Ashley, John, and Tiger and temptation.

“Go on, nobody will find out. We can sneak into this hotel room, close the door, and I’ll sneak out again later. Nobody needs to find out. It’ll be fun. I won’t tell your wife…”

We have heard a lot about temptation recently with some much publicised celebrity transgressions. I wonder if these thoughts crossed the minds of golfer Tiger Woods, or Chelsea footballers John Terry and Ashley Cole. I’m sure, for them, it seemed worth it at the time – a lust satisfied and a bit of fun – but now, their personal reputations are in tatters as they struggle to maintain their relationships and to deal with damaging newspaper allegations.

Ashley Cole has been the subject of constant newspaper allegations for the last year which culminated last month when his wife, singer Cheryl Cole, announced that they were separating. John Terry, after details of his infidelity were published had to miss Chelsea’s FA Cup game in order to fly out to Dubai to patch things up with his wife. And Tiger Woods, possibly the most talented golfer that ever lived, has not played golf since he was discovered after crashing his car on his own drive at 3am last December. He has since admitted being unfaithful and issued a full and very public apology last week. However, In all three cases, their transgressions have damaged their sporting life, their marriages, and has undermined their credibility as a role model.

As we step into the season of lent, it is the time of the year when we remember not only Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the cross, but also the 40 days he spent in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry as he faced temptation from the Devil. (See Matt 4:1-11 or Luke 4:1-13.)

Jesus has been fasting and praying in the wilderness for 40 days, so in the first temptation the Devil simply encourages him to eat something. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matt 4:3).

The Devil’s second suggestion tempts Jesus to take some short cuts in his ministry by doing something spectacular. “‘If you are the Son of God’ he said, ‘Throw yourself down [from the temple]’” (Matt 4:6).

These are much more than simple temptations to do a particular thing. Immediately before his time of fasting, praying and temptation, Jesus was baptised. During the baptism, the Holy Spirit decended upon him and a voice from God was heard saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 4:17). The Devil then begins his tempting by saying “If you are God’s son….” So these are temptations for Jesus to step away from and undermine the person that he is and from his role as Messiah and Saviour.

These temptations of Jesus go right to the heart of every human temptation that we or anyone else has ever faced. They are not so much nudges towards a particular indiscretion, but a temptation to step away from the role that God has defined for us. For Christians, the tempter wants us to undermine our roles as God’s children. To us, the Devil might put subtle temptations in our way – “If you are God’s children, he won’t mind you cheating on tax forms” or “Surely God won’t mind an illegal short cut to a noble end?”. Or even “If you are forgiven by Jesus, surely a little bit extra sin won’t matter?” In these, the devil is trying to lure us away from the path of holiness and servanthood and to disown our loving and Heavenly Father.

Each time Jesus responds to temptation, he overcomes it by quoting scripture. Jesus knows what the life of God’s son should look like and we too can know what the life of a follower of Jesus should be like. It is all outlined for us in scripture and we find strength for this way of life in Christian community.

Tiger Woods, John Terry, and Ashley Cole will probably rebuild their careers, win more trophies and make more money. Tiger Woods and john Terry may even rebuild their marriages (lets hope they do and remain faithful), although it all seems to late for Ashley and Cheryl now. But for all of them, rebuilding a reputation will take a lot longer.

A Christmas Sermon

A sermon I gave today at a lunchtime carol service for business people.

—————

Cecil Francis Alexander was an Irish poet who lived in the Victorian Era and was the wife of a bishop. However, she is perhaps most famous for writing the words to the popular CHristmas carol, “Once in Royal David’s City”. You might have thought that having a bishop in the house would have helped her with getting the words right! I have issues with verse 3 of “Once in Royal David’s City” which speaks of the childhood of Jesus.

Jesus as we’ve heard in our reading is described as Saviour, Christ (which means anointed one), Son of God, King of the Jews, Word of God (which means God’s presence and action) and Immanuel (which means God With Us)

Let me read this controversial verse from Once in royal that we have just sung.

And through all His wondrous childhood
He would honour and obey,
Love and watch the lowly Maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:

All ok so far – Jesus would have grown up as a normal Jewish child and would have learned from his parents and obeyed them. But here’s where I start to have problems…

Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.

My problem with this is not only that it is a completely unrealistic expectation – we’re never going to be as obedient as God-made-flesh Jesus. My problem is that these lines completely misunderstand what Jesus came to do.

Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.

It is a common misconception that God will only love us if we are good. Some people go through their whole lives working on that basis.  God will only like me if I follow the rules. God will only like me if I get good grades and university and get a good job. God will only like me if I give lots of money to charity. Some people go through their whole lives believing that for every good thing they do, God puts a tick, or a gold star next to their name, and for every bad thing they do God puts a black mark that he will hold against us.

If we live by this  scale, we are just going to feel more and more dissatisfied with ourselves. I give to charity… but them I’m rude to my wife. I work hard and provide for my family… but then I neglect to spend time with them. I try and care about the environment.. but then I do nothing about the homelessness in my own city. For every good thing we do, a bad thing comes along right behind it. We’re all going to get black marks against us, because we all slip up and fail.

The Bible is quite realistic about this. In the New Testament, in the book of Romans, the author, Paul, says this -

Rom 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Surely we all deserve to be separate from God because we just can’t be good enough for him.

But the coming of Jesus is Good News. It is news that can give us hope, and let us know that we are loved and accepted by God despite the fact that we slip up so frequently.

Jesus did not come to give us a standard to live up to, -  God knows that that would not be possible. Jesus came to be that standard for us. So yes, he lived that perfect life. He was good, sinless. He spent time with those that no-one else cared about. But what did he get for it? He was put to death. He died a death that he didn’t deserve.  But then raised to life again. Even death couldn’t separate him from God because He was God. He was perfect.

How is that good news for us? The Apostle Paul also wrote this in Romans

Rom 3:21- 22 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, [without needing us to do good things]…  22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

The good news of Christmas is that God does not need us to work our way to him by doing good things. God has come to us, become human in Jesus. God accepts us regardless of what we have done or how we have lived, because he has sent Jesus. Jesus has lived that perfect life for us.

So, Jesus invites us to come to him, place our faith and trust in him, to put our lives in his control. And when we do that, he takes our failures and inadequacies and sins, and overlooks them.

God looks at us, and sees Jesus’ perfection. Jesus is the only way we can come to God because he is God.
The Chrsitmas carol said:

Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.?

No. Christian children all must trust in Jesus, because he is perfect, and he has made it possible for us to be accepted by him. Those words may not scan into the carol, but it is certainly good news.

John 1:12 Yet to all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Amen.

Our next carol is one I have no problems with!..
O Little Town of Bethlehem.

The problem of evil.

In June, Vanessa George, a female nursery worker in Plymouth childcare centre was arrested for taking pornographic photos of the children in her care. I happened to be in my church office in Plymouth the day after the arrest was made, on the day she appeared for her bail hearing (which she did not get). From there I could see the entrance to the local courthouse and could see and hear the many people, most of whom were upset and disgusted parents, hurling abuse at her secure prison van as she was driven away. Yesterday she appeared, alongside three other people, in court in London charged with child sex abuse. I’m not going to spell out all the sordid details here as they have been written about in the mainline press, but that mobile phones and the internet were involved.

Coming out of this, I heard whilst listening to Radio Five Live (UK news and sport radio station) this morning that politicians are considering banning those who work with children from bringing mobile phones into work. This seems absurd and is obviously just a bit of reactionism.  It may make it more difficult to do what these people have done, but it will not solve the problem. It is akin to putting a sticking plaster on a cancer.

The problem isn’t the use of mobile phones, the problem is that humanity is sinful and is capable of evil things, and this evil comes from right from inside of a person. Banning mobile phones will not stop this evil, the more fundamental solution is to tackle the evil from the inside.

The Bible recognises the problem of human sin as being fundamental and deep down. One suggestion is to cut out of your life the thing that leads to sin. Jesus taught:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell. (Mark 9:43-47).

So, if mobile phones are causing you to sin, an application of this might be to cut out the mobile phones from your life. But this would not be the root of the problem. The Bible recognises that the root cause of sin is the human heart. Jesus also said:

“Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ” (Mark 7:18-23)

It’s no use any of us trying to argue that we have never had evil thoughts, even if we have never acted on them. So, if the root problem is the human heart, are we supposed to cut that out. No, but we do need a heart transplant – so that all the sin and evil is exchanged for something pure. In other words, we need a pure perfect human who is able to deal with all the evil that comes out of humanity. This is whom Jesus claims to be – the one pure perfect human who came from (and was) God who was able to deal with the problem of the evil human heart – by being perfect and pure -  and reunite all humanity with God. With his guidance we are able to slowly see our lives transformed and all the imperfect parts of us be gradually changed.

I pray, of course, for all the children and parents affected by this woman’s action, but also that she will have her impure and evil heart transformed by a good and loving God.

Faith vs. Doctrine

I had two interesting conversations today with believers. After both, it led me to wonder whether the role I was playing in the first conversation was the same role as that of the questioner in the second conversation.

The first was with someone who kept saying that God knows our hearts and the hearts of all people, which he does. However, she didn’t seem to think it matter what one believed (although I have no doubt she believed in Jesus). It doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you are sincere. God knows our hearts (yes), but it doesn’t matter what is in them or who we claim to follow. This was salvation by faith, but faith in what?

The second was another believer but one who took the opposite extreme. We had different opinions on a minor issue of doctrine (predestination) which led him to ask question if I was saved (he already knew I was a vicar). I responded that I didn’t think it mattered if he thought I was saved, just if I did and if God did. His position was that the right doctrine is crucial, as “our doctrine is who we are”. Not having ‘the right’ doctrine led him to question my salvation. This is salvation by doctrine.

Doctrine is important, but doctrine alone doesn’t save. Faith is important, but faith in what is important. The biblical position is that it does matter who we have faith in as we need to know who to follow. Jesus is the one to follow as he is the one who came from the Father. Equally, the biblical position is that we a saved by grace due to the work of Jesus. But we are not saved through our understanding of doctrine.

The woman who had been ill for 12 years (in Mark 5) and who crept up behind Jesus to touch his cloak and be healed performed an action of faith. Jesus’ response was, “Daughter, your faith has healed you, go in peace.” The thief who died on the cross next to Jesus (Luke 23) saw Jesus next to him and uttered a statement of faith “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom”. Jesus’ response was not to quiz the man about his doctrine what sort of kingdom he expected, it was instead, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). His action of faith is responded to with an assurance of salvation.

We are saved through faith in Jesus. Who our faith is in is important. Our understanding is important. However, it is Jesus who saves us, not anything else.

Resting and Working

Rhiddian Brook gave an interesting thought on BBC Radio 4 yesterday morning on the subject of stress, that back to work feeling, and rediscovering who we are. Listen to it here: Thought for the Day with Rhiddian Brook.

The poor in the gospel of Luke (iv)

This is the fourth part of a series looking at how Luke deals with the subjects of the poor and poverty.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:32-34)

The last sentence has been on my mind for a few days, but some general thoughts on the passage before I get to it.

The verse on the poor comes in the middle of a section of teaching by Jesus. He has been teaching about hypocrisy, remaining faithful to him in the midst of persecution, through words and actions. Jesus has also warned about greed (it comes just after Jesus was asked to arbitrate in a family argument over inheritance). His response it to think of heavenly security rather than earthly security. Therefore his hearers are not to worry about material security in this life as God will provide (they’ve already been promised the kingdom). Instead he says, sell your possessions and give to the poor. This is the ultimate sign of dependence and trust in God. Make your priorities the same as God’s, which includes caring for the poor. Priorities like this result in treasure that will not perish.

However, the emphasis in this passage seems to be on the attitudes of the giver, rather than the poor who will receive.

As I said, verse 34 has been on my mind for a few days (it is also in Matthew 6), even before it came up in my study notes – where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I have read it many times, but have read it in the way that if you look to see where your money/time/treasure is going, you can see where the true motives of your heart are. i.e. the location of your treasure explains where your heart is.

However, I think you can also read it the other way around. the verse says ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. So, the action of putting your treasure in certain places influences the direction of you heart. I suppose an investment is going to be looked after and followed. So investing in places such as, say, the poor, or in Christian mission then means you are more likely to follow what is going on in those areas. The interest is sparked by the investment. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

So, I could argue that if you want to be more passionate about the poor, give (time or money) to charities that serve the poor. If you want to be more passionate about Christian mission, give to Christian mission, if you want to be more passionate about changing God’s church, give to it and get involved. Most people want to se a return on your investment. Your heart will be invested in it.

The poor in the gospel of Luke (iii)

Having called his disciples, healed some people, and having taught (and been thrown out of) the synagogue, Jesus comes down from a mountain where he was praying to the plain, where a crowd had gathered to hear him teach. This is Lukes version of the Sermon on the Mount – I guess we could call it the Preach on the Plain or something like that.

He begins with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes:

Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied. (Luke 6:20-21)

This differs a little from Matthew’s version in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:4) and “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (5:6). The differences reflect the emphasis for the poor shown in the gospel of Luke, but what else?

The beatitudes are not commands, but statements, and they come directly after Jesus has called the 12 disciples. Tom Wright (in Luke for Everyone) likens it to Jesus reminding his new team of followers of 4 or 5 things to remember as they start to follow him. They are reminders of what God’s kingdom looks like, which is upside down when compared to the kingdom of the world, then or now – reminders of who is to be valued – not just the people that current society values, but those who have no voice. It is similar, again, to what many of the OT prophets were saying.

Tom Wright says it well:

“Jesus is… fulfilling his promises at last, and this will mean good news for all the people who haven’t had any for a long time. The poor, the hungry, those who are hated, blessings on them! Not that there’s anything virtuous about being poor or hungry in itself. But when injustice is reigning, the world will have to be turned once more the right way up for God’s justice and kingdom to come to birth”

The poor are blessed because they stand to gain the most from God’s justice and kingdom coming, and they are most likely to look for it. By contrast, the rich, if they consider themselves rich and of no need “have already received their comfort” (6:24). It seems clear that Jesus is talking about the literal rich and poor not just the spiritual. God’s message is for everyone but the poor may be looking for satisfaction, fulfilment, and the kingdom of God more.

The poor in the gospel of Luke (ii)

OK, onto chapters 3 and 4 of Luke. Chapter 3 begins with a section on John the Baptist. He is preaching and baptising in the river Jordan and the crowds come out to see him. He preaches that people need to repent before God, and that being of the right lineage is not enough to avoid God’s judgement-

“I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (3:8-9)

Quite naturally, the crowd respond “What shall we do then?” John’s answer is revealing:

“The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same. Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do? “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (3:11-14)

This is an answer that has social action right at the heart of it. Repentance is not just about saying sorry, but it is about turning one’s life around, away from the sinful behaviour. In this case, John’s listeners should turn towards God’s justice, making sure there is enough food and clothing to go around instead of storing it all up. This matches what some of the OT prophets, particularly Amos were saying. (In Amos’ time Israel was busy keeping all the religious festivals but ignoring the plight of the poor – Amos rebuked them for it). I wonder what John would make of the so-called ‘Christian’ West storing up treasures, food, clothing, wealth for themselves whilst there are so many in poverty worldwide.

Chapter 4- And Jesus has been through the temptations in the wilderness, and he goes back to his home town. He goes into the synagogue, opens the scriptures (at Isaiah 61:1-2), and reads:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (4:18-20)

This is a quite astounding statment about who Jesus is. He is saying about himself that he is the anointed leader (Note that both the word’Christ’ and ‘Messiah’ mean ‘Anointed One’) that God has sent to do extraordinary things. Firstly, to preach good news to the poor. Why to the poor? Well, it is good news for everyone but it was the poor that would feel it the most. They are the ones who were most likely to recognise that they needed help/a saviour in order to be right with God. Their life circumstances are more likely to be dramatically changed as they find purpose, identity, and community in the people of God. The gospel turns human structures upside down, and restores all people to dignity, so that there is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28). Jesus spent most of his time with people on the edge of society who were shunned by the rest; they gained great dignity from that.

He also claims freedom for the prisoners and to release to oppressed. There were some then and now who have been literally released from oppression by the power of the Holy Spirit, whether physical oppression or the oppression of addictions. Prisoners who have discovered God’s love for them find that, even though their outward circumstances might not change, their are truly free and find a new lease of life within their spiritual freedom. But everyone gets to be released from the oppression that is slavery to power of sin, which captivates all of us (read Romans 5-8 in this light)

The poor in the gospel of Luke

The gospel of Luke is known as the gospel for the poor. I’ve been thinking for ages about going through it and seeing what it says about the poor, and now that I’m up to Luke in my daily devotional, now seems like a good time to do it.

The first chapter goes through the angels revealing God’s will, first to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and then to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Elizabeth was thought to be pregnant about six months before Mary. When the pregnant Mary met her cousin Elizabeth, the baby John jumped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb (1:41). Elizabeht blesses Mary and Mary responds with a song of praise to God (often called the Magnificat – 1:46-55).

In this magnificat, Mary declares:

“[God] has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. ” (1:53-54)

In this context of Mary is singing this song to God, praising the things he has done in the past. Some of this is to lift up the humble – those who are aware that they needed God wer lifted up by his strength. The next verse, then, could refer to the physically hungry, who are fed and provided for by God, as well as the spiritually hungry – i.e. the humble that Mary sang about in the previous verse.

Chapter 2 of Luke has an incident when the shepherd are being addressed by the angels, telling them the location of the Christ child. They say:

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” (2:10)

The good news of Jesus’ coming would be not just for the religious authorities, but for the poor and outcast, those on the edge of society. The shepherds themselves were such people – hired for a small fee to live and sleep outside with the sheep on the hillside looking after the flock. Indeed these were the people that Jesus spent a lot of his time with, so it is entirely appropriate that the shepherds were among the first to hear of his birth. They too are invited to worship and see the child. It is good news for them.

Truth, Evidence, Experience, and Faith.

Over on his blog, Rodibidably poses the question

“How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?”

He has a long discussion going on, this is my contribution to it.

So, how do we know if something is true? Is it possible to know, 100% for certain that anything is true? Let’s say we think something might be true, so we test it. This is what science does – it comes up with theories which might be true, and it tests them. So, for example, if I want to know if, say, all apples are red, I start picking apples. I keep doing this either until I’ve found an apple that isn’t red – disproving the theory, or until I’ve picked enough apples so I’m convinced that all apples are indeed red.

Does the testing prove the theories? No, but each subsequent test shows that it is working on at least one more occasion. As we test more and more times we can be confident that the same thing will happen. Eventually we spot a trend and are confident enough to assert, beyond reasonable doubt, that the theory is true. We have not proved it, but we have seen it enough to be sure enough that it is true, so we believe that it is.

Note that even in a scientific experiment, the very last stage of ‘proving’ the theory comes down to a matter of faith – faith that what we have seen shows that the theory is true.

This basic method which underlies science is sound and fairly reliable, but there is necessarily always some element of doubt, however small, in the theories themselves. Should another conflicting bit of data come along, it is tested, and a new hypothesis is formed which takes into account this new information, replacing the old theory. They can be replaced when a new, stronger theory comes along. So, talk of ‘knowledge’ or ‘fact’ is misguided.

Definitive knowledge can only be known by building logically on top of a firm foundation, so there could be total certainty about the outcomes. However, the only discipline which is subject to this methodology and is not open to doubt is mathematics, and maths to this degree of proof exists only in the abstract. Even Einstein admits that this is the case:

“As for as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality” (Einstein, quoted in Leslie Newbigin’s book ‘The Gospel in a Pluralist Society’ p31)

Later, Newbigin says

“There is no knowing without believing, and believing is the way to knowing”

So, if we want to work out if we think something is true, we need to look at the evidence and ask ourselves, ‘is it reasonable to believe?’ and ‘Does it work?’

So, why do I think that Christianity is true?

First, it is pretty clear that there was a man called Jesus who lived in the middle east and claimed to do miracles. Non-Christian historians of the time such as Josephus, Tacitus and others attest that he existed and was put to death by Pontius Pilate. Josephus reports that his followers claimed that three days after his death, Jesus was alive again and appeared to them. There are places you can read about this in much more detail, – Wikipedia has a short entry here. These are non-Christian sources.

Christian sources, such as the accounts in the gospels are shown to be reliable. They were written soon after the events by people who were there at the time or by people who knew people who were. There are many fragments of manuscripts from early on – far more than with other documents of the same era (such as some of Caesars writings), so we can be fairly sure that what was written then was pretty much the same as what we have now. So it is reasonable to believe the Bible. (Again, there have been many, many books written on this subject. Any commentary on one of the gospels should detail the historicity of it).

As Josephus reports, the disciples claimed that they saw Jesus alive after he died (the Bible says Jesus appeared to 500 followers of Jesus after the resurrection). We have two choices. Either they are telling the truth or they are lying. If they were lying, they would know. However, almost all the 12 disciples died gruesome deaths at the hand of the Romans or others who were persecuting Christians. Surely, if they were lying, they would have said so? Who would give their life for something that they knew was not true?

Obviously, there is much more that I could say. There are many other claims of Christianity that can be investigated in a similar manner. But overall, the evidence points to something that is intellectually reasonable to believe.

Secondly, does it work? Does Christianity still play out as if it is true? Does what the Bible says play out as true? Well, why don’t you ask a Christian you know. I find it does – Jesus gives my life hope, purpose, and a rock solid foundation to build upon. I know many people, some who were former drug addicts who attest that it was only the power of God that helped them to quit, and if it wasn’t for the saving work of Jesus, they would, quite literally, be dead from their addiction. I know some Christians who have had powerful experiences of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, I have had some of those experiences myself that I can only attribute to God.

So, I have found that Christianity is intellectually reasonable to believe, and I have found that it works. We know what truth is through investigation and experience. The next step is to take that leap of faith and actually believe it. It will involve re-evaluating your life, but if God exists, it is worth it. Isn’t it??

(As for other religions, they can’t all be true because they are all quite different. I would recommend Michael Green’s excellent short book “But Don’t All Religions Lead To God” to highlight the differences.)