“The king, before whom I also speak freely, knows about these things. For I am persuaded that none of this is hidden from him, for this was not done in a corner.”

— Acts 26:26

There continue to be some skeptics, not of a learned sort I may say, who deny the historicity of Jesus. But there is no true historian in all of the world who would dare place his reputation on the line by saying that Jesus never lived. However, there are those amateur skeptics that like to come up with such statements from time to time that Christ was a fable, He never really existed, and the Bible is a collection of myths. But there is a great deal of attestation for both.

It is like a tumor of the brain, to use a not very happy metaphor, which cannot be removed by surgery without killing the patient. To remove the Scriptures and to remove Christ from history is indeed to destroy the body of history completely.

There is more evidence for the fact that Jesus Christ lived than that Julius Caesar lived. To deny the basic historicity of the New Testament is to deny all of ancient history together. Not only do we have the witness of the New Testament writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, and Jude, but we have many other Christian writers of the first and second centuries, including Barnabas, Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus, Hermes, and Tertullian. And then there are many non-Christian sources testifying to the existence of Jesus and the Christians. These include Josephus, Tacitus, Thallus, Phlegon, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Hadrian, Emperor Trajan, Lucian of Samosata, Mara bar Serapion, The Talmud, and Toledoth Jeschu. By first century historical standards, Jesus was well-established historically.

Dear Lord, give us the strength and opportunity to share with somebody the incredibly strong proof of Your life and work…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
RECOGNIZE THAT HISTORY IS HIS STORY.