- Christianity was persecutedfrom it's beginning,
with thousands of its earliestconverts killed or jailed.
So, what made it so compellingthat these early disciples
were willing to die for it?
In his new book, "Jesus is Risen,"
David Limbaugh gives some reasons.
Like the fact that the disciples
preached Jesus' resurrectionright from the very start.
That it's worst persecutor, Paul,
became it's most fiery advocate.
And that this new religionwelcomed all mankind.
Some say that the idea ofJesus' resurrection and divinity
was added decades later,
that the early apostles andbelievers didn't believe that.
Tell me about that.
- That's absurd on its face.
Paul wrote, in one of his letters,
"if Jesus Christ wasn'tcrucified, dead and buried,
"and then resurrected in his body,
"then Christians arethe most to be pitied,
"because we've lived allour lives devoted to Christ,
"and it's all a myth."
His bodily resurrection iscentral to Christianity.
His coming in history, hisintervening in history,
as God and human, and dyingand then being resurrected.
And of course they believedit from the very first,
which is why there is so much controversy,
one of the main reasonsthere was controversy.
The truth is, the Gospel wasalways as the Gospel is today.
- I know, at the start,
that they were mostly preaching to Jews,
but tell us about the firstgentile that was converted.
- Cornelius was a Roman centurion
who wasn't steeped in the Jewish law.
And he was kinda, as acold call, so to speak.
But God gave Peter a vision,
a carpet coming down with unclean animals,
and "eat these" God said,the visitor, the angel,
and Peter's like "I can't eatthose, those are unclean."
So, then he arranges for Cornelius,
who also had a vision, to meet.
And, to make a long story short.
And Peter ends up convertingCornelius and his family,
through faith in Jesus Christ.
There's no one different, allare the same under Christ.
No Jew, no gentile, no Greek,no slave, no free person.
We're all one in Christianity.
And that vision of the unclean animals
was to let him know Godmakes nothing unclean.
This is a new covenant now;we're all able to come together
and be saved through Jesus Christ.
- Your book is about the book of Acts
and the first six letters that Paul wrote.
Do you find in there a messagethat anybody is so evil,
so unreachable, so bad,that they cannot be saved?
- No, Paul was an Orthodox Jew,
and he was the mostunlikely person to be saved,
but he was confronted byChrist on the Damascus road,
and converted personally by Christ.
"Why are you persecuting me?"
Not, "why are you persecuting the church?"
Persecution of the church waspersecution of Jesus Christ.
And he personalized it for Paul.
And so he converted Paulto be the lead evangelist
to the gentiles,
but he chose Paul becausehe was so passionate
and such an ardent, sincereperson, and so relentless.
And so, he took and he spread the Gospel,
forming, planting all these churches.
But no, no one is beyondthe love of Jesus Christ,
unless they placethemselves away from him,
unless they outright rebel and reject him.
But that's a matter of volition.
I believe in free will.
But he has opened himself up to anyone.
"Knock, and I'll open the door.
"Seek, and you shall find."
- Could you say Paul'smost effective techniques
and arguments for makingconverts to the faith,
what would you say was his best?
- His main thing was, he wouldtake people as he found them.
He would not sweat the small stuff.
Around Jews he wouldadopt Jewish practices.
But he would never betray his faith.
Whatever made people comfortable,so he could evangelize.
It's kind of like Ravi Zacharias says,
"know the questioner aswell as the question."
Understand who you're talking to.
Don't be a skull, don't be a legalist.
Try to relate to them on their own terms,
and then give them the truthabout the God of the universe,
the Savior, Jesus Christ.
Because that's a universallanguage we can all understand
regardless of our cultures.
- Alright, thank you David.
We've been talking with David Limbaugh,
author of "Jesus is Risen:Paul and the Early Church."
