Perhaps you have the idea that Christianity is done and finished, and that you have a few reasons for believing as you do. Yes, we are all use to rejecting information we reckon does not serve our best interest. But you know there are many people who are rejecting Christianity for weak and implausible reasons that do not stack up. Are you one of them? Here are some of them:
- Jesus is a legend, so he cannot be taken seriously. If you believe that, you are avoiding the evidence. The first four books of the New Testament are based on direct eye-witness testimony or the evidence of those who knew people who had listened to his teaching, watched him closely for three years and then saw how his claims stacked up. For instance, John says, writing about Jesus, ‘that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you’ (1 John 1:3).
Even secular Roman historians Tacitus and Pliny knew about Jesus as a historical person. Jesus fits the role anticipated by the Old Testament Scriptures of Messiah and Suffering Servant who overcomes death and brings good news of forgiveness of sin. He has no equal. The evidences for his bodily resurrection have never been overturned. He is no legend.
- Christian beliefs are old-fashioned, and of no use today. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mind you, it is more than significant that it was Christianity in practice that showed the respect to grant free speech, freedom of the Press and freedom of conscience. That is because the Christian position offers its credentials openly in a way that invites your considered response. Forget the false caricature of religion being rammed down your throat.
Yes, we are called to share the good news with enthusiasm and love, but then it is up to those who choose to listen to consider how to respond to what they have heard. Christian beliefs are intellectually defensible and offer compelling reasons and explanations for our morally ruined natural human condition of true guilt and alienation from God. Against this background, the wonderful love of God, the person of Jesus Christ, his death, enduring the judgement of others’ sins and his resurrection, and the call to all to accept the free offer of peace with God, make such wonderfully good sense.
- Atheism and secular humanism have replaced Christianity. That view is open to challenge. Neither position is able to offer a reasoned defence for its own credibility based on its own assumptions. Assume those belief systems are true and you are on the road to an existence of meaningless futility drained of all true worth and value, like an empty egg shell. On that basis the ideas that jingle in your head are only electro-chemical reactions.
Neither atheism nor secular humanism has a credible basis for the validity of human reason. Both finish up borrowing that validity from a Christian view of our humanity in an information-saturated and understandable cosmos, created by one almighty Creator.
- Islam has replaced Christianity. Some would like to think so, as it evades the challenge of Christ and him crucified and the urgent call to repent and trust in him to be reconciled to God. There is no other way – Jesus Christ is the final revelation of God. He alone ‘has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’ Hebrews 9:27). No other sacrifice for sin, no other Saviour sent from heaven. Jesus is final. Read the accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection in Mark’s Gospel. All other claimants to finality fall empty.
These are only four reasons that some people use to reject Christianity. Many use other reasons. Ultimately, no reason can withstand the final truths of Jesus Christ. Only when you see that the reason for all excuses stem from our moral rebellion against God. The Bible is clear that ‘the heart is deceitful above all things’ (Jeremiah 17:9), but wonderfully, ‘at the right time Christ died for the ungodly’ (Romans 5:6). Will you believe that and trust him? Today is the time to lay down all those weak excuses and come and bow in repentance and faith to him who is Lord, and alive for evermore.
