There is something about the testimony of an eyewitness...

I love eyewitness testimony that stands the test of time, testimony that withstands the attempted suppression and persecution of the ruling authorities throughout  the first 300 years of the early church. If this was just a story, men would not have so willingly suffered torture and persecution to uphold a lie. They would not have clung to it over and over again with their very lives. Sure there have been men of other faiths who have died for their beliefs, but they did so for causes that lack the overwhelming credibility that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers.

This morning I was reflecting on the book of John, written approximately 30-60 years after the resurrection, by a man who was actually there, not a hundred, five-hundred, or a thousand years after it happened with no other witnesses to corroborate his story. John has 3rd party backup, lots of it! (See Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the writings of Paul, James, and Peter. There are even other 1st century historians from non-biblical sources such as Tacitus, Josephus, and Pliny the Younger who were not even sympathetic to the Christian movement who could not deny that something was shaking up society in the 1st century Roman empire.) There was something different about Jesus and his followers that made an immediate impact on the world and it is still changing lives over 2000 years later. Take a minute to digest this Word that is Jesus Christ...

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.... He was in the world and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:1-5, 10-14