Emphasis Preaching Journal

The people in the first century Church were not familiar with resurrection. There was not even a clear Greek concept for it. So many witnesses reported different accounts, and it was a very puzzling time. Who was a believable witness? Frustrated, Paul had his own doubts about exactly how Jesus had risen from the dead. Christians can understand how Paul felt. He preached Christ crucified and it was difficult to explain what happened after that. He asked his followers to come by faith, because no matter what form it was, Christ has risen from the dead. Post-modern Christians take few things on faith. During the Enlightenment of the 1800s and the first half of the twentieth century, people disbelieved anything they could not see with their own eyes. They believed in the reports from the battlefields in two world wars. They believed what Senator Joseph McCarthy said about Communists in the government. Today, there are many skeptics in America. With the arrival of television and more media attention, we began to be in a state of disbelief. Americans became more cynical about the media stories of the U-2 plane downed in 1960, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the casualties reported from Vietnam, and the scandals of Nixon and Clinton. What was a credible source for news? Is the Bible credible? Christians take it on faith.
-- Becker 1