There's Hope For TodaySample

Peter died as Jesus said he would, stretched out on a Roman cross. Tradition holds that Peter insisted on being crucified upside-down because he did not feel worthy to be crucified in the same manner as our Lord. The details of his death, and of the martyrdom of the other disciples, are not nearly so important to the Christian faith as is the fact that they all willingly gave up their lives.

Nobody dies for a lie. These eyewitnesses to the resurrection believed unflinchingly to their last breath. Lawyers put pressure on witnesses to see how far they will go with their story. When the price gets high, the truth is irrepressible. A witness breaks down, an alibi is dissolved, a case collapses as truth illuminates a courtroom.

In the disciples, we find witnesses that could not be broken. They stood by the truth though it cost them their lives. What they saw and heard following Jesus’ resurrection was absolute truth. These did not die together in the mutual support of a lie in a bunker or fortress. They died somewhat isolated, spread throughout the nations of the earth. They died proclaiming the resurrected Lord.

There was only one reason for men to act as they did; it was all true – any other explanation defies logic.