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A Christian
Thought for the Month - April 2013
Thoughts for believers & seekers
Thought for the Month -
Easter - the Consequences
Acts 2:44-47 All the believers stayed together and shared everything. They sold their land and the things they owned. Then they divided the money and gave it to those who needed it. The believers shared a common purpose, and every day they spent much of their time together in the Temple area. They also ate together in their homes. They were happy to share their food and ate with joyful hearts. The believers praised God and were respected by all the people. More and more people were being saved every day, and the Lord was adding them to their group.
I can’t help but give a wry grin when someone naively says to me, “But you surely can’t believe all these things you Christians say are true? I mean it all happened so long ago. Surely you can’t believe all that stuff about Easter.” I say I give a wry grin because they are just displaying their ignorance and I don’t really want to put that to them that obviously.
No scholar of any standing today doubts the historical accuracy of the fact of Jesus Christ being an historical figure who lived some two thousand years ago. Yes, it does sound a long time ago but we don’t doubt the writings of Plato, Aristotle and other ‘Greek Greats’ who lived and wrote much further back, and the amount of evidence for the New Testament is literally thousands of times greater than for those writers, so what’s the problem?
Back in the 1950’s an Anglican vicar/scholar, J.B.Philllips, started to produce a fresh translation of the New Translation. By his own admission he was somewhat of an agnostic but by the end of it, he became a firm believer and ended up writing a small book entitled, “Ring of Truth” because he said that that was what he found when he investigated the New Testament carefully.
Now I recount that little episode because that is what I find when I read the accounts of what happened AFTER Easter Sunday. The accounts are startlingly real. Here’s what you find:
Acts 2:44-
I can’t help but give a wry grin when someone naively says to me, “But you surely can’t believe all these things you Christians say are true? I mean it all happened so long ago. Surely you can’t believe all that stuff about Easter.” I say I give a wry grin because they are just displaying their ignorance and I don’t really want to put that to them that obviously.
No scholar of any standing today doubts the historical accuracy of the fact of Jesus Christ being an historical figure who lived some two thousand years ago. Yes, it does sound a long time ago but we don’t doubt the writings of Plato, Aristotle and other ‘Greek Greats’ who lived and wrote much further back, and the amount of evidence for the New Testament is literally thousands of times greater than for those writers, so what’s the problem?
Back in the 1950’s an Anglican vicar/scholar, J.B.Philllips, started to produce a fresh translation of the New Translation. By his own admission he was somewhat of an agnostic but by the end of it, he became a firm believer and ended up writing a small book entitled, “Ring of Truth” because he said that that was what he found when he investigated the New Testament carefully.
Now I recount that little episode because that is what I find when I read the accounts of what happened AFTER Easter Sunday. The accounts are startlingly real. Here’s what you find:
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Good Friday -
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Sunday, these followers start appearing, saying they have seen Jesus, he is risen from the dead (for he was surely dead!).
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In the week and months and years that follow, these followers become more and more bold, so much so that of the original twelve disciples, ten of them gave their lives for their beliefs that Jesus rose from the dead and thus proved himself to be the Son of God.
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Later on, the great apostle Paul was to write: “I gave you the message that I received. I told you the most important truths: that Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say; that he was buried and was raised to life on the third day, as the Scriptures say; and that he appeared to Peter and then to the twelve apostles. After that Christ appeared to more than 500 other believers at the same time. Most of them are still living today, but some have died. Then he appeared to James and later to all the apostles. Last of all, he appeared to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-
I recently had a conversation with a lady who was bemoaning the absence of Spring weather, bemoaning the financial straights we are in, and bemoaning so many other ‘bad’ things about modern society. Her closing comment was, “If there was somewhere to go, I’d emigrate!” Well hopefully the weather is going to change soon (there’s optimism for you!), but many of the ails of our present world are because we, as a society, have chosen to reject the truths and ethics of the New Testament, that for centuries had underpinned our society.
Perhaps it is a hopeful sign that people are beginning to question the direction we are taking, questioning why there seems such a moral vacuum that moral and ethical scandals have hit every single national institution over the past five to ten years. People once thought that you could abandon the religious beliefs of our society and still hold on to the ethics that had come with them, but we are beginning to learn that you cannot do that.
The truths of Christianity are still there, firmly established in the New Testament, and they are unchanging and because they are, there is hope, hope of a better way than our society has opted for, hope of the knowledge of a loving God, hope of a relationship with Him, brought through the activity of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Easter. The lives of his followers scream down through history, “It is true, he is alive, he is God’s Son, there is hope for every one of us!”