More Than a CarpenterSample

What’s the Point? I was once a skeptic. In fact, I thought it was a joke when my Christian friends challenged me to make a rigorous, intellectual examination of the claims of Jesus Christ—that he is God’s Son, that he inhabited a human body and lived among real men and women, that he died on the cross for the sins of humanity and was resurrected three days later, and that he is still alive and can change a person’s life even today. Everyone with any sense knew that Christianity was based on a myth. I thought only a walking idiot could believe that Christ came back from the dead. But I accepted my friends’ challenge, mostly out of spite to prove them wrong. However, after digging through the evidence, I discovered that the Christian faith is not a blind, ignorant belief, but rather one based on solid intelligence. Every time we read that a Bible character was asked to exercise faith, we see that it’s an intelligent faith. Jesus said, “You will know the truth” (John 8:32), not ignore it. Christ was asked, “Which is the most ¬important commandment?” Jesus replied, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” (Matthew 22:37, emphasis mine). Like we have hearts to love him and wills to choose him, we also have minds to know God. We don’t have to be afraid to put Christianity to the hard, rational, and evidential test. Never has anyone been called on to commit intellectual suicide by trusting Christ as Savior and Lord. In the next two weeks I will endeavor to share some of what I learned in my months of research so that you, too, may see that Christianity is not a myth, not the fantasy of wishful dreamers, not a hoax played on the simpleminded. It is a rock-solid truth that really can change your life today.