Tag: Apologetics

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Responding to God’s Presence and Revelation

Summary of my sermon, based on Luke 11:24-36. Preached at Greenhills Christian Fellowship Toronto on Resurrection Sunday – April 20, 2025.

Despite all the miracles Jesus performed—like casting out demons—there were still some who accused him of working with Satan, or Beelzebul. Others weren’t satisfied and kept asking for more signs to prove he was the Messiah. These responses mirror what we see in our world today. Some people see Jesus as just one of many spiritual options. Others want to believe—but only on their own terms, when their personal standards of “proof” are met. But Jesus addresses both responses with clarity and boldness, especially when he talks about the “sign of Jonah.”

Jesus makes it clear that this generation’s demand for signs is evil. They weren’t seeking the truth—they were shifting the goalposts, never satisfied. So he gives them one sign and one sign only: the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish before being spit back out, Jesus would be buried for three days before rising again. This, he says, is the ultimate sign that he is who he claims to be.

And of course, we know what happened. Jesus was crucified, buried, and on the third day, he rose again. That’s the heart of the Gospel we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday. That’s the sign he gave—a supernatural event that no amount of skeptical reasoning can erase. And yet, the world still tries. From the earliest days, people have come up with alternative theories: maybe Jesus’ body was stolen, maybe it was a mass hallucination, maybe he never really died. But none of those explanations hold up. Roman soldiers knew how to execute. Hallucinations don’t appear to 500 people at once. And no one dies for something they know is a lie—yet that’s what happened to many of Jesus’ followers.

So what’s really going on with these objections? It’s not about evidence. It’s about the heart. People reject the resurrection not because it’s unbelievable, but because they don’t want to believe. And that’s why Jesus brings up the Queen of Sheba and the people of Nineveh. They responded to far less than what Jesus offered. The Queen of Sheba traveled great distances just to hear Solomon’s wisdom—and ended up praising Yahweh. The Ninevites repented at Jonah’s preaching, even though Jonah was reluctant and flawed. And yet Jesus, who is greater than Solomon and Jonah, stood before them—and they refused him.

So Jesus draws the line. He is the light, and his message is like a lamp. It’s not meant to be hidden—it’s meant to shine, to give light to all who will receive it. And those who open their eyes to that light will be full of it—full of truth, full of life. But those who keep their eyes shut, who refuse to believe unless every demand is met, will remain in darkness.

This is where Jesus lands the point. Be careful that the light in you isn’t actually darkness. The resurrection isn’t just a nice idea or a hopeful story—it’s the sign. The one sign we’re given. And the proper response isn’t more demands, more debate, more delay. The proper response is faith. Receive the message. Accept the light. And let it fill you.

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Sweeter Than Honey: Delighting in God’s Word

Summary of my sermon, based on Psalm 19-7-11. Preached at Greenhills Christian Fellowship Peel on March 30, 2025.

Wes Huff’s appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast earlier this year was nothing short of remarkable. A Ph.D. student at Wycliffe College and part of Apologetics Canada, Wes went toe-to-toe with Joe Rogan for three hours, defending the Christian faith and clearly articulating the Gospel to an audience of millions. It’s hard to grasp the sheer size of that platform—over six million views on YouTube alone, and similar numbers on Spotify. To put it in perspective, that’s more than a hundred Skydomes full of people, all hearing a clear, thoughtful, and respectful explanation of the Christian faith. In a time when Christians have been increasingly mocked in the public square—like when Richard Dawkins told a crowd to “mock them, ridicule them, in public”—this was a powerful moment.

What made the interview even more compelling was the focus on one of the most commonly criticized aspects of Christianity: the reliability of the Bible. Critics like Dawkins often argue that the Bible can’t be trusted because we don’t have the original manuscripts and because the copies we do have contain hundreds of thousands of “errors.” That’s not something we need to deny—it’s true. We don’t have the originals. What we have are thousands of copies, and among those are an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 textual variants. That might sound alarming until you understand what those variants actually are and why they exist.

The truth is, most of those differences are tiny—spelling errors, word order changes, skipped or duplicated words. Back then, everything was copied by hand. Imagine trying to copy the entire Gospel of Mark by hand without making a single mistake. You’d probably miss a word or two. And yet, despite all that, none of these variants impact the core doctrines of our faith. The teachings about Jesus, the nature of God, salvation, and the Church remain absolutely intact. Even the few major variants—like the debated ending of Mark’s Gospel—are well documented and clearly noted in most Bibles today. They’re not hidden, and they don’t undermine the central truths of Christianity.

And here’s where things get even more fascinating. The reason we have so many variants is because we have so many manuscripts. Thousands of them. The New Testament is, by far, the best-attested work of ancient literature in human history. We have around 5,800 Greek manuscripts, and if you include Latin and other translations, that number climbs to about 24,000. By comparison, we have only 210 copies of Plato’s works, with the oldest one dating 1,300 years after the original was written. Homer’s Iliad has about 1,700 copies, and the oldest is from 400 years after the original. But with the New Testament, the earliest manuscript fragment—called P52—is from just 30 years after the Gospel of John was written. That’s extraordinary.

Wes Huff actually gave Joe Rogan a replica of P52 during the interview. It’s just a small scrap of papyrus with a few lines from John’s Gospel, but it’s hugely important because it helps scholars confirm the accuracy of other, later manuscripts. Think of it like polling a few thousand people to predict an election—the sample is small, but if it matches the broader data, you can trust the results. P52 isn’t alone, either. We have other early fragments like P104, a piece of Matthew’s Gospel dated to around 150 AD. Then there’s the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest complete New Testament we have, from around 330 AD. Even that is only about 240 years removed from the originals, which is still incredibly close by ancient standards.

But all this evidence—the variants, the sheer volume of manuscripts, the early dating—it doesn’t just prove reliability. It also shows just how valued the Bible was. Psalm 19:7–8 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul… the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart… the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” That’s why there were so many copies. People wanted to read the Scriptures. They used them, shared them, traveled with them. Just like my old, worn-out Bible I carried with me during a summer at Capernwray Harbour—eventually it just fell apart from use. That’s likely what happened to the original writings of Paul, Peter, and the rest. They were passed around so much, used so heavily, they simply didn’t survive. But before they wore out, they were copied again and again.

Even Paul encouraged this. In Colossians 4:16, he tells the church, “Have this letter read also in the church of the Laodiceans.” The Word was meant to be shared. And God, in His wisdom, chose to preserve His Word not through a single pristine original locked away in a vault, but through an abundance of handwritten manuscripts, lovingly copied and spread across the ancient world. That’s not a weakness—it’s a miracle.