I have been blessed recently by the return of a past friendship. We've been emailing back and forth awaiting a future face to face meeting to discuss the questions he has about faith. In a recent email made mention of a thought that summarizes a major flaw in the way many people (especially younger people) view Christianity. It's the idea that God is a Cosmic Therapist and Christianity is a path of denial and happiness- similar in ways, in my opinion, to Buddhism.
I address the view below and use Paul's words to summarize my own thoughts- that if Christianity isn't true- in that it doesn't offer eternal hope, but at best offers me moral guidelines and a path to happiness. Forget it- I'm going to party like there's no tomorrow. Read an excerpt from the email below.
Every 3 minutes someone in the world dies for believing in Jesus- they didn't murder anyone, steal anything, or rape anyone- they simply believed in Jesus. That's around 175,000 people in the world dying every year for Jesus and the number is growing rapidly. More people died in the past 100 years for believing in Jesus than the previous 1900 combined.
To think of Christianity as a great set of teachings, beneficial if not true causes me to think of 1 Corinthians 15. As Paul is addressing a foolish thought among the Corinthians- much like the one I just mentioned. Because their human minds couldn't fully fathom the reality of a spiritual and physical resurrection, many people held onto Paul's moral teachings but were quietly rejecting the thought of Jesus' words actually raising someone to life after they had died. Keep in mind Paul's world and reality of faith was a dangerous one- not like America, but in ways much like these 175,000 face everyday. You'd be an idiot to believe in something for the perks- if the cost of believing in that ting was your life. The costs outweigh the benefits- Paul was no idiot. Yet he, and 10 others who were closest to Jesus died for their beliefs.
Paul puts it this way, 1 Cor. 15:17-19 "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."
To add to this Paul says... 1 Cor 15:30-32 "And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
What Paul is saying essentially is this: If this isn't fully true, we'd be foolish to adhere to the moral teachings of Christ- what's the benefit. A better society... but it all leads to death, who cares??? He ends by saying (my interpretation) if their is no eternity after this life and if Christianity isn't true- forget the whole thing and party your brains out.
Before I knew Jesus- Sin was fun and made me also forget about Church and Jesus. But when he proved himself fully real to me- it lost its lure. I do not hold onto the claims of Christ because of some perks- I hold on to Christ because I know whats true and real and what is fleeting and foolish. My goal has been and always will be to see you come to know what's true and real- to fully trust and believe.
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