An atheist who gained worldwide fame when he sued an Italian priest, claiming Jesus Christ never actually existed, has been fined by an appeals court in Rome for bringing a fraudulent suit … Cascioli, a retired agronomist, contended Righi violated a law that forbids deceiving the public. The atheist said the priest, who had publicly criticized him for casting doubt on the truth of the gospels, had no evidence Jesus ever existed. (Full article: WorldNetDaily)

It seems that a current trend among the scholarly marginal is to claim that Jesus never existed. That is the hypothesis of the recent film "The God Who Wasn't There" (which has been refuted in brief here, and also refuted in a much more indepth response here).

The fact of the matter is that hardly anyone believes Jesus never existed; that is the reason that "The God Who Wasn't" film has failed to attract any scholarly attention. Besides the many different authors who independently composed the New Testament documents, we have early atestation from the likes of non-Christian historians such as Tacitus and Josephus. For more information on this topic see "Is The New Testament Reliable? 2nd Ed." by Paul Barnett, the best general-audience work I know of on the subject of New Testament reliability, which also includes a summary of much of the early evidence that confirms Jesus' existence.

As some of you may know I work part-time with an organization called Power to Change, which attempts to help people change their lives by realizing the transforming power of knowing Jesus Christ. Today it was brought to my attention that one of the many links to PowerToChange.com includes a blog post titled ""Lord, Liar, or Lunatic"? Or, I dunno, something in between." I disagree with several points made in that post, and it gives me an opportunity to discuss Lewis' famous argument, which I think was left somewhat undeveloped in its original form but can be redeemed.

The basics of Lewis' "Trilemma" argument can be found at the following Wikipedia entry: Lewis' Trilemma Argument. Unfortunately, it is only quoted in part, and reading the full chapter from Mere Christianity (full text here, see chapter 8) and the preceding material in the book might make things clearer. Nevertheless …

The Wikipedia entry describes the trilemma as below … Asylum Seeker, the author of the blog post linked above, takes issue with every part of the argument. (Hereafter I'll refer to Asylum Seeker as "Asylum", since his real name is not given; and although I am unsure of their gender I will refer to Asylum as "he" for the sake of ease.):

(P) Jesus claimed to be God.
(Q) One of the following must be true.
1. Lunatic: Jesus was not God, but he believed that he was.
2. Liar: Jesus was not God, and he knew it, but he said so anyway.
3. Lord: Jesus is God.
From these premises it follows logically that,
(C) If not God, Jesus is either not great or not moral.

I have edited (Q)1) to remove the word "mistakenly" since, as I explain later and Lewis himself made clear, Jesus' claim is not the sort of thing a person can make an "oopsie" about.

Re (P), Asylum claims that "that Jesus did not necessarily refer to himself as the "Son of God" and he was only claimed to be after the fact by followers" and later claims that "As mentioned above, Premise P is suspect". However, no reason is presented for denying that Jesus thought of Himself as God. Even if Jesus never referred to Himself as "Son of God", the name "Son of Man" still carried similar connotations for his first century listeners. The Wikipedia article contains several suggested reasons that might be given for concluding Jesus didn't consider Himself to be divine, but also presents equally forceful reasons (I would say, better) for believing Jesus did in fact claim to be God. See for example Glenn Miller's summary or more comprehensive articles (on the synoptics and John) on the subject. If we take the biblical texts seriously, I don't see how a case could be made that Jesus considered himself to be anything less than divine.

That's IF we take the biblical texts seriously, of course. What if, however, as several commenters to Asylum's original post suggest, that we should not take the biblical text seriously because they are not trustworthy? This is a more popular was of avoiding the conclusion (C) of Lewis' argument: By positing a fourth way, a fourth "L", namely Legend. Asylum suggests early in his post that "Jesus could be fictional [and/or] the Gospel could be inaccurate".

Regarding Jesus being fictional (ie the "Jesus never existed" hypothesis) this hypothesis is dismissed by nearly all serious scholars on the subject, G. A. Wells being the main notable exception. For more details on this topic, see Dr Gary Habermas' article commenting directly upon Wells' hypothesis A Summary Critique: Questioning the Existence of Jesus, or a more general article Christ Myth Refuted. Whether the New Testament is accurate, however, is more open for debate. This is certainly a worthy objection to Lewis' original argument. Of course, Lewis was operating under the assumption that the New Testament is trustworthy. If that assumption is removed, it must be argued for, as I believe I have done in my free ebook on this subject, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament. I encourage you to download a copy and check it out.

There are, in fact, good reasons to believe the New Testament is trustworthy; especially in contrast to some of the other works commonly mentioned by skeptics of the New Testament such as non-canonical documents written in the second century AD and later. In the comments section of Asylum's post one of the commenters Richelle says "it would have been nice to know what all the other stories of jesus were before they all got destroyed by the church once they decided jesus was going down in history as a superhuman." Here she is referring to another commenter's mention of the Council of Nicaea. Of course, the Council of Nicaea did not discuss which books would be included in the New Testament at all, and we have plenty of information about what the earliest Christians thought about Jesus, first from the New Testament documents themselves, and then from the early Christian letters (some from the first century). Larry Hurtado's recent book argues that in fact "perhaps within only a few days or weeks of his crucifixion, Jesus' followers were circulating the astonishing claim that God had raised him from death and had installed him in heavenly glory as Messiah and the appointed vehicle of redemption." So such ideas are hardly inventions by a church council in the 4th century!

Even if we accepted for the sake of argument that the New Testament is generally untrustworthy and contains numerous errors, Jesus' divinity is proclaimed or assumed throughout, so it still would be difficult to escape the conclusion that the authors believed Jesus claimed to be God unless we were to discount the entirety of the New Testament as being totally and utterly untrustworthy; as even most ardent skeptics won't do, for good reason.

This leads us to (Q)1): "Lunatic: Jesus was not God, but he mistakenly believed that he was." This is a major point of contention for Asylum, who says: "A "lunatic" is hardly crazy about everything. People who have such a delusion can still have insight." This is true. A person may be perfectly sane in one regard, and completely delusional in another regard.

Yet think for a moment what you might say if someone you know, let's call him Joe, claimed to be God. Not just for a laugh, but seriously and continuously. He seemed normal in certain other respects (he was able to dress himself and engage in normal social conventions) yet he claimed he was in fact God. Now what if a group of people got sick of Joe's ranting and decided they'd kidnap him and, if he didn't stop with this God nonsense, that they would kill him in the most painful way imaginable. What would you say about him if he steadfastly refused to recant and was killed in the most excruciating manner for his claims? I, personally, would not call him sane. Would you?

When Lewis wryly remarks that "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell" he is saying, with his 'poached egg' remark, that Jesus' self-claims are not trivial, they are entirely foundational. A person calling themselves God is either true, or, if false, akin with claiming to be a poached egg! This is not the sort of thing a person could make an "oopsie" about and we would still call "sane".

Asylum notes in the comments that he is "not sure if Jesus's behavior is inconsistent" with Schizophrenia, though he is careful to note he does not think it is per se. It's worth noting that to be able to suggest that Jesus was Schizophrenic, a person would have to get their information from … the New Testament, so they must be claiming that it is essentially reliable. You can't have your cake and eat it too. But is there evidence within the New Testament that Jesus had some kinda of mental illness? In fact there doesn't seem to be anything about Jesus' behavior which suggests mental illness, let alone Schizophrenia. (Compare for example with what is know about Muhammad, where, while far from conclusive, there are at least suggestions that he suffered from epilepsy or a similar mental illness.)

Gary R. Collins, PhD in psychology from Purdue University, concludes that "I don't see any signs that Jesus was suffering from mental illness." Asylum's point prior in his post is that a person may be sane in some areas of life and insane in others, but as noted above claiming to be God (and willing to be put to death for that conviction) is not the sort of claim that is distinct from a person being sane.

So, if we take the New Testament seriously and Jesus' words seriously when he claims to be God, and if Jesus shows no signs of mental illness, we are ruling out the Legend argument, (Q)1), the lunatic argument, and (Q)2) the liar argument. Are there other possible alternatives? Kreeft and Tacelli note at least one additional option in their book (available here BTW, with a much nicer cover than my copy has): Maybe Jesus didn't mean he was literally God, maybe he was just being really mystical and symbolic. They call this the Guru objection. This is rejected, in part, because of the context in which Jesus spoke and lived: He was Jewish, and directed his own ministry primarily to the Jews, no doubt because they (perhaps unlike some of the non-Jewish people around) would not have understood his claims to be mystical. (Certainly those who committed Jesus to death for His perceived heresy did not see the claims as being mystical!) For more on the "mythical Jesus" see for example here: The Persistent New Age Jesus (and other articles on the CAFA site).

All that said, I don't see Lewis' argument as an iron-clad proof that Jesus was who he said he was. It is, I think, a more powerful argument than Lewis is given credit for, especially since he was not a philosopher by trade. And the version put forth by Kreeft and Tacelli is I think a definite improvement (expansion) of Lewis' original. But it is not airtight by any means. When I first read of it, before I was a Christian, I did not drop to my knees and become a Christian immediately afterward.

What's the point, then? It is one of several arguments that I believe suggest that Jesus, and the Gospel message, are actually true. No one will be convinced to become a Christian by rational arguments alone (because the nature of the trust of faith is not merely rational, but also volitional and emotional) but they may at least convince us that such ideas are worth thinking about.

Related reading:
– A better article on one of our sites than the testimony linked by Asylum's blog post: Who did Jesus think He was anyways?
– Peter Kreeft's brief article on the topic on his website: The Divinity of Christ
– Stand to Reason: Christianity worth thinking about

The Amazing Claim

An archaeological team finds a tomb in Jerusalem. There's nothing out of the ordinary about that. Hundreds of tombs have been found in Jerusalem.

But this particular tomb has some people making wild claims about it. Produced by James Cameron (world-famous director of the Titanic movie) and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, it proposes that the tomb contains ossuaries (bone boxes) of Jesus Christ, along with Mary Magdalene and other members of Jesus' family. The tomb contained ten such boxes, six of which bear inscriptions of people's names. If true, this could be the most significant archaeological find of the 21st century.

However, it wasn't found in the 21st century. It was found in 1980. And the archaeological team that found it over 25 years ago didn't think there was anything special about it. A documentary already was made about the find in 1996 by the BBC, but it failed to cause any scholarly interest at all. Why is that, and what are we to make of this new documentary and book?

The Reality

Remember back when The Da Vinci Code was big, and people got swept up in the "reality" of it all? Some parts sounded plausible … until you checked up on Dan Brown's sloppy scholarship. Turns out that Brown based a lot of his book off an old, discredited book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Not only that, but Brown made literally dozens of major errors. See the many errors in the Da Vinci Code here. I can only groan in exasperation if someone mentions the amazing new "facts" in the Da Vinci Code.

Now, The Da Vinci Code was ultimately intended as fiction, even if its author and the press sometimes promoted it as being fact. However, watch out, because …

 
This time, it's "The Jesus Family Tomb", aka "The Lost Tomb of Jesus": Bad history is being passed off as fact. Only this time, there's no "fiction" label to hide behind! They're really claiming this is true!

Don't get suckered! Here are facts to learn about the reality of "The Jesus Family Tomb" (numbers in parenthesis correspond to the sources listed below):

The Ossuaries Themselves:

1. There is no ossuary that has Mary Magdalene's name on it! This is perhaps the biggest lie in the film. The inscription reads "Mariamene e Mara". The filmmakers connect this to Mary Magdalene by quoting the "Acts of Philip" which was written sometime in the 4th century, that is, 300 years or more after Jesus' death! The "Acts of Philip" is not historically reliable in the slightest. Even then, the name in the "Acts of Philip" and on the ossuary don't match! Did Mary's own family forget how to spell her name? There is no reason to equate "Mary Magdalene" with "Mariamene". (2,7)
2. It also appears that the inscription on the "Judah, son of Jesus" ossuary is by no means clear. "Judah, son of" seems clear enough, but whether the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus ("Yeshua") appears there is not at all clear. The original translator admits he is unsure of the correct translation. (See the first point under "Problems with names" below.) Click here to see an image of the Hebrew text alongside the actual etching on the ossuary. (8,1)
3. There is no "Matthew" related to Jesus mentioned anywhere in the Bible or any other ancient text. Trying to connect a Matthew to Mary's family by suggesting that she had other Matthews in her family tree is weak at best. (2,4)
4. The ossurary may read "Judah, son of Jesus" (that certainly fits The Da Vinci Code) but there is absolutely no historical evidence whatsoever that Jesus was married or had a child. None. In the past, this sort of find (if the translation is correct) would have demonstrated that this couldn't be Jesus Christ's tomb, since there is no historical mention in the best sources of Him ever being married or having a child; now, conspiracy theories are all the rage, and new, weak evidence displaces old, well established evidence. (4)
5. The documentary and website claim that the 10th ossuary "went missing" and potentially is the "James ossuary" that was discovered many years ago. (The inscription on that ossuary read "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). However, the James ossuary has now likely proven to be a fraud. Additionally, the "missing" ossuary has now been proven to have been blank. (7)

Problems with the names:

1. Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight. He also doubts that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun". (1)
2. There is no record of anyone in the early Christian community calling Jesus the "son of Joseph"; some outsiders mistakenly called him that, but no one in his own family did. What are the chances, then, of such an error being made on Jesus' own ossuary and Jesus' own family happily including it in their family tomb? Not likely. (4)
3. While the movie's site claims that "the names themselves range from the most common to the fairly rare", in reality the names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews in the first century. Therefore it's not surprising that they match the names of some people in the Bible. "This is the ancient equivalent of finding adjacent tombs with the names Smith and Jones", except names like Joseph and Mary were even more common in the 1st century than Smith or Jones are today. (1,2,4)
4. In fact, several other "Jesus son of Joseph" inscriptions had been found on other ossuaries over the years. (3)

Other Evidence:

1. Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch. The BBC made a documentary about this tomb eleven years ago, but the case was so poor that it has not to this day received any scholarly support. (1)
2. Jesus' family was from Galilee, not Jerusalem, so they would not have had a family burial plot in Jerusalem. Joseph died when Jesus was young and the family was still living in Nazareth, meaning he would not have been buried in Jerusalem (where he was not born and never lived). This means that the tomb cannot be theirs. (2,3,4)
3. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television. "They just want to get money for it," he said. (1,3)
4. The "DNA data" presented is useless; the best it can tell us is that certain people in the tomb weren't related. That does not prove that they are from Jesus' bloodline (we have no DNA sample to compare them to after all), and contrary to what is proposed in the documentary, there is no reason to assume that the Jesus and the Mary in the tomb were married; they may have been related through one of the other people in the tomb, for example. Only two of the ossuaries had any DNA material at all available that could be tested. (2,4)
5. James Tabor, the documentary's "renowned biblical scholar", has indeed conducted several archaeological digs in Israel, but he apparently accepts naturalism (the dogmatic assumption that nothing supernatural is possible) as the guiding principle for his research. This means that the historical Jesus of the Bible is rejected out of hand. (5)

One final objection that comes to mind: If this really were Jesus' tomb, how could it have been kept a secret for over 2,000 years? If Jesus were buried here, clearly his family and disciples (at least) would have known about it. But there is no mention of any such tomb in the Bible, extra-biblical writings, or any ancient writings whatsoever.

Why all the hype?

If the conclusions raised by "The Jesus Family Tomb" are wrong, why is this documentary being released and all of this hype generated? Two main reasons come to mind. The first is that people in the late 20th and 21st centuries love conspiracy stories and are eager to accept whatever new, hip theories come out. The second is money. By wrapping this quarter-century old story in new clothes the producers are trying to sell it and make huge profits.

The moral of the story is: Fool me once, shame on you (The Da Vinci Code) … fool me twice, shame on me! Don't get sucked in by the hype; all that's there is empty posturing, bad histories and flawed conclusions!

Sources:

1. New film claims Jesus buried in Talpiot – Amos Kloner, the archaeologist who oversaw excavation of the tomb and who has published extensive findings about the tomb, says the story "makes a great story for a TV film… But it's impossible. It's nonsense."
2. Scholars, clergy slam Jesus documentary – An Associated Press story. Provides quotes from scholars, archaeologists and Jewish experts.
3. Who's writing fiction here? – Paul L. Maier wrote a fictional book with similar themes to this "news" story. Here he responds to "The Jesus Family Tomb" ideas, giving eight reasons why their conclusions are nonsense.
4. The Jesus Tomb? ‘Titanic’ Talpiot Tomb Theory Sunk from the Start – Respected biblical scholar Dr Ben Witherington III provides his commentary on the findings.
5. The Jesus Dynasty: How to Explain Away the New Testament – Criticism of James Tabor, the "renowned biblical scholar" featured in the documentary.
6. Scholars, clergy criticize film about possible Jesus tomb (pg.2) – An expanded version of the Associated Press article above.
7. The Smoking Gun – Tenth Talpiot Ossuary Proved to be Blank – Dr Ben Witherington III shows how we know the tenth ossuary was blank, as well as investigating further the "Mariamenou" ossuary.
8. The Jesus Tomb: Some last thoughts – A New Testament student provides images and commentary on the text from the "Judas, son of Jesus" ossuary.
9. Also recommended is Dr Gary Habermas' excellent article.

What about the 'real' Jesus?

Where does all of this leave the real, historical Jesus? Take a look at this site, which interviews many leading scholars: "Jesus: Fact or Fiction?" It includes streaming video clips and answers to many common questions.

www.jesusfactorfiction.com

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Permanent Link to 'The Jesus Tomb'

 

Darren Hewer
BA, University of Guelph
MTS, Tyndale University College & Seminary
MA (in progress), Wycliffe College (University of Toronto)

Early life

I grew up without any religious education, and was agnostic. I never went to church growing up, and only knew as much about Christianity as I was able to pick up from culture and the media … ie, not much! When I was younger, I had some sort of vague belief in God, but I knew nothing of Christianity or any other faiths. As I got older,I started to adopt an atheistic attitude, mostly because my friends at the time were atheists, not due to any particular reason or life circumstance.

Something missing?

As I neared completion of my degree in Information Systems & Human Behavior (that is, computer science) at university, I started to feel that something was missing in my life. By all accounts I had things pretty good. I generally didn't have to worry about money, I was doing well in school, and had a loving family. Yet, I felt depressed. I decided to make a list of things I wanted to try, in order to find out what that "missing part" of my life was. One of the items on the list was to investigate religion (and God) for the first time. I figured it was worth a shot and wouldn't cost me anything. It'd be at least a good learning opportunity.

So I decided to investigate various religions to see whether any of them were credible. I can't recall all of the faiths that I looked at, but I definitely spent some time with Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism and Christianity. I wanted a faith that was true: Something that made me feel good but was not grounded in reality was not worth considering.

First steps

As far as I can recall, the first religion I looked at was Buddhism. I had a positive impression of Buddhism, probably from the positive way Buddhism is usually portrayed in the media. I never heard Buddhism being criticized. It seemed to be the most "socially acceptable" religion. (Social acceptance is hardly the best test for truth! But such was my thinking at the time.)

Buddhism is atheistic; at least, the question of God's existence is said to be peripheral to Buddhist faith. Some Buddhists believe God exists, but many don't. To me, any religion that is atheistic is not a religion at all, it is merely a philosophy, invented by humankind and therefore no better or worse than any other philosophy (at least in terms of potential for error). If a religion differs within itself so widely on the most central topic of faith (whether or not God exists) it's difficult to even call it one faith at all. How could Buddha have been so misunderstood that his followers could not agree on the most basic question of whether God exists or not, and whether that matters? (I would say yes God does exist, and yes it does matter … but we haven't quite come to that point yet!)

I read about the various leaders of religions; for example, Muhammad of Islam, Joseph Smith of Mormonism and Jesus of Christianity. I was somewhat surprised by what I discovered. All claimed to have the right answer, the "only way", but Jesus was the only one who claimed to BE the only way: he claimed to BE God! Why follow mere men, who would be filled with error, instead of God himself, in whom there would be no error? The gospel story really spoke to me in a way that the stories of Islam and Mormonism (and others) didn't. If any of these stories were true, I wanted Christianity to be true, but the question was whether it really was true or not, so I figured I'd spend more time investigating it. The person of Jesus Christ struck me as being authentic, in a way that the others didn't. And I knew that it was quite impossible for ALL of these faiths to be true. (Clearly I'm not a "postmodernist".) If I accepted Jesus, I could not accept the rest.

What's this "Christianity"?

I needed to carefully investigate the Christian faith before accepting it. I had some Christian friends at the time, but I didn't tell any of them that I was reading about Christianity because if I decided that Christianity wasn't true, I didn't want to have to tell them that their religion is a fairytale!

I was still wary of the church, so I bought myself a copy of the Bible (from Amazon.com … hey, it's a book, that's where you buy books right?) and started to read it for myself. Not knowing much about the Bible, I started reading at the beginning like any other book I'd read. I wondered when Jesus came into the story, and after flipping around a bit I figured out the difference between the Old and New Testaments. (Roughly speaking the Old Testament is before Jesus, the New Testament is about Jesus and the early church.)

That's nice, but is it true?

I continued reading over the next few weeks, and although pretty skeptical about the miracle stories, I was still interested enough to continue. (I also knew that if God exists, miracles are at least possible; though I had never had much confidence in them being actual before.) Over the course of three months I read most of the New Testament and a large portion of the Old Testament. During that time I started to question the historical reliability of the Bible. If this book were true (that is, historically accurate) it certainly would be the "greatest story ever told". But if it weren't, it'd be no better than J.R.R Tolkien or Douglas Adams: fine fiction, but in no sense "holy", nor "history".

I finally admitted to a close Christian friend that I had been reading the Bible, and had questions about its reliability. She gave me a book called The Case for Christ by Yale law school graduate and former Chicago Times legal editor Lee Strobel, which examines hard questions about the reliability of the Bible. I learned to my surprise that yes, there are good reasons for believing that the Bible is reliable in what it records! My later reading has only confirmed this. The New Testament is the most scrutinized literature in the history of the world, and its reliability is unparalleled compared to all other documents from its time! See my free ebook The Historical Reliability of the New Testament for more on this topic.

Now I really began to struggle! In a way I wanted this amazing message to be true. But in another way, I really didn't. As unhappy as I was with my life, becoming a follower of Jesus would mean I'd have to make some changes and give up some of the sin that, frankly, I enjoyed. After about four months of daily reading and study I had come to something like an intellectual acceptance, but not an acceptance in my heart. It's one thing to make a mental assent and say "Yes, I believe that this is likely to be true", but it's quite another to make the more real life altering decision to change my life course and admit that for the first 20 years of my life that I had been wrong!

Expression of a deep inner need

In early January of 2003 I decided that I'd attend an on-campus "church" service. I figured this would be like going to church but not quite as weird, and I should at least see what church is like. The service wasn't as weird as I thought it would be, although there was a lot of singing which I didn't enjoy at the time. (I wasn't quite sure that I agreed with what they were singing about!) But when the speaker gave his short message something that he said resonated with me. He talked about having a "wow moment" with God, an experience where God speaks to you personally. I realized that was what was stopping me from accepting Christ.

I had already rationally accepted Christian belief, but even then I knew that there was more to faith than simple intellectual ascent. I had never had a personal experience of God. So that same night, I prayed for God to personally come to me in some way. I didn't know what, if anything, to expect.

January 14 2003, 3am

The next night I was up late and I picked up my Bible to read a bit. My Bible included some extra commentary and stories, and the story that I read involved a lonely farmer:

One raw winter night a farmer heard an irregular thumping sound against his kitchen storm door. He went to a window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.

Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn door for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights and tossed some hay in the corner. But the sparrows, which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, hid in the darkness, afraid.

The man tried various tactics to get them into the barn. He laid down a trail of Saltine cracker crumbs to direct them. He tried circling behind the birds to drive them to the barn. Nothing worked. He, a huge, alien creature, had terrified them; the birds couldn't comprehend that he actually desired to help. The farmer withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightning from a clear blue sky: If only I could become a bird – one of them – just for a moment. Then I wouldn't frighten them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety.

At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He grasped the reason Jesus was born.

(As told by Paul Harvey)

When I read this story this time, it was different than when I read it before. I felt emotion welling up inside of me, and by the time I'd read the last sentence, I was crying. Not tears of pain, but tears of profound joy.

I'm not someone who cries easily! But here I was, alone in my room at 3am, crying! I didn't know what was going on, until I remembered my prayer from the previous night. "This is crazy!" I thought. "Is God really speaking to me this way?" But I kept on crying and couldn't stop. It must've gone on for 20 minutes. During that time, I finally relented, and made a decision that would change my life. I said "Yes" to God.

I prayed, though I didn't really know what to pray for. As best as I can remember, I prayed for forgiveness for my many sins, thanked God for coming near, and asked Him to never leave. And He still hasn't to this day, despite all my missteps and failings along the way.

When I woke up the next day, I stared out my window for a long time, and wondered what would happen in my life. I have sometimes struggled with questions about my faith since then, but I haven't doubted that something powerful has happened. Not everyone will have an experience like this, and my decision wasn't based only on this emotional experience. This event just helped make my faith sufficient to overcome my fear.

I follow God: I follow Jesus

Upon further reflection, God chose to speak to me in exactly the way that I needed, at the perfect time. God may not always work on our timetable, but His timing is always perfect. And His promises to us always come true. One of those promises is that if you seek Him, you will find Him (Matthew 7:7-8). It is today my humble prayer that you will know God via His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and thereby know the intense and life-changing love that God has waiting for you. My road to faith, and since, has not always been easy. But I have never been sorry that I asked God to come near, and He did. In fact, God came nearer than anyone ever expected. He came to us in person, in Jesus.

Curious about Jesus? Please check out True or False? Doubters welcome to learn more, or perhaps the Jesus? I want to know more page on this site.

Please, if you have any comments, questions, or anything you want to talk to me about, please don't hesitate to contact me. Thanks for reading all the way to the end!