Christianity is growing, but not rapidly enough to fulfill the Great Commission, according to “The Future of World Religions,” a comprehensive demographic study from the Pew Research Center. The Pew report describes the roadblocks obstructing Christians’ path in the quest to fulfill Jesus’ demand to share the gospel with the whole world. For complete article click here

Expert from article:

Three tasks to make a difference

This is an enormously complex task; covering it in an editorial seems almost silly. But for the sake of argument, let’s say we could pick three tasks to make a difference. What should they be?

• First, produce sharper, more-informed Christians. To talk compellingly with “nones” (not to mention people on the margins of Christianity who are leaning toward abandoning belief), lay Christians need to be fluent in apologetics. It’s not about arguing theology. It’s simply understanding how to talk about faith and the “hard issues” of life with clarity and compassion.

If we’re going to lead people of other religions to Jesus, we can do a better job if we understand their beliefs. So, education on world religions is vital. Many are important, but if you only choose one, choose Islam.

So, is your church training laypeople to articulate their faith and to have spiritual conversations with people of other faiths or no faiths? If not, it’s a stretch to say you’re a Great Commission church.

As many churches across America exchange belief in the absolute authority of Scripture for a “feel good” gospel, religion and culture expert Dr. Alex McFarland (alexmcfarland.com), will join with ministry leaders from across the nation this month to call for revival within the church. McFarland will be speaking on Wednesday, April 15, at 2 PM and will also be conducting a workshop that same afternoon from 3:30-4:30 PM on the role of apologetics in the local church. For complete article click here

The main reason people abandon Christianity is unanswered intellectual questions, yet many churches treat faith as a mostly emotional experience, philosopher Nancy Pearcey argued in an interview with The Christian Post. Her new book, Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes, provides five practical strategies to help Christians think about issues that challenge their faith. For complete article click here

Christianity isn’t a “fairy tale,” says the Rev. Evan McClanahan. It can stand up to scrutiny. “Christianity is historical,” he says. “Yes, it’s supernatural, but that doesn’t, in our view, just make it wishful thinking. The resurrection … is either a historical fact or not. There’s no middle ground.” The Berg vs. Peeler match is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. April 18. Here’s a preview of their thoughts–click here for complete interview with the debators.

 

Amy Orr-Ewing, among the most prominent apologists in the UK today, found her voice in a place where she wasn’t allowed to speak at all–listen to her interview on Apologetic315 here

Thom S. Rainer sits down with Millennial leaders in the church to identify and study trends in how the Millennial leaders are increasing the importance and effectivenss of theological education in the local church–read more here

 

 

BANG!…well, actually it was quite a bit bigger, louder & hotter than what I can describe here, but we’ll refer to this event as the Big Bang for now. Ok, on to what exactly is the ‘big bang?” Simply put, it is the finite moment in which the universe began to exist, in which space, time, matter & en­ergy were created. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temper­ature on any measurement scale, that was infinite­ly dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy, but space and time itself. Cosmologists use the term Big Bang to refer to the theory that the universe was originally extremely hot and dense at some finite time in the past, and has since cooled by expand­ing to the present diluted state–and continues to expand today. The theory is supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific evidence and observation. According to the best available measurements such as the cosmic microwave background radia­tion & the correlation function of the galaxies, as of 2010, the initial conditions occurred around 13.3 to 13.9 billion years ago.

Now you may be thinking, “Ah, so you’re a Darwinian evolutionist! Anyone who believes that the universe was created in a time frame of more than 6-24 hour days, is an evolutionist and as such, an atheist.” If that is your take on the issue, I understand, as it was also mine at one time. Sad to say, most people have a very black & white perception as to how the universe came into being—I was one of those “black or white” people. However, after a rather long journey of exploration & study of other Creation account models, I found that there was a “middle of the road” Creation model, known in scientific & philosophical circles as the Day-Age/Progressive Creation model, that helped to sync the two accounts of Creation—that which is found in the book of Genesis (Bible) and the “book of nature.” The “book of nature” that I am referring to is that of the Creation itself & the scientific evidence per­taining to the earth & cosmos which is all around us. Believe it or not, these two accounts are not contradictory to one another. In fact, they are perfectly synchronized & in full agreement. As Martin Luther once said, “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I am not saying that the Day-Age/Progressive creation model is THE model and is THE way in which God used to bring the universe into existence—we simply don’t have enough knowledge of the creation event to be dogmatic about what creation model is the model. Regarding the issue of dogmatism, Christian apologist Kenneth Samples offers the following perspective—“Christianity’s great­est theologians and biblical scholars, including Augustine, Calvin, and Warfield, expounded a diversity of views concerning the nature and du­ration of the Creation days. From the time of the church fathers, through the Reformation, and up to the present, various views have prevailed, some more broadly represented than others, but none was ever considered the definitive, or the only, or­thodox biblical position.”[1] Christian philosopher/apologist William Lane Craig also cautions, “Genesis 1 is a very subtle piece of literature that is patient to a wide range of in­terpretations. It is simply wrong to dogmatically insist on one interpretation as being the only per­missible Biblical interpretation that you can hold to be a Christian.”[2]

Let’s explore three points that are integral to the Day-Age creation model:

1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens & the earth”—the Big Bang. There is no time period given from the time of the Big Bang in which the Creation of space, time, matter & en­ergy was brought into being, & when God turned His focus to the Creation process on Earth. The traditional interpretation of Genesis 1:1 is that it is describing a specific event, hence, the Big Bang, which is separate from what occurred after God turned His attention to Earth.

2. The Hebrew word most often translated as “day” is yom. It is generally acknowledged that yom can refer to the (roughly) 12-hour period of light during a normal day, to a 24-hour nor­mal day, or to an unspecified period of time. The Hebrew for the phrase “evening and morning” or “evening, and there was morning” has usages not limited to 24-hour days. In fact, there are numer­ous usages in the Bible of this phrase, or variants of it, that refer to continuous processes or activi­ties; hence, the process of Creation. What can be said definitively about “evening and morning and x day” is that it appears to serve as a marker the transition from one yom to the next yom. Nothing in the text precludes other evenings and mornings from occurring between these markers.

The interpretation of the word yom as being a period of time which extends beyond a 24 hour solar day is substantiated in the Genesis account itself, in the summary of the entire Creation ac­count, where it states: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”

3. The number of events of days three & six of the Creation would most certainly have com­prised more than a 24-hour period. The third day indicates a process that would take a year or lon­ger. On this day, God allowed the land to produce vegetation, trees and fruit. The text specifically states that the land produced trees that bore fruit with seed in it—“and God said, “Let the earth bring forth…. Any horticulturist knows that fruit-bearing trees require several years to grow to produce fruit. However, the text states that the land produced these trees (indicating a natural process) and that it all occurred on the third day. Obviously, such a “day” could not have been only 24 hours long.

The events of the sixth day of Creation require time beyond 24 hours. On this day, God created the mammals and mankind. He also planted a garden, watered it, let it grow, and put man in it, giving instructions on its care and maintenance. Then God brought all the animals to Adam to be named. This job, in itself would take many days or weeks. Next, God put Adam to sleep and created Eve. It is very unlikely all of this could take place in 24 hours, considering that Adam, unlike God, was a finite creature with limitations and bound­aries in his nature, and those limitations were present before Adam’s fall. At this point, Adam would need considerable time to reflect upon and process the profound events he experiences—all of which cannot reasonably be reduced to a mat­ter of several hours.

William Lane Craig sums it up in this way, “To conclude that all of these events could hap­pen in a 24-hour period would be like viewing the time-lapse photography of Walt Disney’s Living Desert, not to mention the creation events of the third “day” in which God says, “Let the earth yield tender grass, herb sowing seed, fruit-tree (whose seed [is] in itself) making fruit after its kind, on the earth,”—a time cycle that spans at least a year or more.”

What then is the conclusion of the matter? If you are a Christian, whether your position is that of the Young Earth model, or the Day-Age/Pro­gressive model, it has no bearing on your faith & belief as a Christian. However, if you as a Chris­tian have struggled to reconcile the Young Earth model of the Biblical Creation account with the evidence & discoveries of science, especially con­cerning the time span in which Creation occurred, it is my hope that you may find resolution as I have within this creation model. The two accounts as presented in the Day-Age Progressive creation model, help to sync the two with each other when one applies the interpretation & reasoning stated herein.

And if you are not a Christian, but have found Christianity impossible to embrace because of the seeming contradiction between the Creation ac­count found in the Bible, and that of scientific proofs & discoveries, it may be that you can find reconcilia­tion between the two, & thereby come to an un­derstanding of the reason & purpose of the One Who was the force & power in bringing it all to pass. You say, “But I don’t believe in God, much less that He created the universe, so all this is meaningless to me.” Well, take a moment to re­flect on the following:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.[3]

(Note: For a complete explanation and defense of this argument for the existence of God (known as the Kalam cosmological argument), please go to the link in the footnote.)

“The first question which should rightly be asked,” wrote G.W.F. Leibniz, is “Why is there something rather than nothing?”[4] This question does seem to possess a profound existential force, which has been felt by some of mankind’s greatest thinkers. According to Aristotle, philosophy begins with a sense of wonder about the world, and the most profound question a man can ask concerns the origin of the universe.[5] In his biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Norman Malcolm reports that Wittgenstein said that he sometimes had a certain experience which could best be described by saying that “when I have it, I wonder at the existence of the world. I am then inclined to use such phrases as ‘How extraordinary that anything should exist!'”[6] Similarly, one contemporary philosopher remarks, “. . . My mind often seems to reel under the immense significance this question has for me. That anything exists at all does seem to me a matter for the deepest awe.” Why does something exist instead of nothing? Leibniz answered this question by arguing that something exists rather than nothing because a necessary being exists which carries within itself its reason for existence and is the sufficient reason for the existence of all contingent being.[7] [8]

As Nobel laureate Arno Penzias stated, “Astronomy [science] leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing and delicately balanced to provide exactly the conditions required to support life. In the absence of an absurdly-improbable accident, the observations of modern science seem to sug­gest an underlying, one might say, supernatural plan.”

If you really want to know the Grand Designer & force behind the Big Bang & the universe in which we live, you can come to know Him per­sonally right now by simply connecting to His power through the light & conduit of His power & love for you & all His Creation—Jesus Christ. Here’s the model for submitting your request:

“I humbly come before You, the Grand De­signer of both the heavens & the earth, acknowl­edging my need for You, my Creator. I accept Your Son, Jesus Christ through Whom all things were created and by Whom all things consist—the One Who came to this earth to reconcile me to You, through His death & resurrection. I ask You, Jesus, to open my mind to Your thoughts & Your truth so that I may understand & see Your Creation through Your eyes, & that I may know the reason & purpose for my life. Thank You for the beauties of Your Creation, & the proof of Your existence through Your Creation.”

[1] Kenneth Samples, Creedal Controversy: The Ortho­doxy of “Days”– http://www.reasons.org/creedal-controversy-orthodoxy-days

[2] William Lane Craig, Doctrine of Creation, pod­cast—http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=podcasting_main

[3] William Lane Craig, The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe, http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html

[4] G.W. Leibniz, “The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason,” in Leibniz Selections, ed. Philip P. Wiener, The Modern Student’s Library (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), p. 527

[5] Aristotle Metaphysica Lambda. l. 982b10-15

[6] Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 70.

[7] G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, trans. E.M. Huggard (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), p. 127; cf. idem, “Principles,” p. 528.

[8] William Lane Craig, The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe, http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html

 

As a puzzle piece in the historical puzzle of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, the Jerusalem factor, has always been of particular interest to me. The Jerusalem factor (along with the criteria of embarrassment and enemy attestation) is what I consider to be one of the most powerful evidences for the historicity of the resurrection narrative as we find it in the Gospels.

For those unfamiliar with this puzzle piece, the Jerusalem factor is as follows:

• Jerusalem is the location where Jesus was crucified and buried. (Mark 15:21-25; Matt. 27:32-35; 27:57-61)
• The location of Jesus’ tomb was known by follower and foe alike. (Mark 15:42-47; 16:1-6; Matt. 27:61-66)
• On the first day of the week, Jesus’ tomb was found empty—(Mark 16:1-6) New Testament scholar, Gary Habermas, discovered that roughly 75 percent of scholars on the subject accept the empty tomb as a historical fact.[1]
• The empty tomb and Jesus’ post-mortem appearances (resurrection) were first witnessed to and proclaimed publically in Jerusalem by the early Christians. (Lk. 24:47; Gal. 1-2; Acts 2-8)
• If Jesus’ body was still in the tomb, it would have surely been exhumed and paraded through the streets by the Jewish and Roman authorities, and hence, the early Christians could not have proclaimed him as being risen—body produced=no resurrection & no proclamation
• Jesus’ body was not produced by either Jewish or Roman authorities—there is total silence in the historical writings of Christianity’s critics on this issue. Dr. Paul Maier—”Accordingly, if all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable, according to the canons of historical research, to conclude that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter.  And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources, epigraphy, or archaeology that would disprove this statement.”[2]
• The Jewish Sanhedrin published and financed a story to explain away the empty tomb— “and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. (Matthew 28:13-15 ESV)

As one can see, the evidence is quite strong when the investigation is focused on the location in which the events took place. This of course has not hindered critics from formulating opposing theories to account for the known data. Such theories are known as naturalistic explanations, because they appeal to a natural cause for the event rather than a supernatural one. Such theories ‘came into their own’ during the 19^th century, but were soundly refuted by neoorthodox scholar Karl Barth[3] and moderate New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown.[4] Still, Christianity’s critics continue to revive such theories, often times because they are ignorant of the fact that they have all been refuted.

I will highlight just one such theory as it is directly related to that of the empty tomb and Jesus’ body, and that is that “the disciples stole the body, and then lied about doing so.” Although this naturalistic explanation attempts to account for the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances, it does not account for the transformed lives of the apostles and others to whom Christ appeared, even that of 500 persons at one time. (1 Cor. 15:3-8) The transformation of the disciples and early followers was so radical, that they ‘morphed’ from doubtful, scared and confused people, into individuals that were willing to endure imprisonment, sufferings, and even martyrdom for what they had seen, heard and touched—the resurrected Jesus. (1 John 1:1-3)

Gary Habermas and Michael Licona address the skeptics ‘rebuttal’ to the transformation factor here:

“Skeptics many times respond that people often convert to other faiths and even die for those faiths, so this proves nothing. One need only think of the devotion of Islamic terrorists. But this misses the point. It is not being argued that the sincerity of the apostles proves that Jesus rose from the dead. The point is that their sincerity to the point of martyrdom indicates that they were not intentionally lying…the strong and abiding conviction of the disciples that the risen Jesus had appeared to them, shown in their willingness to suffer continuously and even die for these beliefs, speaks strongly against lies and theft of Jesus body on their part. Moreover, the skeptics Paul and James would have been looking for fraud on the part of the disciples. For these reasons and others, only a small number of critical scholars have opted for this view during the last 200 years.”[5] As has been said, “Liars make poor martyrs.”

Two points that must be kept at the forefront of the dynamics surrounding the empty tomb and Jesus’ resurrection appearances are:

• The empty tomb did not appear to lead any of Jesus’ followers, except John, to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead. The empty tomb convinced only one—John.
• It was the appearances that led both friend and skeptics (Paul & James) alike to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead.

One other point that is of particular interest is that of Matthews’ account of the Sanhedrin’s financed ‘stolen body’ story that they promoted at the time of the empty tomb discovery. As reported in Matt. 28:11 15, it would seem that this saying/story was still being told and in circulation when the gospel was written, probably between 70-85 A.D. This, along with Justin Martyr writing about 150 A.D., states that the Jewish leaders had even sent specially trained men around the Mediterranean, even to Rome, to further this teaching, which is confirmed by Tertullian about 200 A.D. The idea that the tomb was empty because the body was moved or stolen was common in early church history, as witnessed by other sources. Both the Gospels and extra-biblical sources attest to the empty tomb, and the lack of a ‘shred’ of evidence to the contrary, establishes it as an historical fact, with the transformed lives of the disciples confirming the resurrection of the Christ.

[1] Gary Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, pg. 70

[2] Dr. Paul Maier; First Easter; pg. 120

[3] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Vol. 4, Pt.1, 1956, pg. 340

[4] Raymond Brown, The Resurrection and Biblical Criticism, 1967, pg. 233

[5] Ibid., Habermas and Licona, pg. 93-95

The apostles of Christ, both the original twelve, as well as those of the seventy, were the foundation stones upon which Christ built His church. They were the guardians, so to speak, of the “way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), for they were entrusted with the recording, preserving and promulgating the Words/teachings of “the Word made flesh.” (John 1:14) We are told in Revelation 21:14 that the twelve foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem will have in them the names of the twelve apostles. It is quite evident that Jesus attributed great impor­tance to these men, both in this life as well as in the life to come. In the study of these courageous first-century lives, and what apostleship meant in the time of Christ, we should carry the examples of their lives, that of undaunted faith, courage, vital experience, responsibility, consecration and achievement in carrying out the Great Commission given just before Christ’s ascension, and apply said examples and qualities in the developing of a Spirit directed twentieth-century discipleship as Christ must have meant it to be.

The Apostles and Their Steadfastness and Faithfulness to the Great Commission

The original twelve apostles and those who were later added into the apostolic ministry, were not necessarily the type of people that one might have expected Jesus to send forth on his mission to reach the world. There was nothing special or spectacular about them. They were just ordinary working men. But Jesus formed them into the backbone of the church and gave them the most extraordinary task imaginable: calling the entire world, including the mightiest empire ever known, to repentance and faith in the risen Christ. It goes without saying that any educated, first-century Roman citizen would have laughed at any prediction that within three centuries the Christian faith would be the official faith of the empire.[1] There is an abundance of extra-biblical accounts which testify to the effectiveness of the apostles taking the Gospel into all the known world of their day, which included both the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire and beyond. When one considers the opposition to the Gospel, which Jesus had forewarned His disciples of while He was yet with them, along with the multi-cultural challenges that they faced, the evangelizing of the world of their day stands as a testimony of their love and loyalty to their Savior and that of the power of the Holy Spirit.

The following are a few excerpts from the early Church fathers:

Tertullian (AD 155-222) wrote:”The extremeties of Spain, the various parts of Gaul, the regions of Britain which have never been penetrated by Roman arms, have received the religion of Christ.”

Origen of Alexandria, the Greek Father, said in 230 AD:”The divine goodness of our Lord and Saviour is equally diffused among the Britons, the Africans, and other nations of the World.”

Arnobius, the Christian apologist, writing about 300 AD declared:”So swiftly runs the word of God that though in several thousand years God was not known except among the Jews, now within the space of a few years, His word is concealed neither from the Indians in the East nor from the Britons in the West.”

St. Jerome, writing from Bethlehem in 378 AD declared:”From India to Britain, all nations resound with the death and resurrection of Christ.”

Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote in 402 AD about the British Isles in the following manner:”The British Isles, which are beyond the sea, and which lie in the ocean, have received the virtue of the Word. Churches are there founded and altars erected. Though you should go to the ocean, to the British Isles, there you will hear all men everywhere discoursing matters out of the Scriptures, with a different voice indeed, but not another faith, with a different tongue but the same judgment.”[2]

The Apostle’s Martyrdom’s as Proof of Christ’s Resurrection

In his excellent book, “The Signature of God,” Grant R. Jeffrey appeals to the historical evidence of Christ’s resurrection as the reason for the apostles’ steadfastness and unshakable faith and perseverance in promulgating the Gospel and preaching what Paul so aptly stated to the church in Corinth, “but we preach Christ crucified…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24)

Some atheists have suggested that the disciples, during the decades following His death, simply invented their accounts of Jesus. These Bible critics say that the disciples, in an attempt to enhance His authority, then published the story that Jesus claimed to be God and was resurrected. Any fair-minded reader should consider the historical evidence.

First, the apostles were continually threatened and pressured to deny their Lord during their ministry; especially as they faced torture and martyrdom. However, none of these men who spent time with Jesus chose to save their lives by denying their faith in Him.

Consider this hypothetical situation: Suppose these men had conspired to form a new religion based on their imagination. How long would anyone continue to proclaim something they knew was a lie when faced with lengthy tortures and an inescapable, painful death? All they had to do to escape martyrdom was to admit they had concocted a lie and simply deny their faith and claims about Jesus as God. It defies both common sense and the evidence of history that anyone, let alone a group of twelve men, would persist in proclaiming a lie when they could walk away by admitting that it was a fraud.

Yet, history reveals that not one of these men, who knew Jesus personally, ever denied their testimony about Him despite the threat and reality of imminent death. This proves to any fair-minded observer that these men possessed an absolute unshakable personal knowledge about the truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Each of the apostles were called upon to pay the ultimate price to prove their faith in Jesus, affirming with their life’s blood that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Son of God, and the only hope of salvation for a sinful humanity.[3]

William Lane Craig adds, “The apostles who had been with Jesus were, so to speak, the guardians of the information of His life and teachings. It is simply unbelievable that fictitious stories of Jesus’ appearances to them could arise and flourish so long as they were living and active, much less that wholly false stories could replace the true.”[4]

Walther Kunneth states:

It is extremely difficult to see how the Gospel accounts of the resurrection could arise in opposition to the original apostolic preaching and that of Paul…The authority of the apostolic eye-witnesses was extraordinarily strong. It would be inconceivable how there should have arisen in opposition in to the authoritative witness of the original apostles a harmonious tradition telling of an event that has no basis in the message of the eye-witnesses.[5]

Non-biblical History of the Apostles

The history of the apostles starts in the books of the Bible. The genealogies of the original 12 disciples of Jesus were most important to the scholars of the day. We do not have as much information about the apostles as we do of Christ for the simple reason that the apostles preached Christ, not themselves, therefore what they wrote focused on the Words and life of Christ and not themselves. However, there are a number of documents that are purported to be written about the same time as the Bible, but were not included in our modern day Bible. Some of these are ‘Acts’ of Paul, the ‘Shepherd of Hermas,’ ‘Revelation of Peter,’ ‘Epistle of Barnabas,’ ‘Teachings of the Apostles,’ and ‘Revelation of John.’
The documents which document the very early church history give us further evidence as to the lives and martyrdom of the apostles and other important details about their lives, such as, what regions of the world they traveled to and evangelized, etc. One of the earliest of these is the writings of Eusebius, ‘The History of the Church,’ (to A.D. 324). These were written in A.D. 325 and include perhaps the most complete history of the apostles. But some say the information he quoted came from bishops he talked to. For example, Acts 12:2 tells us that Herod Agrippa had James executed. Eusebius adds a story he was told by the bishop Clement of Alexandria (215) that “the person who led James to the judgment seat was moved when he saw him bear witness and confessed that he himself was also a Christian. We can accept these narratives as reliable, taking into consideration of course that some of the Apocrypha material may be somewhat embellished, as in the first couple centuries of the church, much of the Christian story was passed on by word of mouth and the bishops of the church guarded these stories carefully. We should also take into account that Christians were being put to death which makes these stories more likely to have been true. While we don’t know every detail historically, the universal belief of the early Christian writers was that each of the apostles faced martyrdom, with the exception of John, faithfully without denying their faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A book by C. Bernard Ruffin, entitled ‘The Twelve,’ lists sources of early records of the apostles. These sources are as follows:

Papias (A.D. 60-135). He was the bishop of Hierapolis, in what is now Turkey. He was a disciple of John. St. Clement of Rome (d. 101) was a disciple of Peter and Paul and served as pope between A.D. 91-101.

Iranaeus (A.D. 120-202) the bishop of Lyon (in what is now France).

Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 153-217). He was an eminent Greek theologian and hymnist.

Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236), an author of a number of theological works;

Tertullian (A.D. 145-221, a Latin-speaking African theologian,

Origen (A.D. 185-254), an Egyptian teacher and theologian and St. Jerome (342-420), an Italian scholar and translator.

These writings include bits and pieces about the apostles and are what many of our churches have used, along with the Bible, as a basis for their individual histories.

 For further study please see the following books:

Jesus & the Eyewitnesses—Richard Bauckham

The Historical Reliability of the Gospels—Craig L. Blomberg

Cold-case Christianity—J. Warner Wallace
[1] Curtis, Ken, What Happened to the Twelve Apostles?, 2013

[2] Jeffrey, Grant R., The Martyrdom of the Apostles, from the book, The Signature of God, Frontier Research Publications, Inc. (1996), p.254-257

[3] Jeffrey, Grant R., The Martyrdom of the Apostles, from the book, The Signature of God, Frontier Research Publications, Inc. (1996), p.254-257

[4] Craig, William Lane, The Son Rises, pg. 107, Moody Publishing/Wipf & Stock, 1981

[5] Kunneth, Walther, The Theology of the Resurrection, trans. J. W. Leitch, London: SCM, 1965, pg. 92-93