More reasons we can trust the Disciple's accounts

1) In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says "not I, but the Lord" - they learned Jesus' message and quoted Him and distinguished between Jesus' teaching/words and their own.

2) "Son of Man" was a self designation of Jesus in the gospels. If the early church had made up that title, we would expect to see it throughout the rest of the New Testament writings.

3) The early church sprung up with THOUSANDS being added at the Day of Pentecost. They were witnesses to the events or had access to the facts that could have refuted the resurrection if they existed.

4) The disciples gave up their lives for their message. Would you expect someone to die for a message they KNEW was false? No.

Some reasons we can trust the Disciple's accounts (Gospels)

1) A Disciple's training WAS memory work. Disciples were ready to graduate from their rabbi when they could quote the rabbi verbatim.

2)It was acceptable to condense or summarize a story but not to add to it.

3) Students kept written records. Rabbi EE Ellis said "if your rabbi is teaching and you have no paper, write it on your sleeve."

4) Jesus spoke in poetry - the rhyming rabbi - making him easier to remember.

5) The events were memorable, making them stay fresh in the mind.

6) As an oral society, they were better at remembering spoken words.

7) The early church regarded the writings of the apostles as scripture and "protected" them.
Tertullian, when writing about baptism, said "if the writing that wrongly go under Paul's name" (The Acts of Paul)
[my apology for not knowing the following fellow's name - I got this item from a speech] Tekel (sp) wrote using Paul's name as author and was removed from church office - disciplined for fabricating the text.

Caring about TRUTH

"If God exists, then he is the measure of all things, and what he thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think. Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God-centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God. What is false is anti-God. Indifference to the truth is indifference to the mind of God. Pretense is rebellion against reality, and what makes reality reality is God. Or concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God. and all this is rooted in God's concern with God, or God's passion for the glory of God."

John Piper, "God's Passion..." p97

C.S. Lewis - our desires are too weak

C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory wrote
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (p2, GPFHG 81)

Heady stuff from Jonathon Edwards on the Trinity and revelatin

I'll find longer/better quotes to flesh this out another day - may you be edified anyway :-)

Jonathon Edwards, in his "The Miscellanies" wrote:
God is glorified within Himself these two ways: 1. By appearing ... to Himself in His own perfect idea [of Himself], or in His Son, who is the brightness of His glory. 2. By enjoying and delighting in Himself, by flowing forth in infinite love and delight towards Himself, or in his Holy Spirit ... So God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways; 1. By appearing to ... their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He made of Himself ... God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory,; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God's glory [doesn't] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it. (GPFHG 79)

Later in "God's Passion for His Glory" (p84), John Piper wrote two paragraphs fleshing out Edwards discussion of the Trinity:

The Son of God is the eternal idea or image that God has of himself. And the image that he has of himself is so perfect and so complete and so full as to be the living, personal reproduction (or begetting) of God the Father. And this living , personal image or radiance or form of God is God, namely, God the Son. And therefore God the Son is coeternal with God the Father and equal in essence and glory.

And between the Son and the Father there arises eternally and infinitely holy personal communion of love. "The divine essence itself flows out and is, as it were, breathed forth in love and joy. So that the Godhead therein stands forth in yet another manner of subsistence, and there proceeds the third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit."

The Son is the standing forth of God knowing himself perfectly, and the Spirit is the standing forth of God loving himself perfectly. ... I saw a more profound unity in the nature of things than I had ever imagined.

The need for Theology and its goal (cont)

"the strong timber of the tree of evangelicalism has historically been the great doctrines of the Bible - God's glorious perfections, man's fallen nature, the wonders of redemptive history, the magnificent work of redemption in Christ, the saving and sanctifying work of grace in the soul, the great mission of the church in conflict with the world and the flesh and the devil, and the greatness of our hope in everlasting joy at God's right hand. These things once defined us and were the strong fiber and timber beneath the fragile leaves and fruit of our religious experiences. But this is the case less and less. And that is why the waving leaves of success and the sweet fruit of prosperity are not a auspicious to David Wells and Os Guinness as they are to many. It is a hollow triumph, and the tree is getting weaker and weaker while the branches are waving in the sun. (Piper, GPFHG 78)

The need for Theology and its goal

In "Fit Bodies Fat Minds, Os Guiness wrote:
the present state of American evangelicalism is appalling. As a spiritually and theologically defined community of faith, evangelicalism is weak or next to nonexistent; as a subculture, it is stronger but often embarrassing and downright offensive.

In "Losing our Virtue", David Wells wrote:
Twenty five years ago ... theology was a more honorable word, and there was a sense of mission that was infectious. That was the day when the trees that stood tall in this world were usually made so by their theological conviction and not simply by their money, size of their church, ... there has nevertheless come a hollowing out of evangelical conviction, a loss of the biblical Word in it authoritative function, and an erosion of character... (GPFHG 78)

Piper:The great end of all study - all theology - is a heart for God and a life of holiness. (GPFHG 75)

Worship

John Piper:
The basic movement of worship on Sunday morning is not to come with our hands full to give to God, as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25), but to come with our hands empty, to receive from God. And what we receive in worship is the fullness of God, not the feelings of entertainment. We ought to come hungry for God. We should come saying, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. ...." (Ps. 42:1-2). God is mightily honored when a people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God.
.... If the focus in corporate worship shifts onto our giving to God, one result I have seen again and again is that subtly it is not God that remains at the center but the quality of our giving.
(GPFHG 41 bold added)

Hell

John Piper:
Hell is unspeakably real, conscious, horrible and eternal - the experience in which God vindicates the worth of his glory in holy wrath on those who would not delight in what is infinitely glorious. If infinitely valuable glory has been spurned, and the offer of eternal joy in God has been finally rejected, an indignity against God has been committed so despicable as to merit eternal suffering. (GPFHG 38)

Jonathon Edwards has a sermon dedicated to the justification of hell:
Wicked Men Useful in Their Destructin Only
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.destruction.html
Proverbs 16:4 "The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble." (ESV)




Footnote: GPFHG stands for God's Passion for His Glory. Any quote prior to page 125 is from the preface written by John Piper. Starting at page 125 is Edwards work " The End for Which God Created the World"

God's love for you

"The love of God for sinners is not his making much of them, but his graciously freeing and empowering them to enjoy making much of him." (Piper GPFHG 35)

"True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with ... the things of God. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites in in a contrary order: they first rejoice ... that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them." (Jonathon Edwards GPFHG 35)

Evan:
Do we love God as God or do we love Him as the one who "cares so much about ME"?
Do we see His infinite beauty or do we think we are beautifully and, so, he makes much of us?

Cosmic treason - the seriousness of sin

If I stomp on an ant, (most) people won’t care.
If I trap/kill a mouse, (most) people won’t care.
If I kick a pet dog, more people will be concerned. (Michael Vick got jail time.)
If I behave that way toward a child, I will be put in jail.
If I JUST PLAN to hurt the President of the US, I would be in BIG trouble.

The greater the stature of the creature, the greater the offense.
The perfect, glorious, creator God is INFINITELY holy. Therefore, rebellious activity (sin) against "that" God is correspondingly greatly offensive.

It is cosmic treason.
We underestimate God's glory and we overestimate our worth.

An atheist friend recently wrote, "If someone were to reject this perfect being, that would be no skin of its back. It would let them choose." He sees his sin as too small and he see God as too inconsequential.

God's glory shown in mercy

John Piper:
God's righteousness is his unwavering commitment to uphold and display the infinite worth of his glory in all that he does, which would seem to require punishment for all who have "fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). But since God's righteousness (his commitment to his glory) and his mercy (his commitment to our joy) are not ultimately at odds, he made a way to "be both just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26) GPFHG p. 33

Evan:
God created this universe and the angelic dimension to show forth (exhibit) all of His attributes.

As a Trinity, God already had/displayed love. This may be why the Bible says that “God is love”. However, there would be no display of judgment, wrath or mercy.

If the goal of creation is to display forth all of the attributes in their perfection, His numerous attributes WILL be shown in their perfection. Thus, there both heaven and hell, mercy and judgment.

Praising God

C.S. Lewis wrote
"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." (Reflections on the Psalms p.95 GPFHG)

We quickly and gladly tell people about a good restaurant we've eaten at.
We are excited to talk of a quality movie.

How much more should we be caught up in the joy of knowing the creator of the universe. The sustainer of all things. The savior of our souls who indwells us and promises an eternity with Him!
------------------------------------------------
I found this story among my father’s belongings:
Betty, aged four, was taken by her governess to have tea with an aunt.
Presently she began to eat a piece of very rich cake.

“Oh, I just love this chocolate cake!” she exclaimed. “It’s awfully nice.”

"Betty, dear” corrected her governess, “it is wrong to say you love cake,
and I’ve frequently pointed out that ‘just’ is wrongly used in such a sentence.
Again, ‘awfully’ is quite wrong, ‘very’ would be more correct, dear.
Now repeat your remark, please.”

Betty obediently repeated: “I like chocolate cake; it is very good.”
“That’s better, dear,” said the governess, approvingly.
“But it sounds as if I was talking about bread,” protested the little girl.


We have the treasure of God incarnate, the indwelling Holy Spirit, adoption as children of God – do we SHOW IT?