Acts 1:3
To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.
We live in a period where alleged “biblical scholars” are busily fleshing out the description Paul gives of fallen humanity in Romans 1:22: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” How? By proposing lame theories about the “historical Jesus” so preposterous that one can only wonder why such a figure as this New Improved Jesus could have inspired so much passion for 2000 years. And so, as I pointed out in my book By What Authority?, such “scholars” ask to “believe that the Misunderstood Sage of Nazareth was a figure so riveting, inspiring, charismatic and mesmerizing that he galvanized a movement of deeply devoted disciples into the energetic process of ignoring everything he said and did, utterly forgetting his unforgettable oratory and replacing it with reams of quotations having the precise historical value of a fever dream.” We might add that they also went on to endure exile, isolation, hardship, pressure, trial, persecution and death (and to watch their loved ones go through it too), all for the sake of something such scholars tend to call the “Christ Event”, a nameless, formless, Something or Other that really impressed the disciples but which we dare not speak of too directly lest we begin to believe what they believed: that this man Jesus was very God, risen from death and now Lord of the Universe. For that is what the disciples who handled the Risen Christ with their hands, who ate with him and heard him speak, had to say. Not a word about a warm and fuzzy “Christ Event”. But a rushing, glad, breathless tiding that they had seen God die on a cross, that they had seen him alive for forty days, and that he was now King in heaven for our salvation and coming again! That good news is still astonishing, still good, still news, and still true.
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