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Answering BIG Questions #2: What Must I do to be Saved? (How can I go to Heaven?)

Note: This is a simple chapter on salvation from a biblical perspective, and will seek to avoid such weighty theological terms as soteriology, supra/infralapsarianism and a detailed discussion of the ordo salutis , or order of salvation. Sometimes we over complicate things, and the article below is an attempt to be very simple, and very biblical.

Perhaps the most important question of all is centered on salvation, and how to live eternally in Heaven. This is a BIG question, and it comes in many different flavors: How do I become a Christian? How do I get saved? How can I go to Heaven when I die? How can I inherit eternal life? People in the Bible frequently asked this question in its various forms. Probably the most common answer in the church today, at least in the American church, is an answer that contains an element of praying, and an element of somehow “asking Jesus to come into your heart.” You might be surprised to discover that this formulation is not particularly biblical at all! Think about it: The most common answer that Christians give today when somebody asks them how to spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus is not really based on the Bible at all…that is a problem!

Interestingly, the Bible does not have a standard and uniform answer to the question of how to be saved. (More on that in a moment…) But there are multiple passages where the question is asked. Consider the Rich Young Ruler of Matthew 19. This was a young man who was zealous for God and had apparently lived an extremely holy life, seeking to please God by keeping all of the commandments. One day, that young man encountered Jesus, and asked Him the BIG question:

“Just then someone came up and asked Him, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” 17 “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” He said to him. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”18 “Which ones?” he asked Him. Jesus answered: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; 19 honor your father and your mother; and love your neighbor as yourself. 20 “I have kept all these,” the young man told Him. “What do I still lack? 21 “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” 22 When the young man heard that command, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions.” (Matthew 19:16-22)

How did Jesus ultimately answer the man? He told Him two things: #1 – To sell His possessions, and #2 to Follow Jesus. Is this THE definitive answer to the question of how to be saved? Must all who want to inherit eternal life sell all of their possessions and then follow Jesus?

The same question is asked again in Acts 2. Peter has just preached his Pentecost sermon to thousands of people. Many of them are cut to the heart, and they approach him and ask the big question – what should they do? How can they be saved? Note how Peter’s answer is somewhat different from Jesus’ answer:

“When they heard this, they came under deep conviction and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles: “Brothers, what must we do?” 38 “Repent,” Peter said to them, “and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” 40 And with many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!” 41 So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them.” (Acts 2:37-41)

When Peter is asked the question, his response is slightly different than Jesus’ response to the Rich Young Ruler. This time, Peter tells those asking the question to #1 Repent and #2 Be baptized in the name of Jesus. Does this represent a contradiction between what Peter said and what Jesus said? Absolutely not, but there is an important reason for the differences. Before we discuss that, however, let’s look at yet another passage. This time involving the apostle Paul:

“Then the jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he escorted them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the message of the Lord to him along with everyone in his house. 33 He took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. Right away he and all his family were baptized. 34 He brought them into his house, set a meal before them, and rejoiced because he had believed God with his entire household.” (Acts 16:29-34)

Yet another different answer! This time, when Paul answers the BIG question, there is no mention of baptism OR selling all of one’s possessions OR repenting, only that belief in Jesus is the necessary thing. Here’s one more Scripture from Paul that clearly states what a person needs in order to be saved:

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

In Romans 10:9, confession is a key element, but baptism, repentance, and selling possessions are missing. On the surface, this could be quite confusing – especially if we are looking for the steps to be saved – why doesn’t the Bible have ONE simple formula for us to follow and for Christians to tell the world about? And that question brings us to the crux of the issue: The reason the Bible never gives a consistent series of steps to salvation is because there isn’t a formula to be saved! There aren’t steps that, by carrying them out, we can ensure salvation. There does not exist a certain set of instructions that, when followed properly, will ensure that somebody has eternal life. It doesn’t work that way at all! JESUS is at the center of every answer to every salvation question asked in the Bible. Follow Jesus, believe Jesus, confess Jesus, be baptized into Jesus, etc. It is all about Jesus, and what He has done! Consider Paul’s famous description of salvation in Ephesians:

“In the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Salvation is NOT by works. Not by a series of steps. Not by a series of activities. Salvation is found in a PERSON. You aren’t saved because you prayed a prayer or saved because you were baptized, or saved because you did what a pastor asked, and took a few steps down to the altar at a front of the church. NONE of those things are sufficient for salvation. Salvation requires a savior. Rescuing requires a rescuer.

Think about it this way – you are on a boat that sinks in a fierce storm, and you are plunged into 40 degree waters. The waves violently toss you about, and you are at the absolute end of your strength and in desperate need of rescue. Your arms are almost useless, and your lungs are beginning to fill with water. Which is a better scenario: #1 A Coast Guard Cutter pulls up, and an officer shouts down instructions to you as to what YOU must DO to save yourself from the water. OR #2: A Coast Guard Cutter pulls up, and a rescue diver is lowered down to you, and he grabs you and pulls you to safety? Though not all analogies are perfect, the point of this one is that a person drowning in the water does not need instruction on what to do in order to save themselves, they need a rescuer. A person lost in sin doesn’t need a few steps to follow to make themselves acceptable to God and worthy of eternal life – they need a Rescuer, Jesus, to save them completely. The focus is not on the steps to be saved, it is on the Savior!

THAT is why the Bible never gives the same instructions on what must be done for somebody to be saved…because it is NOT about what YOU must do for salvation – it is about Jesus and what HE has already done. Consider the words of Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.” Jesus is the ONLY way to salvation. Apart from Jesus, prayer is meaningless, baptism is just water, repentance has no power, and selling all of your goods may be noble, but it won’t save your soul.

“So,” I hear you asking, “What does all of this mean? What should I do??” It is a fair question. The answer is: Look to Jesus, and live! Jesus is the Root of salvation (Revelation 22:16), He is the Way of salvation (John 14:6), He is the Door of salvation (John 10:9) and He is the beginning and end of salvation (Revelation 1:8.) Go to Jesus, and He will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28) Go to Jesus, and He will give you life. (John 14:6) Go to Jesus, and He will give you living water that will spring up into eternal life! (John 4:14)

I will close with this one last simple verse, which is an amazing and precious promise of Jesus. You may bet your life on it, and I hope you do. John 6:40, “For this is the will of My Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Yes! It is as simple as that, according to the Master Himself. LOOK to Him and BELIEVE. Should you get baptized? Absolutely, it is a command, but it doesn’t save you. Should you repent, and turn away from your sins? YES, you must, but repentance doesn’t save you, Jesus does. Should you follow the commands of God? Yes! in gratitude for salvation, but NOT because you think that obeying God’s law has the power to save you. Look to Jesus, and Believe the gospel – the good news that a perfect and sinless Jesus died the death of a sinner – you and I! – on the cross, to pay the price for our sin, so that we could have eternal life forever in Heaven.

  “I remember I concluded preaching at Exeter Hall with these three words, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” and I think I will conclude my sermon of this morning with the same words, but not till I have spoken to one poor forlorn soul who is standing over there, wondering whether there is mercy for him. He says, “It is well enough, sir, to say, ‘Look to Jesus,’ but suppose you cannot look? If your eye is blind—what then?” Oh I my poor brother, turn your restless eyeballs to the cross, and that light which gives light to them that see, shall give eyesight to them that are blind. Oh! if thou canst not believe this morning, look and consider, and weigh the matter, and in weighing and reflecting thou shalt be helped to believe. He asks nothing of thee; he bids thee now believe that he died for thee. If to-day thou feelest thyself a lost, guilty sinner, all he asks is that thou wouldest believe on him; that is to say, trust him, confide in him. Is it not little he asks? And yet it is more than any of us are prepared to give, except the Spirit hath made us willing. Come, cast yourselves upon him; fall flat on his promise; sink or swim, confide in him, and you cannot guess the joy that you shall feel in that one instant that you believe on him. Were there not some of you impressed last Sabbath day, and you have been anxious all the week? Oh! I hope I have brought a good message to you this morning for your comfort. “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” saith Christ, “for I am God, and beside me there is none else.” Look ye now, and looking ye shall live. May every blessing rest upon you, and may each go away to think of that one person whom we love, even Jesus—Jesus—Jesus!” Charles Spurgeon sermon, “Looking Unto Jesus” May 23, 1858

“There are, in the end, only two questions to ask as we read the Bible: Is it about me? Or is it about Jesus? In other words, is the Bible basically about what I must do orabout what he has done? Consider the story of David and Goliath. If I read David and Goliath as a story that gives me an example to follow, then the story is really about me. It is an exhortation that I must summon up the faith and courage to fight the giants in my life. But if I accept that the Bible is ultimately about the Lord and his salvation, and if I read the David and Goliath text in that light, it throws a multitude of things into sharp relief! The very point of the Old Testament passage is that the Israelites could not face the giant themselves. Instead, they needed a champion who would fight in their place — a substitute who would face the deadly peril in their stead. And the substitute that God provided is not a strong person but a weak one — a young boy, too small to wear a suit of armor. Yet God used the deliverer’s weakness as the very means to bring about the destruction of the laughing, overconfident Goliath. David triumphs through his weakness and his victory is imputed to his people. And so does Jesus. It is through his suffering, weakness, and death that the sin is defeated. This vivid and engaging story shows us what it means to declare that we have died with Christ (Rom 6:1–4) and are raised up and seated with him (Eph 2:5 – 6). Jesus is the ultimate champion, our true champion, who did not merely risk his life for us, but who gave it. And now his victory is our victory, and all he has accomplished is imputed to us.” (Tim Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel Centered Ministry in Your City, location 2003, copyright 2012)

Post Script: 5 Things that Salvation is NOT:

Salvation is NOT simply believing that God exists and that Jesus died on the cross. For years, I have have (off and on) engaged in the practice of street evangelism. Living in the south, almost everybody here believes that they are Christians, so if you ask somebody if they are saved, or if they know where they would go if they died tonight, they will almost invariably indicate that they are sure to go to Heaven. They have a genuine belief in the existence of God, but that is NOT a saving faith as defined by Jesus and the apostles. Consider that ALL of the Pharisees and Sadducees believed in God, and that many of them believed that Jesus died on the cross, because they saw it happen. Consider James 2:19 here also, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” Mere belief is not salvation.
Salvation is NOT earned by doing good deeds, or keeping God’s commandments. Another common occurrence when talking with people in the south about Jesus is that many people are quick to say that they are trying their best to be a good person and to do good deeds. That is admirable, I suppose, but it is completely inadequate to gain eternal life and salvation. Remember Ephesians 2:8-9, which clearly says that salvation is by grace and NOT by good works. Not even the best among us can possibly earn entrance into Heaven by our good works. Romans 3:20, “For no one will be justified in His sight by the works of the law” AND Galatians 3:10, “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written: Everyone who does not continue doing everything written in the book of the law is cursed.” If you are relying on good works to save you and attract the attention of God, then you’d better hope you are absolutely PERFECT, and that you have kept EVERYTHING in the book of the law. Spoiler alert: You can’t be perfect for even a day, let alone a lifetime.
Doing miracles, prophesying, and generally appearing to be remarkably spiritual does NOT indicate that you are saved . I have been in churches with some remarkably gifted people who seemed to have an unusual ability to walk in the Spirit. I’ve seen what appeared to be signs, miracles and accurate prophecies, and I rejoice at all such works of the Holy Spirit that are genuine! However, just being able to give a prophetic message, or seemingly perform a miraculous deed does NOT indicate that you are saved, at least according to Jesus. (See Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven.  22  On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’  23  Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!”) What is a far more reliable indicator of salvation than miracles and prophecy? Spiritual fruit! (Matthew 7:17, “In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.” and Matthew 3:8, “Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance.”
Salvation is NOT merely a one-time decision to walk the aisles, or pray a prayer. If you are truly saved, you will persevere – continue to follow Jesus. It is possible to believe vainly, or just believe for a moment in time, but in a very superfluous, shallow and ultimately meaningless way. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 (“Now brothers, I want to clarify[ a ] for you the gospel I proclaimed to you; you received it and have taken your stand on it.  2  You are also saved by it, if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you—unless you believed for no purpose“), and Jesus addresses this in Mark 4:15-19. (”These are the ones along the path where the word is sown: when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy. 17 But they have no root in themselves; they are short-lived. When pressure or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately stumble. 18 Others are sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, 19 but the worries of this age, the seduction of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.“)
Salvation is NOT simply a low-stakes choice you make to follow Jesus in order to avoid Hell. Following Jesus involves dying to your self AND obeying His words. Consider these two challenging passages from Luke 6 and Luke 9:

“Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to Me, hears My words, and acts on them: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great!” (Luke 6:46-49)

“Then He said to them all, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will save it. 25 What is a man benefited if he gains the whole world, yet loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and that of the Father and the holy angels.” (Luke 9:23-26)

Obedience to His commands and dying to your own wishes are both integral components of following Jesus, and thus being saved.

The post Answering BIG Questions #2: What Must I do to be Saved? (How can I go to Heaven?) appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

What Happens When People Die? (Life’s Biggest Questions Series #1)

What happens to people immediately after they die? Do they cease to exist? Do they go directly to Heaven or Hell? Is Purgatory an actual thing, or do people just sleep in the dust until Jesus returns? The article below is derived  from a series at our church (Agape in Pinson) that is focused on answering life’s biggest questions.  Most people have a theology – a certain way they think about God and the things of God. When it comes to answering life’s biggest questions, most people turn to their own personal theology to help them. But is that the best way?  How should Christians approach the big questions of life? Maybe we’ve heard things from our parents, or other family members. Maybe we apply our own human logic to those big questions, or  maybe our church or pastor has told us their take. When thinking about these great big questions, it is important to remember that God Himself does NOT think like we do, so it is unlikely that we will arrive at truthful answers to big questions on our own. 

Isaiah 55: 8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,and your ways are not My ways.”This is the Lord’s declaration.9 “For as heaven is higher than earth,so My ways are higher than your ways,and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

This means that it is unlikely that we will be able to use flawed human reasoning to answer some of life’s biggest questions. We can, however, turn to the Word of God for answers. In doing so, I propose three simple steps to guide us in answering this question: 

Rather than just focusing on one single verse, we must consider the whole counsel of God. Put another way, to answer the question of what happens when we die, we must attempt to survey all that the Bible has to say about this question, and not just one single Bible verse. The reason for this is that while every passage in the Bible is true – not every passage in the Bible is the COMPLETE truth. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul describes love, and we learn that it is patient, kind, and not at all jealous. All of these are true statements about love, but they aren’t the ONLY true statements about love in the Bible. In order to find out the complete teaching of the Bible about love, we have to go to other passages. In doing so, we find out in the Song of Solomon 8 that not only is love patient, kind and longsuffering…but it is also POWERFUL – as powerful as death. (Song of Solomon 8:6)  Therefore, in order to have a complete understanding of love from the Bible’s perspective, we need the truths in 1 Corinthians 13 AND Song of Solomon 8, among many other passages also. Similarly, to gain a biblical understanding of death – and what happens after death – we have to survey the Word. That is the process of developing a biblical theology – it involves finding out all of what the Bible affirms about a particular topic. 


Our second step is to account for the difference between Old Covenant passages and New Covenant passages. The New Testament must take precedence over the Old Testament, and it must interpret it. More on this later, but consider Hebrews 7:18-19, and note how the New Testament/New Covenant has surpassed the Old. 

Hebrews 7:18-19,  “So the previous command is annulled because it was weak and unprofitable 19 (for the law perfected nothing), but a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”

Our third step is ongoing and continuous. With humility, prayer, and the leadership of the Spirit, we must keep returning to the Word of God. We should hold our theology with a degree of humility and repeatedly keep returning to the Scriptures to test and confirm that we are walking in the truth. Like an unmoored ship, we humans have a tendency to drift away from truth, and we must discipline ourselves to return – over and over again – to the authority of the Word of God. 

Now, with that process in mind, we can move forward. I believe the first step in determining what happens when we die is generally survey what the Bible has to say on death itself. The Bible speaks frequently on the topic of death, so a comprehensive overview would be too long for this article, but we can begin with with these three major truths about death in Scripture: 

3 Biblical Truths about Death:

Death is here because of sin. We do NOT usually take this seriously enough. Consider the well known passage Romans 6:23, “ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord .” According to the Bible, sin brings about death, and most Christians could quote that verse. Most however, don’t take it literally, but the case of Ananias and Sapphira, the death of Uzzah, and the case of Moses, tell us that sin LITERALLY can cause death. Think about Exodus 4 – God had just called Moses to lead His rescue mission, but on the way to fulfill that mission, God met Moses and sought to put him to death. Why? Because Moses was sinning by not obeying God’s command to circumcise his son. You can read about that in Exodus 4:24-25, “ On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and sought to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, and threw it at Moses’ feet. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me !” So – death is literally and spiritually the result of sin. (See the below discussion on Genesis 3 for further insight into this dynamic) 


Death is an ENEMY. 1 Corinthians 15: “ Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He abolishes all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy to be abolished is death .” This is fascinating. The Bible depicts death as an actual enemy – one that will ultimately be abolished! Further, Revelation 20:14 shows that (somehow) death and Hades (the place of the dead) will be tossed into the lake of fire at the Great White Throne Judgment. (keep reading for more on this) 


Death will END one day. I can think of very few things that are better news than what is found in Revelation 21 – one day, death will no longer be a thing – it will be abolished.  Revelation 21, “ Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away. ”

Given those basic truths about death from the Bible, we can now move to some more specific verses that actually address what happens after death. I estimate that there are at least two dozen such passages in the Bible, and ten are listed below as an overview:

11 Bible Verses on What happens after Death:

Genesis 3:19 “ You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust,

and you will return to dust.” Hebrews 9:27 “ 27 It is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgmen t” MEANING: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE! BUT: John 3:16 “ For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son,so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life .” Summary: According to the Bible, everybody dies (with the exception of those alive when Jesus returns…) but those who are followers of Jesus will not PERISH…or rot away to nothingness, even though they die. 

2nd Samuel 12: 19 “ When David saw that his servants were whispering to each other, he guessed that the baby was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the baby dead?” “He is dead,” they replied. 20 Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the Lord’s house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested something to eat. So they served him food, and he ate. 21 His servants asked him, “What did you just do? While the baby was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate food.” 22 He answered, “While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let him live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me. ” Summary: In the Old Testament, saints like David believed that there was a place that the dead went after they died. 


Daniel 12:1-3 and 13 “ At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever… “13 But as for you, go on your way to the end; you will rest, then rise to your destiny at the end of the days .” Summary: Old Testament saints like Daniel believed that, after a period of time dead/sleeping, there would be a resurrection in which the righteous would live forever, and the unrighteous would be punished. But how does the passage comport with a New Testament understanding of 2nd Corinthians 5:8, where Paul seemingly indicates that a Christian, upon death, will be in the presence of Jesus. How can this be if the Christian is sleeping in the ground? (Keep reading!) 


Luke 16:19-26  “ There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. 20 But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was left at his gate. 21 He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, with Lazarus at his side. 24 ‘Father Abraham!’ he called out, ‘Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this flame!’ 25 “‘Son,’ Abraham said, ‘remember that during your life you received your good things, just as Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that those who want to pass over from here to you cannot; neither can those from there cross over to us .’” Summary: In this teaching of Jesus (note that He does not call a ‘parable’) there is a place of the dead for the good people (where they are comforted) and there is a place of the dead for the bad people (where they are in agony  and in flames, but still able to see, talk and communicate.) The people in both locations can see each other, but they cannot cross over from one place to the other. This place is called “Abraham’s Chest/Side/Bosom,” and Abraham is actually there. The other place, where the rich man is suffering in agony, is called ‘Hades.’ 


Luke 23:39-43 “ Then one of the criminals hanging there began to yell insults at Him: “Aren’t You the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!40 But the other answered, rebuking him: “Don’t you even fear God, since you are undergoing the same punishment? 41 We are punished justly, because we’re getting back what we deserve for the things we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “I assure you: Today you will be with Me in paradise. ”  Summary: When Jesus was being crucified, he was not alone – there was one actual criminal (a thief) on either side of Him. One of those criminals insulted Jesus and one defended Him, ultimately putting His faith in Jesus as a King. That second thief is very interesting, and it could be argued that he had more faith than any of Jesus’ other followers, because he KNEW that, even though Jesus was in the midst of dying an awful death, that He was nevertheless a King, and that He was heading to His Kingdom. Jesus’ response to that request was the promise that on that very day, the thief would be with Jesus in ‘Paradise.’ This is a very enlightening passage on what happens immediately after death, perhaps one of the two or three most informative Bible passages that we have. Unfortunately, it is also quite difficult to fully grasp, because we have such little information about the  ‘Paradise’ that Jesus is speaking of. The word itself is used two other times in Scripture. Once, in Revelation, it is noted that the ‘Tree of Life’ (cf Genesis 3-4) is now found in the ‘Paradise of God.’ (Revelation 21:7) That doesn’t help us much, but the only other reference in the Bible to ‘Paradise’ is actually very helpful: 

“I know a man in Christ who was caught up into the third heaven 14 years ago. Whether he was in the body or out of the body, I don’t know, God knows.  I know that this man—whether in the body or out of the body I don’t know, God knows—  was caught up into paradise. He heard inexpressible words, which a man is not allowed to speak” (2nd Corinthians 12:2-4) 

Taking that passage at face value, we learn that ‘Paradise’ is also called the third heaven, and it is a place that Paul was apparently ‘caught up’ to (either physically or spiritually), and it was a place that words fail to describe. I believe that this means that ‘Paradise’ is the current Heaven (there will be a NEW Heaven – see below) and it is the place where the souls/spirits of those who die in Christ go. In that way, it is analogous to Abraham’s side, mentioned in Luke 16. While I realize that there are some leaps in logic in this paragraph, I don’t think they are unfounded leaps across a bridge too far, this speculation makes the best use of the information given. 

2 Corinthians 5, “ For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands. 2 Indeed, we groan in this body, desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven, 3 since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 And the One who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment. 6 So, we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight, 8 and we are confident and satisfied to be out of the body and at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to Him. 10 For we must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or worthless.” Similar: Philippians 1 21 For me, living is Christ and dying is gain. 22 Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. 23 I am pressured by both. I have the desire to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— 24 but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. ” Summary: 2nd Corinthians 5:8 is one of the most oft quoted passages by Christians to describe what happens when they die. I believe that here Paul offers a great clue as to what happens directly after death. How can one be absent from their body, and yet present with the Lord? The answer appears to be that our bodies are temporary (Paul euphemistically refers to human bodies as tents or earthly dwellings.) Death involves the (temporary) destruction of our earthly dwellings/bodies and the separation of body and spirit/soul. That humans are composed of a physical and temporal body of flesh AND a soul/spirit is made clear by passages such as Matthew 10:28, 1 Corinthians 5:5, 2nd Corinthians 4:16, James 2:26 and 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Whether humans are tripartite (spirit, soul and body) or bipartite is a question beyond the scope of this article, but the important thing is that the body is designed to be temporary, and death in the Bible is the separation of the body, which dies, from the soul/spirit which lives forever. This is how Paul can say that being absent from his body means that he will be in the presence of the Lord…even though his physical body will actually be dead and buried in the ground. (See Acts 2:29.)  Also note Paul’s description of being alive in Philippians 1:24 – being alive is “remaining in the flesh.” 


1 Corinthians 15:35 35 “ But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have when they come?” 36 Foolish one! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow—you are not sowing the future body, but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. 38 But God gives it a body as He wants, and to each of the seeds its own body. … 42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; 43 sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; 44 sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. ” Summary: Paul uses very vivid imagery here – A dead body is planted in the ground like a seed. And like a seed, it blooms into something completely vibrant and different when Jesus returns. Our current body is corruptible – it will rot, it is prone to injury, it can get fat, or feeble. The Bible teaches that, upon the return of Jesus, Christians will be reunited with a NEW body. Not weak and decaying like the old body, but incorruptible and powerful and immortal. 


1 Corinthians 15:50 “ Brothers, I tell you this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. 51 Listen! I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet.For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.53 For this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal must be clothed with immortality.54 When this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal is clothed with immortality,then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory.55 Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? 56 Now the sting of death is sin,and the power of sin is the law.57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! ” Summary:  As noted above – not all people will die, but all will have transformed bodies upon the return of Jesus. The corruptible/death-prone body will be covered with incorruptability/immorality. This will represent the ultimate defeat of death itself. 


1st Thessalonians 4:13-18 “ We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14 Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. 15 For we say this to you by a revelation from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. ” Summary: The blessed hope is the return of Jesus, whereby all Christians (those who have died, and those alive at His return) will be with the Lord forever – in body and soul. One clue about the state and place of souls/spirits of those who have died is found in vs. 14 “ God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. ” This appears to mean that Jesus will return with the souls/spirits of the deceased, and when the last trumpet blows, those souls/spirits will be reunited with their bodies. 


Revelation 20:20 “ Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for 1,000 years. 3 He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the 1,000 years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time…..11 Then I saw a great white throne and One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. 12 I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the books.13 Then the sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead; all were judged according to their works. 14 Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.15 And anyone not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire .” Summary: Immediately after the resurrection of the body, and its reuniting with the soul/spirit, there is a judgment – many Christians call it the ‘Great White Throne’ judgment, based on vs. 11. All are judged according to their works while on earth. Those not in Christ experience what the Bible calls a ‘second death,’ in which they are thrown into the lake of fire. They do not die in the lake of fire (as a normal body would…) because they now have immortal bodies. 


Revelation 21:20-21 “ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea no longer existed.2 I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away. ” Summary: Where then do Christians spend eternity in Heaven? According to the plainest sense reading of Revelation 21, NO! They spend eternity in the NEW HEAVEN/NEW EARTH fusion. The first heaven and the first earth will pass away after the Great White Throne judgment, and Christians will live forever in a NEW Heaven/Earth place. Unlike our current state, God will be with us tangibly in every way, and He will end death, suffering, crying, grief and pain! What a thrilling conclusion!! So, if your belief is that Christians spend eternity in heaven…you are only half right! Christians will spend eternity in a completely NEW Heaven/Earth place.  

Now we take all of the above Scriptures and boil it down: What do we learn about death and the intermediate state according to the Bible? In the Old Testament and New Testament, when people died, some Bible passages indicate that they went somewhere – the place of the dead…Sheol/Hades/Paradise. Other Bible passages (like Daniel 12, Acts 2:29) describe death as sleeping (in the dust) in both the Old Testament and New Testament. How could death be like sleeping in the ground AND consciously going somewhere? Is this a paradox or an oxymoron? Paul’s answer indicates that there will be a separation of body and soul/spirit. The body will go in the ground like a seed and die (being transformed and resurrected later), but the essence of who we are (our soul/spirit) will live on. That is why, in 2nd Corinthians 5, Paul describes the human body as a tent (“For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a building from God“) The death and destruction of the body is not the end for US. It is also not the end for our bodies. Our bodies will indeed lie in the ground, and decay, but upon the return of Jesus, they will be transformed in an instant and reunited with our spirit/soul. (See: 1 Corinthians 15:52-53)  So, as Luke 16, and many of the above passages demonstrate, those who die as believers in Jesus will, like Lazarus and the faithful thief on the cross, go to Paradise or the side of Abraham, which is a temporary Heavenly place that is good. Those who die apart from Jesus, like the rich man in Luke 16 and the unrepentant thief on the cross, will go to Hades and suffer in agony until Jesus returns. After the return of Jesus, those who are in Christ will live eternally with God in the New Heavens/Earth and those apart from Christ will be thrown, along with death and Satan, into the Lake of Fire/Hell. (See Revelation 19-20, specifically 20:15) 

Thus, the Bible busts some of our myths and misconceptions about what happens after death: 

Christians do not die and go to an eternal Heaven. They die and their bodies go into the ground to await the return of Jesus and a change into immortal bodies; their spirit/souls go to Paradise/Abraham’s side/Third Heaven – a good place, but one that is going to be replaced by a new Heaven according to Revelation 21:1.  (2nd Peter 3:13, “ But based on His promise, we wait for the new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell ” Also: Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22) 

Those who are not in Christ do not die and go to Hell. According to Revelation 19-20, the dead are not thrown into Hell/the Lake of Fire, until AFTER the return of Jesus and the Great White Throne judgment. Prior to this, they go to Hades/The place of the dead, which (according to Luke 16) is a place of agony and flames…but is not the Lake of Fire/Hell. Further confirmation for this is found in Revelation 20:13, which notes that Hades will give up its dead, who will then stand before the throne of God for judgment. (“ T hen the sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead; all were judged according to their works. “

The Devil does not live in Hell now. He is, according to Paul, the “ruler of the power of the air.” He lives on earth at the moment. (See Ephesians 2:1-2, “ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins  in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world,  according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens,  the spirit  now working in the disobedient “)

The Devil will NEVER rule over Hell. Instead, he will be tied up and thrown into hell to suffer alongside all of the others who have rejected Christ. (Revelation 20:10 , “ The Devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever .”)

There is no indication in Scripture that there is a place like ‘Purgatory’ where some people stay for a little while (according to their sins) and some people stay for a long time. It appears that all who die stay in Paradise/Third Heaven/Abraham’s Side or Hades for the same amount of time, and get out at the same time – right before the Great White Throne judgment. There is no indication in the Bible whatsoever that doing penance or paying for indulgences can decrease people’s time in either of those places. 

Now – it is time for some GREAT NEWS: According to the Word of God, we are coming to an age, in Christ, where THERE WILL BE NO MORE DEATH. DEATH WILL BE ENDED. In Christ, believers will be welcomed into the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1). Unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15). All people will go to one of those two places, based on whether or not they were in Christ. (John 3:36). As a close to this article, here are two great passages to meditate on: 

ROMANS 8:10 Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through[j] His Spirit who lives in you.

Revelation 21:3-5 “Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away.5 Then the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”

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The post What Happens When People Die? (Life’s Biggest Questions Series #1) appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

12 Amazing Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes + Chapter from my Book, The Bible and Racism.

The following is a complete chapter (on Martin Luther King Jr.) from my 2017 book The Bible and Racism, which is available on Amazon. I’d love for you to read it!   (Click here to purchase the Bible and Racism from Amazon) 

I have lived all of my life in and around Birmingham, the site of many of the great feats and victories of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Struggle. I grew up in this city, born just four years after Dr. King died, and I am grateful for him, for his stance, for his leadership, and for the way he fought a terrible, evil enemy….racism…with grace and humility.

Like many great pastors and preachers of the past, (I’m thinking of Martin Luther and his views on the Jews, John Calvin and his somewhat overblown participation in the Servetus Affair, C.S. Lewis’ apparent advocacy for some type of Universalism in The Last Battle, etc.), Dr. King had some theological failings. There are allegations of infidelity, and his theology can be less than biblical in several places. All of our heroes have sinful flaws – some more than others. Sometimes those flaws move somebody from the realm of Romans 7 (simultaneously sinful, yet justified), to the realm of base hypocrisy, and sometimes they don’t. Honestly, I’m not always sure where that line is. At times, it is quite clear: ‘Bishop’ Eddie Long, who passed last year, was apparently a predatory sex offender and a certain teacher of false doctrine; that he crossed the line many times is abundantly clear. At other times, it is much less so.

Thus we are aware of the flaws of many of our heroes in this day and age. I do not believe the flaws make them more endearing. Sin is sin. My sin is ugly and disgraceful, and not the least bit charming, and so is the sin of all who have come before us. Dr. King had his flaws, but his strengths were even brighter. He was a magnificent preacher and writer. He was patient, humble and long-suffering. In the face of multiplied cruel injustices and hatreds, he managed to keep his composure and dignity and urge a whole generation of people to do the same. There was a certain explosive power in his non-violent advocacy for justice. It was not the power of a squeaky, complaining wheel demanding attention (as so many so called social-justice warriors exhibit today), but the power of a passionate, uncompromising stance for righteousness that rarely, if ever, descended into unnecessary accusation, name-calling, nor antagonism.

Yes, Dr. King accorded himself with dignity, and yet HE FOUGHT. He was the furthest thing from a coward, and when he saw an America that exhibited deep symptoms of racial injustice, prejudice and pride, he rose up and fought with his words, his passion, his suffering and his life. In the face of injustice, sometimes nice people (who are not brave people,) just sit back and do very little – consoling themselves with the idea that their ‘niceness’ demands of them to not overly complain. This approach may well be appropriate when our own individual toes are being stepped on…the world could use much less complaining. However, this approach becomes cowardly in the face of systemic, ingrained brutality and justice that is harming those who cannot defend themselves. As that great English statesmen Edmund Burke wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Dr. King did the very opposite of nothing, and for that, he has my deep admiration.

Here are a baker’s dozen exceptional and lesser known quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – most of them taken from his sermons. Enjoy and be edified! 

The first quote is VERY long, but so sublime that I don’t believe that justice will be served by cutting it:  “So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you “speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.“You may have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries. (1 Corinthians 13) You may be able to break into the storehouse of nature and bring out many insights that men never dreamed were there. You may ascend to the heights of academic achievement, so that you will have all knowledge. You may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees. But all of this amounts to absolutely nothing devoid of love. But even more Americans, you may give your goods to feed the poor. You may give great gifts to charity. You may tower high in philanthropy. But if you have not love it means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned, and die the death of a martyr. Your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as history’s supreme hero. But even so, if you have not love your blood was spilt in vain. You must come to see that it is possible for a man to be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. He may be generous in order to feed his ego and pious in order to feed his pride. Man has the tragic capacity to relegate a heightening virtue to a tragic vice. Without love benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride. So the greatest of all virtues is love. It is here that we find the true meaning of the Christian faith. This is at bottom the meaning of the cross. The great event on Calvary signifies more than a meaningless drama that took place on the stage of history. It is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth into time.” Paul’s Letter to American Christians, From a sermon preached in Montgomery, Alabama on November 11, 1956.  This quote quite clearly portrays King in all his giftedness as an exceptional writer and orator. Few preachers of the last 500 years have been able to communicate with this level of eloquence. While eloquence is not the most important thing for one speaking the truth of God – “the Kingdom of God is not talk, but power” – I still admire it when I see it in a state like this. 

“I don’t believe meekness means that you are dried up in a very cowardly sense. But I believe it is something that gets in your soul so that you can stand and look at any man with a deep sense of humility, knowing that one day you shall inherit the earth.  That’s the meaning of meekness. That’s what Jesus meant by it. So let us be meek and let us be humble and not go back with arrogance. Our struggle will be lost all over the South if the Negro becomes a victim of undue arrogance.” Address at Holt Street Baptist Church to supporters, while celebrating the Supreme Court Ruling in Browder vs. Gayle. November, 1956

“Let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance… We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade… It’s a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. “If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness.” – From “The Drum Major Instinct,” Dr. King’s final sermon, April 4, 1967.

“If physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a life of permanent psychological death, then nothing could be more honorable. We must somehow confront physical force with soul force and stand up courageously for justice and freedom. And this dynamic unity, this amazing self-respect, this willingness to suffer, and this refusal to hit back will cause the oppressors to become ashamed of their own methods and we will be able to transform enemies into friends.” “Desegregation and the Future” Speech delivered in New York City, December 15, 1956.

“You are deeply in my prayers and thoughts as you confront arrests, threats, bombings and all types of humiliating experiences. Your wise restraint, calm dignity and unflinching courage will be an inspiration to generations yet unborn. History records nothing more majestic and sublime than the determined courage of a people willing to suffer and sacrifice for the cause of freedom. The days ahead may be difficult, but do not despair. Those of use who stand amid the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man must gain consolation from the fact that there is emerging a bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice…Remember. God lives! They that stand against him stand in a tragic and an already declared minority. They that stand with him stand in the glow of the world’s bright tomorrows.” December 26, 1956 letter to Birmingham Civil Rights Activist Fred Shuttlesworth.

[Our nonviolent approach] “does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often voice his protest through non-cooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that non-cooperation and boycotts are not ends within themselves, they are merely means to awaken the sense of moral shame within the opponent. But the end is redemption. The end is reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.“The Christian Way of Life in Human Relations” Address delivered to the United Nations in December of 1957.

“This is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.” Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.” This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.”  Loving Your Enemies Sermon, preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama 1957.  Generally speaking, I reject the “like” vs “love” dichotomy often discussed in our culture, but I do appreciate what Dr. King says here that even when we do not like a person’s stance or behavior, that we still love the person and do not seek their ‘defeating.’ Many internet commentors could learn from this example!

“May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him” From a sermon preached in Montgomery, Alabama on November 11, 1956.

“One of the amazing things about the protest that will long be remembered is the orderly way it has been conducted. On every hand you have evinced wise restraint and calm dignity. You have carefully avoided animosity, making sure that your methods were rooted in the deep soils of the Christian faith. Because of this, violence has almost been a non-existent factor in our struggle. For such “discipline, generations yet unborn will commend you.” December 3, 1956 address to the MIA – Montgomery Improvement Association.

“When the man in the parable knocked on his friend’s door and asked for the three loaves of bread, he received the impatient retort, “Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” How often have men experienced a similar disappointment when at midnight they knock on the door of the church. Millions of Africans, patiently knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never. Millions of American Negroes, starving for the want of the bread of freedom, have knocked again and again on the door of so-called white churches, but they have usually been greeted by a cold indifference or a blatant hypocrisy. Even the white religious leaders, who have a heartfelt desire to open the door and provide the bread, are often more cautious than courageous and more prone to follow the expedient than the ethical path. One of the shameful tragedies of history is that the very institution which should remove man from the midnight of racial segregation participates in creating and perpetuating the midnight.” From a 1967 sermon entitled, “A Knock at Midnight.”  I agree with this charge, sadly. When the white church in the South should have stood loudly and bravely with the least of these, far too often, they turned their back.

On April 4, 1968, a “Shot rang out in the Memphis sky,” and Dr. King fell mortally wounded. The day before, he had preached a sermon entitled, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” In that message, he addressed how Bull Connor and his racist Birmingham cronies had been overcome:

We aren’t going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces. They don’t know what to do. I’ve seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church day after day. By the hundreds we would move out, and Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come. But we just went before the dogs singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.”  Bull Connor next would say, “Turn the fire hoses on.” And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn’t relate to the trans-physics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.  And we went before the fire hoses. We had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist or some others, we had been sprinkled. But we knew water. That couldn’t stop us.  And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them, and we’d go on before the water hoses and we would look at it. And we’d just go on singing, “Over my head, I see freedom in the air.” (Yeah) [Applause] And then we would be thrown into paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. (All right) And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, “Take ’em off.” And they did, and we would just go on in the paddy wagon singing, “We Shall Overcome.” (Yeah) And every now and then we’d get in jail, and we’d see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers (Yes) and being moved by our words and our songs. (Yes) And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn’t adjust to (All right), and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham…Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somewhere the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones (Yes), and whenever injustice is around he must tell it. (Yes) Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, who said, “When God Speaks, who can but prophesy?” (Yes) Again with Amos, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” April 3, 1968 sermon, the day before Dr. King was assassinated. 

We know more about mathematics, about science, about social science, and philosophy, than we’ve ever known in any period of the world’s history…For our scientific progress over the past years has been amazing. Man through his scientific genius has been able to warp distance and place time in chains, so that today it’s possible to eat breakfast in New York City and supper in London, England. Back in about 1753 it took a letter three days to go from New York City to Washington, and today you can go from here to China in less time than that. It can’t be because man is stagnant in his scientific progress. Man’s scientific genius has been amazing.  I think we have to look much deeper than that if we are to find the real cause of man’s problems and the real cause of the world’s ills today. If we are to really find it I think we will have to look in the hearts and souls of men.   The trouble isn’t so much that we don’t know enough, but it’s that we aren’t good enough. The trouble isn’t so much that our scientific genius lags behind, but our moral genius lags behind. The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live, have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world. The problem is with man himself and man’s soul. We haven’t learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood. And the great danger facing us today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much that atomic bomb that you can put in an airplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people—as dangerous as that is. But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness. That’s the atomic bomb that we’ve got to fear today. The problem is with the men. Within the heart and the souls of men. That is the real basis of our problem.   My friends, all I’m trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind.  That’s the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning of it. The only way we can do it is to go back, and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind. –  Martin Luther King Jr. Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 1954.

“And I wonder why it is that the forces of evil seem to reign supreme and the forces of goodness seem to be trampled over. Every now and then I feel like asking God, Why is it that over so many centuries the forces of injustice have triumphed over the Negro and he has been forced to live under oppression and slavery and exploitation? Why is it, God? Why is it simply because some of your children ask to be treated as first-class human beings they are trampled over, their homes are bombed, their children are pushed from their classrooms, and sometimes little children [referencing Emmett Till] are thrown in the deep waters of Mississippi? Why is it, oh God, that that has to happen? I begin to despair sometimes, it seems that Good Friday has the throne. It seems that the forces of injustice reign supreme. But then in the midst of that something else comes to me.” – Martin Luther King Jr. 1957 Easter Sermon in Montgomery, Alabama, “Questions that Easter Answers.”

The preceding was from a complete chapter (on Martin Luther King Jr.) from my 2017 book The Bible and Racism, which is available on Amazon. I’d love for you to read it! 

The post 12 Amazing Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes + Chapter from my Book, The Bible and Racism. appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

10 Powerful Quotes on Race and Racism, Part 2: 6-10. From the Book: The Bible and Racism.

The following post is another excerpt from my new book, The Bible and Racism.  It is available on Amazon and is a 200+ page exploration of what the Bible teaches about race and Jesus’ call for His church to be fully unified – every tribe, tongue, color and nationality worshiping together on earth as in Heaven. I would be honored if you would take a look at it! Here are 5 more powerful quotes from Chapter 14 of the book. I especially appreciate Tony Evan’s challenge that one must be a follower of Jesus FIRST – before one’s nationality, ethnicity, sex, etc. I also think C.S. Lewis’ warning that a ultra-nationalism can easily lead to racism, wars, and other atrocities. 

Note: Here is Part 1 – 10 Quotes on Race and Racism. 

6. For example, here are four pieces of the worldview, all of them undermining racism. First, at creation, all of us created in his image, all of us in his image. There are cataclysmic implications of human beings in the image of God — every kind of human being. Second sin and fall. We are one in our corruption. We are deep in solidarity in sin. You are so sinful and I am so sinful, we’re right there together. There is no exalting of another above another if we are both dead-bent rebels together on our way to hell. How vain is the exaltation of self, one sinner over another sinner? Third, the cross. Christ died to reconcile us both talking about Jews and Gentiles at that moment — in one body to the cross, to Christ through the cross to God, or you were slain.We say to Jesus in Revelation 5:9, “You were slain and by your blood, you ransom people for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom, one kingdom and priests to our God.” Why? I said it’s more than a social issue. Whenever I get to talk on this, I want to say to all conservative white folks who fear the social gospel, it’s not a social issue. It’s a blood issue. By your blood, you ransom them, all of them. You die to pull them together, Revelation 5:9. And fourth, faith. Not of works, and I think works means not only anything you do, but any distinctive you have does not commend you to God. Faith commends you to God and faith is a desperate I can’t help myself, which puts you in line with everybody. Therefore, the way into the family is designed to remove all ethnic barriers. (Source: Pastor John Piper Sermon, Race and the Christian, preached in 2012. http://www.desiringgod.org/)

Here, in just under three minutes, pastor John Piper is able to easily and systematically undermine racism with just a few logical and Scriptural points. As Piper says, there are “cataclysmic implications” in the truth of the Imago Dei – that humans are made in the Image of God. One of these implications is made clear in James 3:9, “With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. my brothers, these things ought NOT be so” James :3:9 forbids Christians from cursing anybody with the rationale that ALL are created in the Image of God – I suggest that beating, kidnapping, and forced enslavement would also be banned under that understanding of humans being made in the Imago Dei.

7. The third ingredient [in love of country] is not a sentiment but a belief: a form, even prosaic belief that our own nation, in sober fact, has long been, and still is markedly superior to all others…I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this sort of patriotism, “But, sir, aren’t we told that every people thinks its own men the bravest and its own women the fairest in the world?” He replied with total gravity–he could not have been graver if he had been saying the Creed at the alter–“Yes, but in England it’s true.” To be sure, this conviction had not made my friend (God rest his soul) a villain; only an extremely lovable old [butt]. It can however produce [butts] that kick and bite. On the lunatic fringe it [ultra-nationalism] may shade off into that popular Racialism which Christianity and science equally forbid. (Source: C.S. Lewis, the Joyful Christian, p. 189)

Lewis is absolutely right here, if a bit colorful. Nationalism – love of country – is not always a bad thing. It can be a very good thing, but when it becomes an ultimate thing, it gets very, very ugly. It must be remembered that Christians are not first and foremost American, or English, or Laotian, or Korean…but they are first and foremost aliens and strangers in the world, citizens of Heaven. (1 Peter 2:11)

8. We are operating on illegitimate standards that are not rooted in God, but rooted in culture, rooted in history, in background. And all of that may be facts but the question we must ask is: Is it the truth? You can have facts, but it not be the truth. The truth is an objective standard by which reality is measured; it’s God’s point of view on any subject. Just because you were raised a certain way. Once how you were raised disagrees with what God says, how you were raised was wrong! …If our pulpits were right we would have solved this problem of racism a long time ago. Slavery would have been solved, Jim Crow would have been solved, segregation — all of this would have been solved. But because the pulpits were anemic and allowed to take the place of the evil in America, we are still fighting that evil today! Because pulpits were silent biblically on this issue, maintaining a manifest destiny ideology that was in contrast to biblical theology! But that also explains why the Civil Rights movement was able to change it, because the church got out in front of it…Truth overrides tradition! Truth overrides color! Black is only beautiful when it’s biblical! …You must be Christian first. If we could get enough Christians to be Christian before white, Christian before black, Christian before Spanish … it doesn’t take 240 years to fix this. It takes about two minutes and 40 seconds…(Pastor Tony Evans, July 2016 sermon. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=KbhNCTJ-dUI)

Powerful words here from pastor Tony Evans. Though it is a bit of hyperbole to think we could fix racism in under three minutes, I agree that one of the things that have exacerbated racism is anti-biblical, and less than biblical, preaching on race from the pulpit.

9. These representatives of the saints in heaven are said to be around the throne. In the passage in Canticles, where Solomon sings of the King sitting at his table, some render it “a round table.” From this, some expositors, I think, without straining the text, have said, “There is an equality among the saints.” That idea is conveyed by the equal nearness of the four and twenty elders. The condition of glorified spirits in heaven is that of nearness to Christ, clear vision of his glory, constant access to his court, and familiar fellowship with his person: nor is there any difference in this respect between one saint and another, but all the people of God, apostles, martyrs, ministers, or private and obscure Christians, shall all be seated near the throne, where they shall for ever gaze upon their exalted Lord, and be satisfied with his love. They shall all be near to Christ, all ravished with his love, all eating and drinking at the same table with him, all equally beloved as his favourites and friends even if not all equally rewarded as servants.Let believers on earth imitate the saints in heaven in their nearness to Christ. Let us on earth be as the elders are in heaven, sitting around the throne. May Christ be the object of our thoughts, the center of our lives.  Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).

Not only did Spurgeon proclaim the equality among saints, but unlike some of the Puritans (who believed the same), Spurgeon’s understanding of equality among saints actually had practical implications that caused him to be an abolitionist and enemy of Victorian racism in England.

10. Go back to 1 Timothy with me. We read over this pretty quickly when we were walking through the first part of 1 Timothy, but I want to take you back there so you can see where Paul has already addressed this kind of slavery in 1 Timothy 1. Look at 1 Timothy 1:8. We will get to it in verse 10, but see the set up. 1 Timothy 1:8-10 says, Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, (ESV) What’s the last word? “Enslavers …” the word means literally “man stealers” or “slave dealers.” Anyone who kidnaps people for sale is unholy, profane and is denying the gospel. So, I want you to see very clearly that the Bible condemns, denounces physical abuse and human trafficking. I want to emphasize that for two reasons. One, if these two truths about physical abuse and human trafficking from both testaments … Old Testament and New Testament alike … if these two truths had been embraced by Christians in the 18th and 19th century, slavery would never have existed like it did in the South. The Bible explicitly denounces and condemns the kind of slavery that took place in the Southern United States, and pastors and church members who used this Word to justify their practices were living in sin. (Source: David Platt, “What about Slavery, Paul?,” in David Platt Sermon Archive (Birmingham, AL: David Platt, 2011), 3176.)

An excellent observation, by Southern Baptist IMB president David Platt, that Paul absolutely condemns “enslavers,” which were men that took other men and forced them into slavery. As that practice was at the very heart of the chattel slavery practiced in the United States and United Kingdom, the slavery found in those countries was outlawed biblically. Tragically, Confederate pastors and many other slavery apologists chose to turn a blind eye to passages like this in the Scriptures.

The post 10 Powerful Quotes on Race and Racism, Part 2: 6-10. From the Book: The Bible and Racism. appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

10 Powerful Quotes Against Racism. Part 1: 1-5. From the Book: The Bible and Racism.

The following is an excerpt from my new book, The Bible and Racism.  It is available on Amazon and is a 200+ page exploration of what the Bible teaches about race and Jesus’ call for His church to be fully unified – every tribe, tongue, color and nationality worshiping together on earth as in Heaven. I would be honored if you would take a look at it! The excerpt below, from 14, contains 10 great thoughts on race and racism from a variety of Christian writers, pastors, and leaders over the years. These are some of the most powerful quotes on race and racism that you can find, and I hope they are encouraging to you! 

                                          10 Great Quotes on Racial Unity

This post will simply be a large collection of excellent and challenging thoughts on race from faithful followers of Christ. You or I might not fully, 100 percent agree with every thought expressed here, but all of these passages are from solid and faithful Christians, and all are presenting ideas that should be grappled with. I might include a brief amount of commentary on a few of the quotes, but they will stand on their own by and large. The reason for including all of these quotes is to #1 spur you on towards godly and biblical thinking about race and #2 to demonstrate that there have been faithful voices in the worldwide church since the first century that have powerfully and passionately proclaimed good truths about race. Some might think (with reason) that the church in the past has been too often racist. While it is true (and inexcusable) that there have always been racists in every period of church history, I believe it is also true that those Christians who have known, proclaimed and lived biblical truths about race have outnumbered those who haven’t.

1. Sometimes we get a gem amongst the news, and to my mind there was a gem contained in a Reuter’s telegram, from Rio Janeiro, May 10th:—“The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies has voted the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery in Brazil.” My heart rejoiced as I read that paragraph. I hope it does not mean that this vote can be defeated in some other Chamber, or the abolition be prevented by some other power; but if it means that slavery is to be immediately and unconditionally abolished in Brazil, I call upon you all to thank God, and rejoice in his name. Wherever slavery exists, it is an awful curse; and the abolition of it is an unspeakable blessing. All free men should praise God, and especially those whom Christ has made free, for they are “free indeed. (Source: 1888 Charles Spurgeon sermon, “Freedom at Once and for Ever,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 40 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1894), 349.)

I love Charles Spurgeon very deeply, and I especially love the fact that, even though he was a “product of his time,” he was not blinded to the Bible’s clear anti-racist teachings and their implications. Slavery is indeed an awful curse, and came about through the curse of Genesis 3 in the garden. Some might even say that slavery is man’s attempt to remove the burden of God’s curse in the garden (“you shall sweat for every drop of food you eat”) from himself and put it onto somebody else.

2. If you’re reading through the Bible and you get to Joshua 7 — especially if you’re a white American, especially if you’re Western person — you go “What?” In Joshua 7, a man named Achan, an Israelite — they’re coming into the promised land, they are strictly told you were not here for plunder — Achan takes some plunder, a robe, some wealth, takes it for himself, hides it under his tent. He breaks the law. He goes against God’s will, goes against the law for the Israelites. When it’s discovered, he’s not just punished, but his entire family is stoned to death with him. Western people — especially white Americans — say, “Wait a minute, he did it. They didn’t do it!” Now let me just get right off and say this. Most people and most other cultures, most other centuries understand why that happened. If you’re a New Yorker and you have some objection to some part of the Bible that you find offensive, I want you to realize it’s your cultural location that’s causing the offense… That if you can do something bad, the fact that you can do it, what helped you become the kind of person that can do it, was to a great degree your family. Your family produced you directly or at least failed to keep you from becoming that, and therefore at least actively or passively, your family participates in your guilt.

        Most people, most places, Americans — especially white Americans — don’t understand that. Most people, most places recognize that because you’re not the product of your own individual choices, you are the product of a community. Not only are you the product of a community to a great degree, but that you by even participating in that community are producing other kinds of people with their particular kinds of character to because of your interaction with them. Joshua 7 says that there is corporate responsibility inside a family. I’ll take it up a little higher. In Daniel 9, now we’re talking about corporate guilt and responsibility inside a whole race or a culture because Daniel, in Daniel 9, confesses sins — repents for — and says it’s his responsibility to repent for sins that his ancestors did that he didn’t do it all. I mean I still hear it, though especially years ago when I lived in the South. I heard white people say, “Yeah, it’s a shame what slavery did, but I never owned any slaves so why in the world does anybody think that I as a white person now had any responsibility to that community over there at all? I didn’t own slaves.” But here is Daniel feeling a responsibility for and repenting for things his ancestors did. Why? Because he knows that the culture that he’s part of produced the sins of the past and he’s still part of that culture. He senses the responsibility and the Bible senses the responsibility. He senses the connection.  (Pastor Tim Keller, 2012 message. Source: http://www.desiringgod.org/)

Tim Keller, if you are not familiar with him, is not a liberal theologian. He is a conservative, biblical, complementarian pastor in the Presbyterian Church of America, which is one of the most theologically conservative denominations out there. You might not agree with the dynamic that Keller is proposing here, but I believe that he has made a very good biblical case for what he is asserting, which is that we are, in part, defined by our culture and responsible for our culture.

3. Posterity is concerned in the actions of their ancestors or predecessors, in families, nations, and most communities of men, as standing in some respect in their stead. And some particular persons may injure, not only a great part of the world contemporary with them, but may injure and undo all future generations of many individuals, families, or larger communities. So that men who live now, may have an action against those who lived a thousand years ago; or there may be a cause which needs to be decided by the Judge of the world, between some of the present generation, and some who lived a thousand years ago. Princes who, by rapine and cruelty, ruin nations, are answerable for the poverty, slavery, and misery of the posterity of those nations. So, as to those who broach and establish opinions and principles, which tend to the overthrow of virtue, and propagation of vice, and are contrary to the common rights and privileges of mankind.—Thus, Mahomet (Mohammed) has injured all succeeding posterity, and is answerable, at least in a degree, for the ruin of the virtue of his followers in many respects, and for the rapine, violence, and terrible devastations which his followers have been guilty of toward the nations of the world, and to which they have been instigated by the principles which he taught them. And, whoever they were, who first drew away men from the true religion, and introduced and established idolatry, they have injured all nations that have to this day partaken of the infection.

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 471.

For those that might have struggled with Keller’s idea (above) that we can be somehow responsible or involved with the sins that our ancestors have committed, you might be surprised that Keller’s understanding comes from Jonathan Edwards, a pastor and writer used mightily of God in the First Great Awakening. Edwards wrote fairly extensively about the evils of slavery and of man-stealing and abuse, but himself owned slaves. His son, however, came to greater understanding of truth, and released all of the Edwards family slaves six years before the American Revolution, and almost 100 years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation.

4. Tell me what you think, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the Christian Church desperately needs to be discipled regarding “race,” racism and justice. I once thought the most significant deficiency in Christian theology (at least in the West) was a deficiency in the theology of suffering. But I think there’s more ink used to help people with suffering than there is to help people think of themselves primarily as Christians and radically apply their new identity in Christ to fallen categories like “race” and insidious sins like racism.It’s tragic that the country’s biggest sin is racism and the Church’s biggest omission is racial justice. The tragedy gets compounded when one remembers that some quarters of the Church were once the strongest supporters of this sin. That means we’re working our way out of a deficit. The roots of racism are tangled with our faith. And this means we can’t assume some neutral stance, being formally against this sin but practically uninvolved. The root keeps creeping. We had better be weeding the garden of our faith and growing one another up into the fullness of Christ with attention to this anti-Christ called “racism.”Over and over the question I get from genuine and well-meaning Christians is, “How can I think about…?” Or, “What should I do about…?” Those are discipleship questions that desperately need answering in every local church—assuming we don’t want the roots of racism to find any soil in the body of Christ.

(Source: Thabiti Anyabwile https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/...)

Thabiti, as an African-American pastor, writes a lot about race. I used to sort of naively think that it was more important to use all of our energies and ink focusing on Jesus and His gospel over and above anything else. I still believe that to be the case, but the fact is that the good news of Jesus has implications and practical impacts, which means we must write about issues like race and racism, and grapple with how the Word of God calls us to act in regards to them. I absolutely agree with Thabiti that the church has been complicit in racism too often in the past, and it has diminished and damaged our shining of the gospel. We do indeed need biblical discipling in the areas of race, racism, and justice. We need to think about it more, write about it more, pray for racial unity more, and walk out biblical racial justice more and more. I am hopeful that this book represents one very tiny step in that direction.

5. [You might say] “I got me some slaves and slave-girls.” What do you mean? You condemn men to slavery, when his nature is free and possesses free will, and you legislate in competition with God, overturning His law for the human species. The one made on the specific terms that he should be the owner of the earth, and appointed to government by the Creator – him you bring under the yoke of slavery, as though defying and fighting against the divine decree. You have forgotten the limits of your authority, and that your rule is confined to control over things without reason! Why do you go beyond what is subject to you and raise yourself up against the very species which is free, counting your own kind on a level with four-footed things and even footless things? [You say, ] “I got me slave-girls and slaves.” For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols (a unit of currency) did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling that being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power… God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God’s?” (Source: Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on Ecclessiastes. 335.5, 335.6, 336.6) 300s AD

What a powerful challenge – and sound logical argument – from Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote the above circa 375 AD. If only the Confederate champions of slave-owning had genuinely grappled with Gregory’s Scriptural and rational arguments here.

Here’s Part 2 of Ten Quotes on Race and Racism. 

The post 10 Powerful Quotes Against Racism. Part 1: 1-5. From the Book: The Bible and Racism. appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

Was Jesus White? Excerpt from New Book: The Bible and Racism.

The following excerpt is from my just released book: The Bible and Racism, which is available on Amazon and free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. I’d be honored if you’d check it out!   The focus of the excerpt is answering the question: Is Jesus white? 





 

Was Jesus White?  

No.

What…just a simple one word answer isn’t good enough for you? The truth of it is that Jesus wasn’t exactly white, nor was He precisely black either. He was, most likely, in the middle, and that’s not just me hedging bets. Ultimately, the question of “whiteness” is a difficult and awkward question to ask and answer for anybody, much less a historical figure from a disputed part of the world, but it is possible to drill down and get a good answer to the question. 

In the past, the United States largely considered Middle Easterners as non-white, but things changed, at least on an official level, as the result of a court case in 1909. Sadly, the case was ignited and surrounded by a substantial amount of racism, particularly on the part of the federal government. 

Officer George Shishim was a Lebanese-American police officer in Los Angeles County in the 1900s. In 1909, he arrested the white son of a prominent L.A. attorney for disturbing the peace. That a ‘yellow-skinned’ foreigner had arrested his sin didn’t sit well with this attorney, and he sued the county, claiming that, as officer Shishim was Lebanese, that meant he was not white, but Chinese-Mongolian, and thus ineligible for citizenship in America. How a white attorney at the time came to characterize a Lebanese man as “Chinese-Mongolian” has a little bit to do with the conquerings of Genghis Khan, and a whole lot to do with plain old ignorant racism. The case would appear before Los Angeles Country Judge Hutton, and the federal government argued against the potential citizenship of Shisham, declaring that as a Middle-Easterner, he was not white, and thus not eligible for citizenship.

Shisham’s defense, however, was an absolute stroke of genius. He argued to the court, who largely identified as Christian, that, “If I am a Mongolian, then so was Jesus, because we came from the same land.” This proved to be a persuasive argument to Judge Hutton, who announced his decision the following day:

This is an application by one George Shishim, a Syrian, to be admitted to citizenship. The federal government, acting through the department of justice, objects to his admission, basing its objection on the sole ground that he is not a member of the white race in contemplation of section 2169 of the revised statutes of the United States. (Source: http://www.arabamericanhistory.org/archives/dept-of-justice-affirms-arab-race-in-1909/ )

And thus it was that Middle-Easterners, including Israelis, came to be considered “white.” by the United States government, largely against its will. Interestingly, there is a movement underway to overturn this designation, and it is likely that by the next census, ‘MENA’ will be a new designation, standing for “Middle East or North Africa.”

Just last week I posted a mock up of the cover for this book on my Facebook page. I included a two word description of the picture that said “current project,” and nothing else. That post has become one of the most controversial posts I’ve ever made on Facebook. It generated lots of likes and nearly 150 comments, which is a fairly high number for one of my posts. The reason for that many comments is that within about 15 minutes of posting the picture, one of my Facebook ‘friends,’ I lady I’ve never met before and actually don’t even know in real life, posted an excerpt from the book of Deuteronomy in response to my picture.

I read the excerpt with some degree of curiosity trying to discern what her comment meant, it had no context other than the verse itself, Deuteronomy 7:3, which is a prohibition that was aimed at the Israelites commanding them to not marry foreign wives in the promised land. For years, racists and people who have utterly misunderstood the Bible, have used that passage (and others like it) to decry interracial marriage, interracial relationships and those sorts of things.

Reading Deuteronomy 7 as a current prohibition against Christians marrying somebody of a different nationality or skin color is a tragic misunderstanding of Scripture that completely disregards who the Old Testament was written to and the context of those commandments in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 7:3-6 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. 5 Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn up their carved images. 6 For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

The Jews were not allowed to intermarry with foreigners not because of the color of their skin but very clearly because of their religion. By this command, God sought to keep the hearts of the Israelites pure and their worship focused solely on Him, in keeping with the first commandment, “Do not have other gods besides Me.” It had nothing to do with keeping their blood pure.

Suspicious of the post, and wondering why she chose to post that particular Scripture, I went to check out my “‘friend’s’ Facebook page and discovered a trove of highly racist memes, racist comments and claims, and other highly offensive and inaccurate material including the picture you see below, which alleges that the Bible is only about white people , that Adam was a white person and that any attempt to describe the Bible as a book about mixed races is completely false.

Racist claptrap.

I was incensed, disgusted and deeply troubled at the level of false teaching she was promulgating and therefore I challenged her comment on my Facebook page with some degree of firmness. This, as you might imagine, ignited one of those comment wars that are becoming more and more common on social media, as she apparently tagged in several of her white nationalist racist friends and without any effort on my part several of my friends joined in and for a while it was a free-for-all.

Her primary henchmen, and I think that is an appropriate word for the situation, was a German Nazi white supremacist that claimed to love the Jews. (Yes, it was a very strange conversation.) In fact the first commenter herself claimed to be a Jewish person despite the fact that she was quite clearly a southern American. This was a new flavor of racism for me and upon a little bit of research I discovered that there was quite a few people who make the claim that the Israelites were white, Adam was white, Jesus was white, and that the only race that is eligible for salvation is the white race. According to these white supremacists’ abominable teachings, no other race is eligible for salvation. The Bible is about white people and was only written to white people. Thus according to my ‘friend’s’ henchman, racism is actually a kindness and displays love, because it’s communicating the will of God.

What a disgusting and horrific idea! But it does at least raise an interesting question and that question is what color was Jesus? Many people have in their mind this view of Jesus as a lithe white man with long hair. The trouble with this picture of Jesus is that it comes from the Italian Renaissance, where the Italian painters initially depicted Jesus as somebody very similar to them, with long hair (as was the fashion in that day), slightly tanned skin, and usually a white robe. The only part of that depiction that has some basis in reality is the robe. The fact is, we have no surviving pictures of Jesus from His time. In fact the earliest surviving picture we have that depicts Jesus is copied below, dates from the 200s, and obviously doesn’t show details about the race of Jesus or much about His appearance or anything like that. One of the other earliest depictions of Jesus dates from the 300s AD, and is a picture with quite a bit more detail present in the facial area. Surprisingly, for some, this second picture does appear to show Jesus as a dark-skinned man.

The Good Shepherd fresco, from the St. Callisto Catacomb in Rome, circa 200s AD.



Detail from “Christ Between Peter and Paul,” a painting found in a Roman cemetery that dates to the 300s AD. Note the dark skin of Jesus!

The pictures above are not definitive, however what we do know is that Jesus was in Israel and the Bible never describes Him in a way that would particularly distinguish Him from the rest of His race. For instance, Jesus is never described as being particularly tall, fat, balding, redheaded etc., Therefore it is quite reasonable to conclude that Jesus probably looked much like the other Israelite men of His day. 

So, what did the Israelites look like? Are Israelites white? The fact of the matter is that the Israelites are a Middle-Eastern people with a great amount of variety within their borders just like Americans, Asians and Africans have a great amount of variety among their peoples. If you were asked to describe a typical American, that might be somewhat difficult, given the wide variety of peoples in America. Nevertheless, it is possible to engage in some small amount of description of the average first-century Israelite, and therefore to give a pretty good facsimile representation of what Jesus probably looked like. In recent times, Scientists have actually done this through skeletal remains, and reconstructed a picture and description of what the average Israelite, and therefore Jesus, could have looked like. That reconstruction depicts Jesus as a man with olive/brown skin, black and short hair, and a heavy black beard. It isn’t exactly a picture of the historical Jesus, but it is a scientific representation of what the average Israelite person would look like.

Some might be surprised that Jesus didn’t have long hair, but the only men who had long hair in first century Israel were those who had taken a Nazirite vow (and some foreigners.) We know that Jesus probably didn’t have long hair because the apostle Paul wrote that it was shameful for men to have long hair, and, as Paul saw Jesus on the Damascus Road, it is highly unlikely that Jesus had the sort of long hair that is depicted of him in most pictures. Further, if the scientific reconstruction of first century Israelites is accurate, then Jesus would be neither black nor white, but somewhere in between.

What difference does it make? The problem with this discussion is that “whiteness” is a relative term and it’s not a very helpful one. People don’t genuinely have white skin – an actual white-skinned person would be awfully strange looking. People that are Caucasian generally have a peach/pinkish tone to their skin, and I’m not really sure how that came to be referred to as white, but as we’ve seen in earlier chapters, true white skin is considered diseased skin. The funny thing about “whiteness” is the fact that most people in the white community generally consider paleness to be a less than attractive feature. In fact, in the United States of America, many people pay good money to lie in coffin-like light booths, so that ultraviolet lamps might turn their skin a few shades darker, because in their mind, darker skin on a white person looks more attractive. What a strange set of circumstances!

If you would like to read more about this topic, please allow me to encourage you to read the book, available on Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Racism-What-REALLY-about-ebook/dp/B075846YB8/

Thank you for reading! 

 

 
 

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NEW BOOK: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes! BONUS: VIDEO Interview with Arthur Conan Doyle on the Origin and Inspiration of Sherlock Holmes

Hello friends and other interested parties: 

I’m happy to announce that my third book, The Wisdom of Sherlock Holmes, has JUST BEEN RELEASED! I would be honored if you would click the link below and go look at it. I would be grateful beyond words if you would take the time to read the book and offer up a charitable review on Amazon or Goodreads. As an independent author, I can tell you that one review on Amazon is worth its weight in gold! In the book, I discuss the faith of Sherlock Holmes and prove with his own words that he was undoubtedly a believer in God, and even had some very solid orthodox and biblical views. It is surprising to many (who are only familiar with modern depictions) that Sherlock Holmes is demonstrably not an atheist, but talks about God in over a dozen of his adventures. My book includes every Holmesian reference to God that I could find, and much more, including his famous relationship with John Watson, the fact that Sherlock would often carry a gun into his adventures, the origins of his deerstalker hat and cape (never worn in the books) and much more. It also includes a full chapter on Holmes’ detective and deduction techniques, as well as a chapter that looks at the weaknesses of the great detective (perhaps sexism and racism?) I would be honored if you’d click the picture below and read the book. It is dirt cheap and FREE on Kindle Unlimited. Be sure to also scroll down and watch (and read the transcript of) the ONLY surviving video interview of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. The last half of the interview is about Conan Doyle’s silly spiritualism/psychic views, but the first part is all about the creation and origin of Sherlock Holmes. Very interesting!! 

The Wisdom of Sherlock Holmes

 

TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE:  (Note that Conan Doyle credits Dr. Joseph Bell as being his inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. My book, The Wisdom of Sherlock Holmes, discusses this in detail, and includes a chapter on Dr. Bell’s real life adventures as a doctor and consulting medical detective!)  This interview was conducted in 1927 and came out several months BEFORE the first major talking movie, The Jazz Singer. It is really quite remarkable to have a preserved video interview of Conan Doyle, considering that we have no surviving video of C.S. Lewis, a British author who died 30 years after him, C.S. Lewis. 

NOTE Several points of interest in this interview: 

Arthur Conan Doyle somehow, someway, does not believe that Sherlock Holmes is real. Perhaps this is because Conan Doyle is older, and his faculties are fading. Tut, tut, Mr. Doyle. 
Part of his impetus for inventing Holmes was the habit of previous mystery writers to leave out the steps of solving a crime. 

He refers to Watson as, “stupid.” How dare he!? 

He considers his research into psychic phenomena (much of which turned out to be a hoax) as much more important than Sherlock Holmes. A very daft attitude! 

There are two things that people always want to ask me. One of them is how I ever came to write the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the other is about how I came to have psychic experiences and to take so much interest in that question.

First of all, about the Sherlock Holmes stories. They came about in this way: I was quite a young doctor at the time and I had, of course, scientific training, and I used to occasionally read detective stories. It often annoyed me how in the old-fashioned detective story the detective always seemed to get at his results either by some sort of lucky chance or fluke or else it was quite unexplained how he got there. He got there but he never gave an explanation how. Now that didn’t seem to me quite playing the game. It seemed to me that he’s bound to give his reasons why he came to his conclusions.

But when I began thinking about this I began to think of turning scientific methods, as it were, onto the work of detection. And I used, as a student to have an old professor, his name was Bell, who was extraordinarily quick at deductive work. He would look at the patient, he would hardly allow the patient to open his mouth but he would make his diagnosis of the disease, also very often of the patient’s nationality and occupation and other points, entirely by his power of observation. So naturally, I thought to myself, “well if a scientific man like Bell was to come into the detective business, he wouldn’t do these things by chance, he’d get the thing by building it up scientifically.”

So, having once conceived that line of thought, you can well imagine that I had as it were, a new idea of the detective and one which it interested me to work out. I thought of a hundred little dodges, as you may say, a hundred little touches by which he could build up his conclusions and then I began to write stories on those lines. At first I think they attracted very little attention, but after a time when I began the short adventures, one after the other, coming out month after month in the Strand magazine, people began to recognize that it was different from the old detective, that there was something there which was new, they began to buy the magazine and uh, it uh prospered and so I may say did I, we both came along together. And from that time Sherlock Holmes fairly took root. I’ve written a good deal more about him than I ever intended to do but my hand has been forced by kind friends who continually wanted to know more, and so it is that this monstrous growth has come out of what was really a comparatively small seed.

But the curious thing is how many people around the world are perfectly convinced that he is a living human being. I get letters addressed to him, I get letters asking for his autograph, I get letters addressed to his rather stupid friend, Watson, I’ve even had ladies writing to say that they’d be very glad to act as his housekeeper. One of them, when she’d heard that he’d turned to the occupation of keeping bees, wrote saying that she was an expert at segregating the queen, whatever that may mean, and that she was evidently pre-destined to be the housekeeper of Sherlock Holmes.

I don’t know that there’s anything more that I can say with advantage, about him, but on the other point which is to me, of course, a very much more serious one, on the question of my taking up this psychic matter. Curiously enough my first experiences in that direction were just about the time when Sherlock Holmes was being built up in my mind. That would be about the year 1886 and 1887. So nobody can say that I’ve formed my opinions on psychic matters very hastily, it was just 41 years now since I wrote a signed article upon the subject which appeared in a magazine called Light so that I put myself on record.

[Warning: Nonsense below:] 

During these 41 years I never lost any opportunity of reading and studying and of experimenting on this matter. People ask me will I write any more Sherlock Holmes stories, I certainly don’t think it’s at all probable. [Editor’s Note: HE NEVER DID, SADLY, AS HIS LAST TWO STORES APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED DIRECTLY BEFORE THIS INTERVIEW]  As I grow older the psychic subject always grows in intensity and one becomes more earnest upon it. And I should think that my few remaining years will probably be devoted much more in that direction than in the direction of literature. None the less, of course, I haven’t abandoned writing, one has to earn one’s living, but my principal thoughts are that I should extend if I can that knowledge which I have on psychic matters and spread it as far as I can to those who have been less fortunate.

Don’t for one moment suppose that I am taking it upon myself to say that I am the inventor of spiritualism, or that I am even the principal exponent of it. There are many great mediums, many great psychical researchers, investigators of all sorts, all that I can do is to be a gramophone on the subject. To go about, to meet people face to face, to try and make them understand that this thing is not the foolish thing which is so often represented but that it really is the great philosophy and as I think the basis of all religious improvement in the future of the human race. I suppose I’ve sat with more mediums good, and bad, and indifferent than perhaps any living being. Anyhow, a larger variety because I’ve traveled so much all over the world and wherever I’ve gone, either in Australia, America, or South Africa, the best and the worst that can be had in that direction was put at my disposal. Therefore when people come along and contradict me, who’ve had no experience at all, read little and perhaps never been to a seance you can imagine that I don’t take their opposition very seriously. When I talk on this subject I’m not talking about what I believe, I’m not talking about what I think, I’m talking about what I know. There’s an enormous difference, believe me, between believing a thing and knowing a thing, and talking about things that I’ve handled, that I’ve seen, that I’ve heard with my own ears. And always mind you in the presence of witnesses, I never risk hallucinations. I usually in most of my experiments have had six, eight or ten witnesses, all of whom have seen and heard the same things that I have done.

Gradually I became more and more convinced on the matter as I studied year in, year out, but it was only at the time of the War, when all these splendid young fellows were disappearing from our view, when the whole world was saying, “what’s become of them, where are they, what are they doing now? Have they dissipated into nothing, or are they still the grand fellas that we used to know?” It was only at that time that I realized the overpowering importance to the human race of knowing more about this matter.

Then it was that I flung myself more earnestly into it and that I felt the highest purpose that I could possibly devote the remainder of my life to, was trying to bring across to other people, something of that knowledge and assurance which I had acquired myself. Certainly, the results have justified me. I am quite sure I could fill a room of my house with the letters that I have received from people, telling me of the consolation which my writings on this subject, and my lectures on this subject, have given to them. How they have once more heard the sound of a vanished voice and felt the touch of the vanished hand.Well, goodbye.

The post NEW BOOK: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes! BONUS: VIDEO Interview with Arthur Conan Doyle on the Origin and Inspiration of Sherlock Holmes appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

#1: 20 Reasons To Believe Jesus FACTUALLY Rose from the Dead – #1 The Empty Tomb

Editor’s Note: I am currently blogging through my book Easter: Fact or Fiction, 20 Reasons to Believe Jesus Rose from the Dead. That book is available on Amazon by clicking the picture or link below. Please check it out!  (Scroll down for links to the other parts to this post)  (CLICK HERE FOR THE AMAZON LINK) 

“If my words fail to convince you, the empty tomb may”
– St. Jerome, 300s A.D.



“No one in Jerusalem would have believed the preaching for a minute if the tomb was not empty. Skeptics could have easily produced Jesus’ rotted corpse. Also, Paul could not be telling people in a public document that there were scores of eyewitnesses alive if there were not.”
– Tim Keller

A strong majority of scholars grant that the tomb of Jesus was found empty after his resurrection. Not all of those scholars actually believe that it was empty because of the resurrection, but they do grant its emptiness. Writing “a strong majority,” here is not an unsubstantiated claim, nor an exaggeration. Dr. Gary Habermas, one of the world’s foremost experts on the resurrection of Jesus (and my apologetics professor during seminary), has surveyed 3,400 scholars in this field, and he finds that upwards of 75 percent of them agree that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Even very skeptical scholars like Dr. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic at best, grants that it is almost certain that Jesus’ tomb was found empty three days after His burial, “We can conclude with some certainty that Jesus was in fact buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a tomb and that three days later the tomb was found empty.”

As a historical fact, the empty tomb is difficult to dispute. Consider how quickly the movement to worship Jesus began in Jerusalem, particularly after Pentecost when thousands joined the Jerusalem disciples. It is clear from both biblical accounts and other history that the Jewish authorities opposed this new “cult” that was following Jesus. Given that, why didn’t the authorities, utilizing their temple guard, go to the tomb of Jesus, roll the stone away, and produce the corpse of Jesus? Yes, His body might have been decomposed after a few weeks, but Jerusalem is in an arid area, and it would likely be dry enough inside the burial cave that the body of Jesus would have been quite recognizable. Except, there is literally not a single ancient account of such a thing happening, not even from the enemies and critics of nascent Christianity.

Perhaps you are familiar with the phrase, “a skeleton in the closet.” This metaphor refers to a situation where there is something hidden in one’s life that could be the undoing of that person. The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe, is perhaps the most famous fictional representation of the skeleton in the closet trope. In that Poe classic, one man murders another, and hides his body under the floorboards of his house. Police officers arrive the next day to investigate the scream of the murdered man as he died, but they see no evidence of foul play, and have a very casual discussion with the narrator of the story, who is the murderer. As the officers converse with the unnamed narrator, his guilt manifests so that he hears the heartbeat of the man he murdered, and that heartbeat gets louder and louder. Finally, just before the officers proceed to exit without suspicion, the guilty man breaks down, confesses his deed, and tells the officers where the body is hidden. Thus, the metaphorical skeleton in the closet is revealed to be an actual corpse hidden in the floor beams.

If skeptics of the resurrection of Jesus are correct, then the disciples in the first two decades after the death of Jesus also had a sort of skeleton in their closet. If the tomb of Jesus wasn’t TRULY and FACTUALLY empty, then the Jewish officials could have easily opened the tomb and demonstrated to all that Christianity had a great hidden secret: namely, that it’s founder did, in fact, die, and stayed dead as well. And yet, there is absolutely no historical record that demonstrates that anything like this happened. Indeed, in Matthew 28:15, it is recorded that, at the time of the publication of Matthew (2-4 decades after the resurrection of Jesus), the Jews were saying that the disciples stole Jesus away. There would be no reason whatsoever to make such a claim if the tomb of Jesus had been anything but empty.

Wouldn’t it have been far easier, if it were possible, to have produced the body of Jesus and just been done with it? That probably wouldn’t have turned away every ardent Christ-follower, but it sure would have done so for most of them. However, the presentation of Jesus’ body to His followers never happened, because there was certainly no body to produce. Even if a skeptic went along with the explanation of the Jewish Sanhedrin, that Jesus’ body was stolen by His disciples, that skeptic still must grapple with the reality that the disciples almost all died horrible deaths, refusing to recant their allegiance to Christ. That would be an absurd thing to do if they were the ones that propagated a false story regarding the resurrection of Jesus. The stolen body theory defies logic, and has no ancient historical evidence.

This hoax theory, (That the disciples perpetrated a scam by stealing the body of Jesus and acting like He rose from the dead) not only does not account for the extreme suffering/martyrdom endured by those who would have enacted the scheme, but also doesn’t propose a good reason FOR performing the hoax in the first place. What could their motive possibly have been? I have not read a good skeptical theory that proposed anything worthwhile that the disciples of Jesus could have gained by perpetuating a myth that He rose from the dead. While some unscrupulous pastors and teachers have, in modern times, grown wealthy by exploiting their followers, Jesus clearly didn’t engage in that behavior; He was largely homeless, and it seems that none of His followers ever became very wealthy, comfortable, or materially blessed due to their proximity to Jesus!

Philosopher William Paley, writing in the 1700s, asked a series of questions that would seem to provide some logical prima facie evidence that the resurrection was not a hoax by the followers of Jesus: “Would men in such circumstances pretend to have seen what they never saw; assert facts which they had no knowledge of; go about lying to teach virtue; and though not only convinced of Christ’s being an imposter… bring upon themselves, for nothing, and with full knowledge of the consequences, enmity and hatred, danger and death?”  It is highly unlikely that the disciples of Jesus would stick by their story of the resurrection unto their own deaths, unless they were thoroughly convinced that it actually happened beyond a shadow of a doubt.  (Chapter continued in the book) 

(Note: This is a partial preview of my book, you can continue reading FREE on Amazon via Kindle Unlimited, or you can purchase the book for a few pennies, OR you can find a friend reading it and take it when he isn’t looking!) 

Gary R. Habermas and Mike Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, ©2004), 30.

Bart Ehrman, “From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity,” Lecture 4: “Oral and Written Traditions about Jesus” (The Teaching Company, 2003)

William Paley, The Works of William Paley: Archdeacon of Carlisle: with a Life of Author Volume 1 (Palala Press, 2015), 1

 

Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew, ed. John Henry Newman, vol. 1 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841), 979.

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, ©2008), 203,

The post #1: 20 Reasons To Believe Jesus FACTUALLY Rose from the Dead – #1 The Empty Tomb appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

#2: 20 Reasons To Believe Jesus FACTUALLY Rose from the Dead – #2 Hysterical Women?

Editor’s Note: I am currently blogging through my book Easter: Fact or Fiction, 20 Reasons to Believe Jesus Rose from the Dead. That book is available on Amazon by clicking the picture or link below. Please check it out!  (Scroll down for links to the other parts to this post)  (CLICK HERE FOR THE AMAZON LINK) 

“But let not a single witness be credited; but three, or two at the least, and those such whose testimony is confirmed by their good lives. But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth”
– Jewish/Roman historian Josephus, pointing out the belief that women of his day should not testify in court

“In dealing with a crowd of women at least, or with any promiscuous mob, a philosopher cannot influence them by reason or exhort them to reverence, piety and faith; nay, there is need of religious fear also, and this cannot be aroused without myths and marvels”
– Strabo, a first century philosopher sharing a quite common view of women at the time: that they were immune to reason and comparable to a “promiscuous mob.”

Please don’t blame me. I don’t make the news, I only report it. In this case, the news is that the ancient world often had attitudes towards women that would be considered incredibly backwards, at best, in our current western culture. The quotes above, by Strabo and Josephus, are only the tip of the iceberg. Some more examples: In the Babylonian Talmud, the second century Rabbi Judah The Prince (who was not a wrestler, despite his WWE sounding name), said that male adherents of Judaism, “must recite three blessings every day: ‘Praised are you, O Lord, who has not made me a gentile,’ ‘Praised are you, O Lord, who did not make me a boor,’ and ‘Praised are you, O Lord, who did not make me a woman’ ” Lest you think Judah the Prince was an obscure figure in Judaism, I should point out that he was the chief editor of the Mishnah (oral Jewish law, in written form) and he was a primary leader of the Jewish community during the second century, where it was noted that he was a direct descendent of King David.

Speaking of the Misnah, one of the Rabbis found within testifies that, due to their menstrual issues, “women are not competent witnesses to be relied on…they are not halakhically admissible as reliable witnesses.” Similarly, witness this excerpt from the Jewish Women’s Archive Encyclopedia, “A particularly painful issue of difference between males and females (in the first century) is that of reliability in testimony. Women are not considered reliable witnesses when two kosher witnesses are needed, for example on monetary issues, capital crimes and sexual crimes… To some extent this is based on her reliability in counting her days of niddah (menstrual) impurity.”

I imagine some of you are mad right now, so let me just sneak in one other somewhat infuriating quote written by our backwards ‘friends’ from antiquity. Celsus was a Greek philosopher and an adamant opponent of Christianity who lived in the second century. Of the resurrection, and the fact that a woman was the first witness of the risen Jesus, Celsus opined:

“But we must examine this question whether anyone who really died ever rose again with the same body. Or do you think that the stories of these others really are the legends which they appear to be, and yet that the ending of your tragedy is to be regarded as noble and convincing—his cry from the cross when he expired, and the earthquake and the darkness? While he was alive he did not help himself, but after death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. But who saw this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of those who were deluded by the same sorcery, who either dreamt in a certain state of mind and through wishful thinking had a hallucination due to some mistaken notion, or, which is more likely, wanted to impress the others by telling this fantastic tale, and so by this cock-and-bull story to provide a chance for other beggars.”

As you can see here, Celsus’ major attack on the validity of the resurrection account is that it was first witnessed and propagated by a hysterical woman (Mary Magdalene) and, another “one of those,” who was “deluded by the same sorcery.” On behalf of women everywhere, I am offended for you! Be reminded that, though this backwards attitude towards women was staggeringly rampant in the first century, that was not the case with Jesus, the apostles, nor the early church. Perhaps you’ve imagined that the “Jesus Team” consisted of Jesus and the twelve disciples, and those thirteen went around from city to city healing the sick and sharing the good news. You’d be partly right, but the Jesus team was actually quite a bit larger than that, as there were a number (the Bible says “many) of women that also travelled with Jesus and had a critical role on the team, paying for lodging and expenses, etc. Jesus Himself was radical in the way He treated women, having multiple deep individual encounters with them at a time when it would be scandalously inappropriate for a Rabbi to have a one on one conversation with a female. Compare the New Testament to any other document of antiquity, and you will find that it was radically forward thinking in its ethos of women.

To be sure, in many cases, women were treated quite poorly in the earliest centuries, and were viewed in a way that does not comport with modern reality. I could add many other quotes to demonstrate this historical fact, but that is not necessary to make the primary and pertinent point here: having a female witness to something monumental in the first century might be a little bit…inconvenient, to say the least.

 As Josephus notes above, there were many cultures in antiquity where a woman was not allowed to testify in court. In other ancient cultures, they might have been allowed to testify, but their testimony would not have carried as much weight as the testimony of a man.  In some of those situations, where women were actually allowed to testify, it would take the testimony of two women to override the testimony of one man. Why is such a cultural issue critical in discussing the resurrection of Jesus? Because, according to Matthew 28, the first two witnesses to the risen Jesus were women, Mary Magdalene and “The other Mary.” Luke adds that Joanna was there, as well as “other women,” and seems to indicate that “the other” Mary, was Mary the mother of James.

 All four gospels, written down by different men, in different places and at different time periods ALL feature a female (Mary Magdalene) as the first witness of the resurrection of Jesus. That some gospels also mention the presence of other women is far from contradictory, but is the very essence of differing eyewitness testimony. Some details will be included by some authors, and omitted by others. The bottom line is this: women, several of them, were the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. Additionally, Mary Magdalene, perhaps the foremost of these female witnesses, had what might be considered a sketchy past: Jesus had driven not one, but SEVEN demons out of her at one point. All of this leads to an incredibly important question: If, in the first century, the testimony of women was not considered as reliable by any culture, why does the Bible clearly, and in great detail, portray women as being the first and primary witnesses to the risen Jesus? That question also begets another important question: How is it, given the assumed unreliability of women, that so many thousands of people eagerly believed the account of the resurrection of Jesus – many at the cost of their own lives?

Though it is not part of the Bible, and not considered Scripture, there is an apocryphal document called the Epistula Apostolorum, which dates to roughly 120 A.D. It is supposedly an eyewitness account of the apostles, and covers issues like the resurrection of Jesus, some of His parables, and several prophecies. This document contains a depiction of the resurrection, and contains extended dialog between Jesus and the women at the tomb. It is interesting, for the purposes of our discussion here, because it depicts what would have likely been the attitude of men in the first century to the proclamation of women that Jesus rose from the dead; specifically, it portrays the 11 remaining disciples utterly refusing to believe the testimony of the women until they actually see Jesus. I’m not posting this below because I am certain that this is a reliable record, written by the apostles, of what happened on the first Easter Sunday, but because it is a good example of how first century men would have viewed the testimony of women:

Concerning whom we testify that the Lord is he who was crucified by Pontius Pilate and Archelaus between the two thieves and was buried in a place which is called the place of a skull (Kranion). And thither went three women, Mary, she that was kin to Martha, and Mary Magdalene and took ointments to pour upon the body, weeping and mourning over that which was come to pass. And when they drew near to the sepulchre, they looked in and found not the body

10 And as they mourned and wept, the Lord showed himself unto them and said to them: For whom weep ye? weep no more. I am he whom ye seek. But let one of you go to your brethren and say: Come ye, the Master is risen from the dead.

 Martha came and told us. We said unto her: What have we to do with thee, woman? He that is dead and buried, is it possible that he should live? And we believed her not that the Saviour was risen from the dead. Then she returned unto the Lord and said unto him: None of them hath believed me, that thou livest. He said: Let another of you go unto them and tell them again. Mary came and told us again, and we believed her not; and she returned unto the Lord and she also told him.

11 Then said the Lord unto Mary and her sisters: Let us go unto them. And he came and found us within and called us out; but we thought that it was a phantom and believed not that it was the Lord. Then said he unto us: Come, fear ye not. I am your master, even he, O Peter, whom thou didst deny thrice; and dost thou now deny again? And we came unto him, doubting in our hearts whether it were he. Then said he unto us: Wherefore doubt ye still, and are unbelieving? I am he that spake unto you of my flesh and my death and my resurrection. But that ye may know that I am he, do thou, Peter, put thy finger into the print of the nails in mine hands, and thou also, Thomas, put thy finger into the wound of the spear in my side; but thou, Andrew, look on my feet and see whether they press the earth; for it is written in the prophet: A phantom of a devil maketh no footprint on the earth. 12 And we touched him, that we might learn of a truth whether he were risen in the flesh; and we fell on our faces (and worshipped him) confessing our sin, that we had been unbelieving. 

 What a fascinating passage, and almost humorous in its depictions of the disciples utterly refusing to listen to the female witnesses! The only possible rational reason that the Bible depicts women as the first witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus (and prominent witnesses at His crucifixion) is that it factually happened. The depiction of these women as witnesses to what should be considered the most monumental event in the history of the world, makes no sense whatsoever if the biblical accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are invented or even embellished.  

 Here’s why: There are perhaps five main theories about who Jesus was which can be summed up with the five “M’s” used by Southern Evangelical Seminary President Alex Mcfarland. Was Jesus merely a MYTH? That is, was he a legendary sort of character that was invented whole cloth by the lower class culture of Jerusalem who were seeking a hero to look up to? Or, was Jesus a MAN, simply a great teacher, who lived a great life and had a great influence on people, but nothing more than a special, and mortal, human being. In this view, either the followers of Jesus held Him in much higher esteem than they should have, or Jesus Himself had the most remarkable delusions of grandeur in history.

A third option is that Jesus was a MYSTIC, that is to say that perhaps He did possess some form of esoteric knowledge and power that elevated Him over the rest of humanity. Perhaps He was something more than merely a man, perhaps a first century alchemist of sorts, or even something like a mutant from comic book fame. Under this theory, Jesus wasn’t God, nor was He immortal; and He certainly wasn’t able to save humanity, but He was something more than an average person. A fourth possibility is that Jesus was/is a MISREPRESENTATION. This theory, popularized by writers like Dan “Da Vinci Code” Brown, posits that the church (or some other body) deified Jesus long after His death, and magnified Him and His accomplishments, in some sort of bid to gain power and control people. In this view, Jesus was merely a teacher that got heavily promoted after His lifetime into something more.

 MESSIAH or MASTER is the final possibility of who Jesus was and is. That is, that Jesus is everything the Bible claims Him to be – He is the son of God, the King of Kings, and the savior of Israel and all of humanity. Really, aside from ridiculous theories (Jesus was an alien, etc.) those are the five options as to who Jesus was. If He literally and historically rose from the dead, then several of those possibilities are eliminated outright.

In light of those potential identities of Jesus, ponder this question: Why invent and insert women as the first witnesses on Easter morning if the resurrection was a myth, or intentional deception? There is no plausible reason for the women to be portrayed as witnesses of this event, except for the simplest reason of all: it really happened that way. If the early church was simply inventing the story of Jesus’ resurrection, wouldn’t it have made far more sense to utilize a prominent and well respected witness? Perhaps somebody like Joseph of Arimathea, or even Simon the Pharisee, or Nicodemus, a Pharisee AND member of the ruling council – any of these (and dozens of others) would make for more believable and impacting witnesses, if one wants to allege that the disciples, or some other group fabricated the story of Jesus resurrection.

 In N.T. Wright’s epic book on the resurrection of Jesus, he states this case quite brilliantly. Consider well his questions, and the implications of their answers:

Even if we suppose that Mark made up most of his material, and did so some time in the late 60s at the earliest, it will not do to have him, or anyone else at that stage, making up a would-be apologetic legend about an empty tomb and having women be the ones who find it. The point has been repeated over and over in scholarship, but its full impact has not always been felt: women were simply not acceptable as legal witnesses. We may regret it, but this is how the Jewish world (and most others) worked. The debate between Origen and Celsus shows that critics of Christianity could seize on the story of the women in order to scoff at the whole tale; were the legend-writers really so ignorant of the likely reaction? If they could have invented stories of fine, upstanding, reliable male witnesses being first at the tomb, they would have done it. That they did not tells us either that everyone in the early church knew that the women, led by Mary Magdalene, were in fact the first on the scene, or that the early church was not so inventive as critics have routinely imagined, or both. Would the other evangelists have been so slavishly foolish as to copy the story unless they were convinced that, despite being an apologetic liability, it was historically trustworthy?

Montague Rhode James in The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1924), pp. 485-503

Alex McFarland, The 10 Most Common Objections to Christianity (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, ©2007), 111-14.

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), 607–608.

Jacob Neusner, The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, vol. 19 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011), 230.

Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstructions of Biblical Gender, Contraversions (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, ©2000), 275.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/...

James Stevenson, A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337 (London: SPCK, 1987), 133.

This is mentioned in Luke 8:2. The idea that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute is not actually found in the Bible. It was possibly Pope Gregory the Great, in a sermon from 591 A.D., that first put forward the idea that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.

Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 117.

Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, ©2002), 270

(Note: This is a partial preview of my book, you can continue reading FREE on Amazon via Kindle Unlimited, or you can purchase the book for a few pennies, OR you can find a friend reading it and take it when he isn’t looking!) 

The post #2: 20 Reasons To Believe Jesus FACTUALLY Rose from the Dead – #2 Hysterical Women? appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.

#3: 20 Reasons To Believe Jesus FACTUALLY Rose from the Dead – #3 The Crucifixion Stigma

Editor’s Note: I am currently blogging through my book Easter: Fact or Fiction, 20 Reasons to Believe Jesus Rose from the Dead. That book is available on Amazon by clicking the picture or link below. Please check it out!  (Scroll down for links to the other parts to this post)  (CLICK HERE FOR THE AMAZON LINK) 

The Alexamenos graffito from roughly 200ad. One of the earliest surviving depictions of Jesus is a bit of graffiti scratched on a wall in Rome! The Greek inscription reads, “Alexamenos worships his God,” and is likely meant to both make fun of Jesus, and to make fun of people who were crucified. The donkey head is part of the reviling, and reveals what the Romans thought of crucifixion.

 

“The shameful embarrassment of Jesus’ crucifixion and the horror of his death are now surmounted as light banishes darkness at the dawn of this new day, the first day of the new era of salvation” – Augustine

Can you name ONE person, other than Jesus, that was crucified? I suppose some might think of Peter, the apostle and disciple of Jesus. Per numerous early historical reports, including the apocryphal Acts of Peter (180 A.D.?), Peter was indeed crucified. He was possibly crucified upside down, but likely NOT because he didn’t consider himself worthy of being crucified like Jesus. According to church history, Other than him, I suspect that the vast majority of people don’t know anybody that was crucified other than Jesus. Because of that, many readers might be quite surprised to find out that Jesus was not the only person crucified in antiquity; the practice was surprisingly common. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus records multiple incidences in which hundreds, even thousands of people were crucified on the same day, and not just by the Romans! At least six civilizations in antiquity were known to execute criminals by crucifixion, including the Jewish people themselves. In fact, Hasmonean Jewish king and high priest Alexander Jannaeus, the son of high priest/king John Hyrcanus, had hundreds of his own people butchered for opposing him during the Judean Civil War of the 90s B.C. Josephus describes the aftermath of that war here

“The Jews fought against Alexander, and being beaten were slain in great numbers in the several battles which they had, (380) and when he had shut up the most powerful of them in the city Bethome, he besieged them therein; and when he had taken the city, and gotten the men into his power, he brought them to Jerusalem, and did one of the most barbarous actions in the world to them; for as he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut before their eyes”

Years later, almost 40 years after the death of Jesus, The Roman general Titus launched a severe siege against Jerusalem. During that campaign, all who attempted to leave Jerusalem were caught and crucified by the Roman army – sometimes as many as 500 PER DAY, according to Josephus, who was present at the destruction of Jerusalem. Crucifixion was common during ancient times, it was dreaded, and it was anything but a glorious way to do. The worst criminals and the most hated enemies were crucified

 In the United States, we have a constitutional provision that bars utilizing “cruel and unusual” punishment on people. Being crucified on a cross is without question a form of cruel and unusual punishment. It is not the nails that kill, but ultimately, a form of suffocation. Crucifixion is designed to last a very long time – sometimes days – and involves the one being crucified slowly losing his ability to breathe as his arms and legs become too exhausted to push up and draw in air. You and I don’t think about breathing very much – it is a function of our autonomic nervous system, and thus happens without conscious thought. On the cross, however, one is aware of every breath, and each one is agony filled. One must push up on both arms and legs, extending out just enough to get in a breath, and then relax. It is agonizing to do so when tied to a cross; it is painful beyond enduring to do so when nailed to a cross.

The horrors of the cross have been largely sanitized in the church today. Even though most have seen a dozen or more dramatizations of Jesus dying, most have been toned down, and don’t really show all that Jesus likely suffered. Seneca the younger, a Roman statesman who lived during the time of Jesus, described crucifixion this way in his work Of Consolation: To Marcia.

“I see before me crosses not all alike, but differently made by different peoples: some hang a man head downwards, some force a stick upwards through his groin, some stretch out his arms on a forked gibbet. I see cords, scourges, and instruments of torture for each limb and each joint: but I see Death also.”

 There would likely be a large and very upsetting amount of blood spilling from Jesus. The crown of thorns, with one inch or more protrusions, would make deep holes in an area that is absolutely filled with blood vessels. His back would be bleeding profusely from the lashing with the cat of nine tails. The nail wounds on Jesus’ wrists and feet would also be bleeding, as first century nails would not be quite as sharp and clean-edged as the nails we have now. And, as noted by Seneca above, it is conceivable that Jesus was stuck through with sticks. All of this blood would be highly upsetting to behold and also incredibly obvious and visible, because the majority of the time the Romans crucified their victims without any clothing whatsoever. Think of the embarrassment and agony of that situation: bleeding profusely, wracked with muscle cramps and pain beyond the ability of the toughest person to endure, having to push up on strained and shredded muscles to just simply get a single breath…and doing it all NAKED. How utterly astounding that the king of the universe would stoop so low.

And now consider, given the gut-shredding horrors of the crucifixion, how it came about that followers of Jesus glorified and worshipped Him as the son of God afterwards. If you deny the resurrection, what could you possibly propose in its place that would be strong enough to erase the memory of the crucifixion to the point that the early church worshipped Jesus?

Consider also Willie Francis. Whom, you might ask? One of the first things you will note about Willie Francis is that millions of people don’t worship him, and yet he shares a few things in common with Jesus. Willie was convicted of murder in Louisiana in 1945 for an act that he allegedly committed when he was 15. Despite the fact that he was underage; despite the fact that he was not tried by a jury of his peers (his jury was all white); despite the fact that most of the physical evidence against Willie disappeared; and despite the fact that the gun used to kill the victim actually belonged to a deputy sheriff that had threatened to kill the victim in the past – despite all of those things, Willie Francis was convicted and electrocuted in May of 1946. Only, he didn’t die. Francis was one of the few people that have ever survived a round with the electric chair, and he did so due to a drunk guard setting things up improperly. Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it wasn’t cruel and unusual to re-execute a teenager, and Francis was re-executed in May of 1947.

Aside from the multiple and disgusting racial injustices of that situation, I need to point out to you that nobody worshipped Francis during that year after his first execution attempt failed. Nobody tried to start a religion around him, or anything like that. Similarly, no religion has started around John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee, nor Joseph Samuel, despite the fact that both men survived multiple hanging attempts. Why not? Why not venerate, honor and worship people like Lee, Francis and Samuel? Because…that would be incredibly odd to worship a convicted criminal who somehow managed to escape death. Take away the resurrection, and it is unexplainably strange, to worship Jesus of Nazareth. Sure – he was a great teacher. Socrates was a great teach also, and he was also unjustly killed, but nobody is going to roll up to First Socrates Baptist church this Sunday and celebrate Easter, are they? I submit that it is very difficult to explain why so many Christians followed Jesus after His terribly bloody, painful, and embarrassing crucifixion if there was not a literal and actual resurrection that took place three days later.

If you’d like a demonstration of how odd it is that somebody would worship a man crucified on a cross, then try wearing a flashy gold electric chair necklace sometime, and when people ask you about it, tell them that you worship an executed criminal. The look on their face will tell you all you need to know about how first century Jews would have responded to claims about Jesus if He didn’t literally and truly rise from the dead.

From the Acts of Peter, Chapter 38, it is apparent that Peter asked to be crucified upside down because He wanted to demonstrate that fallen humanity had been restored to order by Jesus’ death on the cross. Here is Peter’s speech from that book (which is not Scripture): “And when they had hanged him up after the manner he desired, he began again to say: Ye men unto whom it belongeth to hear, hearken to that which I shall declare unto you at this especial time as I hang here. Learn ye the mystery of all nature, and the beginning of all things, what it was. For the first man, whose race I bear in mine appearance (or, of the race of whom I bear the likeness), fell (was borne) head downwards, and showed forth a manner of birth such as was not heretofore: for it was dead, having no motion. He, then, being pulled down -who also cast his first state down upon the earth- established this whole disposition of all things, being hanged up an image of the creation (Gk. vocation) wherein he made the things of the right hand into left hand and the left hand into right hand, and changed about all the marks of their nature, so that he thought those things that were not fair to be fair, and those that were in truth evil, to be good. Concerning which the Lord saith in a mystery: Unless ye make the things of the right hand as those of the left, and those of the left as those of the right, and those that are above as those below, and those that are behind as those that are before, ye shall not have knowledge of the kingdom.”

Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 361.

Arthur A. Just, ed., Luke, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 373.

(Note: This is a partial preview of my book, you can continue reading FREE on Amazon via Kindle Unlimited, or you can purchase the book for a few pennies, OR you can find a friend reading it and take it when he isn’t looking!) 

The post #3: 20 Reasons To Believe Jesus FACTUALLY Rose from the Dead – #3 The Crucifixion Stigma appeared first on ChaseAthompson.com.