New Testament – Page 4 – Christian Life Coaching Franklin Tennessee

21Mar 2022 by Post

How We Got Our Bible: New Testament Canonical Reception

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Bible, Canon, Christianity, Church Fathers, Jesus Christ, New Testament, reliability, Ryan Leasure, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure This article is part 5 in a nine-part series on how we got our Bible. Part 1 considered inspiration and inerrancy. Part 2 looked at the unfolding of the Old Testament. Part 3 examined the Old Testament canon and the Apocrypha. Part 4 considered the canonical attributes for New Testament books. This article will unpack how the early church received the New Testament canon. Marcion (AD 85-160) Before diving into the the corporate reception of the canon, it’s first necessary to say a brief word about Marcion. According to church historian Henry Chadwick, Marcion was “the most radical and to the church the most formidable of heretics.”[1] What was Marcion’s heresy? He promoted Gnosticism—the belief that the god who created the world was evil, and thus the OT was evil. This belief led Marcion to reject the…

27Oct 2021 by Post

How We Got Our Bible

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Christianity, How We Got Our Bible, inspiration, New Testament, Ryan Leasure, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure This article is the first in a series of nine blog posts that will unpack the story of how we got our Bible. That is to say, the Bible didn’t just fall from heaven into our laps. Rather, the Bible is the result of a long process that starts from the mind of God and ends with to our modern English translations. The process involves inspiration of texts, collecting certain books, rejecting other books, copying of manuscripts, evaluating thousands of manuscripts to recreate the originals as much as possible, translating the Hebrew and Greek texts into English, and then creating translations that are readable in our modern vernacular. As you may have guessed, this series will deal with some of the more crucial issues surrounding the Bible—issues such as canon, the apocrypha, the…

06Oct 2021 by Post

Extrabiblical Evidence for the Veracity of the Gospel History

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Bible, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Extrabiblical Evidence for the Gospel, Gospel, Historical documents, history, Jonathan McLatchie, New Testament, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

In a previous article, I reviewed several arguments that are typically raised in support of the historicity of Jesus but, upon closer inspection, turn out to be of extremely limited evidential value. In this article, I will discuss an approach to arguing from extrabiblical sources that I consider to be much more robust. Whereas in the previous article, I critiqued appeals to direct testimony to the historicity of Jesus (which, at best, only attest to the broad outlines of the gospel story), in this article I will consider incidental allusions in the gospels that are indirectly and undesignedly confirmed by extrabiblical secular sources. The data surveyed in the ensuing discussion are of varying evidential weights, though all are (in my assessment) significantly more probable on the hypothesis of historical reportage than on its falsehood. The case for…

22Aug 2020 by Post

Was Jesus a Jerk? A Response to the Friendly Atheist

Apologetics, Christianity, Erik Manning, IsJesusAlive, Jesus, New Testament, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning A few weeks ago, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon said: “But here’s the thing, Jesus Christ, if that’s who you believe in Jesus Christ, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on the Earth. So why are we deifying the Founders?” As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir over social media and on the blogs, since the Bible clearly teaches Christ’s sinless perfection. While a few right-wing Christian leaders went a little overboard in their denouncements of Lemon, “The Friendly Atheist” took it as an opportunity to take some jabs at Jesus. Hemant Mehta, the author of the blog, writes: “Let’s talk about what Jesus did. * Jesus once got so angry he flipped over tables and benches. * Jesus cursed a fig tree…

12Aug 2020 by Post

Busting One Of Bart Ehrman’s Favorite Bible Contradictions

Apologetics, Bart Ehrman, bible contradictions, Erik Manning, IsJesusAlive, New Testament, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning Skeptics say that the gospels are riddled with contradictions and therefore are not reliable historical sources. And these same skeptics say that some of these contradictions are downright absurd. For example, agnostic NT scholar Bart Ehrman points out one of his favorite Bible contradictions in his book best-selling book, Jesus, Interrupted. One of my favorite apparent discrepancies—I read John for years without realizing how strange this one is—comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?” A few verses later Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going” (John…

08Aug 2020 by Post

What Does Paul Say About Homosexuality?

Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Culture, Homosexuality, JesusIsNotFakeNews, New Testament, Paul, Ryan Leasure, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure In this post, we’re asking the question: What does Paul say about homosexuality? To find out, we need to investigate Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. Let’s consider each text in turn. Romans 1:26-27 This passage is probably the most significant biblical text addressing homosexuality. In the broader context, we read that God reveals his wrath from heaven against all ungodliness. Even though people know God exists through natural revelation, they have suppressed the truth and worshipped idols instead. Therefore, God hands them over to their depraved minds. Verses 26-27 give us an example of this depravity: For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature (para physin); and the men…

06Jun 2020 by Post

Does Paul’s Silence About Jesus Prove That He Didn’t Exist?

Apologetics, Christianity, Erik Manning, Evidence, God, IsJesusAlive, Jesus, Jesus Christ, New Testament, Paul, Paul's Testimony, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning Over 99% of historical scholarship acknowledges that Jesus was a real person. It doesn’t matter if that scholar is liberal or conservative, or Christian, atheist, agnostic or Jewish. The <1% of historians that believe Jesus is a myth are mostly atheists or agnostics. And it’s only the ‘internet infidel’ crowd that takes their arguments seriously. One of the arguments that Jesus mythicists will often push is that Paul was mostly silent about the historical Jesus. Here’s GA Wells, one of the minority voices, who writes: “Paul’s letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth…. They give no indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not refer to…

18Apr 2020 by Post

Don’t the Resurrection Narratives Contradict?

3. Are Miracles Possible?, Apologetics, Christianity, Erik Manning, Evidence, God, IsJesusAlive, Miracle, New Testament, objections, Resurrection, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning The apostle Paul said that if Christ hasn’t risen, Christianity is a sham. (1 Corinthians 15:17) Many atheists agree and will happily point to the gospel accounts. Just how seriously should they take the claim of the resurrection? After all, aren’t the accounts riddled with contradictions? How can they possibly be trusted? Historians don’t normally conclude that just because individual accounts have apparent contradictions that the event in question didn’t occur. But let’s allow that to pass for now. I think the majority of the discrepancies that critics bring up can be easily resolved. Here’s a list of four of the most popular contradictions in the resurrection account that skeptics like to point to. #1. HOW MANY WOMEN WERE AT THE TOMB OF JESUS? How many women…

08Apr 2020 by Post

Is the Historical Jesus Fact or Fiction?

Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Evidence, Fact, Fiction, Free Thinking Ministries, Gospel, history, Jesus, Jesus Christ, New Testament, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics, Tim Stratton

By Tim Stratton As a pastor who spends a lot of time on the college campus, I hear the following challenges quite often from young skeptics: “There is no good evidence to think that Jesus ever existed,” or “Christianity has pagan roots!” One might put these common challenges as two questions: (1) Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? (2) Are the gospel records of this man merely fictional mythology? In this essay, I want to explore several lines of evidence that will show that the answer to the first question is a clear “Yes!” and to the second “No!” i. Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? Though there are many “street atheists,” or “internet infidels” who espouse their unqualified views and who in the process influence many…

13Mar 2020 by Post

Messianic Convergence in the Gospels: A New Way to Frame the Argument from Old Testament Fulfilment

Apologetics, Christianity, fulfilled prophecy, gospels, Is Jesus God?, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jonathan McLatchie, messianic prophecy, New Testament, Old Testament, Prophecy, prophecy in the New Testament, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics

Anyone who has spent considerable time studying the gospels can tell that they are literally saturated with Old Testament fulfilment and allusions. Indeed, the early church used two primary lines of argument to establish the Messianic credentials of Jesus of Nazareth — the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and Messianic prophecy. How useful is fulfilment of the Messianic prophecy in the person of Jesus to the purposes of contemporary, twenty-first-century apologists? In this article, I explore a way to frame the argument in a robust and objective way. First, I will summarise my argument, and then I will dig into the details. A Summary of the Basic Argument When it comes to the origins of the gospel narratives, there are three contending hypotheses for explaining their origin. These are:…

Category: New Testament