^ Gospel of John is often recommended as a great place to start reading the Bible.
This movie is a word-for-Word portrayal of John's gospel.
Also, please check out the Alpha Course.
There are 10 videos total, answering a lot of questions about faith, Christianity historically and in the modern
world, the estate of man, and God's design for humans. I hope you watch them. They could benefit you greatly .
The Alpha course for me anyways and probably lots of others too is pretty amazing because it is so comprehensive...
but also because I went through it myself, starting out as a non-believer which I had been the majority of my life,
to coming to a place where I realized I no longer needed any more convincing of the Truth of God's revealed written
Word, and I had resisted fairly strenuously for some time! So it was quite a relief to get to that point actually, and
stop fighting, and finally surrender. I was baptized at the end of the course, close to 21 years ago.
Thank you so much for this, I've watched the first 6 of the alpha series and will watch the rest later on. The gotquestions site is brilliant as well.
One of the things I like on the alpha series is when the host mentions that he likes to see evidence for things. I'd always assumed to be Christian you had to completely take the Bible at face value and that there wasn't anything approaching proof, which is something I know I'd struggle with, because how could you put the Christian word above any other?
It's started my learning journey which is at a very early stage but I'm already fascinated.
Before I started looking into it I wasn't even sure if Jesus had existed. But just by learning a little about the Bible a few things are immediately clear. Jesus did exist. He fulfilled a number of prophecies, including some outside his control. He had disciples and therefore must have been a very wise man, and the disciples certainly believe he performed miracles. From his teachings he seems morally sound, in a time when that probably wasn't common (it isn't even that common now!). He did claim to be the son of God and those around him believed it. He was definitely executed.
The resurrection is really interesting, and again the alpha videos gave me a different perspective on it. I'd always assumed there was an innocent reason for his body not being there, one which didn't involve rising from the dead. But none of it really makes sense. The authorities wouldn't move his body, or if they did they'd display it when people started saying he'd risen. People wouldn't steal it and leave the valuables. Followers could, I guess, steal the body to spark belief, but that's very far fetched and not suggested anywhere (and if the tomb was guarded it wouldn't be possible). I don't buy the idea of them going to the wrong tomb, and again the authorities could have quickly squashed it if that was the case.
It seems historically accurate that Jesus was executed and that his tomb was empty. Reports of disciples seeing Jesus after his death, and their outlook and demeanor changing dramatically are compelling. And obviously if the tomb was empty, there's no other good reason for it, and multiple people saw him afterwards, then the only logical conclusion is that he was the Son of God. I'm not quite there yet but I'm certainly looking into the reports around his appearances post burial, who saw him, who wrote about them afterwards etc. Genuinely fascinating stuff and I'm so glad you directed me to it
