Links & Quotes

Before having that difficult conversation, make sure that person you are going to speak to knows two things: (1) God loves them, and (2) You love them. Here’s a great example of how this is done.

I have a lot of new video content on my YouTube channel every week. Please check it out and subscribe so you don’t miss anything.

A very interesting post on the history of the Shroud of Turin, including some of the most recent scientific studies. 

“Many read the Bible the way a mouse tries to remove the cheese from a trap… trying not to get caught.” —Søren Kierkegaard 

Is there any historical evidence to the claim that Easter is based on pagan deities or pagan practices? John Stonestreet discusses the lack of solid connections to these claims.

“Today…the church is becoming more of a consumer than a steward. This means we want the church to give us friends, marry us, provide financial help, give us counseling, get us to heaven, help us when our house is flooded, give us good music, and fix our teenagers. All of this while we sit and take it in. Exodus 35 speaks to this. To be clear, when we give our offering, we’re not giving to the Lord something He doesn’t already have a right to. We are just taking our hands off that which already belongs to Him.” —Tim Dilena 

One generation after the apostle Paul wrote his stern letters to the saints at Corinth, T.M. Moore explains how we get a glimpse of how that church heeded his words in the letters from Clement.

Dr. Glenn Sunshine and John Stonestreet explain, “Thomas Jefferson is rightly called a hypocrite. In the Declaration of Independence, he wrote the famous lines: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ And yet, Jefferson was among America’s founders who owned slaves.” Check out this insight into Jefferson

Proof Positive

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible. 

A lot of people have offered a lot of opinions on Jesus of Nazareth—He was a good Man, a moral teacher, a great Example. All of those are true, and yet all of them have hidden in them an unspoken belief: Jesus was a good Man but He was not God. 

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said this, “Let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. … A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great man or a moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the devil of hell.” 

Let’s look at the words Jesus Himself spoke; specifically, what He said about the culmination of His purpose on earth. Quite simply stated, Jesus said He came to die. 

Just to keep it simple, let’s confine our evidence to the dialogue of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. 

In Matthew 17, Matthew records a scene where three of Jesus’ disciples are eyewitnesses to a conversation Jesus has with Moses and Elijah. They see Jesus shining as brightly as the Sun, and they hear a Voice from Heaven affirming the deity of Jesus that causes these men to collapse to the ground in fear. Immediately following this, Jesus tells them that He is going to be killed (Matthew 17:22-23). 

(All of the Scriptures in this post can be found here.) 

Does Jesus have a martyr’s complex? Psychologists say this is when someone is so self-sacrificial that they hurt themselves to benefit others, but their motive is to seek out the praise or recognition from those they are helping. It’s true that Jesus helped others, but He deflected praise away from Himself. Jesus had a different motivation (Matthew 26:2, 52-56). He was crucified for our benefit (Matthew 27:46, 50; Isaiah 53:6; 2 Corinthians 5:21). 

Remember that Jesus said He knew that the prophecies were going to be fulfilled. Like the prophecy describing crucifixion before crucifixion was even invented (Isaiah 53:5). He predicted His resurrection too in Matthew 20:17-19! 

Not only did Jesus say He would be resurrected, but He said He would return with rewards and punishment (Matthew 25:34, 41). 

Lots of people have been madmen. But Jesus doesn’t fit this description. 

Lots of people have had a martyr’s complex. But Jesus wasn’t seeking glory for Himself, but glory for His Father and eternal life for us. 

Lots of people have made outlandish predictions, and some of them have come true. Lots of people have had a messiah complex. But no one has ever claimed He was sent from God to die, lived a perfect life, died precisely as predicted in centuries-old prophecies, and was raised back to life again! The crucifixion of Jesus on an old rugged Cross is proof positive that He is the Messiah He says He is. 

Let’s return to C.S. Lewis: “You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool…or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.” 

We have a choice: Accept Him as Lord and then follow His words and example, or try to make our own way through life, which is the same thing as calling Jesus “a madman or something worse.” 

We have been learning what Jesus said about His saints and His Church in our series “I will build My Church.” Check out all of the sermons in this series. 

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