With Their Own Eyes

 . . . but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses. . . 

 ~ Acts 10

If I had to boil down the New Testament beginning with The Acts of the Apostles (that is, all of it except the four Gospels), it would have to be this:

"Jesus died, and lives again . . . and we saw Him."

The testimony is emphatic. To say "He is Risen," and "He's alive!" is one thing. But when it is replete with personal eye-witness testimonies: "I saw it with my own eyes. I sat down and ate with Him. I spoke to Him, and He to me. I touched Him, and He me," then it takes on a whole new meaning.

Read the Acts, and the Epistles, again, carefully. If the writers had not personally seen Jesus, alive, after He had died, then it all has pretty much no point.

The moral lessons would have no authority.

The promises (new life, our resurrection, eternal life, establishment of His eternal kingdom, abundant life, etc.) would be empty, and hollow.

The words of prophecy would be laughable.

The entire volume of the New Testament would be wasted time, for the writer, and the readers.

We put a lot of stock on believing the writers of the New Testament were reputable. And they put a lot on the line, in terms of their own reputations, and the well-being of their families. Had they not actually seen Him, and then turned around and insisted that they did, to others, then History would have to condemn them as at best fools, and at worst despicable liars. 

But they insisted that they saw Him, and they put it in writing. The time to debunk it was while they yet lived. But nobody . . . NOBODY . . . was able to stop the spread of their accounts.

The story is inescapable. And the bold proclamations of these plain, simple fishermen have become the foundation that built the great world religion that continues to stir things up, millennia later.