“My husband believes in God, but he doesn’t know about this ‘Jesus’ business,” the young German housewife explained.
Her husband, Anton, was a doctoral student in math at the University of Alabama, who called God “the great physicist in the sky.” My husband and I got to know this couple better and shared with them more about this Jesus business, especially the part about details of His life being predicted hundreds of years beforehand. Faith in the Bible and in Christ followed; it was not a blind faith but a logical faith that a brilliant mind could track.
I see 4 reasons to emphasize the prophecies about Jesus and their fulfillment:
(1) They build faith in a skeptical mind.
(2) The early disciples did it.
(3) Believers increase their hope in His second-coming promises since the ones about His first coming were so faithfully kept. We need this hope to keep pure and not grieve as others when people precede us to heaven.
(4) Jesus did it Himself. (Photo above, Godula, wife of Anton, both have now preceded us to heaven! Photo used by permission of their daughter.)
The above story of Anton is one of many examples of an inquiring mind becoming trustful of the Bible. In our day, Lee Stroebel and John McDowell are two other well-known examples.
In the book of Acts, the early disciples spoke of Jesus as the Messiah (and proved it scripturally) as often as they shared about His resurrection.
HIS MESSIAHSHIP HIS RESURRECTION
Acts 2:30-36 Acts 1:3
3:18-24 2:24, 30-33
4:26 3:15
5:42 4:1-2, 10, 33
8:5, 35-37 5:30-32
9:20, 22, 27, 29 10:40-41, 43
10:43 13:30-39
13:23-41 17:3-4, 18, 31-32
17:2-3, 11 23:6-8
18:5, 28 24:15, 21
24:14 25:19
26:6-7, 22-27 26:8, 23
28:20, 23 28:31
Peter knows that he is facing martyrdom soon in II Peter. He could have drawn strength to face eternity with all his tremendous memories of three years with Jesus, even a transfiguration scene on a mountaintop. But he refers believers to a “more sure word of prophecy,” the word of the prophets. (II Peter 1:17-21) We, too, can bank on the promises of the prophets and of the great prophet Jesus and know that we have a bright future ahead.
In Luke 24, Jesus does not leave the disciples with just some awesome memories of seeing Him in His resurrection form. Memories fade. He carefully explains the scriptures to them on the road to Emmaus and also in another gathering in the same chapter. Trials that lay ahead for these early Christian pioneers would require the bedrock of Bible promises and truth to undergird them. They were taught that heaven and earth would pass away, but His word would not pass away. (Mark 13:31)