I believed in the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Jesus Christ when I was a child. I found out that the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were not real. What about Jesus? After believing and following Jesus Christ as a child, I began to have questions in high school and afterwards. I wondered if Christianity was something offered to help people in life, but was not real and was perpetuated generation after generation as true. What if Jesus was not real? What solid proof is there?
The following is from ExploreGod.com:
For all of us, there was a time when we did not fully understand who Jesus was. And if we are honest, non of us knows for sure. What do you say about Jesus? is He merely a good teacher, a prophet, or a wise man? Is He more than that?
There is a long list of references to Jesus as a historical person in ancient records. Michael Grant was one of the foremost ancient historians of the twentieth century. As an open atheist, he studied Jesus extensively and wrote a book called, Jesus: An Historian's View of the Gospels. Consider his conclusion: To sum up, modern ctiical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory (that Jesus never existed). It has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars." In recent years, "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate this non-historicity of Jesus" or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.
There is too much proof that Jesus was a real person at a real time in our world. So the real question is who do you say Jesus is?
Matthew 16:13-18 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples. "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
CS Lewis wrote:
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or something else he would be the devil of hell: You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shit Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
If Jesus really is who He claimed to be, then simply following His religious ideals is not enough. Though He was a great teacher, and though He did present a vision of life in the kingdom of God, His life forces a specific decision on the part of the hearers.
Once the proclamation of who Jesus really is has been made, each and every person who hears it has a decision to make. Being "religious" and adding Jesus to a pantheon of spiritual gurus will not do. Instead, the proclamation calls people to re-orient their life around Jesus and not only be "religious" but enter a relationship with Him.
Psalms 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.
The following is from ExploreGod.com:
For all of us, there was a time when we did not fully understand who Jesus was. And if we are honest, non of us knows for sure. What do you say about Jesus? is He merely a good teacher, a prophet, or a wise man? Is He more than that?
There is a long list of references to Jesus as a historical person in ancient records. Michael Grant was one of the foremost ancient historians of the twentieth century. As an open atheist, he studied Jesus extensively and wrote a book called, Jesus: An Historian's View of the Gospels. Consider his conclusion: To sum up, modern ctiical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory (that Jesus never existed). It has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars." In recent years, "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate this non-historicity of Jesus" or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.
There is too much proof that Jesus was a real person at a real time in our world. So the real question is who do you say Jesus is?
Matthew 16:13-18 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples. "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
CS Lewis wrote:
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or something else he would be the devil of hell: You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shit Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
If Jesus really is who He claimed to be, then simply following His religious ideals is not enough. Though He was a great teacher, and though He did present a vision of life in the kingdom of God, His life forces a specific decision on the part of the hearers.
Once the proclamation of who Jesus really is has been made, each and every person who hears it has a decision to make. Being "religious" and adding Jesus to a pantheon of spiritual gurus will not do. Instead, the proclamation calls people to re-orient their life around Jesus and not only be "religious" but enter a relationship with Him.
Psalms 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.
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