Gabe Fluhrer

And that's what had happened to the disciples.

Their lives were being threatened, and yet they never gave up on this message.

So much so that when Peter was crucified, according to church history and tradition, he asked to be crucified upside down.

Because he was not worthy of the same death of his master.

How do you get there from the guy calling down curses upon himself in the presence of a servant girl?

It's because Jesus was alive.

Now, the counter-argument might be this.

Well, look at all the other martyrs around the world.

Look at people who are willing to die for their principles.

And the answer to that is they weren't dying for principles.

They weren't dying just for theological formulations, as important as those are, as we'll see.

No, they were dying because they knew the person they were proclaiming that they were willing to give their lives for was alive.

And the fact that they were so radically transformed and, let's be clear, changed world history can only be explained by the fact that Jesus was alive.

Because again, if the authorities wanted to put an end to all of this, all they had to do was go get the body.

We know that Pilate knew where it was.

He sent out guards to guard the tomb.

That's all they had to do.

And yet they never did, and the disciples kept preaching.

So the transformation of the disciples is their first line of evidence.

Then our second is that the resurrection of Christ is rationally satisfying.