Considering answers to those faith-questions we all ask…
Tag: Christianity
People who regard themselves as Christians yet pay little or no attention to the Bible are getting their direction in life from somewhere else. It's coming from their church's doctrine and tradition, and from priests; It's coming from what their pastor tells them in his own "inspired" sermons, or from what other Christians tell them, or worst of all, it's coming from their own idea of what's right or wrong.
Jesus told his disciples, and by extension us, to stand firm to the end in an increasingly cold world. It isn't easy when you can't trust most of the people around you, when you can't trust your own leaders, when the world appears to be falling apart, and when there is very little or no genuine love or affection to keep you going.
The urge to blame has reached epidemic proportions in the Western world, and I'm probably infected as much as anyone. In a world where I think I'm a good person and right about everything someone else is always wrong - it isn't my fault.
My title may strike some as expressing an un-Christian sentiment. Surely, Christians should like everyone, shouldn't they? What does it mean to "like" a person anyway? I would say that in loving we don't have to like everything people do or say or think. We don't have to like that which is evil or that which offends the Spirit within us. We don't have to smile at something we're convinced is wrong or which we have no affinity for. We have the dignity and right to have our own views, tastes and preferences. If I say I don't like your music I'm not committing a sin. However, we are required and commanded to love.
When you hear people make claims such as "Jesus Christ never existed" you find yourself being challenged. You've been a professing believer for X years, you go to church, you shape your life at least loosely around what you claim to believe, but you've never taken the trouble to find or memorize hard historical or archaeological evidence to back up your faith. With an awareness of this common failing in the back of my mind I recently benefitted from a podcast produced by the Associates for Biblical Research, titled, "Jesus Outside the Bible - The Top Ten Historical References" (
