Some books have wonderful opening lines.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

A tale of two cities. Charles Dickens


Others are much less memorable. The Bible starts with the moat sublime of all

In the beginning, God …

Sometimes we forget this and get ourselves into long discussions with atheists and scientists about how life got started and where the world came from.

We need to remember that whether or not it was evolution or intelligent design or something else, the Bible doesn't say. It's not important. What is important is to look at those amazing four words. In the beginning God! This is all we need to know. Maybe one day we will find out how it worked but I don't think anything will detract from God. No matter how He did it, nothing will be more amazing than the fact that He did it.

Everything that has begun to exist was created by a God who wants to create things. That's why we are so creative as a species; we were created in the image of a creative God.

Seriously, everything came from
God. You, me even that annoying atheist who thinks that Christians are ridiculous.

The big question for some will always remain how. Did God create the world in six literal days? I don't know. Could He have done so? Yes of course, He's God! Whatever the truth, nothing can be more amazing than the fact that

In the beginning, God.

Just been to the local Christian bookshop in order to buy a gift. The lady in there is always nice and always asks after my wife by name (never uses my name though). Now this wasn't the surprise. Rather it involved a former pupil of mine. He had done very well in his examinations but I had never seen him to say that as he left school. I had no idea he was a Christian so my surprise was piqued at seeing him in there but when I congratulated him his answer was 'God helped me with that!'. Astounded as I was he then told me what he was doing these days: 'just going where God leads me'.

Suffice it to say God is amazing and I am genuinely pleased to have seen my former pupil. I have someone else to thank God for tonight!

This week at Bible Study we will be looking at some more in our comparative religion studies. Last week it was Jehovah's Witnesses an what they believe in. How can we refute what they are saying to us when they come to the door. A very interesting study.

This week it will be Muslims. What are their core beliefs? What do they believe about Christians and how do we tackle them in terms of our faith. I've long been fascinated by their dedication to their beliefs but also how clearly they differ from Christianity.

Quite often in the media we hear of this and that in the bible being false but we never hear of the koran being treated that way. Even in the bookshop at our local shopping centre the koran gets pride of place on the top shelf of the religion section. Yet it's not as trustworthy as a document according to many scholars. Perhaps a study of it will see.

I don't dislike Islam or Muslims. I genuinely think they have a lot to say to Christians and we need to listen to them. Hopefully this will be possible a little on Monday evening

Meeting the wife was the best part of the day. Dinner was lovely but it was definitely seeing my wife that made all the difference after a long week at work.

Currently sitting in town waiting for my wife to finish her work. I love meeting her from work and I think tonight I shall take her to dinner. She and I pray together every night and that's the longest I've ever kept up prayer so thats one of the million things to be grateful for.

Listening to some Worship Anthems which has taught me a lesson. I nearly bought the album from iTunes today without realising I'd put it on the iPod already from a cd. Must check what music I have. I bet there'll be some pleasant surprises.

I have been doing a lot of debating with non-Christians on various message boards of late. It all started after I read God is not great by Christopher Hitchens. His polemic inspired me to challenge some of his more ardent followers. It wasn't difficult to do as our faith is very robust and doesn't need our help. What got me thinking was the sheet number of glib one-liners they tried to use. I must admit I was riled a few times and responded with some one-liners of my own. My question is this. Should we allow our enemies to rile us? Do we lose ground when we respond in the same way? I try not to but just occasionally I succumb

 Here are some thoughts I had when reading a book about the resurrection. Please feel free to comment

When I was at school, I developed a passion for something that was considered weird by many others. I fell in love with history as a subject and as an idea. For me, the thrill of finding out what happened and why was very exciting. I still remember to this day sitting down having a coffee once and suddenly it all clicked. Everything that I had been studying for months suddenly made sense. It was a lightbulb moment par excellence. Sadly, it was an hour after the exam I needed to have it all make sense for but I appreciated it all the same.

I fell in love with something else whilst studying history. I will leave the revelation till later but it was my skills as a historian that led me to the decision I made. I had spent several years studying the past and I suppose I had learned two things. It’s notoriously hard to sum up what a historian should do but the best I can come up with is this: analyse all (or as much as you can) of the evidence that is available and never go in with a preconception.

This is what was on my mind when I was challenged by a very dear friend to consider one of the greatest historical conundrums of all time; the resurrection of Jesus. I didn’t come from a religious home, I rarely went to church while growing up (when I did it was usually to spend an hour and a half playing a trombone badly) and had never read the Bible with anything approaching an open mind. Still, I had, at university started going to church and I wanted to ensure that I approached with an open mind what I was being told.

So, to cut a long story short, I looked into all the evidence that I could find for the things I was being told and reached a decision; a decision that changed my life.

What I would like to do is to talk about the most important teaching of Christianity, the one without which Christianity would fall; the resurrection. I want to look at evidence and some of the different theories that have been put out to explain this.. Please be assured that I did approach this with an open mind and I would ask that you do the same.

The Resurrection of Jesus is the most important fact in history. Whether or not you believe it, countless millions have done so and they have changed the world. Those who believe tat on the first Easter Sunday Jesus came out of the grave and those who do not have been responsible for some of the most momentous decisions of all time. This is something that everybody should at some time reach a decision about. Hopefully what I say here can help someone reach their decision.

Before we start, here are the basic elements of the story as told in the Gospel of Luke (which I am using as it is my favourite version, perhaps because of Luke's great skills as an historian): Jesus was crucified on the Friday, was identified as dead by an experienced soldier and was buried in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, an important Jewish man. On the Sunday morning, some of his followers (women because the men were too scared) went to the tomb to carry out some of the burial rites associated with their faith. When they got there, the massive stone sealing the tomb was moved. They were met by two men1 who told them that He (the one they were looking for) was not there. He had risen just as he promised. What followed over the next few weeks was a series of meetings between Jesus and his followers. In ones and twos, in groups of a dozen or more and on at least one occasion to over 500 people.

This is the crux of the problem: if this resurrection is true then everything about Christianity is true. Prove that Jesus didn’t rise from the grave then you prove that all the claims of Christianity are untrue. Flip this over though and you realise this; if you prove that Jesus did rise from the grave then you prove that all the claims of Christianity are true.

The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus relies mainly on four documents. These are the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I do not have time here to explain the strengths and weaknesses of these as source of evidence (I will try to do so at a later date). I will say though, that the records we have from these four men (as well as the circumstantial evidence) is at least as strong as, and probably stronger than, any evidence we have from the same period and even later concerning other events and people. (I will point out here that many people who criticise the resurrection of Christ will often claim that there are only two gospels as Matthew and Luke are based on Mark and therefore one must count them as the same source but I disagree with this and will attempt to explain why in a later piece of writing). Nobody seriously distrusts what we have learned from the ancient sources about Julius Caesar do they? If we remember the two rules of good history then we will realise that an open mind is needed with these sources. We cannot dismiss them because they are in the Bible. Whatever we think about that book, we must remember that it is a valid source for us and worthy of study.

So, looking at the evidence, we are left with two possible options about the tomb. Either Jesus was in the tomb or he was not. There is no third possibility. What I would like to do is examine the different theories that have been put forward to try and answer which was true. After each one I will offer my own summary and I will end with the theory which, after much study, I decided was the truth.

First, and easiest to dismiss is the idea that the whole thing was a fabrication. Rare as it is amongst scholars, some people genuinely claim that there was no crucifixion, no death, no tomb, no resurrection and therefore no truth to the gospel claims. This of course is ridiculous. Nobody seriously denies the death of Jesus on the cross. It is incomprehensible to believe that this was the case. The disciples who died for their faith died for something that they knew was a lie? Impossible. Perhaps this is not the most surgical analysis of the argument but it doesn't deserve much space. If there was a death (which of course there was) then we are still left with either a filled tomb or an empty tomb.

One of the most prevalent filled tomb theories is that the disciples and everybody else was mistaken because Jesus was thrown into an unmarked mass grave. Professor Guignebert suggests in Jesus published in New York in 1956, that ‘It is more likely to have been cast into the pit for the executed than laid in a new tomb’3 The evidence for this is not very convincing and it’s quite likely that is is based on the assumption that the crucified were thrown into a mass grave. However, in 1968 the body of a man in a family tomb who had been clearly crucified was discovered. I am sure that he was not the only one. Moreover, this theory clearly ignores the Gospel narratives. Here we see that Joseph of Arimathea  took the body and laid it in his own tomb. Not a mass grave but a fresh and individual tomb. Even if the disciples of Jesus didn’t know where he was buried Joseph did. Even more convincingly, a whole group of people did know where the body was. The Romans stationed a guard at the tomb. They didn’t think Jesus was buried in an unknown tomb. This theory does not hold water. It fails to take into account all of the evidence.

Another similar one is the idea that the women and the disciples went to the wrong tomb. There are clues in the Bible narrative. After all the man that the women speak to in one of the accounts even points to the right grave (Mark 16:6 ‘see the place were he was laid’). The argument goes that there were lots of tombs in the area and the women were in no fit state to go to the right one, so distraught were they. It is likely that they were not close when they watched and after all, Joseph of Arimathea was a representative of the Sanhedrin and not the disciples. This theory is another one that ignores lots of the evidence. The accounts in the Gospels do not really suggest this at all, the women are clearly watching closely but again, how many tombs have a Roman guard posted outside? Moreover, if any theory was ever to be based on a preconception it is this one. The use of the fact that the women were told ‘see the place he was laid’ omits the part of that verse which states ‘He has risen’ Were one to believe this theory, we would have to accept that everybody went to the wrong tomb. The women did, the disciples did, the Sanhedrin did, the Romans did and the Roman guard who was not there at the time the women originally went came back to the wrong tomb. It’s just utterly implausible.

Perhaps what we have are legends. Perhaps the stories of Jesus rising from the grave were made up many years and generations later. This is perhaps the most leaky of all the theories. We can reliably date the Gospels to no later than fifty years after the crucifixion of Jesus. This might be enough time some would argue but the gospels are not the earliest account of the crucifixion in the Bible. In 1 Corinthians, which can be dated to about 20 years after Jesus was crucified, St Paul mentions that he had been told even earlier about the risen Jesus and that there were about 500 people still alive to whom he had appeared after the burial. Some of these would have been able to refute Paul’s statements. We do not have any such refutations and whilst the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (as so many atheists have been fond of telling me in discussions about this topic) it is a perfectly acceptable historiographical leap to make to assume that no such refutations exist.

Amongst those who accept that there was a resurrection of Jesus, there are some who argue that there was a resurrection of Jesus but that the body remained in the tomb. This piece of double-think rests on an assumption that we are dealing with a Hellenistic world. The Jews expected a physical resurrection. The Greeks thought that they would live on after death but in some spiritual form, the soul would continue and the body would rot away in the ground. This theory doesn’t hold water either. It is demolished as soon as one looks at the post resurrection appearances of Jesus. The women grab his feet, the disciples touch the holes in his body and he eats fish with his friends. These are not things that mere spirits do. There was undoubtedly a physical resurrection.

All of these theories mentioned so far are fairly common but they pale into insignificance when we consider the last of the occupied tomb theories. This is the most common and it simply sates that those people who saw Jesus after the crucifixion were hallucinating. Here we must leave my realm of expertise but the evidence does somewhat speak for itself. Psychiatrists describe an hallucination as ‘ a false sensory perception in the absence of an actual external stimulus’. What makes this theory weak is that usually only certain types of person have hallucinations. It is usually only paranoid or schizophrenics who are most susceptible to them. In the New Testament accounts of the resurrection appearances we have a number of different types of people, they cannot all have been susceptible to hallucinations. Secondly, hallucinations are intensely personal and they cannot be shared between crowds of people and certainly not among 500 people at a time. Added to this, hallucinations do not subject themselves to a physical inspection as Jesus did. Hallucinations are usually kept to certain times and places but the (at least) fifteen appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion happened in different places, at different times of day and to different people4. Finally, this theory ignores several of the import facts in the story. The broken seal, the guards at the tomb and the subsequent actions of the High Priests. (I will point out here that some might argue that the disciples and everyone else were tricked in some way, which is somewhat of a disservice as it assumes the people of the First Century were more gullible than the enlightened ones of today, something I have never seen any evidence of).

So the arguments that Jesus’ body never left the tomb do not seem to be very convincing. They simply cannot explain the guarded tomb or the fact that people physically saw Jesus. The evidence to a sound historian would seem to point to the fact that the tomb was empty. How, then, can we explain away the empty tomb?

As an aside, there is another fact that would help us to confirm what I have just said. We need to remember always that the Jewish leaders never produced the body of Jesus. These men were consummate political animals who knew just how to handle the Roman authorities. Instead of using evidence to prove the disciples wrong, they instead brought them (forcibly) in front of the council and threatened them with death if they did not stop preaching the resurrected Jesus. They didn’t stop preaching it, despite some of their number being thrown from roofs, crucified and stoned.

And so to the ideas that the tomb was empty but that Jesus did not leave it under his own power. The first of these, and one of the most prevalent is the idea that the disciples stole the body. This theory is even in the Bible. The Sanhedrin approached PIlate because they fear the body will be stolen. When the body does disappear the guards are told by the Jewish authorities to say that the disciples stole the body. This is a story which still has a good deal of currency. However, there are several major weaknesses in this theory. Firstly, the theory suggests that a frightened and weak bunch of men could overpower guards from one of the most efficient fighting machines in history. The Roman guards are very unlikely to have been bested by such men. Moreover, the record does not say that the disciples did steal the body. Rather it says that the Jewish authorities told the guards to say this. Why would they make up such a story unless the body was absent from the tomb? There is even circumstantial evidence to pooh-pooh this theory. The disciples were transformed by the rising of Christ. They became men willing to stand in public and preach something that they knew could lead to their deaths. Of all the 12 disciples (including Matthias the replacement for Judas Iscariot) all but one died a violent death for their belief in the risen Christ. Human nature is such that men seldom die for what they know is a lie. They may die for a lie but that is often because they do not know it is a lie. Had the disciples stolen the body of Jesus then they would have known that he was not alive. They would have been acting under a lie. They would not have suffered such torture and persecution without abjuring their faith. Their loud proclamation of the resurrected Jesus puts paid to the theory that the disciples stole the body.

Without wishing to sound hyperbolic and trying to keep an open mind we reach what most historians consider the most ridiculous theory of them all. This is the idea that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross, no he just swooned and later, having been revived by the coolness of the tomb walked out alive. This has been thoroughly debunked. History knows of only three men who survived a Roman crucifixion and they were given the best treatment available at the time which still led to their deaths shortly after. Jesus was not taken down from the cross and treated. This man had been flogged and beaten. He was too weak to carry his own cross and was probably suffering from hypovolemic shock before the nails were driven through him. Crucifixion was the cruelest of punishments. Our word excruciating comes from the same root, the pain was dreadful and it was a most effective punishment. Nobody survived being crucified.

And yet, some people argue that Jesus did just that. The evidence within the sources does not support this theory in the slightest. The Roman guards who carried out the execution knew that Jesus was dead. They were experienced in this and they had seen enough men die this terrible death. They were not to be fooled by Jesus swooning. Pilate knew that he was dead as well. When the body was asked for by Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate did not give it to him until after the confirmation had been given by the centurion. Finally the Sanhedrin themselves knew that he was dead. They would not have let him off the cross had he been alive, they wanted him dead. Moreover, when they asked Pilate to place a guard at the tomb they said ‘when he was alive’ suggesting that they knew he was dead. So, it was well known and is well evidenced that Jesus Christ left that cross as a dead body.

Added in to all of this is the fact that Jesus must have then been so recovered from the beating and the flogging and the crucifixion itself to have moved a large stone blocking the tomb he was laid in (see the earlier part about the fact that he was in a known tomb). This man must then have gone on to overpower a Roman guard and then appeared to his disciples and others as a man who was victorious over death. Are we to suppose that this bloodied, beaten, devastated man looked victorious when he appeared to his disciples?This is, to put it mildly, a ridiculous idea. The Jesus described by this theory is not the Jesus met by any of those who said they met him after the crucifixion. This Jesus would have been a horrible man, broken and in pain. This is the Jesus who never existed.

There is an updated version of this theory. Some people have argued that there was a plot between Jesus (or at least his key disciples) and Pilate. Pilate was a fan of Jesus and would not have wanted to execute someone advocating support of the Roman Empire. Jesus had said that taxes needed to be paid to Caesar and this was important to Pilate5. So, the idea is that Jesus was given a poison which made it appear as if he were dead on the cross and then taken down. Later, he was placed in the tomb and given care and attention and was brought back ‘from the dead’ and shown off. Quite apart from the weakness of the theory, the evidence simply doesn’t support it. The soldiers knew Jesus was dead. The body was still flogged and beaten and the spear in Jesus’ side showed the effects of death on the body6. The idea that the Romans wouldn’t want to execute one of their supporters is simply wrong. They often did so. Jesus was annoying to Pilate because of his difficulties with the Jewish authorities and this outweighed any potential benefits from allowing him to continue with his taxation policies.

All of this brings us to the end of the theories about the resurrection of Jesus. Approaching the evidence with an open mind led me to a startling discovery. The tomb was empty and there was no natural explanation as to why it was so. This was where I found the biggest problem. I could not accept that there was a supernatural explanation because those things just don’t happen. Dead bodies stay dead. However, I went back through what I had studied and I realised that there was a problem with my conclusion. It lay in the statement that supernatural explanations are impossible. This was not an open mind. I had to look at this and realise that even if I didn’t like it, a supernatural explanation must be possible. To deny this is to close a mind to one possible explanation. It’s still extremely unlikely but it’s possible.

Thus, I ended up knowing that there was no natural explanation of the empty tomb. Nothing could put Jesus back in there and that meant that the answer lay in the realm of the supernatural. The Jesus who left the tomb was alive and well and had been raised from the dead. This was an immense discovery and catapulted me into a decision. If the resurrection was true then there was no logical reason to disbelieve anything that Jesus said or did. The evidence was clear, Jesus said that he was the only way to God and he proved this with his death on the cross. When he died on that wooden cross so many years ago it should have been me. It was all my sin that nailed him there. It was my fault. He was clearing the way for me to get to God. He paid the price so that I could get into heaven. All I had to do was accept this decision and accept the free gift of this salvation. On a dreary day in February of 1997 I did so. There were no angelic choirs, the world didn’t suddenly become brighter and my struggles most certainly didn’t end that day but I can honestly say that from that day to this I have known God’s presence and his comfort. I have known that what Jesus did for me he also did for everybody else. Not because He had to but because He wanted to. Greater love has no one than this: that he lays down his life for his friends.

The Christian journey is a race according to St Paul. We need to keep running the race and heading towards our goal (Phil 3:14). This is something which for me (note the blog is not called musings of a thin Christian Man) is difficult. Even if I were not being flippant this would be difficult. I sometimes lose sight of the goal and think that it is difficult to see what is ahead.


What we need to do is to have faith that God will guide us to our goal. According to Hebrews 11:1    'faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see'. We can have assurance in what we know and believe and we can have confidence in it too. Faith does not mean ignoring the world and ignoring what is in front of us. It's not an excuse to put our heads in the sand. Rather faith is like a set of blinkers that you see on horses. Having faith in God can help us to focus on him. A horse who wears blinders is not blind, they are just much less easily distracted.

Next time you feel that your faith is lacking or next time someone tells you that faith is ridiculous, put your blinders on and focus on God. He is well worth looking at and will help you to ignore the distractions.




p.s. An interesting thought was once given to me. The test of faith comes not from .the amount you have but from the quality of the thing in which you have faith. Huge amounts of faith in thin ice will still see you fall into the water. A tiny amount of faith in think ice and you are safe to walk on the water. The qualities of God will reward the tiniest amount of faith

Never mind blogging on t'internet, this is from the phone! Hopefully it will work

Here is a copy of the last talk I gave in church


Thank you Jessica and Martin for your readings, I hope you all enjoyed hearing from the Message version of the Bible. It might sound a little strange to hear the Bible read like that but I think the Message is one of my favourite versions of the Bible.

Now, I am going to start today with some pictures. I would like you to tell me what the job of the person in the picture is. Also what sort of qualities should someone in that job have?  Here is the first picture.  And the Second. And the third. What about this one?

My talk today is all about how we can actually tell people that we are a Christian and how we share the Gospel with them. Some people say that we can ‘share the Gospel and use words if necessary’. This might work for them but I struggle to tell the gospel without using words. I have to say that my interpretive dance is quite frankly shocking.

If you are like me I am sure that you tremble at the thought of sharing the gospel. Imagine going into school or work tomorrow and someone says to you what did you do yesterday. How many would be scared about saying church! Let me share a story from when I was at University. I had just become a Christian and I was in the first flush of evangelistic fervour. Well after the church service one evening I joined the other students for tea and toast at the vicarage. We discovered that we had time to spare afterwards so we went to the pub. There had obviously been a pub quiz as the manager asked how we enjoyed the quiz. The conversation went as follows:

Student: we weren’t at the quiz.

Manager: why not?

Student: we were somewhere else.

Manager: oh where?

Me: (sheepishly and very very quietly) we were at church

Manager: wow, why were you at church? Why do you go there?

Third student: (after a very long and embarrassing pause) because Jesus rocks!

I am still ashamed to this day!

Now the Bible is very clear on the point that we have to be able to give an account of ourselves and our faith. 1 Peter 3:15 says ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’ and in the passage from Luke that we heard we saw the consequences of failing to stand up for Jesus!

We often find people asking us questions about our faith or we are often faced with challenges to our faith and we have to give an account. There are so many different questions: Don’t all religions lead to God? How can we trust the Bible? Why is there suffering in the world? These are really difficult questions to hear and to answer.

I don’t intend to answer every one of the questions but I would like to share some of the ways that we can start to answer them.

Its a good traditional talk: three points each beginning with the same letter! Each begins with the letter P. Can you guess what the first one is? Prayer: We have to remember that we are in a battle. In Ephesians Paul tells us that we need to put on the armour of God because our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers authorities and powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil. Before we can talk to anybody about the gospel we need to talk to God. Through prayer we can ask for His protection and for his help in opening eyes and turning people from the power of Satan to God.

Our friends and colleagues should always be in our prayers.  Often those who are asking the questions that we find so difficult are in terrible circumstances. I have often found that those people who ask me why God allows suffering only ask because they have experienced suffering. We should be praying for healing and for God’s presence with them.

We also need to pray for ourselves, so that we might have the correct understanding and have the correct words. We are told that we shouldn’t worry because we will be given the words but it’s still important to pray that we know the right things to say. God will answer our prayers and He will be with us.

The second P is preparation: if we prepare then we will be much better at answering the questions. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance! The passage from the Bible that we heard not long ago is one of my favourite passages. It says that God will give us the words that we need for our talking but I don’t think this is an excuse to say nothing. We do need to prepare before we talk to non-Christians. We need to get to know the basics so that we can answer the questions we are often asked. Its hard to define what I mean by basics, but I don’t think we can go wrong with the basics such as these: John 3:16, ‘for God so loved the world that he sent his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life’. So that is the basics of our faith. God loves us and he sent his only Son to dies for us, to die in our place and now we can have assurance of eternal life with God.

Now if you don’t know this and are listening today then please take this opportunity to speak to someone about it after the service and they will happily explain it to you.

There are other basics that we could learn but I can’t talk about them all here. What I can suggest is that if you do want to know more then you could make use of some of the excellent resources that are available. There are great books and websites available or if you don’t know an answer you can always ask your housegroup like I do. Remember that this is an ongoing process, we will never know the answer to every question but we can at least know some.

Now the third P is, in my opinion, the most important. It’s proximity. Without getting close to the people who are searching we cannot possibly understand them. A large number of people who become Christians do so because a Christian took the time to develop a personal friendship with them. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians are important. In the NIV he says that ‘to the Jews I became like a Jew. To those under the Law I became like one under the Law ... to the weak I became weak ... I have become all things to all men’. This isn’t a flippant message from Paul, its advice. He doesn’t change who he is but he makes his listeners know that he understands where they are. Paul wasn’t afraid to go and meet the people where they were. He went to the market places and the river banks where he thought people would be. Unless we get out of our Christian bubble (you know, where we go to Christian events, we listen to Christian music, go on Christian holidays, we read Christian books etc) and meet the people searching we will get nowhere.

In John 3:16 we read that God SENT his only son. Jesus didn’t save us from on high. As Paul points out later in his writing: ‘taking the nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and found in appearance as a man’ Jesus is the very model of friendship. Every time Jesus has an encounter with people in the Gospel he is aware of their needs. He knew what Zacchaeus needed. He knew about the woman at the well and her difficult life. He knew what the man who was lowered through the roof needed, he fed thousands and thousands of people and he met the needs of the wedding guests at Canna.  This is what should be happening when we share the Gospel.

Likewise, its not about lecturing people either. God didn’t lecture us from on high. He listened to people. One of the wonderful things about humans is the relationship between ears and mouth. We have twice as many ears as mouths, do we listen twice as much? When someone comes to us and asks us why God allows good people to suffer and bad people to prosper its easy to sometimes launch into a prepared answer. Perhaps the first thing we should say is ‘whats up? How have you been hurt? What can I do to help you?’. We need to remember that at the end of 1 Peter 3:15 the Bible says that we need to give an account of our hope ‘But do this with gentleness and respect’. We do need to defend our faith and there will be time for that but first you need to get to know the people you are talking to. Its hard sometimes when they are doing things we don’t like but‘we need to remember that we can dislike the action if we wish but we have to love the person doing it. This means that when someone is smoking and wants to talk to me I don’t ask them to put their cigarette out first, I stand with them, put up with a bit of discomfort and develop my friendship with them. It means that when someone is demanding my time to help them answer their questions and deal with their problems I don’t sigh and show my discomfort, I say yes and go and help them (at least thats what I try to do!). Hopefully by taking the time to get to know people and by not jumping down their throats or raising walls in defence we can not only defend our faith but share it and help people to come closer to Jesus.

Now I said this was a good old fashioned Anglican talk. It has the three points beginning with a letter and here is the surprise fourth one! Purpose. Its important not to lose sight of what we are doing. The Bible is clear that God doesn’t need defending but we should still be ready to give an account of our faith. One reason for giving an account of our faith is to bring people to Jesus. In Matthew 28 Jesus commands us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This is clear. We should go out and tell people about Jesus.

The word translated as nations doesn’t mean countries but it mean groups of people.The means talking to our colleagues about our faith in Jesus, to our friends and to our families. It means talking to the rest of our brownie or guide pack. It means talking to our school mates and our teachers. It means talking to the Asylum seeker and the bar staff at the pub. It means talking to the youth on the street corner looking menacing and it means talking to the old people stuck in their houses on their own wondering why nobody ever visits. It means the sick and the poor, the rich and the healthy. It means the lonely and the dodgy.  It means defending and sharing our faith with all these ‘nations’. It is scary but if we pray, and if we prepare and if we get close to these people then just as He promised God will give us the right words!

Heaven knows if this is the blog that I will maintain. I hope it will become something that I can keep updating. Being a Christian man is hard enough. I have been enjoying some debate lately with atheists and others. This is a great way of sharpening how I defend my faith but it's not from the atheists that it needs defending from. I am struggling with some aspects of it if I am honest. I have not been able to settle into a church for a little while and this is difficult. I think that God has a plan for me when it comes to church going.

On Tuesday we had housegroup which was excellent. It was about Elijah on Mount Carmel, I loved the image of him taunting the prophets of Baal, but of course it included the story of the still small voice. I know that this is an excellent story and I know that God does indeed sometimes speak through this small voice (isn't that such a British and Anglican doctrine, don't make too much fuss!) but sometimes I wish He would shout at me what he wants me to be doing. Just once

Something that was said to me at Spring Harvest was enough to think about this post. I'm hoping to give this as a talk one day. Hopefully it will go down well





I have a question for you. What did Jesus look like? Now I am sure that there may be two answers winging their ways to your mouths: we don’t know and he didn’t look very special. Now, that’s all very biblical and correct but I bet you have an idea in your head about what he really looked like. Was he tall or short? Bearded or clean-shaven? Blue or brown eyes? We then usually consider his personality. What was he like? Perhaps he was gentle and meek but given to the occasional bout of anger. I am sure that we all have our own preferences but what I have been thinking about lately concerns the view of Jesus held by someone else we all probably may know lots about. Or perhaps not…

Who is your favourite disciple? The list of the disciples is usually easy to remember up to a point. I’m sure we all remember Peter and Andrew, James and John, Matthew, and Judas Iscariot. After that my mind starts to strain. Philip and Nathaniel definitely. Oh and doubting Thomas which is nine. James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and finally who is the last one? Thaddeus brings us to 12. Then we must remove Judas Iscariot (I assume he is nobody’s favourite) and replace him with Matthias.

We all know what happened to Judas. Peter was crucified upside down as was Phillip. Andrew was crucified in Greece. James son of Alphaeus was stoned in Jerusalem. James son of Zebedee was beheaded. Thomas was speared to death and the fates of the others are just as gruesome. These men died in the Middle East, in Europe and even as far away as India. Probably the only one who died a non-violent death was John.

John is the same John who wrote some of the most amazing verses in the Bible. Let’s listen to the sublime words at the beginning of John’s gospel:

 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth

This magnificent opening to the Gospel according to Saint John is written by someone who clearly understood what Jesus was like. Someone who loved Jesus and knew who He was.

John was not one of my favourite disciples. I always struggled with his Gospel to be honest. It’s not as clear as the other three and it goes its own way in so many different examples. The Jesus in John’s gospel is still remarkable and wonderful but there is something about it that to me makes it more difficult to understand. Give me Luke with his good historian’s skills. Give me Mark with his quick-fire pace (nearly a quarter of all occurrences of the word immediately in the NIV New Testament are in Mark).

I always thought that I identified more with Peter. He was the failure. The one who let Jesus down so often. I felt that he was the one who was closest to the person I was. I wish I had known more about John, the disciple I think I should have wanted to be more like. After all, nobody knew Jesus better than John.

John was almost always with Jesus during His public ministry. John was one of the first disciples called. In Mark we see that he and his brother James were called just after Peter and his brother Andrew. We see the same in Luke’s gospel as well. When he is called, John leaves his work immediately. He practically bounds off to follow Christ.

So we see John among all of the lists of the disciples. He was probably among the Seventy Two disciples we see being sent out by Jesus in Luke 10. I can imagine them all sitting there, listening to the team briefing. There was Jesus talking in the wonderful language of the day (Seventeenth Century English of course) and saying ‘carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes’ and most of the disciples wondering what they would find on their journey. (Personally I would have been wondering what on earth a scrip was and would probably have missed most of the important details). So off John must have gone and he must have come back with such wonderful stories of what had happened on his long journey. Stories of the healings and miracles. Perhaps there were also stories of rejection but there were certainly stories of acceptance. This John knew what Jesus was really like. He lived the life of a disciple and did his bidding.

So, nobody knew Jesus better than John.

Ok, we might argue that there were at least 71 others who knew Jesus as well as John but John was also one of the Twelve. He is mentioned in every list that the gospels contain. Here was the man who listened to the stories that Christ told. The Good Samaritan, the Lost Son, the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard and so many others. Here was the man who witnessed the healing of unnumbered people who came to Jesus. He saw the miraculous feeding of thousands at a time. He saw Jesus’ mastery of creation and He was there right at the very start, the miracle at Cana. John sat and listened to Jesus as He preached the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain. Imagine that, being there at all of those events. Imagine being there when Jesus spoke those parables for the first time. What must he have learned? How much he must have known. This is the John who sat at Christ’s feet and soaked it all in. This is the John who had the Messiah himself, kneel and wash his feet at the Last Supper. This John followed, literally, in the footsteps of Jesus and went wherever Christ went. This was a man who did all that was asked of him (except perhaps keep himself awake in Gethsemane).

See, nobody knew Jesus better than John.

So maybe there may have been 11 who knew Jesus as much as John but he was also one of the inner circle. He was one of the three. It was only Peter, James and John who went with Jesus into the home of Jairus, It was only those three disciples who witnessed Him call his daughter forward and raise her from the dead. Likewise he was one of the three who witnessed the transfiguration. Here he saw Moses, Elijah and Jesus shining with the Glory of God. John was there (although he couldn’t stay awake) as Jesus went through agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Only Peter and John were sent into Jerusalem to make preparations for the Last Supper. Again I ask how much must he have learned in these moments? I imagine that there would have been many many more moments when Jesus was alone with his best friends. Even John admits, in the magnificently understated ending to his Gospel, that there were so many other things that Jesus did, some of these things must have been shared between just Jesus and his closest disciples.

Nobody knew Jesus better than John.

Peter and James may also have been in the inner circle but only John stood at the foot of the cross. He was the one of the 72 who didn’t desert Christ as He was nailed to that piece of wood on a stark Friday so long ago. He was the one of the 12 who stayed till the end. He was the one of the 3 who was there until Jesus gave up his spirit.

Nobody knew Jesus better than John.

But there is more. Here we may have to leave the realm of mostly certainty and begin to speculate a little bit. At the Cross there was a wonderfully evocative scene. Jesus, in one of His last acts, commits his mother to the care of John. We know from Luke’s gospel that Mary kept the stories about Jesus close to her heart. Whilst she and John were caring for each other she must have shared some of these stories. When he was looking after the mother of his dear friend and leader, John must have asked what Jesus was like as a child. He must have heard so many stories.

Yet there is even more. There is every chance that John and Mary were actually aunt and nephew. John’s mother was called Salome and this was the name of the sister of  Mary. Jesus and John were quite possibly cousins. As a child, John may have known Jesus. He could have seen him many times and come to know him well. They may have worked together as John grew up.  Perhaps that is why John leapt so quickly from his boat when Jesus called him. Here was someone whom he already knew so well.

Whatever we speculate or whatever we know; nobody knew Jesus better than John.

So what did John know? He knew that Jesus was the Risen Son of God. He knew that Jesus died for our sins on the cross. He knew how high and wide and deep was the love of Jesus. He knew that no matter how abandoned Jesus felt He never abandoned anyone who needed him. He knew that Jesus loved him more than anyone else ever had or would. Do you know this Jesus?

Do you know this Jesus? This is someone who wants you to get to know Him. If you do not please ask someone to help you get to know Him. He knows you and He loves you. Getting to know Him is the most amazing and wonderful experience.

What about those of us, including myself who would say that we do know Jesus? Some of us think that we know Jesus well. We know these things that John did. We may have qualifications that show we have studied the Bible. We may have spent years learning about this Jesus.  I have a question for us.

What happened when John last saw Jesus?

He fell on his face at the feet of his best friend. At the beginning of the book of Revelation, John sees Jesus again. He sees the man he had known for so long.The man who was his best friend and his teacher. He sees the man who did so many miracles and loved John so much. And John falls down at the feet of Christ.

It’s important not to lose focus of this Christ. We know all these things about Jesus and yet when was the last time that we fell down at His feet? I haven’t done it in a long time but after learning more about this wonderful disciple and how he reacted to his best friend I am going to try and spend a lot more time at the feet of Jesus. Will you join me?

The following was written after reading McGrath's Why God Won't Go Away, thanks to the great theologian for the inspiration


Duck! Quick! The Atheists are coming. I have been thinking a lot lately about the attacks that we as Christians face on our faith. More and more we are bombarded in the media with stories about how religion is wrong and how its the rational thing to be an atheist. Just this morning I was reading an article online which suggests that religion is dying off. The report which could be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197 is in the science and environment section of the BBC website and is an interesting article. Simply because more and more people are saying they are not religious they suggest that religion is going to become extinct. The tone of the article is such that this is something which would not necessarily be a bad thing. And this was just today. I have lost count of the numbers of attacks there have been on Christianity in recent months. The Hotel attacked for not allowing non-married couples to share a bed (which was turned into a case of Christianity versus Homosexuality), the Christian counsellor attacked for agreeing to talk through  with and offer a patient the treatment that he requested. Threatened with being struck off a professional register merely for offering the patient what they requested (the fact that the patient lied is hardly mentioned in the mainstream media). The couple who were not allowed to continue with becoming foster carers to an 8 year old child because they would not tell that child that homosexuality would be an acceptable life choice (forgetting the fact that not many 8 year olds would ask anyway!). This last case prompted the Prime Minister (the actual Prime Minister of the UK) to say that Christians should learn to be more tolerant. Tolerant indeed. Tolerance means accepting someone’s right to act or believe in a certain manner. It does not and never has meant accepting it as right.

Polemic over, I feel that it is about time that Christians started to be more confident in their faith and to give an answer for the hope that they have (1 Peter 3:15) with the crucial proviso that it is done with gentleness and respect. In recent years, the strident nature of what some have dubbed new atheism, led by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, has become an almost constant irritant. These people see religion as a delusion and faith as unintelligent.

It is time to redress the balance but before we do there are one or two things that we could do with getting straight. Firstly, don’t worry: Christianity has been under attack for two thousand years and has always survived. It continues to grow. I particularly like the picture we see here. Its probably an apocryphal story but an amusing one nonetheless. In 1883 Nietzsche (incidentally one of Hitler’s favourite philosophers) argued that mankind had killed off God. This was once a piece of graffiti which some wag scrawled underneath that Nietzsche is dead and signed it God. He is indeed dead and the influence of God is still growing. So don’t worry, God can cope with the arguments against Him. He likes it when we defend Him but He really doesn’t have anything to worry about.
Secondly, it is important not to ridicule these atheists. They are very clever people and know a lot more about their subject areas than many of us ever will. They are certainly brave in their attacks and should be commended for their willingness to stand up for their beliefs. Moreover, we all know there are problems with religion and perhaps we should consider this in our arguments. I suppose it is worth pointing out that they have at least put faith back in the public sphere for people to debate and its always good to see a debate over the nature of truth, perhaps this is the beginning of the end for moral relativism.

So, even though I have heard some Christians say that they are scared to read books such as the seminal The God Delusion because they fear for their faith (something which Professor Dawkins hopes will be destroyed by those who read his book) it is important to meet these attacks knowing where they have come from.

The central premise of Dawkins’ argument is that there is almost certainly no God. We know this, he argues, because science has disproved his existence. Now, I know nothing about science, well next to nothing at least. Despite being married to a wonderful scientific wife (a marine biologist no less) who comes from one of the most scientific families I have ever met, all I know is that molten sodium should never be mixed with water and that acetylsalicylic acid is the formula for aspirin. This means that I will not presume to challenge Dawkins on his scientific knowledge but it does not mean I will concede defeat either.

Dawkins (and many others) live under the highly erroneous notion that science and religion cannot live side by side. No scientist, he argues, can really be a believer. If they are then it is surely just a ruse to help them get grants and win prizes. As I have already said, I know very little about science but  do know about history. For much of history religion and science have gone hand in hand. Christianity virtually screams out that we should study the world. As C.S Lewis points out in his book Miracles ‘Men became scientific because they expected Law in nature, and they expected Law in nature because they believed in a legislator’. Our God is a transcendent God who created a world that is good. What he created is not evil. He is not a part of nature and nature is not a part of God. If nature is neither evil nor part of God then its ok to experiment. Who, after all would want to risk experimentation on evil matter or run the risk of experimenting on something that might be a part of God?  In the great pantheistic religions such as Hinduism, we have seen very little development of science compared with the ways in which religions such as Christianity and Islam have helped science to develop.

The list of great Christian scientists is impressive. Copernicus described God as the Best and Most Orderly Workman of all. Kepler was a committed Christian. Isaac Newton wrote theological books as well as science ones. When asked what was his greatest discovery, James Simpson replied ‘the day I discovered Jesus Christ’. Even Gregor Mendel, in whose field Dawkins has studied and taught was a Christian. In fact Mendel is described by Dawkins as the ‘founding genius of genetics itself’. Faced with having to explain the fact of Mendel’s faith he makes a cogent argument when he points out that Mendel must have become an Augustinian Monk as the simplest expedient to getting scientific research done. I think it’s highly commendable that this scientist, only in a Monk’s habit for the free research opportunities, spent so much of his time studying theology and pretending to be a Christian before starting his research late on in life.

When it comes to modern scientists, one could, if one listened to Professor Dawkins, suspect that there are none who really believe in an active God. However, surveys constantly point out that many do believe. He dismisses claims that there are many famous British Scientists who believe in God by stating that only three names ever come up. These names arise ‘with the likeable familiarity of senior partners in a firm of Dickensian lawyers: Peacocke, Stannard and Polkinghorne’. It seems very witty to dismiss someone because of their name (perhaps not so when you consider the most common way of shortening Richard) and these men do not deserve such treatment. The Reverend Dr. John Polkinghorne was a Cambridge professor of mathematics and the others are just as gifted at science. Dawkins forgets to mention Sir John Houghton who is one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of Climate Change, perhaps Dawkins had a word limit whilst writing his book. There are thousands more scientists who believe in a loving and caring God. It is churlish of Professor Dawkins to be so dismissive of them.

‘I am a scientist and I believe there’s a profound contradiction between science and religious belief’ says Dawkins. His arguments are many but come down to the two major areas of miracles and evolution. The argument against miracles is summed up by saying that the laws of nature cannot be broken therefore there cannot be miracles. This is a difficult premise to argue though. It is ruling out all possibility of there being another option. This is not very scientific.

Developing this we see scientists arguing that science has actually explained miracles now. Those who witnessed and believed in miracles simply didn’t know what was really happening. This is particularly insulting to the people of the past but also a patently absurd. People in First Century Palestine knew that Virgins didn’t give birth and they knew that three day old corpses didn’t leave tombs under their own power. They knew what the laws of nature were and that’s why they argued for the miracles. It comes down to this; if there is a God, there is the possibility of miracles. If there is no God there isn’t.

Dawkins actually misses a trick here. In dismissing miracles as being impossible he fails to engage with the Resurrection. This is a strategic mistake. Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the greatest and most successful military strategists of all time and normally he attacked his enemies at their perceived weakest points. This is often a very successful way of attacking that which we perceive as our enemy. If, as the esteemed professor argues, miracles are impossible, then surely the best way to defeat Christians would be to argue against the Resurrection. After all this miracle is the central tenet of the Christian faith. As Paul points out (1 Corinthians 15:14) without the Resurrection Christ’s teachings are pointless. However, Dawkins does not argue against the Resurrection at all. He appears fearful of tackling it. One could argue that, if he were not scared of it he would have tried to disprove it. It seems to me that Dawkins has problems putting Jesus back in the tomb

The other area in which scientists and religious believers disagree is in the area of evolution. Here I must confess to the lack of real understanding of either evolutionary theory (and I do believe that it is merely a theory, nobody has ever convinced me that there is enough evidence to call it fact) and the exact nature of the creation accounts in Genesis. Personally I see no conflict between the two in what I have read on the subject.

For me, the Bible is more about why God created the universe and no amount of science could ever answer that question. Science cannot tell us why the universe works, simply that it does. It cannot explain the fine tuning of the universe beyond spurious arguments such as suggesting that in the billions of universes that exist (none of which have been proven to exist other than the on we are in I might point out) one of them had to fit us. These arguments merely avoid answering the question. I think that this is something that Professor Dawkins need to realise. As Einstein himself said, “a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist”.

To say that science has all the answers is wrong and extremely arrogant.  I have never held that the Bible holds all the answers. Most of the answers to my questions are in there but I know that it also points me elsewhere for some of the other things. After all ‘The heavens declare the glory of the Lord’ (Psalm 19:1) so why shouldn’t we look into this. God actively encourages us to investigate what He has created and I welcome the developments that scientists have helped mankind develop. This encouragement to look outside for the answers is a magnanimous gesture that, no matter how hard I look, I cannot find in The God Delusion.  I would never be arrogant enough to suggest I have all the answers nor that I knew where they could all be found.

Science cannot explain why there actually is a universe and neither can it explain why the universe is so wonderfully fine tuned. More importantly it cannot meet our deepest needs. If everything is reduced to matter and energy then life is meaningless. What a breathtakingly arrogant and hurtful argument from Dawkins this is. To say that life has no meaning is incredible. Music, is it simply vibrations in the air? Art, is it simply a random selection of materials? Where is the space for altruism? According to science, when I kiss my wife it is the coming together of two sets of lips and the sharing of some chemicals. I can tell you this, it is a lot more than just that.

I am not, in any way shape or form, arguing that I know more than Professor Dawkins. I am, however, prepared to argue that his work is flawed and that he misses some of the major points. I will always have a great deal of admiration for those whose brains take them down the road of understanding how the universe works. I will not, however, ever let someone tell me that the love I feel when I am with my wife is simply a matter of chemical attraction and biological necessity.

It is about time that people started to realise that atheism is not the default position. It is not the only valid intellectual position to hold either. The new atheism that we see is a very arrogant and presumes much. It is about time that I and other Christians ceased being so scared of it. This essay has only tried to deal with the area of science and I hope to be able to deal with other areas in the future but I do so in the knowledge and comfort of knowing that our God doesn’t need defending but that He will love it when we stand up for him. As the Bible says, do not forget the gentleness and respect that is due. Some other people need to learn this too.