Category Archives: Easter

Thomas, the greatest missionary of the Twelve

12 Sunday Apr 2015

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This is the time of year when many Christians in the United States travel to the Mediterranean for a tour of the lands of the Bible. One popular type of tour is a “footsteps of the apostle Paul” tour which aims to visit the places where Paul preached in the book of Acts. These tours typically stop at sites in Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

One tour that I have never heard offered is a “footsteps of the apostle Thomas” tour. Although Thomas’ travels are not recorded in the New Testament, Thomas is known to church historians as the most celebrated missionary of the original group of Twelve apostles. Few tourists, if any, would have the stomach to retrace the apostle Thomas’ footsteps from Jerusalem, through Syria, Iraq, and Iran, down the southwestern (Malabar) coast of India, and up the southeastern (Coromandel) coast of India, all the way to the city of Chennai (Madras), where Thomas was stoned to death for preaching the risen Christ. The places where Thomas traveled, preaching the gospel, are dangerous, foreign, and spiritually dark today, but so were they when Thomas originally traveled to them.

To an outside observer, Thomas might seem like the most unlikely of all the apostles to become a great missionary. Thomas began his apostolic career as a skeptic, a pessimist, and a doubter. He almost seemed hesitant as a follower of Jesus. In John 11:16, as Jesus set out for Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, Thomas made a comment that showed that he was predisposed to belief in the worst possible outcome, unless it could be absolutely proven otherwise. In that verse, John translates Thomas’ name (an Aramaic word) into Greek as “Twin” (Greek Didymus, like the English word dittography), which shows that he was so undistinguished among the Twelve that he was not even called by his real name. One Eastern church tradition remembers Thomas as “Judas Thomas”; since there were two other Judases among the Twelve, the disciples evidently decided to call one of the three by his nickname.

The best known vignette of Thomas in the Bible is in John 20, which occurs after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Although Jesus appeared to women at the tomb and to the majority of the disciples, Thomas was for some reason absent when Jesus made His appearances on that first Easter Sunday. In spite of the testimony of the other ten apostles, the women who were at the tomb, and the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus, Thomas famously pronounced himself unconvinced of Jesus’ resurrection. In John 20:24-25, Thomas insisted that he would not believe unless he could not only see Jesus, but could also physically put his finger into the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and put his hand into the mark of the spear on Jesus’ side. Everything about Thomas changed when Jesus appeared to him some eight days later and gave him just the opportunity he had asked for to verify absolutely that He had indeed risen from the dead (John 20:26-27), leading Thomas to confess on the spot that Jesus is Lord and God (John 20:28).

Thomas, once the greatest skeptic among the Twelve, became the most celebrated missionary of the group after having been persuaded beyond all doubt of the fact of the resurrection. After leaving Palestine, Thomas first preached the gospel in Syria, then left Roman territory to preach the gospel in the Parthian Empire (modern Iraq and Iran). Determined to press the gospel to the ends of the earth, Thomas proceeded to sail to the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, planting churches which remain to the present day. After establishing these churches, Thomas continued on around the southern tip of India, and was preaching the gospel in Hindu cities along India’s eastern coast until he was at last stoned to death near the city of Chennai (Madras). A monument remains to this day on a hill outside Chennai to mark the site of Thomas’ martyrdom, some 5,027 km (3,124 miles) from Jerusalem. The only explanation for Thomas’ unstoppable zeal and unshakeable faith after his skeptical start is an experience just like that described in the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John.

Thomas’ missionary efforts are a great testimony to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus, of which Thomas was a witness. But Thomas’ work is also a great challenge to the church, and a censure of the church. Why was there not one person in the second generation of Christians who was as driven as Thomas to take the gospel to the ends of the earth? Surely the entire world would have been evangelized in a hundred years with only a dozen Thomases in each generation. Why is it not until the 18th and 19th centuries that we finally read of Christians leaving Europe to take the gospel to unknown lands and unreached peoples? Although today there are indeed Christian missionaries and churches throughout the world (though not nearly enough), the church today all too often seems sluggish and halfhearted. If we really do believe that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, this truth should stimulate in us the same kind of all-out, lifelong dedication to the work of the Lord that that it stimulated in the apostle Thomas.

The Sign of Jonah

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by in Apologetics, Easter

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What does the historicity of the Old Testament book of Jonah have to do with Easter? Quite a bit, actually. In Matthew 12:39-41, Jesus said, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here.

Jonah was a sign to the people of Nineveh in that he came back from the dead in a sense—not literally, but after having spent three days under the ocean, in the stomach of a fish. In the context of this quotation from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is arguing that His resurrection would prove the unbelief of the Pharisees. The people of Nineveh repented at the sign of Jonah, but the Pharisees would not repent at the greater sign of the Son of man’s resurrection from the dead. But if there never was a Jonah who spent three days and three nights in the belly of a fish, and if he never did preach in Nineveh and lead the city to repentance, the comparison would be imaginary and would prove nothing about the Pharisees. And if Jonah wasn’t literally in the belly of a fish for three days, then maybe Jesus wasn’t literally in the grave for three days, either. Jesus’ assertion that “a greater One than Jonah is here” would also be an empty claim if Jonah never actually preached at Nineveh.

There are, however, strong reasons to believe in the historicity of both the prophet Jonah and the events in the biblical book which bears his name. The strongest reason is, of course, the fact that the book of Jonah is a part of inspired Scripture, as acknowledged by both the ancient Jews and the Lord Jesus Christ. The man Jonah is mentioned in another part of the Old Testament, in 2 Kings 14:25. The historical context in which Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25 corresponds to a period of weakness and disorder in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, during which Jonah’s warning that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days would have been particularly believable. During this period, there was a time in which the administrative control of the Assyrian king was reduced to “greater Nineveh,” which explains why Nineveh is the main focus of Jonah’s prophecies (rather than “Assyria”). There are good reasons to believe that when Nineveh is described as a journey of three days in breadth (Jonah 3:3), with 120,000 young children (Jonah 4:11), it is the district of Nineveh that is referenced, and not just that part of Nineveh enclosed by the city wall.

Many critics have also asserted that it is impossible for a man to survive for three days and three nights in the belly of a fish. While this fish is said to have been specially prepared by God (Jonah 1:17), it still was a real fish, and it really did swallow Jonah alive. The common idea that this fish was a whale is nowhere stated in Scripture; in fact, whales are very rare in the Mediterranean, and this was more likely a great white shark, which has a much slower metabolism than a whale. It is also important to realize that the term “three days and three nights” does not necessarily refer to a full 72-hour period, but only to parts of three days. “Day and night” is a Hebrew idiom for what we would call a “day.” Among other references to “day and night” in the Bible, Jesus said that His body would be buried for three days and three nights (Matt 12:40), yet He was buried late in the day on Friday and raised at early dawn on Sunday, a period of about 36 hours.

For more detailed argumentation regarding the historicity of the book of Jonah, see my new Kindle book, The Historicity of the Book of Jonah, and Why It Still Matters.

Where is Harry Houdini?

28 Saturday Mar 2015

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Harry Houdini was the world’s greatest escape artist. He routinely escaped from handcuffs, locked jail cells, straitjackets, nailed coffins, and all sorts of other restraints that were supposed to be secure. One of his most famous acts was escaping from an airtight, locked glass-and-steel cabinet that was filled with water. No one could create a system of locks and chains that was so secure that Houdini could not free himself from them.

Harry Houdini born on March 24, 1874 as Ehrich Weiss, the son of a Jewish rabbi, in Budapest, Hungary. Though a Jew, Houdini was not very religious. He spent much time in his later years trying to debunk mediums and spiritists. He was unsure about life after death, however. Before he died on October 31 (Halloween Day), 1926, he agreed with his wife that if it was possible to communicate from the other side of the grave he would send her a message. He also made his wife promise on his deathbed that she would try to communicate with him on the anniversary of his death, making contact with him wherever he might be. His wife held séances for him every year on October 31, for ten years, with no success. Magicians around the world have continued to hold yearly séances for Houdini, but they have never received a message from him. Harry Houdini’s body was buried in Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York, and his body remains in the ground. Harry Houdini was unable to come back from the other side of the grave, whether as a spirit or in the body, and he has not even been able to send a message. The fact that Houdini has not sent a message is itself a clear message: Houdini can’t send any message back to the earth, and he can’t escape from the place where he now is.

Luke 16:19-31 tells the story of another man who, like Harry Houdini, wanted to send a message to his family from the other side of the grave. Like Houdini, this man was a Jew, but was not very religious. He was wealthy, however, and enjoyed a “good life.” Yet when he died, he went to a place of great torment, called Hades. While in the torments of Hades, he saw, far off in another realm, a beggar named Lazarus who had once sat under his table, eating crumbs. Lazarus was in Paradise, taking comfort in the arms of Abraham. Somewhat surprisingly, the rich man found that he was able to communicate with Abraham. He first asked Abraham to send Lazarus to put a drop of water on the tip of his tongue to cool it, but was told that not only would it be impossible for Lazarus to travel to Hades, it would also be unjust for the rich man not to suffer the torment he deserves. The rich man then asked Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth in order to warn his brothers about the place of torment. Abraham refused once again, telling the rich man that it would do no good—if his brothers would not listen to the witness of the Scriptures, they would not listen to the witness of a man who came back from the dead, either.

Jesus did something that neither Harry Houdini nor the rich man of Luke 16 could do—He escaped from death! Jesus came back from the dead in His own body, and He proved it by repeated appearances to hundreds of different people who were extremely skeptical. Many of these people were later killed for their belief in the claims Jesus made for Himself, which shows that they were convinced beyond all doubt of Jesus’ resurrection. While many people in the world had, and still have, great respect for Harry Houdini and his views on life and death, there is only one man whom we can trust when it comes to matters of life, death, and eternity, and that is the Man who rose from the dead.

Postscript: for a more detailed discussion of the Bible’s teaching concerning the underworld and life after death, see my Kindle book The Bible’s Teaching on Endless Punishment, and Objections to It.

Is death inevitable?

22 Sunday Mar 2015

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There is an old saying that two things in life are inevitable: death and taxes. This is said tongue-in-cheek, since of course not everyone in the world pays taxes—Kuwait, for example, is a tax-free country—but nearly everyone in the world pays taxes. Taxes seem like an inevitability, though circumstances are conceivable in which they are not (for example, if one is destitute). Death, however, does appear to be inevitable. Even with all of our scientific and technological advances, no one in modern history has lived past the age of 122, and most people in the world’s most developed countries are dead before they reach the age of 80. Further, there is, from the human point of view, the possibility that anyone who is now alive could die at any time. The Bible teaches that death was not part of God’s original plan for the human race. Death entered the world as a direct consequence of sin (Gen 2:17). The human race was placed under a sentence of death as punishment for the sin of Adam, who was the forefather of the human race. Romans 5:12 states, Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin. It may be surprising, then, to know that the Bible does not teach that everyone will die. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ, as the second Adam, has conquered death, and has overcome the power of death by rising from the dead (Rom 5:17; 1 Cor 15:21-22). The Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:52-53 that not everyone will die, although all men will have their mortal bodies changed. Specifically, when Jesus will take those who have believed on Him during the Church Age to heaven, living Christians will simply have their bodies changed, rather than raised from the dead (cf. 1 Thess 4:13-18). It seems, as well, that believers who are alive at the end of the thousand-year reign of Christ (the millennium) will also have their bodies changed before the final judgment, rather than dying and being raised from the dead (see Revelation 20). One could also note the famous Old Testament story of Elijah being taken to heaven alive in a whirlwind, rather than dying (2 Kgs 2:1-12). However, Elijah evidently will return to the earth during the tribulation period, and will be killed at the midpoint of this period (cf. Mal 4:5; Matt 17:11; Rev 11:1-13). But there is another great man of God in the Old Testament who was also taken to heaven without dying, specifically so that he would not see death (according to Hebrews 11:5). This was Enoch, the father of Methuselah (Gen 5:21-24). Enoch was taken to heaven a mere 57 years after the first man, Adam, succumbed to the sentence of death. Although Adam’s lifespan of 930 years seems extraordinary by today’s standards, in fact the death of Adam must have dealt a terrible blow to the human psyche. Because Adam lived so long, perhaps some were holding out hope that he would never die, that the curse would not come to pass, and that men could, possibly, just keep on living indefinitely. After Adam’s death, hope seemed to end; the futility of life had sunk in like a hard reality—when suddenly the principle of death was violated in Enoch’s case. The translation of Enoch so short a time after the death of Adam showed that death was not the final sentence for the human race. Death will not prevail in the end, by God’s grace. Easter Sunday is now only two weeks away. What does the “translation” of someone who lived so long ago as Enoch mean to us today? Here is the question from a different angle: what would it mean to you if you found out that one of your own ancient ancestors had never died, but was still alive? In fact, everyone in the world today is descended from Noah, and Enoch was Noah’s great-grandfather. The story of Enoch ought to be a great encouragement to every one of us, because Enoch was an ancestor of every one of us. That means that every one of us has in Enoch an ancestor who did not die! Christian, take heart! Let no one tell you despairingly that everyone who has ever lived has died. Yet if we can draw hope from the fact that one of our ancestors did not die and will never die, how much more hope can we take from the fact that Enoch’s endless life was made possible by the fact of Christ’s (then-anticipated, now-fulfilled) conquest of death through His resurrection from the dead? Whether we live or die, those of us who have believed in Jesus will someday live with Him forever in glorified, immortal bodies.