Sarajevo: a city without Christmas

“Always winter, never Christmas.” I downloaded this picture of Sarajevo from the internet.

This could be any place in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The streets and buildings are brown and dirty. The surrounding mountains are topped in snow yet they trap in all the pollution from the city. These are the same mountains from where in the 1990s Serb guns lobbed shells down into the city, killing innocent civilians. Even though it is December now, there are no holiday lights, no piped in Bing Crosby, no Santa or manger displays, no glow on children’s faces. I am in Muslim Sarajevo, a city without Christmas.

Delvin and I entered one of the many coffee shops in town, each with its own décor and personality. This coffee shop was not well lit. In Bosnian, the name of the coffee shop meant “fire.” The air was blue from cigarette smoke. Music pulsated through the room. Delvin and I found the only available table. We sat down and I glanced to my left. There hidden behind a pillar was a table where a young couple was making out with such intensity as if they both were groping for a lost coin in each other’s throat. To my right flush on the wall was a big screen TV inside a plastic golden picture frame. I couldn’t decide if it looked cheap or if it was totally hip.

Delvin dispensed quickly with the small talk and our religious conversation began. Delvin is a tall lanky perpetual college student with a hearty laugh; he looks European and like an Alabama fraternity boy but is a devout Muslim. Delvin is easy to like. He has hung around the American guys in our mission to Sarajevo for about 5 years. We talked for over 2 hours about the differences between Christianity and Islam. Essentially, he believes that God can do anything He wants except take on a human body and die for our sins. He likes us as Americans but implies we are foolish for believing in Jesus Christ.

Delvin, on the left, with my good friend Scott Moffatt, from a picture this past summer.

“Do you believe,” Delvin asks me in great English, “that a man can live an evil life and then at age 80 ‘receive Christ’ and he will go to heaven? That isn’t fair!” “In some ways it may not be fair,” I countered and then I leaned forward and looked in Delvin’s eyes. “but its beautiful!” I let that hang in the air and said, “How can you have the audacity to think that you, rebellious, sinful man can stand alone before Almighty, Holy, Righteous God with only your good works and bribe Him to let you into heaven? Your god is too small and your idea of holiness is not nearly holy enough.”

Besides Delvin, there are some other great guys with whom I spent time during my recent visit to Sarajevo. Each of them I met previously (except Torkin) this past summer.

George: I feel a real connection with George. He is a new Christian with superb English. With George I love to laugh, tell stories and hang out. He is the sort of guy that would be a lot of fun on a road trip. George has a checkered past and we are trusting God to do a great work in his life. Yet between the need to work and school, it is a struggle for George to be consistent in a small group Bible study with our team in Sarajevo.

Achmed: He is also a new Christian and like George, struggles to find the time for Bible study between the demands of school and work. I met Achmed over lunch and he told me about how he grew up as an orphan. He said, “Hey this will be my first Christmas ever so please send me a Christmas card.” His perspective touched my heart. I told him, “Bro, if you ever want to visit America you know you’re gonna hafta change your name.”

George on the left, I am in the middle, Achmed on the right. He is holding the Bosnian translation of Josh McDowell’s “More Than a Carpentar.”

Booki (rhymes with “cookie”): Even though he is Bosnian by nationality, he grew up in Serbia, a common phenomenon that happens in this part of the world when country boundaries are drawn in a map room by politicians and military leaders. A gentle guy, yet with black hair parted in the middle and a mustache, he looked like someone who could have played bass in either Supertramp or Blue Oyster Cult. He learned English by watching movies and spoke with a slight Irish accent. He really wants to believe but has a hard time accepting the deity of Jesus Christ, as do most with Islamic backgrounds.

Booki, on the left, with his friend Silvio.

Torkin: On Wednesday night I spoke to a gathering of about 30 students and used movie clips to share and explain the gospel. Torkin began to heckle me from the audience. His beef was not with Christianity per se but with the idea of God in general. After sparing for about 10 minutes in front of the whole group, I said that he and I would talk afterward so I can continue my presentation. We did talk afterward and after 20 minutes he told me, “Oh, I believe there is a God; I just wanted to present the atheistic arguments.” Honestly, I didn’t know how to interpret those words. And I still don’t.

Torkin the Heckler

It was a privilege for me to have my daughter Liz with me. She missed several days of school and totally submerged herself into missionary life for a few days. She stayed with the college girls on the STINT team (STINT is a one year commitment), and accompanied them as they went grocery shopping at the outdoor market and met with Bosnian girls for evangelism and follow-up. Bosnia was a different environment for Liz as she experienced “rocky soil” where each conversion is hard-fought. She is used to the ripe harvest fields of Uganda, where she has spent her past 2 summers.

Liz (on the left) with the girls of this year’s STINT team in Sarajevo: Amy, Katie and Tiffany.

There is certainly part of my heart in Sarajevo. Like I reflected when I returned from there in June, there is a purity, a completeness, to entering these Balkan cities and sharing Christ. Often times these cities have fewer evangelicals than similarly-sized Middle Eastern cities.

How should we respond to postmodernism?

If you tried to share Christ with me and I responded that I didn’t believe anything you said because I reject any claim on absolute truth or authority, how would you respond?

Basketball season starts this week for our children. Our whole family is very excited! Elizabeth (pictured here playing volleyball) will try for another championship year. Ben as a sophomore wants a spot on the boys varsity team and Savannah will be among the tallest on the middle school girls team.

The response above to evangelism is a classic postmodern viewpoint. Last week I sat in on a series of lectures which were part of my seminary class about postmodernism. It was taught right here in Budapest by Dr. Millard Erickson, perhaps the leading expert on postmodernism in the Christian world.

Pilate and Descarte: Modern day postmodernism can trace its roots all the way back to the Bible when Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Other forerunners to postmodernism include Descartes. In 1618 while warming himself by a fire in a woodshed Descartes proclaimed, “I think therefore I am.” While perhaps not Descartes' intent, many point to that moment where authority for truth moved from something objective and outside of man (i.e., God) to man himself; man creates his own reality and truth.

Pilate the Postmodern: “What is truth?”

It is also helpful to examine the works of Kierkegaard, Kant, Nietzsche, even Schleiermacher and Tillich in order to better understand the postmodern mindset.

Today this philosophy that denies all absolute truth and authority pontificates its worldview proudly and reigns supreme on our college campuses. (Do you catch the irony there?)

Don’t abandon your posts! Yet ultimately postmodernism is self-refuting and cannot be lived out consistently in our physical world. In class we studied the writings of leading postmodern thinkers such as Michael Foucault, Richard Rorty, Stanley Fish and Jacques Derrida. With every one of these men there was a time that they resorted to non-postmodern tactics when challenged to defend their postmodernism; when the arrows started to fly, they abandoned their postmodern posts.

“Don’t tas (humiliate) me, bro!” For example, Richard Rorty said truth is whatever a particular community says it is (relativism) and that one of the highest expressions of humanity was not to humiliate others. But I guess Rorty felt that his viewpoint did not apply to Christians. While preaching tolerance, Rorty’s world “denies people who have religious sentiments a vehicle for its expression.” (for more on Rorty’s anti-theism see http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2005/72/swartz.html)

Richard Rorty

If you look at Richard Rorty’s biographical entry in Wikipedia.com (see the subtitle, “Rorty and his critics”) you will find that his rant against Christians displays no respect for the Christian community and that he seeks to humiliate us by calling us names that include, “bigots” “homophobic,” “intolerant,” “frightening,” “vicious” and “dangerous.”

As hurtful as those statements are, we as the world-wide Church of Christ must not dismiss postmodernism with a wave of the hand while clutching our Bibles with the other. Postmodernism is a movement that must be reckoned with. I believe that if we as Christians reject the temptation to adopt a fortress mentality and if we seek to humbly serve the postmoderns within our communities, then God’s love will shine through us. Ultimately, postmoderns will be won not by convincing arguments but by genuine humanity and the love of a redeemed heart.

It is a Person, not a philosophy: Christianity is not a philosophy or a psycho-babble fad. Christianity is rooted in history and based on a Person, not an idea or ethic. And our Lord said, “Go! Go into the entire world with the gospel.” Will we as Christians retreat further into our Christian subcultures or will we engage and serve the lost near us?

We had our first snow here in Budapest this past weekend!

On October 1st, the city of Krakow, Poland, changed...

when 100,000 students entered the city overnight as the school year began.

And a small group of Christians, armed with the gospel and led by the Spirit, were waiting for them…

The first “Harvest Poland Project,” patterned after Hungary’s “Bringing in the Hungarian Harvest Project (BHHP),” partnered with the Krakow campus ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Our group from America ranged in age from high school to retired. They included a church group from Greensville, SC, and others who came from Orlando, Atlanta, Denver and even Asia. Joining us were the campus staff and key students of our Krakow Campus Crusade ministry. Together we did creative outreaches with the goal to present culturally relevant presentations of the gospel to the college students of Krakow.

The most successful outreach we had was the “American Café.” We rented a party room on campus and using American candy, coffee (Starbucks!), music, photos, college and pro t-shirts and ball caps, we turned the room into a slice of Americana. The students poured in and it was easy to begin gospel conversations in this coffee shop atmosphere.

Here I am with two brothers, John (left), and Kris (right) who came to our American Cafe. Kris made a decision to place his faith in Jesus Christ during our time together in Krakow.

At the American Café, I met with two brothers, John and Kris. John had placed his faith in Jesus Christ through a Catholic renewal movement led by a monk (!) and was familiar with our ministry in Krakow. He wanted his older brother to hear the gospel and brought him to the American Café. I had the privilege to share the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross with Kris.

After sharing Christ with him, I invited Kris to respond personally by faith to Christ’s payment of our sin penalty. I told him, “Merely reciting a prayer doesn’t make anyone a Christian. But if this prayer (pointing to the one in the back of the “Four Spiritual Laws” booklet) expresses the desire of your heart, then I encourage you to use that prayer to express your new-found faith to Jesus. Kris, does this prayer express the desire of your heart?”

Kris answered a succinct, “Yes.” “Then why don’t you communicate this prayer back to the Lord?” I encouraged. And right there, in a room crowded with people and music thumping, Kris surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. What a moment!

Kris and I met the next day, my final day in Krakow, and we talked through Ephesians 2:8-9 and 1 John 5:11-13. When Kris realized that salvation was by faith in the Son of God, a free gift from God and not a result of works, I could see the light go on in his spirit. His posture straightened up and tears welled up in his eyes. .

Even Ted Nugent dropped by our American Café in Krakow for a brief cameo. I asked him if I could jam with him on stage but he said he regretfully left his guitar back in Michigan.

“But it takes more faith to embrace your atheism than to believe in my God.” Here I am sharing the gospel with two Polish students at the American Café. I had the impression that the one on the left wanted to argue more than discuss. He really was a nice guy and you can tell God is working on Him; after all he came that night wanting to talk about the Lord!

After my conversation with John and Kris ended and they left, I stood alone in the corner thrilled but emotionally exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to speak another word. Then my attention was called to two guys who had just walked in and were standing nervously all alone. I knew what the Lord wanted me to do.

I introduced myself to the guys and immediately one said, “What is the topic of discussion tonight?” “Anything you want to talk about,” I said. “Can we talk about God?” he asked. He immediately launched and began his series of arguments as to why he did not believe in God.

Patiently I responded with what I hope were satisfactory answers to his arguments while conceding that it is impossible to be 100% absolutely sure about God. “But it takes more faith to embrace your atheism than to believe in my God.” I also asked him why he was so intent on fighting against the God who loves him, created him and gave himself up for him. (Its one thing to speak of God’s love to the genuine seeker. Yet I have learned to confront and challenge, even with my tone of voice, those who unashamedly reject God.)

The American Café was closing but our conversation was still going strong. “Shall we go to another place and keep talking?” I asked, having gained a second wind. They declined but we exchanged emails. I think he wanted to argue more than discuss. But that is okay. It was a great evening. At least 3 people that night gave their lives to the Lord at the American Café!

Here I am (left) with Dr. Bill Weathers of Greenville, South Carolina (far right). Between us are some of the leaders of our Polish Campus Crusade ministry. Robert Kowalsky, Polish Director of Development (left), Mariusz Kwapisz, Country Director of Poland (middle), and Marek Wyrzykowski, one of Campus Crusade’s Eastern European Regional Directors (right). All of them are great guys and a pleasure to work with.

One of the obstacles our ministry in Poland faces is trust. Since we are not part of the 95% Catholic super majority (even though we work with Bible-believing elements within the Catholic church), many people assume right away that we are a cult. So we must work harder to earn trust and credibility. ** Speaking of cults, Jehovah Witnesses are the second largest “Christian” denomination in Poland, greatly outnumbering Baptist, of whom there are only 5000-6000 in the whole country.**At the American Café, us visiting Americans thought it would be great if the room was full of American in their 20s who could connect even better with the Polish college students. But our Polish staff said that while all ages are needed to share Christ in Krakow, a room full of gray heads (like me!) was good because Polish students do not know anyone who is older who has a vibrant faith in God. This current generation of Polish college students is the first to not be influenced by atheistic Communism.

In spite of its troubled history, Krakow is a beautiful city! Here is a pic from the old town square on a crisp sunny fall day.

Our work that week generated many conversations where students heard clear presentations of the gospel. Between all the outreaches we did, over 5000 received personal invitations to learn about a relationship with Christ; many responded back with an interest to know more. Our Krakow campus ministry will be doing the follow up. Thank you for praying. Please pray for the follow up of Kris and others with whom we made contact. And please plan on joining us next year!

"Bringing in the Hungarian Harvest Project" 2007

Praise God! Wow! The activities of our Budapest campus ministry during September, including BHHP week, has generated over 1300 evangelistic contacts (students who expressed a desire to talk with someone about knowing Christ personally)!

On the first day of the project we set aside time to seek God’s face together and pray for our week of outreach.

My good friend Brent Harrison, of Experiencing Missions Intl (www.experiencemissionsintl.org) is essentially an honorary member of our staff here in Budapest. He is probably the loudest cheerleader for Campus Crusade's work among Hungarian students. He led the charge when the project spoke in classrooms. Here he is posing with some of the Hungarian students with whom he interacted. Any doubt as to which one is Brent?

Mara, one of our favorite Hungarian staff, married Gabi. Their wedding was during the project week and many of the BHHPers attended the wedding. Gabi is joining his new bride as a member of our Hungarian staff team! After a brief honeymoon to Turkey they will be helping with the follow-up of the evangelistic contacts.

Here is the Evangelical Lutheran church where they were married.

On several occasions we had the visiting American missionaries over to our house for fellowship and a good meal. Here is Scott and Rick from North Metro church in Atlanta hangin’ out with the old man.

EB and I celebrated with the visiting Americans and Hungarian Campus Crusade staff what God did during BHHP week with a dinner at Hemmingway’s restaurant here in Budapest.

Our three teenagers are in full swing with their fall activities. Ben is playing soccer, Savannah (middle) in the school play and Liz is playing volleyball.

Quentin and Rebekah fishin' for something sweet! EB is homeschooling both of them this year.

Equipping Laborers in Poland and Czech

It was a privilege to have at least some of my family with me while I traveled. Here we are (sans Elizabeth, Benjamin and Savannah who were all in their first week of school) enjoying the crisp air and green hills of eastern Czech while at a conference where I was asked to teach.

EB and I just returned from a week of ministry in Poland and the Czech Republic. It was a blessing to not travel alone but have EB, Rebekah and Quentin with me. I wish you could have met who we met, seen what we saw and experienced what we experienced.

Our first stop was in southern Poland for Campus Crusade’s Polish staff conference with 100 Polish missionaries. It was so encouraging to hear how the Lord is using this select group of Poles. EB and I both observed how the Polish people are more like Americans than most of the ethnic groups we have worked with in Eastern Europe. We found the Poles to have an American-like sense of humor, to be gregarious, optimistic, and hard working.

Saying "thanks" after the Polish ministry of Campus Crusade honored EB and me for our work on their behalf.

Even though Poland has upwards of 95% Catholic Church-goers, it is still predominately a secular society. Consider this quote I found recently in a publication from “Pioneers,” a missions agency like Campus Crusade: “As a percentage of population, there are fewer evangelical Christians in Poland than there are in Saudi Arabia—four times fewer! Roughly 90 percent of the counties in this country of 38 million have no evangelical church of any kind.”

On a free day, EB and I toured Krakow, the site of an outreach we are doing in early October with some American Christians. We visited the location of the WWII Jewish ghetto, where Hitler corralled all the Jews in Krakow before shipping them off to death camps. How do you explain the heaviness and hurt you feel while standing on the site where such evil happened?

This was the gathering place in Krakow's Jewish ghetto before the Jews were put on trains bound for the concentration camps during Hitler's reign. Today the square remains clear except for some vacant wooden chairs as an artistic way to say, "Everyone is gone; the ghetto has been emptied." I felt as if I was treading on a thin crust covering a worm hole from hell that regurgitated indescribable evil during World War II.

A short distance from the Jewish ghetto train station in Krakow is Oscar Schindler's factory, the subject of Steven Speilberg's movie.

On Monday we traveled a short distance across the Czech border to a beautiful retreat site in the extreme eastern reach of Czech. The location was high up in some rolling hills looking down on valleys with horses, farm houses, small villages, gurgling streams, fresh, clean air and green (even in August!) pastures and fields. It was picturesque! We spent a day with the staff of a Czech evangelical ministry called KVZ, the abbreviation translates loosely as “Christian and Education Outreach.” I taught on proper attitudes and Biblical basis for support raising. (Another ministry passionate for Jesus Christ but with great financial needs.)

For breakfast we were served cucumbers and hotdogs. For dinner one night we ate strawberry jam-filled potatoes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream!

EB and I really enjoyed our time with these 25 Czech brothers and sisters in Christ, all of whom share Jesus on campuses in the most atheistic country in Europe. 81% of Czechs do not believe in God, according to a recent study done by Pew Research. In terms of belief in God, in the spiritually dark continent of Europe, Czech is the darkest place of all.

While we split up to pray in small groups with our Czech brothers and sisters in Christ, I did notice a difference in style in our small group between Americans and Czechs. Which pair of feet above belongs to EB?

It must be noted, however, that while larger percentages of “deists” exists in other European countries, the percentage of evangelical believers across Czech, Poland, the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries, is lower than in many Middle Eastern countries. All the same, why are there more hard-line atheists in Czech than in the other countries of Europe? EB and I posed this question over lunch to Dave Patty, the American director of Josiah Ventures in Eastern Europe, whose facility hosted the conference in Czech at which I spoke. Dave explained why there are so many atheists in Czech.

Me, on the left standing, addressing 25 Czech missionaries, along with my translator, Josef Pavlinak, the director of KVZ ministries.

To quote Dave loosely, the Protestant Reformation actually began in what is now the Czech Republic under the leadership of Jan Huss 100 years before Luther. Yet the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, who claimed those lands at that time, was militantly Catholic and demanded that all the “Hussites” either flee or return to the Catholic Church. For those that did neither, they were imprisoned or even killed, including Huss who was burned at the stake as a heretic by the Catholic Church in 1415. (It must be noted that in 1999 Pope John Paul II expressed "deep regret for the cruel death inflicted" on Huss and suggested an inquiry as to whether Huss might be cleared of heresy.)

Mandatory membership in the Catholic Church continued for hundreds of years until the late 1800s and for 40 years there was religious freedom among the Czech people. Then came Hitler followed by two generations of atheistic Communism. Religious freedom returned to the Czech people with the fall of Communism but the Czechs have chosen to stay away from their churches.

However, God has not forgotten the Czech or the Polish people. He has raised up Spirit-led, forward-thinking laborers for both countries. God in His mercy continues to reveal Himself to these people who have ignored Him. Yet isn’t that what God is doing for the ENTIRE human race?

Can We Trust the Bible?

The Bible is the number one internationally best selling book year after year. In fact, the British Times newspaper in 1996 said:

"Forget modern British novelists and TV tie-ins, the Bible is the best-selling book every year. It is wonderful, weird ... that in this godless age... this one book should go on selling, every month."

However, the Bible is also much maligned. A major theme in movies today is that the Bible has been changed in order to benefit corrupt church leaders and suppress some alleged liberating truth (i.e. “The DaVinci Code”). Other religious voices, such as the Muslims and the Mormons, need a corrupt Bible so they can venerate their own religious writings to the loft of truth. For those who are genuinely seeking after God, it is easy to be confused.

But the evidence shows us that Bible is a very trustworthy historical document and carries authenticity unlike any text of ancient history. In this article we will explore some of the reasons we can trust the Bible.

The Bible is not one book but a whole library of books written under many different circumstances by many different authors. The Bible was written by many different authors from kings to shepherds and uneducated fishermen. The Bible was written in many different circumstances from palaces to prison cells. The Bible was written using many different literary styles from poetry, prophecy, prayers, personal letters to history. The Bible was written over the course of 1600 years.

Yet even with such wide variety of circumstances, the Bible tells one story of redemption between God and man. And the Bible stands tall as an accurate historical document. Evidence for the Bible’s reliability can be broken down into two different camps: 1) External evidence and 2) Internal evidence.

1) External Evidence:

Manuscript Authority: When historians examine the reliability of an ancient text, one of the first things they examine is the manuscript evidence of that text. They ask questions such as: How many copies of the ancient text are there? What is the time period separating the earliest copies from the original document? Are those copies accurate?

Ancient authors, such as Caesar, Livy, Herodotus, Thucydides, average from 1000 to 1400 years separation between the earliest copies we now possess and the time of the original writing. And we just don’t have enough copies (8 to 10 copies) of these author’s writings to determine if those copies are accurate representations of the originals. However, of Homer’s work Iliad we have over 640 copies. This many copies allow historians to have some degree of confidence in what Homer’s original writing said.

For the New Testament, there is only two hundred years (at most) between the earliest complete copies and when the originals were written. We have copies of portions of the New Testament that date within 100 years of when the originals were written (the John Rylands the Chester Beaty and Bodmer manuscripts). And we have 5000 copies of the New Testament in the original Greek language, many that pre-date Mohammad, that confirm the accuracy of over 99% of today’s Bible. (source: Ron Rhodes, “Answering the Objections,” and Norman Geisler, “Answering Islam”)

If one adds into the mix early copies of the New Testament translated into other languages, including Ethiopian, Slavic and Armeniac languages, “the total approximates 25,000 manuscripts that cite portions of the New Testament. This far exceeds the number of manuscripts of other ancient documents, which, in most cases, numbers less than ten,”
so says New Testament scholar Ron Rhodes, in his book, “Answering the Objections,” p. 140.

Non-friendly sources: Historians from the first two centuries, who were not friends of Christians, mentioned Jesus Christ and the early Christians in their writing. This is a list of some, but not all, of these ancient authors: Josephus, The Talmud, Tacitus, Thallus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and Lucian. From their writings alone we can gather these early facts about Jesus and His followers:

1. Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar and had a brother named James

2. He was the acclaimed Messiah

3. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate on the eve of the Jewish Passover

4. His disciples believed He rose from the dead

5. His disciples were willing to die for their belief

6. Christianity spread as far as Rome from Jerusalem

7. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshipped Jesus as God.

(Sources: Gary Habermas, “The Historical Jesus,”; Lee Strobel, “The Case for Christ”)

Sounds a lot like the Jesus of the New Testament, doesn’t it?

Friendly Sources: The early church fathers quoted the Bible extensively in their writings. If the Bible we have today is different from the Bible of the first couple of centuries, then these early Christians as they quote the Bible in their writings, would certainly testifying to these changes. However, we can reconstruct the Bible we have today, all but eleven verses, from quotations from the earliest church fathers. (source: Ron Rhodes, “Answering the Objections”)

This has led Dr. J.P. Moreland, who has his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Southern California, to say that, “Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate manuscripts grounds than is available for the New Testament.” (from his work, “Scaling the Secular City”)

The Bible was not compiled by one man; it was not subject to merely one man’s biases or preferences. The Bible was compiled by many voices within the early church. Each writing that was considered as part of the New Testament canon had to pass a series of tests. These tests included the following: Was this writing written by an apostle? Was it already in use by the church? Was it consistent with the other writings of the Bible?

Many people look to the Council of Nicea in AD 325 as the point where many doctrines we consider controversial today first entered the Christian church: Doctrines such as the deity of Christ, His resurrection and the sinfulness of man. Yet historians report that the Council of Nicea merely allowed the Christian church to affirm and speak with one collective voice these things that the church already believed and taught. There were many competing ideologies even then, such as Arianism, Lucanism, and Samosotianism to name a few. Many people wanted to know where the church stood in light of these ideologies. (“Our Legacy,” Dr. John Hannah, p. 82.)

Josh McDowell wrote in his article, “the Da Vinci Code, the Companion Guide to the Movie,” of the 20 rulings made at Nicea, none of them dealt with the contents of the New Testament.” The claims by many whether in Hollywood or in other religions that the Bible was changed or corrupted during the Council of Nicea just does not jive with the facts! Sorry, Dan Brown!

Archeology continues to confirm the historicity of the Bible. Over 25,000 finds and sites in the Holy Land have been discovered that affirm the Bible’s historical claims. (Ron Rhodes, “Answering the Objections”) World renown archeologist Nelson Glueck has made this statement, ““It can be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever contradicted a biblical reference.”

2) Internal evidence

One can not only look for evidence outside of the Bible for its historical authenticity, but inside the Bible as well. The Bible contains eyewitness material as well as embarrassing material, fulfilled prophecy and reliable reasons to date the gospels within a generation of the time of Christ.

Eyewitness material: The four biographies of Jesus (commonly known as the Gospels), as well as the Book of Acts, contain an unprecedented amount of eyewitness material on historical events. Most historians would salivate over this kind of source material!

Matthew’s and John’s Gospels are written directly by eyewitnesses to Jesus while Mark’s and Luke’s gospel are interviews with the eyewitnesses. Luke’s sequel to his gospel is the Book of Acts which chronicles the birth and growth of the early Christian church.

While consistent in core truths, four different eye-witness accounts each provide a different vantage point from which to view many of the same events from the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. If each biography was exactly the same, with the same emphasis on every event of Jesus’ life, there would be no need for four different biographies. While some difficulties exist,, they are however reconcilable. In fact, the differences add credibility that the gospel writers were recording only what they experienced and heard and not collaborating to get their stories straight. These difficulties should increase our faith that the gospel accounts are true eye-witnesses accounts; the presence of difficulties does not justify rejecting what the Bible says.

For example, in the American Civil War in the battle of Gettysburg, there was an event known as “Pickett’s Charge” where the Confederate Army charged uphill into the entrenched Union forces. General Lee of the Confederate forces gave his command to charge to one of his officers named Pickens. Yet some historians believe that General Longstreet relayed the message from Lee to Pickens. Some reject this claim. A discrepancy exists; Historians cannot agree if 3 commanders or just 2 were involved. But all agree that Pickett’s Charge happened even though historians cannot agree on the number of commanders involved.

Some of this eyewitness material spills over into irrelevant, even embarrassing, material included in the New Testament canon. Consider these examples:

“And a certain young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he left the linen sheet behind, and escaped naked.” Mark 14:51-52

The example of Peter: “Upon this rock I will build my church,” Jesus said of Peter in Matthew’s gospel (16:18). Yet Peter is called Satan just a few verses later (v.23) and Peter denies Jesus three times (26:69-75). Not the way to paint a hero of the faith unless it really happened that way!

Women, who had no legal credibility in Biblical days, were the first ones to find Jesus’ tomb empty after his resurrection (Matthew 28:1). Jesus’ resurrection would have been more credible if men were the first ones at the tomb.

Yet if the writers of the Gospels and the New Testament wanted to just capture what actually happened and not fabricate a story to promote a cause, then one would expect these sort of embarrassing episodes.

Prophecy Fulfilled: More internal evidence giving historical reliability to the New Testament is the existence of fulfilled prophecy.

The Old Testament contains nearly 300 references to the coming Messiah. All of which were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. (Josh McDowell “New Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” p. 164) The prophecies foretelling the Messiah are direct and specific; they are not clouded in vagueness or multiple possible interpretations.

Micah 5:2 states that the promised Messiah will come from the small village of Bethlehem, which was precisely were Jesus was born.

Isaiah 53 describes Jesus in much detail, particularly his death by crucifixion, which was unknown in Jewish law at the time of Isaiah’s writing. It was a practice learned from the Romans hundreds of years after this passage was written! Jews had always used stoning as their method of capital punishment.

This is a list of just some of the many prophecies regarding the Messiah fulfilled in Jesus Christ:

Born of a virgin; Isaiah 7:14

Called “Lord”; Psalm 110:1

Called “Immanuel”; Isaiah 7:14

Cleansed the temple; Malachi 3:1

Sold for 30 Shekels; Zechariah 11:12

Hands and feet pierced; Psalm 22:16

No bones broken; Psalm 22:17

Christ’s “forsaken” cry; Psalm 22:1

What are the odds one person fulfills just 8 of the hundreds of prophecies?

Cover the USA state of Texas 2 feet deep (66 cm) in coins. You will need 10 to the 17th coins. Mark just one coin. Send someone into Texas blindfolded and have them pick up one coin. What are the chances they will pick up the marked coin? The same as one person fulfilling 8 of the prophecies.

(Josh McDowell, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict”)

Early dates for the writings of the gospels: Some critics believe that the New Testament books were written 100s of years after Christ. Yet here are some reasons to believe they were written within the first generation after Christ.

Lets start with the book of Acts, which chronicles the growth of the church right after Jesus.

We know from extra-biblical sources that Paul was killed AD 64, Peter AD 65 and James in AD 61 (One source is the Annuario Pontificio as well as the early church father Clement.) Yet Acts ends with Paul very much alive and in prison. Acts does however record the deaths of Stephen and James, the brother of Jesus.

Therefore we can assume that Acts was written before 64 AD. Since the Gospel of Luke was the prequel to Acts, we can predate Luke back to about 60 AD. Since Mark was the earliest of the Gospels, then we know that Mark was written in the 50s, less than 20 years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Too soon in an orally transmitted culture for legends and errors to creep in!

Another line of evidence supporting an early date for the Gospels regards the fall of Jerusalem. This was a monumental event that shook the whole Jewish world since the temple and all of its genealogy records were destroyed. This event is predicted in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21.

Titus and his Roman army ransacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple in AD 70. Yet none of the Gospels or the book of Acts record this event. However, these gospel writers mention plenty of other fulfilled prophecy. Therefore it is reasonable to date the Gospels from before the fall of Jerusalem!

Sir Isaac Newton said this: “There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any history.” Princeton Scholar Benjamin Warfield also said, “The New Testament (is) unrivaled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use.”

Go and find your Bible, dust if off and read it. Start with one of the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Not only is the Bible unrivaled in its historical reliability, it tells the true story of God’s love for mankind. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

25th high school reunion, Shawnee Mission South class of 1982

Pictures from Kanakuk

Heat Wave and Health Care

"It is finally cooling off!" Our car measuring the outside air temperature. We saw it register as high as 106 degrees, the highest we have ever seen our 10 year old car measure outside air temp!

It has been the hottest in 100 years here this week in Budapest, so the locals say. As is true of most Hungarians, we do not have air conditioning and the nearest pool is nearly 30 minutes away. Here are some unique coping skills we have learned.

We learned the value of the “siesta,” an idea that most Americans despise or don’t understand. But when you have no air conditioning, you learn to get up early (4:30am to 5am), get the work done while it is still cool and take it easy during the heat of the day, only to re-emerge with the cool of evening.

This began as a water balloon but was left in the full sun on our deck. It melted into something consistent with blue latex paint.

Get the cool air into the house early but by 10am, close the house up, draw the curtains and keep out the heat. This worked early in the week but after 5 days of 100+ degree heat, it just wasn’t cool anymore in the mornings. I could not even sleep outside at night on our deck because the tiles on our terrace even at 2am were still radiating enough heat to make me sweat as I was out there.

The big grocery stores all pulled their frozen foods from the freezers. The freezers displaying the frozen foods could not keep the food from thawing.

I would pull a t-shirt out of my closet and it felt hot as if it had just come out of the dryer.

5 AM: The sun rises menacingly over our Hungarian village.

On another note, I had an outpatient procedure done at a local hospital here in Hungary. It was very clean, the paint was fresh and pretty, the staff smiled and were courteous, no one mocked me for my need for further testing and everything was professional. EB accompanied me and we waited for the procedure to start in a private room. That room had your standard hospital bed as well as a single normal bed next to it. Not bad for a country with socialized health care.

But wait! Before you call Michael Moore; this was a PRIVATE hospital independent of the socialized health care system of Hungary. You have heard plenty of horror stories of our experience with socialized medicine. Before you become a fan of government run health care, please come spend a week with us and we will give you a tour of contrast between private and public health care here in Hungary.

I must give a “shout-out” to this private hospital. Google “Telki Hungary hospital” and surely you will find the hospital we visited. My procedure? Well, lets just say that George W and I had a lot in common medically this past weekend. I’m fine; everything checked out okay.