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A common claim by atheists and agnostics is that there is no good evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead.How should you respond?The Resurrection better explains the evidence than any alternative hypothesis.According to the Christian message, Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. He rose from the dead, his tomb was found empty, and he appeared to his disciples. Finally, he ascended into heaven in their presence.The pivotal claims here are that he died, rose from the dead, and ascend …

Everett Ferguson, a Protestant elder, biblical scholar, and Church historian, has written what’s perhaps the definitive work on the subject, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Ferguson spends hundreds of pages carefully combing through the evidence to expose the first five hundred years’ worth of Christians thought about baptism.His findings are neatly summarized on page 854: Although in developing the doctrine of baptism different authors ha …

He who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High . . . will be concerned with prophecies . . . and penetrate the subtleties of parables; he will seek out the hidden meanings of proverbs and be at home with the obscurities of parables. -Sirach 39:1-3Early in his exploration of the writings left by the Church Fathers, St. John Henry Newman discovered that the primitive Church approached evangelization and Christian initiation in a completely different way than we do. Newman saw that …

How can the Catholic Church teach that it’s possible for us to lose our salvation when Jesus says that his sheep always hear his voice and that no one can snatch us out of his hand?Recall that the Catechism warns of “offending God’s love” and “incurring punishment” (2090). To fear incurring the punishment of hell implies that a person can’t have absolute assurance of his salvation. There is a Bible passage that some Protestants use to mount a challenge—John 10:27-29: My sheep hear my voice, and …

After he was raised from the dead, Jesus made time for a heart-to-heart talk with Peter, who had denied Jesus three times on the night Jesus was arrested. Some of the disciples were out fishing on the Sea of Galilee. By a miracle, the risen Jesus filled their nets with fish, and: When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, …