Defending and Commending the Faith With Dr. Joe L. Mott, inviting the atheist, agnostic and skeptic to examine for themselves Joe Mott

This is episode 173.

References:

(1) “25 Basic Bible Studies” by Francis Schaeffer.

(2) The ABC’s of salvation is that you must ADMIT you are a sinner; BELIEVE that Christ’s death on the cross is sufficient to save you, and that God raised Jesus from the dead, and CONFESS Jesus as your Lord meaning He is enough to guide you throughout your life.

(3) “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli.

This is episode 172.

References:

(1) In the book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek lists10 non-biblical writers all who record facts of Jesus’ life.

(2) Bart Ehrman.

(3) “The Verdict of History” by Gary Habermas.

(4) Norman Geisler, of whom I have immense respect, says that this book “The Verdict of History” “takes the skeptics claims and buries them forever under the sands of IGNORANCE and IRRATIONALITY.”

(5) “Handbook of Christian Apologetics” by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli.

(6) Some New Age teachers cite the alternative that Jesus is a lama to support their claim that Jesus taught religious ideas something like Buddhism RATHER THAN Christianity. The actress Shirley MacLaine claims that Jesus traveled “around India and Tibet and Persia and the Near East” and was trained as a “yogi” before returning to Galilee. The fact is there is NO BASIS regarding the claim that Jesus studied in the East.

This is episode 171.

References:

(1)”Evidence and Truth” by Robert J. Morgan.

(2) There are 2 books entitled “The Incomparable Christ”: one by J. Oswald Sanders, the general director of Overseas Missionary Fellowship in the 1950s, and one by John Stott, the pastor of All Souls Church in London, England.

(3) Rather than attempt to summarize these books, I chose to report salient comments from an article by John Stott published by the C.S. Lewis Institute.

(4) Stott refers to Liberation Theology prominent in Roman Catholicism, originally centered in Latin America.

(5)When you hear the word OPPRESSED, recognize that word is a CATCHALL PHRASE from MARXISM, and the change they suggest is a change brought about by REVOLUTION, a COMPLETE UPHEAVAL of the society.

(6) The 1937 book “The Peril of Modernizing Jesus” by H.J. Cadbury.

(7) Stott writes, “So this is our DILEMMA. How can we be LOYAL to the AUTHENTIC Jesus and SIMULTANEOUSLY present him RELEVANTLY to our contemporaries? It is good to present Jesus in the BEST POSSIBLE LIGHT, so as to commend Him to the world. BUT it is NOT GOOD, in order to do so, to ELIMINATE from the PORTRAIT everything which might OFFEND, including the OFFENSE of the cross. There is always a PRICE TO PAY for this kind of FEEBLE-MINDED ACCOMMODATION. Jesus is WRENCHED OUT of His original context. He becomes MANIPULATED and DOMESTICATED and what is then presented to the world is an ANACHRONISM, even a CARICATURE.”

(8) It is not that people have rejected Christ, but that they have rejected a PSEUDO-CHRIST.

(9) Dr. Peter Kuzmic, President of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Yugoslavia, comments: “In going out to evangelize in Yugoslavia, I frequently tell our seminary students that our main task may be simply to ‘wash the FACE of Jesus’, for it has been DIRTIED and DISTORTED by both the compromises of institutional Christianity through the centuries and the antagonistic propaganda of ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM in recent decades.”

This is episode 170.

References:

(1) A. T. Pierson observed that Jesus taught the Scriptures as if He were its AUTHOR rather than its COMMENTATOR.

(2) In 1 John 5:11-13 the apostle writes: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may KNOW that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” This is not an “iffy” thing. It is an ASSURED thing. You can’t KNOW SOMETHING if you add in your mind the words “unless circumstances change.”

(3) Robert J. Morgan, author of Evidence and Truth, quotes what John Chrysotom said in the 4th century, “I do not think of Christ as GOD alone, or MAN alone, but BOTH TOGETHER. For I know He was hungry, and I know that with 5 loaves He fed 5,000. I know He was thirsty, and I know He turned water into wine. I know He was carried in a ship, and I know that He walked on the sea. I know that He died, and I know that He raised the dead. I know He was set before Pilate, and I know that He sits with the Father on His throne. I know He was worshipped by angels, and I know He was stoned by the Jews. And truly some of these I ascribe to the HUMAN, and others to the DIVINE nature. For by reason of this He is said to be both God and man.”

(4) Jesus staked His entire REPUTATION and MINISTRY on the proposition that He would rise again from the grave.

(5) All of the theories used to explain AWAY the evidence for the resurrection (such as the theft hypothesis, the swoon theory, hallucination theory, etc.) have failed to explain all of the known data. The resurrection of Jesus is an ESTABLISHED FACT of history, and this is the STRONGEST EVIDENCE for the divinity of Jesus.

This is episode 169.

References:

(1) “Introducing Christian Doctrine” by Millard Erickson.

(2) Jesus’ answer to the high priest is as CLEAR an INDICATION of Jesus’ deity as can be found in the Gospels.

(3) Not only did Jesus not DISPUTE the charge that He claimed to be divine, but He also accepted the attribution of deity given to Him by His disciples.

(4) Here was an excellent opportunity for Jesus to correct a misconception, but He did not do so. That means He agreed that attribution was no misconception.

(5) The early church knew that Jesus was NO MERE MAN but the eternal Son of Man and the Son of God, the Lord of all creation.

(6) Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli.

(7) “Many Infallible Proofs, vol. 2” by A. T. Pierson.

(8) The historian Will Durant, author of the massive “Story of Civilization,” devoted an entire volume of 751 pages to the years surrounding the life of Christ entitled “Caesar and Christ.”

(9) “Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ,” by Robert Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komosewski.

(10) “Evidence and Truth” by Robert J. Morgan.

(11) “Jesus Among Other Gods” by Ravi Zacharias. (12) “I CAME to Him because I did not know which way to TURN. I REMAIN with Him because there is no other way I WISH to turn. I came to Him LONGING for something I did not HAVE. I REMAIN with Him because I HAVE something I will not TRADE. I came to Him as a STRANGER. I remain with Him in the most intimate of FRIENDSHIPS. I came to Him UNSURE about the FUTURE. I remain with Him certain about my DESTINY.”

This is episode 168.