Though Piper was questioned and criticized (and by some, too harshly and unbiblically), he stood by his young protégé and extended two more invitations to speak at their national conference (20), though Driscoll proved to continue to get carried away by strange and unbiblical behavior like having pornographic divinations about other people's lives, and speaking harshly, including name calling to rebuke those within his church. The events had happened.But in 2006, there was an uproar within the Christian community after John Piper extended an invitation to a young, filthy mouthed, unabashed preacher from Washington state, Mark Driscoll, to be one of the speakers at his Desiring God National Conference. In other words, Christianity was spreading during the very decades when eyewitnesses could have most easily proved it false.
He knew they could be verified by eyewitnesses. Why did Paul say “most of whom are still alive”? Because he was not afraid to have his claims put to the test. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive” ( 1 Corinthians 15:3-6). Their earliest writer, the apostle Paul, who was a contemporary of Jesus, said, “ Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
The early Christians were keenly aware that eyewitnesses were crucial in verifying their claims about the death and resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection was disputed, but not the crucifixion. Everyone in Jerusalem knew that Jesus had been crucified, and many had watched him die. They could have gone to Pilate the governor or Herod the king or the Jewish Council or the soldiers or other witnesses of the crucifixion and gotten proof that he had not been condemned or crucified the way Christians said he was. They spoke this way within weeks after these events, when thousands of people who opposed this faith could have proved it wrong, if Jesus had not died. The fact is that Christians openly based their faith on the fact that Jesus was publicly tried, condemned, executed, and raised from the dead. “We have a law,” the Jewish leaders said to Pilate, “and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God” ( John 19:7). As far as the Jewish leaders were concerned, this new religion was a distortion of the Jewish faith, and, in fact, was blasphemy, since Christians claimed that Jesus was himself the Son of God ( Mark 14:61-64). Even more significant, it was being preached in Jerusalem - the very city which had the greatest interest in making sure the error was stopped. If the death of Jesus was a myth, it had to be created overnight, since within weeks Christians were preaching the saving power of Christ's suffering and death.
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