I don’t remember when I developed zero tolerance for disrespectful utterances against the Almighty God, the Bible, or the church. It must have been when I was only two years into my Christian life, many years ago.
Profane pamphlet
A pamphlet doing the rounds at our workplace at that time contained such blasphemous and shocking content that I couldn’t ignore it.
According to the pamphlet, the Lord Jesus did not die on the cross as the Bible reports.
Rather, he went into a coma when he was crucified, woke up later to join his disciples, and went to India, where he married and had children!
Such a wicked twist of the biblical account was not just ridiculous but profane and disrespectful.
Write this about another world religious body and your life could be in danger.
But this was Christianity, the peaceful way of life of believers.
It’s funny that people still peddle the lies the Jewish leaders tried to push down the throats of the gullible.
They bribed the soldiers who witnessed the resurrection to broadcast the falsehood that his disciples stole him from the tomb while they slept.
Of course, the lie didn’t wash, because the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples and hundreds of others who became eyewitnesses of history’s most spectacular phenomenon.
Even now, Jesus is still appearing to people who invite him into their lives.
Rejoinder
I was then a young and immature believer when I read that blasphemous pamphlet, but I couldn’t keep silent over it.
So I wrote a rejoinder and printed it on A4 sheets, debunking the fabrications and stating the truth in the Gospel narratives; then I enthusiastically distributed my leaflet to whom it might concern.
That action probably unearthed in me what the Greeks call “apologia” or apologetics, which is reasoned defence and justification for our faith.
The aim is to demonstrate Christian truth as opposed to the lies that some people love to circulate.
Malicious comments
My talk this weekend is not even about the resurrection, but about vicious comments I have heard in recent times that have triggered my zero tolerance for sacrilegious utterances.
Commenting on the misplaced prophecies surrounding politics in this country, one radio panellist said bluntly, “To me, the Bible is a scam!” Just like that! And he said it with such spiteful force that you could feel the vibration of his words against the airwaves.
Then he followed his darkened comments with more unsavoury proclamations, spewing out all kinds of unprintable attacks on Christianity and the church, referring to it with expressions that would shock even a die-hard atheist.
Therefore, he said, rather than go to church, he would go jogging, because while church-going was a waste of time, jogging would strengthen his physical body! And who made that body?
The radio host had only asked him what he made of prophets whose prophecies missed their predictions.
But, as if possessed by a spirit and as if he had been waiting for this moment, the man unleashed his deep-seated profanity against Christianity.
He disregarded the Bible as false and unreliable, and by extension, he slighted all who adhere to the Holy Scriptures as lacking substance.
Ever since the church was founded by the Lord Jesus Christ over two thousand years ago, it has endured all kinds of verbal assault; yet nothing, not even Satan himself with all his devious schemes, can dent the church or the Bible’s fame, power, and authority.
Global influence
Even if you despise the divine message of the Bible because of your atheistic inclination, you can never discount its global influence and impact.
And you lower your own pedigree when you underrate the 2.6 billion Christians worldwide who live by the Bible.
Studied as an academic textbook, the Bible contains more than enough material on subjects from Archaeology to Zoology beyond post-tertiary levels.
Read as a motivational book, the Bible contains more ideas on entrepreneurship than you can imagine.
For example, we learn integrity, delegation, and leadership succession from the Bible.
Used as a judicial document, the Bible surpasses all law and legal enactments that have influenced time-tested constitutions of the world, including the constitutions of Ghana.
It is established that the Bible is the most cited source of various democracies worldwide.
Even other religions make references to the Bible secretly or openly.
About governance, the concepts of separation of powers, human dignity, rights, the rule of law, and all forms of ethics are based on biblical foundations.
The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill that we are trying to pass into law, for example, has its structures on biblical moral standards.
So when one small man utters a sacrilegious vibe against a mighty oak like the Bible due to anger he has incubated in his heart for a long time, we can only forgive him, saying, “Lord, forgive him, for he knows not what he is saying!”
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh
