11th & 12th Grade DGroup Recap

Last night we delved into the deity of Christ. Is Jesus God or just a great moral teacher? In review, we’ve been dealing with the accuracy of the New Testament writings. We’ve established that we know they are accurate and an easy way to remember the evidences are to remember they all start with “E.” NT writers gave testimony that was early, eyewitness, embarrassing and excruciating. Secular historians and archeology provide extrabiblical and enemy testimony. There is actually testimony from the OT as well that would be considered “expected.” The OT predicted the arrival of a Messiah.

1)      OT Claims that Christ was the Messiah--Isaiah 42 and 53 predict a servant Messiah and suffering Messiah. These predate Christ by several hundred years. There are also Messianic passages in Genesis, Jeremiah, other Isaiah passages, Micah, Malachi and Daniel. Turek notes, “Jesus’ life serves as the box top for many pieces of the prophetic puzzle found throughout the Old Testament.”There have been at least 71 OT messianic prophecies fulfilled by Christ.

2)      Apostles claimed Christ’s deity.

3)      Demons acknowledged that Jesus was God.

4)      Jesus’ claims to be God—direct and indirect--In one of the most stunning claims of his deity, Jesus uses OT, Jewish wording that his NT Jewish audience would clearly understand. He referred to himself as, “I Am.” He also referenced a passage in Daniel about the Son of Man returning to judge the world with authority given by God. It is popular for unbelievers these days to say that Jesus didn’t claim to be God. They clearly have not read the evidence. However, a good question to ask them when they state this is, “If Jesus didn’t claim to be God, then why was he killed?” His crucifixion is difficult to explain unless he made that claim. Jesus also made many indirect claims to be God. He declared his deity implicitly through parables. He performed miracles. He acted as if he was God through divine actions. He accepted worship and commended those who acknowledged his deity.

In a famous statement and argument by C.S. Lewis, Lewis explores three possibilities—namely that Jesus was either Lord, a liar or a lunatic. Liar and lunatic do not fit the facts of his life—how he lived and what others thought of him. That leaves us with Lord. We can also show from our previous study of the evidence that he was not a legend either. “In light of Jesus’ miraculous deeds, his resurrection, his supreme conduct and teachings, the prophecies fulfilled, and the fact that he would be unlikely to die for his own lie, liar and lunatic are eliminated. All of the evidence points to the fact that he was The Lord.

The Trinity

We also discussed the important, but difficult to understand, concept of the trinity. We looked at an explanation that avoids heresies which states that The Trinity is three persons with one nature. And that Jesus is one person with two natures—both divine and human. The three “whos” are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. All three of those “whos” have one divine nature. The Son, does not give up his divine nature, but he adds a human nature when he takes on skin and walks the earth as Jesus.

Some important things to remember about the Trinity: The Father and the Son are equal in essence but different in function. The Trinity may be beyond reason, but it’s not against reason. While we can’t comprehend an infinite God, we can apprehend the Trinity. The Trinity actually helps us understand how love has existed from all eternity. Tri-unity in the Godhead solves the problem. To have love, there must be lover (the Father), a loved one (the Son), and a spirit of love (the Holy Spirit).

(Much of the above is taken directly from Turek/Geisler’s book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.”)

 

Check out this One Minute Apologist video on the Trinity.

WNY 4-23

Below is an AWESOME message, brought to you by the great, the wonderful... MEGAN!!!

Click here to download a powerpoint recap of the message!

WNY 4-16

Enjoy the following audio from April 16th!! Brought to you by Lance!

WNY 4-9

Below is the audio from the WNY on April 9th!

Enjoy!

11th and 12th Grade DGroup Recap

In last night’s class we reviewed some of the same material that was presented in last week’s “The Case for Easter” simulcast. We reiterated that if Christ did not rise from the dead, then our study of all this material is in vain because it makes no difference. The resurrection of Christ is the linchpin of our faith. (I Cor. 15:12-18).

We took a look at Dr. Gary Habermas’s work—a world renowned scholar on the resurrection. In reviewing 1,400+ works on the resurrection written from 1975 to 2003, he shows that virtually all scholars from across the ideological spectrum agree that the following points are historical facts:

1)      Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.

2)      He was buried, most likely in a private tomb.

3)      Soon afterwards the disciples were discouraged, bereaved, and despondent, having lost hope.

4)      Jesus’ empty tomb was found empty very soon after his interment.

5)      The disciples had experiences that they believed were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.

6)      Due to these experiences, the disciples’ lives were thoroughly transformed. They were even willing to die for their belief.

7)      The proclamation of the Resurrection took pace very early, from the beginning of church history.

8)      The disciples’ public testimony and preaching of the Resurrection took place in the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus had been crucified and buried shortly before.

9)      The gospel message centered on the preaching of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

10)   Sunday was the primary day for gathering and worshipping.

11)   James, the brother of Jesus and a skeptic before this time, was converted when he believed he also saw the risen Jesus.

12)   Just a few years later, Saul of Tarsus (Paul) became a Christian believer, due to an experience that he also believed was an appearance of the risen Jesus.

You can be confident in your belief! And you can share this with others.

All the theories posited against the resurrection have been convincingly refuted.

1)      Hallucination Theory—hallucinations aren’t experienced by groups, he appeared on 12 separate occasions, in a variety of settings to different people over 40 days, empty tomb

2)      Wrong Tomb Theory—Roman authorities would have gone to the right one to produce the body; the tomb would have been known by both the Jews and Romans, doesn’t explain appearances

3)      Swoon or Apparent Death Theory—enemies and friends believed he was dead, modern doctors believe he actually died, he was embalmed in 75 pounds of bandages and spices, how could someone as injured and bleeding as him stayed alive an additional 36 hours and he would have appeared to them in that manner, how could Jesus have gotten out of the tomb in that shape, doesn’t explain Paul’s Damascus road experience, non-Christian writers affirmed his death by crucifixion.

4)      Stolen Body Theory—why would the disciples have stolen the body in order to get themselves beaten, tortured and martyred?, no motive or ability to steal it, how would sleeping guards have known or admitted to sleeping because of the punishment they would have received.

5)      Substitute Body Theory—(offered by many Muslims), no evidence, assertion occurs 600 years after Jesus’ life

6)      Disciples faith led them to believe in resurrection—no proof

7)      NT writers copied pagan resurrection myths—NT is not mythological, doesn’t explain empty tomb/martyrdom/extrabiblical evidence, no Greek or Roman myths spoke of a resurrection of a monotheistic God, first real parallel does not appear until 100 years after origin of Christianity.

Remember this: Christian need to put the burden of proof on skeptics for their alternative theories. A theory is not evidence. Many of the theories come from a philosophy of anti-supernaturalism. So why don’t all scholars believe the evidence? A philosophical bias against miracles.

I hope this puts Easter in a new light for you this year.

Here’s your challenge for this week:

Go to this link and play the Resurrection game until you can make it through all eight levels, recording what you get wrong at each stage. Let me know how many rounds it takes. Easter Candy for those who give it a try. Least attempts to get it all right wins. See you in two weeks!

11th & 12th grade DGroup Recap

Last night we covered more evidence for the truth and reliability of the New Testament. As we set out to discover if:

-- we have accurate copies of the original NT documents.  (See last week’s blog for that review.)

--the original NT documents tell the truth.

We can remember the Six E’s of evidence that the NT is true. (These are the same types of evidence we would look for in any historical work from antiquity.)

·        Early Testimony—we know that all or most of the NT was written before 70 A.D.—so within a 1-2 generations of Christ’s death. (no time for myth or legend to develop without being debunked.)

·        Eyewitness Testimony—among other convincing proofs: 84 historically confirmed eyewitness details in Acts, more in Luke’s Gospel, 59 historically confirmed or probable details in John, NT documents have more than 30 people confirmed by secular sources of archaeology.

·        Embarrassing Testimony—someone making up a story would not include embarrassing details about themselves; apostles are portrayed in NT as dimwitted, uncaring, rebuked, cowards and doubters among other uncomplimentary traits.

·        Excruciating Testimony—all but one apostle is thought to have died a martyr’s death. Why would they die for a known lie? They had nothing to gain by making up this new religion.

·        Expected Testimony—through reason and science we know that God exists and created us for a purpose (covered in earlier sessions); the OT teaches the same and it can be considered reliable and the OT predicts the Messiah would come; the prophetic details of that Messiah in the OT are pinpoint accurate in what we see of Jesus in the NT.

·        Extra-Biblical Testimony—we have 10 ancient non-Christian sources confirming the NT storyline and when you compile their work you get a story congruent with the NT.

We are able to show through these evidences that the NT is historically reliable. Therefore:

1)      It is fact, not fiction

2)      If it says Jesus said it, then Jesus really said it.

3)      If it says Jesus did it, then Jesus really did it.

Next we will move into evidence for the resurrection (many of you got a taste for that in the “Case for Easter” simulcast), who Jesus is, what he taught about the Bible and what that means for us.

 

My “bribe” from last week still stands. J