The Story:It is not uncommon today to here Gospel detractors claiming that Christianity and the Bible are just a bunch of myths. One should reasonably be able to ask how such a person knows this. Has he studied the history of the Christian movement? Does he know the historical documentation and other evidence supporting the events recorded in Scripture? Does he really suppose that men like Peter – a common fisherman! – would actually endure excruciating suffering and lossfor what they would have known to be a mere myth?

It takes more faith to believe that Christianity is based on a myth than it does to believe that the changed lives of men like Peter and Paul can only be explained in terms of a new birth from above, from beyond this world. The Lord Jesus Christ has come in power and majesty, and Peter was one of those present to see and experience Him. So convinced was he by what he’d come to know – and so convinced were multitudes of other believers during those first centuries – that they endured courageous deaths – not the click-and-be-vaporized death of a Jihadist – in order to stand firm for their faith. The faith of Christ is no myth.

The Structure:The next time someone to whom you’re witnessing suggests that Christianity is just a myth, look at him with a strange look of disbeliefand ask, “Are you serious? Do you think that, for 2,000 years, reasonable, intelligent, sensible, loving people would lay down their lives if they had not experienced something very real and very powerful? Do you think I’d bother trying to persuade you to know the Lord if I didn’t know Him myself?” I promise you your detractor won’t be ready for that response, and it will provide you an opportunity to go on and assure him that the accounts of Jesus, and the life of faith issuing from those accounts, are the only truth worth living – or dying – for.

Is your life a microcosm of the Kingdom? How could you begin, today, to know more consistent growth in knowing the Lord and showing Him to the people around you?

Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For this week’s study, “The Word More Sure: 2 Peter 1.12-21,” simply click here.

T. M. Moore

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.