[Xdevconf] Good News

[Good News]

God spoke to me
1)Sept 2003: I was down Pittsburgh, and I heard a voice that said,"Good
News". It confused me, but I felt compeled to come home to my old church.
2)When I arrive home I recieve a Good News Bible in the church from my dad.
3)I have never heard of this Bible before in my life, the "Good News" I was
spoken to is manifested in physical form.

Get a Good News Bible yourself. www.bibles.com

Don't just take my word for it.  Lets investigate the bible's claims.

(John 14:6) Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes
to the Father except by me."

Way: Jesus claims he is the way to God.  Jesus claims people should try and
live in the way he did.  No one but Jesus is sinless, but we should try to
live in the way Jesus instructs.

Truth: Jesus claims to speak the truth and be true.  His words and actions
follow this claim.  Much of this investigation examines this claim.  Once one
accepts Jesus as truth, his other claims can be accepted.

Life: Jesus claims eternal life for all.  The better you lead your life in
this life, the greater your rewards in heaven.  He claims also that evil
people will be sent into eternal fire.

Everyone who's reading this right now is thinking different things.  There
are a few groups of readers that I really want to target.  Most of all, I
want to appeal to Reader group #1 who say, "Religion is just a method of control
on people's lives.  People get scared of going to hell, so they join an
organized religion.  I'm not gullible so I'll live any way I want."
	To reader group #1:  I'll try to help you realize that Jesus is the truth.
Instead of focusing on hellfire as a means of control and exploitation by
the ruling class, we'll first examine if Jesus is someone to trust.  Once you
have trust in what Jesus says, then you can believe the Final Judgment(Matthew
25:31).  Judgement is actually his last teaching before the plot against him
in the book of Matthew.  You may interpret this ordering has a reason: Jesus
may want you to believe in him before having you accept such a grave
situation.  

	I will also look at the bible as a whole to support Jesus' claim of truth.
The bible is completely true, yet group #2 says, "Science, logic, or reason
proves parts of it false.  Since the bible is supposed to be completely true,
yet part is false, the whole doctrine is false."  Nothing proves the bible
false.  I will still dedicate a few chapters to debunking popular claims.  I
will not deny logic, but how it's applied.  Some people can not fathom the
unlimited scope of God's power to shape or change the universe.  If you're
really hung upon 'evolution', 'the age of earth', 'Noah's flood', or 'bad
translation of the bible' its probably best that you skip ahead to those later
chapters now to get the weight off your chest.  It would be tough for someone to
continue reading this if they think they could prove part of the bible as
false.

	While the later chapters deal with debunking attacks on the bible's
truths, these first chapters will focus on building up your trust in God.  Many
people don't want to be suckered, so they don't immediately trust other people.
Many people build up trust over time.  Even with time you may never fully
trust a person.  But the son of God claims he can be completely trusted.  We can
use our traditional reasoning skills to see that Jesus is true in many
actions and false in none.  As you see more and more instances of Jesus being
true, your leap of faith to trust him fully will be lessened.  To some deep
thinking minds, the bible makes sense, but group #3,"Might not have had time to
read and deeply consider it."

	Hopefully sometime while reading this book your interest becomes sparked
in the bible.  I encourage you to drop this book, and read the bible as soon
as you feel inclined.  Do not read this book thinking it's crib notes for the
bible.  This book is intended to appeal to your sense of logic, and reason.
It will provide you with strategies, and angles to consider about the bible
that perhaps were unknown to you.  And once you got a foothold on truth, the
rest flows naturally.  While its not a 'Proof of God', it shouldn't have to be.
You can think for yourself.

Truth point 1: John 5:30-5:47 Jesus speaks of his witnesses.  John is a
witness to Jesus being the son of God.  God the Father is a witness, because he
arranged that Jesus' deeds show his divinity and truth.  The scriptures also
predict Jesus' coming and deeds including what Moses wrote.


Truth point 2: Jesus was prophesized in scripture, as Jesus claimed in John
5:30-5:47(Truth point 1)
	Prophesy is difficult.  There are no known prophets in the world that have
had their predictions come true.  All modern prophets who try and predict
the future have been proven to be fakes when what they predicted did not come
true.  There were some false prophets in the bible, and they were proven wrong
too.  The prophets in the bible that proclaimed God's message were always
correct in their prophesies.  They predicted the success and failure of
nations, kings, armies, cities and people(read the old testament to see for
yourself).  The prophets came hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus.  The
prophets prophesized about the Messiah, and every word they spoke came true in the
life of Jesus.
Isaiah 44:6-44-8 The Lord, who rules and protects Israel, the Lord
Almighty, has this to say: "I am the first, the last, the only God; there is no other
god but me.  Could anyone else have done what I did?  Who could have
predicted all that would happen from the very beginning to the end of time?  Do not
be afraid, my people!  You know that from ancient times until now I have
predicted all that would happen, and you are my witnesses.  Is there any other
god?  Is there some powerful god I never heard of?"
Examples: (Note to self-Add more examples, there are tons)
2a:Isaiah 44:21-28 - Note that the body of Jesus is commonly referred to as
the foundation of the true temple of God.  In one way the prediction is for
the rebuilding of the physical temple, in another way it's the prediction of
the savior.
2b:Isaiah 44:17-32 

Truth point 3: John16:16-16:24 Sadness and Gladness-Jesus predicts his own
death and resurrection.  His accurate prediction is a sign of divinity and
him telling the truth.
Also seen in Matthew16:21, Matthew 17:22 and Matthew 20:17-20:19


Truth point 4: Having wit is a skill:
  It takes a great deal of effort to have a witty comeback.  The opposite
of mature wit is what you find in children's minds.  Instead of worrying about
coming up with a retort on the fly, children say, "I know you are, but what
am I?" or "I'm rubber and you're glue, what you say bounces off of me and
sticks to you."  Situational comedies on television have writers that work for
days writing witty dialogue.  For a man it's hard coming up with something
witty to say offensively, and harder still to come up with something on the fly
in return.  Enemies of Jesus tried to trap Jesus in his words, and even had
groups of men spend weeks coming up with tough situations.  Some questions
seemingly had no answer that wouldn't incriminate Jesus, but Jesus always had a
right answer to even the toughest questions.  His answers often not only got
him out of a word trap, but further taught.  You could ascertain Jesus had
the wit of a god, or more importantly you could see he had the knowledge and
truth of God.

Some examples:
4a Jesus and Abraham
John 8:48-8:59

4b A Demand for a Miracle
Matthew 12:38-12:42

4c Teaching of the Ancestors
Matthew 15:1-15:9

4d Another Demand for a Miracle
Matthew 16:1-16:4

4e Jesus Teaches about Divorce
Matthew 19:1-19:12

4f The Question about Jesus' Authority
Matthew 21:23-21:27

4g The Question about Paying Taxes
Matthew 22:15-22:22

4h The Question about Rising from Death
Matthew 22:23-22:33

4i The Great Commandment
Matthew 22:34-22:40

4j Jesus at the Home of Simon the Pharisee
Luke 7:36-7:50

4k The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:25-10:37

4l The Parable of the Rich Fool
Luke 12:13-12:21

4m Some Sayings of Jesus
Luke 16:14-16:18

4n Jesus at the Festival of Shelters
John 7:15-7:24
"How does this man know so much when he has never been to school?"

4o Question about the Sabbath
Matthew 12:1-12:14

Truth point 5:  John 3:10-3-13 Jesus speaks more on trust.  You can say
it's a cyclical argument that he wants people to trust him.  I won't argue that,
but look at this: Jesus says, "You do not believe me when I tell you about
the things of this world; how will you ever believe me, then, when I tell you
about the things of heaven?"  Jesus has witnessed heaven, but he knows it's
hard for mortals to believe in things they've never seen.  As much as many
people would want to hear about what's in store for us in heaven, Jesus never
really goes into depth about it.  As he explained above, if he spoke in detail
about heaven's majesty, less people would believe in him.  Its far more
important to God that people trust and believe in him than illustrate what can be
found in heaven.

Truth point 6: John 8:31-8:47 Free Men and Slaves- Jesus explains that
people who believe in him are free from sin. This truth can even be examined with
worldly logic: Without the resurrection we should eat drink and be merry for
tomorrow we die.  But the promise of eternal life is different.  While sin
may provide a temporary high, its against God's will. Once a person believes
in Jesus, they have the ability to overcome sin.  With the promise of eternal
life, we don't have to be overcome with immediate drives for self
gratification.  Instead Jesus says there are rewards in heaven waiting for us if we lead
a life of goodness and help others.  

Truth point 7: John 8:12-8:20 This is difficult to logically understand,
but worth reading.

Truth point 8: Since God is a perfect deity, he doesn't have to lie to
cover up imperfections.  

Truth point 9: Jesus performed many miracles of healing.  I left this to
last because most people harp on them, and some people shrug them off as not
being proof of truth.  To some miracles are hard to believe.  God has infinite
power though.  I'll just make a quick comment that it shows God loves us in
that most of the miracles were ones of healing

-----------------------------LATER CHAPTERS:------------------------------

Question: "I've seen atrocities or my life has been tough.  God can't exist
if he allows such suffering. Or maybe he exists, but doesn't love me much,
or isn't powerful enough to stop bad things from happening."  

Answer: God is a living God who does affect our lives.  He blesses those
who obey him.  Blessings from God are not always in the form of immediate
gratification.  You can not apply the logic, "I worship God so my earthly walk
should be carefree."  Jesus is one with God, yet his earthly walk was far from
carefree.  We should love our neighbors and enemies, but they aren't
guaranteed to live by the same guidelines.  People who are cruel and out for
themselves can persecute Christians as they persecuted Jesus.  Jesus even explains
that persecutions will happen: (Matthew 5:10) "Happy are those who are
persecuted because they do what God requires; the kingdom of heaven belongs to them!"
So to conclude, God is loving to us in that he sent his own son to take up
the cross.  Out of love Jesus endured the ultimate suffering of all time past
and to come.  

Question: Why do Christians say the universe is thousands of years old when
scientists say that the world is billions of years old?

Answer: God is infinitely powerful.  He could have created the universe to
look like its billions of years old.  Besides, a day for God can be a
different length of time than a day for man, and creation could have took billions
of man years.

Question: What about Evolution?

Answer: God is infinately powerful in all he does.  Evolution is simply a
man made theory which possesses many aspects that cannot be proven.  Mendelian
natural selection is something we have observed.  The bible isn't
discredited by either of these.  

Question: Noah didn't live on North America, yet animals still live here.
How did he collect every animal in pairs from across the entire world?

Answer: There are probably more answers than I can come up with, but what I
would ascertain is this: Noah didn't collect every animal on the earth,
since he is only man and couldn't cross the Atlantic Ocean.  God flooded the
entire earth.  When Noah returned, God recreated the animal species that died off
in North America.  This is just a postulation.

Question: I can't believe the bible because people may have translated it
wrong.

Answer: We still have original documents of scripture.  Nothing is lost in
translation.