Kentucky Wildcats, Mega Millions, and Jesus

April 2, 2012

I’m pulling out an old posting today from a few years back, but just changed the information to fit with this years winner, the Kentucky Wildcats.

Well congratulations to Kentucky for winning their 8th national championship in basketball.  How did you do, our your brackets this year? Did you enter into any contests or competitions with friends? A few of the other youth pastors and I had a group and had a good time talking smack to each other. This year I picked 41 out of 63 possible games, had 3 of the final 4 teams in my bracket and picked Kentucky to win it all.  Pretty stupid considering that I didn’t watch a single college basketball came all season.

Every time March Madness rolls around I can’t help but to think about Jesus and the prophecies in the Bible. There is a lesson to be learned in the odds and mathematics of both the NCAA tournament and with Jesus fulfilling prophecy Here’s what I mean:

According to BookofOdds.com the odds of picking every single game in the tournament correctly are 1 to 35,360,000,000.  This is why some of the companies, like Dr Pepper and Yahoo.com, can afford to create excitement by offering a 1 Million Dollar prize if you enter and pick every single game correctly. It’s all about the odds for them and the money involved.  Playing the lottery has better odds in most cases.  Recently the MegaMillions Lottery had reached the highest it had ever been at an estimated 640 million dollars.   According to the official odds you had a better chance at winning the Mega Millions lottery because the odds at picking it were 1 to 175,000,000.  Much less than the NCAA brackets.

Well now that brings us to Jesus and the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. There are over 60 prophecies about this promised Messiah and details of His birth, birthplace, life, death, teachings, His nature, His resurrection, and events after burial, just to name a few. All these are documented in Josh McDowell’s foundational book called “Evidence That Demands A Verdict” or His updated version “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict” (chapter 8, pages 164-202) Josh McDowell was an atheist who set out to disprove Christianity and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but as he searched for answers he found out through his discoveries that indeed there was one true living God.

In McDowell’s reasearch he brings into the light the work of Peter Stoner in his book Science Speaks. Stoner does a great job at the probability and statistical mathematics of Jesus and fulfilled prophecy. Stoner took just 8 of the probabilities of the Jewish Messiah and figured out the odds at which Jesus or anyone would fulfill them. He came up with a rather large number. The odds were 1 in 10 to the 17 power. That would be a 1 with 17 zero’s after it. [1,00,000,000,000,000,000 ] Stoner gives a great visual example of that number, because it is so big and hard for us to wrap our minds around. Imagine that you fill the entire state of Texas with Silver Dollars 2 feet high. You mark one Dollar with an “X” and then blindfold a man and have him take one guess and find the one dollar with a “X” on it. Keep in mind that this is only 8 of the prophecies and not the entire lot. Stoner’s research has been examined for years now and the mathematics in his work has been found to be solid.

Well, where do we go from here? Let me just encourage you whether you are a believer or not, to take a closer look at the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. I am quiet sure you will see something different with Him than with any other religious leader in the world. There is a difference with Jesus because He was who He claimed to be, God.

As always your comments, questions, snide remarks are welcome.

1 Comment | General Apologetics, Jesus, science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Weldon

Jesus and March Madness

April 7, 2010

Well congratulations to Duke and UConn for their wins in the NCAA tournaments this year.  I enjoyed watching some of the games this year, especially Uconn and Mia Moore.  What they have set as far as records is nothing short of amazing.   Our Pastor, a former collegiate player, has shown me where the women’s skill sets and techniques are so much better than the mens.  After watching a few of the games I must agree with him.

How did you do, our your brackets this year?  Did you enter into any contests or competitions with friends?  A few of the other youth pastors and I had a group and had a good time talking smack to each other.  I did how I expected to do, not any where close to winning.

Every time March Madness roles around  I can’t help but to think about Jesus and the prophecies in the Bible.  There is a lesson to be learned in the odds and mathematics of both the NCAA tournament and with Jesus fulfilling prophecy  Here’s what I mean:

According to BookofOdds.com the odds of picking every single game in the tournament correctly are 1 to 35,360,000,000.  Playing the lottery has better odds in most cases.  This is why some of the companies, like Dr Pepper and Yahoo.com,  can afford to create excitement by offering a 1 Million Dollar prize if you enter and pick every single game correctly.  It’s all about the odds for them and the money involved.

Well now that brings us to Jesus and the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.  There are over 60 prophecies about this promised Messiah and details of His birth, birthplace, life, death, teachings, His nature, His resurrection, and events after burial, just to name a few.  All these are documented in Josh McDowell’s foundational book called “Evidence That Demands A Verdict” or His updated version “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict”  (chapter 8, pages 164-202)   Josh McDowell was a atheist who set out to disprove Christianity and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but as he searched for answers he found out through his discoveries that indeed there was one true living God.

In McDowell’s reasearch he brings into the light the work of Peter Stoner in his book Science Speaks.  Stoner does a great job at the probability and statistical mathematics of Jesus and fulfilled prophecy.  Stoner took just 8 of the probabilities of the Jewish Messiah and figured out the odds at which Jesus or anyone would fulfill them.  He came up with a rather large number.  The odds were 1 in 10 to the 17 power.  That would be a 1 with 17 zero’s after it.  [1,00,000,000,000,000,000 ]  Stoner gives a great visual example of that number, because it is so big and hard for us to wrap our minds around.  Imagine that you fill the entire state of Texas with Silver Dollars 2 feet high.  You mark one Dollar with an “X” and then blindfold a man and have him take one guess and find the one dollar with a “X” on it.  Keep in mind that this is only 8 of the prophecies and not the entire lot.  Stoner’s research has been examined for years now and the mathematics in his work has been found to be solid.

Well, where do we go from here?  Let me just encourage you whether you are a believer or not, to take a closer look at the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.  I am quiet sure you will see something different with Him than with any other religious leader in the world.  There is a difference with Jesus because He was who He claimed to be, God.

As always your comments, questions, snide remarks are welcome.

Leave a Comment » | In The News, Religous and Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Weldon

Project Isaac Update

February 22, 2010

I thought I would just leave a quick post about project Isaac and something that God had shown to me last week and this earlier today.  It’s almost the end of February and for the longest time I had no idea why God put the idea on my heart.  Sometimes I asked myself was it just a pointless idea that I thought I would challenge myself to complete?  Until last week I might have answered yes, but then God opened my eyes to something and allowed me to see a little into the past and into the future with the respect of Facebook.  Without going into personal details here is some of what the Lord showed me.

I had allowed my desire and passion for relationship with the youth and others to get to me to a place where I thought I had to be constantly connected to them via, Facebook, texting, and other ways and had put way to much emphases on the relationship with the students as well as giving them the truth of God’s word.  A good relationship with the students you minister to is ok, but you can’t allow it to get out of balance. 

In his book, The Disconnected Generation,  Josh McDowell has a formula in his research that says;

Rules + Relationship = Positive Results.

This relational formula works for parents, teachers and ministers.  This can be also seen in the area of teaching students God’s word.  I think a similar formula would be something like the following;

 Teaching the Word of God + Relationship = Positive Results.

You need both to create that hunger and thirst for a growing relationship with God, but if you have them out of balance you don’t get the same results.  If you have too much relationship it can lead to a too comfortable relationship where you lose some of your teachable position.  If you keep the proper distance, you can maintain that in a good way.  If you have too much Teaching of the Word of God and hardly any relationship then the students can often lack the feeling of affirmation and other feelings that you as the student pastor care for them as a student.  The old saying goes “They don’t care what you know, until they know how much you care.” 

In my recent past I have made some mistakes in this area and I think that God has allowed me to see again through Project Isaac the folly of my past mistakes.  I have recognized before that i must keep a good balance between my relationship with the students I teach and continue to preach the Word to them week in and week out.  I have a big burden upon me about the way I had interacted with some students this past fall and how I treated them.  I will have to answer to God for my actions with them and I hope that maybe some day I might get the opportunity to make it right with them and sit down and talk with them again about what I have learned.  I only hope that my actions don’t have lasting consequences for those I may have hurt.  That would be the worst fear knowing that I pushed someone away from the Lord.

So in closing, after the month is over you can expect me to not to be back on Facebook as often as I was before and the same goes for texting, emailing, Instant Messaging, Faxing or any other new way they come up with in the future.

1 Comment | Leadership, Student Ministry | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Weldon

Intolerance, a good thing?

January 30, 2010

"You're Intolerant!"

With all the latest current events between the Senate race with Scott Brown, the political partisanship between the left and the right and the recent controversy over the Tim Tebow Pro-Life commercial airing during the Superbowl.  The word “intolerance” has come to mind more than once over the last week.  Most of the time it is meant to hurt someone who believes differently (than they do) on an issue or conviction. 

Anytime I hear the word intolerance I think about a shirt that I have seen produced by Josh McDowell, a Christian apologist.  On the front it said “Intolerance is Great” and on the back it had a list of famous people and what they were intolerant of.  I can only remember a few of the names.  Mother Teresa was intolerant of Poverty, Gandhi  was intolerant of hungry, Martin Luther King Jr was intolerant of racism, and at the end it said Jesus was intolerant of sin.    Most people view intolerance as a bad thing, but as you can see that is not always the case. 

So next time someone calls you intolerant be sure to thank them and then you know you have stuck to your beliefs and don’t flip-flopped in your convictions and beliefs.  I’m trying to keep these blogs shorter and easy to read, so feel free to add your comments and what you are intolerant of.

2 Comments | In The News, Religous and Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Weldon