“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
Alice and I were flying back from a conference in New York a few years ago, and the lady across the aisle was flipping through index cards, so I asked her what she was doing.
“I’m learning to speak German,” she said. “My son married a German woman and we’re going over to Germany soon for her ordination as a Lutheran pastor.”
She was more than willing to talk, so I asked about her own background and found out she was raised Southern Baptist but had since become a Unitarian.
“As I grew intellectually I realized that all religions were equally sincere and therefore, equally true,” she explained.
So I asked her about the resurrection, and she said she wasn’t sure about it and didn’t know if anyone could be. I gave her a couple of historical arguments for Jesus’ resurrection and then asked her to rethink her premise of “sincerity” being the proof of truth. We know that in mathematics one plus one equals two and that it doesn’t matter how sincerely someone may think it’s three – there’s only one right answer. Truth, by definition, is narrow. If Jesus rose from the dead then He was who He said He was, and if so, He is the only way to God.
At this point the man in front of me turned around and asked me to keep my voice down because it was “projecting.” I finished talking with the woman, trying to keep my voice down, by sharing C.S. Lewis’ Liar, lunatic, or Lord argument. We don’t have the intellectual option of believing Jesus was a good man, or even a great prophet. Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh so He was either a liar, He knew He was just a man so lied about being God; a lunatic, He really thought He was God but wasn’t; or He was and is Lord of all.
At this we finished our conversation and after a minute of silence, I felt a tug on my sleeve from the man directly behind me. When I turned around, he told me he wished that our conversation had lasted for two more hours.
Some believe, some don’t believe, and some aren’t sure what they believe. But the truth stands on its own regardless of how people react to it. The sun still exists on a cloudy day whether we believe in it or not!
One Thing 