A Devotional Corner

I note your criteria.

Reputable
Meticulous
Honest

I’m not sure if you have done any research on Luke. From limited readings, I have found that historians generally believe that Luke was a meticulous historian. Luke investigates his stories. I don’t recall the exact numbers but out of the two hundred and thirty something cities that Luke sites, everyone of them has been finally been verified either through other accounts or archaeological evidence. Luke states accurately the traditions of that time and in detail too. Luke names the rulers, the province heads, military traditions without error. So if you were not biased against Luke, you will have to conclude that he is meticulous.

I have limited knowledge of ancient historians also. I searched for “Famous Ancient Historians” and found a list of ten people. Of these I have read the writings of Julius Caesar and Titus Livius (Livy) in their original language. I have not read all their works but I have studied them for about 2 years. All historians are biased in one way or another. Julius Caesar writes about his Gallic Wars. He describes almost all his enemies as Barbarians. And he talks about how brave and noble his soldiers are.

Livy was commissioned by Rome to write a history of Rome. Historians tend to stand on the side of those that finance their ink and scrolls. He writes brilliantly about the rise of a great nation. He has pride in Roman power and ingenuity.

Yet I would say that both these people do portray a good picture of their subject. They write according to their beliefs. i.e. power and glory and wealth.

Luke and the gospel writers also write according to their beliefs. Truth, righteousness, love. The out come of this you can judge for yourself.

I’m sure you won’t try to compare Luke to your wife’s friend. Judge for youself by reading Luke’s writings. It is no small thing for a person to be literate in Greek at that time. Luke is known to be a physician by trade. His qualification as a historian is not easily dismissible.

Luke 1:1-4 (NIV)
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

You have no reason to believe that Luke is a dishonest person. Just as there is no reason to believe that Caesar or Livy are dishonest people. There is no logical or intellectual reason or evidence to believe that the gospel writers are dishonest or delusional.

The gospels are written for different audiences.
For the poor and illiterate.
For religious zealots
For educated middle-upper class
For those in power
For the ordinary person.
You have not critically analysed other historical records from antiquity. But you insist that there is insufficient evidence to confirm the reliability of the bible. I’m sure that if you applied your scepticism to any of the historical writers, you will find that you have no history to believe in.

The gospel writers made it up?

Wouldn’t it be strange to claim that hundreds of miracles happened between 1970AD and 1975AD and yet not a single person came forward to say they saw it? Miracles don’t happen every day. You’d remember it if it happened. You’d talk about it if it happened in your town. Who is going to follow a bunch of Jews who claimed that hundreds of miracles happened if they had no eyewitnesses to prove their stories? They can not do it with one eyewitness. They need to have done it with hundreds of eyewitnesses with collaborating accounts. Anything short of that, and they’d be out like the latest fad. This is because of the overwhelming number of miracles they claim in their accounts.

Witnesses

You mentioned before hypothetical witnesses. They don’t exist so lets stop talking about them Let’s talk instead about the witness that did exist. The many hundreds of them.

If you see one miracle, it is understandable for a sceptic to dismiss it.
If you see two miracles, it is still understandable to dismiss, but you would expect a person to be on the look out. And be ready to investigate.
If you see three miracles, then you would have to give this man serious thought.
If you see hundreds of miracles over and over again, you have no choice but to knee down with your face to the ground and to worship him

I want to propose that your concept of an objective non-Christian eyewitness to be logically impossible. A person who witnessed these hundred of miracles and still proclaims to be a non-believer cannot exist.

John the Baptist sent some people to ask Jesus he was and Jesus replied. “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Luke 7:22 NIV

Only the bible is bold enough to stand out and declare that hundreds of miracles have been performed before thousands of verifiable witnesses. No other religion can even claim even 0.5% of that. Such a grand and amazing claim. Hundreds of miracles performed in a few years. If there were not thousands of witnesses confirming the events, do you think Christianity will still be standing in 40AD?

I can only quote you written accounts by Christians because it is impossible to find a witness that has bothered to write a testimony of the miracles, and yet has managed to remain non believing. Lets explain the witnesses we have and not the hypothetical non-existent counter witnesses.

Christian Character

The greatest act of love was the death of Christ on the cross. Jesus had been telling his disciples over and over again that he will die and rise again in three days. I’m sure you would have heard this argument before. Let me repeat it. If Jesus died on the cross and did not come back, how many people will still follow him and preach his gospel. None. If Jesus died and did not come back, that would mean that he is not credible. Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to have power over life and death. If he did not come back everyone will very quickly realise that he is a fraud.

You argue, why not continue to spread the gospel even if Jesus didn’t come back? If you look at the character of the bible writers, they believe in truth and righteousness. They don’t believe in tricking people just to give them a good message. They can give them a good message without talking about Jesus! All they need to do is to preach a righteous and godly message without mentioning Jesus, and they would have achieved their purpose. But no. Instead, the followers insist that Jesus is alive. This is at the risk of death by crucifixion. As argued by apologists, people don’t die for lies. Especially if they don’t need to lie to get a good message across.

What is the message? I’m not sure if you fully understand the message. If you understand the message, then you would understand that they would have nothing to preach if Jesus didn’t come back. The fact that they preached it with such conviction indicates also their conviction that Jesus is now alive.

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead .

Can you see the conviction in Peter’s words? You want to know what kind of person Peter is? Read the rest of his letter. Read the rest of the gospels which talk about him. Unlike other false prophets and fraudsters (not mentioning any names) Peter does not have money, power and women to gain from this. Unlike other lunatics that preach, Peter’s wisdom surpasses any other religious philosophers (or at least on par with other religions if you’re non Christian). His message is consistent with the other biblical themes and wisdoms.

These are the eyewitness accounts that are as accurate today as it was two thousand years ago. You can read today the accounts that eyewitnesses have recorded two thousand years ago.

I hope that I’ve already covered your concerns about the credibility of witnesses and gospel writers. The only ground on which you discredit them is that you do not believe them. But as I’ve shown, there are so much more reasons to believe them then to not believe them. What are the reasons for not believing them? If it were Joseph Smith, I could list hundreds of reasons why you shouldn’t believe him. If it were Julius Caesar, I could list many reasons for not believing his record of events.

In mathematics there is a type of proof where in order to from that a statement is true (I think it’s called prove by contradiction). You first take the negative of that statement. Run the new assumption through your maths. Find that the maths is inconsistent with the assumption, and conclude that the opposite of the negative statement must be true (given that the positive and negative encompasses the entire set of possibilities.) Assume that the gospel writers are liars. Run that through the personal testimonies. Conclude that the gospel writers are not liars. Assume Jesus did not perform miracles, run through the personal testimonies of the first century, conclude that Jesus performed miracles. Assume that Jesus did not rise from the dead, run through the personal testimonies, conclude that Jesus rose from the dead.

I am sad to say that there are people that will not believe, even if a miracle was performed in front of them.

Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. Luke 10:13-15

Posted by Jot.. at 9:07 pm | Permalink | Comments

I note that the assumption is made that there was silence between the miracles happening and events being recorded. This is quite an unreasonable assumption if you assume that Jesus did perform miracles. If Jesus did do miracles, then people would have talked about it everyday. Dads would tell their sons. Neighbors will tell their neighbors. 30 years is not a long time at all considering that this was 2000 years ago.

If on the other hand you assume that Jesus did not do any miracles, then it would be unreasonable to assume that people would go around spreading the news that Jesus did perform miracles. Also waiting 30yrs to write about something that didn’t happen doesn’t make sense either.

You will note that there are a lot of assumptions made everywhere, and I think that this leads some people to find the argument flawed. I’m sure with other assumptions and combination of assumptions, you will be able to generate limitless numbers of scenarios, out of which, the Evangelical version is but one.

It has also been argued that just because no witnesses came to refute the claims, it does not mean that the event did take place.

This poses a big problem. If someone chooses to take on this line of argument, it is possible to refute almost every historical record or event that ever took place or was ever written down. There are many volumes of history that have been recorded as fact over the past 5000 years. With regards to pre modern history, I would say that a large portion of them are written from one perspective. It has been said history is written by the victorious. With the mentioned line of reasoning, we would have to cast doubt on almost all ancient documents and records.

In the justice system, witnesses are called to testify. If we argue that “just because no one came to refute the claim, it does not mean that the witnesses is the sole witnesses and a credible witness”, then there will be much less people in prison today.

Of course, the bible is reliable not solely on the grounds that no one came to refute it. This is only one small piece of the entire picture. (it’s reasonable to assume that at least one or two people tried to refute it..)

Such is the nature of written history. The bible is claimed to be the most reliable historical document from ancient times, and second place is miles behind. Events are not proven by scientific experiments. Events are confirmed through eyewitness accounts testimonies and recorded in documents or other media. How else will you know that an event took place? If you doubt the story of Jesus, then you should doubt the entire human ancient history many many times more.

Some people choose to believe the events written in the bible. Some people choose to doubt it. Some people don’t even know what’s in it.

Posted by Jot.. at 1:15 am | Permalink | Comments

If you have been following our discussion from our previous post in the comments section, this is my further reply to my new friend in America that has deviated so much I felt I should start on a new post. I sincerely invite all those who are interested in a discussion on the accuracy (and the proving of such accuracy) of the bible as a document that records historical events ...

I stand to be corrected if I have understood you incorrectly, but from observing your comments and your blog entries, an underlying theme that you bring out is that there is always two sides of the coin that if you try proving one side, you will most certainly neglect the other side to prove your point.

In your most recent blog entry, you have highlighted that Lee Strobel would somewhat provide a bias view just to prove his point, and he somehow neglects or avoids the uncertainty, doubts that may potentially cause a stumbling block for his case.

However if we are dealing with history, it is almost certain that there will be no way where you can have record an event with 100% accuracy. One of the reasons that cause a deficiency in such historical recording includes, but not limited to, the way the person who perceive things will always be bound to be different. Putting the spiritual element of the bible aside (i.e. that the bible is God breathed, true, inerrant etc) and looking at the bible purely as a historic document highlight this. The four gospels are obviously written by four different people at four different times and places. They all claim the one event, but they uniquely portray the events on different perspectives. (I note you probably question whether what they claim is in fact the actual truth, but lets put that aside for now).

You've raised a number of hypothetical scenarios, so perhaps I will add another one more to our discussion.

Although we are nearly half a world apart, but suppose I manage to have a verbal conversation with you (and for argument sake, our oral conversation is not recorded in any way). Now suppose immediately after the conversation, we engage in an exercise to record the exact words of our conversation (i.e. you said "x", then i said: "y" and so on).

You and I would certainly have great difficulty trying to recall every single word that was said, and to make things even harder, in the order that they came out in. HOWEVER, I trust that both of us would have substantial contents or the most important points of our conversation recorded.

I believe you would not disagree if I said we would probably have a greater chance of winning the lottery than to have two identical accounts of the same conversation if there was no collaboration. (Also, for the sake of argument, lets put aside the issue of Christians gambling/playing lottery for the time being).

Now the question I pose is this: are we to doubt whether the conversation existed because we could not record the exact words of our conversation? Are we to doubt whether the conversation existed because we had two accounts that would have some discrepancy somehow or rather?

I would trust the answer is in the negative, simply because you and I just had the conversation. The fact that we could not recall the exact words does not disprove the conversation existed.

Simply because there are doubts in the details of an event does not necessarily mean that we have to doubt whether an event in fact occurred or not. The fact that there is discrepancy in fact supports we did not sit together and fabricated our hypothetical conversation!

You have mentioned the golden "30 years" a number of times, and I take that to be the parallel in the so-called "period of silence" between Jesus's death and the time the gospels were written. I won't go into discussing whether that "period" was in fact silenced out (but perhaps we may explore that some other time), but the point I would wish to highlight is that I guess we just have to accept that society back then operated on an oral one rather than a pen-on-paper society. It's a bit like asking the question 10 or 20 years later by our grandchildren why on earth was information about the 1950s only recorded on the internet some 40 years later in the 90s? Simply because it was not the common mode of communication at all. (Perhaps it is not the most watertight example, because the internet was not even invented until probably the 80s when it was exclusively used, I believe, by your wonderful country's Defense department but I trust you understand the point of my illustration)

I'd love to hear more from you, but to end the comment, I'd like to borrow your closing remarks in your most recent blog.

You noted that Billy Graham just got on with life and in effect said Christianity is all about faith. Yes. I agree with him.

Why are there people like Lee Strobel trying to prove again and again and again? I guess it is to show what Christians believe in is anchored in some sort of reality and its not solely spiritual.

It is when you are satisfied that what is recorded in the bible is in fact a record of what has happened and you have found that anchor, it is time to take the infamous leap of faith, and accept it as God's word, to embark on the journey of Christianity: establishing a personal relationship with Christ Jesus.

Posted by Ivan at 11:28 pm | Permalink | Comments

I bought a book recently: Don Piper's "90 Minutes in Heaven". It was a book that I wanted to long read but never had the chance. It has been sitting on my desk at work and it has stirred some curiosity in fellow colleagues in asking what the book was about. It was also a good opportunity to start conversations with sharing the gospel too. Today's conversation started with a comment by a fellow colleague saying that he is a strong scientific person. Here is how I responded:

Science cannot explain everything
Before I became a Christian, I also had a scientific struggle. I often asked, if what was said in the bible was true, proof it with science. However, does science explain everything? Science could explain the process of the food being digested in our stomach as we spoke; Physics can probably explain the sound waves resonating from my mouth into his ears, but science cannot record the fact that I had a conversation with my colleague today; nor can it explain why we are having such a conversation.

History is there to compliment the science sphere. The fact that it cannot explained by science does not mean that it did not happen.

Another example that I gave was history can record that at this current point, the Prime Minister of Australia is John Howard, but science cannot explain that. Yes it can, says my colleague. Well, statistics can explain support he was elected/re-elected for the past 4 times, but it only explains process, but does not record what he did in the past 11 years of being in Government.

Isn't believing in a super-being who created us is enough?
Well, if there are claims that something has happened in the past, we must test whether this historical claim was actually worthy to be trusted upon. The conversation was not supposed to last for hours, so I have explained that the Bible in recording the historic evidence has been tested to withstand any legal evidential hurdles to make it a historically reliable source document (of which I did refer him to Lee Strobel's 'Case for Christ').

If the bible is held to be true and correct, it is only sending one true message! And out came a message somewhat along the lines of the Two ways to live spill.

Wait a minute, miracles can't be explained by science. How could that be true then?
How did this question came up? Well, I was starting to go into the lines of saying that Jesus was identified as the Messiah because he had fulfilled the prophecy that was said almost 300 years before he was born. He was born at times where prophets said he was born. But any old baby could have been named the "messiah" and someone could have trained this baby to become the so-called Saviour! What about the miracles that were promised in the prophecy. If you were that baby named to take up that responsibility, you'd be one stressed baby trying to work out how to turn water into wine, heal the sick, blind, deaf ... feeding 5000 with only 5 bread and 2 fish?

Imagine you tried to fabricate a historical documentary today that you have fed the entire Sydney Cricket Ground stadium with 5 sausage rolls and 2 hot dogs at the most recent cricket game. A convincing documentary it may seem, after high-tech video editing. It gets released. If you did not do what you claimed to do, I am sure all those fans who attended that match would have came out and disproved it in a matter of minutes.

No one came out to refute this allegation on Jesus's miracles. And HE pulled the trick TWICE by feeding two crowds both in the thousands! (as if one crowd was not enough to prove his case!)

If it has survived the historical scrutiny where eyewitnesses did not come out to disprove the event and the history was passed down for the last 2000 years, you don't need science to explain that it really in fact existed!

Besides, if miracles could be explained by science or rules of mother nature, what makes it so special to make it a miracle? What makes an apple falling from the sky so special?

Since I am a scientific person, I still believe that seeing is believing!
If you were playing computer games one day at home, and a man pressed the door bell at your front door, you open the door and he says: "I am Jesus", would you believe? If he does certain things to prove himself, you would probably think he is some weirdo magician trying to cheat your money.

I also said that even today, there are miracles happening, are we ignoring these works of God? Don Piper actually died and had no pulse for 90 minutes after his car crash. Medical officers at the accident scene announced his death. 90 minutes later, he came back to life. There can be no medical explanations given. Isn't that a miracle happening in our very eyes today??? Will seeing is believing really help your faith?

While onto faith, another question came up ...

Isn't Christianity just about this whole thing about faith so you could feel better, its just all this thing about thought? (or something along those lines ...)
I said Christianity is not solely on some airy-fairy spiritual thing that "makes us feel better". While there is a spiritual element to it, Christianity is believing in the truth and living in what we believe is the right way. I gave what I call the "operation manual" analogy, which I have mentioned in my previous post:

All machinery and technical gadgets come with an operation manual. There are some people who are impatient and who think they know what they are doing and start using the machine without going through the details in the operation manual. There are the careful ones who would sit down, and see what the manual has to say. You may be in the first group and be lucky and manage to find a way of operating it the way you like. It may work but it may not be the correct way of operation and in the end, the machine breaks.

Humans, are like the machines in the above situation. We often neglect our operation manual (ie Bible). Our creator, God, has left us The operation manual so that we may not stuff ourselves up. You may see them as a set of rules, but it should be seen as a set of recommended ways to lead our lives.

God has shown us (through the bible) what he perceives as the right way of living and merely believing in a super-being whether its the Jewish God, or the Islam Alah, or the Christian God or any other god, who created us is not what the way. It is believing that Jesus, God's one and only son, who has come to earth and died for our sins, and surrendering our life to follow the Lord Jesus is God's right way of living our lives.

Posted by Ivan at 10:09 pm | Permalink | Comments

I am reaching that stage in life where one after another, more and more close friends are all planning to get married. It's a privilege to be able to attend my friend's weddings, being able to witness a fabulous start in their next stages in life. It takes quite a lot of commitment and effort in order to move on to next stage in life.

For the past 20 odd years of your lives, you would have somehow been the dependent of the family. All the needs are mostly taken care of. Moving on to some bit of freedom for some who had the luxury to move out to live on their own, you reach that stage in life where you will have to leave your "previous life" and to start living a life together as one body with you other chosen half and start a family of your own! There must tremendous trust and faith required to make a marriage work, but I guess the most important of it all, is that there should be a solid foundation on which the relationship should be built on!

I guess the first knee-jerk reaction of giving an answer to solid foundation is that you must love one another. But in a world today, where society cannot even provide us what "love" involves, providing such an answer really does not provide us much basis until we start having a look at what love really should mean.

But in the most recent wedding that I have attended, the MC at the wedding asked the groom what he liked about the bride that started the relationship. Without hesitation, he answered, amongst other things, that because they both liked to eat, that was the thing in common. They loved eating so much that almost 70% of the photo slide show was them eating! They thought they have the wedding in October so on each and every anniversary, there would be the Sydney Good Food Month to celebrate with.

On another occasion, the couple was creative enough to have a typed up blurb of their life on fancy looking paper on every guest's table. It outlined what they respectively studied, what their presence were in their respective families, how they met, and upon finally confirming that they have made the right choice in being together, the bride accepts the marriage after the groom took out an expensive branded ring! The 'blurb' ended there so I never ended working out whether that was the "foundation" of their relationship.

I am not saying that my friends don't love each other and they have to rely on either Good Food or expensive rings to fuel their relationships in the long run, but I guess you would appreciate that it is very crucial where you should tie a relationship to, in order to have a sustainable relationship in the long run. It makes it really hard to build on what you currently have if you decide setting foundations on things that are susceptible to change. You don't need to be a engineer to understand the importance of strong solid foundation for large constructions to stand over a long period of time.

The foundation of marriage, like any part of our lives, requires us to set ourselves in a solid foundation in order for us to live a purposeful life. In Luke 6:46-49, Jesus tells us:

46"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."

Jesus promises us that if we listen to his words and follows him, he will provide us the solid foundation to build our lives upon, whether it be marriage or any other part of our lives. God loves us and has made a promise that if we set our foundations in life on him, we will not fall into pieces and be in ruins.

Are you willing to accept this promise and set your foundation in him today?

Posted by Ivan at 8:02 pm | Permalink | Comments

I talked to two Mormons at my home today for 1.5 hours.
Two very young men. Quite inexperienced with the bible and apologetics. But they had enough courage to leave home and travel overseas away from contact with their family and preach a false gospel to the world. How strong is the human will.

I am well prepared. Armed with the truth. Truth as my defender. I once heard a pastor say that he doesn’t debate with Mormons anymore because all he is doing is training them to become better Mormon-Apologists. But I went ahead and invited them in.

One had come from HK not long ago. The other from USA. They seemed pretty ignorant of the world, and they seemed pretty ignorant of what Christians believe.

As my friends know, I can be quite passionate about what I believe. These two poor people had no idea what the truth was. All they know is that the mainstream churches have been corrupted and that the truth has been restored by a guy called Joseph Smith.

When I told them Jesus was God, they had no objections. I got them mixed up with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mormons believe that Jesus is a god. Jesus is just another god. Also, there are many other gods which we don’t know about. They believe that we know the god of this earth only because he happened to be the god of this earth. Otherwise we would know some other god. Mormons actually believe that we are literally children of god. They believe literally that Jesus IS a son of god (not the son of god). That’s why Jesus is a god. Because gods give birth to gods. Get the logic?

I made my position clear from the start. Mormonism is a cult. Joseph Smith was a false prophet. Joseph Smith was a little educated American.

I found out from them that they had lines of prophets, pretty much like the Catholics have popes. The Mormon lines of prophets act like a pope in that they reveal what their god has to say to them. Their words are inspired by their god just like the Catholics.

I challenged them on their believe about the prophet. Their latest prophet is an American called Gordon something. I shouldn’t have done that. Not because my arguments were flawed, but because as the pastor said, it would only prepare them for their next victim. Notice how their prophets are Americans? And all biblical prophets are Israelites? I asked them why they believed that Gordon was a prophet. He said that he said good things. Eg. “pornography is bad”. I am a very logical person. That answer was so poor. Saying good things doesn’t make a guy a prophet. They had no more replies for that chain of reasoning.

I also challenged them on the fact that they believed that there are many gods. While in the bible ( they use the KJV, and they kept quoting bible passages on me ) there is never any mention of any other gods. In fact the bible is very clear that there is only one God. I couldn’t quote verses though. But I told them to go and ask Any Jew in the world, and they will tell them that there is only one God.

I was stumped by one passage. I never gave much thought to it before. It is the idea of going to a place and waiting to be judged. It was the idea of baptizing for the dead. The repentance of the dead. They quoted 1 Peter 3:18-21. I know the first sentence too well. But the next bit seemed to have not registered…

I kept drilling on the fact that Joe was a false prophet. And that the extra information that they provide were never mentioned in the bible. And the good stuff in the book of Mormons were Already mentioned in the bible. Joe added no good information. He only added false information.

I did manage to give them the Christian Gospel. During my “2wtl” I emphasized (over 20times) that my God and their god were two very different gods. My Jesus and their Jesus were two different Jesus’. I gave them the Christian concept of God, Sin, Death, Survivorship and Lordship.

I left them speechless for a few seconds… they had no idea how to respond. I hope I am not training them to defend against Christianity. A little like the Borg.

I tried to get their names. They wouldn’t tell me. “church rules”. They were only allowed to give last names. But I did get the HK guy’s name. (some people think I am manipulative hehehe). I might contact him some time. But very busy lately. I could sense in him that he knew that there were some truth in what I said. If you know me, then you know how worked up I can become when I talk about this subject. But he wasn’t able to accept it. He had his partner with him. He had been assigned a mission. Poor guy. I wish I could bring him to my church. If only he applied his dedication and bravery to the work of the Real God.

When we left, I told them I will pray for them. One of them told me to pray to god that I may know that Joseph Smith is a real prophet of god. That didn’t sound right. I didn’t know how to reply. But as I think of it now. I can see the flaw. In order to know Joseph Smith, I would have to pray to god. THEIR gOD. But my God is more powerful. My Jesus is more powerful. Is more just, is more righteous, is more wise, is more unique. And I will pray to no other god but my God. I should have asked them to pray to my God. Next time. God willing.

I will pray for them. To my God.

Posted by Jot.. at 12:42 am | Permalink | Comments