Are you considering if you want to become a Christian? Then you need to know if Jesus bodily rose from the dead.

Are you already a Christian? Then you need to know if Jesus bodily rose from the dead – both for greater confidence in your own beliefs and to be prepared to answer the most important question your curious friends have about Christianity.

In either case, then, you need to not just read, but study, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona. (In two other posts, I’ve summarized and simplified for memorization the argument of the book).

Currently, this book is my #1 recommendation for studying the evidence for the resurrection.

While there are other, longer, more robust defenses (e.g., Michael Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus and N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God) and shorter, simpler books (e.g., The Case for the Resurrection by Lee Strobel), there is no other book that is so:

• thorough,
  
• concise, and
• practical

Let’s consider each of these points in turn.

Thorough

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus covers a tremendous amount of information. In dozens of conversations at Harvard about the resurrection, I have never exhausted all of the sources and levels of support for each point in this book. Unless you are in a graduate-level program of theology or history, I think it is very unlikely that you will need more information.

Why is this important? Because after reading many popular-level apologetics books, you may only be trained to make a few points; but when challenged, you might be in completely new territory and unsure how to proceed. With this training manual, you are going to be amply prepared to understand the robust historical evidence for every claim. That’s intellectually satisfying.

For instance, to demonstrate the historical evidence for the claim that, “Jesus’ disciples sincerely believed He rose from the dead and appeared to them,” the authors cite and explain references from the Apostle Paul, two kinds of oral tradition within the New Testament, all four gospel accounts, Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, Dionysus of Corinth, Tertullian, and Origen.

This level of comprehensive detail for each point is impressive. As you read this book, you are going to have the information you need to make a reasonable, well-informed decision about the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Concise

How can a book that is so thorough also be concise?

On the one hand, this is a matter of perspective. For instance, N.T. Wright’s book on the subject is 740 pages, and part of a larger series of equally large books on the subject. But this book is just 384 pages! That’s about 50% fewer pages to read.

But it truly is a concise book. First, 40% of the book is an incredibly detailed appendix of all their arguments – the bare-bones outline of the entire book. The appendix is invaluable when you want to refresh your memory of a certain section or if you’d like to read a compressed version of the arguments themselves.

So the book is really only about half as long as it looks. The information is organized in two ways – an extended version with illustrations, analogies, and explanation for how it all fits together – and a condensed version for study and review.

The other reason the book is concise is that it focuses on the most important details. Want to talk about inerrancy? The Old Testament? The nature of heaven? No, no, no. The authors are incredibly disciplined and they focus on one topic: the resurrection of Jesus.

They are also incredibly well organized. The book focuses on five key facts about Jesus and his disciples that are strongly supported by the mainstream, scholarly practice of historical research. With those facts carefully established, the book then tests one theory after another against them. Only the historical hypothesis, “Jesus bodily rose from the dead,” is capable of explaining all of the facts.

Practical

Unlike a lot of authors, Licona and Habermas have dedicated considerable attention to thinking about how their readers can share this content with their friends in a natural, conversational manner.

Isn’t that one of the main reasons people don’t read books like this? “I would never, ever talk about that book with anyone. I think I will just not read it. That’ll save some time.”

But if you are a Christian with even a half-hearted desire for evangelism, I promise you that the resurrection of Jesus is going to come up. Think about it! From the outside perspective, this is one heck of a crazy idea. Why in the world would your friend change their mind and go, “You know, I guess Jesus’ dead, rotting body could have stopped decomposing, come back to life, walked around for 40 days, and then ascended to sit at the right hand of God. I should become a Christian!”

If you are regularly leading friends to know Jesus, then keep doing whatever you are doing! But if that is not your experience, then you probably need to change your method. For instance: what if you had reasons? What if you could humbly, graciously, and thoughtfully explain why the resurrection of Jesus was a historical fact? Yes, the Holy Spirit would still need to be at work, but let’s be clear: the Holy Spirit honors and uses conversations where disciples of Jesus present reasons and evidence to their curious friends that show Jesus is the Risen Lord.

Consider: which approach honors God more?

• “I don’t know much about the most important belief of my life. Why don’t you just make a leap of faith and completely change your life without any evidence to ground that decision?”
• “I’ve carefully studied the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and I think it is the best and most reasonable explanation of the facts. Would you be interested in talking through some of this with me? It will only take a few minutes to lay out the most important points.”

On a regular basis I see, by God’s grace, nonChristians become Christians because they study this evidence with me. This book is designed to train you to present the evidence in a straightforward, approachable, genuine, and enjoyable manner.

If you love God, I encourage you to decide today that you will become equipped to discuss the resurrection of Jesus with your friends!

In Conclusion

Still not convinced? Consider these endorsements of the book:

• It may be the most thorough defense of the historicity of the resurrection. – J. P. Moreland
• I highly recommend this rigorous and vigorous treatment of this subject which in so many ways is the most crucial one for Christian faith and praxis. – Ben Witherington
• To my knowledge, the chapters addressing naturalistic theories are the most comprehensive treatment of the subject anywhere. –Paul L. Maier
• There is nothing like this on the market. It is interesting, engaging, and crucial material. – Norman Geisler
• This compelling book is the most comprehensive defense of Jesus’ resurrection anywhere. — Lee Strobel

Get a copy of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona today.

After you read it for yourself, invite a few friends to read it with you so you can study it together, practice talking about the subject with one another, and become well prepared to lead your friends into an intellectually – and emotionally – satisfying relationship with God.

Jesus is Risen! May all people know this glorious truth and give glory to God.

For further resources, consider Reasons for God’s resource page on the resurrection.

Each week I highlight some terrific resources to connect readers at Reasons for God with a wider selection of excellent content. Enjoy!

Some quotes from Twitter:

• What! Get to heaven on your own strength? Why, you might as well try to climb to the moon on a rope of sand! – George Whitefield
• We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do–flee it or die upon it. – A. W. Tozer
• Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years. – C. H. Spurgeon
• Hell is just your freely chosen identity, based on something else besides God, going on forever. – Tim Keller
• It is God who gives life. Let us respect and love human life, especially vulnerable life in a mother’s womb. – Pope Francis

The Reasons for God “Great Posts of the Week”:

• What I Learned From Dallas Willard by J.P. Moreland
• Reporter Covering Gosnell Trial Changes His Mind at LifeNews.com
• Douglas Karpen – Gosnell #2 by Owen Strachan
• ABC Takes 56 Days To Cover Gosnell by Scott Whitlock
• Free Love Is Neither by Terrell Clemmons
• Is Richard Dawkins Really the World’s Leading Intellectual? at WinteryKnight
• Atheism’s Universe Is Meaningless by J.W. Wartick
• Do ENCODE skeptics protest too much? by Dr. Fazale Rana
• Five Reasons Churches Need Unanswered Questions by Tom Gilson
• Twelve Ways To Prepare Your Children For Times of Doubt by Michael Patton
• Bad Science Is Like Bad Religion at The Poached Egg
• Why Do Christians Believe in Hell? Because of Jesus at Faith and Self Defense
• Original Autographs and Original Texts by Michael Kruger

Great videos of the week:

Eric Metaxas’ Commencement Speech at Palm Beach Atlantic:

Today’s post is by Sarah Abbey. You can read more of her work at her blog, A Penny of A Thought.

As a Christian apologist, I firmly believe that every follower of Jesus Christ should be equipped to share the reasons for the hope they have in God. Apologetics is an invaluable tool that can lead seekers into a relationship with God and strengthen believers when their faith wavers.

But there are times when great tiredness and significant suffering stifle my love for apologetics and my passion for evangelism. In those moments, figuring out how to defend my faith is not what I want or need. While apologetics is a good tool for answering intellectual doubts, I, along with every other Christian, need more than apologetics when burnout and difficult circumstances hit the shoreline of my heart like repeated tidal waves.

In these difficult seasons, I’m worn out from defending the reasonableness and trustworthiness of the Christian message. I wish faith could be blind, so I could respond to the objections by saying “just believe.” Just as the constant crash of waves can pummel the coastline, the unrelenting and difficult objections to Christianity can leave me feeling beaten and bruised.

And life itself is hard. There’s no Biblical promise that dedicating ourselves to the mission of Jesus will spare us from suffering. To the contrary, it is often when we are the most exhausted that we hear the worst news. The aches and pains of difficult circumstances lead us into a suffering that is beyond the reach of our best arguments.

This has become very real for me in the past few months. I have experienced great weariness that has caused me to cry out to God, doubting his goodness and my role in his “plan.” In those moments, while I clung to Him, the apologetic answers I had learned about God’s goodness in the face of suffering did not offer me the comfort I was hoping for. They may have been intellectually deep, but they felt experientially shallow.

Walking through that experience has taught me a great deal about how to live faithfully before God in the midst of great suffering and doubt. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

I hope that by sharing with you what carried me through this difficult season that you will be similarly encouraged in your own hard times. Here are six restorative practices I recommend for times of burnout and suffering.

Remember the Story of God’s People

The first thing I have needed to remember was that tiredness and suffering is not just my experience, but is a constant refrain among the people of God. For instance, think of the weariness of the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19. After an amazing display of faith in God where he stood against the prophets of Baal (450 of them!) and saw his enemies dramatically defeated, he ran fearfully into the wilderness. There, in a suicidal state he asked God to take his life. He was about as burnt out and depressed as anyone can get.

Or think of John the Baptist. He was Jesus’ cousin, had baptized Jesus, and was the first to proclaim that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)! Yet when he was thrown in prison with no indication that Jesus was seeking to free him, John doubted. He sent word to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matt. 11:2-3)

If Elijah grew weary and John the Baptist doubted his confidence in Jesus, both great heroes of faith, it should not surprise me when I, or other Christians, experience times of weariness and doubt. There is a great encouragement in learning that God’s people have always had these experiences. Remember that you are not alone.

Take a break from ministry

There are times we need to take a step back from apologetics and our other ministry involvements. Responding to thoughtful objections requires our best thinking – something we cannot offer when we are physically and emotionally weak. When you are in existential turmoil, it is entirely appropriate to close that book by Richard Dawkins claiming science proves God isn’t real, to set aside the argument from Bart Ehrman opposing the historical reliability of Jesus, and let your mind rest.

Focus on something else. Heed the words of Jesus to his disciples after they had gone through a time of intense ministry: “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile” (Mark 6:31). This isn’t running from hard questions – I recommend Christians read the challenges of atheists so they are better prepared for evangelism. But any worthwhile project includes struggle, and engaging in that struggle will mean taking occasional breaks.

When suffering, take doubts one at a time

As important as it can be to take a break from apologetics when facing weariness and doubt, it’s also important not to swing to the extreme of ignoring the doubts that inevitably come. We need to rest, but we also need to wrestle with our doubts.

The difficulty is that it’s very rare for doubt to impact us only intellectually. Doubt is emotionally and spiritually taxing, which is often where the weariness factor comes into play. This is a crucial point because we tend to discuss the intellectual aspects of doubt and forget how exhausting this experience can be on our whole being. Sometimes the intellectual defense of the Christian faith rings hollow because our doubts are not based on reason but come from bad experiences and negative emotions. In those moments we need to remember that while intellectual answers don’t always take away our emotional turmoil, they can give us a firm foundation to stand on in the midst of the storm.

Because doubts can be so powerful, it’s wise to consider tackling them one at a time. If you’re questioning the historical reliability of the Bible, the relationship between faith and reason, or how a good God can allow suffering and evil, consider digging deeply into one topic alone rather than all three at once. Not only will this help protect you from unneeded confusion and burnout, it will also help you fully engage intellectually, emotionally, and experientially with the topic at hand.

Remember why we have hope

As we wrestle with doubts, weariness, and suffering, let us not forget what our hope is based on. Don’t let uncertainty in one area overshadow certainty in another. Ultimately, our hope is not based upon our ability to find the answer to every doubt or understand the reason for the suffering we are experiencing.

Rather, our hope is based on the trustworthy character of God. Ultimately, God is the one who made us and loves us. God is the one who implemented a plan of salvation that stretches through the millennia, culminating in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus as Lord and Savior. Because Jesus reigns over all, and death is defeated, we may be confident that God will prevail in our own lives, even when our circumstances are very difficult. Even death cannot stop the restorative work of Jesus, the Risen King.

Cultivate healthy emotions and imagination

There is a subtle, yet real danger when Christians tend to focus on the intellectual aspect of faith to the detriment of our emotions and imagination. So often we divide life into compartments, viewing our intellect, emotions, and imagination as silos on the farm of our personhood. But in reality our intellect, emotions, and imagination are more like spaghetti in the bowl than silos.

All three are so intertwined and connected that they cannot help but impact each other. So as we rest, deal with doubt, and remember why we have hope, we need to do this holistically. Read stories, watch movies, listen to music, write poetry, paint, and play sports. Do whatever strengthens your emotional and imaginative wellbeing. We need to be equipped to share all the reasons for our hope in Christ, not just the intellectual reasons.

Exercise faith

Finally, we need to remember that faith, like a muscle, will require added weight to grow strong. Any weightlifter can tell you that training is not easy. As the weights grow heavier new strength has to be developed. At first the weight seems too strong and weariness sets in quickly. Doubts over whether the new weight can be sustained are prevalent. Yet with committed training the muscles grow, and with it comes added strength and confidence.

The same principle is true for us as we confront the challenges to our faith. As our faith increases so will the weights that strengthen it. There will be times when we wonder if our faith can prevail. Will it be crushed by the pressure placed upon us? Yet tested faith produces steadfastness (see James 1:2-4). It gives us strength to rest in God’s trustworthy character and the relationship we have with Him through Jesus Christ. The exercise of faith may not always be pleasant, but the strength it will produce will be worth the strain.

When we have intellectual questions, thoughtful answers are the best response. But there will be days when my passion for apologetics will wane, when suffering will leave me weary and overwhelmed with doubt. The same will be true for all Christians.

In these hard times, remember these six principles:

• Remember the Story of God’s People
• Take a break from ministry
• When suffering, take doubts one at a time
• Remember why we have hope
• Cultivate healthy emotions and imagination
• Exercise faith

I pray that you will be encouraged by God in these difficult times. Though it is hard to remain faithful to Jesus when we are enduring suffering, the resulting maturity and intimacy with God are worth it all.

Did you enjoy this post? You can read more of Sarah’s writing at her blog, A Penny of A Thought.

Each week I highlight some terrific resources to connect readers at Reasons for God with a wider selection of excellent content. Enjoy!

Some quotes from Twitter:

• Media reports Christie kills a spider. Ignores Gosnell. Isaiah 5:20 – Rick Warren
• The depth & pervasiveness of sin ought to force evangelicals to recognize the depth & pervasiveness of grace as well — Ted Turnau
• A disciple makes disciples. It’s inherent, intrinsic, and integral to being a disciple. If you’re not, you probably aren’t. – anonymous
• The truest test of a servant is how he responds when he is treated like one. – Wayne Cordeiro
• Do you want to know how I deal with my doubts about God? I don’t reflect on my feelings about God. I reflect on my knowledge of God. – Greg Koukl

The Reasons for God “Great Posts of the Week”:

• He is Ascended: So What? by Chuck Colson
• A Tribute to Dallas Willard by John Ortberg
• City of Dearborn Apologizes to Christian Evangelists at Detroit Free Press
• The Pro-Life Advocacy of Motherhood by Rachel Jankovic
• The Media Continues To Ignore Gosnell at GetReligion
• The Big Same-Sex Marriage Lie by Ryan Anderson
• How Should I Respond to Religious Pluralism? by Sarah Abbey
• Basic Facts About the New Testament Canon: The Muratorian Fragment by Michael Kruger
• Four Myths About Teaching Apologetics in Youth Ministries by Benjer McVeigh
• How Accurate is the Bible? by Ken Boa
• Relativism and Meaninglessness by Lenny Esposito
• Of Isms and Rabbit Trails by J.M. Njoroge

Great videos of the week:

Common Sense Answers on Marriage by Ryan Anderson:

Do you feel like you’re always on the defensive about Christianity? There’s the Crusades, Westboro is probably inappropriately protesting something, and a prominent Christian leader has likely said something your friends think is wrong. And even once you get past the stereotypes, it takes a lot of hard work to intelligently share the gospel with your secular, skeptical friends.

But what about atheism? Though it has been persistently marketed to us as a worldview that stands for reason and science, the truth is that the atheistic worldview is riddled with contradictions and outlandish claims. And because most secular people haven’t studied why atheism is true, an excellent evangelistic strategy for you and your church is to understand these five challenges for atheism.

In my experience, it is only once people realize that their own worldview doesn’t work that they become interested in seeking something that does. While some would suggest you just have to wait for people to hit rock bottom, I think a more gracious and effective approach is to humbly challenge their pretense to have a sensible worldview.

By God’s grace, studying these five holes in the atheistic worldview can create a powerful opportunity for you and your church to share the wisdom and love of Jesus Christ.

First: What Is Atheism?

In any dialogue between different worldviews, it’s crucial that we define our terms carefully. While there are many kinds of ‘atheism,’ perhaps the most common version is also called “Naturalism.” At a conference in 2012, prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Rebecca Goldstein, Alex Rosenberg, Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, and Steven Weinberg defined their shared viewpoint as:

The view that there is only one realm of existence, the natural world, whose behavior can be studied through reason and empirical investigation. The basic operating principles of the natural world appear to be impersonal and inviolable; microscopic constituents of inanimate matter obeying the laws of physics fit together in complex structures to form intelligent, emotive, conscious human beings. ¹

Or as Dr. Alex Rosenberg, chair of the Philosophy department at Duke University, has concisely explained, “What is the world really like? It’s fermions and bosons, and everything that can be made up of them, and nothing that can’t be made up of them.” ²

So What’s The Problem?

The atheist, as defined above, must deal with a logical inconsistency between their commitment to the “impersonal and inviolable” laws of the universe and their inevitable recognition that there exists “intelligent, emotive, conscious human beings.”

Because of their fundamental commitment to impersonal matter and laws, the atheist faces very difficult problems in at least five unique areas:

• Consciousness
• Free will
• Purpose
• Reason, including mathematics and science
• Objective moral facts, including universal human rights and the reality of evil

Consciousness

Isn’t it interesting that we look at and study everything within the natural world from a first-person perspective, except other persons? There’s a fundamental, categorical difference between, say, molecules in a test tube and a conscious self. One thought experiment asks us to consider the difference between a neuroscientist’s understanding of pain after studying all of the relevant literature and after a bowling ball falls on her foot. The first person “ouchiness” experience is a different kind of knowledge, distinct from a third person understanding of our neurological structures.

As T.H. Huxley, known as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” once remarked, “how it is that any thing so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.” ³

Free will

Leading atheists such as Sam Harris dismiss free will as a matter of course. Or as Tom Clark at Naturalism.org puts it, “Judged from a scientific and logical perspective, the belief that we stand outside the causal web in any respect is an absurdity, the height of human egoism and exceptionalism.”

Dr. Angus Menuge, the current President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, explains the problem: “before we can talk of being responsible for our decisions, we need an account of why those decisions belong to us. But the trouble is, on a naturalistic view, there is no entity that can plausibly own any mental states, there is simply a plurality of parallel, impersonal processes in the brain.”

The denial of free will logically leads to the denial of personal responsibility for any of our behaviors or beliefs. But if everything about “you” is determined, then “you” could not have reasonably chosen to believe what you do. If a-rational things and laws determined your neurological structure, “you” literally cannot make any decisions about what you believe or why you believe it.

Purpose

Among others, Richard Dawkins has admitted this universe lacks purpose: “DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” ⁴

But does it seem to us that we have a purpose? Yes – and the logic of atheism means this is merely an illusion generated by our DNA, which unknowingly but relentlessly seeks to propagate itself. The atheist ‘explanation’ actually explains away our sense of purpose. “A feeling of purpose” is only a tool that is used to duplicate a blind and impersonal process. Can your secular friends consistently live within such a meaningless framework?

Reason, including mathematics and science

As C.S. Lewis explained, “If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.” ⁵

Reason requires the existence of immaterial (non-naturalistic) things: ideas, the laws of logic, mathematical objects, and the fundamental principles of reasoning. And to reason, an agent must purposefully choose to think about these ideas. But rocks cannot be ‘about’ something: so how can neurons be ‘about’ the law of gravity? Further, normative rules govern the reasoning process: 2+2 does not equal elephant. Where do these rules come from? And why do they apply to our brains?

Objective moral facts, including universal human rights and the reality of evil

In Uganda, Joseph Kony requires his child soldiers to kill escaping child soldiers by biting them to death. Think about it. What horror! Are there any moral facts which we can be right and wrong about, or is this just a difference of opinion? Is same-sex marriage a moral imperative or a completely arbitrary convention, no better and no worse than any other laws?

As the Christian philosophers Stuart Goetz and Charles Taliafero put it, “it is not clear how one can establish normative values on the basis of processes that are ultimately thoroughly unconscious, nonnormative, and contingent in nature.” ⁶

Ask your friend: do you have more evidence that atheism is true or that raping children is wrong? Be sure you ask them to defend their answer with clear and convincing reasons.

So Wait: Why Is Atheism True?

The next time you have a chance, ask one of your secular friends, “For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right, and this world is all there is. No gods exist. So can you explain something to me? How do we make sense of unconscious matter creating conscious persons, the fixed laws of nature giving us free choice, the random dance of the quarks producing the illusion of purpose, the a-rational atoms generating reason, and the brute reality of how things are developing into universal human rights? And if our DNA has foisted all of these illusions upon us, then how can we be sure that atheism isn’t just one more illusion?”

If nothing else, you should have a very interesting conversation! Based on seven years of ministry experience at Harvard, I can assure you that our God can use these five challenges to lead many of our secular friends away from the contradictions of atheism and into the coherence, truth, and love of Jesus.

This article is a summary of a longer, more developed talk I gave at Harvard and B.C. Law: Why Naturalism Is False (or Irrational).

Are you tired of trying to define yourself?

There is enormous pressure to define yourself well. What is your personal brand on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn? Or are you simply invisible and irrelevant to the global, hyper-connected world?

How do you define yourself based upon your job? Your net worth? Your neighborhood? Your family? Your health? Your looks?

We all have different ways of defining ourselves. (I usually choose the standards that make me look the best).

All of these subtle pressures to define ourselves can exhaust us. In the midst of such pressure, one option is to look in the mirror and keep saying, as Al Franken’s Saturday Night Live character Stuart Smalley famously did, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”

But what our egos really need is the honest truth. We feel silly trying to fool ourselves.

What if you stopped trying to define yourself and allowed God to define you?

Are you worried that God’s opinion is bad? Let’s look to the Bible and see what it says.

First, the Christian story affirms that we really are good.

As the opening chapter of the Bible explains:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them…And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:27-28, 31).

Here we have the perspective of our all-knowing Creator on human goodness. Up to this point, everything has been declared “good,” but now that humans have been made, the whole is “very good.” God blesses Adam and Eve – and we have reason to believe that each human being is blessed by God.

In one of David’s psalms, he explains the glorious process by which God confirms his love for each person:

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them (Psalm 139:13-16).

This creational goodness is fundamental to everything in our world and for human beings in particular. God’s affirmation of human goodness is the necessary foundation for, among other things, universal human rights and a coherent ethic of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

It is also an important basis for feeling good about ourselves. What if the Mona Lisa could come to life? Would it not make sense for her to feel, “I am well made!” and to rejoice in the artistry that composed her beauty? (And even more: to be grateful to the artist?). There needs to be no pride in recognizing that God made you well.

Whatever you feel about yourself, think about this: God made humans very good and blessed us. Meditate on that truth. Let God’s words define you.

Second, the Christian story teaches that, morally and spiritually, human beings are bad.

This is a difficult truth to acknowledge. But it is one we already know is true – we are already struggling to feel good about ourselves, right? Why is that? If we were morally and spiritually perfect, would this be so hard?

The fact is, though we know this is true, we all insist on our own goodness, even as we know that everyone else is not so good. How can we all think this? As one author explains,

A great summary of the current state of affairs can be found in Cordelia Fine’s A mind of its own, a book which explores the myriad ways in which humans deceive themselves and analyzes the reasons why we do so. The book reaches two important conclusions: first, the vast majority of humans lie to themselves. They think they are better drivers than average, better workers than average and better people than average. They justify their actions even when these are unjustifiable. They always find a mental scenario which depicts them as the hero in the story.

Here’s the tension we live in: we know that we are not morally good but we cannot psychologically admit this truth to ourselves. It is too painful to admit that we are wicked, evil sinners in rebellion against God. Even writing those words causes me to flinch, and feel the horror of my problem. Perhaps you will find reading them to be unsettling.

Can’t we tone it down a bit? “Occasionally I make a mistake.” Well, sure, but that isn’t the full truth, is it? Is self-deception the path to goodness? And feeling good about ourselves? Surely not.

How can we know the truth about ourselves without being driven to despair?

The Bible is honest enough to tell us we are sinners. We can trust its message when it tells us about God’s love too.

God’s Love Can Overcome Sin and Death

This is good news. Because God is loving, powerful, and wise, He has implemented a plan to defeat our worst enemies: death and sin.

This is why God became human. Jesus not only became one of us, but he showed us what a good human being looks like – both created well, in God’s image, and morally good.

This is one reason Jesus commands the fascination and respect of billions of people in thousands of cultures around the world. We intuitively recognize there is something unique about his life: an uncommon and complete goodness.

More than this, His death on the cross was more than the end to the creational goodness of His body. It was also the assumption of our evil. As a perfectly good person, He could stand in our place and pay the price for our sin.

And more than this, His resurrection from the dead provides hope that both our bodies and our souls can be redeemed, restored to full goodness. The resurrection body of Jesus encourages our jaded hearts that God triumphs over both death and sin.

It is through the truth about our sin that we are able to repent – to admit that our bad actions are, in fact, bad, to apologize to God for what we’ve done wrong, to ask for forgiveness, and to commit ourselves to doing good.

And we are motivated to repent when we hear the good news about God’s love for us. It is incredibly hard to apologize to someone who plans to use your words against you. But God has promised to forgive, cleanse, and renew those who repent of their sin.

So: Are We Good?

In terms of how well God made us: yes, absolutely. You are more valuable than the Mona Lisa. Every human life is worth more, according to God’s perfect knowledge, than even the most prized artwork imaginable. (We could also explore how a robust affirmation of human goodness rightly leads us to cherish the cultural goods we produce, including art).

In a moral sense: no. Definitely not. But – for those who seek God’s forgiveness, then the answer is also a resounding yes. The Apostle Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

These are staggering words. For those who are “in Christ” (think about the significance of being included ‘in Christ’ for a minute), our creational goodness is re-affirmed: you are a new creation. Our moral badness is no longer counted against us because Christ has taken our sin upon him. What do we gain? God’s own righteousness.

For Christians, then, there is a truthful and hopeful basis for admitting both the best and the worst about ourselves.

When we consider how well God has made us – in His own image! – we can rejoice and give thanks.

When we remember our selfishness and sinfulness, we can trust that Jesus has decisively dealt with this problem: we are forgiven! The more clearly you see your sin, the more you know of God’s love and grace. The better equipped you are to live rightly. The more specifically you can ask God to change your heart and lead you to do what is right. Because God has declared us righteous, we are finally empowered to actually become righteous.

In Conclusion

So many strategies for feeling good about ourselves involve downplaying our sin and hyping our goodness. But self-deception is not a path of integrity, wisdom, or wholeness. Worse, building our self-identity on what we know is not really true won’t even work.

But the Christian story offers a different route. The truth of Christianity leads us to admit even the very worst facts about ourselves. Yet we don’t despair, because we know that God made us in His image and loves us so much that He has sacrificially acted to forgive us and restore us to goodness.

I want to encourage you to stop trying to define yourself. Let God define who you are. He says you are good (He made you). And He says you are bad (we are sinners). And He says you can be forgiven – and made good again (new creations in Christ Jesus). Trust God’s truthful, loving voice today.

Each week I highlight some terrific resources to connect readers at Reasons for God with a wider selection of excellent content. Enjoy!

Some quotes from Twitter:

• Apologetics is not a peripheral discipline for Christian eggheads. It’s right at the center of the kingdom of God. – Doug Groothuis
• Don’t confuse epistemic humility with skepticism. Skeptics aren’t “humble” about knowledge claims–because they don’t have any! – James K.A. Smith
• Keep asking questions until someone asks you one back… – John Lennox
• To be or not to be…in Christ. That is the only question. – Kevin Vanhoozer
• Most people’s understanding of Christianity is a misunderstanding. Apologetics helps clarify. – Michael Ramsden
• We equip by EXAMPLE. Lead by LIVING it. Disciple by DOING. Mentor by MODELING. SHOW it then say it. PATTERN it then preach it! – Rick Warren
• It is a shame to commit sin, but never to confess it. – St. Chrysostom
• An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand. -A.W. Tozer
• Nobody in Hebrews 11 was having their Best Life Now. – Fred Sanders

The Reasons for God “Great Posts of the Week”:

• Stand to Reason – new website!
• A Grounded Hope by Paul Buller
• Why Should We Believe Christianity is True? by Neil Shenvi
• Arguing for the Sake of Arguing by John Ferrer
• How Do You Tell A Good Answer From A Bad One? by Tom Gilson
• Wise vs. Foolish Speech by Eric Ortlund
• Antidote To Poison – Ravi Zacharias’ Escape from Suicide by Ravi Zacharias
• The Value of Existential Apologetics by Leslie Keeney
• Frank Turek and David Silverman Debate on Theism vs. Atheism at Vimeo
• Three M’s That Naturalism Can’t Provide by J. Warner Wallace
• How Planned Parenthood Might Respond to Gosnell by Trevin Wax
• Gosnell’s Atrocities are No “Aberration” by Kirsten Powers

Great videos of the week:

An undercover video of an abortion clinic in D.C.:

An undercover video of an abortion clinic in Arizona:

Lila Rose discusses modern abortion clinics:

Have you ever heard of experiential learning? From ropes courses to trust falls, or hearing a ‘what is the meaning of life?’ talk while standing in a cemetery, the point of experiential learning exercises is to give participants a richer, multi-dimensional encounter that leads to new and lasting insight.

But did you know that there’s a powerful way to bring experiential learning into everyday conversations?

Today I want to introduce you to what I call “The Jabberwocky Method.” You practice The Jabberwocky Method whenever you deliberately practice a nonsensical idea that the other person is asserting makes complete sense.

The term comes from the nonsense poem Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll. As a sample, the poem begins:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Confused? Let me explain with a few illustrations.

I first stumbled upon the Jabberwocky method during my senior year at Rhodes College, in a senior seminar for all of the philosophy majors. Each week a different senior presented their personal life philosophy, as the capstone project of the philosophy major, and then our professor and the other students offered their most rigorous philosophical critiques. The class was one of the highlights of my time at Rhodes College.

One week, a student presented a nonsensical thesis. I forget the specifics of it, but it was something like, “there is no meaning to language except what we say it is.” To point out the absurdity, I decided to take this nonsense seriously and practice his rule in the conversation. So I said, “The meaning I make of your words is that you are offering to do all of our laundry for the rest of the semester.”

The student was befuddled – that was not the meaning of his words. But he had just denied that his words had any independent meaning or truth – his affirmation was that all meaning comes from what the audience says it means. As part of the audience, and taking him at his word, I decided that his words meant only one thing: an iron-clad commitment to do everyone’s laundry.

You can imagine my disappointment when he never did my laundry!

After all, if his “no meaning but what we say it is” thesis was true, and I said he meant to say that he was committed to doing my laundry, why were my clothes still dirty?

His idea did not make sense. How do you respond to seriously-stated nonsense? With reason? Maybe.

The Jabberwocky Method is an alternative way to communicate that an idea is nonsense. It does so by taking a nonsense idea so seriously that you temporarily live and speak as if it is true. The purpose is to give the person who is saying nonsense an experience that reveals the absurdity of what they are seriously affirming.

In my time as a campus minister, I’ve heard many students suggest that, even though ideas which are irrational to believe could still be true, we should believe them just in case they are true.

There are many possible “Jabberwocky” responses to such a silly idea. For instance, you could say, “Everything I believe is false. I cannot speak any English. Reality is an illusion. You could be a green frog, so I will believe you are a green frog.” No matter how irrational you get, insist that everything you say is definitely true. Try to convince your friend to agree that you are right. If successful, start disagreeing with them.

The possibilities are limited only by the nonsense you hear and your personal creativity.

Let’s look at a few more scenarios:

Three More Jabberwocky Response Ideas:

“Truth is relative”

The Jabberwocky Response (TJR): Interesting. To me, relative means absolute truth, and truth means false, so you believe false ideas are absolutely true? Also, black is white, up is down, and left is right. It all depends on your point of view. My view is that your truth is cow and green is pineapple.

The point: if truth is relative, who is to say that TJR is false?

“Truth is unknowable.”

TJR: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Am I alive? Or dead? I don’t know! What is my name? What is your name? Where am I? What are words? Two plus two equals a million! No! A million and ten! La, la, la, la, de, da, la.

The point: If truth is really unknowable, then everything is incredibly confusing. Act, as much as possible, as if you know no truths.

“Morality is relative.”

TJR: Good! So you won’t judge me for affirming slavery, infanticide, unlimited greed, and torture, preferably as often as possible? That’s a relief. So, what’s for lunch? Hopefully we can kill someone and eat their food – or maybe we can just eat them! Isn’t it great that everyone gets to invent their own morality, and there’s no difference between right and wrong?

The point: if this person really believes there are no transcendent ethics, then everyone has perfect freedom to adopt whatever morality, in thought and in practice, that they want. But is that actually liberating? If they won’t affirm any transcendent ethics, then all they can do is say, “well, personally, I disagree with killing and eating people for lunch, and you should be afraid of being caught by the police, but I can’t say you’re wrong.” Press them on that point.

In Conclusion:

The Jabberwocky Response is a lot of fun. But don’t get carried away. It is a surgical tool, not a club. Making fun of your friend will just hurt their feelings. That’s a lose-lose situation. Instead, the point is to provide an experience for your friend that helps them abandon self-refuting, nonsensical ideas.

If your friend is going to insist on asserting absurdity with you, show them what their ideas look like in reality.

It is also important to make sure you very carefully stick to illustrating the unique kind of absurdity they have stated is a coherent truth. For instance, if you provide The Jabberwocky Response to the statement “morality is relative,” when a friend has said “truth is relative,” then you will not clarify the problem. Instead, you will amplify it and come across as looking like a fool for no good reason.

Finally, stay under control so you can recognize when they’ve gotten the point. Or, if they are confused, but ask for an explanation, be prepared to clearly explain what just happened. “You said X. I began to talk as if X were true. That resulted in absurdity. My point was to reveal that X is a bad idea. Do you agree?”

In limited cases, with the right people, The Jabberwocky Response can move you and your friend beyond absurdity and into reasonable dialogue.