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The Challenge of Christ – An Exposition of John 10:38

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Have you ever tried to look at something without any preconceived notions? Have you ever sought to make your mind as clean slate, as clean as you could possibly make it, before considering an idea? It’s not an easy thing to do, perhaps in the strictest sense of the word, it is, indeed, impossible. Perhaps the best we can do is read or listen to another point of view, while trying to put oneself in that one’s shoes, and try to understand why that one thinks the way he does. Don’t know for sure, but perhaps this is the best any of us can do while considering a position we don’t support, or perhaps don’t understand.

I think that may be how Jesus was approaching the subject of folks believing or disbelieving he was the Messiah (John 10:24-25). Sometimes I want to make the enemies of Jesus wicked and evil, but perhaps that isn’t true, at least not near the beginning of his ministry. Maybe they simply had a worldview of the Messiah, how and when he would come, and what things he would teach and do etc. Perhaps, that’s what was troubling them. Jesus simply wasn’t saying the things he was expected to say. He didn’t agree with their doctrines. He even accused them of holding to the doctrines of men and causing folks to be disobedient to God. How, then, could Jesus (or the Gospel) reach folks like I have just describe? How could honest folks, but folks who were deluded, find and understand the truth?

This is the purpose of this series of studies. Perhaps the way to accept the unexpected, understand a strange idea and make certain we don’t believe in doctrines of men, is to take up the Challenge of Christ. Remember, he staked his Messianic identity (John 10:24-25) upon what he was about to say. Jesus told his listeners (paraphrased):

don’t believe me for my words’ sake (John 10:37). Rather, believe me for my works’ sake. If I don’t **DO** the works the Father had sent me to do, DON’T BELIEVE ME – Reject me; I’m not the Messiah – But, if I **DO THE WORKS** my father has sent me to do, believe the works, so that you can come to believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me (John 10:38).

Basically, this is the Challenge of Christ!

It is up to us to take what Jesus said back in the first century AD and apply it to our faith, to how we understand the Gospel, to what we accept as true doctrine. Is Jesus the Messiah or not? If he is, then we must believe what he said he would do; we must believe how he said he would do it; and we must believe when he said he would do the thing in question. Otherwise, if we believe he is the Messiah but disbelieve what he said and did, then our faith is based upon our own subjective opinion, not upon objective fact. Under the former circumstances, we would never be able to prove our faith to others. Only objective evidence proves the facts. Only if our faith is based upon objective evidence in history that we could point to and say: “There it is! That’s why I believe as I do!” Only then could we say our faith is based upon the facts, evidence that cannot be pushed aside.

This is what this study series is about. It is about proving Jesus is our Messiah, by taking what he said he would do, identifying the things he did in history, and pointing out that this PROVES he is who he claims to be.

  1. The Challenge of Christ
  2. The Struggle with Christ’s Words
  3. Jacob and the Last Days
  4. The Last Days Are the Final Days
  5. The Coming of the Scoffers
  6. The Coming of the Mockers
  7. Did Jesus Fail to Return As He Said?
  8. Who Agrees: Jesus Hasn’t Returned?
  9. Proof the Last Days Are Not OUR Days
  10. Seeing Is Believing
  11. The Destruction of Heaven and Earth
  12. Is Jesus Just Another Houdini?
  13. The World that Then Was Perished!
  14. Peter’s Apocalyptic Language
  15. What Does It Take to Change a Mind?
  16. Heaven and Earth Rejoiced
  17. How Many Last Days Are There?
  18. The Last Days and the Day of the Lord
  19. Three Witnesses for Christ
  20. Jesus and the Sixth Seal of Revelation
  21. Lies and the Challenge of Christ

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This study series is based upon the You Tube video series, The Challenge of Christ, given by Don K. Preston, the president of Preterist Research Institute of Ardmore, Oklahoma. There is a lot more material that Dr. Preston offers in his series, so if this is the kind of study to your liking, you may click on the link and enjoy the whole series as conducted by him.

 

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