Good morning, Mayor Barry, platform guests, ladies, and gentlemen. I appreciate this opportunity to speak to the leadership of the greatest city in the world on behalf of the children. I wondered what I would say to you when I was first asked if I would make a presentation. Being young limits the experience you have in most areas, but not as being a child.
Jesus said, “Unless you become like a child you cannot enter the kingdom.” When I think about my friends, who are all young people like myself, many things come to mind.
If you would like to be a child in God's kingdom, I will share some of what we think about and do.
Children play together, have lots of fun, and sometimes fight, but the very next day we makeup and play again. Wouldn't it be wonderful if mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, neighbors and our leaders would be more that way? It hurts us when we see you fighting and not making up.
When you tell us something, we believe it, and we don't ask many questions. We have faith and trust in you until we grow up and find it's really not that way with adults. I think you tell us Bible stories because we are children. The Bible stories do us a lot of good, but you don't tell each other Bible stories. Are they only good for children?
You teach us that when we have a problem, we should talk it out with-others and with Jesus. You say that we should pray about it and keep our hearts right for Jesus. You say that Jesus can solve all of our problems, both big and small. But we notice, when people get older and have problems, they are embarrassed to talk like that among themselves: We wonder if you really mean it, or is Jesus only for kids? I am still young enough to believe that Jesus knows how to solve my problems, the problems of the city, and of the world. I hope I never grow old enough to stop believing and that you all become like children in search of God's kingdom.
Thank you very much for listening to me. God bless you all! 1
The easiest response by a skeptic, even to such innocence, would be to dismiss this as childish simplicity at best, wandering in uncharted terrain and eliciting sentimental applause. But let us be clear of the adult-sized ramifications of this child's questions. Is the Bible merely a fanciful storybook, distorting reality? Or is it fantastically true, challenging the intellect against its escapist illusions? Is there truth for all of us within its pages, or is it only for those with superstitious and unsuspecting minds? Is this indeed the Word from God to us, or is it the fraudulent work of a few claiming divine superintendency?2
There is absolutely no doubt that the Christian message stands or falls upon the authenticity or spuriousness of the Bible. Believing it to be God's Word, millions across history have staked their lives upon it, destiny-defining trust has been placed in it; graveside hope has been based upon it; extraordinary good has been spread because of it, the charters of nations have been built upon it; others with equal intensity have sought to expel it; yet wrongheaded zeal has caused untold evil in its name. There is no book in history that has been so studied, so used, and so abused as the Holy Bible. How life-inspiring it would be to many more if only they could be indubitably certain of its truth. Can we muster the courage to face up to its claims of divine authorship?
Many routes could be taken in the defense of the uniqueness and authority of the Bible. The age-old approach would be to test its accuracy by measuring the authenticity of the present text of the Scriptures against the earliest extant documents. In such a venture scholars examine the text of Scripture as they would examine any-document, investigating such things as authorship, date, historical reliability, and acceptability at the time of writing. This approach is obviously foundational because if these matters cannot be verified all else must stand on a leap of faith.
In addition, the supernatural nature of the content is important to consider, for example, miraculous claims such as fulfilled prophecies and the ultimate assertion of Christ's divinity and power in His resurrection from the dead. Still other buttressing factors-such as the sheer volume of early manuscripts, which is unmatched by any other writing of such antiquity--make the evidentiary basis quite overwhelming.
When the archaeological and philosophical defenses are added to these arguments, a very powerful case can and has been made for trusting the Bible to be what it claims to be.
Instead of dealing with the question in the traditional way, because much is already available in that genre, my present response focuses on die authority of the Bible in the existential struggles of life, particularly as we cope with evil.
THE PERFECT ENDORSEMENT
First and, foremost, the Bible is the only book in the world that points to a life perfectly lived amidst the grim realities and alluring forces of human existence. Pore over the countless pages written across time, and it becomes quickly evident that the founders of various religions or cults fall short in their own lives, not only when measured against the supreme standard of the Law of God, but even when measured by the standards they themselves have espoused. Biographical sketches of some who today have a following in the millions should only make one wonder how lives so poorly and immorally lived could be so revered.
In contrast to all of them, the life of Christ stands supreme and impeccable. The recognition of this uniqueness in the person of Christ has been readily expressed by some of history's greatest scholars, both those who are avowedly Christian and those distinctly non-Christian. (An example of the latter would be the historian W. E. H. Lecky who, in A History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne II, granted the impact of Christ as unequaled in word and deed.) So incredible is this unblemished life that, in an effort to make his own defeated aspirations seem normal, the noted intellectual Nikos Kazantzakis, in his novel The Last Temptation of Christ, tried desperately to construct a Christ who succumbed to the impulse of sensuality. Kazantzakis failed in his pathetic bid bemuse he robbed himself of the life-changing truth that it was Christ's purity that made His empowering grace possible, not the indulgence Kazantzakis tried to fabricate.
How grand is a life so perfectly lived, a life that resisted every enticement of lust, greed, and power even in its most seductive forms. Pontius Pilate, the power seeker, said of Him, "I find no fault in this man." The convicted criminal hanging by Him said of Jesus, "This man has done nothing amiss." The religious leaders who saw Him as a threat to their demagoguery mounted the farcical charge that He was healing on the Sabbath and therefore He was ceremonially vile.
Is it any wonder that even the outcasts of society clamored for His spotless presence and that a devout though rich man like Joseph of Arimathea offered a tomb for His burial? A learned man like Nicodemus sought Han out because he saw in Him a wisdom beyond anyone he had ever known. He whose dwelling was in the heavenlies attracted even those whose lives were marred and scarred by every pollution of the earth.
This One who lived with such perfection pointed to the authority of the Word when He said, "The Scripture cannot be broken." He spoke of the eternality of the Word when He said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will never pass away." He pointed to the centrality of the Word when the Devil tried to tempt Him in the subtlest form of evil-to use His power for self-aggrandizement rather than for the honor of God. The Word reflected the character of God. That reflection was merely propositional in the Scriptures, but it was lived out in the life of Jesus. What good would the Law have been if its very author could not demonstrate its purity?
At the 1994 Presidential Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C:, Mother Teresa delivered a soul-searching address in which she touched upon the sensitive theme of abortion. When a reporter afterword asked President Clinton what he thought of her remarks he simply stated, "It is very hard to argue against a life so well lived." If the life of Mother Teresa is considered a life so well lived, what should be said about the greater life of the One worshiped by her and by millions of others? We would do well to listen to His seal and verdict on the written Word.
One may, of course, ask whether the argument is not circular: We believe the Bible because Jesus affirms it to be true. We believe Jesus because the Bible says He is the Truth. The question is a fair one. But this is where the Bible stands uniquely among other religious-books claiming divine authority.
The Bible is a book whose facts can be tested outside of itself. The historical, geographical, archaeological, and prophetic data can be verified from outside the Scriptures. When sixty-six books covering a two-thousand-year span and written by approximately thirty-seven authors coalesce with such singularity, purpose, and empirical verifiability, the argument can hardly be considered circular. An honest investigation of such intricate convergences actually bespeaks a very profound moral and historical sense, dating back over four thousand years. The Bible is more than a book pointing to itself. Its attestations are multifaceted.
THE WIDE APPEAL
The second aspect of scriptural authority is revealed in its intellectual breadth. From the beginning to the end the narrative is rich in simplicity, so that even a child can grasp the truth of its stories. Yet it is so profound in its exposition of great theological themes that it has challenged the best of thinking minds and inspired the greatest of artistic genius. The stories are varied enough to apply to the king who hosted a feast-, to the politician who sought the best seat in the banquet; to the athlete who ran a race; to the soldier who went to war, to the widow who lacked any income; to the shepherd who lost his sheep; to the father of a wayward son; to the fisherman who cast his nets; to the needy who longed for acceptance. In rich parable, illustration, and action Jesus spoke so that both the child and the rabbi craned their necks to hear Him.
It is very possible to miss just how meaningful is this truth. By contrast, in the religious books of another tradition a profound understanding of one particular language is necessary to even recognize the so-called miracle of the book. In the tradition of yet another, there is debate as to who is even qualified to interpret it, necessitating the birthright of a particular station in life to do so. These terribly restricting impositions do not apply to the understanding of the Scriptures. In fact, Jesus reprimanded His disciples when they discouraged children from coming to Hun while fawning over those who were society's favored sons and daughters. Till this very day stories both from the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Solomon settling the dispute between two women who claimed to be the mother of the same child and the father waiting for the prodigal son to return, are told to eager minds, whether old or young.
It all makes sense. Why would a God who cares so particularly for the weak and disenfranchised of this world make it difficult for them to understand Him? In the middle of one of His sternest warnings to an unrepentant generation, Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to, little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure" (Matt. 11:25,26). It is not accidental that in the darkest days of slavery in America the spirituals rang with simplicity and splendor, beckoning the slaves to steal their hearts away to Jesus or to think of that great crossing over one day into freedom and the Promised Land. Educated or uneducated, adult or child, bond or free-the Word has always been within the reach of all.
There is an important point to be made here lest a greater truth be missed. These are not just simple anecdotes or illustration that Jesus used, not communication ploys to weave some fanciful tale. These stories, interwoven with the truths of history that narrate the very birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, address the existential struggle in the human heart for deliverance from the reality of evil. This method reinforces for us that the Scriptures are not inspired just in content, but also in form. Author Eugene Peterson comments on this.
Storytelling creates a world of presuppositions, assumptions and relations into which we enter. Stories invite us into a world other than ourselves, and if they are good and true stories, a world larger than ourselves.... The minute we abandon the story, we reduce the reality to the dimensions of our minds and feelings and experience.... This is in contrast to the ancient preference for myth-making, which more or less turns us into spectators of the supernatural. It is also in contrast to the modem preference for moral philosophy which puts us in charge of our own salvation. "Gospel story" is a verbal way of accounting for reality that, like the incarnation that is its subject, is simultaneously divine and human., It reveals, that is, it shows us something we could never come up with on our own by observation or experiment or guess, and at the same time it engages, it brings us into the action as recipients and participants but without dumping the responsibility on us for making it turn out right. 3
Peterson goes on to point out how this form delivers us from both extremes, the one of becoming frivolous spectators always pining to be entertained by another story, the other of being anxious moralists, taking on the burdens of the world. In short, the story is more than just an illustration. It shoulders the truth of reality.
Have these not been the same extremes to which the modern mind has succumbed in facing evil? On the one hand, we read story after story in the front page and succumb to becoming spectators in a journalists' arena. On the other hand we hear myriad moral philosophers offering yet another theory to address the scourge of crime. In the Scriptures there is a wholesomeness in the connecting of all of life, protecting us from a sense of entertainment when the reality should hurt and from pessimism when the hope is real. In other words, the headline story of a mother who kills her children is not lost to God in the weight of world politics and global issues. He who took pains to tell us of the sick son of a Roman soldier or of the man without sight who stationed himself at the temple in search of a cure must hurt with the things that break the heart of the individual, and He bends law not only to lift up the cause of the victim but to offer help to the victimizer.
Some of us may recall a particular author upon whom the death sentence was pronounced for "blasphemy and irreverence shown to his religious heritage and his "holy book." Clearly the work was very disrespectful and mocking of a belief that millions held sacred. But by equal measure one must wonder about the irrationality of calling for a death sentence upon the writer. When a representative of that religion was asked on national television how such a sentence could be pronounced in disregard for the individual's right, the answer was definitive of the philosophy. "In our belief," he said, "the individual is dispensable; the cause must go on."
Here then is the cardinal difference. Jesus left the ninety-nine to search for the one, because the individual does matter. When we lose sight of people to pursue our own personal gain or when we devalue the individual in the name of cosmic priorities, we forget this truth and approach the core of evil. The Bible tells us that God knows even when a sparrow falls to the ground, that He adorns the lilies of the field, and that the very hairs of our heads are numbered. That is the degree to which His care is personal.
Jesus said, "Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable are you than birds! ... Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!" (Luke 12:24, 27-28). By contrast He reminds us that "the nations are like a drop in a bucket; ... he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust" (Isa. 40:15). The end of history will reveal the hollowness of national pursuit and the eternal value of each and every individual. History is His story told in individual hearts.
There is a third aspect of God's unique revelation in the Scriptures, the transcultural nature of His Truth. The Bible is neither Eastern nor Western but applicable to every culture, because the truth of life's purpose must always transcend any cultural shortsightedness. The imagery with which Jesus speaks so clearly addresses the Eastern mind. The parable of the ten women with their lamps waiting for the bridegroom to arrive engenders a wealth of sentiments to the Eastern reader. Anyone who has spent any time in the East can immediately envision the bridal procession, instruments playing and the accompanying throng rejoicing, making its way with the groom to the home of the bride. The whole picture is Eastern to this very day.
On the other hand, there is a touch here and there of the impact of Christ that would today be more readily identified in the West than in the East. He talks, for example, of the tyranny of the employer who lords it over the one who serves him, and He says true character is not to be found in commanding or suppressing other people but in serving one another. This reality of the dignity of labor is far more manifest in the West than it is in the East.
The impact of the gospel cannot be gainsaid on this matter. The disregard for essential human worth and the slavish pandering that is inflicted upon so much of humankind in parts of the world where the servant is considered to be inferior as a person is a terrible scourge upon people. Who we are should always be prior to what we do. Even the atheist Bertrand Russell admitted that it was debatable whether the method espoused by Mahatma Gandhi in calling for independence from the British would have succeeded except that it appealed to the conscience of a nation that had been influenced by the gospel. Today in Gandhi's ashram in the city of Ahmedabad in central India, Russell's quotation greets each visitor. How transculturally noteworthy that, in a predominantly Hindu nation, a quote by an atheist testifies to the impact of Christ upon nations- both East and West, enjoining respect toward every human being.
Only in biblical terms do we see how God is able to humble each of us without humiliating us and to elevate all of us without flattering any of us. The West today lives off the capital of the Christian faith without realizing it. The work ethic of the West and the belief in the dignity of labor are biblically based. And the same equality applies in matters of race and gender, two turbulent conflicts of our time.
Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at. Boston College elaborates on this marvelous truth of equality that retains a difference. He demonstrates that in God's economy there is an egalitarianism in people but an elitism in ideas. By that he means the equality of all humanity but the inequality of ideas. While human beings are equal, ideas are not. By contrast, in the world's way of doing things we have created an elitism, among people and an egalitarianism of ideas: We have made some people superior to others and rendered all ideas equal. The end result has been the exploitation of people and the death of truth. And that is why we have an epidemic of evil that denudes people but fights for ideas.
TRANSFORMING THE SOUL
One final argument for the authority of the Scriptures that I present is the power of this book to touch the spirit by fax-using on the holiness of God rather than mandating a-set of do's and don’ts as if that were at the heart of spirituality. Jesus has clearly pointed out where the root of wickedness lies.
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, *Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment." But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment...
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the am First o and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.
Settle matters quickly with your adversary (Matt. 5:21-24)
In the same manner Jesus proceeds with the issue of lust. It was not the act of adultery alone that He spoke against, but dwelling on lustful thoughts from which adultery sprang. Does this not then address issues like pornography and violence, where thoughts sow the seeds of evil? In a similar manner He addresses the sanctity of the word, that our yes should mean yes without having to pile oath upon oath. He speaks to the terrible and unstoppable bent to exact personal revenge upon every wrong of the past. Finally, Jesus climaxes that segment of His teaching by telling us that love is at the heart of all relationships and that without love, hate and anger will rule. Jesus gets to the heart-sot to a set of rules that can be observed while the heart still rebels.
By setting the problem in its root form rather than in its flowering, Jesus directs us then to the holiness of God, the glimpse we need to touch our spirits. All the rules in the world cannot change a heart or make a person righteous. Only as the spirit is touched by the Spirit of God does the soul rise in worship and true goodness flow:
One of the greatest masterpieces of music composition, if not the greatest, is the work of George Frideric Handel simply called Messiah. Prior to its composition Handel had not been successful as a musician and had retired from much professional activity by the age of fifty-six. Then, in a remarkable series of events, a friend presented him with a libretto based on the life of Christ, the entire script of which was Scripture. Handel shut himself in his room on Brook Street in London. In twenty-four days, breathtakingly absorbed in this composition and hardly eating or drinking, Handel completed the work all the way to its orchestration. He was a man in the grip of profound inspiration. Later, as he groped for words to describe what he had experienced, he quoted Saint Paul, saying, "Whether I was in the body or out of my body when I wrote I know it not."4 Handel's servant testified that on one occasion when he walked into the room to plead with him to eat, he saw Handel with tears streaming down his face saying, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself." 5
When Messiah was staged in London, as the notes of the Hallelujah Chorus rang out-"King of Kings and Lord of Lords.... And He shall reign forever and ever"--the king of England, drawn irresistibly, stood to his feet, and the audience followed as one.
Listen to how one writer sums up the impact of Messiah:
Handel personally conducted more than thirty performances of Messiah, many of these concerts were for the benefit of the hurting and the needy. "Messiah has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan.... ° Another wrote, "Perhaps the works of no other composer have so largely contributed to the relief of human suffering." Still another said, "Messiah's music has done more to convince thousands of mankind that there is a God about us than all the theological works ever written."6
Even if overstated, the point is well taken. The work was based entirely on Scripture. The focus was on the person of Christ. The spirit of a man was enraptured by the holiness of God. A king rose spontaneously to his feet. The people followed his example. The first performance was a charitable benefit to raise money to free 42 people from prison who could not pay their debts. In the prison of suffering and evil within which the whole world now lives, the same Messiah offers us deliverance.
Young Ashley Oubre, is right. Her future, Western civilization's future, and indeed, the world's future, will depend on the answer to her question. Will we restore to the Bible its rightful authority or leave it for young minds till they can grow into our evil-ridden world? Only that which is ineradicable and true can counter that which must be eradicated and false. This preeminent role against the false ideas that are the root cause of evil is that of the Scriptures.
Notes:
1. Ashley Danielle Oubré, Used by permission.
2 An annotated bibliography dealing writing this subject follows this Appendix. As demeaning as the comment may seem, it must be said that some recent attacks on the historicity of the New Testament by radical scholars from groups such as the Jesus Seminar are so prejudicial and bizarre that even noted liberal scholars have rejected their ill-founded deductions. Such absurdity notwithstanding, these attacks have nevertheless been responded to by conservative scholars. If the defense of the Scriptures were made on such sparse accumulation of evidence as that upon which these extreme views have been constructed, the proponents of those theories would have scornfully dismissed such defense as unworthy of any response. But a tabloid mentality prevails in these matters even in respected journals, and even the most aberrant thesis gains legitimacy when a doctoral degree after the author's name is placed in the byline. There is no other explanation for the credulity of such intellectuals other than that they want to believe the spurious and desire to be so duped.
3. Eugene H. Peterson, Subversive Christianity (Vancouver. Regent College Bookstore, I994), 4-5.
4. Patrick Kavanaugh, The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers (Nashville: Sparrow Press, 1992), 5
5. Hertha Pauli, Handel and the Messiah Story (New York. Meredith,1968), 51
6. Kavanaugh, 6.
Extracted from Ravi Zacharias’ Deliver Us From Evil.
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