is too hard to understand, train yourself to think in spiritual terms. Then the Bible and what it offers will make sense to you.
As scientists find more and more evidence, the picture of creation becomes clearer. That is not to say that science has the entire creation of heaven and Earth figured out. However, studies have allowed us to see what was done, even if we don’t understand and will never in this life understand how it was done.
Science has identified four fundamental forces involved in creation. They are the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, and the gravitational force. These forces work on particles that science has observed or particles for which science has found evidence but has not observed. For example, photons are responsible for electromagnetism. Particles called gluons are responsible for nuclear forces, with eight gluons causing the strong nuclear force and three gluons causing the weak nuclear force.
The recently discovered particle called the Higgs boson gives mass to the force particles and controls their behavior. Physicists are studying how that happens and looking for a particle that causes the gravitational force. As research continues, science strongly suggests that those forces began as a single force. Our standard rules of physics cannot deal with this concept, and the time during which the forces originated is called the “Planck era.” The creation of heaven and Earth is not a simple process, and science is trying to understand it.
The so-called “standard model” of particle physics has so much supporting evidence that most physicists accept it as a starting point to understanding the process of creation. Some scientists have developed an approach called “string theory” to understand what took place in the Planck era. The mathematics of string theory forces us to believe that creation has come about from dimensions higher than our own. A prominent string theory called “bulk” has creation originating in an 11-dimensional arena. We live in a three-dimensional world with time as a fourth-dimensional quantity. The idea of 11 dimensions is beyond our comprehension. We can describe it mathematically, but we cannot visualize it.
The Bible summarizes the creation of heaven and Earth by simply indicating that an Intelligence in a far higher dimension than our own created time, space, and the physical world in which we exist. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” accurately describes what our research and observations tell us.
In summary, there was a beginning often described as the “big bang.” At that beginning, there was Planck time when our laws of physics did not apply. The creation event was caused by “Elohim,” an intelligence outside of space/time who operates in dimensions outside of our physical universe. The creation included the matter/energy from which everything is made and the three-dimensional space, “shamayim,” translated “heaven” in your Bible. It also included the planet we call home, “erets” in Hebrew, created from that matter/energy. The more we know of the creation, the more we know of the Creator.
