Defending Our Faith: The Christian’S Handbook

By Bert E. Park, MD

Have you ever felt a bit like the troubled man who professed to Jesus: Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!? Do you want to dig deeper into your faith so as to become more sure of what you hope for, and certain of what you cannot see? Havent you questioned whether there is any scientific support for the Genesis creation accountor historical evidence to confirm the ministry, crucifixion and, yes, post-resurrection of a man named Jesus? Will you not be challenged in the future by either a skeptical critic or genuine seeker to defend Christianity with facts and not simply faith?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this handbook written in succinct outline form is just what youve been looking for!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512736748

Bert E. Park, MD

The author is a Board-certified neurological surgeon, adjunct professor of modern history, and recognized Biblical scholar. He has published several works related to such diverse topics as Christian apologetics, medical ethics, missionary service abroad, and neurologic disabilities of leaders in world history. As founder of the Christian Surgical Foundation, Dr. Park works as a medical missionary in central Africa bringing access to brain and spine surgery for the poor in rural areas. His website, BertPark.com, focuses upon effective Christian witnessing as detailed in this, his latest, book.

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Copyright © 2016 Bert E. Park, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3675-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3676-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3674-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905595

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/8/2016

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Knowing the Facts

Chapter 1: The Bible Reconsidered: Its Scientific, Historical, and Textual Reliability

Chapter 2: Genesis Creation from the Perspective of Modern Science

Chapter 3: The Gospels as Verifiable History

Chapter 4: Confirming Jesus’s Crucifixion and Resurrection

Part 2: Defending the Word

Chapter 5: Covenant Relationships and the Holy Trinity

Chapter 6: Messianic Prophecies Fulfilled: The Short List

Chapter 7: Foundational Beliefs of the Early Church: Origins and Fulfillment

Chapter 8: From the First-Century Christ to Twenty-First Century Christianity

Part 3: Sharing the Gift

Chapter 9: Does God Really Know You Personally? The ABCs of His Answer

Chapter 10: Discerning God’s Will and Acting on It

Chapter 11: The Beatitudes: Discipleship 101

Part 4: Weighing the Risks

Chapter 12: The Cost of Discipleship

Appendix 1: Estimated Creation Timetable

Appendix 2: Viewing History through Self-Reflecting Mirrors

Appendix 3: Greek and Near Eastern Mystery Religions

Appendix 4: Counterfactual History Reconsidered

Appendix 5: Historical Evidence for the Bethlehem Star and Its Scientific Confirmation

Endnotes

Introduction

Let me begin by introducing you to a man I once knew. By societal standards he was a reasonably well-off neurosurgeon at midlife with a successful career—one who had also returned to graduate school in history, burdened with the pretension of a wannabe renaissance man. With an adjunct professorship in his grasp, a published book to his credit, and patients to fill his OR schedule, he was livin’ the dream.

And yet, through hook or crook, this self-absorbed guy had somehow managed to befriend a few fundamentalist types who seemed to be calling his autofocused zeal into question! Divine appointments? Such it would appear in retrospect, though paradoxically so given his inherent resistance to their faith-based views.

Now, if there was such a thing as a Creator who allegedly knows each of us personally and has a plan for our lives, it would surely be a simple matter for him to examine the evidence, disavow their claims, and then be done with it. Just another brain operation. A day in the life. Or so he thought at the time.

What appears in the pages that follow is a compilation of those things he discovered along the way—irrefutable scientific, textual, and historical facts supporting the Christian faith that redirected his life to where it needed to be. Biblical scholars refer to this as apologetics derived from the Greek word apologeisthai, meaning to speak in defense of, not making apologies for. Hence the title of this book, Defending Our Faith.

As for its subtitle, The Christian’s Handbook, I used the word handbook because the genre of Christian apologetics is already filled with weighty tomes comprised of either cut-and-paste jobs that cite what scores of others have written or lengthy personal confessions interspersed with aha moments lent credence by the same borrowed baggage.

This prompted the need for a concise summary addressing those questions any seeker of the truth would ask, emphasizing not what others have written but how the Bible itself speaks to us. That accounts for the virtual absence of endnotes. It also speaks to the kind of book I’ve written on behalf of this man I once thought I’d known so well: a study guide for the reader’s own quest, drafted in somewhat of an outline format.

But first, let’s be clear about what it isn’t: hardly a Hail-Mary cast to snag any hardened skeptics and drag them on board —albeit not to ignore the eternal implications for their having spit out the hook. Need it be pointed out that the title alone is enough to discourage them from ever reading it to begin with?

Having said that, don’t be misled. Should you be fortunate enough in this cynical age to bring someone to Christ by virtue of what you might have learned here, I’ll be elated … and not altogether surprised, given my own past experience on the other side of this great divide. As those old fisher[of]men liked to say: If you catch ‘em, God’ll clean ‘em!

Second, if apologies of a different sort seem to be in order, this handbook most assuredly is not written to demean the Jewish faith from which Christianity emerged, much less my brothers and sisters of the Catholic persuasion. As a historian, I’m well aware that Protestantism (like both of its forefathers) has had its share of faults. So let’s quickly dispense with the shortcomings of all three, forgive one another as Jesus would have us do, and get on with the subject at hand.

Every Christian knows that Judaism has been based through the ages on what’s referred to as the Old Testament. What most may not appreciate, however, is that there’s a difference between ancient biblical Judaism and its first-century AD rabbinic offshoot, the latter having subsequently spawned its own divisions.

Now, as that relates to their respective messiahs, the former had its earlier prophets like Moses and Samuel that governed their expectations; hence, the steadfast belief that the Messiah has not yet appeared on the world-stage, looking as they were for an earthly deliverer in the line of king David.

Rabbinic Jews, on the other hand, embraced the later so-called writing prophets, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who perceived the Messiah somewhat differently as one who would appear at the end of history.

Therein arguably rests the genesis of the fault of both Jewish branches—for the evidence is clear (Isaiah 52:13–53:12 in particular) that their Messiah has in fact already come!

And that’s where the earliest Christians as but a sect within Judaism were also at fault. In their efforts to proselytize Gentile populations of Trajan and Hadrian’s Empires, the guilt for Christ’s crucifixion was transferred from the Romans (where it belonged) to the Jews so as not to offend the former.

As for Catholicism, no one needs to be reminded of the plundering Crusades, the wholesale persecutions with their inquisitions, or the banning (and burning) of those early Bibles written in the vernacular apart from the older Latin that the established church alone could interpret.

Yet critical Protestants (not to mention secular humanists and what few ecumenically minded Muslims there might be) would do well to remember that this same institution, with all its faults, nevertheless ushered Christ’s Church—and His universally valued ethics—through the darkest of the Middle Ages.

If some of their ancestors undeniably contributed to that darkness, Catholicism’s blameless adherents today, who have simply chosen to bed down in another room apart from their brothers and sisters in the Protestant sector, need not bear the burden of past history (excluding, of course, that small percentage of Catholic priests who’ve drifted into beds unintended).

And then there are the Protestants. Some of their faults can paradoxically be laid directly at the Apostle Paul’s feet. Now, before you accuse me of heresy, consider his ultimate intent as expressed in Romans 11:11–14. "Salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious [emphasis mine] … I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy [in order] to save some of them."

Was that not bound to incense his own brothers? And history, of course, records that it did. Perhaps in this one instance Paul misread human nature, for envy can lead to anger and ultimately a parting of ways.

Yet in Paul’s defense, we might do well to take into account what he already knew, as perhaps revealed to him by the risen Christ. "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the final number of Gentiles has come in. And so all of Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:25–26; emphasis mine).

Still another sad if not hugely ironic fault rests with European Protestants in general and their dwindling number of German adherents today in particular. Numerous polls have affirmed that less than 10 percent of its population actively practices their faith—this in the very country that gave us Martin Luther and God’s Word in their own language so early in Protestant Reformation history!

As a medical missionary who spends the majority of his time in Central Africa, I can tell you that’s deeply disturbing, and it leads me to ponder, Am I spreading His Word in all the wrong places?

So much for casting stones at others. What faults that characterized this man I once was (who would like to think he has changed!) apply just as forcefully to me today. Perhaps my brother, Paul, said it best in Romans 2:21: Well, Bert, you who now teach others; do you not teach yourself?

For you see, where others reside within the whole of God’s house is not for me to say.

All I am saying is that my own comfort comes from rooming with the risen Christ, irrespective of denominational bedcovers.

Yet just how we both got there is a story that deserves to be told.

As its title implies, this book is written for all believers of whatever persuasion to first explicate and then defend those foundational beliefs of Christianity. Assuming you’re among them, my intent in doing so is twofold:

(1) to bolster your faith with facts;, and

(2) to prepare you for those inevitable encounters when others (whether seekers or skeptics) ask for the reasons you believe in the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15).

The first part, Knowing the Facts, underscores that I was ultimately compelled to accept the credibility of the Bible despite my inbred skepticism using the most rigorous academic standards with which I had once cut my wisdom teeth as both a physician and historian.

That meant reconciling the six-day creation account in Genesis with what science told me of our origins in order to affirm for myself that God is real; thereafter examining the relevant New Testament sources to ascertain their reliability as historical primary-source materials that document the life, death, and post-resurrection appearances of a man named Jesus.

The second part, Defending the Word, traces the emergence of Christianity from its Jewish roots beneath the soil of their sacred covenant relationship and subsequent blossoming with fulfilled messianic prophecies—only to have Christ’s family tree sprout into a wealth of denominations thereafter!

While presenting a less-than-unified front to a skeptical world, I readily acknowledge that there are different strokes for different folks. Where others choose to swim in their particular pool of faith has never been my prerogative to determine; rather I continue to tip my hat to C. S. Lewis’s common rules of the house so beautifully expressed in the introduction to his classic treatise Mere Christianity.

The third part, Sharing the Gift, is an exhortation to take the evidence gleaned from this handbook, apply it to one’s own spiritual quest, and then share it with others in a nonthreatening manner when asked. I’ll not only demonstrate that God knows each of us personally but also show that His will for our lives can be readily discerned—and perhaps even be reconciled with all the misfortune, disease, and just plain evil that surround us!

So how do we act on the knowledge we’ve gained and God’s will we’ve been given? We simply need to reflect Jesus’s Beatitudes, which are nothing less than His code of conduct for all humankind, irrespective of whatever God of their own understanding others embrace.

Which brings us to the final (and perhaps disconcerting) part, Weighing the Risks. This single chapter addresses the practical dilemma for evangelical Christians today who have been charged with fulfilling the Great Commission, namely bringing others to the faith.

Do we risk more by first drawing them in with cheap grace only for them to discover that there’s an ongoing price to pay for the gracious gift they’ve received? Or do we gently alert them to that reality beforehand and thereby risk losing them from the get-go?

My own view on this vexing issue reflects that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who was martyred in Hitler’s Germany at the end of World War II for opposing the dictates of its established church. He would counsel that any believer must first count the costs on his or her own before making a commitment to follow, as argued in his classic treatise The Cost of Discipleship.

Not every reader, of course, will embrace our shared perspective. That’s for you to decide. But before weighing the risks of walking on water with the risen Christ to begin with—and perhaps catching a few fish while on your journey—you must first get out of the boat to meet Him half-way. Once there, however, following Jesus to the opposite shore becomes non-negotiable…

Part 1

Knowing the Facts

Chapter 1

The Bible Reconsidered: Its Scientific, Historical, and Textual Reliability

The subtitle of this introductory chapter speaks to what all Christians should know so that we can become—or remain—sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1). Simply put, God has revealed Himself to us in three ways—through nature, by His Son, and in the Word.

Having said that, virtually every believer at one time or another will be blindsided by at least one of the following three questions from a blind-sighted skeptic, and we need to prepare ourselves for these if we’re to be effective spokespersons for the faith:

(1) Can one really believe the Genesis creation account in light of recent scientific discoveries? What evidence can you muster to prove that?

(2) Does the Christ of your faith match the Jesus of historical fact? How can you be so certain the four gospels are credible eyewitness accounts of His ministry and crucifixion, not to mention some alleged post-resurrection appearances?

(3) What makes you think that the Bible is God’s inerrant, divinely-inspired word, much less convince me of the same?

Such in-your-face challenges bring to mind two less-than-convincing defenders of the faith as recorded in the gospels. One is a contrite convict sharing Christ’s crucifixion. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom (Luke 23:42). The other is a frantic father begging Jesus to heal his son. Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief! (Mark 9:24).

As regards the thief, just how effective as a Christian witness could this last-minute plea bargain of sorts be? As for the father, would such a self-serving profession of belief under duress satisfy Jesus today, particularly in regard to His commandment for every self-proclaimed disciple to follow?

I’m referring, of course, to the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19, with which virtually all Christians are familiar. Yet far less familiar to nominal believers are some very specific marching orders that Jesus gave with respect to just what that commission entails, namely "to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34).

So what specifically is God’s work? "The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent" (John 6:29).

How about God’s will? "This is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me … " (John 6:39).

You see, the risen Christ intends that to be our work and our will today. That’s why being prepared to take a stand in defense of our faith is so vitally important. The Father and Son command it. Scoffers and cynics misunderstand it. But the times demand it—now more than ever!

As deliverers of the good news, you and I have been given a sacred mandate to cultivate its favorable reception by those whom the Father (not man!) is calling (Matthew 11:27; Galatians 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1–2). That means putting on the full armor of God for both defensive and offensive purposes during those times we’re sure to encounter resistance in an alien culture (Ephesians 6:10–17).

After all, we’re hardly engaging the forces of darkness on holy ground! Therefore, as defenders of the faith, we must first find common ground with unbelievers, beginning with what information they have and beliefs they embrace. Only then can we turn the conversation as the Holy Spirit leads, which He promises to do (John 14:26; Matthew 10:20).

Believe me, I know what it’s like to be engaged on the front lines in such spiritual warfare—and not just hunkered down in a trench on the defensive side of no-man’s-land as an advocate for the faith since I surrendered to Christ some twenty years ago.

As for my own call to arms, I came to Christianity on the offensive by first trying to disprove the Bible, beginning with a critical examination of the three foundational questions referred to earlier.

Befitting my inherently skeptical nature (sad to say), I had to have Jesus in my head before ever accepting Him in my heart.

Now, what seemed distinctly unworldly about all of this in retrospect is that God not only knew me in advance but had prepared me for our encounter long before I ever acknowledged Him—for which, parenthetically, there is ample scriptural precedent (Romans 8:29–30; Jeremiah 1:5).

Yet rather than risk a precipitate leap of faith out of the darkness, as Jesus would have me do, I chose to take a more deliberate, longer day’s journey into the light.

So I can only surmise that He must have loved me enough to take me as I was, but He loved me too much to allow me to stay that way!

By His prevenient grace alone, had I ever stopped asking my questions, I wouldn’t be answering for Him today.

To begin with, Christianity is arguably grounded on two elemental propositions (P). And from those propositions two elementary questions (Q) arise that any seeker of the truth would ask.

(P): We believe that Christ died for our sins and was then resurrected to seal the deal (Romans 4:25), giving rise to his or her question.

(Q): Who in his right mind would die for me?

(P): We believe that Paul, Christianity’s most prolific defender and later martyr, was given direct revelations from the risen Christ (Acts 26:16; 1 Corinthians 11:23; Galatians 1:11–12), prompting our question to those who doubt.

(Q): So who in his right mind would die for a lie?

Should my own prior uncertainty apply to some of you today, surely we can at least agree that the following truths are self-evident:

(1) No one should expect to receive salvation from the Son of God if he or she does not believe that God the Father exists (Romans 1:20; Hebrews 11:1–2).

(2) In this the so-called information age, few thoughtful people are likely to embrace the concept of God as Creator based on a literal six-day creation event (as some mistakenly assume is required from a reading of Genesis 1:1–2:4).

(3) Fewer still, perhaps with an eye toward political correctness, will accept that Jesus alone is the way to salvation (John 14:6) unless they can be convinced (1 Peter 3:15) that the gospels are an accurate accounting of what really happened (John 20:24, 30-31).

Now should you happen to be at peace with a literal six-day creation event and accept that purely on faith (as the Lord might commend you for doing!), don’t let your heart be troubled. No Christian should take you to task, and I suspect Jesus wouldn’t either.

Why? Because some of the sheep of His pasture have already been called to simply accept what the Bible says as God’s Word. And from their vantage point, they’re precisely where they need to be.

Yet in this day and age, such a perspective is likely to fall on deaf ears for most. Irrespective of your own views on this issue, whether God created the universe and all that’s in it over six literal days or a vast stretch of time is not a litmus test for orthodoxy as a follower of the Good Shepherd.

Rather, it’s how such a miracle grabs one’s attention that really counts.

Moreover, how long it took Him to perform that ultimately has no bearing on others’ salvation!

I’m merely suggesting that when we are challenged to defend our faith (including the creation narrative) we must first engage unbelievers in dialogue, not disengage them from the get-go with dogma.

In the final analysis, that’s all we’ve been mandated to do. Jesus intimated as much when He told His first disciples, If the home is [open to dialogue], let your peace rest upon it. If it is not, let your peace return to you—and keep His precious gift for yourselves (Matthew 10:12; Luke 10:5–6)!

What He is reminding us modern-day apostles is simply this:

Whether they ultimately accept His good news is God’s call, not our own.

Yet in order to engage those in the house, we must first be allowed to enter.

The sobering truth is, that taking a hardline, defensive position from the beginning that (a) Jesus is the Son of God and (b) the Bible is His divinely inspired Word—as true as they are—would be like prescribing the wrong antibiotic for an infection. After all, the world is full of resistant organisms out there!

That’s precisely why our culture of tolerance remains immune to the fundamentalists, knowing full well that the man on the street gets just enough of Jesus at Christmas and Easter to prevent him from catching the real thing (what C. S. Lewis termed the good infection).

In their zeal to inject others with an ultra-conservative dose of faith alone, our fundamentalist brothers and sisters run the risk of vaccinating them against it!

Those who take the fundamentalists to task for embracing the label would point out that this term was not even in the vernacular (or Webster’s) prior to 1919 and the convening of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, which most would correctly perceive as an overreaction to an onslaught of liberal German theology during the late 1800s.

By the same token, today’s prevailing antiscientific bias among the fundamentalists seems to this writer to be an allergic reaction to the threat posed by Darwinism and the subsequent Scopes trial in the 1920s (the former admittedly just a flawed philosophy and not empirical science, but more about that later).

The point being for now, as credible Christian advocates we must row to the opposition with muffled oars—that is to say, with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).

While doing so, however, we can’t throw the baby overboard with the bilge water (so to speak) by ignoring God’s ongoing revelations through an open-minded study of nature and His story as recorded in the Bible.

And that’s what I believe He intended the secular disciplines of science and history to be, as will be demonstrated throughout the first section of this handbook.

Welcome, then, to Christian Apologetics 101—not an apology for simply believing in faith; rather, believing in facts to bolster your faith and, hopefully, that of others as well.

This amounts to nothing more than using science, history, and logic to acquire a deeper appreciation of Scripture and then to defend it when asked.

Over the course of the next three chapters, we’ll not only reconcile the Genesis creation account with what science tells us of our origins but also substantiate that the Gospels are reliable primary sources that even the most critical of historians can accept.

So why not come along beside me and examine all the evidence for yourself?

###

Let’s initiate our study with three less controversial questions than those proposed in my introductory comments.

(1) Who (other than Christ) has had the greatest impact in championing the Christian faith?

(2) What was Paul’s station in life before answering the call—and what changed all that?

(3) Lacking such a dramatic face-to-face encounter ourselves (as recorded