Talk 1 – Is There More to Life Than This? Duration 20 Minutes Prison Transcript Key: P – Personal story that Nicky Gumbel tells in his Alpha talk. These may be replaced with a live speaker’s personal story or the speaker may tell the story about Nicky in the same way Nicky tells stories about others. S/S* – Story that Nicky tells about someone else (about a friend or a story he heard or read about). Stories marked in the margin with a * symbol are key stories and should not be omitted from the talk. Q/Q* – Quotes are key to the talk to emphasise a point and to enable guests to engage and relate the material. We acknowledge that some of the people quoted may not be well known in your local context, however, please be mindful of the value of what is said in the quoted material; not just the guests’ knowledge of the person being quoted. If you choose to replace a quote, it should be replaced with something equally effective to maintain the balance of teaching, story, and references to other information sources. In general, we encourage you not to omit or replace quotes unless absolutely necessary. Quotes marked in the margin with a * symbol are key quotes and should not be omitted from the talk. Key Bible Passages are identified and you may wish to display these visually for your guests. Red type identifies a part of the key teaching text that could be removed or altered for contextualisation. Text left untouched is the standard key message content of the Alpha talk. Talk summary: • There are questions about life we all share (‘Is this it? Where have I come from? Where am I heading? Who am I? What’s the point of my life? Is there any real meaning and purpose to life?’) • There are common objections to / preconceptions about Christianity (it is boring, untrue, irrelevant, dangerous) • Jesus claimed to be the way (to bring purpose and direction in life) – ie it’s relevant • Jesus claimed to be the truth (there are good reasons for believing) – ie it’s true. • Jesus claimed to be the life (sets us free to enjoy a relationship that is fulfilling and lifegiving) – ie it’s exciting • Alpha is an opportunity to explore these claims, to share what you think, and to explore these questions for yourself. There’s no pressure, come and go as you please but each talk builds on the previous one. NOTE: Parts of the talk may need to be contextualised for other contexts or cultures but make sure you maintain the key elements of humour and personal testimony. Notice how quotes, and stories are used throughout to add emphasis to the main points of the talk (theology and testimony).
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
OPTIONAL VOX POPS (English Language only): If you wish to play vox pops (street interviews related to the subject) as a way of introducing the theme of the talk. For this talk the questions asked were: What makes you happy? and, Is there more to life than this? They can be accessed via the following link: Talk 1 Vox Pop
Welcome to Alpha. And congratulations on getting here, because I think it’s one of the hardest things, coming to something like this. For whatever reason you are here, we welcome you. It’s certainly something that I don’t think I would ever have done.
P Replace with your own personal story or an example that is relevant to your context, which relates to a search for meaning and purpose.
For much of my life, I was not a Christian. I wasn’t brought up as a Christian. My father was a secular Jew and my mother was not a churchgoer. And really I didn’t like this kind of thing at all! Occasionally I was dragged along to a talk like this. I remember the first time I was dragged along to a talk like this, I was determined not to listen to one word the guy said! I remember there was a clock behind him, and I decided I was just going to watch the hands on the clock go round, because I thought that would be more interesting than listening to what he was going to say! I had no interest in Christianity or church. All my associations with church were negative. I thought of it as boring, dreary, it made me feel slightly guilty – I didn’t know quite why I felt guilty about it – and I just thought, ‘God, Jesus, all that stuff, it’s just not true.’ My father was an agnostic, but I became an atheist as a teenager. I decided that I was a determinist, and I described myself very pretentiously as a ‘logical determinist’, and I argued against the existence of God. I wrote an essay at school disproving the existence of God – or so I thought. And I would actually quite enjoy just arguing with Christians and trying to prove that there is no God.
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
And also I thought, ‘This stuff’s just not relevant to my life.’ I was having a great time: enjoying my life – friends, parties, just having a good time. And I couldn’t see what some guy who’d lived 2,000 years ago, 2,000 miles away, what relevance that could have to my life. And yet I think deep down, now, looking back, I would say that something was missing. I didn’t go around at the time saying, ‘Something’s missing!’ But why I say that is because I wasn’t really living the moment, I wasn’t living the day; I was always looking forward to something else: you know, ‘When I get this, then I’ll be happy. Maybe this is the answer.’ I even remember as a teenager at school thinking: ‘When I’m a prefect, that will be great!’ And I became a prefect – a very lowly prefect – and for three weeks it was great, being able to boss people around. But after about three weeks I started thinking: ‘There’s got to be more to life than this.’ I thought: ‘Well, maybe when I leave school, that will be the answer.’ And when I left school, three weeks, that was great – freedom! After about three weeks I thought: ‘There’s got to be more to life than this.’ I thought, ‘Maybe if I get a girlfriend.’ Somehow or other I managed to get a girlfriend, and after about three weeks… ‘There’s got to be more to life!’ Use or adapt this linking sentence to tie in to the personal story you tell above.
KEY:
And I think it’s easy to go through life: you get to the next stage, you get to whatever it is, and then you think: ‘Is this it? There’s got to be more to life than this.’
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Many of us feel that there is something missing and have tried to fill the gap making money, with drugs, sex or alcohol. Russell Brand said this. He said: ‘Drugs and alcohol are not my problem. Reality is my problem. Drugs and alcohol are my solution, to fill up a hole inside of me.’
Q Personalise or generalise the text in red.
And I think, looking back, that’s what I was experiencing: there was kind of like a hole, sort of like a hunger – maybe a spiritual hunger.
John 6:35
And Jesus said: ‘I’m the bread of life.’ He said: ‘I’m the one who can satisfy this spiritual hunger’ that really nothing else satisfies.
John 14:6
Now, why is that? Well, Jesus said this: ‘I’m the way, and I’m the truth, and I am the life.’
Talk Point 1 ‘I AM THE WAY’
At some point you may have asked: ‘Where have I come from? Where am I heading? Who am I? What’s the point of my life? Is there any real meaning and purpose to life?’ These are what you might call like the first-order questions of life. And a lot of people spend a lot of their life trying to find some kind of ultimate meaning or purpose in life.
S
I think of the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, who wrote War and Peace, Anna Karenina. He also wrote another book called A Confession in which he told his life story. And he described how as a child he rejected Christianity. And he started to search for meaning and purpose in his life. And at first he thought: ‘Life’s just about having a good time! Just make the most
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
of life! Have fun!’ And he entered the social whirl of Moscow and St Petersburg. He drank heavily, he was promiscuous; he led basically a wild life. And he found that left him feeling a bit empty. He thought, ‘Well, maybe money is the answer.’ He’d inherited a lot of money, and he started to make a lot of money out of his books as well. And he found money’s a bit like seawater: the more you drink of it, the more thirsty you are. That didn’t satisfy. And he thought, ‘Well, maybe like fame, importance, success – if I can be really successful.’ And he wrote what the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as one of the two or three greatest novels in the whole of world literature. It still didn’t satisfy him.
Q S
I was interested in something that the actor Jim Carrey said, this. He said: ‘I think everyone should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see it’s not the answer.’ And Tolstoy saw that that wasn’t the answer. And he thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s all about relationships: marriage, family life.’ He married in 1862 and had a very happy family and thirteen children – which he said distracted him from his search for the overall meaning of life! He was surrounded by what looked like – everyone looking at Tolstoy would say, ‘Wow, you’ve got everything! You’ve got complete happiness.’ And he said yet one question drove him to the verge of suicide, and the question was this: ‘What meaning has my life that the inevitability of death does not destroy?’ And then he looked around at his friends, his contemporaries, and they weren’t really even facing up to the question. And eventually
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
he found, in the very poor people of Russia, that they had found the answer in their faith in Jesus Christ.
Q
A hundred years later, nothing’s changed. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer in the rock group Queen, had amassed a huge fortune, attracted thousands of fans, but he admitted in an interview shortly before his death that he was desperately lonely. He said: ‘You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. Success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds, but it’s prevented me from having the one thing we all need: a loving, ongoing relationship.’ And ultimately there is only one relationship that is totally loving – and goes on forever – and that is a relationship with God. And Jesus said: ‘I’m the way to that relationship.’ So what difference does it make? In the famous hymn Amazing Grace is the lines: “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
Q
C. S. Lewis said: ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I can see it, but by it I see everything else.’ And to me it’s like Jesus is the lens through which we see God. He’s the way to God. And also he’s the lens by which we see the world in a totally different dimension and clarity. Jesus said: ‘I’m the way.’
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Talk Point 2 ‘I AM THE TRUTH’
Jesus said: ‘I’m the way and then he said: ‘I am the truth.’ You could say, ‘Well, that’s great. So nice for you. In this relationship with Jesus you find meaning and purpose in your life. That’s great for you, but it’s not for me.’ Logically that can’t be the case. Because if it’s true, it’s true for everyone. And if it’s not true, it’s not great for me. So it really matters whether it’s true.
Q* Key quote
Again, C.S. Lewis put it like this: ‘Christianity is a statement which, if it’s false, is of no importance; and if it’s true, it’s of infinite importance. The one thing it can’t be is moderately important.’
It is astonishing how much evidence there is for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course, there are many highly intelligent people who are atheists; but equally there are many highly intelligent people who’ve looked at the evidence, who’ve come to the conclusion that it’s true. Historians. One former Professor of Modern History at Oxford University described the resurrection as ‘the best-attested fact in history’. One of the greatest scientists of our time: Francis Collins, who was Director of the historic Human Genome project; is one of the most respected genetic biologists in the world. He talks about how he
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
investigated the evidence and he was amazed, he said, at the historical evidence for Jesus Christ. And he describes going out one day and looking at the beauty of creation, and then he ‘knelt in the dewy grass’ and he gave his life to Jesus Christ. Now, when Jesus said ‘I am the truth’, the Hebrew understanding of ‘truth’ was really not just intellectual truth, head knowledge, but heart knowledge. In other words, truth as experienced. What’s the difference between intellectual and heart knowledge?
P You may personalise this example, or use the example of someone close to you.
I’ve been married to my wife Pippa for thirty-seven years. But supposing before we were married, before I’d even met her, I went into a bookshop and there was a book in there with the title Pippa – the amazing woman! And I picked that up and I thought, ‘Oh, that looks really interesting!’ Chapter One: Her Extraordinary Intelligence. Chapter Two: Her Sparkling Personality. Chapter Three: Her Potential to be a Long-Suffering Wife. Chapter Four: Her Cordon Bleu Cooking Skills. Chapter Five: Her Sporting Ability – quite a short chapter! But not as short as if it was about my sporting ability, I hasten to add! If I read that book and said, ‘Wow, she sounds an amazing woman,’ that’s head knowledge. Now I can tell you she’s an amazing woman – that’s experience. When Jesus said, ‘I am the truth’, he was talking about an experience of truth: that we could have a relationship with him and experience that Jesus – not just that there’s evidence for the resurrection, but we can actually experience a relationship with the risen Jesus Christ.
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Jesus said: ‘I’m the way and I’m the truth’ and then he said: ‘And I am the life.’
Talk Point 3 ‘I AM THE LIFE’ John 10:10, [paraphrase]
P Omit or Replace with your own trivial example to illustrate the concept of real guilt.
He said: ‘I’ve come that you can have life and life in all its fullness.’ And he said he’d come to deal with the stuff that stops us having that: to deal with the bad stuff, the things that spoil our lives and stop us enjoying life to the full. I hate shopping. I just loathe it. I’m allergic to shopping. And I don’t think I’m the only person, because I came across this article in the Evening Standard which was entitled: ‘Official: Men Find Shopping Stressful.’ Now, please don’t misunderstand me: I don’t want to suggest any gender stereotypes. But I just want to read to you what – this is not my words, this is what the article said. It said: ‘Male stress levels soar when they’re faced with the dilemma of choosing gifts and coping with crowded shops. The research was conducted by psychologist Dr David Lewis, who monitored blood pressure and heartbeat before, during and after the shopping trip. The peak stress levels were equivalent to emergency situations experienced by fighter pilots or policemen going into a dangerous situation. Even the thought of going shopping was enough to send stress levels soaring, with more than 70 per cent of men recording above-average readings before leaving home.’ Now, that is what I feel about shopping. I find shopping immensely stressful, and I try to avoid ever going shopping. But a few weeks ago in the Christmas sales, Pippa persuaded me to go shopping. And we went in, and she very kindly bought me – I’ve got a new sweater. This is a new sweater – doesn’t look new because it’s like
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
all the other ones! But it’s actually a new sweater! So she bought me a new sweater. And then we went into another ghastly shop to get her a present. It was called Zara. So. Not that there’s anything against it! If you work for Zara, I’m sure it’s a great shop, a great place to work, great place to shop! Anyway, it’s only ghastly because they’re so big, and it was so crowded! All the shops were so crowded, but this one was particularly crowded. We went in there and we looked around, and you couldn’t really see anything because there were so many people. So we decided to go without getting anything. As we were going out the door, the security alarm went off. And the security guys just moved in really quickly, and they stopped everyone who was leaving, leaving. And what they did was, because there were loads of people coming in on that side, and there were loads of people trying to leave on that side, and we were in the middle, and we were part of the group that they stopped. They stopped six people, and they isolated the six of us and put us in a little ring. And this crowd here were watching, and this crowd here were watching, and then each of the six had to go through the security one at a time. First one went through – fine. Second one went through – fine. Third one, fourth one – all fine. Then it was Pippa’s turn to go through. She went through – fine. That left me! Then I went through security, and off went the alarms! And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ I felt so guilty! What had I done? I must have accidentally picked up something in the shop. I was going to be caught shoplifting. I was going to be arrested. I was going to be prosecuted for theft. I was probably going to end up in prison. I just felt so guilty! And this crowd was watching here, the crowd were watching here. They could see the guy had been caught. And then the security
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
said, ‘Excuse me, sir. We need to search your bags.’ So I said, ‘Okay, search my bags!’ And they searched my bags, and in it they found this sweater with the security tag from the shop we’d been in before, that had set off the alarm! Now, I felt so guilty – but that’s false guilt. But there’s also such a thing as real guilt, and I feel that also from time to time. There are few things worse than being accused of something you did not do. You may even be in here for something you did not do. But quite often we feel real guilt about the things we have done.
Ensure you have copies of Why Jesus? Available for guests to take if they wish.
Jesus came to deal with our guilt. This is the amazing news: God loves you. You are loved. It’s the most important thing to take away from this course: you are loved. God loves you. And he came in the person of his Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for you and for me. And he took all of our guilt, all of our bad stuff, in your place, in my place, in order that we should be free to enjoy life to the full. And this is the most amazing, wonderful news. And to me it was totally life-changing. This is a little booklet called Why Jesus? There are lots of them around. Please do take one. And there’s a prayer in the back, which you can pray, which I prayed something like that. And it was a prayer in which I encountered Jesus. And it totally changed my life. Doesn’t mean to say everything’s easy. I don’t believe it’s easy to be a Christian today. In fact, I think it’s really hard to be a Christian today.
Q
I read an article in the Sunday Times about Alice Cooper, the rock musician, and he describes his conversion, and he says this: ‘It hasn’t been easy combining religion and rock. It’s the most
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
rebellious thing I’ve ever done. Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. That’s real rebellion.’ And it’s not easy. But what I would say is my experience of this relationship with God through Jesus, I would say it’s not boring, it’s not untrue, it’s not irrelevant – it’s really exciting! I do believe it’s true. And it’s so relevant to our lives. And I’ve found that Jesus really is the bread of life. He’s the one who gives us meaning and purpose. He’s the one who satisfies this hunger. There’s so much to explore during this course. I want to encourage you to discuss, to explore together. This is a really exciting thing to do. But what I’ve found is that Jesus really is the way, the truth and the life. And in this relationship we find life and life in all its fullness. The Alpha Transcripts are taken from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel filmed 2014–2015, which are based on Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel. © Alpha International 2015 Prepared by: Alpha International, HTB Brompton Road, London SW7 1JA. Email: publications@alpha.org Website: alpha.org Acknowledgements: Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company All rights reserved ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica UK trademark number 1448790. Bernard Levin, ‘Life’s Great Riddle, and No Time to Find Its Meaning’ as cited in Nicky Gumbel, Questions of Life, (Alpha International, 2010). Used by permission. Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, (Penguin, 2008). First published in 1882. Russell Brand, ‘My Life Without Drugs’, The Guardian, Saturday 9 March 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/mar/09/russell-brand-life-without-drugs [Accessed 23/01/15] Freddie Mercury, in interview with Sharon Feinstein, May 1985. Used by permission. GOD IN THE DOCK by CS Lewis © copyright CS Lewis Pte Ltd 1970. C S Lewis, The Weight of Glory, (Zondervan: Michigan, 2001)
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence of Belief, (Pocket Books: New York, 2007) 'Men find shopping stressful’, Evening Standard Alice Cooper, in interview, The Sunday Times, 2001
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
1) Is There More to Life Than This? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Talk 1 – Who is Jesus? Duration 20 Minutes Alpha – Prisons: Transcripts
Key: P – Personal story that Nicky Gumbel tells in his Alpha talk. These may be replaced with a live speaker’s personal story or the speaker may tell the story about Nicky in the same way Nicky tells stories about others. S – Story that Nicky tells about someone else (about a friend or a story he heard or read about). Q/Q* – Quotes are key to the talk to emphasise a point and to enable guests to engage and relate the material. We acknowledge that some of the people quoted may not be well known in your local context, however, please be mindful of the value of what is said in the quoted material; not just the guests’ knowledge of the person being quoted. If you choose to replace a quote, it should be replaced with something equally effective to maintain the balance of teaching, story, and references to other information sources. In general, we encourage you not to omit or replace quotes unless absolutely necessary. Quotes marked in the margin with a * symbol are key quotes and should not be omitted from the talk. Key Bible Passages are identified and you may wish to display these visually for your guests. Red type identifies a part of the key teaching text that could be removed or altered for contextualisation. Text left untouched is the standard key message content of the Alpha talk. Talk summary: This session starts by showing the impact that the man Jesus has had on world history – then seeks to investigate who Jesus is. First, by looking at whether we can be confident that he really existed in history, and then by looking at his own claims about who he was and what he did, and finally assessing whether his claims can be taken seriously. • Jesus is arguably the most significant human figure in history • Jesus claimed to be more than a great religious teacher – claimed to be ‘the way, the truth, the life’ and it seems clear from his claims that he considered himself to be the Son of God • There are only three possibilities: he was a fraud, insane, or he was who he said he was – God • Christians believe Jesus is God – a step of faith based on evidence • Even so, a full understanding of Jesus can’t happen historically or intellectually – still has to drop from head to heart – experience of a relationship • This has been the experience of millions of Christians down the ages. NOTE: Parts of the talk may need to be contextualised for other contexts or cultures but make sure you maintain the key elements of humour and personal testimony. Notice how quotes, and stories are used throughout to add emphasis to the main points of the talk (theology and testimony).
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
Choose the introduction to your talk from the two options provided.
OPTION 1
Take in a picture of two current famous individuals e.g. Bear Grylls and Barack Obama and also a picture of someone who was famous seventy years ago (perhaps a photo of Dame Vera Lynn or a Franklin D Roosevelt) and then a picture of Jesus.
Can anyone tell me who these two people are? [hold up the pictures] Yes that’s correct Bear Grylls and Barack Obama. Now can anyone tell me who this is? [hold up the pictures] Seventy years ago this person was as famous as Barack Obama or Bear Grylls but now nobody really knows who she is. Who is this? [hold up the picture of Jesus] Jesus lived 2000 years ago and still most of the people in this room knew who he was. OPTION 2: Who is in the bag?
In small groups, or as one larger group (no more than seven) give one member a small bag containing different names of celebrities (keeping it really simple), ask them to describe the celebrity in the bag without using their name. Whoever guesses the celebrity first gets the bit of paper and the individual with the most bits of paper at the end of the game is the winner (though you don’t have to make it a competition).
Once the game has finished ask one member of the group (somebody that doesn’t mind being up the front) to describe one final name to the group. The name should be ‘Jesus’ – you can then pick up, in your explanation, how that person described Jesus. Were there any interesting features or ways of describing him?
EXPLANATION: Despite the fact that we all described people in different ways most of us we able to guess the names of well-known people. But how many of these people do you think we will know in 2000 years time? Maybe even none, however when [insert name] described Jesus we all knew who he was despite the fact he lived over 2000 years ago. So who is Jesus and how do we know that he even existed? What evidence is there for Christianity? You can’t prove Christianity mathematically. You can’t prove it scientifically. Science, of course, is
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
very, very important. But science answers different questions to faith. Science answers the questions, ‘When and how did this world come into being?’ What it can’t answer is the question ‘Who and why?’ Equally faith is really important because it answers some very fundamental questions about life. And everyone has faith. An atheist has faith that there is no God. You can’t prove that mathematically or scientifically. And those of us who believe in Jesus do so on the basis of evidence – historical evidence. So what’s the evidence? And what do we know about Jesus? There is evidence from historians who wrote about Jesus as a human being. But we also know about Jesus from what is written in the Bible. We know he was fully human. He had a body, emotions, experiences. But many today would say, ‘Yes, he was a human being. We know he existed. Maybe he was a great human being and a great religious teacher – but no more than that. He wasn’t God.’ So the questions we need to ask are, who did Jesus think that he was? And was he right?
Talk Point 1 WHAT DID JESUS SAY ABOUT HIMSELF?
So what did Jesus say about himself? The first bit of evidence here is that Jesus’ teaching was centred on himself. Great religious teachers point away from themselves. They say, ‘Don’t look at me. Look at God.’ Jesus, who was the most humble person, said: ‘Look at me. Come to me.’ You may have come to a time in your life when you are wondering what life is all about. Being in prison is often a crisis point and brings up all kinds of questions about our lives. This question of ultimate meaning and purpose: what is our life about? This sense of what you might call a spiritual hunger – this
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
sense that other things don’t quite satisfy: however good these things are, there’s always this slight void, this sense that something is missing. John 6:35
John 8:36
Jesus said: ‘I am the bread of life.’ ‘If you want that hunger satisfied, come to me.’ There’s stuff in our lives that we don’t like. I have stuff in my life I don’t like. I have things, habits that I find quite addictive. Jesus said: ‘If the Son sets you free,’ if Jesus... He was saying: ‘If I set you free, you really will be free.’
Then there’s all the stuff we carry around: worry, anxiety, fear, guilt. Matthew 11:28 Jesus said: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I’ll give you rest.’ ‘If you want peace, peace of mind, come to me.’ He Matthew 10:40 said: ‘If you receive me, you receive God.’ ‘If you welcome me, you John 14:9 welcome God.’ He said: ‘If you have seen me, you have seen God.’ So Jesus is pointing to himself as the source of answers to life’s problems. And then there were his indirect claims. Jesus claimed to be able to forgive sins. He went up to people and said: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Now, of course, if someone offends you, you can forgive them. But you can’t go up to some random person and say, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ When Jesus did that, the lawyers said, ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Forgiveness is at the heart of what Jesus came to do: to make forgiveness possible. It’s at the heart of Christianity.
Q
C. S. Lewis says: ‘A Christian is someone who forgives the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us.’ And then there were his direct claims. There are so many of them. We haven’t got time to look at them all, but I’d like us to just look at
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
one. John 10:30–33
If you have a Bible there, you might like to turn to it: John 10:30–33. Jesus said this: ‘I and the Father are one.’ A claim tantamount to a claim to be God was blasphemy in the eyes of the people at the time, and they picked up stones to stone him. Jesus said: ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We’re not stoning you for any of these,’ they replied, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere human being, claim to be God.’ I think if you look at all the evidence, it’s clear that Jesus did make that claim. It’s an astonishing claim. But, of course, a claim like that needs to be tested. And really, if you think about it, there are only really three possibilities. Either it was not true and Jesus knew perfectly well it was not true, in which case he was a fraudster. Or else it was not true and he just simply didn’t realise it was not true – he genuinely thought he was God – in which case he was deluded, or, we would say, insane. But logically there is only really one other possibility, and that is that it’s true.
Q*
C. S. Lewis, one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and, of course, best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, said this: ‘A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He’d either be insane or else he’d be the devil of hell. You must make your choice: either this man was and is the Son of God, or else insane or something worse. But let’s not
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
come up with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.’
Talk Point 2 WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE TO SUPPORT HIS CLAIMS?
So, second part of the argument: was he right in what he said about himself? What’s the evidence to support his claims? Here’s the first piece of evidence: his teaching.
Mark 12:31 Luke 6:31 Matthew 5:44
The teaching of Jesus is widely acknowledged to be the greatest teaching of all time. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ‘Do to other people as you would have them do to you.’ And then this, totally revolutionary, the first person to say this: ‘Love your enemy.’ Jesus’ teaching has been the foundation of our entire civilisation in the West. Many of our laws were originally founded on the teaching of Jesus. We’ve advanced in every field of science and technology. Think how much we’ve advanced in the last ten years in science and technology. Yet in 2,000 years no one has ever improved on the moral teaching of Jesus. They’re the greatest words ever spoken. They’re the kind of words you’d expect God to speak. So the first piece of evidence: his teaching.
Either personalise or omit the text in red.
Secondly, his life: what he did. I thought Christianity was boring. I thought Jesus would be a bore! You know, I thought Jesus would be the kind of person who would turn wine into water! I was amazed to read of Jesus going to a party – it would have been such fun to be with Jesus: he went to a party; the wine ran out. He said, ‘Go and get those jars. Fill them with bathwater and start pouring it out for the guests,’ and they started pouring it out, and out the finest wine. Not just his miracles but his love for the marginalised: feeding the hungry, healing the sick and, ultimately, laying down his life for us.
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
Jesus said: ‘Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.’
John 15:13
And then his character has impressed millions of people who wouldn’t call themselves Christians. Time Magazine described Jesus as ‘the most persistent symbol of purity, selflessness and love in the history of humanity’.
Q
His enemies could find no fault. And his friends, who knew him really well, said, ‘This guy’s without sin!’ Either personalise or omit the text in red.
I often think the real test of character is when we’re under pressure. And Jesus when he was being tortured said about his torturers: ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.’ And then his conquest of death. This is the cornerstone of Christianity. It’s so relevant to every single person here: because statistically speaking one in one die! That’s the reality! So, what is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? First of all, his absence from the tomb. No one has ever satisfactorily explained why Jesus’ body was not there the first Easter Day. People have come up with all sorts of explanations: the authorities stole the body. Well, in that case, why didn’t they produce it when everyone was saying that Jesus had been seen? They couldn’t. When the disciples heard that Jesus had been raised from the dead, they ran to the tomb, and when they got to the tomb, they looked in, and what they found was the grave-clothes of Jesus were still there. The only valuable thing for a robber to steal was still there. And they’d collapsed, like a caterpillar’s cocoon when the butterfly has vanished. And the piece that had been around his head had been
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
folded up and put in another place. And it says when they saw that, they believed. So not only his absence from the tomb; also his presence with the disciples. Jesus was seen on several occasions, on one occasion by more than 500 people. All saw him on the same occasion. People say ‘hallucination’: hallucination does occur amongst highly-strung, highly imaginative, very nervous people or people who are sick or on drugs. The disciples don’t fit any of those categories. They were cynics, like Thomas. They were tough fisherman. They were tax collectors – tax collectors do not hallucinate! And then there was the transformation of the disciples. Here was a group of people depressed, disillusioned, and suddenly they’re going around saying ‘We’ve seen Jesus! He really is alive!’ Most of the disciples died pretty horrific deaths as a result of their beliefs: they were crucified, they were beheaded, they were tortured. And all they had to say was: ‘No, no, no, no, actually it’s not true. We didn’t really see him.’ But they didn’t. Those people would not have died for something they would have known was not true. But they knew it was true, because they’d seen the risen Jesus. And as a result this movement – it’s a movement without precedent in the history of the world – swept the whole known world, and it has no parallel. And it’s still happening. You know, there are 2.3 billion Christians in the world today, of every ethnicity, every continent, every nationality, every economic, social and intellectual background. They all speak of this encounter with the risen Jesus. So when we look at what Jesus claimed about himself – the first part of the argument – it’s clear that Jesus did claim to be a man whose identity was God. Was he deluded? Was he a fraud? When you look at – when I look at the evidence of his teaching, the things that he did, his character, his resurrection, it seems to me absurd, illogical,
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
Either personalise or omit the text in red
P Conclude the talk with a brief testimony of your experience of a relationship with Jesus and how this convinces you that Jesus was and is who he said he was. Use the example given as an example of tone and conclusion of the argument.
unbelievable to say he was insane or a fraud. On the other hand, it provides the strongest possible supporting evidence that what Jesus said about himself was true. And that’s how I came to the conclusion it’s true. But it’s one thing to believe it here. And for me, I tried to put it off, because I wasn’t keen on the implications of it being true for my life. I thought I could put it off till my deathbed, maybe! But then I thought that wouldn’t be intellectually honest. So I basically said, ‘Okay, yes!’ And at that moment I experienced in my heart a real encounter with Jesus, which changed my life in a very radical way. And I experienced that rather than it being some ‘terrible thing that was going to happen’, that when Jesus said ‘I have come that you might have life and have it in all its fullness’, that’s what I’ve experienced for the last forty years. Of course it’s not always easy. Of course there are ups and downs. Of course I mess up. But I’ve found that it really is true! Jesus really is who he claimed to be. Jesus really did rise from the dead. There really is hope beyond this life! And this encounter totally changed my life. SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 1. Have you ever met a celebrity? What was it like? 2. What parts of Jesus’ life do you like? 3. If Jesus was sitting in front of you, what one question would you want to ask?
The Alpha – Prisons Transcripts are adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel filmed 2014–2015, which are based on Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel. © Alpha International 2015 Prepared by: Alpha International, HTB Brompton Road, London SW7 1JA. Email: publications@alpha.org Website: alpha.org
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)
Acknowledgements: Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised. Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, (New York: HarperCollins, 2001; Originally published 1949) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (London: William Collins, 2012) Time, Monday June 21, 1971, ‘The Alternative Jesus: Psychedelic Christ’ © Time inc.
KEY:
Personal Story
1) Who is Jesus?
Story
Quotes
Key Bible Passages
Alpha – Prisons (adapted from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel)