If you're a Christian, what kinds of evidence do you use when sharing the gospel with non-Christians? We all have our subjective experience of how we came to faith, but those may not convince others that Christianity is objectively true. Here are 3 objective lines of evidence that every believer should be able to share with others. These are the biggest reasons we SHOULD be Christians and why they should too.
Science has shown us that the universe is not eternal and must have had an absolute beginning. Because time, matter, and space are all parts of this universe, the cause of the universe must be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. It must also be extremely powerful and highly intelligent in order to have designed this universe. This begins to sound very much like the God of the Bible. There is much more that could be said here and many lines of evidence to back up these statements, but this is the very quick intro.
2. The evidence for the actual, historical resurrection of Jesus proves Christianity is true
This is the number one evidence for Christianity. If you give your children nothing else, this is vital. Even the Apostle Paul said that if Christ is not raised, our faith is in vain. They must know and understand the evidence for the resurrection. It is on this one historical event that Christianity rests.
We have 4 separate eyewitness accounts in the 4 gospels that verify the resurrection event. We also have independent attestation from non-Christian sources as to the major claims of Christianity very early on and we have the writings of the early church fathers to show that Christian claims have not changed over time.
There are several historical facts that even non-Christian historians agree are true based on these lines of evidence:
- Jesus really did die on the cross
- The tomb was empty
- The disciples really believed Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them
- Christianity exploded out of early 1st century Israel based on the testimony of the apostles
The best explanation for these 4 historical facts is that Jesus did actually rise from the dead. People may die for a story they believe to be true, but people don't die for a story they made up and know to be false. The apostles were in the position to know whether the resurrection actually happened and they went to their deaths without recanting. Again, there is much more to be said here, but this is the core of the issue.
3. The morality given in the Bible is consistent with natural law
This is a very neglected line of evidence, but very useful in helping young people see that Christian morality is not unreasonable and helping them stand against the ridicule of the culture. This one is more difficult to explain in a nutshell, but we see over and over again that immorality violates our design, not just a set of arbitrary laws.
For example, God commands us to abstain from sex before or outside marriage. That's not an arbitrary command. Premarital sex produces heartache, disease, poverty, abortion, and children who are raised in broken homes without a mother or father and thus are more likely to commit crimes, be promiscuous, drop out of school, and have emotional problems. Adultery produces many of the same effects, breaking up homes and harming men, women, and children in the process. These kinds of results show that extramarital sex isn't just immoral because of God's law, but because it deeply harms us by violating the way we were designed to live. We weren't meant to treat our bodies as playthings to be used as we please. Sex means more than just rubbing body parts together for fun.
Our design as humans involves not only our physical design, but our emotional and spiritual design as well and immoral sex violates that design. We can see from nature that extramarital sex is harmful and that shows us that God knew what He was doing when He gave us His laws.
There are many more lines of evidence and much more detail that could be covered for each of these, but these are the big main points every Christian should be able to explain.
1. In the creation story, god created the Sun on the 4th day. Let that sink in.
ReplyDelete2. Nice self own. The events of the life of the "historical Jesus" were recorded several decades after he was supposed to have lived by people who weren't eyewitnesses. There is no contemporary historical documentation of Jesus of Nazareth.
ReplyDeleteThe gospels record the historical details of Jesus' life within a decade or two of the events and during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. That is unheard of in ancient history. We have better attestation for the life of Jesus, including records closer to the events and more witnesses and more copies so that we know the text has not been changed over time, than for any other similar ancient events. If you accept the existence and teaching of Socrates as historical but don't do the same for Jesus, you're a hypocrite because we have more evidence for Jesus.
DeleteEverything you're calling "evidence" is just cyclical Biblical nonsense claiming itself as the basis for evidence. There's a surprising amount of census data and more from that era still intact. Magically no mention of Joseph and Mary with a son Jesus in any of during the time that's supposed to be his life. Nothing for~30 years since we don't actually even know his age.
DeleteBy this standard, because it's more modern writings that got barely more reality and scientific truth right, Islam is the one true faith of the Abrahamic traditions.
Wait. You think Christianity doesn't have enough evidence, but somehow Islam is true? Islam is completely dependent on the unverified claims of Muhammed to have heard from an angel. Meanwhile, we have abundant historical evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus. Take a look at the writings of Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Mara Bar Serapion, Thallus, and others on the life of Jesus.
DeleteFor example, here is a quote from Roman historian Tacitus:
"But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus
So Tacitus affirms these facts:
1) Jesus (called Christ) existed.
2) He was put to death 3)under Pontius Pilate and 4) during the reign of Tiberius.
5) His death was the "extreme penalty" (i.e. crucifixion).
6) Christians were called after this Christ figure.
7) There was a "mischievous superstition" about Him going around (no doubt a reference to the claims that He rose from the dead).
8) The source of these claims was Judea, not somewhere else in the world.
9) The Christian faith spread to Rome in the 1st century AD.
10) Christians were actively tortured and persecuted for their faith during the time of Nero.
3. Morality is not exclusive to Christian teachings. Morality lessons can be found in multiple relgious and secular texts.
ReplyDeleteRick Vandeven
None of these are true.
ReplyDelete1: nothing shows us that someone intelligent just have designed the universe. That’s a narrative you’ve made up in order to explain your pov.
2: we don’t have sufficient evidence that the Jesus of the Bible even existed but even if he did there’s no evidence he rose from the dead, performed miracles or was “gods son”
Also, having some historical facts in a book doesn’t make the whole book true.
3: that’s absolutely ridiculous. You don’t need god to know killing someone is wrong or that for a child’s best interest they need a stable environment to grow up in. Having moral laws like you mentioned isn’t exclusive to Christianity and literally any religion could use that argument.
1) There is abundant evidence that the universe had an absolute beginning, which means there must be a cause outside the universe. The universe also shows abundant evidence of intelligent design. An intelligent Creator is the best, most explanatory hypothesis for these observations. If you don't allow that as a hypothesis because you don't want there to be a God, then you're stuck with less useful explanations that don't really work.
Delete2) If you don't think there's sufficient evidence Jesus existed, you simply have no idea what you're talking about. Even the informed skeptics like Bart Ehrman say there's no question that Jesus existed. We have many historical sources on the matter, both inside and outside Christianity.
No one said that having some historical facts in a book makes the whole book true. I have never made such a claim in my life. I'm convinced of the resurrection based on the facts we can verify from outside sources who weren't even Christian.
3) I didn't say that we can only know right from wrong by adopting Christianity. In fact, I said exactly the opposite. I said that we know certain things are wrong because it's natural law. We all know murder is wrong, for example. Everyone knows that, regardless of their religious views. Even atheists know it. The point is that this moral knowledge doesn't make sense on atheism. It does make sense if Christianity is true. Christian morality fits with what we already know about morality. It makes sense of why it's wrong to kill people, for example. If we're just evolved apes and there is no God, then why would it be wrong to kill someone if it helps us? Apes kill other apes all the time. But if we're creations of God and He has given us moral knowledge that points to Him, then it makes sense that we all know murder is wrong. We humans are created in God's image and thus sacred. We don't have a right to take the life that God gave that other person. So Christianity can explain our moral observations, but atheism can't.