THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY "C"

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom 11:22-12:2
Psalm 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13, 14
2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2
Luke 19:1-10

Ever since Galileo's telescope, we have reluctantly admitted that Planet Earth is not the centre of the universe. Every day, scientists find more galaxies, more planets, more stars! The Book of Wisdom says in today's First Reading: "Before the Lord, the whole universe is a grain from a balance...."

Nevertheless, God loves all He has created, even this sinful Earth. He despises nothing of what He has created and shows boundless mercy and love. He is patient and gentle as He draws us towards repentance.

In today's Gospel, Jesus shows the shocked crowd how that works in practice. It's a good thing that God doesn't leave it to us, to decide who is worthy of heaven and who isn't! We'd make a mess of it! We are really poor judges!

So, in St. Luke's narrative today, we see that Jesus is gradually working His way toward Jerusalem. The crowds have been witnessing Jesus' miracles with growing enthusiasm. As He wends His way through Jericho, He glances up and spots a very wealthy tax collector called Zacchaeus. Here is a hated employee of the Romans!

Yet, Jesus looks into his heart and recognises the beginnings of contrition. "Zacchaeus, come down quickly," Jesus says, "I want to have dinner with you today!" The crowd gasps in disbelief and revulsion that The Healer would have anything to do with this despised sinner.

As the delighted little man explains to Jesus how he means to make up for his many sins, Jesus turns and explains to the crowd, "Today, salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek out and to save what was lost." Beautiful words that so harmonise with what we heard in today's first reading from the Book of Wisdom.

Then, the writer of this Gospel extols both God's power and God's mercy. After declaring that the whole universe is like a small grain in the scales, or like a drop of morning dew compared to God's greatness, Jesus praises God for His mercy in searching out sinners in order that they may repent of their sins and be justified.

We, who often judge merely the exterior of the person, would never have seen in Zacchaeus what Jesus saw, nor could we see why he was worthy of God's mercy.

No matter what we've done in the past, the Mercy of the Lord can search us out, inspire us to repentance, and then embrace us as His own. God never gives up on those whom the world has condemned as hopeless. Thank God that He is in charge of the Final Judgment!

MISSION SUNDAY MESSAGE 2016

MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 2016

 Missionary Church, Witness of Mercy

 Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which the Church is celebrating, casts a distinct light on World Mission Sunday 2016: it invites us to consider the missio ad gentes as a great, immense work of mercy, both spiritual and material. On this World Mission Sunday, all of us are invited to "go out" as missionary disciples, each generously offering their talents, creativity, wisdom and experience in order to bring the message of God’s tenderness and compassion to the entire human family. By virtue of the missionary mandate, the Church cares for those who do not know the Gospel, because she wants everyone to be saved and to experience the Lord’s love. She “is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel” (Misericordiae Vultus, 12) and to proclaim mercy in every corner of the world, reaching every person, young or old.

When mercy encounters a person, it brings deep joy to the Father’s heart; for from the beginning the Father has lovingly turned towards the most vulnerable, because his greatness and power are revealed precisely in his capacity to identify with the young, the marginalized and the oppressed (cf. Deut 4:31; Ps 86:15; 103:8; 111:4). He is a kind, caring and faithful God who is close to those in need, especially the poor; he involves himself tenderly in human reality just as a father and mother do in the lives of their children (cf. Jer 31:20). When speaking of the womb, the Bible uses the word that signifies mercy: therefore it refers to the love of a mother for her children, whom she will always love, in every circumstance and regardless of what happens, because they are the fruit of her womb. This is also an essential aspect of the love that God has for all his children, whom he created and whom he wants to raise and educate; in the face of their weaknesses and infidelity, his heart is overcome with compassion (cf. Hos 11:8). He is merciful towards all; his love is for all people and his compassion extends to all creatures (cf. Ps 144:8-9).

Mercy finds its most noble and complete expression in the Incarnate Word. Jesus reveals the face of the Father who is rich in mercy; he “speaks of [mercy] and explains it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it” (John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, 2). When we welcome and follow Jesus by means of the Gospel and sacraments, we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, become merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful; we can learn to love as he loves us and make of our lives a free gift, a sign of his goodness (cf. Misericordiae Vultus, 3). The Church, in the midst of humanity, is first of all the community that lives by the mercy of Christ: she senses his gaze and feels he has chosen her with his merciful love. It is through this love that the Church discovers its mandate, lives it and makes it known to all peoples through a respectful dialogue with every culture and religious belief.

This merciful love, as in the early days of the Church, is witnessed to by many men and women of every age and condition. The considerable and growing presence of women in the missionary world, working alongside their male counterparts, is a significant sign of God’s maternal love. Women, lay and religious, and today even many families, carry out their missionary vocation in various forms: from announcing the Gospel to charitable service. Together with the evangelizing and sacramental work of missionaries, women and families often more adequately understand people's problems and know how to deal with them in an appropriate and, at times, fresh way: in caring for life, with a strong focus on people rather than structures, and by allocating human and spiritual resources towards the building of good relations, harmony, peace, solidarity, dialogue, cooperation and fraternity, both among individuals and in social and cultural life, in particular through care for the poor.

In many places evangelization begins with education, to which missionary work dedicates much time and effort, like the merciful vine-dresser of the Gospel (cf. Lk 13:7-9; Jn 15:1), patiently waiting for fruit after years of slow cultivation; in this way they bring forth a new people able to evangelize, who will take the Gospel to those places where it otherwise would not have been thought possible. The Church can also be defined as "mother" for those who will one day have faith in Christ. I hope, therefore, that the holy people of God will continue to exercise this maternal service of mercy, which helps those who do not yet know the Lord to encounter and love him. Faith is God’s gift and not the result of proselytizing; rather it grows thanks to the faith and charity of evangelizers who witness to Christ. As they travel through the streets of the world, the disciples of Jesus need to have a love without limits, the same measure of love that our Lord has for all people. We proclaim the most beautiful and greatest gifts that he has given us: his life and his love.

All peoples and cultures have the right to receive the message of salvation which is God’s gift to every person.  This is all the more necessary when we consider how many injustices, wars, and humanitarian crises still need resolution. Missionaries know from experience that the Gospel of forgiveness and mercy can bring joy and reconciliation, justice and peace. The mandate of the Gospel to "go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Mt 28:19-20) has not ceased; rather this command commits all of us, in the current landscape with all its challenges, to hear the call to a renewed missionary "impulse", as I noted in my Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: "Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel” (20).

This Jubilee year marks the 90th anniversary of World Missionary Day, first approved by Pope Pius XI in 1926 and organized by the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith.  It is appropriate then to recall the wise instructions of my Predecessors who ordered that to this Society be destined all the offerings collected in every diocese, parish, religious community, association and ecclesial movement throughout the world for the care of Christian communities in need and for supporting the proclamation of the Gospel even to the ends of the earth.  Today too we believe in this sign of missionary ecclesial communion. Let us not close our hearts within our own particular concerns, but let us open them to all of humanity.

May Holy Mary, sublime icon of redeemed humanity, model of missionaries for the Church, teach all men, women and families, to foster and safeguard the living and mysterious presence of the Risen Lord in every place, he who renews personal relationships, cultures and peoples, and who fills all with joyful mercy.

From the Vatican, 15 May 2016, Solemnity of Pentecost

FRANCIS

TWENTY SIXTH SUNDAY OF YEAR "C"

                                            TWENTY SIXTH SUNDAY OF YEAR "C

 (Luke 16, 19 – 21)    

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus ("God helps") is actually an old Egyptian story adapted by the sacred writer. It seems to be the usually "rich man poor man" story. Yes, there are the usual elements: the rich man dressed in purple, wining and dining. The poor man dressed in his sores, starving. The usual ending of the story, which is out of this world, i.e. heaven and hell. The rich man goes to hell, and the poor man goes straight to heaven. The lesson is that riches lead to hell, and poverty leads to heaven. Luke’s gospel was addressed to non-Jewish converts who were very poor, and unsympathetic towards the rich. So they were consoled to hear that when they died they would go to heaven. So, let us all be poor and covered with sores. And if there are dogs to lick them then I suppose our chances are better.

I don't see why it should be that way. We are not told what the poor man did to merit heaven. We are not told that he blessed and thanked God in his misery and for that poverty. Whether he bestirred himself and did something to liberate himself from his misery. He could well have become poor due to laziness and lack of work, which is happening today.

Nor are we told that the rich man exploited or oppressed the poor man.

In fact, there was no need for the poor man to have entered the story at all - the rich man could have gone to hell just the same.

The Gospel does not intend to teach a social lesson, at least not primarily. It wants to tell us that there have been some seriously wrong choices, some very serious neglect. Neglect can happen on three levels: a) The love of God, the prophets and church teaching.

b) Neglect of self - the mystery in our lives.

c) Neighbour - especially those in need.

In the second part of the parable the chief interest is concentrated on the fate of the five brothers. These brothers were not converted by the threat of the Day of Yahweh, the coming of the Lord. The rich man and his brothers were not concerned with the Day of Yahweh as they were with this world and their possessions. The poor, on the other hand, were open, and consequently the Kingdom was more accessible to them.

No longer is there question of wealth and poverty, but of irreligion and selfishness on the part of people who are unable to read the signs of God. For them, death is the end (v. 28); they will not even be convinced by the resurrection of the body, because they are not accustomed to see in their own lives the signs of survival. The search for signs is a pretext only. Man is saved by hearing the Word (Moses, the prophets, and Jesus) and by vigilance, not by apparitions and miracles.

Finally, this parable proclaims the reversal of situations, the rich becoming poor and vice versa. It voices the revolt of so many human beings against mistreatment and indignity: the poor crushed by the rich, the poor man persecuted by the wicked.

Jesus himself endured mistreatment. He was taken for a malefactor, simply because this would more convenient for certain people: “it s expedient that one man die for the nation…” Jn 11, 50). He made the cross the great testimony of love, and thus his revolt against indignity became supremely efficacious. It gave human the hope of a future where selfishness and hostility would have to make way for dignity and love. His disciples could only build that future by continuing their turn the great movement of revolt by the poor.

PRAYER: by Alan Paton (1903 – 1988), novelist who wrote the beautiful book, Cry, the Beloved Country.

O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the need of others, open my ears that I may hear their cries, open my heart so that they need not be without help. Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, not afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich. Show me where love and hope and faith are needed, and use me to bring them to these places. Open my eyes and ears that I may, this coming day, be able to do some work of peace for thee. Amen.

TWENTY FIFTH SUNDAY Year "C"

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
Amos 8:4-7
Psalm Am 8:4-7
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-32
There are often striking parallels in the writings of the Prophets, with similar conditions to our own times. In our First Reading today, the prophet Amos condemns the greed of "those who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land" and also "We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating!" (Amos 8:4-5) How like this is in our own times in which the greed of many in the nations of the world, is the root cause of debasing poverty! 

Our newly canonized saint, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, spent most of her life trying to restore the dignity of those lying at the side of the streets left to die. In his homily at her canonization this past September 4th, 2016, Pope Francis sounded like Amos when he said of Mother Teresa, "she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime - the crimes of poverty they created."
In the Gospel, the unjust steward puzzles us. Why is he commended for making friends of the "mammon" of iniquity? He even hoped that his master who had just fired him for "cooking the books" would notice how very clever he was! Yes, the master noticed and commended him for his wily ways! Jesus tells His disciples that if they (the children of the light), were as clever and industrious as the children of darkness, they could have gained spiritual treasures for eternal life instead of earthly wealth.

"You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24) Jesus said. Greed is not really a private sin. By inordinate love for money, we make it into a god. We worship it instead of God. Christ spent His whole life in service, especially to the poor and downtrodden. 
As Pope Francis commended Mother Teresa for seeing the face of Christ in the poor and the sick, so he tells us that our mercy and love of the poor unlocks real justice. As Christians, there is no alternative to charity. Mother Teresa's mercy was "the salt which gave flavor to her work, it was the light that shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering."
As Jesus stooped down to us many times in our needs, so we can do a little more "stooping down" to aid the misery and poverty which pervades our world. It's a question of good stewardship. And the Lord will one day commend us with the abundant treasure of eternal life.

THE WILY STEWART

Luke 16, 1-8

A big landlord has come to discover that his general manager (steward) has mismanaged his goods and demands that he put his accounts in order prior to his dismissal. The manager, who up to now, has grown fat over his job and lived as a gentleman, is worried about his future. He certainly is not going to beg, still less to dig in the fields. And yet, these are the only honest solutions, especially the second one. But being a fat cat, he resorts to the only so-called honourable means, the only solution befitting a so-called gentleman: CHEATING.

He calls for his master’s debtors one by one and proposes a simple plan; he will turn over to the boss smaller bills than those actually owed, on condition, however, that they will not forget to show him gratitude for the favour.

Despite all precautions, this scheme too is discovered by the boss, but internally he cannot help admiring his shrewd cleverness. The landlord praises the manager not for his dishonesty but for his prudence and forethought.

Our Lord Jesus concludes the parable by holding up as an example for us, not the fraudulent behaviour or the avarice or the cunning of the manager, but the alacrity or swiftness with which this worldly man provides for his future. His smartness and circumspection, you could say.

If only in serving God we could imitate the enthusiasm of men who strive for worldly things. If we could even imitate the zeal of those misguided people who try to destroy God’s kingdom.

God is the great landowner; we are his stewards. Whatever we have is his, not ours. We must make use of things in order to serve people; not use people in order to gain things. Whatever we have is his, not ours. He puts it at our disposition that we may, so to say, trade with it. He grants us a lease of it, but only when he pleases and as long as he pleases. The more we have received, the greater the interest that will be exacted of us. Apart from material wealth (if we have it), God has entrusted to us other talents: health or illness (mysteriously also a gift), poverty, time, the Church, the sacraments. And everybody has the capacity to love – the greatest and best talent of all!

God has appointed us to go and bear fruit…for eternity, in earnest, with eagerness, grabbing every occasion, exploiting for good every situation.

We must go forward in the spirit of love, asking God this question:

“What can I do to please you, my Father?”

WOMAN AT THE WELL

The Woman at the Well                                                                                   As a basis for my presentation, I used the wonderful story from the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel concerning Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well. From this encounter, I derived four principles regarding the divine mercy. First, I argued, God’s mercy is relentless. Customarily, pious Jews of the first century would have assiduously avoided Samaria, a nation, in their minds, of apostates and half-breeds. Yet Jesus, journeying from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north, moves right through Samaria. Moreover, he speaks to a woman in public (something that men simply didn’t do) and he consorts with someone known to be a sinner. In all of this, Jesus embodies the love of God, which crosses barriers, mocks taboos, and overcomes all of the boundaries that we set for it. Thomas Merton spoke of the Promethean problem in religion, by which he meant the stubborn assumption that God is a distant rival, jealous and protective of his prerogatives. In point of fact, the true God is filled with hesed (tender mercy) and delights in lifting up human beings:  “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

And this conduces neatly to my second point, namely, that the divine mercy is divinizing. At times, we have the impression that God’s mercy serves a reparative or healing purpose alone, that it solely binds up the wounds of our sin and suffering. That God’s love heals is obviously true, but this tells but part of the story. Jesus asks the woman at the well for a drink, thereby inviting her to generosity. When she balks, citing the customary taboos, Jesus says, “If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would give you living water.” This, I told the priests in Rome, is a pithy expression of the central principle of spiritual physics, what St. John Paul II called “the law of the gift.” As St. Augustine knew, we are all wired for God, hungry for absolute reality. But God, as St. John knew, is love. Therefore, to be filled with God is to be filled with love, which is to say, self-emptying. The moment we receive something of the divine grace, we should make of it a gift and then we will receive more of the divine grace. In a word, our being will increase in the measure that we give it away. This is the “water welling up to eternal life” that Jesus speaks of. God wants not merely to bind up our wounds; he wants to marry us, to make us “partakers of the divine nature.” 

The third principle I identified is that the divine mercy is demanding. I told the fathers gathered in Rome that we tend to understand the proclamation of the divine mercy according to a zero-sum logic, whereby the more we say about mercy, the less we should say about moral demand, and vice versa. But this is repugnant to the peculiar both/and logic of the Christian gospel. As Chesterton saw so clearly, the Church loves “red and white and has always had a healthy hatred of pink!” It likes both colors strongly expressed side by side, and it has an abhorrence of compromises and half-way measures. Thus, you can’t overstate the power of the divine mercy, and you can’t overstate the demand that it makes upon us. Jesus tells the woman that she comes daily to the well and gets thirsty again, but that he wants to give her the water that will permanently quench her thirst. St. Augustine accordingly saw the well as expressive of concupiscent or errant desire, the manner in which we seek to satisfy the deepest hunger of the heart with creaturely goods, with wealth and power, pleasure and honor. But such a strategy leads only to frustration and addiction and hence must be challenged. Indeed, Jesus shows that the woman exhibits this obsessive, addictive quality of desire in regard to her relationships: when she says that she has no husband, Jesus bluntly states, “yes, you’ve had five, and the one you have now is not your husband.” This is not the voice of a wishy-washy relativist, an anything-goes peddler of pseudo-mercy and cheap grace. Rather, it is the commanding voice of one who knows that extreme mercy awakens extreme demand. 

Finally, the divine mercy, I told the priests, is a summons to mission. As soon as she realizes who Jesus is and what he means, the woman puts down the water jar and goes into town to proclaim the Lord. The jar symbolizes the rhythm of concupiscent desire, her daily return to worldly goods in a vain attempt to assuage her spiritual hunger. How wonderful that, having met the source of living water, she is able to set aside her addictions and to become, herself, a vehicle of healing for others. The very best definition of evangelization that I’ve heard is this: one starving person telling another starving person where to find bread. We will be ineffective in our evangelizing work if we simply talk, however correctly, about Jesus in the abstract. Our words of proclamation will catch fire precisely in the measure that we have been liberated and transformed by Christ. 

Could I ask all who read these words to pray for the priests who gathered in Rome this past week? Beg the Lord that we might all become bearers of the divine mercy.

JESUS, A MYTH?

JESUS CHRIST, A MYTH?

Is Jesus a myth? Is Jesus just a copy of the pagan gods of other ancient religions? Answer: There are a number of people claiming that the accounts of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament are simply myths borrowed from pagan folklore, such as the stories of Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, and Mithras. The claim is that these myths are essentially the same story as the New Testament’s narrative of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. As Dan Brown claims in The Da Vinci Code, “Nothing in Christianity is original.” To discover the truth about the claim that the Gospel writers borrowed from mythology, it is important to (1) unearth the history behind the assertions, (2) examine the actual portrayals of the false gods being compared to Christ, (3) expose any logical fallacies being made, and (4) look at why the New Testament Gospels are trustworthy depictions of the true and historical Jesus Christ. The claim that Jesus was a myth or an exaggeration originated in the writings of liberal German theologians in the nineteenth century. They essentially said that Jesus was nothing more than a copy of popular dying-and-rising fertility gods in various places—Tammuz in Mesopotamia, Adonis in Syria, Attis in Asia Minor, and Horus in Egypt. Of note is the fact that none of the books containing these theories were taken seriously by the academics of the day. The assertion that Jesus was a recycled Tammuz, for example, was investigated by contemporary scholars and determined to be completely baseless. It has only been recently that these assertions have been resurrected, primarily due to the rise of the Internet and the mass distribution of information from unaccountable sources. This leads us to the next area of investigation—do the mythological gods of antiquity really mirror the person of Jesus Christ? As an example, the Zeitgeist movie makes these claims about the Egyptian god Horus: • He was born on December 25 of a virgin: Isis Mary • A star in the East proclaimed his arrival • Three kings came to adore the newborn “savior” • He became a child prodigy teacher at age 12 • At age 30 he was “baptized” and began a “ministry” • Horus had twelve “disciples” • Horus was betrayed • He was crucified • He was buried for three days • He was resurrected after three days However, when the actual writings about Horus are competently examined, this is what we find: • Horus was born to Isis; there is no mention in history of her being called “Mary.” Moreover, “Mary” is our Anglicized form of her real name, Miryam or Miriam. “Mary” was not even used in the original texts of Scripture. • Isis was not a virgin; she was the widow of Osiris and conceived Horus with Osiris. • Horus was born during month of Khoiak (Oct/Nov), not December 25. Further, there is no mention in the Bible as to Christ’s actual birth date. • There is no record of three kings visiting Horus at his birth. The Bible never states the actual number of magi that came to see Christ. • Horus is not a “savior” in any way; he did not die for anyone. • There are no accounts of Horus being a teacher at the age of 12. • Horus was not “baptized.” The only account of Horus that involves water is one story where Horus is torn to pieces, with Isis requesting the crocodile god to fish him out of the water. • Horus did not have a “ministry.” • Horus did not have 12 disciples. According to the Horus accounts, Horus had four demigods that followed him, and there are some indications of 16 human followers and an unknown number of blacksmiths that went into battle with him. • There is no account of Horus being betrayed by a friend. • Horus did not die by crucifixion. There are various accounts of Horus’ death, but none of them involve crucifixion. • There is no account of Horus being buried for three days. • Horus was not resurrected. There is no account of Horus coming out of the grave with the body he went in with. Some accounts have Horus/Osiris being brought back to life by Isis and then becoming the lord of the underworld. When compared side by side, Jesus and Horus bear little, if any, resemblance to one another. Jesus is also compared to Mithras by those claiming that Jesus Christ is a myth. All the above descriptions of Horus are applied to Mithras (e.g., born of a virgin, being crucified, rising in three days, etc.). But what does the Mithras myth actually say? • He was born out of a solid rock, not from any woman. • He battled first with the sun and then with a primeval bull, thought to be the first act of creation. Mithras killed the bull, which then became the ground of life for the human race. • Mithras’s birth was celebrated on December 25, along with winter solstice. • There is no mention of his being a great teacher. • There is no mention of Mithras having 12 disciples. The idea that Mithras had 12 disciples may have come from a mural in which Mithras is surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac. • Mithras had no bodily resurrection. Rather, when Mithras completed his earthly mission, he was taken to paradise in a chariot, alive and well. The early Christian writer Tertullian did write about Mithraic cultists re-enacting resurrection scenes, but this occurred well after New Testament times, so if any copycatting was done, it was Mithraism copying Christianity. More examples can be given of Krishna, Attis, Dionysus, and other mythological gods, but the result is the same. In the end, the historical Jesus portrayed in the Bible is unique. The alleged similarities of Jesus’ story to pagan myths are greatly exaggerated. Further, while tales of Horus, Mithras, and others pre-date Christianity, there is very little historical record of the pre-Christian beliefs of those religions. The vast majority of the earliest writings of these religions date from the third and fourth centuries A.D. To assume that the pre-Christian beliefs of these religions (of which there is no record) were identical to their post-Christian beliefs is naive. It is more logical to attribute any similarities between these religions and Christianity to the religions’ copying Christian teaching about Jesus. This leads us to the next area to examine: the logical fallacies committed by those claiming that Christianity borrowed from pagan mystery religions. We’ll consider two fallacies in particular: the fallacy of the false cause and the terminological fallacy. If one thing precedes another, some conclude that the first thing must have caused the second. This is the fallacy of the false cause. A rooster may crow before the sunrise every morning, but that does not mean the rooster causes the sun to rise. Even if pre-Christian accounts of mythological gods closely resembled Christ (and they do not), it does not mean they caused the Gospel writers to invent a false Jesus. Making such a claim is akin to saying the TV series Star Trekcaused the NASA Space Shuttle program. The terminological fallacy occurs when words are redefined to prove a point. For example, the Zeitgeist movie says that Horus “began his ministry,” but the word ministry is being redefined. Horus had no actual “ministry”—nothing like that of Christ’s ministry. Those claiming a link between Mithras and Jesus talk about the “baptism” that initiated prospects into the Mithras cult, but what was it actually? Mithraic priests would place initiates into a pit, suspend a bull over the pit, and slit the bull’s stomach, covering the initiates in blood and gore. Such a practice bears no resemblance whatsoever to Christian baptism—a person going under water (symbolizing the death of Christ) and then coming back out of the water (symbolizing Christ’s resurrection). But advocates of a mythological Jesus deceptively use the same term, “baptism,” to describe both rites in hopes of linking the two. This brings us to the subject of the truthfulness of the New Testament. No other work of antiquity has more evidence to its historical veracity than the New Testament. The New Testament has more writers (nine), better writers, and earlier writers than any other document from that era. Further, history testifies that these writers went to their deaths claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead. While some may die for a lie they think is true, no person dies for a lie he knows to be false. Think about it—if someone was about to crucify you upside down, as happened to the apostle Peter, and all you had to do to save your life was renounce a lie you had knowingly told, what would you do? In addition, history has shown that it takes at least two generations to pass before myth can enter a historical account. That’s because, as long as there are eyewitnesses to an event, errors can be refuted and mythical embellishments can be exposed. All the Gospels of the New Testament were written during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses, with some of Paul’s Epistles being written as early as A.D. 50. Paul directly appeals to contemporary eyewitnesses to verify his testimony (1 Corinthians 15:6). The New Testament attests to the fact that, in the first century, Jesus was not mistaken for any other god. When Paul preached in Athens, the elite thinkers of that city said, “‘He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,’—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean’” (Acts 17:18–20, NASB). Clearly, if Paul were simply rehashing stories of other gods, the Athenians would not have referred to his doctrine as a “new” and “strange” teaching. If dying-and-rising gods were plentiful in the first century, why, when the apostle Paul preached Jesus rising from the dead, did the Epicureans and Stoics not remark, “Ah, just like Horus and Mithras”? In conclusion, the claim that Jesus is a copy of mythological gods originated with authors whose works have been discounted by academia, contain logical fallacies, and cannot compare to the New Testament Gospels, which have withstood nearly 2,000 years of intense scrutiny. The alleged parallels between Jesus and other gods disappear when the original myths are examined. The Jesus-is-a-myth theory relies on selective descriptions, redefined words, and false assumptions. Jesus Christ is unique in history, with His voice rising above all false gods’ as He asks the question that ultimately determines a person’s eternal destiny: “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15).

TEST THE SPIRITS

Test the spirits
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).

In this verse believers are commanded to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God." This same command is echoed in other parts of Scripture as well. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 we find Paul exhorting the Christians to not "despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good."

These two passages are just a few of the many that warn Christians to test the message that people or spirits proclaim. This is true in all situations but most importantly when a person or spirit is claiming to speak for God. Christians are to be discerning hearers and readers of all messages. The reason for the admonition to "test the spirits" or "test all things" is that there are "many false prophets" or "wolves in sheep's clothing" that try to lead Christians astray. Sadly, there are many people who claim to speak for God who are presenting a false gospel that is powerless to save. Such errant teaching leaves people with a false hope of salvation and, in a way, inoculates them from the true message. People who are deceived into thinking everything is fine will be more resistant to the truth.

Second Corinthians 11:13-15 warns us that "such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds." So the reason for testing the spirits, for testing all religious teaching, is to see if it is truly from God or if it is a lie from Satan and his servants.

The test is to compare what is being taught with the clear teaching of the Bible. The Bible alone is the Word of God; it alone is inspired and inerrant. Therefore, the way to test the spirits is to see if what is being taught is in line with the clear teaching of Scripture. In Acts 17:10-11 the Berean Jews were commended because, after they heard the teachings of Paul and Silas, they "examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." The Bereans were called "noble" for doing so.

Testing the spirits means that one must know how to "examine the Scriptures." Rather than accept every teaching, discerning Christians diligently study the Scriptures. Then they know what the Bible says and therefore can "test all things and hold fast to what is true." In order to do this, a Christian must "be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). The Word of God is to be "a lamp" and "a light" to our path (Psalm 119:105). We must let its light shine on the teachings and doctrines of the day; the Bible alone is the standard by which all truth must be judged.