The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Easter pt. 5 | Resurrection Sunday
The resurrection of Jesus Christ stands as the ultimate game-changer for humanity—transforming not just our eternal destiny but our very understanding of who we are. In this deeply reflective episode, we dive into the aftermath of an extraordinary Easter Sunday at Crosspoint, where over 300 people gathered to celebrate the resurrection, many experiencing our church for the first time.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
I wore a suit on Easter Sunday and I reached in my pocket and guess what? I found A jelly bean from last Easter. Welcome to the Extra. How many suits do you own, Ken?
Speaker 2:I used to own two. So I own probably several now because Mac gave me all of his suits, oh nice, yeah, I think he was just like I can't wear these anymore. Yeah, I haven't worn a suit in a long time. Yeah, no suit on Easter. Huh, no suit on Easter I. I can't wear these anymore, so I'm going to wear I haven't worn a suit in a long time, yeah, but.
Speaker 1:No suit on Easter huh.
Speaker 2:No suit on Easter. I just can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah but everybody wants to know did you eat the jelly bean?
Speaker 1:No, of course not. No, I did not eat the jelly bean. I'm not a huge jelly bean person. It was a Starburst jelly bean. Though I'm not a huge jelly bean person, it was a Starburst jelly bean. Though I can get down with the Starburst ones. Those are good. Yeah, I wear the same suit every Easter. If no one's ever noticed, it's been seven Easters now at Crosspoint.
Speaker 2:That's great that it still fits, and you still want to wear it and it's still in fashion. Yeah, I mean you can't go wrong with a blue suit. I've heard that's one of the few things that every grown man needs to a navy blue suit, maybe a gray suit.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a Steve Harvey thing, steve Harvey says every man has to have a certain amount of. He's got to have a black suit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for a funeral, a gray suit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a navy suit. Okay, a tan or a cream suit.
Speaker 2:And there's one more, maybe it's, maybe it's like a royal blue and a navy blue and one with 30 buttons on it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. But he says all of those colors are interchangeable, so you can wear the light blue with the tan pants or the tan pants you know so you buy five suits and now you have 30 combinations. Okay, I don't know if that's the real math or not, but it sounds good, I'm not going to do the math on here.
Speaker 2:I've been burned by that before.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to quote Steve Harvey. That's all I'm doing. He's full. He's full of good quotes. He's a quotable person, mm-hmm. No Well, man, easter was so exciting.
Speaker 2:It was such a good Sunday. What did it feel like to look out at the crowd? Were you satisfied?
Speaker 1:Probably the same way that it felt to be in the crowd. It was just energizing to have 300 people sitting in the room and to have a room full of chairs again. Our room is full of chairs, but we're talking like wall to wall. I mean even the negative sections of our room where there's usually like black walls to just cover up storage. That stuff was pushed away so that more chairs could be put in the room and it was just. It's just really neat to look out and see that it's the power of no empty seat it just energizes you.
Speaker 2:I saw seats being added, so always good yeah yeah, definitely always a good thing.
Speaker 1:The parking lot there was like no more room in the parking lot. People were parking on the grass. We parked on the grass. Yeah, good for you guys. Man it was. It was good. I was like no more room in the parking lot.
Speaker 2:People were parking on the grass. We parked on the grass. Yeah, good for you guys, man, it was good. I was like, well, this is a good sign, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Now the question is how many of those people will return? Lots of family members come and visit or like church members who have just moved.
Speaker 1:So they come back on Easter because they love their home church kind of thing. So my wonder is how many people are going to come back because this was their first time. At Crosspoint I had several interactions with people who said that very thing. This was their first time. Or this past week was their first interaction with us, because we had so many events in the last seven days and it was, man, just a great response from our church. Seven days, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was man, just a great response from our church. The Easter experience, from my vantage point, went very well.
Speaker 1:It was phenomenal, it turned out.
Speaker 2:It was so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, over 200 people came almost 250, if I remember correctly which is a great number. Which is a great number, so many people who you know. Maybe they saw it on our sign as they were passing and they turned around and came back because they wanted to check it out. Or I heard people who, like, invited their Waffle House waitress to come and they came, and people who invited people like Los Charos people.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:And they came. Yeah, so it's super exciting, not just that we had so many people, but that, like, the formula works. Yeah, all people are looking for is the invite. Yeah, and they'll come. That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the title of it baits the hook a little bit. Well, like, what do you mean by that? Yeah, and you walk in and you see it reminded me of kind of black box theater, yeah, where some of the things you have to imagine, some of the things are right there in front of you and tangible, like the cross and hammering the nails.
Speaker 1:That was really cool.
Speaker 2:The food, like it was very interactive, very 4D, 3D type things, and it was cool to see and you did a whoever is on the team, whoever's a part of it did a great job.
Speaker 1:So many people, so many people. There's a couple of small groups that really stepped up and spent some time building the spaces out, so could not have done it without those people, and they know that, and I just hope that they know how appreciative we are as a team, just as an entire church. Everybody was blessed by what they experienced when they came.
Speaker 2:You're going to have people on a team that don't there's like okay, I can't imagine what this is going to look like, because the lights are up, not all the curtains are up. Not all the piping drapes are up, the tomb is sort of laying over here in the corner, yep. But as it forms and as it takes its final shape, yeah. And then seeing, like I saw it in one stage, maybe halfway done. I would say halfway done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I saw it in its final stage on the day. On the first day it was. You guys did a lot of work. It was really nice.
Speaker 1:You can say that again, there was a lot of work involved, but it was so worth it to have that great a turnout and just to kind of get out of the box on Easter. You know, sometimes we skip over Easter very quickly. You know it's a Sunday and then that's it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, we skip over Easter very quickly it's a Sunday and then that's it. But to really spend time during the week focusing on the road to the cross, as well as we had the Good Friday service and the 40 hours of prayer, it was a very busy weekend at Crosspoint and I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:We were exhausted, and we should be, because this is everything. I think the past three episodes we've talked about what's the most important thing in Christianity, and we talked about last week the Holy Spirit, and that great interview with Kurt where we talked about the day of Pentecost, and, yes, I don't think that there's one. This is the most important thing. It's all the most important. You know what I mean? Right, but without the resurrection, then we're's all the most important. You know what I mean? Right, but without the resurrection, then we're not getting the Holy Spirit. Without the resurrection, we can't have the Holy Spirit, because then there wasn't forgiveness of sin and we can't be purified vessels where God can come and dwell within us. You know what I mean. So, yeah, resurrection. Sunday is the Super Bowl of Super Bowls for the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sunday is the Super Bowl of Super Bowls for the church and we were tired, but in the best way possible, Right For the best reason?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'll pull back the curtain just a little bit. There's a tremendous amount of pressure with that, with it being the Super Bowl of Super Bowls, Tremendous amount of pressure to I don't want to say perform, but to do your part as well as you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, deliver and execute whatever's in your mind. Yeah, the best part of the Easter experience for me was the attempt to turn a room. That can be pretty much anything. It's a square room. It's not necessarily it's an old gymnasium Cathedral-like. It's an old gymnasium, but you guys turned it into and you, as much as you could, transported people to this very sacred time. Yeah, I enjoyed seeing how you guys did it.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, yeah, we tried to steal secretly. We were saying things like think of Disney World. Yeah, yeah, just like as a mold for what we, how we wanted it to be executed yeah. You know, you start outside and kind of the hangout venue Mm-hmm, and then you go into the first room where you get prepped before you go in to really experience it.
Speaker 1:And so there's these three phases of experience before you're actually into it, and so, yeah, I think that kind of level of detail and the passion that people put into building those spaces on the inside, and it also helped that the fog machine was running.
Speaker 2:And so there was like a haze in the garden.
Speaker 1:It was like a misty garden.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true. We joke about that all week. Okay, that song in the garden, yeah yeah, while the dew is still on the roses, yeah, that's good. That shows that there was some serious thought and not like, okay, let's throw up some pipe and drape and then like a background that we bought on Amazon or something. No, but there was actual thought and careful consideration, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All things in excellence. Man Just want to work as diligently and as well as we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the outside was great because it was a nice lemonade stand maybe the world's greatest lemonade stand, oh my goodness, yeah, shout out, uh snaps and sips.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe they could be a a podcast sponsor well, I got recognized.
Speaker 2:My voice got recognized again by the lady it did yeah, you, I was staying in there with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. That's, that's twice in the same week, ken Twice, in the same week she was serving you lemonade and she went. I know that voice.
Speaker 2:But she nailed the point of my role in this podcast, which is to ask the questions to come from a layman's perspective on the Bible and Christianity, and she's like I'm talking to a lady right now that's asking the same questions you are. And I'm like great Yep. Please have her listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was super cool. Yeah, it was. It was cool for us both to not just know that people are listening but that there is a purpose. And man, I'm hoping that that continues. People find purpose in not what we say. We're just trying to open up the Bible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. I don't know what I'll think if somebody, actually if somebody goes from maybe non-belief or that contemplation stage to getting baptized and full belief, just by listening to this. I don't know what I'll do leave just by listening to this, I don't know what I'll do.
Speaker 1:Well, if the Joe Rogan podcast can lead people, that one episode with Wesley Huff that got I don't know how many millions of views.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not just by listening to this. This is only a small part of it, but if we can figure into that, that would be amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll keep praying that God will do his part and we'll keep doing our part. Yeah, kind of unpacking these sermons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sermon you preached on Sunday was not an Easter sermon in some ways. Yeah, like you didn't just go line by line through the passion story and then the resurrection. Yeah, it was about identity, self-concept, who am I? And you were talking before we hit record. As a clinical counselor that's so much of what I do Like, how do you see yourself? And a lot of people don't see themselves very accurately. A lot of people don't see themselves how others see them. You don't know yourself very well a lot of times. So it was an interesting sermon to listen to.
Speaker 1:Why don't you unpack some of that for me, then, as a clinical counselor, what are you trying to get people to connect with about the self when they come into your office?
Speaker 2:One of the first things is you sort of have to ask the question in a nice way, like do you see what you're showing the world? Do you understand how you come across to the world? Are you controlling? Are you jealous? Are you like, physically put together, you know, even down to hygiene and things like that, what you're putting. We don't have an x-ray machine for your mind and, like, you can see on an fMRI thoughts, but you don't know what those thoughts contain, right, right. So Do you understand how you're coming across? Do you come? Even so, when you're talking about believers, if you're a believer, can people see that? That's a good question.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you're a non-believer, do people see that? Are you a non-believer that comes across as a believer? That's confusing. Yeah, Are you a believer that comes across as a non-believer and honestly, I think that's more common? Yeah, so you're asking people are asking themselves all these questions like okay, how am I coming across?
Speaker 1:So how do you lead somebody through that self-evaluation phase?
Speaker 2:A good question to ask is, or a good thing to consider is when's the last time you did something that surprised you? Because you're always surprising yourself, like I really didn't think I was capable of that, or I really didn't think I was going to. I really didn't think I felt that way about this, yeah. So you end up, there's all these holes in your self-knowledge, and if you ask somebody, okay, when's the last time? When's the last time you tried to predict something and it didn't go? Well, well, I thought I was going to get this job and I didn't. Okay, well, why? Well, it turns out I don't have the skills that I thought I had and I'm not as marketable as I thought I was. Okay, well, how do you do that? Yeah, go get the skills. It's easier said than done. Well, yeah, but just having that realization is huge. Yeah, definitely In addiction, when you only serve the one master of the substance that you're addicted to, you don't know what you're putting out into the world.
Speaker 1:Right, You're just like. All that matters is the substance you're addicted to.
Speaker 2:All I have to do is this one thing today, which is get substance, x, whatever, yeah, so they don't really see how they're coming across, and that's in full-blown addiction.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's dependence, that's chemical dependence.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Somebody that's you know, somebody that's casually using marijuana. They're self-aware, they know. But you can get further and further down that road when you're not self-aware.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So in terms of spirituality, then if we could make that turn, what are you taking away then, as clinical counselor, from what was said from stage on Sunday?
Speaker 2:Sunday, when you're trying to undergo such a huge change from not being a Christian to being a born-again Christian that's been baptized. That's a massive, singular change in one instance, and from experience it's important to know that it's not going to be the same for everybody. You will hear stories of oh, I felt this amazing feeling that I'd never felt before.
Speaker 1:And I was in.
Speaker 2:I was in the presence of the Holy Spirit. That might not happen. It might happen, but you have to be prepared to feel how you're going to feel. And if you go into it with open mind, open heart and being receptive, then most likely you're going to feel something that's positive, yeah, something that's in a direction that you want to go in, yeah, and you won't feel like you're just floating in the sort of not nothingness but floating in this like I'm I'm uncertain. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm with you. You know it's interesting. I feel like we're talking about the conversion.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like the moment of conversion. Different people feel different things, and what I love is that God will meet you where you need to be met. Yes, so those stories that I shared on Sunday about two high-profile people, rosaria and Nikki Cruz. One was a professor academic, and her conversion happens in a very academic type of way, in like a controlled environment in the home of a pastor and his wife, and those conversations take place very strategically. There's open dialogue and debate about things.
Speaker 1:And then there's Nicky Cruz, who is the gang leader in New York and he just meets somebody on the street, which is where he is Organically Right, meets him on the street, and the message on the street is Jesus loves you, and that's just where Nicky was. You know what I mean, and so both are very dramatic, but they happen the way that each individual needs it, including the person who's the regular churchgoer. He was in church his whole life and when he was a late teenager, he just decided he's going to start following Jesus better and reading his Bible more, and so he was already in church. He just added church things to being in church you know and it turns out.
Speaker 1:It turned out for a deeper relationship with Jesus. Like God will meet you where you're at. It's all about the timing. Are you? Do you have a mind and a heart that's open to seeing where God is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and same as undergoing any behavior change, your feelings about the thing have to change, and there's a bug flying around me.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I hit my microphone, it's fine.
Speaker 2:Your feelings about it have to change and you have to be willing and you have to have the opportunity. Well, the opportunity happens all the time. The opportunity is always there and the willingness is. You have to generate that and everybody has the ability. So it's really the willingness that's the most important thing, and that's what you're talking about. But in something like addiction counseling, and and that's what you're talking about but in something like addiction counseling and counseling in general, okay, maybe I don't know how to acquire the skills that I need to get that job, maybe I'll never get that job Well, everybody has the skills to receive Jesus into their heart. Everybody has the opportunity because it's always there. So it must be the willingness that's the wild card?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the willingness, that's the wild card. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, the willingness to surrender yourself, the willingness to die to who you are yeah, you know. I mean, it's not just about saying I love Jesus, like that's not, like you have to die to yourself, it's self-denial. And then we take on the life of Christ. Yeah, we take on who he is.
Speaker 2:And the Clothed with him, yes, and the self-concept and the self-image part of what you were saying. You have to be, you have to sort of be willing to say I am a follower of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is what a follower of Jesus does. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You have to identify.
Speaker 1:This is what we do. Yeah, We've said that recently.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, especially in light of our initiative at church over the last month to be disciples who make disciples. This is what disciples of Jesus do. Yeah, we go out and provide opportunity for people to encounter Jesus, being intentional to inject Jesus into every opportunity. So we want to be those people that provide the opportunity. Yeah, opportunity could be everywhere. They could see a sign on the road and stop into a church, or they could pick up a Bible and read it. But, man, as far as the process of what Jesus has told us to do as believers, we are the opportunity makers for people.
Speaker 2:And having the opportunity and having the ability, like I said, is only a third of it, and you have to be you're not going to do. I mean, think about parents out there, think about trying to get your kid to do something they don't want to do yeah, but if you make it their something they don't want to do, but if you make it their idea, it's going to happen. Yeah, everybody likes to follow their own ideas, every single person.
Speaker 1:That's why Leonardo DiCaprio has to go six layers deep in the dream. Yeah, to plant the spinning top Exactly In the safe of your mind, right? Yeah, exactly. That's a good way to look at it. It's a very manipulative way to look at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've said before in sessions and in groups, manipulation gets a bad rap. Influence, I prefer to say influence.
Speaker 1:That's a much prettier way to say it.
Speaker 2:Controlling is bad. I can't control anybody. I can influence just about anybody. Yeah Right, Bad or good. So having that willingness to change because it has to come from in you, any research on coaching and positive psychology is going to say people. It's called self-determination theory, People like to determine their own path. I don't like feeling out of control. I have been out of control because everybody is in a certain degree to a certain degree. But imagine Emily making plans with the three girls and you took a a nap and you're waking up like, okay, we're going to Legoland.
Speaker 2:Okay, I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I'm not prepared for that, you'll go.
Speaker 2:okay, let me check my bank account, let me check gas in the car. Now you're playing catch up. You're way behind and all your maneuvers are going to be sort of inappropriate until you catch up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very interesting because in the Christian life there is a lot of that You're admitting.
Speaker 1:You're saying out loud that I'm not in control anymore, and your life is not determined on your own terms anymore, and so, just in my experience, when God wants you to do something, you can say no. I mean, he's not the God that forces us into every decision, but when he presents something to you, man, it's hard to say no, and sometimes it's the thing that you never expected. I think I've shared a little bit about just our journey to where we live now and to Crosspoint, but without going back into it, you just never know what God's going to call you to do, where he's going to lead you, and as a Christian, we just need to be ready to say yes, yeah, be ready to discern it through the Holy Spirit, that's, through prayer and through understanding of scripture, and if you have that relationship with the Lord, you'll know. You'll know when he's directing you to do whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know isn't there an old joke about a guy that's stranded somewhere and he's like well, let me, let me help another guy on the shore or something whatever? It's like let me help you and he's like well, no, god's going to send somebody to rescue me.
Speaker 1:I got it Right, and then a helicopter comes.
Speaker 2:No, God's going to send, you know.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Well, the guy, you know the guy, dies and he's like why didn't you send somebody to save me? Well, I sent a helicopter. I sent, you know, a search and rescue team. I sent this, I sent that and you have to be looking for it. Yep, that open heart and that receptive heart, because if you're not, you're just not. Nothing's going to grow in infertile soil.
Speaker 1:So then, what eye are you looking at it?
Speaker 2:with Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it the physical, the material, or are you using your spiritual awareness to look for things?
Speaker 1:I'm actually talking a little bit about that this coming Sunday, okay, so I don't want to get too far into that, but I think that understanding the Bible and knowing some of it is knowing the proof of the Bible as well and the proof of the death and resurrection of Christ, and I talked a little bit about that on Sunday as well. Maybe we can talk about that for just a moment before we end. We're almost at 25 minutes, but actually I had somebody tell me shout out to Adam, who is probably listening today. Adam listens while he's at work, so shout out Adam. So I think the longer the podcast go, maybe the audience likes that. I don't know. Here's a quick pause. If you like longer episodes, shoot us a text, click send us a text in the description of this podcast below.
Speaker 1:Let us know what you think. Shorter or longer? Boom, I hope to hear from you. So on Sunday part of me always as a preacher I want to talk about the apologetics of the resurrection at Easter. I don't know what it is, I'm always drawn to it, and so last year I was a little bit more in depth about some of the apologetics. This year I just snuck a couple things in. But there's so many things that I want to add that I just didn't have time for. So maybe just like one or two extras while we're on the extra podcast, okay, the first thing I want to share is from Luke 24.
Speaker 1:This is Luke's resurrection account. It says but on the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women went to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared to finish anointing the body, and they found the large circular stone rolled back from the tomb. But when they went inside they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. They were perplexed and wondering about this. Suddenly, two men in dazzling clothes stood near them and, as the women were terrified, they were bowing their faces to the ground. And the men said to them why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to skip down a few verses here. Now. They were Mary, magdalene and Joanna I'm going to skip the parentheses here and the mother of Mary and Mary, the mother of James. Slow down, curtis. Just read, bro. But their report seemed to them like idle talk and nonsense and they would not believe them. They meaning the disciples. Okay. So the women go to the tomb. They find the stone rolled away, the body is gone. There are angels there to greet them. Then the women go back to where the disciples are and tell them what they had found. This is so significant to the validity of the resurrection simply because it was women who were the first ones to see it and the first ones to deliver the news, and that the gospel writers included that in their description of the resurrection.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I don't know how to say it, so I'll just say it blank. I mean, we live in 2025. Gender roles are I don't know if I want to say more evolved. Right, gender roles are I don't know if I want to say more evolved, but societally speaking, women have a much larger prominent role in society in modern day than they did in the past, and so the woman's word wasn't even counted as valid in a legal like in court, like the eyewitness of a woman wasn't accepted in a court case.
Speaker 1:The eyewitness of a woman wasn't accepted in a court case. And so why would these women, their account of the tomb, mean anything to the men in the room, much less the people they're trying to convince with the writings in this gospel that Jesus was alive. Yeah, I think it's, because it really happened this way, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, why would that be made up? Nobody would make that up. Yeah, it was because it wasn't a thing. They would have to create a whole new concept of absolutely women being reporters, of yeah, of uh. What would you call it? Not news, but it is news, but women being involved in local yes you local going and coming.
Speaker 1:Just being a trustworthy person in society. They would have to completely rewrite the norms, but they didn't they?
Speaker 1:just wrote it the way that it happened and so nobody would make that up and put it in their history book unless it actually happened that way. And then when the disciples went back to the tomb and they also saw that Jesus was not there, peter and John were the first ones back to the tomb and they corroborated what the women had reported about the tomb. And so that's just one biblical proof that says to me these people are not liars, right? Okay, another biblical proof. I've got a little slide deck that I'm working through. Okay, here's this.
Speaker 1:Eyewitness testimony is a super important thing when you're reporting on events, especially in this era where there's not camera phones and radio documentation. So, eyewitness testimony the gospels were written within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses of Jesus' miracles. So everybody who saw Jesus' miracles, these people who wrote the gospels, they finished their gospels within their lifetimes. It wasn't like a continued work that was passed on to their proteges to finish the work. It was all written within their lifetimes. Yeah, it wasn't like a continued work that was passed on to their protégés to finish the work. Right, it was all written within their lifetime. So it's direct eyewitness testimony of people.
Speaker 1:The Gospels were completed between AD 50 and AD 90. So that's roughly, if Jesus, his birth is AD 0. Zero, yeah. Then within 50 to 90 years. So what is the math on that? He was crucified at 33. 17 years, yeah. So there you go. So it's within the time limit of. We can still trust this eyewitness testimony of what's happening. There are other writers, I'm not going to get into all this, I'm just flipping through my slide deck. Here there's translation proofs that we can trust the translations of the Bible. Let me keep going. Do you have anything to add while I'm flipping through?
Speaker 2:Well, so I've listened to the Case for Christ.
Speaker 1:Oh, great one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's all in there, I think. And William Lane Craig is writing a book. He's a prominent philosopher and apologist, and he says and Lee Strobel, the guy that wrote Case for Christ, says a court of law would look seriously. And even you know that you have successfully made the case. If these things are true and if everybody could withstand a character assassination, that they would undergo for saying all these things.
Speaker 1:Yes, Then you would have to conclude that it's true, that's the last thing that I was going to get at was what the disciples, the apostles, endured because of their message after Christ ascended to heaven. All of them died, all of them were killed for their message, every single one of them.
Speaker 1:Gruesomely, in some cases, the only one who survived was John, but he was exiled to live on an island by himself for the rest of his days, which is basically he might as well have been dead to everybody who knew him. So like every one of them was martyred for their faith and their message in Jesus, you would think at some point, if it wasn't true, that one of the 11 of them would have been like fellas, this just ain't worth it. Y'all keep going on, but I'm going to bow out and go like, be with my family for the next couple of years, but not a single one of them renounced their faith in the face of death, and that has absolutely has to be a proof that this thing is 100% accurate.
Speaker 2:It's you ever see that movie Contact.
Speaker 1:No, I haven't.
Speaker 2:With Jodie Foster? Uh-uh, it's science fiction. It was written by Carl Sagan. No, I haven't With Jodie Foster. Uh-uh, it's science fiction. It was written by Carl Sagan. It's based on the book by Carl Sagan. But she's in this Senate committee hearing and they're like why can't you admit that the events that you're talking about, that you say happened on this spaceship, did not happen? Why can't you say that? And she's like because they happened, yeah, like, it's as simple as that. I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And also the simplest explanation for all these events is that they happened the way I say they did.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I don't care what your instruments read Right being of sound mind and body. This happened, Absolutely this happened.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And she was a well-regarded scientist, well-regarded astrophysicist, all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're like fine, okay, we sort of have to believe it, but we still don't believe it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so I'm making the connection here between the movie and what you're talking about. I mean, paul even says that there were 500 witnesses to the resurrected Jesus. This is getting beyond just a small conspiracy theory. If, within 30 days, 500 people had seen Jesus alive, one of them?
Speaker 2:I mean, come on, and it's not mass psychosis either.
Speaker 1:No, they're not. Yeah, one of them, if it wasn't true, would have come forward or leaked it somewhere.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But never happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without the benefit of social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I understand. Trust me when I say I understand. I can empathize with a person who struggles to believe the resurrection. I can empathize with that. It is a supernatural event. Supernatural meaning it happens outside the realm of physics, understanding our knowledge. It happens somewhere beyond our realm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you lean on materialism, sure you're not going to believe it.
Speaker 1:And that's where the faith aspect has to kick in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just belief, belief that God did what he says he did and what so many have corroborated. To be true, faith has to kick in somewhere, somewhere. Well, that's what Jesus is looking for. He wants your faith in him. I'm picturing like the Uncle Sam poster yeah, I want you. That's what Jesus is doing, right now Pointing at you I want you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he does, he wants you. Here's a great Easter. So many more things we could talk about in the line of apologetics and proof about the Bible, but we'll leave it there for today. How's that sound Good for me? All right, thanks for listening today to the Extra Podcast and we will see you next week. See ya.