Youth Contest
On Wednesday nights I teach our junior high students a course in apologetics. It is often a loose curriculum that required group dialog. The aim of the class is for us to look at current events in their lives and show the relevancy of scripture to their situations. This often is a great illustration of the faithfulness of the gospel.
In our class we uses all forms of science. Some of our best discussions have been through geology and biology. Often we have a great springboard from Answers in Genesis. Lately we have begun a discussion on other religions. In these talks we have explored what they believe and how it compares with Christianity. We investigate their origins and talk about the teachings that are distinctive to each faith. Then we look at how each faith handles central topics to our faith such as creation, sin, who Jesus is, salvation, and the meaning of life. We also have had great discussion on life after death in relation to these beliefs.
So the other day as a means of testing their knowledge I offered $10 to the best written essay that explained how we can know Christianity is true. Here are the first and second placed entries.
The Truth of the Bible.
In the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
This is a verse debated upon by modern scientists and even some Christians. These modern scientists believe in evolution, the Big Bang, and the latest absurd theory - aliens.
Let’s knock the latest theory by stating if the aliens brought us here, who made the aliens?
Next let’s disprove evolution using zoology. The woodpecker has to peck through the tree to get some bugs to eat. But if he didn’t have the special metal like beak he would bend and break it. That brings me to something else about the woodpecker, if he hit the tree at such a fast rate like he does he should die of brain damage. But God knew that and gave him liquid that sloshes around his brain which is attached by one cord and his beak has shock absorbers of sorts. Now, if evolution was true and took all that time to evolve he would lose one thing at a time. This would eventually kill him before he could fully evolve.
Next, let’s disprove the Big Bang. Have you ever seen an ink and paper factory blow up? Then the ink and paper magically turns into a book. Well, if you have you’re either dreaming or lying. It’s impossible. Nothing on earth can make something out of nothing. God can though.
For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth. Genesis 7:17 a
Noah’s flood is a key part in how to prove Christianity. It is one of the most interesting and easiest to prove points.
Now take the flood for example. There are stories about a man in a boat escaping a flood in every single culture.
Another way to prove this is with a shovel. If you live anywhere on this earth underneath you are fossils.
I found one when I was ten with sea shell fossils and baby starfish right in my backyard. Now I live close to a lake but it was man made, so some how other than that lake it got there. Did you know that there are fossils at the peak of Mount Everest? There are, but how did they get all the way up there? There’s only one possible way they could, the flood. There was a mud slide fifty years ago. A cowboy died in it, how do we know? We found his fossilized foot and boot. And scientist’s carbon dating said it was a three million five hundred and fifty six year old fossil. Now a fifty year old fossil turned into a millions of year old fossil because of carbon dating.
But you, Bethlehem ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old from ancient times. Micah 5:2
For to us a child is born to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders. Isaiah 9:6
Some scientists believe Jesus doesn’t exist. But thanks to an ancient historian named Josephus, we no this is not true. He wrote down many accounts of people who saw and talked to Jesus. So, those scientists weren’t correct. There are also people who believe that the Old Testament was written after the New Testament. But yet again there was something that disproves that theory: The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls are scrolls found in 1948 in Qumran. A boy was throwing rocks into a cave when he heard breaking pottery. He had found the Dead Sea Scrolls which are authentic time period Old Testament scriptures. They tested it for age and found that it was around 500-1000 years older than the New Testament. So yet again, the scientists were wrong about the Bible. And then, there are others that believe that Jesus was real and the prophecies were true, but that he wasn’t God’s son. But there are written accounts of the guards of his tomb that say angels came and Jesus rose from the dead. But the Pharisees paid them to not tell anyone. So, Jesus was real, the prophecies about him were real, and the Bible account of the tomb is truth.
based on the fact of the matter. And cause of the truth of the flood, the faults of scientific theory, and the reality of the dead sea scrolls. I believe that the rest of the bible is true as well. My reasons for this being, if scientists have tried and failed to argue a few of the bible’s main points how many of the minor points do you think are true.
And for second place
Why Christianity is True
There are very many different reasons that prove Christianity is true. One is that there is a lot of evidence that proves Christianity is true. In fact, there has never been any evidence that backs evolution up. Since there never has, people all over the world have had to make stuff up to try to prove evolution is true. One made up story that evolution exists was the "Piltdown Man." The "Piltdown "Man" is a famous anthropological hoax which was said to be parts of an early human. There were fragments of a skull and jawbone found at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, England in 1912. It turned out that it was the lower jawbone of an orangutan and a fully developed modern human skull. There were about forty years between its discovery and its full exposure as a fake. The identity of who faked it is unknown but there are some suspects. Some of those suspects are: Charles Dawson, Pierre Diehard de Chardon, Arthur Keith, Martin A. C. Hinton, and many others. One thing that proves Christianity and the bible are true is that there has been fossils found on top of Mount Everest. For there to have been fossils of fish and many other animals to be found on top of Mount Everest, there would have had to be water up there at some time. The bible talks of a worldwide flood and that would be how fish got up there. Something else is that people try to say that the world is millions of years old, some even billions. That is impossible for multiple reasons. One reason is that the sun shrinks about five feet per hour, which is about 0.1% per century. If the Earth were millions or billions of years old, in the very beginning, the Earth would have been engulfed in the Sun. In conclusion Christianity and the bible are true.
