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The Most Important Investigation
by Introduction The most important investigation for any officer is the investigation which has impact on his or her own life. We investigate issues that impact the lives of other every day and often neglect the issue which demands attention in our own lives. In this essay I am not asking that you agree with me but that you simply hear me out. The issue I want to bring your attention to is the issue of Christianity. You are likely thinking "what in the world does religious beliefs have to do with investigations"; again I ask that you simply hear me out. When an investigation is done it is done because the issue in question demands an action and the action has to be based on a complete and logical investigation. I want to suggest that the question of Christianity is one of those issues. Why is Christianity one of those issues that demand attention and action? In the Bible, John 14:6, Jesus Christ states "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me". The Bible also states that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23. And finally the Bible states that "the wages of sin is death" (notice the Bible does not note a degree of sin but condemns all who sin, period) "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ" Romans 6:23. You might not believe the Bible is true but I ask you to please consider the possibility that you are wrong, and if so will later wish you at least considered it. If the bible is true then all men have sinned and are going to be sent to hell for eternal judgment unless they come to faith in Jesus Christ who already took the punishment of God on our behalf on the cross, Isaiah 53:5 and 1st Peter 3:18. If you conclude the Bible to be wrong then you will at least be sure of you decision. If you conclude the Bible to be true then you will be praising God for His free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. The action demanded pending the results of your investigation is as follows: (a) believe on Jesus Christ and live for Him or (b) deny Jesus Christ and live as you please. Please note that this is not an issue you can just pass over. A failure to make a decision automatically places you under decision (b). We must not make an assumption on such an important issue. It deserves to at least be considered. In a domestic violence assault an investigation must be conducted and a decision made and an action taken, weather to arrest or not to arrest. If an investigation is not done, and a decision not made, and an action not taken, you run the risk of departmental discipline, law suits, or worst of all, escalated violence. I would like to compare this investigation to a DUI case. In a DUI investigation it is imperative to view and/or collect all evidence due to the fact that one piece of evidence is not likely to be seen as probable cause, much less "beyond a reasonable doubt". If you see a car swaying left of center you would likely pull it over but would not make an arrest based only on this. The arrest would be based on the fact that the driver was swaying left of center, had the smell of alcohol on his breath, stumbled out of the vehicle, had slurred speech, struggled to maintain balance, had watery or red eyes, continually forgot what was just said, could not do more than one simple task at a time (field sobriety tests); and the list can go on and on. The point is the above person is impaired and based on the above information an arrest and conviction can be made. But had the arrest been based on only one of the above evidences alone a conviction is unlikely. In the same way when looking at Christianity all issue must be taken into consideration and not "written off" simply because you don't want to take the time to view all the evidence. I would like to suggest that Christianity is not a religion based on myths, legends, or superstitions but on actual events that actually impacted real people and real history. Please do not grow weary from the length of his essay for some issues demand much follow up and time yet are worth completing. Now before reviewing the evidence we must have a basic understanding of what the Bible is. The Bible is not actually one book but 66 books written by dozens of writers, through the inspiration of God, over a time span of about 1,400 years. The last book of the Bible 2as written about 2,000 years ago and the oldest book was written about 1,400 years before that. This fact is actually the first evidence for the truth of the Bible. The fact that multiple men separated by hundreds of years and often hundreds of miles wrote with perfect unity and clarity is a task that has not ever been accomplished elsewhere. The bible is divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament documents the creation, records the history of Israel, and gives account to the prophecies given by God through distinct men. The New Testament starts with four accounts of the life of Jesus written by three eye witnesses and one historian who lived in the same time period, then an account of the beginning of the Church, followed by several letters written by men appointed by the Spirit of God to be his spokesmen, and ends with a prophesy regarding the end of time and eternal judgment or bliss, depending on your standing with Christ. Evidence for the existence of an intelligent creator (God) There are only two possibilities regarding the origin of matter, life, and energy. (1) An intelligent creator created all that exists. (2) All that exists was an accident (evolution and the big bang). The argument of creation verses evolution rages on. Evolutionists try to explain the presence of all mater and life through the theory that one thing can change into something completely different over time. The discoveries of DNA have given the evolutionary process a lot of trouble. DNA is a sort of blue print for all traits installed in all life forms. Due to DNA it is obvious that any living thing can only take on traits handed down through its parents' DNA. Therefore evolution is limited by reproduction. For example a pair of dogs who are different sizes and colors can produce puppies of different sizes and colors but cannot produce puppies with non-dog traits. It is obvious that animals can produce variations within the kind for example dogs, coyotes, and wolves are of the same kind and can reproduce variations; likewise tigers, lions, and pumas are of one kind and can reproduce variations; horses, donkeys, and zebras are of one kind an can reproduce variations. This natural occurrence is the only thing the evolutionists can argue. The other side is that a dog and a cat cannot reproduce, a horse and a wolf cannot reproduce, and a donkey and a coyote cannot reproduce so it is obvious that the variation is limited to the animal's kind and cannot jump from one kind to another. I believe the weightier matter is not progression of life but the origin of life and matter. This is the area in which evolution cannot come up with a satisfactory explanation. The theory evolutionists came up with to explain the origin of matter is the big bang theory. In the big bang, they say, an extremely dense speck of matter started spinning and due to centrifugal force exploded and expanded to be the entire universe we see today. The problem with this theory is that it still does not explain the origin of the speck and therefore attempts to ignore origin all together. The evolutionist tries to explain the origin of life through the theory that a soup of elements were charged by possibly lighting and spurred the first single celled organism. Science has not been able to reproduce the appearance of life in experiments. Creation explains the origin of life and the origin of matter simply by stating "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". This may sound like superstition but I believe this explanation is the only logical one. The presence of matter and, even more so, the presence of life is impossible by natural laws. It is impossible to create something from nothing; this is where the evolutionist hits a brick wall when trying to explain everything by nature. Also, living things cannot come from non-living things. This belief, living things coming from non-living things, is called spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation was widely believed in the fourth and fifth centuries to explain the appearance of maggots appearing on a rotten piece of flesh. This theory was disproved by a scientist who discovered that even the maggots came from another life, flies. And finally, the law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. All life displays some level of energy. Where did that energy originate. The conclusion is that matter, life, and even energy's origins are supernatural due to the deduction that nature could not have created them. Something supernatural must have created them, God almighty. The other issue to look at is the apparent design of the creation. When you look at a watch you do not logically assume that the pieces came together by accident and the energy just magically appeared. I propose that life and especially human life is obviously designed. Biologists have discovered that one of the "simplest" one celled organisms, the bacteria, is more complicated and sophisticated than any instrument or machine man has come up with. The human body far exceeds any computer or robot imagined. Evolution fails to explain that many of the separate organs in the human body could not have developed separately through gradual evolutions. The eye for example is useless without the nerves and the brain. The eye ball, the nerves, and the brain could not have developed separately. Lastly, let us consider the mind of the human. There are certain aspects of human thought that do not cooperate with the theory of evolution. Every people group throughout history has worshiped some kind of deity. The drive to "find God" has nothing to do with survival in the naturalistic sense yet it is one of the most powerful drives in the human state. Even evolutionists and atheists feel the need to explain the world. The god that evolutionists proclaim is time. They attribute that which is supernatural to time. Now what about the humans drive to love, build, create, discover, study ethics, and understand? None of these characteristics go along with evolutionistic thinking of survival of the fittest. Why are humans so different from every other creature on earth? The Bible is the only place that gives an explanation to this phenomenon, "And he made man in His own image". We were created separate from all other life and created to be like God. If we were an accident we would not consider anything but eating, breeding, and dying, survival. Now we have, I believe, proof that a god exists and created everything. And that god installed in us a desire to seek him so we can expect that he would give us a way to find him. So what god is it? Is it the god of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism? There are many proclaimed gods. I believe the God of Christianity, the God of the Bible, is the one true God and the Bible is the way God chose to reveal Himself to us. The Bible is the written word of God and Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh, John 1. With that in mind the next logical step is to investigate the Bible and Jesus. Evidence for the Bible through scientific discoveries If the Bible was inspired and directed by the God who created all that exists you would expect that when a statement is made regarding natural laws or science it would be absolutely correct and not an assumption, like the belief that the world is held up by a man named Atlas (Greek mythology). The Bible is not written for the purpose of science so we cannot expect science to be the main focus but there are several references to scientific laws throughout much of the Bible. These references are scientifically correct. The interesting thing is that all of these references were written thousands of years before modern science discovered them. We do have archeology proof that the Bible, specifically the Old Testament which contains most of the references, was written in ancient times. Archeology evidence will be discussed in the next section. Again please be patient as there is a lot of evidence to look through and is worth considering. In Ecclesiastes 1:6 the Bible states "The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course." This statement was written at approximately 935 BC. It was not until about 1060 AD that the rout of the air currents around the earth was discovered yet the Bible speaks of it in a time when there was not way a human could have known that there is a regular air current. In Psalms 8:8 the Bible states "and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea". In the year 1845 it was discovered that there are currents or "paths" in the middle of the ocean yet this Bible quote mentions the paths of the sea almost as if it were common knowledge. In fact the person who discovered these paths used the above Bible verse as his inspiration to look. We still know very little about the oceans as they are the last great frontier on Earth. In Job 38:16 the Bible states "have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep". The book of Job is considered by most scholars to be the oldest book in the Bible written thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Scientists believed that fresh water springs in the bottom of the ocean were impossible until the 1970's when it was discovered and photographed that there are in fact fresh water springs in the floor of the oceans. In Job 36:27-29 the Bible states "He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how He spreads out the clouds, how He thunders from His pavilion" and again in Amos 5:8 the Bible states "who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land, the Lord is His name". Our full understanding of the cycle of evaporation and precipitation was not known until 1676, thousands of years after the above verses were written. In Job 26:7 the Bible states "He spreads out the northern skies over the empty space' He suspends the earth over nothing". All of the surrounding cultures of the ancient world at that time believed ideas of the world sitting on top of a turtle, an elephant, or a man. The Bible correctly states that the earth does not sit on anything thousands of years before the first view of the earth from space. In Isaiah 40:22 the Bible states "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in". The Hebrew word used in this verse for "circle" is "khug" and can also be translated as sphere. It was believed that the world was flat and you could fall off if you traveled too far until the late 1400's yet the Bible again correctly states that the world is a circle, or sphere. In Leviticus 17:11 the Bible states "for the life of a creature is in the blood". During the 1500's it was a common practice to drain the blood out of a sick person as a cure for "bad blood". Today we understand that the blood is a life line as it brings nutrience and oxygen to the cells of the body and carries waste away from the cells of the body. The Bible displayed an understanding of how the body works thousands of years before modern science could explore it. In the books of Leviticus and Numbers the Bible gives medical instruction for the ancient Israelites that is thousands of years before its time. I did not quote the verses because there are too man to put into an essay. The Bible talks about washing under running water, separating sick people from well people, and washing or destroying clothing of a sick person before re-entering society. Modern medicine did not practice the above guidelines until the 20th century when the germ was discovered. There are more of the references in the Bible. I listed just enough to communicate the amazing understanding of our world written in the Bible thousands or years before science could have. Evidence for the Bible and Jesus through history and archeology I do no believe Christianity is based on myth or legends but based on real historical people, places, and events. Many have insisted that the events, people, and places in the Bible are fictional but modern archeology and documented history has proven otherwise. All through the old and new testaments historical characters have been mentioned, nations and cultures have been mentioned, and historical events have been mentioned. Much of the information in the Bible including people, places, and events has been verified by archeology with the rest yet to be discovered. None of the discoveries have disproved any part of the Bible. In fact the Bible has been used by archeologists to aid in looking for discoveries because it has proved to be absolutely accurate time and time again. Historians have also found the Bible to be correct. We have the writings of many historians who lived near the time of Christ and the first century church who verify much of the events listed in the New Testament. If I was to list every discovery and historical document I would be writing a rather lengthy book on this subject alone but I do believe I can list a few to get the point across. Arguably the most important discovery was the "Dead Sea Scrolls" discovered between 1947 and 1956. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of scrolls hidden in caves along the North West shore of the Dead Sea. Fragments of every book of the Old Testament except the book of Esther were found. One scroll called the "Great Isaiah Scroll" contained the complete book of Isaiah. The collection was dated using paleographic dating, scribal dating, and carbon 14 dating. The dates of the scrolls varied from scroll to scroll between the dates of 200 BC and 68 AD. The original writings were much older than that but these copies were apparently made during that time frame. Isaiah chapter 53, Isaiah chapter 61, and Psalms chapter 22 all dated to at least 100 BC. Isaiah 53 and 61 and Psalms 22 are all important prophesies of the coming messiah, Jesus Christ. This proves the messianic prophesies were not made up after Jesus died. These scrolls are comparable to the translations we have today proving that the Bible you can pick up in the store is reliable. Archeologists suggest that these scrolls were a library of the Essences, strictly observant Jewish scribed, and were likely hidden during the Jewish revolt in 66 to 70 AD. Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian who lived from 55 AD to 120 AD. In his writings he mentions intense persecution against the Christians and mentions the death of Christ. Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived from 37 AD to 100 AD. In his writings he mentions Jesus having many disciples who continued to follow him even after he was put to death. Josephus mentions the disciples making claims of seeing the resurrected Jesus three times. Josephus mentions the death of John the Baptist at the hands of King Herod. Josephus also mentions James the brother of Jesus and the writer of the biblical book of James being sentenced to death by stoning by the high priest. Pliny the Younger was a Roman Governor who lived from 62 AD to 113 AD. Pliny wrote a letter to the emperor of Rome asking for advice on how to deal with Christians. In his letter Pliny mentions interrogations with Christians who admit to meeting and singing song worshiping Christ. The worship of Jesus Christ was not an idea made up centuries later as "The De Vince Code" claims! Cornelius, Josephus, and Pliny were not Christians and would have no reason to lie about the events which took place and therefore are reliable references to the life and death of Jesus Christ as well as the events of the early church. Evidence for the Bible and Jesus through prophecy One of the most amazing things about the Bible are the prophesies listed in it. In Revelations 1:8 the Bible states "I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Last, Says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty". God has existed throughout all time and will exist for all time. God can see the end from the beginning. That being the case we can expect it to happen when God says something is going to happen. I am not talking about the fake hit and miss prophesies of the tabloids, I am talking about real prophesies which are always right on the money. The Bible sets up a standard for God inspired prophesy, it must be accurate 100% of the time, Deuteronomy 18:20-22 and 2 Peter 1:20-21! There are hundreds of prophesies in the Bible. All of the prophesies have been accurate. They have come to pass just as foretold or are still future. Again, if I were to list all of the prophesies I would be writing a lengthy book on this subject alone but I will list a few to get the point across. In Isaiah 44:28 and 54:1 the Bible predicts that King Cyrus would sign a decree allowing the Jews to leave captivity and return to Jerusalem and re-build the temple. When this prediction was made, about 700 BC, the Jews were not in captivity, the temple was intact, and there was no King Cyrus. But not long afterward the Jews were taken into captivity by the Babylonians and held captive for 70 years, as God said in an earlier prophesy. At the end of those 70 years King Cyrus came to rule and did sign a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem where they re-built the temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians. In several versus of the Old testament God tells the Jews they will be dispersed among the nations as a judgment for disbelief but would be re-gathered to Israel toward the end of time. Until recent times the Jews truly have been "dispersed among the nations" without their own home, but are now a real nation to themselves. How amazing is it for a people to maintain their identity and religion for over two thousand years while spread out around the world to latter re-gather to their homeland? There are many more fulfilled prophesies regarding the nations, but the most amazing are the prophesies of the first coming of Jesus Christ. There are over a hundred predictions of the coming messiah which Jesus fulfilled when he came to us the first time, some more specific than others. There are many more which he will fulfill when he comes again. Mathematicians have said that for Jesus to fulfill just eight of the messianic prophesies would be an impossibility, but he fulfilled them all. Here are just a few. In the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah we are told that a man would come and be charged and executed for our sins. Isaiah 53 goes into much detail that is fulfilled by the death of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53 said that He would die with sinners and be buried with the rich. In the New Testament we are told that Jesus was crucified with two criminals and was buried in a rich man's grave which was donated by a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea. In the 22nd Psalm a crucifixion is described n much detail hundreds of years before the Roman Empire existed. The Romans were the ones to institute the cross as a form of execution, before then other methods were used. Verse 14 states "my bones are out of joint". Part of crucifixion is dislocating the victim's shoulders to stretch the hands to the end of the cross. Verse 16 states "they pierced my hands and feet", obviously part of crucifixion. Verse 18 states "They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots". While Jesus was dying the guards gambled for his clothing. In Jeremiah 23:6 it is prophesied that the messiah would be a descendant of King David. Jesus was in fact a descendant of David. Joseph was Jesus' adoptive father and was a descendant of Kind David, Mathew 1. Jesus' mother, Mary, was also a descendant of King David, Luke 3. Luke 3 mentions Joseph but as a son in-law. In Daniel 9:25 it was prophesied hundreds of years before the birth of Christ the specific timing of the messiah's birth. The birth of Jesus corresponds with that time table. Isaiah 7:14 says the messiah would be born of a virgin. Jesus was born of a virgin, Mary, Mathew 1. In Micah 5:2 it was prophesied that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Jesus was in fact born in Bethlehem even though his parents lived in Nazareth, Mathew 2 and John 7. Zechariah 9:9 states that the messiah would enter Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus did enter Jerusalem on a donkey as king, Mathew 21:6-11. Zechariah 11:12-13 says the messiah would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver and a piece of land called the "Potter's field" would be purchased. When Judas betrayed Jesus it was for 30 pieces of silver. When Judas felt guilty he tried to return the silver to the priest who gave it to him. The priest purchased a field called the "Potter's field" with the silver. That field is where Judas hung himself. Mathew 26 and 27. Malachi 3:1 says the messiah would be preceded by a messenger who would prepare the way. Just before Jesus started preaching John the Baptist started baptizing people in the Jordan River and declaring the messiah was coming and later identified Jesus as that messiah, Mathew 3 and John 1. I would like to mention one prophesy that is still future. In 2 Thessalonians 2:12 the Bible predicts that those who do not believe the truth but continue in sin will be condemned by God in the future judgment. Looking at the current track record the Bible has of 100% fulfilled prophesy thus far, I think we need to take this one seriously. This is the reason we cannot ignore e the question of Christianity. There is too much at stake here to assume it was just superstition! You must know is it true or is it not true, an assumption places us in risk of being wrong. If you believe in Jesus and look for His second coming you have this to look forward to, "Look He is coming with the clouds" Rev. 1:7. Jesus is coming back! Evidence for the Bible and Jesus through eye witness testimony "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time" 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. The above scripture was written by the Apostle Paul. The central belief of Christianity is the belief that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and then rose from the dead on the third day overcoming death. This belief is not based on superstition or legend but based on eye witness accounts, hundreds of them. Please notice that in the above scripture Paul invited his listeners to check with the witnesses by mentioning that most of them still live. In a crime the most abundant evidence is witness testimony. Now we all know that testimony has to be evaluated to see if it is reliable or not. Let's look at the evaluation of the testimony of the apostles and the first century church. The witnesses claimed the Lord rose from the grave. What did they gain from that claim? Nothing, no monetary gain came, no social standing came from it, and no worldly gain came at all. We know from the Bible and other historical documents that sever persecution came from both the Jews and the Romans to those who claimed Christianity. Ten of the apostles died violent deaths due to their testimony of Jesus rising from the dead. Paul himself was beheaded for his testimony. All Christians knew they stood the risk of death simply for being Christians yet they spoke and lived boldly as though they did not fear death. Now Christianity is not the only religion to have people die for it but Christianity is the only religion to have people die for an actual event that they witnessed. Fro Example the Islamic extremists died for what they believed in when they flew planes into the trade center on 9/11. The extremists died for a religious belief. The first Christians died for an event they actually witnessed. What if the witnesses were lying? The threat of death is the best way to find out if they were lying. Multitudes of people will not die to protect a lie that brings no worldly gain anyway. The gospel is evidenced by the blood of the martyrs. The first witnesses of the risen Christ were women who came to the tomb to find it empty and then saw Jesus, John 20. In that time women were not considered to be trust worthy to testimony. They were not allowed to testify in courts. If the gospel is a lie why would the writers list women as the first witnesses and not men who would be more trusted, unless it is what actually happened. In the "Chronicles of Narnia" by CS Lewis one character states "if she isn't lying and she isn't mad, then logically she must be telling the truth". The witnesses were not lying. There was not reason for them to lie in fact their lives would have been easier if they denied Christ. The second option is they were mad or insane. If it were only one or a few people who witnessed it, like the witnesses of aliens from outer space, I wou8ld consider this option but this is over five hundred witnesses who claim to have seen the risen Christ. With that many witnesses to a crime a jury would quickly give a guilty verdict. It is not possible for over five hundred people to have the exact same hallucination. Now, what about the officials in the Roman government and the Jewish officials? To kill the story of Christ rising from the dead all they would have to do is produce the body of Jesus. But the body was not to be found. It is true that the Jews would not touch a dead body due to the law but that would not keep them from hiring someone else to do it as they hired Judas to betray Jesus. The Romans would have had not problem digging up a body to stop an uprising but there was not a body to show. The witnesses in this case were telling the truth; Jesus did rise from the dead!!! Evidence for Christianity through scripture authenticity As described in the second page of this essay the Christian Bible is separated into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Both of the testaments are in fact literature works of antiquity, a fancy or official way of saying ancient writings. Ancient works are often scrutinized and investigated in regards to integrity, whether they were actually written by the acclaimed author and during the acclaimed time period. I am not an expert of anything so there may be more evidence for the scripture's integrity than I know of but here is what I am aware of. We do not have the original writings of the Old Testament but we do have copies made by extremely astute people. The Jew's made copies of the old scriptures by hand and were bound by strong religious fervor and supervisory to make perfect copies. When a copy was made it was looked over and tested against the scripture. If any fallacy was found the copy was scrapped. We have ancient copies written in Hebrew, the language of the Jews, and Greek. The copies agree in comparison. The strongest test of integrity, I believe, has already been mentioned, the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Dead Sea and date to about 100 years BC. The scrolls include fragments of every book of the Old Testament except the book of Esther. The scrolls also include a complete text of the book of Isaiah which includes many of the scripture most important prophesies. When compared to the Dead See Scroll's texts today's copies of the Old Testament texts prove accurate. When it comes to the New Testament we again do not have the original texts but we have hundreds of ancient copies found in many locations around the Middle East and the surrounding areas. The copies all agree in content. Another evidence of integrity for both of the testaments is that they accurately depict historical people, places, empires, and events. Luke, writer of two books in the New Testament, is proven to be an excellent historian. Over all the Old and New Testaments of the Bible have more evidence to their integrity than any other ancient work, including the Iliad and Odyssey, which are accepted undisputedly to have been written by Homer in ancient Greece. Evidence for the Bible through simply reading it I believe that if you are convinced that God exists and the Bible is indeed inspired by the spirit of God you can meet God and come to the salvation which He has prepared for you through simply reading the Bible. The Bible states that the gospel, or message, of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation, Romans 1:16. The Bible also states that the scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation, 2 Timothy 3:15. Conclusion In conclusion, I believe Christianity can be evidenced not just by "reasonable suspicious", "probable cause", or even "beyond a reasonable doubt", but by "beyond the shadow of a doubt". If you are convinced that Christianity is true then please believe on Jesus Christ and confess to Him you are a sinner and in need of His forgiveness, Romans 10:9-11. The Lord will forgive you your sins, 1 John 1:9. Then submit your life to Him, Start reading the Bible and obey it, and start attending a Bible believing church, Romans 12:1-2, 2 Timothy 2:15, and Hebrews 10:25. You will find that Christ will give you hope, love, peace, joy, purpose, fulfillment, and of course eternal life. If you are not convinced of Christianity, the Bible, and Jesus please look through the listed internet site links and books for a more in depth investigation. This essay is a mere summary of the evidence for Christ. (www.allaboutthejourney.org, www.drdino.com, www.pytlik.com/observe/deliverus/signature.html, and The Case For Christ) Thank you for reading this essay I know it took a lot of patience. I pray it has encouraged you, challenged you, and enlightened you. May God bless you and all your family, amen. Daniel Carthel I have been a Christian for 15 years. I live in a small Arizona town with my wife and four children. I have been a police officer for 7 years. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |