What’s crazier: A 2000 year old book that could speak truth today or that the God who created the universe would understand the human condition, and love us anyway? As Christians, we believe both are true and on Sunday Evening, Amy Orr-Ewing gave a great defence of both questions.
“What do you want?” is the first question that Jesus asks in the gospel of John, showing that the creator of everything that exists in the world, understands the human condition. People will often reply money, or fame, or love and intimacy through many relationships. Before we begin to explain the basis for a better love, we need to understand and appreciate that these are the answers that people want to give.
Amy then went on to give a great basis for faith, suggesting that the Bible can be trusted based on historical evidence. We have the gospels written within 100 years of the events happening. Compare this to biographies of Alexander the Great, written 400 years after the events, considered reliable by historians.
But Jesus is asking us to trust him not just on an intellectual level, but trust that the truth about him can connect to us today. The truth is that we’re broken and need forgiveness, and if God only loved a certain kind of person, then it wouldn’t help us. In the ancient world, you would be expected to be on your knees in the dirt before god, but God reverses that by becoming a crucified, demeaned, suffering God that was ridiculed by the ancient world.
Who does God love? Everyone.
Jon currently heads up Communications for Woodside Church, having moved to Bedford after graduating with a theology degree from the University of Edinburgh.
