The chapel speaker, Dr. Gary Habermas, Distinguished Research Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy at Liberty University, used as his primary text a passage from 1 Corinthians and supplemented with verses from Galatians and the gospels.
He emphasized from the beginning that, although the events of history are fascinating, a Christian’s faith is not in the events of history but in the person of history–Jesus Christ. The Christian believes in Jesus, about whom the known facts are true. Using information that even the severest critics of the New Testament acknowledge to be authentic, Dr. Habermas systematically examined the question: Is the New Testament account of the resurrection true?
His main point of emphasis was that the accounts in Paul’s writings of his own information and the message that had been passed along to him by Peter, James and other eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ date to within a year or two of the actual event of the resurrection. By any historian’s measure, those accounts can be held to be authentic and true.
He concluded with three main points that Paul made with his message of the resurrected Christ: (1) Stand firm because Christians have the best message and the strongest argument in the world, (2) Get to work, becoming more involved in the lives of others because Christians have the best reason in the world to help others, and (3) Death has been defeated because, when Jesus rose from the grave, there was nothing more that Satan could do to him. Because he lives, we also live.
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