At first glance if I were to say "it is impossible to know what someone did if they were alone", some right agree. But is that necessarily true? Are there ways we can know for certain what happened in someone's alone moments? 

My blog title is a good question if you think about it. How did the Apostles come to the knowledge of the things that happened to Jesus when he was all alone. For example; how did they know Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4) or what Jesus prayed when he was alone or the content of his conversation with the woman at the well? Did they make it up? I don't think so. In fact I think there are three possible ways the Apostles could know about Jesus' private moments. 

1) The Holy Spirit inspired them. This is, in my opinion, the best explanation. Jesus promised the apostles that they would receive the Holy Spirit in a special function to help them carry out their special ministry. He promised  that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth (Jn 16:13). This can't be a promise for all Christians. If so then we should fire all the Bible teachers, stop having preachers in our churches, and shut down all Bible colleges. No Christian should ever disagree if the Holy Spirit leads us all into all truth. But that isn't what this verse is promising. Of course skeptics will reject this one right off the bat as a "convenient" explanation. I can see their point. BUT if Jesus really did rise from the dead then miracles are possible, God is real, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is at least possible. So then, they cannot presuppositional reject this option. 
 
2) They received the information from others. Luke says that he "carefully investigated" everything (Luke 1:3). Therefore, he could have spoken with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4) and others to receive the content of Jesus' private conversations. 
 
3) Jesus told them about it later during his ministry or right after his resurrection. Jesus spent a lot of time with the 12 disciples. It is not a long shot to believe that he later explained to them what happened while he was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan or about other events. We know that after his resurrection he spoke to them "about things concerning the Kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). So why would it be far fetched to think one night as they sat around a campfire that Jesus explained to them what he prayed about while alone on the mountain or the content of his conversation with Satan in the wilderness? We tell people all the time about our private moments. 
 
Therefore, we have multiple ways in which the disciples could have come to this private information. Can you think of any others? 

Have you ever wished to better understand the Bible? Do you ever get frustrated when reading because once you finish you immediately have forgotten all that you read? Sometimes I feel like it is hard to get any personal reflections when I read the Bible and I'm not even reading through the genealogies. I believe the problem is that we spend too much time reading and not enough time meditating on the Scriptures. The best way I have found, when reading the Bible, to get application from it is to ask myself questions. So click here for 5 questions to ask when reading the Bible that will help you to better understand the Scriptures intellectually and experientially. 
 

For those of you who don't know, Bart Ehrman is a New Testament Scholar and an Agnostic. An agnostic is basically an uncommitted fence-rider. That is, they claim that they don't know whether there is a god(s) or not. Bart Ehrman grew up in a Christian environment, went to seminary and even got his PHD from Princenton by studying under Bruce Metzger. For those of you who don't know Bruce suffice it to say that he is one of the leading New Testament manuscript scholars in America and probably in the world.

Bart likes to boast of his intellectual honesty. I have read multiple books by him and he seems to always put forth this story of an honest man searching for truth and letting it lead him anywhere even if he didn't like the destination. Now I don't know the man's heart but I guess we have to take him at his word on this much. He tells a story of being, what he claims, a fundamentalist. That is, a Bible believing Christian. But as he furthered his studies he came to realize all the contradictions in the Bible, how it has been changed and so forth. He learned all the "secret" things that preachers know but don't like to tell their congregations.

Then I came across a very candid paragraph in the latest book I am reading. I almost wonder if it was a Freudian Slip of sorts. He was distinguishing, wrongly in my opinion, between a "devotional" approach to the Bible (where you read it to learn how to live) and the "historical critical" method. Now there is much we can get into over this latter approach. It is useful in that we want to analyze the text with the knownledge we have of the world and its difference sciences BUT we don't go into it assuming it is strictly a human document. The point is that you don't have to choose between the two methods. You can analzye the Bible historically which actually helps your devotional approach. As Bart was putting up this false dichotomy he was speaking about going through grad school and learning this method and how it shook his faith but not those of his friends. Then he drops this hammer, “In my case, historical criticism led me to question my faith…Yet it was the problem of suffering, not a historical approach to the Bible, that led me to agnosticism.” (Jesus Interrupted, pg. 18). 

This my friends is called an Emotional Rejection yet Bart constantly puts forth his agnosticism, as a respected opinion from a man after years of studying evidence, as an intellectual smoke screen. Yet what this quote tells us is that it wasn't looking at the evidence which caused his agnosticism, it was his emotional problem to "so much" suffering in the world. In later blogs I will get into what Philosophers call "The Problem of Evil" and show how it has been dealt with thoroughly. The problem of evil is not a reason to give up faith in God. At most all it says is that you don't like God's management skills. Furthermore, the problem of evil has shown to be inept in attacking the premise of God's existence.  

We are like little children throwing a tantrum at the parental techniques of our father who says we can't have cookies and icecream for every meal. We throw ourselves on the floor and cry "injustice", "you are the worst parent ever", and "I hate you". All the while our father is simply looking out for our benefit. What is the child doing? Are they having an intellectual dialogue with the father as to the medicinal benefits of cookies and icecream? NO!!! They are throwing a tantrum because their emotions got the best of them. This is the same thing adults do to God. With our miniscule persepectives compared to eternity we cry "foul" everytime WE don't SEE a purpose for a specific evil in our life. Even though God has given us many reasons for evil in the Bible we still reject those. These skeptics will write their books so they can throw their adult tantrums. Then they drive home and spank their kids (ok liberals don't do that....they put them in timeout) for falling on the ground crying b/c they don't get their way. Hypocrisy at its finest.

At least now we don't have to wonder why our buddy Bart rejects God. Is the evidence overwhelming? No...but his emotions are. Don't let your emotions get the best of you. Be a filter not a sponge.