Disinterested parties
Brian Dean bridean@hotmail.com
Thu, 15 Jan 1998 15:01:01 PST (00884926861, 19980115230102.14040.qmail@hotmail.com)
>Michael Vaujin wrote:
>
>Just wondering, has anybody encountered the following defense:
>The reason one cannot find disinterested or non-Christian reporting
>about the early activities of Jesus or the Apostles is because, as
>soon as the reporter learned about Jesus or the Apostles, he would
>have converted. Therefore, the absence of non-Christian reporting of
>early Christianity is simply further proof of the power and truth of
>Christianity.
>
>I was just wondering if anybody had encoutered that defense, and what
>the proper response to it is.
>
>
>TILL
>I thought I had heard every desperate excuse before, but I had never
>heard this one. If I were you, I would take whoever made this
>"argument" on a tour of the book of Acts to show him/her that even >the
"inspired word" states that not everyone who "learned about >Jesus"
converted. Acts 4:4 said (after Peter had preached a sermon >to a
temple audience), "But many of them that heard the word >believed, and
the number of the men came to be about five thousand." >Only "many" of
them believed, but these were people who had heard >about Jesus directly
from the apostles, so why did all of them >believe and become
disinterested parties? This chapter of Acts, in >fact, relates an
encounter that the apostles had with the high >priest, his kindred, and
other Jewish leaders, who threatened the >apostles if they didn't stop
preaching. In response, Peter preached >a minisermon to them, but they
didn't convert and become >"disinterested parties"; they sent the
apostles from their presence >and conferred among themselves about how
to handle this situation. >They decided to threaten them again and let
them go. The next >chapter relates another confrontation between the
apostles and the >sanhedrin. There were more threats from the Jewish
leaders, and this >time the apostles were put into prison from which
they were >miraculously delivered. There is certainly no evidence in
these >stories to indicate that all who learned of Jesus from the
apostles >became believers and therefore disinterested parties. To the
>contrary, stories like this claim that many people who had direct
>contact with the apostles didn't believe their gospel story. If you
>will continue through the book of Acts, you will find other examples
>you can use. Stephen, for example, made an impassioned defense of
>the gospel after he was brought before the Jewish leaders, but rather
>than becoming "disinterested parties," these unbelievers stoned
>Stephen (Acts 7). Acts 9:42 states that "many" throughout Joppa
>believed on the Lord as a result of Peter's preaching, but it
>certainly doesn't indicate that they all believed on him.
>
>This has to be one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard.
BRIAN
Let alone the fact that many people didn't believe JESUS HIMSELF
when he said in John 6 that you actually had to eat his flesh
and blood. And if you hear the common defense that he only meant
this metaphorically or allegorically, then why didn't he just
explain that? He could have just said, "Oh I didn't mean eat
my flesh literally, only allegorically".
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