A Message on the Historical Reliability of the Gospels and the Foundation of Faith

Opening Scripture: John 20:19–31

We began by reading John 20, verse 19. This is a very familiar passage after Jesus has been resurrected and He appears to His disciples.

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.’ And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.’

“Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.’

“Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see My hands; put out your hand and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

“Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’

“And then verse 31: ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name.'”

The Meaning of “Blessed”

I wanted to pause and re-emphasize the importance of this survey. The word “blessed” carries that general connotation of blessedness and happiness. You have to be careful toward “happy,” but that sense of being totally satisfied with God — that’s the kind of understanding there.

Faith Must Be Based on the Content of God’s Word

Whenever we read through the Bible, we read through the Scriptures, we don’t pick up on stuff that maybe we should pick up on. And other people — critics especially — will do that. The critics, as we’ve noted, say that the diversity in the Gospel accounts shows the stories have no historical foundation. They were just made up, and that’s why you have all of these disconnected concepts.

We’ve noted repeatedly that sometimes people would respond by simply saying, “Well, you just have to believe.” So if you’re talking to someone and they express a question or an uncertainty about the Bible, we just say, “Well, you just have to believe.” But the Bible gives us information and truth that we use to believe. We just don’t pick it out of air. As I said last week, it is not the strength of our faith but the object of our faith. It doesn’t matter how much faith I have. If the thing I have faith in is no good, it’s going to fail.

Our faith can’t be just something I gin up. If I just believe hard enough, it’ll happen. No, it’s got to be based upon God and His Word. And this is a very important consideration. Part of this is that there can be no true salvation without faith in the content of God’s Word. We have to believe what the Word says.

Grace Toward Sincere Questions

I also wanted to bring this to you tonight: we don’t want to diminish or devalue someone’s questions. When people have questions, there are two kinds of people who are going to ask us. They’re going to be the ones who want to prove us wrong — they’re never going to believe, and they’re just looking for a way to get us in a corner and embarrass us. And then there are other people who have very genuine, sincere questions about faith and God and things like that.

When Jesus was questioned by sincere people, He typically took time to answer their question. You never hear Him diminish them. You never hear Him say, “Well, you just have to believe.” He gives them a meaningful answer.

As an example, from Mark chapter 10 — a very familiar passage of Scripture: “As He was setting out on His journey, a man ran up and asked Him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said, ‘You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ And he said, ‘Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You lack one thing. Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow Me.'”

Now notice, Jesus gives this — He engages with this person very graciously. And it says He loved him. He doesn’t say, “Oh, this is a stupid question. You should know better. You just got to believe.” He engages with the man.

Now, there were other people, and you can see this from John chapter 8, verse 6. This is from the story of the woman taken in adultery. They said to Him, “What does Moses say about this woman’s situation?” And they said this — verse 6 — “They said this to test Him, that they might have some charge to bring against Him.” And Jesus bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground. He ignored them. In other words, He didn’t engage. He just got down on the ground and started writing in the dirt. We don’t know what He wrote. The speculation is that He was writing out the Ten Commandments, because they were in violation of almost everything there.

There are many other instances where it says they were testing Him. And Jesus even looks at them in one passage and says, “Why do you test Me like this?” So there are insincere questions, and there are sincere questions. And sometimes when you and I are dealing with people, they have sincere questions. They want to believe. They want to believe in God, in the Bible, and so forth. But they have this question. And we need to be very gracious when we encounter people like that and try to answer the question in the best way we can. And sometimes you can tell the person is not sincere — they’re not really interested in truth. And you can just ignore them. But there are other times we have to be willing to engage with them.

In the first account, in Mark chapter 10, the question seems sincere. And in the second, it’s not sincere at all. They’re not interested in anything Jesus would have to say.

Faith in the Content of Scripture

Now come back to the idea: there can be no true salvation without faith in the content of God’s Word. The content of God’s Word. Now that’s a bigger subject than I can unpack this evening, obviously. But we have to go beyond just “the Bible says” to what it actually says and how that impacts us and how we live that out.

I call your attention to two areas of scriptural support that show that we have to believe in the content of Scripture and not just the book as though it’s a magic book. We have to know what it says and what it teaches.

Romans 10, verse 13 through 17: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.’ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ, through the Word of God.”

This is how people come to salvation — by hearing the Word. But it’s not just the Bible. It is the content of the Bible that they are hearing. And this is what brings them to faith. And without that, you can’t really be a believer. I’m afraid there are lots of people in America today who were raised in church, who know a little bit about the Bible, but their faith is not in the Christ of the Bible. And it has to be in the Christ of the Bible.

Now, on Sunday we’re coming back to Revelation chapter 7. And chapter 7 begins with the 144,000. And I don’t want to overlap too much, but in case I get boring on Sunday morning and slip off — you cannot be a Jehovah’s Witness and a Christian at the same time. Years ago, we had a couple that came to our church, and she would bring her sister with her. And her sister’s husband was a Jehovah’s Witness. And they would say, “Well, he believes. He believes. He just goes to Jehovah’s Witness church.” But the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible. And this is the problem. It’s got to be — you’ve got to believe certain things about Jesus, not just “Jesus” apart from the Word of God. And this is something that’s got to be understood in our culture again.

The Resurrection as the Foundation of Faith

Then you notice the second area where this is brought out is in the text we read: John 20, verse 31. “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” You have to believe in what He did.

Now, verse 30 again: “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written.” Now, does John mean that his seven or eight miracles — he’s not like the other Synoptic Gospels. They just have Jesus working miracles left and right. John has seven miracles in his story, just seven. Does he mean those seven miracles, or does he mean specifically the death and resurrection of Christ?

It seems like he means the death and resurrection of Christ in the interchange he has with Thomas. Thomas says, “I’m not going to believe. I am not going to believe it unless I’m able to put my hand in.” Notice the arrogance — if that’s the right word — the presumption. “I don’t care what you guys say. I’m not going to believe it until this happens.” And of course, Jesus shows up and says, “Hey, Thomas, here I am. Put your faith in Me.”

And the question is then, when Jesus says this — or John says it — does He mean all the miracles of Jesus, or more specifically the death and resurrection of Christ? You have to believe this, Thomas. You have to believe this to be a true disciple. And this is the way it is. We have to believe certain things.

Now, regardless of whether “these things” means all Jesus’ miracles or only the resurrection — the death and resurrection — the faith is placed in a genuine, verifiable event. Jesus says to Thomas, “Here, here’s the proof of the resurrection. Believe it.” And this is a real-world, verifiable event that they had experienced. They had seen Him come forth. And this is the kind of faith we have to have.

D.A. Carson says this: “Those who have not seen the risen Christ and yet have believed are blessed. According to Jesus’ word, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ Therefore, this book has been composed to the end that you might be blessed by believing. But believing what? Believing in this genuine, real-world, historic event — that’s where your faith has to be.”

And that’s why Christians have to be equipped to defend the resurrection, among other things. We need to be able to show that. Because real faith — real, genuine, saving faith — requires you to believe certain things about God and certain things about the Bible. And you can’t get around that.

The Death of Judas: Acts 1:16–19 and Matthew 27:3–10

Now we want to look tonight at some other contradictions between the Gospels. Last time we studied the so-called contradictions between the Gospels and other portions of the New Testament. Tonight, we look at the Gospels and other aspects of the New Testament. And we begin with the death of Judas.

Here again is one of those things — if you’re just reading, and when we read the Bible, you know, we typically just read a verse at a time, a chapter at a time, a passage at a time. And because of that, we won’t notice some of these little discrepancies. Most people won’t notice it. I’m a strange kind of person. I pick up on stuff like that. We were watching an episode of The Saint, an old 1960s TV show with Roger Moore. In this episode, a girl is kidnapped. And the kidnapper calls her father and says, “I want you to go to this place 45 miles outside of Rome, and turn left on this road and drive down that road 300 meters and wait.” Well, then the next thing you see is the car going down the road. And guess what? It turned right instead of turning left. And I picked up on that. I rewound the show and said, “Let me go back and make sure I had that right,” because I pick up on stuff like that. But most of us don’t pick up on that kind of stuff when we’re reading through the Bible. And it’s easy for us then to overlook things.

So when you look at the death of Judas — on your outline, the two Scriptures are separated, but we’re going to read them together and then we’ll come back and make our comments.

Beginning with Acts chapter 1, verse 16 through 19: “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And that field was called in their own language, Akeldama, the Field of Blood.”

Then jump down to Matthew 27: “When Judas saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ And throwing the pieces of silver into the temple, he went and hanged himself. The chief priests bought with them the 30 pieces of silver, bought with them the potter’s field for strangers, a burial place for strangers. That field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.”

Now notice that in Acts, Luke says that Judas acquired a field. Makes it sound like he bought it, that it belonged to him. But in Matthew, the high priests bought the field after Judas hanged himself. Notice also the difference: Judas went out and hanged himself. And Luke says, falling headlong, his middle section burst open and his guts spilled out upon the ground. Matthew’s a little more sanitized. But you can see the difference between the two.

And so the critics say, “Hey, listen, Matthew tells us one thing about Judas and Luke tells us something completely different. So this proves it’s just — they’re just trying to be dramatic, and all of this.”

Why the Differences Are Not Contradictions

Well, first let us note that I have italicized the section of Acts chapter 1 on the outline. This is when Peter stands up and they’ve got to replace somebody — they’ve got to get a replacement for Judas. If you go back and read the text, Peter gets up and says, “The Scripture had to be fulfilled, and we have to have somebody to take his place” — that’s what you read after the italicized section. But note: “This man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And that field was called in their own language, the Field of Blood.”

The italicized segment — which is italicized on the outline, not in the Bible — seems to be a comment by Luke for those who would have no knowledge of Judas. He’s given you different details about the same person and the same end.

Why would we say that this is probably a comment by Luke for people who are not familiar with Judas and who he was?

First, Peter would not have needed those details for his audience. He’s talking to the disciples who are gathered together there in Acts chapter 1. It’s the other disciples. And he says, “We have to pick a successor for Judas.” So he doesn’t have to say all this stuff about the details. This is Luke putting in information for people who would not know what the story was about.

That leads us to the second point: “In their own language” — Akeldama, the Field of Blood. Now Akeldama is an Aramaic word. The people Peter’s talking to would have known that word. That doesn’t need to be translated. Luke translated it because he’s writing to people who are unfamiliar with this. And so Luke has put in details that would be good for someone who’s unfamiliar with the story.

Matthew, when you read Matthew 27, it’s flowing into the story. You’ve been watching Judas betray Christ, and Jesus predicted the betrayer. So Matthew doesn’t have to put anything other than “Judas hanged himself.” But Luke is writing to people who aren’t familiar with the story, and so he gives us details about that.

Reconciling the Purchase of the Field

Now, “Wait a minute. Luke says the priests bought the field. Matthew says the priests bought the field. And Luke says in Acts that Judas acquired the field. How would you reconcile that difference?”

I don’t want you to think like a Christian and just say, “Well, I just believe.” Think about talking to somebody who’s struggling with their faith and wants to believe. And they have these kinds of questions. We just don’t want to diminish or dismiss them. “Oh, well, you just got to believe.” They’re looking for answers, not assurances. Sometimes we need assurances. Sometimes we need answers.

Although Judas gave the money back, it was a legal transaction between him and the priests. The money belonged to him. He just can’t give it back now. The priests can’t take it back now. Let me read Matthew 27, verse 3 through 8 in its fullness:

“Judas, His betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned. He changed his mind and brought the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ And they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ Throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed and went out and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, ‘It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.’ So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers.”

They couldn’t use the money themselves. They couldn’t just put it back in the treasury and say, “Okay, we got our money back.” It has now been tainted. It’s been defiled. And so they have to do something with it. But it was still Judas’s money. Legally, it was still Judas’s money. So they go out and they buy the field with Judas’s money. And this is why it says, “This man acquired a field through his reward for wickedness.” This was what he was paid to betray Christ. It was a reward for wickedness, and it was his. And the chief priests bought the field then.

Now, by the way, the Scripture’s not clear here. It’s a little vague between when did they pay Judas the money. He obviously gave it back right away. Was it earlier in the day? Was it a week before? When did they give him this money? At any rate, he held on to it and then he gives it back.

The Manner of Judas’s Death

Going back to the question about Luke saying in Acts that this man fell headlong and burst open in the middle — that’s not what happens when you hang yourself. You just die. It sounds like a problem. But all the way back in the fifth century, Augustine said the rope that he hanged himself with broke. And when he fell to the ground, now what would cause your body to burst open just by the rope breaking and you falling to the ground? If he’d been hanging there dead a while, his body swollen up as dead bodies do, and when it hits the ground — pop is what happens.

So where the critics are looking for a contradiction, you don’t see that when you really look closer. And by the way, Augustine in the fifth century said this is what happened. So a lot of times people come to these things in the Bible and they say, “Oh, we found a problem.” And what you find is that the Church has been aware of some of these problems for thousands of years. They just look at it and say, “Okay, this is what’s going on.”

Three Points of Agreement

Now you can notice this: despite the differences, Matthew and Luke agree on three central points. The third one is obviously naming the Field of Blood. Both of them say they named this field the Field of Blood.

The first thing they agree on: the death of Judas. They both acknowledge that Judas, who betrayed Christ, died in a grotesque fashion — first by hanging, and secondly by the consequences of it.

The second thing they agree on: the purchase of the field. They both say the 30 pieces of silver was used to buy a field.

So there really isn’t that big a deal. And so what you have to remember is that many times, when we deal with critics or seekers, they haven’t read the Scripture. They heard somebody say, “Oh, this is a problem.” And if we take them to the Scripture and help them see these things, it’ll resolve some of the problems there.

Mark 2:23–26 and the Abiathar Question

The next one is an example of a so-called contradiction between the Gospels and the Old Testament. So we’ve looked at the so-called contradictions between one Gospel and another Gospel, and we’ve just looked at a so-called contradiction between the Gospels and the book of Acts. Now we want to look at a so-called contradiction between something that’s said in the Gospels, and when we look at the Old Testament, it’s not the same thing.

Mark chapter 2, verse 23 and 26: “One Sabbath He was going through the grain fields, and His disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees said, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence?'”

Now, there are two things here. One is, again, we read through it and we just don’t pick up on it. If we’re not really familiar with the Old Testament, we would just skip over this. The problem is that Abiathar was not the high priest. In the time of Abiathar — it was not Abiathar, it was his father, Ahimelech, the high priest. A completely different person.

The Bart Ehrman Story

Now, Bart Ehrman — and I want to read what it says about him. For those of you who don’t know, Bart Ehrman has been around for a while, but he’s not as — I would hope he’s not as influential as he once was. But here’s what happened to Bart Ehrman.

He read this passage when he was a theological student at Princeton. It says: “Bart Ehrman describes his experience of writing a paper on this topic while a theological student at Princeton, trying to defend Mark’s accuracy, only to have his professor ask him if Mark could not have just made a mistake. ‘Maybe Mark just made a mistake here, and that’s why it says Abiathar instead of Ahimelech. Mark just didn’t know his Old Testament well enough.'”

Ehrman explains that this marked a liberating turning point in his life, as he proceeded to reject his evangelical convictions regarding Scripture and ultimately any kind of Christian faith.

The reason I bring that up: you and I might encounter people who were influenced by this man. And we can’t just say, “Well, you just got to believe.” We have to be able to help them see how Ehrman made his mistake, so that they don’t make the same mistake in their belief system.

The Linguistic Solution

Now, how do we go about doing that? Because this is very complex, so I couldn’t put it all in the outline. You have to get into the Greek, and I know a lot of people don’t like to do that, but you have to on some of these issues. When you really look at it, what you find out is that where it says in our English versions “in the time of Abiathar,” it can be rendered “the days” or “that portion of Scripture which refers to Abiathar.”

And the reason that’s important: in that one chapter of 1 Samuel — I think it’s chapter 21 or 22 — Abiathar is mentioned throughout the chapter, and Ahimelech is only mentioned one time. The focus of the chapter is on Abiathar, not on Ahimelech. And so the point is — and by the way, the Jews would read like that — the Scriptures were segmented into sections, and they would be called much like we would have a book, and we would have a chapter in this book called by a particular subject, and everything in that chapter would be about that particular subject. The Jews had the Old Testament divided like that, and so you would be reading this section, but it was primarily about this person. Therefore, you could easily refer to that portion of Scripture by the dominant figure there, not by the precise person that was involved.

Now, I know that’s very complex, and some people might not accept it, but that’s the simplest answer: that Mark hasn’t made a mistake. He’s just referring to a section of the Bible rather than a specific time in the Bible.

The Call to Apologetics

What about the world beyond the Gospels? We’ve been trying to establish the historical reliability of the Gospels, and so that we just don’t say to people, “Well, you just got to believe.” There are some times when that’s true, but remember, what does Peter say? 1 Peter 3, verse 15:

“In your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense — to anyone who asks you for the reason — a reason for the hope that is in you. Be ready to give a defense.”

That Greek word “defense” there is where we get the word apologetics. And apologetics does not mean “apologize for the Gospel.” It means to defend the Gospel, to explain the Gospel. And again, you see, we don’t have this “Well, you just got to believe.” People have questions, and we should be equipped to answer those questions to the best of our ability.

So we’ve been trying to establish the historical reliability of the Gospels. There are reasons to believe that it’s true and right. And we’ve looked at the contradictions — so-called contradictions between the Synoptic Gospels and John’s Gospel. And tonight, we’ve looked at the so-called contradiction between the Gospels and Acts, and between Jesus’ words and the Old Testament.

Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Historical Reliability of the Gospels

Now we want to read a few points about what lies outside the Bible. Does the Bible stand alone? Is there anything said outside the Bible that shows the historical reliability of the Gospels? Is it all in this book, and that’s all we have? Or can we find evidence outside the Bible? And of course, there’s a whole lot of evidence there, but I’ve just picked out a few.

There are brief but important passages in historic writings outside the Bible about Jesus, about the New Testament church, and so forth.

Julius Africanus and Thallus. The third-century historian Julius Africanus cites an interesting statement from the historian Thallus, who was a Greek historian who wrote a chronicle of world history in Greek in the first century. Now, “in the first century” means during the time of the apostles, within decades of the death of Christ. And guess what he talked about? The author refers to the darkness that occurred at the time of the crucifixion. And we read that in the Bible — that it was dark, that darkness covered the earth when Jesus was hanging on the cross. And a lot of people say, “Oh, that doesn’t make any sense.” Here’s a first-century Greek historian. He has nothing to prove. He doesn’t have to do this, but he refers to this day of darkness in his history of the first century.

Pliny the Younger. Pliny the Younger was a Roman ruler in a part of what is now north-central Turkey. In the early second century — less than 100 years since the life of Christ — he writes to the Roman emperor Trajan requesting advice on how to deal with the Christians who refuse to reverence Caesar’s image. “These people won’t bow down to Caesar. What am I supposed to do with these people?”

Pliny noted that these Christians met regularly. They would meet in the morning on the first day. What happened on the first day of the morning? The resurrection. They would gather together on the first day, in the morning, and he says they regularly met and sang hymns to Christ as if to a God. So this idea that the belief in Christ was much later, and Him being God — we see worship of these people in the first century.

And by the way, he is getting that information from Christians who had denied their faith under the threat of persecution. It’s very important. Blomberg suggested that Pliny knew Jesus had been a person who had really lived, and he was reluctant to call Him divine. That’s why he says they prayed to Him as if He were a God. But this is what the early church was practicing, and it’s a reference to Jesus Christ in a Roman historical document, not the Bible. But it comports with the Bible. It agrees with the Bible and what the Bible says.

Tacitus. Tacitus was a reliable Roman historian who wrote early in the second century — very early in the history of the church. He describes Christians as those who had received their name from “Christ, who had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.” So here’s a Roman official acknowledging the existence of Christians who based their beliefs on a man who was crucified by Pilate. Everything that’s in the Gospels is confirmed in the writings of Roman historians.

Lucian of Samosata. Another second-century writer in the Greek world, Lucian of Samosata, poured scorn on Christians for worshiping a man. “People thought there’s no such thing as a man becoming God. They’re worshiping a man.” He says they worshiped “the distinguished person who instituted their novel rites and was crucified.” He goes on and writes a letter to his son, urging him to imitate wise teachers like Socrates. In this context, he twice refers to a wise king whom the Jews executed, which led to their most recent exile from the land and dispersion around the empire.

He’s writing stuff that agrees with the Gospels in the New Testament completely. And it’s coming from a non-Christian. Only Jesus qualifies for such a description.

Bar Serapion. Bar Serapion, the son of Serapion, goes on to stress that the wise king lived on in the teaching that he had given. This kind of label for Christ may reflect Jesus’ own teachings about Himself, or at least convictions as old as the narrative of the sign that Pilate had nailed to the cross, which declared in three languages that Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews.

Celsus. And then finally, Celsus, who was a little bit later. He never denied Jesus was a historical figure. But instead, he disparages Jesus’ lineage and His status. He calls His mother Mary an adulteress, attributes His miraculous power to sorcery that He learned in Egypt, and charges that He used these powers erroneously to claim His own divinity.

So here’s a man who doesn’t believe Jesus is God, but refers to Jesus in all the terms that we find in the Gospel records. He knows about His mother. He knows about the strange circumstances of Jesus’ birth. He knows He has miraculous powers. He just attributes those things to other sources rather than Christ’s divinity.

And that list, by the way, could go on and on.

Closing: Our Calling in a Pagan Culture

So we have been trying to show that the Gospels are historically reliable for the sake of people we encounter. You and I might say, “Yeah, I don’t need to know any of that stuff to believe.” Okay. But we are going to encounter people. We are living in a pagan culture. Our job is no longer to convince Christians. It is to convince unbelievers. I don’t know if everybody is fully aware of that pagan element in our culture today. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

And I believe God is calling people and stirring up people. Let me tell you why I believe that. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they shall be filled.” Now, where does the hunger and thirst come from? It comes from God. God gives people the hunger and thirst for righteousness so that they will seek Him. And God then puts His people in the path of those individuals so we can speak to them and help them to grasp these things. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do. And I hope that tonight has helped you in some extent with that.

Any questions?