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Topic: Defense of Christian Faith
New Insights or Same Old Nonsense?
Christ’s resurrection is miraculous! The claim that a human being rose from the dead, and is God, is very difficult to comprehend. We’re used to people dying and staying dead. Our culture is looking to new insights and reasons to disprove and disbelieve the validity of the Gospels and the resurrection of Jesus. However, the New Testament Gospels make the claim that Jesus is God, and that he indeed rose from the dead. In contrast to recent discoveries, like the Gospel of Judas, the New Testament Gospels have been proven historically accurate, and have withstood the test of time. Even with all of the historical evidence, we still, by faith, have to make a choice to believe. We can either believe that Christ was a liar or a crazy person, or we can believe that Jesus is God and that he indeed rose from the dead. Read More
The Lord’s Messiah
According to the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, the Messiah would be anointed to be three things: 1) a priest (mediating God-Israel relation) 2) a warrior (liberating Israel from oppressive powers) 3) a king (ruling Israel in truth and justice). These were the expectations of the first century Jews. Jesus came and fulfilled these expectations but did so in an unexpected way. He was and is all these things, but in a way much different, and far deeper, than Jews at the time understood. He “over-fulfilled” the expectations. Read More
Jesus for Thinking People, Part 3
In the last two weeks Greg spent time showing the flaws in the “conspiracy theory” and the “legendary theory.” This week he addressed another theory that secular scholars offer to answer the question: “What happened to produce the Gospel accounts?” The resurrection could have been a hallucination. Greg had five responses to counter this theory.
Jesus for Thinking People, Part 2
In this message, Greg explains the “Legendary Theory.” This theory maintains that though the authors of Luke weren’t consciously lying and trying to deceive people (they genuinely believed what they where saying), they were just wrong about essential things like Jesus’ being both the messiah and God! They were not trying to deceive, but they themselves were deceived, according to … Read More
Jesus for Thinking People, Part 1
Greg introduced the Book of Luke by first providing some context for the Gospel. Then he launched into a big question that occurs to many who read the Bible in general: “Is this true?” In other words, is the Gospel about Jesus that Luke researched and presents true? And to get at this he broke it down as follows: either … Read More
Happily Ever After
This sermon challenged us to think about how our “story” ends. We long for justice, meaning, “happy ever afters.” As Christians, our story is found in Jesus, the reality to which all great mythology and story telling points. Compare your relationship with Christ to the greatest love stories ever told, and you won’t find a more dramatic, sacrificial story…and it ends with a big “happy ever after”! Read More
The Passion Movie Q&A
After watching The Passion of the Christ, did you or an unbelieving friend leave the theater with unanswered questions? Perhaps you’re wondering, “Did that really happen? Who was Jesus? Why were his last hours so important that a movie star was willing to pay for the production of a film depicting them?” On March 16, 2004, Greg gave a presentation … Read More
