The Church

There are four evidences that argue powerfully for the reality of the resurrection. The fourth evidence is the sudden and meteoric rise of the church. The sudden and meteoric rise of the church argues for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. Let me explain...

Let’s pretend when New Day first started (in 2008) that within 5 weeks we had 10,000 people attending our church. That would be pretty amazing, right? And it would demand an explanation, right? People would want to know why 10,000 people started attending. They would conclude that there was some special reason for something so amazing to have occurred.

Well, in the same way, we have to ask ourselves why the first century church started and then exploded with growth? What made it come into existence (and so forcefully)? What caused this movement to begin? Friends - it makes no sense apart from Jesus’ resurrection. As Dr. Daniel Fuller has rightly stated, “To try to explain the church without reference to the resurrection is as hopeless as trying to explain Roman history without reference to Julius Caesar.”

Think about it...A rabbi named Jesus appears from a lower-class region. He teaches for three years, gathers a following of people, gets in trouble with the authorities, and gets crucified along with 30,000 other Jewish men who are executed during this time period. But somehow, within a brief period of time after Jesus’ death, the Christian faith spread rapidly throughout Palestine and then beyond until it finally permeated the entire Roman Empire. Its origin can be traced directly back to the city of Jerusalem in Palestine about A.D. 30 (right around the time Jesus died and his disciples and others claimed he rose from the dead and that they saw him alive). It took root and thrived in the very city where Jesus was crucified and buried. As a result of the first sermon, in which Peter asserted that Christ had risen from the dead, 3,000 people believed (Acts 2:41). In a short time the number had risen to 5,000 (Acts 4:4). Only five weeks after Jesus was crucified, an estimated 10,000 (and rising) Jews are following him and claiming that he has risen from the dead. Could all these converts have been made if Jesus had not been raised from the dead?

And it’s not just the huge numbers that have to be explained...

We also have to account for the decision by early Christians to change “the day of worship” from the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday). The early Christians were devout Jews who were fanatical in their observance of the Sabbath. The Jews feared breaking the Sabbath, believing they would incur the wrath of God if they violated the strict laws concerning its observance. So what happened that caused these Jewish men and women to turn their backs on all their years of religious training and tradition? Christians have an answer: They changed their day of worship to Sunday in honor of the anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus (which took place on a Sunday). Apart from the resurrection, we have no logical answer for why they would do this.

The evidence that the resurrection is responsible for the start of the church is so strong, that in all my reading I've come across not one alternate theory for the start and meteoric rise of the church. It seems critics are silent on this evidence. The “cat” of conclusive evidence has their tongue on this point. 

The Changed Lives

There are four evidences that argue for the reality of Jesus' resurrection. The third is the evidence of changed lives.

The numerous (and suddenly) changed lives of Jesus’ followers strongly argue for Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s review some of the people Paul listed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 as eye witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. I mean, if Jesus really did appear alive after his death, that’s probably an event that would change someone’s life, right? Well did it? Let's take a look...

1. The Apostle Peter ("...he appeared to Cephas...")

In John 18, when Jesus is on trial and about to be crucified, in fear for his life, Peter denied 3x that he even knew who Jesus was. That is, he was afraid to stand up to even a handful of people in the high priest’s courtyard. But then, after Jesus died, in Acts 2 we find Peter standing up to thousands and thousands of people, boldly proclaiming that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. We have to ask ourselves: What accounts for this sudden change in Peter? Well, as 1 Corinthians 15:5 states: Jesus was seen by Peter. We have nothing else to point to, to account for this sudden change except that Peter saw Jesus alive after his death.

2. The Other Apostles ("...then to the Twelve...")

When the authorities captured Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Bible tells us that “all the disciples deserted him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). After Jesus was crucified, the fearful disciples hid themselves in an upper room and locked the doors (John 20:19). These disciples were also skeptical when they first heard about the empty tomb. One of them (Thomas) refused to believe until he personally touched Jesus’ wounds. But within days something happened to utterly change this group of cowardly followers into a bold band of enthusiasts who were willing to face a life of suffering for the cause of Christ. What happened? The most logical explanation is that after Jesus’ resurrection “He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:5). Nothing else can account for this sudden change except that they saw the risen Jesus.

3. Jesus’ brother James ("...then he appeared to James...")

Neither James nor any of Jesus’ younger brothers believed in Jesus during His lifetime (Mark 3:21, 31-35; John 7:1-10). But after Jesus died, his brothers show up in the Christian fellowship in the upper room in Jerusalem (Acts 1:14). Not only did James become a Christian but also an apostle (Galatians 1:19) and a pillar of the church in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9). And we find him lead pastor of the Jerusalem church in Acts 21:18. Church history reveals that James was stoned to death illegally by the Sanhedrin sometime after AD 60 for his refusal to recant his belief in his brother’s resurrection and that he was the Son of God.

And here’s something really interesting: Not only did James become a Christian and get involved in preaching, but so did Jesus’ other brothers (Jesus’ brothers are included in a list of itinerant preachers in 1 Corinthians 9:5). Now how is this to be explained? What would it take to make you believe that your brother is the Lord, so that you would die for this belief, as James did? What would it take for you to believe that your brother had risen from the dead so that you stopped doubting and starting preaching as Jesus’ other brothers did? Can there be any doubt that the reason for this remarkable transformation is to be found in the fact that “then he appeared to James” (1 Corinthians 15:7).

4. The apostle Paul ("...last of all he appeared to me also...")

He was a rabbi, a Pharisee, a respected Jewish leader. He hated the Christian heresy and did everything in his power to stamp it out. He tells us that he was even responsible for the execution of Christian believers. Then suddenly he gave up everything. He left his position as a respected Jewish leader and became a Christian missionary. He entered a life of poverty, labor and suffering. He was whipped, beaten, stoned and left for dead, shipwrecked three times, in constant danger, deprivation and anxiety. Finally, he made the ultimate sacrifice and was martyred for his faith at Rome. What can account for this sudden and drastic change? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:8 stating, “I also saw him.”

Even though the evidence strongly points towards the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, those who are uncomfortable with miracles, propose a different theory for why the disciples lives were so radically changed. It’s called the swoon (or apparent death) theory. This theory states: Jesus didn’t die on the cross. He was still alive when he was placed in the tomb, but he somehow escaped and convinced his disciples that he had risen from the dead. But if that’s true we have the following problems:

1. The Romans, who were professional executioners, didn’t break Jesus’ legs to speed death because they knew he was already dead. 
2. It’s not just the Christian record of Jesus’ life that says he was dead - so do several non-Christian records. The historians Josephus, Tacitus and Thallus all record that Jesus died by crucifixion. So does the Jewish Talmud (a source NOT considered friendly to Christianity). 
3. Jesus was embalmed in seventy-five pounds of bandages and spices. Do you think Jesus (who had been whipped and crucified) could stay still enough to trick Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus as they embalmed him? Could Jesus have just laid there perfectly still while they poured spices in his open wounds? Could he had hid his breathing from them? 
4. How did Jesus stay alive for three days being in the poor physical condition he was in after being crucified? And how did he move the estimated two-ton rock up and away from the inside of the tomb and then get by the elite Roman guards? 
5. And in the pitiful physical condition he was in - How did he convince the scared, scattered, skeptical disciples that he was a conquering king who had triumphed over death? Would this have inspired the disciples to do the things they did and to lay down their lives? 

The evidence of the changed lives argues powerfully for the reality of the resurrection, while alternative theories are harder to believe than the resurrection itself! 

The Telephone Test

There are three tests historians use to determine the credibility and trustworthiness of any ancient document. The Honesty Test, the Telephone Test and the Corroboration Test.

The Telephone Test asks: Do we have reason to believe the accounts of Jesus’ life have been passed faithfully through time?

Skeptics argue in two ways that the biblical record of Jesus is untrustworthy. Let me share them each with you.

Objection #1: As copies of the original writings of Scripture were made, the original message was distorted. Therefore, we can’t trust what we read about Jesus today. But we have to ask ourselves: Is that true?

Let’s imagine that a group of kids play “telephone” with the original statement being “Jesus is Lord”, and that when the game is over one reports that what was originally said was “Jesus is bored,” another says “Pieces of board”, and yet another says “Freeze us a gourd.” If that happened you’d have pretty good reason to believe that the original message was distorted along the way, right? But what if almost every kid in the game reported the original statement as “Jesus is Lord”? If nearly every kid reported “Jesus is Lord” we’d have good reason to believe that’s what the original statement was, right? What does this have to do with the New Testament? Well...

There are 5,000 copies of the NT manuscripts in Greek, 8-10,000 in Latin, 8,000 more in other languages such as Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian. Throw in a few miscellaneous other manuscripts, and there are over 24,000 NT manuscripts in all (24,633 to be exact). And the amazing thing is that they all say the same thing!

If I heard 99 kids out of 100 at the end of a telephone game all saying, “Jesus is Lord,” I’d figure that’s what the original statement was. So when over 24,000 NT manuscripts virtually say the exact same thing, doesn’t it make sense that they are accurate copies of the original? I think it does. How about you?

You’ll find some variations in spelling and stuff like that, but 99.5% of the manuscripts match up. Undoubtedly the people copying the NT made some mistakes as they wrote. But, unlike the telephone game, where half the fun is making mistakes, these guys were serious about their work. After all, they considered these documents sacred. The variations between the manuscripts, in the end, have turned out to be as minor as a few typos in a few insignificant words in an entire Sunday newspaper. Let me explain...

If you’re reading a story about John and one manuscript spells John “J-O-H-N” and one manuscript spells it “J-O-N”, does that in any way call the reliability of that gospel into question? Of course not.

Here’s another example of a variant. In Mark’s gospel the action is fast so sometimes the earlier manuscripts had just the word “he” chapter after chapter to refer to Jesus. In later manuscripts, to help the reader better understand who “he” referred to, some scribes would take out the word “he” and they’d put in the word “Jesus.” That’s an example of a variant across manuscripts. But does this variant take away from the meaning of what was written? No! If anything it clarifies and solidifies the meaning!

Less than 1% of all the variants across these manuscripts have anything to do with the meaning. And none of those that have to do with the meaning have anything to do with a central doctrine or important event in the Christian history. Not one of them!

Daniel B. Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary reassures us in his book Reinventing Jesus that there isn’t a single theological truth that’s in jeopardy due to any of these variants in the manuscripts. The trinity? Safe! The doctrine of salvation by grace through faith? Safe! The virgin birth? Safe! Jesus’ sinless life? Safe! Jesus’ resurrection from the grave? Safe! None of the essentials of what we believe are at stake because of these minor variations in the manuscripts.

You know what this means? This means that even if you weren’t a Christian, even if you don’t personally put your trust and faith in Jesus Christ, even if you’re a skeptic from the outside looking in...if you’re going to simply be consistent and apply the standard means of historiography to the New Testament you would have to conclude that you can hold in your hands with over 99% confidence what the disciples first wrote down two thousand years ago. That’s incredible!

What happens in the telephone game hasn’t happened to the stories in our Bibles. These are accurate accounts of what Jesus taught that we can trust and have confidence in.

Objection #2: Skeptics say: The biographies of Jesus’ life weren’t written until hundreds of years after his death. This has left plenty of room for myths and legends to develop. In fact, it’s all myth and legend. Jesus never even existed!

Here’s what you need to know - Historians believe the shorter the time gap between a person’s death and biography, the more credible it is. So it’s significant to note that Jesus’ biography was written closer to his death than many other notable people in history that we have no trouble believing existed. For example...

• The earliest biography of Mohammed, the founder of the Islamic faith, was composed 125 years after his death. No one doubts his existence. 
• The earliest biography of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was composed 350 years after his death. No one doubts his existence. 
• The earliest biography for Tiberius Caesar, the emperor of Rome when Jesus walked the earth, was composed about 80 years after his death. No one doubts his existence. 
• In comparison, New Testament scholar Craig L. Blomberg says the earliest biography for Jesus (the gospel of Mark), was composed about only 30 years after his death!!! 

Here’s my point. If you want to reject Jesus’ existence because of the time gap between his death and his biography - fine - BUT BE CONSISTENT and deny everyone else’s existence too!!!

Daniel B. Wallace is one of the leading experts in New Testament studies. And he says we have earlier manuscripts about the person of Jesus Christ than we do for anyone else in the ancient world including Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. I don’t meet too many Alexander the Great skeptics. I don’t meet too many people who say Julius Caesar was a myth. Yet there’s a decent number of people who say that about Jesus. What’s up with that?!!! The records we have about Jesus were written much closer to his death than any of the records of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. Why do you believe they existed but not Jesus? 

 
If we have reason to believe that anyone in the ancient world existed, we have reason to believe Jesus existed! You can’t rightly believe in anyone in the ancient world without also believing in Jesus! 

The Appearances

There are four evidences that argue for the reality of the Jesus' resurrection. The second is the evidence of Jesus' postmortem appearances. The postmortem appearances of Jesus to both individuals and groups of people, argue for the reality of the resurrection. Eye witness testimony is the most powerful kind and concerning Jesus' resurrection that's exactly what we have!

The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 5 He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. NLT 

Question: Did you catch what Paul said in v.6? He said that most of the 500 people that Jesus appeared to were still living. In other words, Paul is saying: if you don’t believe me go interview the people yourselves!!! And this was possible for Paul wrote First Corinthians just 15-20 years after the death of Jesus when the majority of the witnesses to his resurrection were still alive. Think about it! How is it that this letter (1 Corinthians) has survived some 2,000 years and is still being circulated as true if these witnesses didn’t exist? Wouldn’t the letter be discredited and disregarded if no one could confirm that what Paul wrote was true?

Now even though we have powerful eye witness testimony confirming Jesus’ postmortem appearances by individuals and groups, those not comfortable with miracles have proposed an alternate theory - what they call the hallucination theory. The hallucination theory states: Jesus didn’t really resurrect from the dead. Peter, the other apostles, the group of 500, Jesus’ brother James and the apostle Paul all hallucinated that Jesus was alive. But let me ask you: How likely is it that well over 500 people all had the same hallucination?

Jesus appeared not just one time, but many times; not at just one place, but at a variety of places and under a variety of circumstances; not to just one individual, but to different persons; not just to individuals, but to various groups; not just to believers, but to unbelievers and even enemies. Again: How likely is it that they all had the same hallucination?

Also, if the 500-plus eyewitnesses did have the unprecedented experience of seeing the same hallucination, then why didn’t the Jewish or Roman authorities simply parade Jesus’ body around the city? That would’ve proved that everyone was simply hallucinating and that Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead. That would've put an end to Christianity once and forever. Well, they would have loved to do so, but they couldn’t because the tomb was empty!

The Empty Tomb

There are four evidences that argue for the reality of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. The first is the evidence of the empty tomb.

When the soldiers who had been guarding Jesus’ tomb reported to the chief priests that an angel had rolled away the stone and that Jesus’ body was missing, they told the soldiers, “...You are to say: His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.” Matthew 28:13 NIV In giving this response, the chief priests confirmed that Jesus' tomb was indeed empty, which supports the disciples claim that he rose from the dead.

But let’s consider the chief priests version of what happened...If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead and their account for what actually happened is correct, we have some serious questions to ask that resurrection critics have absolutely no answer to. For example...

Why would the disciples steal the body and then lie about it? What was their motive? If stealing Jesus’ body got them prestige, wealth or increased social status then we can logically account for why they stole Jesus’ body and claimed he rose from the dead. But did the disciples get any of these things? No! As a reward for their belief in and preaching of Jesus’ resurrection they were tortured and flogged, and they finally faced death by some of the cruelest methods then known: 

• Peter, Andrew, James son of Alphaeus, Philip, Simon and Bartholomew were crucified.
• Matthew and James son of Zebedee were killed by the sword. 
• Thaddaeus was shot to death with arrows. 
• James, the brother of Jesus was stoned to death 
• Doubting Thomas was killed with a spear 

These men were subjected to every conceivable method of stopping them from talking. But they wouldn’t stop purporting that Jesus was raised from the dead! Rather they laid down their lives as the ultimate proof of their complete confidence in the truth of their message - that the tomb was empty because God raised Jesus from the dead.

Even critics can’t believe that the disciples would die for a lie that they knew was a lie. Misguided people may die for a lie they think is the truth, but they will not die for a lie they know is a lie. And the New Testament writers were in a position to know the real truth about the resurrection (i.e. if they had stole the body they would’ve known their claim that Jesus resurrected from the dead was a lie).

Therefore, I ask you: What answer can resurrection skeptics give for why the disciples would steal the body and then lie about it? There is none!!! Here’s three more perplexing questions that shoot holes in the credibility of the story that Jesus’ disciples came at night and stole the body while the guards were sleeping... 

1. How likely is it that all the Roman guards fell asleep while on duty when the punishment for doing so was death? 

2. How likely is it that the Roman guards stayed asleep while a huge stone was rolled away which would’ve broke the seal they had placed on it? 

3. Finally, if the Roman guards were sleeping as the Jews claimed, then how would the sleeping guards have known that the disciples came stole the body? 

I think this whole explanation (that Jesus’ disciples stole his body) is a strong argument in favor of the resurrection. After all - this fabrication was invented to account for an empty tomb - and the empty tomb supports the disciples claim that Jesus rose from the dead. 

The Corroboration Test

There are three tests historians use to determine the credibility and trustworthiness of any ancient document. The Honesty Test, the Telephone Test and the Corroboration Test.

The Corroboration Test asks: Is there any evidence for Jesus’ existence outside the Bible? 
If Jesus is for real, and the Bible is true, we shouldn’t have to take just the Bible’s word on it. We ought to be able to find some corroborating evidence for the claim that Jesus is God. That is - If Jesus really lived and wasn’t some fictional character, we should find records of him outside the Bible. Well, do we? Yes!!

• The ancient Jewish work called the Talmud includes writings about Jesus. 
• And ancient historical writers such as Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger all wrote about Jesus. 

Here’s what’s so cool - Even if you never read the Bible or any other Christian writings, here’s what you could still learn about Jesus from extra-biblical historical writings...

1. Jesus was a Jewish teacher. 
2. Many people believed her performed healings and other miracles. 
3. Some people believed he was the long-awaited Messiah. 
4. He was rejected by the Jewish leaders. 
5. He was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. 
6. Despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were large numbers of them in Rome by A.D. 64. 
7. All kinds of people from the cities and the countryside - men and women, slave and free - worshiped him as God. 

Friends - that’s the exact teaching of the Bible! This external biblical evidence only confirms the internal biblical evidence! But it’s not just external non-Christian writings that corroborate the biblical record of Jesus’ life - so does archaeology.

Archaeology can do three things with respect to the Bible.

1. It can uncover evidence that contradicts the Bible. 
2. It can uncover no evidence relating to the Bible one way or the other. 
3. It can uncover evidence that confirms what the Bible says. 

Well what does archaeology do? Let's take a look...

John 5:1-15 records how Jesus healed an invalid by the Pool of Bethesda. John provides the detail that the pool had five porticoes (or columns that supported the roof). For a long time people cited this an an example of John being inaccurate, because no such place had been found. Until the 19th century, there was no evidence outside of John’s Gospel for the existence of this pool. But then archaeologists found and excavated the pool. It was about 40 feet below ground - and guess how many porticoes it had? Five! Exactly as John had described! And today if you have the money, you can take a tour of Jerusalem and visit the Pool of Bethesda.

Here’s another example...Dr. Hewett wrote in the Harvard Theological Review that there’s astonishingly little evidence that the feet of a crucified person were ever pierced by nails. Every person they’ve found who was crucified had ropes around them. He was trying to show that the archaeological evidence contradicted the gospels of John and Luke which say Jesus was crucified with nails. But then in 1967 in a dig in Palestine they found a man they dubbed Joannan with seven inch nails going through his hand, wrist and foot. When they dug a little further they realized his legs were broken confirming John 19:12 which says they broke the legs of the criminals next to Jesus to speed up death. That’s obviously not the body of Jesus but what does it tell us? The way the Bible records crucifixion is consistent with what the archeological record shows to be true.

Here’s another true story I think you’ll find interesting...Sir William Mitchell Ramsay of Oxford University in England, was one of history’s greatest archaeologists and an atheist. He spent 25 years doing archaeological digs to try and disprove the book of Acts, which was written by the historian Luke. Instead of discrediting Luke’s account, Ramsay’s discoveries kept supporting it. Finally, he concluded that Luke was one of the most accurate historians who had ever written. Luke references 54 cities, 32 countries and 9 islands without making a single mistake in what he wrote. Influenced by the archaeological evidence, Ramsay became a Christian and by the time of his death in 1939 he had become a leading scholar in the study of the New Testament.

Scholars have concluded that no archaeological evidence found to date flat-out contradicts the Bible. What confidence we can have when we read the accounts of Jesus’ life and the Bible as a whole! Not only do non-Christian external sources confirm what the Bible says, but so does the archaeological evidence!

The Honesty Test

There are three tests historians use to determine the credibility and trustworthiness of any ancient document. The Honesty Test, the Telephone Test and the Corroboration Test.

The Honesty Test asks: Do we have reason to believe that the writer cares about the truth and is telling the truth? In the Gospels (the four accounts of Jesus' life) we have five evidences that help us conclude the gospel writers cared about the truth and were telling the truth.

Evidence #1: The Eye Witness Testimony 
Why should we believe what we read about Jesus in the Bible? Well, for starters, we have eyewitness testimony (the most powerful kind of testimony there is). Historians say: The closer the writer was to the events he/she recorded determine the extent of the credibility (or believability). The closer the writer was to the events recorded, the more credible the writer. This fares well for those who believe the Bible can be trusted because the New Testament accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus were recorded by men who had been either eyewitnesses themselves or who related the accounts of eyewitnesses.

• Matthew: recorded his own first hand account of the life of Jesus
• Mark: records Peter’s first hand account of the life of Jesus 
• Luke: records various first hand accounts of the life of Jesus 
• John: recorded his own first hand account of the life of Jesus, I John 1:1, “We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.” NLT 

Evidence #2: The Minor Variations 
Some skeptics ask “How can the Gospels be accurate if they give different accounts of the same event?” Well, a surprising discovery is that many historians consider minor variations to be evidence in favor of the truth of an account. The idea is that if the writers were lying, they’d be sure to get their stories straight and agree in every detail. What seems to be a contradiction is often just the same event viewed from a different perspective. You see, the four accounts of Jesus’ life are given from four different perspectives, much like four witnesses who all saw the same accident but reported different details of what happened. So we see that the differences in the accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching are actually evidence of their truthfulness.

Evidence #3: The Specificity
When people make up a story, do they give you lots of details you can check out or do they intentionally leave it vague? They leave it vague, right? That’s why myths start off in a galaxy far, far away or in a land once upon a time. But were the gospel writers vague or specific in what they wrote? Let’s look at the gospel writer Luke. Notice how many particular details that can be checked out by historians.

Luke 3:1-2, “In the fifteenth year [not the 14th, not the 16th] of the reign of Tiberius Caesar [not Augustus Caesar or Tiberius Caesar or Caligula Caesar or Nero Caesar]—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” NIV

How much more specific could you get!!?? And if these details weren’t true what could any skeptic do and what could any historian do? They could check it out and they could disprove it. But the problem (for skeptics) is that even irreligious scholars agree that Luke is an incredibly accurate historian. Do you see what the writers are doing? They’re saying: We care about the truth and we care about the details!

Evidence #4: The Embarrassment 

Warner Wallace is a cold case detective who used to be an atheist. Cold case detectives study old cases with fresh eyes. They often times don’t have eyewitnesses so they rely on circumstantial evidence. Well, he was challenged to consider the claims of Christ, so he applied forensic evidence to the New Testament. After doing so, he became a Christian! What happened? Well, he said the New Testament, specifically the gospel of Mark, had all the signs you look for of credible testimony. So for example one thing that he looked for (and historians also look for) is something called the criterion of embarrassment. What this means is if we want to know if a witness cares about the truth we look and see if the witness reports things that are disparaging to his or her character. If someone reports something that’s embarrassing what’s the only reason that person would report it? Because they care about the truth! Nobody makes up stories to make themselves look bad! People make up stories to make themselves look good!

This is what’s so interesting about the gospels: When you look at the Gospels do you think the Gospel writers make themselves look good? Or do they make themselves look bad? Let’s take a look...

In John chapter 18, when Jesus was arrested and brought into the courtyard of the high priest, Peter, the leader of the disciples, was asked by a little servant girl “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too are you?” How did Peter respond? Did he stand on a table and say “Listen up everybody. I don’t care if I die for saying this but I am a follower of Jesus and I believe that he is the Son of God sent from heaven to die for our sins. Repent and place your faith in Him!”? No! The Bible records that Peter denied that he even knew who Jesus was! And he didn’t do this once or twice. The Bible records that he denied Jesus three times! What could be more embarrassing than that?!!!

Here’s another example...In Luke 18 Jesus is teaching his disciples about how his death will fulfill what’s been written by the prophets concerning him. When Jesus finishes his teaching, what happens? Do the disciples say “We totally understand everything you just said”? No! The Bible records in v.34 “The disciples did not understand any of this.” This same thing happened in John 12. Jesus had just done something of spiritual significance and did the disciples discern its meaning? No! Verse 16 records “His disciples didn’t understand...” Truth be told - The Bible repeatedly records the disciples embarrassing shortcomings, lack of faith and lack of spiritual discernment. If the disciples just made up these stories about Jesus, we have to ask ourselves why they didn’t make themselves the heroes of the story, instead of as the guys who are constantly getting it wrong?

How do we know the authors of Scripture cared about the truth? Because they regularly report embarrassing accounts disparaging to their character! The only reason they would do that is because it was the truth!

Evidence #5: The Cost 
We have reason to believe the accounts of Jesus’ life are true because of what it cost the disciples to stick to their story. What did it cost them to believe in and teach others about Jesus? It ultimately cost them their lives. Some were crucified, some were beheaded, some were tortured - all because they wouldn’t recant that Jesus was the Son of God who rose from the dead.

When I look at the disciples I have to ask myself: What more could they do to convince us that they cared about the truth? They gave their own lives! They gave their own lives when all they had to do was walk away from their belief in Jesus and they would’ve been spared. That’s meaningful to me because many people won’t walk across the street for what they believe today. Yet the disciples gave their lives.