So last night, there was a big debate on the campus of the seminary I go to (Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary). The debate centered around the question essentially whether historians can prove the resurrection of Jesus. The two debaters were Michael Licona, author of "The Case For the Resurrection of Jesus" and Bart Ehrman, professor at UNC Chapel Hill. Licona took the position that one could prove historically and Ehrman took the opposing view.
Aside from the debate, which I thought ended as I draw, I walked away with two thoughts. These two thoughts I will elaborate on with the use of sports analogies (of course). The first centered around Dr. Ehrman, who is an agnostic. He talked about his past and how he went to Moody Bible Institute and to Wheaton College (a Christian college) and how he "believed" in the truth of the resurrection for the longest time and that he only came to the position that he's at now in his words "kicking and screaming". Now I mulled on that and to me it sounded like this. Picture if you will a superstar baseball player. He is very talented, has risen up the minor leagues as the "can't miss prospect". He becomes identified with Team A, pretty much is the heart and soul of the team. He then signs with Team B for an exorbernt amount of money (like 100 million dollars). At the press conference, the player says that it was hard for him to leave team A and he was pulled away kicking and screaming. Now, if you heard about that, what would you think? For me, there are only three options. One, he's a liar. Two, he's (to put it nicely) not bright. Or three, he knows exactly why he left (the 100 million dollar contract). I think the same goes for Ehrman in regard to his former beliefs. Either he's option one and a liar, option two and not bright, or option three and he knew exactly what he was doing. For me, I tend to go with option three. In the end, he chose what he felt was the truth. Do I think he chose right? Well, no but the point is that don't make it out to be that it was hard for you when in the end it wasn't.
The second thing was that it gave me a better apprecation for those followers of Jesus that I don't necessarily agree with or like all the time. Here the sports example is this. On any given team, there will be players who don't like other players, for whatever reason. But, they are teammates and as long as they are teammates they have one common goal, to win. And they must cooperate and play together in order to achieve that goal. Same thing for followers of Jesus. There are some followers that I don't always like or agree with. But I have to be reminded, and last night was a reminder, that we're on the same team. If we're following Jesus, then he or she are not the enemy, they're my brother or my sister, they're a part of the body of Christ just like I am. And that is a good encouragment to have when faced with a difficult situation.
By the way, Happy Leap Day everyone :)
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