More from Isaiah
"I am he;
I am the first and I am the last."
-Isaiah 48:12b
"Do not be afraid.
I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
-Revelation 2:17-18
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."
-Revelation 22:13
OT-NT parallel
"Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked.
Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear."
-Isaiah 45:22-23
"that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
-Philippians 2:10-11
Jesus is foreshadowed in the OT; we just need to know the NT well enough to see Him. I hope that's not news to anyone!
Back From Vacation
Not going to tell where we went, but it was a great time.
John 4:10 Jesus turns the conversation to spiritual things. This is where we need to have courage, and it's one of the times in the conversation where we're most likely to fail (ie., chicken out). It's not always easy to bring up something spiritual when you're talking about the mundane.
Notice that here Jesus starts talking about himself, in a way that will pique the woman's curiosity. He doesn't just come out and say "I am the Messiah," although he does later in the conversation. At this critical point in our conversations with people, one thing we can do is talk about our own experience. Often an event in our lives that is relevant to the present conversation can be a wonderful "bridge" between the mundane and the spiritual.
Or, asking questions can be a good conversation helper. Evangelist Bill Fay uses a series of questions including "Do you have any spiritual belief?" and "What do you think about Jesus?". Here's a link to his website:
http://sharejesuswithoutfear.com.
Some Research on Da Vinci Code & Gospel of Judas
It's great how many churches are using the Da Vinci Code book and movie to talk about the real truths of Christ. We recently let our congregation know about some resources for people with questions. I wanted to share them with you.
Focus on the Family's Da Vinci Code website:
http://go.family.org/davinci/Here is a place you can order these great 100-page books debunking the D.V.C. and give them out to people. That's what we're doing here.
http://www.beyondbelief.com/a_dvquest.spl?sourceid=3105/Josh McDowell
http://josh.davinciquest.orgChristianity Today - Why the Lost Gospels lost out:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/006/7.26.htmlAnd here's Biola University's response to the gospel of Judas:
http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/060410_judas.cfmI think the bottom line about why the gospel of Judas is getting so much press, besides the Da Vinci movie tie-in, is something that Ari Fleischer wrote about in his interesting autobiography. He said that the media is all about conflict. If there's no conflict, they'll try to start some. Or create conflict where there isn't any. Peace doesn't sell. So to spin the gospel of Judas as something that could "rock" orthdox Christianity is just a ploy to sell more papers or magazines or whatever.
How much less interesting would the gospel of Judas be if they just told the straight truth about it: we have other gnostic gospels; none of them even begin to compare in quality to the real Gospels; and there will always be people who revise history to make the bad guys look like the good guys. Now that's a story that, if printed, deserves to be buried in the back of the local paper. But if this "recent discovery threatens to overturn everything we know about Christianity" then, of course, that's front page material.
