Why Christianity is different | क्यों मसीही धर्म सभी धर्मो से अलग है

 How Christianity💓 is Different from other World Religion

I literally beg you to read this article, at least until the point where John Lennox gives his analogy about his wife and cooking(chukles👨👨). Because it is one of the best analogies I've ever heard in explaining the difference between Christianity and every other religion. let's go ahead and dive in in a society where we have access to many religions. 

How do we decide which one to follow? well I only know one way of deciding which of anything to believe is on the basis of evidence. You see there's a confusion about faith. Many people have accepted Dawkins definition of Faith as believing where there's no evidence, that's nonsense. faith is an ordinary word, it's not just a religious word. It's an ordinary word it means trust, and usually I suspect that all of you you don't trust either facts or people without having evidence or else you're a bit silly. And your bank manager🏦 won't trust you with a loan unless you provide evidence of collateral, isn't that true? we all know what evidence-based faith is but somehow the word has been spread around by Dawkins and Co that faith is a vice, because it's believing where there's no evidence that's nonsense. that is blind faith and it's very dangerous. it's the kind of faith that causes young men to fly planes into tall buildings. That's Blind Faith. 

Christianity is evidence-based listen to this. John at the end of his gospel he says, 

"Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name"

In other words here's the evidence on which faith is based, no. How do you decide between religions well there are several ways very briefly. Really quick before he gets into this. I think it's interesting that because I'm putting myself in the mindset of the maybe more skeptical viewer of this article. And I know that there's going to be this complaint, well that's John who is in this book called The Bible. So he's biased and illegitimate for that reason. But it's interesting to note that John when he wrote that didn't even know that there was going to be this you know canonized thing called the Bible that was going to be included with all of these other books and sort of put together in the way that it is today. he's just a a real person who experienced real events in history and is proclaiming the reality of those events to to the original audience. and I just think that's interesting too I think sometimes we can put the cart before the horse in terms of quickly discrediting a a eyewitness to events in history. so that being said let's. let's let him continue just think of the three major monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 

When it comes to Christ my Jewish friends and I have many of them believe that Christ died and did not rise. I as a Christian believe he died in Rose. my Muslim friends believe he didn't die. those three things cannot be simultaneously true. and therefore I simply invite people to investigate the evidence. and one of the most seminal experiences my life was sitting on the ground in a bright sunshine and Trinity College Cambridge, listening to one of the world's top lawyers actually an expert in Islamic law but a Christian and he was a queen's Council amongst many other things sir Norman Anderson. I think his book is still obtainable and he got up and says I want to do a forensic investigation of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. And the place was absolutely packed and I'll never forget it because that was the beginnings of understanding that there is a rational forensic defense of this. And we have to make up our own minds. but there's another method of approach. and it's this you see of every world you're in religion, I ask several questions. and when it comes to religions, I ask what is the shape of the religion? how is relationship with God determined. so let's just confine ourselves for a sake of illustration to God-fearing religions, not religions that don't really believe in God and so on. But God-fearing religions like the three I've mentioned. and what I discover by constant questioning of people is. that there's a general pattern that there's some sort of initiation right perhaps performed on the child perhaps performed on an adult and the person is on the way. and the descriptor the way is often used and I often draw this and I draw a little door you get in and a wavy line this is the way it goes up and down. and then there's a gate another big door at the far end and I draw the scales of Justice there. and at the other side of that gate is nirvana Heaven what have you Paradise. And I say as you're on the way, you various people that teach you and help you and so on. but even they cannot guarantee your acceptance into heaven or whatever at the end. Why? because you have to go through the final assessment a judgment. and why is that because the principle of the religion is Merit. and so you have to hope that with all the teaching you've got and all the experience that your good deeds will outweigh your bad things and you'll be accepted. and I find that by and large most people say that's exactly what we believe. and I say it's exactly not what I believe. and they say of course you do you're a Christian. You believe as well as I do that good works are important yes I say I believe they're important but they're not the basis of acceptance. and they say but how can that possibly be. well I say you think of that wavy line. and you're on that wavy line and you cannot by definition be sure of acceptance. It's like Birmingham University. You get in you do your A Levels wonderful you're in and then there are nice professors like me teaching you. but I can't guarantee you get a degree why? because you have to get through finals/ that's the day of judgment folks isn't it/ and many of you remember it. and that is what the vast majority of people think a religion is. and then I drop a little bomb into their minds. and I say but that isn't Christianity folks. in religion acceptance comes at the end on the basis of an assessment of Merit. well if that's religion Christianity is not a religion it's a relationship and the acceptance comes at the beginning. that's radical. and you know I believe in our country and in my original country many people have rejected Christianity, why? because they've never understood this. they don't realize that Christianity is not a merit-based religion. because Christ came into our world and he told us that if we listen to him and accepted his word and believed on him as the savior of the Son of God, we would have in that moment eternal life and we would not come into judgment, that's utterly Radical. so the acceptance comes at the beginning. and so ladies and gentlemen I don't give lectures like this and discussions like this to earn God's forgiveness I do them because I got it that's radical and you all understand that let me Ram this in with a little illustration can I do that only take a minute and then wait this is it then yeah you've heard you've heard about my wife well over 50 years ago I saw this Vision in Cambridge so I decided I'd like to marry her so I came to her one day and I had a little present wrapped up for her it was a cookbook so I said I'd like to marry you Sally now the condition would be this let's look at page 147. it's apple cake and here are the laws for making apple cake. Thou shalt take so much flour and thou shall take so much sugar and there you are now here's the way it's going to be if you keep these laws for the next 40 years. I think about accepting you if you don't you can go back to your mother why are you laughing that is what many of you sitting here think about God and you would never insult a fellow human being by basing a relationship of Merit you wouldn't until my marriage it's been good why because my wife is not cooking in order to gain my acceptance she likes cooking because she's got it and the wonderful thing about Christianity is precisely that it's not religion in that sense, it's a relationship. It's that sense of acknowledgment of our need for God of our own moral depravity of the fact that we are not holy in and of ourselves as he is he is perfect and perfectly holy and he wants to have relationship with us how do you square that Circle how can God relate to and unite himself to a species that is unsuitable for him based on based on the way that we have exercised our own free will and fallen and the way that collectively and individualistically every single person has fallen short of the glory of God and yet God still wants us the scriptures are riddled with this while we were sinners Christ died for us we were his enemies and he and he came for us that we were orphans that he adopted etc etc he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become their righteousness of God in Christ Jesus our lord it is it is literally littered throughout the entire New Testament this idea that we have radically fallen short that we're desperately in need at the same time we're desperately deeply loved by God in spite of that in spite of the fact that we're rebelling against him constantly and that he's made a way that his like he said it's not merit-based because if it were no one would ever be with God we cannot reach to the to the heights of what is necessary to become suitable creatures for him only through that beautiful atonement that took place on the cross only through God himself heroically living the life that we couldn't live dying the death that we deserved to die absorbing the Wrath that was that that was towards our sin and then conquering death and Rising again only only if that is true is their Hope For Humanity there is no other possible system or worldview or ideology or way that can square the circle of the fundamental problem of the Holiness of God and the depravity of man it is only on that Old Rugged Cross that the solution it has been offered that is actually legitimate no other claimant in religion in in any other religion whether it's Buddha Muhammad Etc. None of no one else is offering us the solution to the problem that we have. No one else has actually even claimed to do this thing that Jesus has claimed to do. And then I love at the beginning of this when Lenux says it is a matter of fact it is a matter of it is evidence-based I love that he goes there because that's exactly what the the ancient Church believed Paul says that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead then we're the most pitied of all because we've placed Our Hope in an illusion. But here's the good news today folks, he did he did rise from the dead and it's and it's it there is evidence of this in history, and there's the type of truth that that rings out with beauty as well. And it's filled with goodness as well it's that Hebrew idea of Shalom where those three pieces are united together, goodness, truth and beauty. Now I listened to a debate with this guy named Matt Delahanty, I believe is how you pronounce his last name. And he said there is no evidence there's just claims but there's no evidence and I realized through listening through that debate that what he means by evidence is specifically scientific evidence he wants the type of evidence that you can put under a microscope and say that's evidence but that's not the kind of evidence that exists in history history is is a different category of evidence and the writing of the New Testament is historic in nature and it is it is filled with the exact type of evidence that exists all throughout history so in other words if you don't accept Jesus you are literally throwing out Tiberius Caesar and really you're throwing out Alexander the Great you're throwing out like literally all of ancient history you're throwing out and you're saying we can't know anything it's all mythology. And you you're kind of putting your head under a rock in that context but if you don't preclude the supernatural possibility that that pierced into to history in the event of the Resurrection. If you don't preclude and say that definitely didn't happen because I don't believe in Supernatural explanations to historical events if you don't start with that premise and if you just look at it on its own face value and try to solve this historic riddle of we know that Christ was a dead point a and we know that he sorry we know he was alive at Point a we know he was dead at point B we know he was alive again at Point C based on countless eyewitnesses based on transformed lives based on Paul attesting to it James the brother of Jesus attesting to it in other words there's there's really really significant uh historic reasons to believe that it did happen if you don't preclude the supernatural element so all that being said I love what Linux is talking about here when it comes to the fact that Christianity is a matter of fact and that is so important it's not Blind Faith.

2. I love the fact that he really highlights the the single most distinctive factor between Christianity and everything else that's on the table which is that it is not merit-based actually it is merit-based I'll do a little planned words here it is Merit based on the work of Jesus and the offer that God has extended to humanity through the Cross of Christ is an offer made available to everyone regardless of what you've done bad that's the whole that's the big enchilada is it's not by works of righteousness that we have done but according to his Mercy that he saved us so the the call to action that I have to do in a video like this is is look to Jesus and and accept it literally accept the gift of Salvation that he's made available to you get yourself plugged into a local church find some real Christians um and and to tell them there's something inside side of me that longs for Union with God there's there's this heavenly longing I believe like we all sense at a deep level that we somehow belong to another world like we have longings we see beauty and we desire something more than it seems that this world can offer that is the god-shaped hole that the philosophers have talked about for centuries and there is a way that we can be with him forever there is a way he has made a way his name is Jesus and he's done it and he offers it to us and so with all that being said I hope you guys enjoyed this video I think that's probably one of the most beautiful analogies his cooking analogy that I've ever heard to explain the difference between Christianity and other religions I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did thanks for listening and I'll see you guys in the next article. Thanks