What the Apostles Meant by C.S. Lewis

When modern writers talk of the Resurrection they usually mean one particular moment - the discovery of the Empty Tomb and the appearance of Jesus a few yards away from it. The story of that moment is what Christians apologists now chiefly try to support and skeptics chiefly try to impugn
 But this almost exclusive concentration on the first five minutes or so of the Resurrection would have astonished the earliest Christians teachers. In claiming to have seen the Resurrection they were not necessarily claiming to have seen that. Some of them had, some of them had not. It had no more importance than any of the other appearance of the risen Jesus - apart from the poetic and dramatic importance which the beginnings of things must always have.

What they were claiming was that they had all, at one time or another, met Jesus during the six or seven weeks that followed His death. Sometimes they seem to have been alone when they did so, but on one occasion twelve of them saw Him together, and on another occasion about five hundred of them. St Paul says that the majority of the five hundred were still alive when he wrote the First Letter to the Corinthians, i.e. in about 55 ad.

The 'Resurrection' to which they bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of having risen; a state, as they held, attested by intermittent meetings during a limited period (except for the special, and in some ways different, meeting vouchedsafed to St Paul). This termination of the period is important, for.... there is no possibility of isolating the doctrine of the Resurrection from that of the Ascension.

The Apostolic Witness by C.S. Lewis

In the earliest days of Christianity an 'apostle' was first and foremost a man who claimed to be an eyewitness of the Resurrection. Only a few days after the Crucifixion when two candidates were nominated for the vacancy created were treachery of Judah, their qualification was that they had known Jesus personally both before and after His death and could offer first-hand evidence of the Resurrection in addressing the outer would (Acts 1:22). A few days later St. Peter, preaching the first Christian sermon, makes the same claim - 'God raised Jesus, of which we all (we Christians) are witnesses' (Acts 2:32). In the first Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul bases his claim to the apostleship on the same ground - 'Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus?' (1:9).

As this qualification suggests l, to preach the Resurrection..... The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts
 The Resurrection, and it's consequences, we're the 'gospel' or good news which the Christians brought: what we call the 'gospels', the narrative of our Our Lord's life and death, we're composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis of Christianity: they were written for those already converted. The miracle of the Resurrection, and the theology of that miracle, comes first: the biography comes later as a comment on it..... The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection. If they had died without making anyone else believe this 'gospel' no gospels would ever have been written.

Meaning of Life - William Lane Craig

Without God, life has no meaning. Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning. For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action. Sartre himself chose Marxism.

Now this is utterly inconsistent. It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say that one may create meaning for his life. If life is really absurd, the man is trapped in the lower story. To try to create meaning in life represents a leap to the upper story. But Sartre has no basis for this leap. Without God, there can be no objective meaning in life. Sartre's program is actually an exercise in self-delusion. For the universe does not really acquire meaning just because I happen to give it one. This is easy to see: for suppose I give the universe one meaning, and you give it another. Who is right? The answer, of course, is neither one. For the universe without God remains objectively meaningless, no matter how we regard it. Sartre is really saying, "Let's pretend the universe has meaning." And this is just fooling ourselves. 

The point is this: if God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends that life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent - for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance. 

Must Everything that Begins to Exist Have a Material Cause? | Reasonable Faith

Must Everything that Begins to Exist Have a Material Cause? | Reasonable Faith

Today in Marine Corps History - 15 May 1862

Corporal John Mackie, the first Marine to earn the Medal of Honor, was commanded for service in the USS GALENA during action against Confederate shore batteries at Drewry's Bluff which blocked the James River approaches to Richmond.

Today in Marine Corps history - 10 May 1945

The 22nd Marines, 6th Marine Division, executed a pre-dawn attack south across the Asa River Estuary And seized a bridgehead from which to continue the attack toward Naha, the capital of Okinawa.

Today in Marine Corps History

8 May 1986: In the wake of the most devastating storm hit New Orleans area in more than 200 years, a group of Marines and sailors from Marine Forces Reserve demonstrated the quick response synonymous with the Navy/Marine Corps team. Within 24 hours of being called, Marines assisted the evacuation of 2,500 civilians, and Navy Corpsmen treated scores of flood victims.