Weird Ideas: Suffered Under Pontius PilateSample

Common sense thinking today says religion is about ideas. It’s ultimately unprovable and, therefore, subjective. So, each person should believe what they want, and all beliefs have equal validity. What matters is if it makes your life better. With this line of thinking, Jesus becomes an ideal. He’s valued for his teachings about ethical matters, not for the events that actually happened.

Early Christians saw it differently. They believed religion should be about reality. They believed what the Bible said about Jesus actually happened. In history. So, the Apostles’ Creed roots its statement of faith in history. Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” An objective source. A known person. A verifiable man.

It’s as though the Apostles’ Creed is saying that all these beliefs about Jesus are not just good ideas but things that actually happened. It invites us to confirm it, to test it, and to see if what it claims about Jesus is true. That what it claims is not just “spiritual.” It’s actual. This is the approach the apostles took in their early preaching (Acts 3; Acts 4; Acts 13…). Early Christians rooted themselves in historical events and verifiable reality.

Despite our society’s contemporary approach to religion, many people today are highly skeptical of truth claims because so many have been made without backing. So, they default to the observable and pragmatic. “I won’t believe it unless you show me, and it better work.” Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” The Apostles’ Creed answers: this is truth. That Jesus died for the sins of the world at a verifiable time in a verifiable way. No person in the ancient world is more attested than Jesus. The Apostles’ Creed anchors him to a verifiable time and place. It’s far different than many belief systems and religions today.