4/11/25

This week we posed the new question on our evangelism whiteboard as we asked who people think Jesus was. We provided four categories for people to mark: teacher, myth, crazy/liar, or something else. We weren't sure how well the campus would respond to the more upfront question involving Jesus, but we didn't seem to have any unusual engagement levels. We haven't yet had anyone mark an inherently negative portrayal of Jesus; however, under inspection, not everyone appreciated what He actually taught despite saying he was a teacher or equivalent. It should also be considered when seeing these responses which demographics will likely feel more comfortable engaging a question like this. We certainly engaged with non-believers and people of various religions with this question, but even those claiming the title of Christian didn't always correctly view Jesus and His teachings.

On Wednesday, Nick and I tried the question for the first time and had a few really good conversations as a result! One young lady that answered our question, I believe responding "teacher", expressed her current tension with Christianity. She shared that she grew up in a religious environment but has become uncertain of its validity as she has become exposed to religious critics on YouTube. We asked about specific beliefs that she felt were challenged by the videos, and we asked if she is open to hearing responses to the critic's claims. She was quite open and proceeded to ask and learn about the historicity and reliability of the biblical manuscripts as well as the overwhelming evidence that supports the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth thus verifying His claims of authority and deity. We gave her a copy of the Gospel of Mark and encouraged her to find out for herself, in the earliest manuscripts recording Jesus' life, what Jesus taught and did. We shared with her about a few wonderful books that help express the compelling evidence of the legitimacy of Christ, and we also gave her our contact information for if she ever wants to meet and dialogue about what she is reading. Amazingly enough, after giving her a copy of Mark's Gospel, a professor and historian at CSUF, named Mark, walked by our whiteboard. Nick had this professor while attending CSUF, and we had previously met with him in the week to talk and receive his new book about the societal deconstruction of Christian values in significant stages of human life and experience. As Mark passed by, Nick introduced him to this young lady and asked Mark to share, from a historical perspective, how reliable the biblical accounts are of the Gospel. Mark proceeded to confidently assure her that this is one of the most historically reliable texts and is clearly legitimate as long as you don't possess ignorant presuppositions that eliminate the possibility of supernatural events regardless of evidence. We were totally stoked that we could not only point her to helpful resources, encourage personal research, give her a Gospel account, respond to her concerns, but also hear the confident confirmation of reliability from a historian and professor at her college! We pray that she will be radically drawn into discipleship under Jesus as she continues to test and discover the reasoning that supports the truth of the biblical accounts!

Another person that we talked to was a Muslim young man who answered that Jesus was a prophet. So far, I like this question for engaging with Muslims as they recognize Jesus and fairly uniquely respond "prophet". I was very excited for us to talk with this young man as he seemed much more open than other Muslims that we've talked with in the past. The conversation led to Nick asking the young man what his favorite passage of the Quran was, and Nick shared his favorite verse from the Quran as well. The verse that Nick shared was from Surah 5 Ayat 47 which is expressed to be Allah telling Muhammad that the people of the Gospel (Christians) should judge by what Allah has revealed in it (the Gospels) and says that those who don't do this are the truly rebellious. This passage creates a unique issue for the Muslim as they are now put in a losing battle against their own Quran. There are two primary outcomes from this passage, 1) The Gospels condemn the Quran for its contradiction with the previous revelation of Allah, or 2) The Quran is wrong about the reliability of the Gospel the Christians had at that time (which is the same as we have now...). This is the dilemma that Muslims must try to address and that this young man was confronted with. I began a conversation with another person that came up to us, but it sounds like this young man was, at the very least, able to acknowledge the huge problem this created for his position (which is pretty rare in my experience). I pray that our conversation with this young man might open his mind to explore and consider taking his Quran seriously and rejecting Islam as a false revelation and demonic.

Another conversation that we had was with a young man named *Landon who responded that Jesus was a teacher. I asked *Landon what Jesus taught and began exploring the perception he had of Jesus and the truth of His teachings. *Landon was a very interesting conversation as he was hyper fixated on the idea that homosexuality isn't wrong because it doesn't hurt anyone. While I begged to differ, I pressed more into how he comes to conclusions of right and wrong. I was fairly perplexed by *Landon as I initially understood him to accept Jesus as a teacher but was now describing completely contrary ideas. *Landon appeared to be indecisively caught between a variety of hedonism (probably similar to Hedonic Calculus) and the Categorical Imperative as the defining measure of right and wrong. Very confusingly, these ideas don't really cooperate as one bases morality on the pain and pleasure of behaviors (possibly considering the effects on others as well), and the other states that we should act according to principles that we would find beneficial to universally apply as law. Hedonistic morality is based on what feels good, while the Categorical Imperative bases morality on what is right- even if it is not pleasurable. Certainly an odd combination, and as we continued talking, I further discovered how unstable and incoherent *Landon's moral base was. At some point in the conversation, *Landon acknowledged that God says that homosexuality is a sin, but *Landon simply disagrees with God's "unreasonable" judgement. I'm glad that we could finally nail down the true issue, but I'm terrified for the prideful condition of *Landon's heart. Our conversation with *Landon was pretty painful and unfortunately didn't end as promising as others, but the discomfort of our conversation can't compare to the discomfort awaiting those, who after receiving the knowledge of the truth, deliberately go on sinning (Heb 10:26-31). May God, in His great mercy, soften the heart of *Landon and free him from the deadly grips of pride which hold him in rebellion to God.

On Thursday, Nick and I were back at CSUF with the same question about who Jesus was, and, while different than our conversations on Wednesday, we had very interesting engagements. Here is the primary interaction that we had among various other conversations.

We had a group of four girls come up and answer our question, all indicating by their answers that they are Christians. We asked them about what they answered and continued to ask when they came to believe these things about Jesus. We found out that some of them were quite new to this belief and had been converted by one of the girls there. We followed up by asking if they were all part of a church together and they responded that they are in the RCW (Restored Church Worldwide). RCW is a cult on campus and is the result of a split in the ICC which is also a result of a split from the ICOC. Asking them what makes their church unique, they shared about the need to be water baptized in order to be saved. Classic. So, we asked them why they hold this belief, and they responded with the typical verses they use which we pressed them on. We provided examples of people receiving the Holy Spirit (which is the seal of salvation Eph. 1:13-14) before water baptism (Cornelius and his household Acts 10:44-48) as well as other biblical support of salvation by faith alone. We asked them what they thought of the passages that we shared with them, and they told us that they couldn't "teach" us because they are women and we are men, so they called over more of their members who knew more and were men. We posed the same challenges to the men, including one of the leaders, and reasoned with them for a fair amount of time until they were called away from talking with us by their leaders. I'm fascinated that they are so at peace leaving us unrebuked when, according to their false gospel, we are leading people to incomplete salvation by not teaching the necessity of water baptism. This was a very interesting encounter with the RCW as we had a relatively large group of them at our whiteboard at the same time over this issue. I pray that our time reasoning with these members would plant seeds of truth that grow into understanding and result in the leaving of this group and joining with a healthy church community.

On Friday, Nick, Viany, and I again posed the question of who Jesus was, and we had some great conversations! We talked to a number of people in our time on campus, but here are some of my highlights!

As strange as it was, we had yet another member of the RCW come and dialogue with us. We asked her about her response to the question, and before long we were talking about her understanding of her group's beliefs. Nick acknowledged aspects of the group that he respects but also pointed out the error of the group's doctrine and function. There was much more to the conversation, but it found its pinnacle in the soteriological (study of salvation) claims of water baptism participating in salvation. For this conversation, we went a slightly different route of reasoning which I am currently more drawn to. We began by reading in Ephesians 4:5 that there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. There is one baptism, but which baptism is it? Water? Fire? Holy Spirit? Nacho cheese? Sometimes they will correctly respond to this question that it must be the Holy Spirit baptism, but sometimes they respond with the water baptism. If they believe water is the "one baptism", there are a few places that we can go, but I find Mark 1:8 to work well. In this verse, John the Baptizer describes the water baptism that he brings as well as the Holy Spirit baptism that Jesus, who is greater than John, will bring. From here we ask which baptism, since there can only be one, is more significant. At this point, the hearer either recognizes the tension between their beliefs and the biblical teaching, or they become very dismissive and refuse to acknowledge the contradiction. From what I could tell, this young lady that we shared this with, while understandably hesitant, appeared open to studying this more in depth. I pray that this young lady would realize in her study the true Gospel and come to recognize that water baptism, while a wonderful symbolic expression, is not necessary for salvation.

Another conversation that I was able to have was with a young man named *Marvin who believed Jesus to be a moral teacher. I asked what Jesus taught, and *Marvin described a few moral principles centered around love and acceptance. I asked *Marvin whether or not he believed that everything Jesus taught was true, and he said that he didn't believe that Jesus was perfect because that would make Him nonexistent. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and after further inquiry, discovered that *Marvin wasn't too sure either. He seemed to believe that humans are in essence imperfect which would, if true, pose many issues. I asked *Marvin what he meant when he used the word "perfect", and we talked about different understanding of perfect as well as issues with the idea of humans being imperfect in essence. Viewing humans as imperfect in essence is an understandably easy mistake to make, but I think realizing the weight of this verbiage will help illuminate the unbiblical concepts in it. The essence of something describes the foundational and unremovable feature of the thing. For example, the essence of salt is strongly argued to be its feature of saltiness. If you remove this feature of salt, I'm not sure what you have left, but I certainly wouldn't call it salt. An example of what isn't essential is a car and its feature of mobility. While most cars possess mobility, it is not suddenly transformed into a new thing if it breaks down; it is still a car. All of this to say, if imperfection were an essential quality of humans, then Jesus was either imperfect or not human. Depending on your understanding of this word this could be confusing, but I am applying the word "perfect" in the sense of being whole, complete, and accomplishing its intended purpose. Jesus instructs us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48) and also calls us to be His disciples which means to become just like Him (Luke 6:40). There might be a more concise way of expressing this point, but the Bible expresses the perfection of Jesus in a way that transcends merely physical realities (as Jesus wouldn't lose His perfection by breaking a fingernail or even getting crucified), but rather portrays Jesus as the exact imprint of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3) which is not material (John 4:24). Anyway, back to the story... We continued to talk about who Jesus was and the point of Jesus teaching people, and *Marvin expressed his belief that Jesus came to help us become our best self. In some ways I agree with this idea, but I had a feeling *Marvin wasn't talking about self-denial and conformity to Christ's image. I asked *Marvin what Jesus taught that helps us become "our best self", but he wasn't really sure because he didn't think that could be definitively taught. In other words, *Marvin expressed that we come to discover our "best self" by the guidance of our feelings which indicate for us right and wrong. This was an odd statement coming from someone who previously asserted the imperfection of all people as an essential quality. I asked more questions regarding how we can know if we are improving as a person and if there is a goal that we are moving towards, but *Marvin was quite persistent in his relativistic and ungrounded morality. We talked more, and I eventually asked *Marvin what he thought the main message of Jesus was and why Jesus died on the cross. He replied that Jesus' main message was about love and acceptance, but he didn't know why Jesus died on the cross. I inquired on what he meant by love and acceptance, and he drew upon the image of a person and their dog. He expressed that the owner will always love their dog even when it misbehaves (which is debatable), and that mirrors the love God has for us. I decided to work with the analogy as best as I could, and I asked why the owner of the dog doesn't want it to run in the busy street and eat poisonous foods? *Marvin responded by saying that the owner loves the dog and doesn't want it to get hurt or die. I agreed with him, and told him that in the same way, God has created us with a design and desire for our wellbeing. Consequently, this results in guides and principles that God as established to bring us life. Not only does God say that there are good and bad behaviors in a more material sense, but He also says that wellbeing cannot be experienced apart from Him as relationship with God is essential to true life. I tried to stick with the analogy of the dog and owner and described the pain that the owner feels if the dog hates them and runs away from them. The owner desires for the dog to love them and receive the goodness that the owner can give them, but the dog chooses to reject the owner and run away. This analogy might even more closely align if you consider the impact of the behaviors that this dog has on the other dogs belonging to this owner. The owner knows how these dogs need to live and interact so that they can all experience the best and fullest life, but the dog who rejects that and hates the owner causes harm to the other dogs in its rebellion. Out of the owner's great love for his dogs and his desire for their wellbeing, he is must hate the evil that hurts them. Naturally, the owner will at some point, out of his great love for his dogs, remove the evil dogs who reject the good way of living that the owner has made known. In a similar way, God has provided us with guides and standards for how His people should live to experience the intended desire for wellbeing. God, in His great power, has allowed us the choice to live according to our design and produce life, or to reject this design and suffer destruction; however, God's great love for His creation necessitates His hate of the evil produced by those who reject the way of life that brings harm to those He loves. His love for His people remains unconditionally; however, this love drives Him to deliver His people from the oppression of rebellion and bring an end to those who desire to cause it. I talked some more with *Marvin, and I asked him why he thought Jesus had to die on the cross? He responded honestly and told me that he didn't know. I asked him if he wanted to know and if I could share with him why I think Jesus died on the cross, which he invited me to do. I shared with *Marvin a brief description of the biblical narrative that spans from the creation and wholistic peace (Genesis 1:31), to the destruction of our rebellion (Romans 5:12; Isaiah 59:2), to the prophesied Messiah who would defeat death and crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 9:6–7; Micah 5:2). I expressed that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection provided many things including a perfect and eternal sacrifice for our sin (Hebrews 10:14; 1 Peter 2:24; Romans 3:25), triumph over the powers of death (1 Corinthians 15:55–57; Hebrews 2:14–15; Colossians 2:15), and a perfect example of how we were designed to live (Philippians 2:5–8; 1 John 2:6; John 13:15). I asked *Marvin what he thought about what I had shared, and it sounded like, based on his response, that he is more comfortable believing the nuanced and foundationless ideas provided in eastern religion similar to Buddhism. We had a very interesting conversation, and I pray that God would grow the seed that was sown and draw *Marvin into an understanding of the true life available through Christ!