Did Jesus Die?

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Hopefully you didn’t see the dreadful “Did Jesus Die?” documentary on BBC4 recently. They basically set out to show that the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus is unfounded and presented the theory that he survived the cross and went to live in India as an alternative. The accusation was that the church was trying to force people to believe the unbelievable by refusing to allow anyone to ask questions.

So if the church are so anti-intellectual, perhaps this program could present the evidence in a fair-minded and unbiased manner. Apparently not. Only one person who actually believed in the resurrection – Tom Wright – was even interviewed, and despite his great learning on the subject, his contribution to the entire program amounted to not much more than 20 seconds. More disturbing was the way that facts were twisted or even left out, in the knowledge that your average viewer would not know the Bible well enough to realise what was going on.

So the main example given for contradictions in the gospels was “Did Jesus feed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish or did he feed 4000 with 7 loaves?”. But what we are not told is that in fact the feeding of the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish is in all four gospels. Mark tells us that there was a then second miracle (feeding 4000) and even describes a conversation between Jesus and the disciples discussing the differences between the two miracles. So there is in fact no contradiction at all, just speculation that only one incident actually occured.

When presenting evidence that Jesus might have survived the cross they decided to simply leave out one of the most obvious objections – the spear thrust into Jesus’ side. Much mileage is got out of the fact that we have lost the original ending to Mark’s gospel, and this is used to imply that the claims of the resurrection only started appearing 300 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. No mention whatsoever is made of 1 Corinthians 15, which is dated much earlier than any of the gospels by even the most liberal scholars. Mark’s gospel in fact does end with an empty tomb and when you combine this with the repeated prophecies of Jesus that he would die and rise again on the third day, you can hardly believe that the original ending of Mark didn’t include a resurrection story. If Mark didn’t believe in the resurrection, what exactly is the point of his book?

Now to be fair, historians have a right to be cautious about accepting ancient accounts as “gospel truth” without thoroughly checking them. But Richard Denton, the program writer, while remaining deeply suspicious of anything in the gospel accounts, seems ready to believe absolutely anything else. Much later sources are quoted as undeniable facts to overthrow the unreliable gospel records, which were by any account written no more than a generation after the events. Completely unfounded ideas such as Jesus marrying Mary Magdelene and having children are presented as good history.

The whole “Jesus went to India” theory was well presented but again addressed absolutely none of the main objections that might be raised. In fact, a good number of the experts they interviewed would have been able to refute the idea, even though they did not themselves believe in the resurrection. Jesus was thoroughly Jewish in his thoughts and teaching. The similarities with Buddha’s teaching were hardly persuasive. They both warned of a judgement and against the love of money. The third piece of evidence was that both are claimed to have walked on water. But if we are to go with the documentory’s anti-supernatural stance, then these stories are myths anyway so I can’t see how it could possibly help the case for a visit to India.

Finally, Peter Stanford, the main interviewee (who came across as someone who resented his religious upbringing and was relishing the chance to get his own back) claimed that to think Jesus rose from the dead is to miss the whole point of Christianity. For him, the resurrection is about death – something that we all face, and even though Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, the myth of his ressurection in some way helps us all. Well Peter, I’m sorry but you’ve missed the whole point of Christianity. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, as Paul said in 1 Cor 15, your faith is futile, and we are to be pitied more than all men.

Ultimately the proof of the resurrection is not likely to come from historical research, but a personal encounter with the risen Christ. This is what happened to Paul, the early apostles, and millions of Christians since. Of course, not many have seen him physically, but he promised that when he went back to heaven he would send the Holy Spirit. I know from personal experience that the Holy Spirit has definitely come, so that’s good enough evidence for me that Jesus is now in heaven safe and well.

How to Run a Cell Group – Part 1

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Here is the first in a new series on how to run a cell group. Steve Heinz, the world famous cell leader, has got together a group of people to show them how it ought to be done. I went to the first of these model meetings earlier tonight, and can now share with you what I learned.

You need to first appreciate the core values that every cell should espouse:
1. Warmer – through meeting only in houses with central heating and double glazing
2. Broader – through cream cake eating
3. Further – through cell group cruises to the Caribbean

To make sure these values are met, he introduced us to the famous 4 H’s meeting plan:

1. Hello
Make everyone feel welcome and involved by asking a question. Heinz offered this suggestion for a first meeting: “Who in this room, apart from your spouse, would you most like to kiss?”. Obviously, as the group get to know each other more, you can ask questions of a more personal nature.

2. Hallelujah
Steve demonstrated that the time of worship does not need to mean singing songs. Prophetic break-dancing and yodelling in tongues are two practical examples of ways you can bring freshness to this part of the meeting.

3. Homiletics
In this postmodern day and age, we can’t expect people to all find the same truth in a given Bible passage. Steve suggested that everyone shut their eyes, write a word on a post-it note, and then collected them in to see if they could be arranged into a sentence that meant something. Our words didn’t quite make a sentence, but everyone felt good that their contribution had been included.

4. Heralding
Cells are supposed to grow numerically, and for that you need new people. Having babies is unfortunately not quick enough as you are supposed to split into two new groups every two years. Simon Ditto told us about his “hug a stranger a day” plan, which will hopefully lead to him making some new friends.

August Book Reviews

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This brings me right up to date. At the moment I’m working my way through some fairly long-term books (NICNT commentary on Acts by F F Bruce, Pillar commentary on Mark by Edwards, Jesus & the Victory of God by N T Wright).

Here’s what I finished during August:

Judges – Focus on the Bible (Dale Ralph Davis) 4/5
Just as good as his Joshua commentary, here is more of the same. He really brings the stories to life, filling in historical details where necessary. He doesn’t shy away from addressing the distaste we may feel for some of the Judges actions, and as usual bridges the gap to the 21st century with some relevant application.

Making Sense of the New Testament (Craig Blomberg) 3/5
This book sets out to answer “3 crucial questions”, each of which Craig Blomberg is well placed to answer. First, “Is the New Testament historically reliable”. Here he answers excellently, but perhaps too briefly. He has written a book on the Gospels, and one on John separately addressing the issue in much more depth. Second, “Was Paul the true founder of Christianity?” answers an accusation that has been very fashionable to throw at Christianity in recent years. His answer here is again consise, but should be enough to convince all but the most ardent skeptics. Finally, “How is the Christian to Apply the New Testament to Life?” is indeed a crucial question, but would be better served by a whole book on hermeneutics (e.g. How to read the Bible for all its worth by Fee & Stuart). Having said that, in the space available he crams a lot in, so if you are looking for answers to these questions and don’t want to read too much, this is the book to get.

If you want to walk on the water, you’ve got to get out of the boat (John Ortberg)
4/5
OK, I’ll admit I was prejudiced against this one from the start. Another lightweight Christian “best-seller” to tell you the 7 steps to a prosperous life. But I was wrong. Ortberg isn’t just an excellent communicator, he’s actually got something worth communicating. The book tackles the issue of whether we will “step out” and do something that seems risky but we know its right, or stay where we are, content with a safe second-best option. Following the story of Peter walking to Jesus on the water, he takes us through each step in the process. There are plenty of hilarious and fascinating illustrations that makes it a joy to read, and each chapter concludes with some well chosen questions to help you apply the teaching to your own situation. This is a good book to read if your life tends to be nice but a bit dull, and you’re wondering what the next step should be.

The Incomparable Christ – John Stott 4/5
This is vintage Stott, talking about his favourite subject – Jesus Christ. It is essentially a transcription of a series of lectures he gave. “The Original Jesus” goes through every book of the New Testament and shows how it brings out a particular aspect of his character. “The Ecclesiastical Jesus” explores 12 ways (good and bad) that the church has presented Jesus throughout history. “The Influential Jesus” describes the radical influence Jesus had on 12 people who themselves made great impacts on history. Finally, “The Eternal Jesus” looks at how the book of Revelation presents Jesus. The first three sections in particular are excellent, with the fourth a little bit harder to work through because of the difficult nature of the book of Revelation. However, if you want to “see Jesus” and to “see his glory”, then this book will help you to do just that. We need to see Jesus for who he really is, to appreciate all aspects of his character, and to rid our minds of any misconceptions of him.

June & July Book Reviews

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During June & July I tried to finish some of the books I had bought at the previous year’s New Wine, so that I could buy some more this year with a clear conscience.

The Message of Isaiah – The Bible Speaks Today (Barry Webb) 3/5
Isaiah is a long book that is easy to get bogged down in. This BST volume acts as a guide, helping you to recognise the beginnings and ends of sections, to fit in the prophecies with the relevant historical events and to see some of the big themes. It also provides a beginners introduction to the question of multiple Isaiahs (deutero-Isaiah etc), giving reasons why this reconstruction of authorship does not necessarily need to be accepted.

Joshua – Focus on the Bible (Dale Ralph Davies) 4/5
This commentary is a breath of fresh air. Ralph Davies has a great writing style, and after reading the chapter of Joshua each day, I found myself looking forward to see what his comments would be on it. He writes with humour, and while he clearly has a lot of excellent background knowledge, never introduces it in a dull and technical way. He never takes his eye off the need for practical application either.

Healing and Deliverance – Thinking Clearly (John Woolmer) 2/5
In many ways this book was a fascinating read. Woolmer clearly has researched well and there are lots of interesting anecdotes. I couldn’t help thinking that his theology was more influenced by experience than Scripture, although he did try to find confirmation of those experiences in the Bible. He did not address the difficult issue of the possibility of fraudulent healing claims, and while discussing death in a helpful way, did not really say much on the themes of God using suffering or illness for his own purposes.

Don’t Waste Your Life (John Piper) 4/5
Here is a book to shake you out of your apathy. We all know that we have only got one life and that we ought to make it count. But if we buy into the world’s value systems we can end up living for things that have no lasting worth. John Piper, in characteristic style urges a war mentality on us – we’re in a battle, which means willingly making sacrifices to see the victory. Doubtless some will feel that this creates a secular / sacred divide where people are to feel guilty about having “recreation” time, because it is not frontline service of God. But wherever the true balance lies, one suspects that many of us need this wake-up call.

From Orphans to Heirs (Mark Stibbe) 3/5
This book deals with the often neglected theme of adoption as a Biblical description of our salvation. Important themes like relating to God as our Father, his choosing of us, our acceptance and inheritance as his children are all dealt with. If your status as a child of God is not something that you think of very often, then have your horizons expanded by reading this book.

April & May Book Reviews

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A very busy couple of months of reading, during which I finished a lot of really good books

Does the Future have a Church (Terry Virgo) 4/5
This book basically contains a series of expositions of Ephesians 2-4, describing what church life is supposed to be like. It addresses head on the problem that large parts of the church are declining in the West. Having heard Terry preach a number of messages on this subject, reading the book is like hearing him speak. He talks about our salvation, grace, being the people of God, unity and apostolic giftings.

The Message of Eccelsiastes – Bible Speaks Today (Derek Kidner) 3/5
Ecclesiastes is a refreshing and fascinating book of the Bible, and this commentary really helps bring it alive. Particularly good is the way Kidner helps us to get a feel for Qoheleth, the author of the book, and the unique outlook on life that he offers.

James – Pillar New Testament Commentary (Douglas Moo) 4/5
The Pillar commentaries are excellent for people who want to go into a bit more depth than your typical paperback commentary, but not to get bogged down in too many technicalities. This volume contains the full text of James and is full of insightful comments and interesting findings from historical studies. Relevant cross-references to other ancient wisdom literature are discussed where appropriate. He deals clearly and calmly with the controversy concerning “salvation by works” ably demonstrating that the text does not in fact contradict salvation by faith.

Pursuit of God (A W Towser) 4/5
There are numerous places where you can read this book online – in PDF or HTML format, so launch google, and have a read. Its not too long, but deeply challenging. Simply put, this is a call to radical discipleship and total devotion to God. It will drive you to your knees in prayer. Its the type of book that you should come back to every now again and re-read one or more of the chapters. If you are going through a “dry period” spiritually, then this book can ignite a fresh passion for following after God.

The Discipline of Intimacy (Charlie Cleverley) 4/5
This is a great book on prayer, full of practical suggestions. Cleverley uses a number of examples of prayer in the Bible to teach on different aspects of prayer. I found I often had to stop reading and schedule some time for prayer. Rather than necessarily giving profound new teachings, often we just need reminding of what we already know – we should be giving more time to prayer, and the down to earth advice on what to say.

Seductions Exposed (Gary L Greenwald) 2/5
While this book has many good and practical pieces of advice concerning demonic influences that can come into your lives through occult practises, sexual immorality and so on, I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly. Firstly, he has some very highly developed theories concerning the supernatural realm that rest solely on one or two verses. Secondly, the approach can tend to legalism – rather than encouraging believers to exercise discernment he lists various objects and activities that are not permitted. But the book does at least bring up some issues that are often left undiscussed, so it may be worth reading just to inspire you to come to your own conclusions on these matters.

The Glory of Christ (John Owen) 4/5
This volume in the “Puritan Paperbacks” series is focused on helping believers set their eyes on Jesus, to appreciate his glory and respond in adoration. It has been abridged and slightly modernised, although it still can feel a bit archaic in places. Not quite as inspiring as “Communion with God” by the same author, but a must read for anyone who is interested in the Puritans. Owen works his way through the many different ways we can behold the glory of Christ, before directly challenging us as to our attitude towards him.

The Passion of Jesus Christ (John Piper) 4/5
Timed to coincide with the similarly named film, this book contains 50 reasons why Christ suffered and died. It is ideally laid out to read one page a day as part of your daily devotions. As you would expect from Piper, each reason is clearly justified from Scripture, and he doesn’t shy away from the more ‘difficult’ verses. The net effect is to leave you with a well rounded Scriptural understanding of the reason for the cross which will do more than improve your theology – it will inspire you to worship.

February & March Book Reviews

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February and March weren’t quite such busy reading months. I won’t comment in detail as they’re not fresh in my memory any more.

The Message of Mark – Bible Speaks Today (Donald English) 3/5
As usual with the BST series, a good amount of attention is given to examining the big themes that run through the gospel, leaving you with the feeling that you know what the book “is about” when you’ve finished.

The Message of Proverbs – Bible Speaks Today (David Atkinson) 3/5
Interestingly approaches the book by categorising its themes rather than tackling each proverb individually. This actually proves quite helpful as you get to consider the full weight of each subject addressed, and prevents the commentary from becoming too longwinded.

January Book Reviews

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I’m going to start this blog off with some reviews of what I have been reading this year, and what I thought of it. I’ll do it a month at a time to keep the posts from getting too long

Read in January 2004:

Streams of Living Water (Richard Foster)
Rating: 4/5 – Thought provoking and inspiring
Examines a number of “streams” or “traditions” of Christianity, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, highlighting their particular emphases through examples of famous Christians from church history, and examines their Biblical basis. The Contemplative, Holiness, Charismatic, Social Justice, Evangelical and Incarnational traditions are each given this treatment. I found the biographical sketches very inspirational, and he ably demonstrates that each of these streams does genuinely have something to teach the others. The one possible weakness is that he overlooks the fact that many of these streams, and indeed the example people from them would have very serious theological differences between them. Despite this, I can highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to get a broader picture of the body of Christ. It also contains a very useful dictionary of significant characters from church history who fit into each of these streams.

The Message of Ruth – Bible Speaks Today (David Atkinson)
Rating 3/5 – Good historical insights and practical applications
As with all the BST series, this will help the general reader get a good broad feel for the message of the book. The necessary historical background is filled in, and the author is always looking to draw out lessons for us.

Matthew for Everyone Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (Tom Wright)
Matthew for Everyone Part 2: Chapters 16-28 (Tom Wright)
Rating 4/5 – Jesus the first century Jewish Messiah
The format of these two small volumes is ideal for working your way through the Gospel of Matthew at a rate of about a chapter a day. Each chapter is broken down into chunks of about 10 verses, which Wright has himself translated into English. He then comments on each section, starting with an anecdote, before helping us understand the verses in question in their original historical context. This is of course, Tom Wright’s speciality as he is arguably the leading evangelical scholar in his field of historical Jesus studies. Be prepared for some surprises as he doesn’t always interpret a passage quite how you had heard it before. After reading this, you will have a much better understanding of some of the key issues (e.g. exile, temple, Messiahship, kingdom) that are required to appreciate the gospels properly.

The Awakening (Friedrich Zuendel)
Rating 3/5 – The Lord moves in mysterious ways
This is a biography of a 19th Century German pastor, Johann Christoph Blumhardt who had to deal with a woman in his church who was demon possessed. This resulted in a rather unusual two year “fight” with the forces of darkness, before he saw breakthrough. As a result there was a tremendous spiritual awakening in his village. Some of his methods caused theological controversy at the time, and still raise issues today, but for Blumhardt himself, he was simply trying to do what was right in what for him was uncharted territory. This little book will certainly cause you to spend some time thinking.