Born To Win Podcast - With Ronald L. Dart

Considering all that Jesus did, and considering his personal charisma, does it strike you as strange that there was a point when many of his disciples turned away and didn’t follow him any longer? What did Jesus do or say that led to the point where John says, From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.Having a religious leader lose some disciples is not a big deal. But we’re talking about Jesus—a man who healed the sick and the lame—a man of great love and appeal. But for some reason, on this occasion, a large group of his followers abandoned him. It was not anything he did. It had to be something he said. The incident comes late in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel.He was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum—not far from his old home. And something he said caused his disciples to say, This is a hard saying; who can hear it? What on earth could have offended them?

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Everyone knows this verse by heart. But there may be something here that lies unnoticed even though it is crucial to the story. Later on in Genesis, And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help fitting for him. So, on the sixth day of creation, God not only created man and woman, he created something else. He created a relationship; we call it marriage.And in his formulation, It is not good for man to be alone, God iterated a universal principle—a universal truth—that goes far beyond marriage. We know these things, almost intuitively, but sometimes it isn’t easy to express them clearly. Solomon, however, found a way. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, he said this:Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has not an

Of the four gospel writers, it is John who is the theologian. More than the others, he captures and reports for us those words and deeds of Jesus that tell us who he is and what he is all about.For example, Jesus had made his way down to the pool of Bethesda and found a man who had been lame for some 30 years. He healed him and told him to take up his bed and walk. Now, this was no special problem—except that this was the Sabbath day, and the fellow rolled up the pallet he had lain on and was carrying it. Contemporary Jewish law—as distinct from the Law of Moses—did not permit that.How Jesus responded to those who accused him after this miracle is revealing—of Jesus’ nature, of his mission, and of the ultimate fate of mankind. Let’s take a look at the exchange as recorded in John, chapter 5.

Jesus of Nazareth was full of surprises. His disciples often had trouble figuring him out, but Jesus had an agenda. Everything he did was for a reason.Take an incident early on in Samaria. Jesus thought it good to leave Judea because things were getting a little hot for him down there. The shortest road north led through Samaria. It was not a road that most Jews took when they went north to Galilee. They crossed the Jordan—a longer and more difficult route—because they just couldn’t stand the Samaritans.Most Christian readers are aware that the Samaritans were despised by the Jews, but not so many know why. Knowing who the Samaritans are and the story of their origins is important to properly understand what happens on Jesus’ journey through Samaria. So, let’s take a look back at 2nd Kings 17.

From here, it’s hard to imagine what those first encounters with the mature Jesus were like—for those who saw him for the first time. I have no reason to imagine that Jesus was in any way remarkable to look at, but I know that he must have been a terribly charismatic person to be around, by any human standard.John the Baptist knew who he was. John the Baptist knew how important he was. He also understood Jesus’ mission, and there’s really only one way he could have known that—he was told. And when Jesus came walking along the bank of Jordan where John was baptizing, John said—for anyone nearby to hear—Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!Christian readers take that for granted. We all know that Jesus is the Lamb of God. But I can’t think of anything John could have said that would be more astonishing to those surrounding him. It assumes the sacrifice of the person of whom he was speaking. John the Baptist recognized the necessity of a suffe

The apostle John presents us with the most astonishing theology. And he does it right off the bat, without preamble. To the early theologians of the Christian church, he also posed a dilemma.The church from the get-go was composed entirely of Jews who were as strictly monotheistic as any Muslim would ever be. And John presents us with a Messiah who is both Son of God and Son of Man. And the Jews who heard Jesus knew precisely what Jesus meant when he said he was God’s son. To them, it meant that Jesus was claiming divinity.But the theologians of the second and third centuries were moving into a Greek and Roman world where polytheism was normal. How did they avoid the stigma of polytheism while recognizing that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh and that he spoke, at the same time, to his father who was God in Heaven? Over the intervening centuries, their solution to this knotty problem has become the litmus test of Christian dogma. Let’s see what it was—and some of it’s implications.

If you happen to enjoy contemporary praise music, you more than likely have heard These Are The Days of Elijah. (It happens to be one of my favorites. It is very singable and I can really get into it.) But how many of the performers and the singers know what that was all about? What exactly are The Days of Elijah and why are we singing about them?Elijah, for those who don’t know, was the archetype of all prophets. He wasn’t the first, he wasn’t the only, but he was major.The song begins, These are the days of Elijah, declaring the word of the Lord and these are the days of your servant Moses, righteousness being restored, and though these are days of great trial of famine and darkness and sword. Still, we are the voice in the desert, crying, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Now what does all this mean? Why Elijah? Why Moses? It is clear to me that the person who composed this song was driving at something important, but what exactly? Well, the place to start is naturally, the days of Elijah.

Did Jesus die of a broken heart, or was he brutally and violently killed? Now, you have to understand something about us preacher-types. Sometimes we get carried away with our own rhetoric; and so, in the process of giving a sermon and talking about how disappointed God is in us for our sins, and how Jesus’ heart was broken because of the sins of mankind, it is easy to say that Jesus, on the stake, just died of a broken heart because of us and our mistakes. But all that is only rhetoric, because the facts which are written in the pages of your Bible are somewhat different than that. He didn’t die of a broken heart, he was killed—murdered—violently, painfully.Not very long before Jesus actually died, he lifted up his voice and said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? The crowd standing around thought he was calling for Elijah, but he wasn’t. What he said was, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? At that moment, God left him entirely alone—something (you almost get the impress

I know that Jesus had to die for my sins. But why did he have to die the way he did? Why the pain, why the shame? Why the spitting, why the humiliation? Why couldn’t they just have taken him out and killed him quickly. If you’ve gone to church very much, you already understand about the blood of Jesus, and how it was shed for the sins of all mankind. There are probably many hymns in your hymnbook about it. And we all know that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Okay, but why the suffering? Why not a quick death?It may be that the answer lies in our—what shall we say—our theology of sin: the way we understand sin, the reason for sin, and even what sin is. There’s a common belief, I think, that sin is wrong for no other reason than that God said so. Growing up, when our parents say Do this or Do that, we ask, Why? Because I said so, is often the answer. We’re used to that, and I guess God saying so ought to be enough. But the assumption goes on that

It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to kill a man. I suppose, in some cases, people kill out of fear. A burglar, for example, might kill someone because he is afraid of being identified; or a stick-up man might kill a clerk because he thought the clerk had a gun under the counter. In some cases, people kill out of greed. $100,000 worth of life insurance—well, it would be enough to tempt a wife to kill her husband, in some strange circumstances. I suppose, also, that some people kill out of jealousy or anger. More than one jealous husband has come home to find his wife with another man and blown them both away.But, you know, it’s still hard for ordinary people to understand the motives for murder. It just not a part of out lives; it’s not something we think about. And if that’s hard to understand, how much harder is it to understand why anyone would want to kill a man like Jesus. He was a man of the highest integrity—a man of high moral and ethical character. He posed a ph

Everyone wants to know about the end of the world. Just bring up the subject and everyone’s ears perk up. When Jesus’ disciples asked him about the end of the world, he gave them a fairly detailed answer. The answer can be found in chapters 24 and 25 of the Book of Matthew, and can be summarized in two short statements. One: it is not for you to know the time of my return. And two: whatever the time of my return is, you had better be ready.The entirety of his explanation is called the Olivet Prophecy (because it was given on the Mount of Olives). It’s odd, but a lot of people seem to assume that the answer to the disciples’ questions was basically chapter 24—and that 24 is the Olivet Prophecy. But they’re wrong. In chapter 24, Jesus gave the disciples an overview of end-time events, and told them they have to be ready all the time because no man will know the hour or the day of his return.Well, then comes the natural question: What do you mean, be ready all the time? What c

What did the First Christians believe about Jesus? He was the Messiah, of course, but more than that. Jesus himself laid out the question before the Pharisees one day.While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think you of Christ? whose son is he? […]Matthew 22:41–42Now, I think everyone knows that the term Christ basically means the Messiah—the Anointed One. This question is really loaded in this environment, at this time, because messianic expectations had been running fever-high for some time now. There was a clear belief that the Messiah was coming soon.[…] They said unto him, The son of David. He said unto them, How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool? If David then called him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither dared any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.Matthew 22:42–46Matthew te

If the world was going to blow up at noon tomorrow, would you want to know? I don’t just mean having an asteroid hit us, spread some dust and dirt around, and create a new ice age. I mean blow up—it’s just gone. One moment we are here, and the next we are scattered throughout the solar system like so much debris. Would you want to know? Why? What would you do about it? Would you visit your family one last time, read your Bible one last time, or maybe pray—hard—trying to get right with god one last time. Or maybe you’d like to get your affairs in order, but why? Surely tonight is one night you don’t even need to brush your teeth. You can forget about all the mess you left on your desk. If fact, if you are in the mood for it, you can start a bonfire with your tax records. You don’t have to worry about it any more. You’re going to die owing the IRS money—which is a good way to go.Jesus’ disciples wanted to know when Jesus was coming back and what

If you could ask Jesus, Lord, what are the signs of your second coming and of the end of the world? would you want to know the answer? It’s a teasing question, isn’t it? And yet, I think, most people do. And all your life, if you’ve paid attention to the world of religion at all, this idea of the end of the world has hung around in the background of your consciousness somewhere. I heard that expression when I was just a boy—maybe six or seven. Everyone in my family began to look at the Bible with the start of World War II. It didn’t look good at all in those early days, and we started thinking about the end of the world. I can remember sitting out on the little concrete porch in the summertime, listening to the adults talk about the signs of the end of the world. I was just a young boy with my dog and a countryside to explore, and I didn’t like the sound of this end of the world stuff even a little bit.Well, I had to grow up a bit before I came to understand what it was all

Are you ready for a quiz? Grab pencil and pad and write down the names of the two most important Christian Holidays. It should only take you a few seconds. No consulting your calendar allowed; just write down two holidays. Got it? And the days are: Christmas and Easter—and I’ll bet you got it right.But let me tell you something curious. Neither one of these days is found observed anywhere in the Bible. And if they had the importance in the early church that they do today, you would think they would have mentioned them. You would think Luke would have recorded somewhere in Acts that we stayed over at Troas through Christmas and then sailed across to Philippi. Or maybe: We hastened in order to be in Jerusalem at Easter. But no, nothing like that is found in the Bible at all.Luke, though, does reference holidays in his travelogue. Acts 20:6 says: And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days. In Acts 20:16, he

There is a fascinating story that links Easter and Passover, and most of the world goes on blissfully unaware of it. Most know that Easter and Passover are in the same general season of the year, sometimes on the same weekend, sometimes diverging. But what most don’t realize is that the Christian observance of Easter actually arose directly from the Passover. No, I don’t mean from the resurrection. I mean from the Passover itself.Part of the confusion arises from a curious use of terms. The Hebrew word for Passover is Pesach. It is translated into Greek and Latin as Pascha. Everywhere in the Bible where the Passover is mentioned, in Greek and Latin versions, it is Pascha.Now follow me carefully through this. Throughout the Latin and Greek churches, the day of the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus is called, in their own languages, Pascha. But when the discussions of Pascha are translated into English, they become Easter. Always.How on earth did this happen? And on a related question, how on

Why do you suppose God leaves us with so many unanswered questions? And why are some of the truths of the Bible so, well, obscure? If God wants us to know something, why doesn't He come right out and say so? The fact is, that on the really important things, God does come right out and say so, but there's a whole lot more to be known and God has placed in the heart of man the desire to know everything. We are not just content with a little bit of knowledge. We want to know the whys and the wherefores and we get those answers, and we still have more questions. Everything of course, is a little more than our small brains can hold, but there is a lot more that we can know.As Paul said, "Now we know in part" (1 Corinthians 13:9). We call the Bible "the Word of God", and indeed it is, but that word comes to us in the form of the testimony of a cloud of witnesses. And just as a good investigator can take the testimony of one witness, combine it with the testimony of another witness, he can then come to know somethin