How do we know if the testimonies preserved about Jesus in the New Testament Gospels were intended to be taken as historical testimony in the first place? It is possible, after all, that the Gospels that came to be included in the New Testament were never meant to describe actual occurrences. Perhaps they were written […]
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Apologetics: Were the Stories of Jesus Based on Pagan Myths?
It’s an accusation that’s been around a long time. Even in ancient times, critics of Christianity noticed some parallels between Christian beliefs and pre-Christian myths. In the late second century, a philosopher named Celsus charged, “The Christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, of the Auge and Antiope in fabricating this story of […]
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Apologetics: Which Canon Contains the Right Books?
Believing What Jesus Believed About the Old Testament Canon Different communities of people who call themselves Christians use different Old Testaments. Here’s what I mean: Everyone agrees about thirty-nine of the texts in the Old Testament, but—if you attended Mass in a Roman Catholic congregation this weekend—the Old Testament readings would come from a canon […]
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Apologetics: Did Cornelius Van Til Really Teach that Non-Christians Know Nothing?
I am not a Van Tilian presuppositionalist. I am, however, sympathetic with many aspects of Cornelius Van Til’s approach. Over the past few years, I have—to the best of my knowledge—read every book and syllabus that Van Til wrote related to apologetics. Even after reading several thousand pages of Cornelius Van Til’s writings, I do […]
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Apologetics: Fragments of Otherwise Unknown Gospels
Gnostic Gospels and other unorthodox texts receive a lot of attention in popular media. The Gospel of Judas and the forged Gospel of Jesus’ Wife both became major news stories, for example, and a wide array of Gnostic texts are mentioned in novels like The Da Vinci Code that feed on bizarre conspiracy theories. It’s worth remembering, however, that there are […]
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Apologetics: An Overlooked Difference between the New Testament Gospels and Gnostic Gospels
Richard Bauckham points out a distinction between the New Testament Gospels and most of the Gnostic Gospels which—while rather obvious when one reads the Gnostic Gospels—is frequently overlooked: The [New Testament] Gospels are biographical narratives whereas most of the Gnostic Gospels are post-resurrection revelations. Typically in Gnostic Gospels Jesus appears to the disciples after the […]
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Apologetics: The Providence of God in Persecution
In his article “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?,” Richard Bauckham points out that a small minority group experiencing alienation and opposition in its immediate social context could compensate for its precarious minority position locally by a sense of solidarity with fellow believers elsewhere and a sense of being part of a worldwide movement destined […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Three Chords and the Truth Live with Five Oaks Church
In this special episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast, Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey join the student ministry at Five Oaks Church, a radical band of young believers who gather near the metropolis of Minneapolis in the wild and crazy land of Minnesota. Students from Five Oaks Church ask questions […]
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Advent: The Difficult Discipline of Celebrating the Waiting
Once upon a time, there was a season in the church year known as “Advent.” The word comes to us from the Latin for “coming.” The purpose of the season was to anticipate; the coming of Christ to earth; it was a season that focused on waiting.
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Family Ministry: DiscipleGuide Church Leaders Cruise
Interested in apologetics and family ministry? If so, then you’re likely to be interested in this upcoming conference. God willing, I will be part of an experience in January 2018 that will bring together apologetics and family ministry in a way that will equip you and your church’s staff for far more effective future ministry.
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Blog: Most-Read Posts of 2016 and Plans for 2017
Around twenty-seven thousand people racked up nearly one hundred thousand views of this blog in 2016. If you were one of them, thank you! Since there are no advertisements on my site, I don’t profit from any of the content. And so, if you’ve profited from what I’ve written, please consider purchasing a book (or two […]
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Culture: Iron Man 2 and the Metanarrative of God
This exploration of Iron Man 2 is the fourth in a series of posts exploring theological themes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can find the rest of the series here. I recommend using VidAngel to filter the content of this film for your family. Every part of Tony Stark seems to have been forged in […]
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Apologetics: Was Jesus Married?
Ariel Sabar, writing for The Atlantic, has presented clear and convincing evidence that the so-called Gospel of Jesus’ Wife is a forgery. Dr. Karen King unveiled the fragment in 2012 and suggested that the Coptic text came from a fourth-century copy of an otherwise-unknown second-century Gospel. The clause that gave the fragment its name was found […]
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Apologetics: Early Testimonies about the New Testament Gospels
In an earlier blog post, I explored the evidence that the four New Testament Gospels were linked with the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from the time they first began to circulate in the churches. In this post, I want to dig a bit deeper into specific first- and second-century testimonies about the authorship of the […]
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Apologetics: Who Really Wrote the Gospels?
So who really wrote the Gospels? How do we know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John dictated the books that bear their names? According to skeptics, these four first-century personalities had little or nothing to do with the four New Testament Gospels. One scholar of the more skeptical sort has described the process in this way:
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Apologetics: Were the Gospels Written While the Eyewitnesses Were Still Alive?
“The four Gospels that made it into the official canon were chosen,” Richard Dawkins declares in The God Delusion, “more or less arbitrarily, out of a larger sample of at least a dozen including the Gospels of Thomas, Peter, Nicodemus, Bartholomew, and Mary Magdalene. … The Gospels that didn’t make it were omitted by…ecclesiastics perhaps because […]
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Church History: Why the Story of Our Faith Is Bigger and Better Than Facts and Dates
The following is the second half of an interview I did with Baptist Press related to my book and DVD-curriculum, Christian History Made Easy. Click here for the first half. Q: Why is the average person in the pew largely uninformed about church history? A: I think there are at least a couple of reasons: 1) Particularly among […]
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Church History: Who Decided Which Books Belong in My Bible?
Suppose that you became a Christian in the second century A.D. You’ve heard the story of a divine being who died on a cross and rose from the dead. Through baptism, you’ve openly identified yourself with his followers. Now, you want to learn more about this deity. Yet you quickly realize that some people who […]
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Church History: How Christianity Happened
Easter is certainly a time for celebration, but it is also a time for solemn reflection. We fast and reflect during the season of Lent, then we celebrate the joy of the resurrection on Easter sunday. But what about after Easter? What then? The church has traditionally recognized the season following Easter as a time […]
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Apologetics: Did Christians Create Their Faith Or Did the Faith Form Christians?
What factors actually formed the New Testament and the faith of the early church? Conspiratorial reconstructions suggest that church leaders selected texts that preserved and expanded their own political powers. If so, what shaped the early church were books and theological beliefs that were chosen with the goal of control. The problem is, the […]
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