Faith in Jesus consists of a deeply intimate relationship, a
personal friendship, with him and thus with the Father. And for this relationship to blossom in those
who don’t know him, I am convinced that getting to know God is facilitated by recognizing
that it is reasonable to conclude he exists and has communicated a desire for a
relationship with each of us.
In the last series, we tackled the question of why Christ had to
die. Now we will consider the case for his
subsequent Resurrection. And once again we rely on the scientific approach of
Critical Rationality. Belief in the Resurrection of Jesus, given the historical
record, is the most reasonable of all conclusions one can come to. This does not mean, however, that those-who-don’t-know-God will be
reasonable. Yet upholding reasonableness -coupled with prayer - is the best strategy
for reaching them.
The primary resources for the content of this series are: The Reason For God, by Timothy Keller
and an essay, Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins by N. T. Wright.
The
Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is central to Christianity. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, well
then, we are free to ignore anything and everything that he said. However, if
Jesus did rise from the dead, then we
are compelled by that fact to accept
all that he said. Christianity
challenges us less by Christ’s radical teachings than by the question of
whether or not he rose from the dead.
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