Letter from an Apostle – II: Known & Chosen

An ongoing study of the epistle 1 Peter.

  1. Letter from an Apostle – Background

  • 1:1 — This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the lands of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, the province of Asia, and Bithynia.

The apostle Peter, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus, appears frequently throughout the Gospels and the book of Acts. He was a fisherman, chosen by Jesus, and one of the inner circle of the disciples. He was present at the transfiguration of Jesus; in the garden of Gethsemane; at his trial, where he denied Jesus; and was appointed by Jesus to lead his Church. By declaring himself an apostle (apostolos)– a specific claim to have been appointed directly by Christ to teach and lead His Church — Peter is declaring his authority to speak on behalf of Christ Himself.

He addresses his epistle to those “chosen” of God and “foreigners”, in areas located in modern-day Turkey. The imagery here is strikingly similar to that used of the Jewish people, who also were spoken of God’s chosen people, many of whom represented a diaspora spread throughout the ancient world.

We do not know if Peter was writing to these churches which he himself had founded, or to Christians whom he had evangelized, or whether he was speaking to those he had never met, in his office as the chief of the apostles. He does not mention specific individuals — unlike many of Paul’s letters — which may suggest he himself had not founded these churches.
 

The use of the term “foreigners” (or “sojourners” or “pilgrims”) speaks to those who are not natives in the land in which they dwell. This suggests that these were either converted Jews of the Diaspora (for Peter was the apostle to the Jews), or perhaps Gentile Christians who had emigrated to Asia minor. As Peter will develop later in the epistle, however, there is also a sense of the Christian in the world as a pilgrim: a foreigner traveling to a world not his own, while a citizen of heaven.

  • 1:2a — God the Father knew you and chose you long ago…

“God the Father…”

This is shockingly and intensely personal. It is not God the Creator; God the lawgiver; God of judgment; God unapproachable, inscrutable, unknown. This is family: this God, although vastly above us and beyond our understanding, nevertheless considers us children, family, friends. This is a stunning contrast to the religions of this and every age, with gods either mythical, or vengeful, or distant and impersonal. This is a God of profound love, of tenderness, of mercy, of gentleness; a teacher, a guardian, a guide, a defender. Even among the Jews, who worshiped and served the same God, there was no sense of such intimate personality; theirs was the Yahweh of Sinai and the burning bush, a God to be feared and obeyed but surely not befriended. The God whom Peter came to know through Jesus Christ was an utterly new revelation, a profound paradigm shift in man’s understanding of God.

“God the Father knew you…”

We are known: intimately, throughout eternity, in every moment and every aspect of our lives. This is not mere familiarity, nor faint acquaintance: this is full, complete, transparent knowledge, that of the Creator fully comprehending His own creation.

We are known: in all our greed and selfishness; in our gossip and backstabbing; in our anger, and deceit, and hatred, and arrogance. The God of eternity, transcending time, knows our every moment, our every thought, our every action, our birth and death and all that lies between. “Every hair on your head is counted” — there is naught that is hidden, every corner of your soul, every cell of your body is known by God, throughout eternity.

We are known: not only in our deep rebellion and sinfulness, but in the glory which we might bring Him, and His purposes which we may serve. We are known in our fullest and highest potential; the goodness which God can bring about when we are once again restored to Him, empowered by Him, guided and gifted through Him. In this too we are known.

We are creatures of time; we have a beginning, and an end, and the sequence of minutes, hours, and days which pass between, one after another. Yet the God who knows us is above and outside time; He is eternal, unbounded by that which He has created. Every moment of our lives is now for God; He inhabits our past, our future, our eternity with Him yet to come: these are present to Him, who transcends time and redeems it.

“God the Father knew you and chose you…”

To be chosen: to be accepted in whole, unreservedly, unconditionally. This is the very deepest need of man; our rejection by God and man fosters an endless parade of human misery, suffering, pathos and pathology. Our entire lives are spent seeking the acceptance of others, and failing to find in them the acceptance which is our very life. Deep within each of us dwells a bottomless abyss, into which we pour an endless train of insufficient and destructive detritus. We seek to fill the abyss with material goods; with drugs, or alcohol, or food, or sex; we seek relationships, hoping through them to fill that void — then destroy those relationships when they fail to accomplish what they are utterly incapable of fulfilling. Neither power, nor money, nor eminence, nor the esteem of others will suffice. Only to be chosen by God; to be accepted, fully, unconditionally, eternally by Him: this alone fills the despondent destitution within — for that emptiness was made to be filled with naught but God Himself.

And we are chosen, not because we have earned this esteemed position; not because our behavior has made us worthy, nor our status gained God’s attention, nor our inflated self-worth merited his favor and mandated his choice. We are chosen: broken, failures, rebellious, arrogant, fully worthy of utter rejection — yet by grace, plucked from the mire of hopeless self-destruction and empty, purposeless lives, for the sole reason that we are loved, and that this love can transform us from something useless and empty to something purposeful and valued. We are chosen because we are loved, though unworthy, and because we may become empowered by our choosing to manifest that same love to a lost, desperate world.

We were chosen long ago — as we measure time.

Yet the time of our choosing is now, if we will but accept it.

Letter from an Apostle – Background

I have been asked to lead our small group Bible study, and have chosen to study 1 Peter. This short letter is often overlooked, as much time in the New Testament is spent on the Gospels or Paul’s epistles. But 1 Peter is a very rich resource, and I’m looking forward to studying it in some depth.

I thought I would share some insights from studying this book on the blog. I am not sure how well this medium will serve such a study, and I may experiment with some different formats and see how it plays out. I often find by writing my understanding of a topic deepens substantially, and it is my hope that any notes I post here will be helpful both to you as well as myself.

I am currently using the New Living Translation (which, unlike the Living Bible is not a paraphrase, but rather a thought for thought translation — see this for different philosophies and approaches to translating the original Scriptures). I will be referencing other translations from time to time as the need arises.

So let’s get started, and see where this goes.

  • 1:1a This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

What seems at first a straightforward attribution proves not nearly as simple as it first appears. We are drawn to think of Peter, one of the 12 apostles chosen by Jesus to be his immediate followers, and spoken of often throughout the Gospels and the book of Acts.

When examining a piece of ancient literature, there are a host of tests and methods to assess its veracity. In general terms, these are categorized as internal and external sources. External sources refer to such things as archaeological evidence, references to a given work in other ancient works, and consistency of the message with its historical and cultural context. Internal evidence would refer to the specific writing style, internal consistency, stylistic similarity to other works by the same author, and in the case of Scripture, its harmony with the established teachings and traditions of the Christian faith.

It turns out that letters or Gospels claiming to be written by an apostle were a dime a dozen in the first few centuries after the death of Christ. The early Christian church, believing that the true gospel and true faith had been given to the apostles by Jesus, who then transmitted the same faith and truth to their immediate followers and disciples, placed great emphasis on ascertaining that any given letter or literary work was in fact the work of the apostles or their immediate delegates. The body of Scripture, which we refer to as the canon, represents the culmination of this verification and culling process. Although modern skeptics seek to portray this as the product of a dogmatic declaration by church leaders and bishops, designed to entrench them in power and exclude equally legitimate interpretations of Christianity by those out of power.

While this narrative has popular appeal in our modern culture, it quite simply does not mesh with historical fact. We have a great deal of literary evidence regarding the life and belief system of the early Christian church, embodied in the works of water known as the Apostolic or Church Fathers. We know from this large and diverse body of literature a great deal about what the early church taught and believed, from sources of extraordinary variety, both geographically and culturally.

It is clear from such sources that the core teachings of Christianity were not simply invented in the fourth century or later, but in fact were present from the very outset, taught by those who themselves were often disciples of the apostles, or disciples of those disciples. Furthermore, we have frequent early citations of Scripture which attest to manuscripts dating back virtually to their primary sources, themselves no longer in existence and thus undiscoverable archaeologically.

We know from these sources, as well as ancient manuscripts of Scripture itself, that most of the New Testament canon was universally accepted as apostolic, and had its origins from the very earliest days of the Christian faith. This body includes the four Gospels, the book of Acts, Paul’s letters, and 1 Peter. There was some dispute about a minority of the books in the New Testament, especially 2 Peter, Jude, James, Revelation, and 2nd and 3rd John, and some time passed before they were verified and accepted as well as part of the body of inspired Scripture.

The testimony of such sources is compelling that 1 Peter was in fact a letter by the apostle Peter, likely within 2 years of his martyrdom in Rome under Nero in 64 AD. Some scholars have disputed his authorship, asserting that the classical Greek style could not have been written by an unschooled Aramaic fisherman, and that the theology was too sophisticated and rather Pauline in nature. But Peter himself acknowledges the assistance of Silas, a Greek who was a companion of Paul and Timothy on their missionary journeys, and thus this objection seems easily overcome.

Pause and consider for a moment: what we have in this short letter are the thoughts, beliefs, and teachings of a man who accompanied Jesus throughout his earthly ministry, and if he is to be believed, witnessed the risen Christ after His resurrection. Whatever your opinion or convictions about the Christian faith, this surely must be acknowledged as a remarkable historical document, and an invaluable asset to understand the teachings of Jesus and the convictions of his followers.

So that’s some background on this epistle — we’ll start diving into the content, anon.

What Would Happen, If … ?

I’ve been spending some time in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. As is my habit, because I am rather dense about matters of the spirit, I read and reread short sections, day after day, trying to quiet the mind, shut out the noise, and open the spirit to insight beyond what this world has to offer.

And the noise is relentless, played at full volume, unmercifully, irrationally, without pause or purpose. Health care reform. Corrupt and condescending politicians. Wars and rumors of wars. Recession and depression. Culture clashes and the death throes of a dying society. Insistent demands in my head for just one more thing, another possession, to satisfy the emptiness of the soul and feed the lie that my wants are one with my needs.

And so I come to this:

This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.

And this:

So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

And I start to wonder, what would happen, if I prayed like that? Without stopping? For things such as these?

What would happen if, with every person I encounter each day, be it friend, foe or family, that I prayed for them? Short prayers, simple requests for gifts of wisdom and understanding for them?

What would happen if, with each patient I see, I were to ask for such wisdom and understanding, endurance and patience?

What would happen if, rather than obsessively seeking the opinions of those whose ideas reinforce my own convictions and feed my frustrations, I prayed instead for peace within my heart, and thanksgiving for all I have and have received? What would happen if I prayed instead to be a better citizen of the kingdom of the light rather than trying to wrestle the kingdom of darkness, already defeated, to the ground?

What would happen if, instead of merely passively and passionately following the demands of my many addictions and compulsions, dark desires and destructive impulses, I sought instead through prayer and perseverence the power to overcome them?

What would happen if, I prayed for the Church, to purify herself from the world and find once again her First Love? What would happen if I prayed for my pastor and my congregation, rather than finding fault with this teaching or that behavior? What would happen should I pray that the Church — yes, and that specifically includes me, and mine — would be passionate about sharing the truth of the Good News, that it might “bear fruit by changing lives,” when so many need just such change, and can find it nowhere else?

What would happen if, I prayed to be able to pray like that, since my mind and my spirit are so deadened by the noise and distractions and by the mental parasites that paralyze the soul and sap the spirit?

Just wondering, what would happen, if…

On Miracles: Ancient Texts

Fourth in an ongoing series on the problem of miracles, and evidence for the Resurrection:

  1. The Problem of Miracles
  2. On Miracles: The Historical Jesus
  3. On Miracles: Jesus of the Pagans

 

♦ Why bother with this old collection of myths, the so-called “Scriptures,” when trying to show that miracles existed, and that there was a resurrection of Jesus?

There is evidence (which I’ve already covered) that Jesus was a historical figure, and this evidence also provides considerable information about the beliefs of early Christians in the deity of Christ and alludes to belief in His Resurrection. But the secular references don’t give a lot of detail about these beliefs or the evidence for them. This is not unexpected, as they had little use for details about a crucified prophet and his followers, other than understanding why they were such a nuisance. For these details we must go to the accounts of those who were actual followers and believers in Jesus.

♦ Surely you don’t believe this stuff was “inspired”? You’ll have a tough time selling me that “inspired” writings can be used as historical evidence.

Well, I do believe that these writings were inspired — a discussion for another time, perhaps. But the “inspiration” of the NT documents is utterly irrelevant to their value as historical documents.

Historical documents? You must be kidding! This stuff was written hundreds of years after the events it purports to describe.

Sounds like someone hasn’t done their homework. Yes, there was a school of biblical scholarship in the nineteenth century, led by Rudolf Bultmann and other German theologians, which maintained a late date of writing, placing it well into the second century or later. Their skepticism influenced a number of other biblical scholars as well. But facts have a stubborn way of deflating bad theories. We now know with virtual certainty, based on more recent archaeological manuscript evidence, that the last Gospel, John, was written no later than 90 A.D., and the other three considerably earlier. Luke, who wrote both a Gospel and the book of Acts, was a companion of Paul and is widely recognized by scholars as a superb, highly reliable historian. Paul’s own letters date back to within 20 years after the death of Christ, and he quotes ancient creeds (such as 1st Corinthians 15) which were in circulation at the time of his conversion, a few years at most after the Gospel events.

Whatever. How reliable can a few old scraps of parchment be, anyway? Aren’t they all just copies of copies?

Well, pretty darn reliable, actually. Granted we have no “original signed copies” of the NT documents. But compared to most ancient literature, the NT is almost embarrassing in its quantity of source material and their temporal proximity to its events. Take Homer’s Iliad, the “bible” of the ancient Greeks, composed in 800 B.C. We have about 650 surviving manuscript copies from this work, the earliest ones dating from the second and third centuries, one thousand years after it was written. For Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, we have nine manuscripts of his history of the Jewish War, copied in the ninth through eleventh centuries. Tacitus, the great Roman historian from early second century? Two manuscripts, the earliest in 850 A.D. Despite this paucity of source documents, scholars are quite comfortable that they accurately reflect the content of the originals.

How about the New Testament? Let’s see — over 5,500 Greek manuscripts and fragments, some dating to within one generation of the time of the Apostles. Another 20,000 or so exist in other languages. From the standpoint of source material for ancient literature, this is a rather preposterous prosperity.

♦ But they’re still just copies — lots of errors in that process are inevitable, to be sure.

Well, you underestimate the extreme care taken with copying such documents in the ancient world, especially those held in such high esteem as the NT scriptures. But some copying errors were inevitable, mostly transpositions and misspellings. The extraordinary number of extant copies allows an excellent cross-check, facilitating a high degree of precision about the content of earlier sources no longer available.

♦ OK, you’ve got some old documents which were written pretty close to the time of Christ. But there’s lots of other Gospels out there which disagree with those in the NT — why aren’t they considered good sources?

Good question. Yes, there’s a bunch of other writings which call themselves “Gospels” — The Gospel of Thomas (a favorite of the Jesus Seminar), The Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Judas, and a number of other similar works. Much has been made of these by some, but they largely eliminate themselves as contenders through either their content, their date of writing, or both. First of all, unlike the NT Gospels, there is no evidence that they were authored by one of the Apostles or the Apostles’ companions. Secondly, most are dated rather late, in the 3rd and 4th century A.D. And lastly, their content is steeped in mysticism and Gnosticism, and borders on the bizarre in many cases. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, ends with a “saying” of Jesus which goes, “Let Mary go away from us, because women are not worthy of life. … Lo, I shall lead her in order to make her a male, so she too may become a living spirit.” Gloria Steinam, call your office.

♦ I’m glad you mentioned the Jesus Seminar — these biblical scholars determined that very little of what Jesus said and did in the Gospels is history, that most of it is myth. So much for your “Scholars believe the Gospels to be historical” argument, eh?

Well, most biblical scholars and archaeologists find the members of the Jesus Seminar to be an embarrassment, a fringe group with lots of media savvy but little scholarly credibility. The Jesus Seminar’s own stated goals were to ditch the traditional understanding of Scripture and create a “new fiction” and a “new Gospel.” In this they have clearly succeeded.

♦ Well, we all know that the Church simply decreed which books would be in the Bible, and invented its weird doctrines, like the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection. It was all a big power-play to keep control over the ignorant masses who mindlessly followed them.

Big fan of the The Da Vinci Code, aren’t you? Great writer, Dan Brown — lousy historian, too. The councils and synods merely affirmed what the Christian church had known to be true from its beginnings, and accepted and acknowledged those books already held to be genuine and apostolic in origin. The central doctrines which were supposedly “decreed” de novo by the councils are easily found in the writings of ancient church leaders and apologists — the so-called Church Fathers — several centuries before they were publicly affirmed in creeds and councils. It is child’s play to verify this yourself, as many excellent translations of these works are available — unless, of course, you’re not really interested in arriving at the right answer. Oh, and by the way: virtually every verse in the NT can be found cited in these early Christian writings — quoting from manuscripts no longer available. The NT really was written within a generation of the time of Christ, by eyewitnesses or their close associates, and was being cited by other authors within a few decades of their writing.

♦ But even if they’re early and reliable, these Scriptural sources are still religious, written by true believers, fanatics. Couldn’t they just say anything they wanted about Jesus, and expect their followers to buy it?

Well, sounds easy enough, but there’s a small problem: there were lots of folks who were itching to prove them liars. There were the Jewish religious leaders, first of all, who were definitely not amused at this heretical cult which had formed in their midst, preaching blasphemy. Peter stands up at Pentecost and tells a very large crowd of people, “Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know … God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.” So the Jewish leaders waltz over to the grave of Jesus, show folks the dead body, and Poof! The new cult goes belly-up in a heartbeat.

Then there’s the crowd he’s addressing, with quite a few folks who were around when Jesus was preaching, who witnessed his crucifixion, or who had at least heard about these events from other first-hand witnesses. Takes real chutzpah to stand in front of a large crowd and tell them something they (and you) know never happened. Peter could have made a lot of omelets with the eggs and tomatoes tossed his way if he tried that stunt.

♦ But you’re using circular reasoning — using a description of an event taken from a religious writing to prove that what it describes actually happened. What proof is there that this “sermon” by Peter in fact even happened, or that this is what he said?

Well, this description of Peter’s first sermon was written by Luke, in the book of Acts. Luke was a careful, detailed, OCD-kind-of historian. His narrative is filled with extraordinary details: detailed descriptions of maritime practices; ancient marketplaces and cultural customs; specific time and place references; names of secular and religious rulers. His stated intent was to seek out eyewitnesses to the events of which he wrote. He accompanied Paul on one of his missionary journeys, and traveled with him to Jerusalem where he had contact with Peter and the other Apostles. His writing depicts much that archeology and other historical sources verify, and contains nothing of the excesses and hyperbole common to legendary development.

Yes, Luke had a religious bias, as did all the NT writers, because of what he heard and saw from eyewitnesses. If his religious convictions alone exclude his writings as unreliable, then methinks the problem is with your preconditions and prejudices, rather than with the accuracy of Luke’s narrative.

♦ Well, everyone knows that whole empty tomb thing was just a grand hoax — the disciples stole the body, and then claimed a “resurrection” to make themselves religious big-shots.

Well, maybe everyone you know thinks that — but I wouldn’t bet your inheritance on it. But that discussion will have to wait until my next post. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: If you are interested in more depth on the reliability and veracity of the NT documents, I suggest this book (full text online) by NT scholar F.F. Bruce. There are many others, but this is easily digestible and short by one of the best scholars in the field.

The Problem of Miracles

ocean sunset

A commenter in a previous post on the subject of faith and reason made the following observation:

The most Christian apologetics can accomplish is to show faith in Divine revelation to be a reasonable proposition. I would say the challenges presented by various content in the Holy Scriptures are significant. As you pointed out, “we evaluate scriptures claiming to be revelation with the tools of archeology, linguistics, textual analysis for internal consistency and external verification, to validate, in some measure, the veracity of such claims.” This is all very good, but what of the more difficult propositions hidden in the texts: creation stories, Noah’s Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, a talking ass, sword wielding angelic messengers, chariots of fire swooping in to carry men to heaven, floating ax heads, the regeneration of limbs, a virgin birth, or Lazarus raised from the dead?

The subject raised here is a challenging one, and a common point put forward in any discussion about faith and reason: what about the miracles spoken about in Scripture? The events such as those mentioned above lie entirely outside the realm of our experience, and it appears utterly reasonable and rational to dismiss them as fabrications, myth, or at best allegorical tales intended for moral teaching. The belief in miracles by people of religious faith is perhaps the area most incomprehensible to the skeptic. Such events are logically and physically impossible, reside outside the laws of nature and science, and therefore no rational, intelligent person could or should believe such unadulterated nonsense. Even those of religious conviction often struggle with this aspect of their faith. Some will simply dodge the issue: “The Bible says it, I believe it.” End of discussion — and not terribly satisfying for those seeking more rational evidence for faith than mere assent to the truth of revelation alone.

For most who reject the possibility of miracles, their impossibility arises less from evidence found lacking — for they rarely objectively evaluate the evidence — than from the presuppositions fundamental to their view of the world. If the universe is purely material, randomly engendered and devoid of any possibility of divine existence, then miracles must, by necessity, be either mythical in origin or have other, naturalistic explanations. For those who believe in some sort of divine entity or power — especially one which is impersonal or abstract — the intimate intervention of a personal, supernatural Being into the natural world in any demonstrable way is inconceivable. Even for those who may believe in a personal God, the idea that the divine would intervene demonstrably in ways contravening the laws of nature and their daily experience of the world seems highly implausible and impossibly remote.

Yet the problem of miracles is central to the integrity of faith. If in fact miracles cannot occur, if in fact they are naught but myths and morality tales, then faith itself must be without substance or certainty, and becomes nothing more than a comfortable belief system without basis in reality, history, or objective truth. The problem of miracles must be met head-on if we are to have a faith grounded in reason rather than diaphanous desire.

It is not imperative that every miracle held by faith be provable — indeed, were such a thing possible, it would destroy the very essence of faith, for we do not believe in what we see, but rather in that which is unseen. Once the premise that the divine can intervene, and indeed has intervened in tangible ways superseding the dictates of logic and the constraints of the material universe, however, the largest hurdle to accepting their possibility has been bridged. Reason demands that faith be reasonable: that the injection of the divine and transcendent into the temporal and material ought not lie purely within the realm of the easily-deceptive determinations born of mere thought or mental theorems. If God has stepped into history, we should expect to see His footprints.

Christianity at its very heart is about just such an injection of the timeless into time, of the transcendent into the material. The ripples of this event radiate throughout history, with implications unspeakably vast and ever-widening. At the vortex of this widening gyre lies a miracle: the God-man come to earth, unjustly executed, and subsequently raised from the dead. That a man should claim to be God is hardly unique; that a man be unjustly tortured and killed, and esteemed thereafter as a martyr, is no rare event. That a man should make such claims, and meet such an end, and rise thenceforth from the grave, recasts preposterous claims as profound certainty and transforms his death into something transcendent and immensely powerful. If this event is but myth, Christianity becomes nothing more than platitudes and powerless moralizing; if true, no event in time is more significant, no aspect of life untouched by its enormity and seriousness.

If belief in this miracle be reasonable, if we may trace these long-traveled waves of faith back to their source, and in the inspection of their origins find evidence substantial and compelling, then the world becomes a vastly different place from that seen through a myopic focus on superficial pseudo-reality and all-too-comfortable denial of the divine.

By their very nature as supernatural phenomena, one cannot “prove” a miracle as one might prove a math theorem. Nor will mere facts or historical evidence of themselves be sufficient to document with unquestioned certainty those things upon which so much rests — for the human mind often proves stubbornly intransigent when new conclusions run counter to cherished beliefs or worldview conviction. Were such a point-by-point approach fail-safe, there would be no Holocaust deniers nor 9/11 conspirators.

If God exists, if He intrudes in human history in ways unexplainable by mere reason and material experience, then such a manifestation has profound implications for all who encounter it. For a God who intervenes thus in time stands face-to-face thereby with each of us, wherever we may stand. We may thereby hate Him or bow down to Him, but we can no longer live comfortably in delusional denial about such a reality.

It is my hope over the following posts to lay out such evidence in some detail. I break no new ground here; this evidence has been garnered and sifted many times over, by many other far more qualified to present it than I. But it seems apropos to present it again in some measure at this time, in an age increasingly skeptical and cynical, in a culture dismissive of truth and obsessed with the glorious glitter of vacuous beauty, of knowledge without wisdom, at the pinnacle of civilization yet ignorant of its stories and the substance of its soul.