Questions of Life

An Opportunity to Explore the Meaning of Life

Nicky Gumbel

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781473680722
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

'What Alpha offers, and what is attracting thousands of people, is permission, rare in secular culture, to discuss the big questions of life and death and their meaning.' - The Guardian'Alpha makes Christianity relevant to modern life.' - The ExpressIn this international bestseller, Alpha pioneer Nicky Gumbel addresses some of the foundational questions of life that challenge us all: why am I here? Is there more to life than this? How can I make the most of the rest of my life?Answering step-by-step some of the key questions that lie at the heart of the Christian faith, his intelligent, well-researched and informed approach makes this a sympathetic, fascinating and immensely readable introduction to Jesus Christ.'Alpha was the best thing I ever did. It helped answer some huge questions and to find a simple, empowering faith in my life.' - Bear Grylls

Endnotes

Chapter 1

1. Ronald Brown (ed), Bishop’s Brew (Arthur James Ltd, 1989).

2. Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Canongate Books Ltd, 2008), p.202.

3. By kind permission of Bernard Levin.

4. Ibid.

5. Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings (Penguin, 1988).

6. C. S. Lewis, ‘Timeless at Heart’ in Christian Apologetics (Fount, 2000).

7. Francis Collins, The Language of God (Free Press, 2006).

8. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Vol. I (Basic Books, 1997).

9. Quoted by Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Zondervan, 1997), p.279.

10. The Sunday Times, 22 September 2001.

11. Paul Tillich, Writings on Religion, ed Robert P. Scharlemann (Walter de Gruyter, 1987), p.160.

Chapter 2

1. Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII 63f. Even if, as some suggest, the text has been corrupted, nonetheless the evidence of Josephus confirms the historical existence of Jesus.

2. F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Eerdmans, 2003), p.11.

3. F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Vol. I (Macmillan, 1956), p.561.

4. Sir Frederic Kenyon, The Bible and Archaeology (Harper and Row, 1940).

5. If you are interested in pursuing the subject of Gospel historicity, I would recommend reading N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (SPCK, 1996) or Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (IVP Academic, 2007).

6. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Collins, C. S. Lewis Signature Classics Edition, 2012), pp.51–52.

7. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Collins, C. S. Lewis Signature Classics Edition, 2012), p.52.

8. Ibid.

9. Bernard Ramm, Protestant Christian Evidences (Moody Press, 1971).

10. By kind permission of Bernard Levin.

11. A team of medical experts produced a detailed study of the physical effects of the treatment which Jesus’ body was made to endure based on such circumstantial details and concluded that as a result of hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia, it would have been a medical impossibility for Jesus to have been alive when he was taken down from the cross (there is a report of the study in Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 255, 21 March 1986).

12. Josh McDowell, The Resurrection Factor (Here’s Life Publishers, 1981).

13. Michael Green, Man Alive! (IVP, 1968).

14. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (Penguin, 2001).

15. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Collins, C. S. Lewis Signature Classics Edition, 2012), p.53.

16. Ibid.

Chapter 3

1. Raniero Cantalamessa, Life in Christ (Vineyard Publishing, 1997), p.7.

2. Jeffrey Myers, Somerset Maugham (University of Michigan Press, 2004), p.347.

3. Bishop J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel, Vol. III, John 1:1–John 10:30 (Evangelical Press, 1977).

4. John Stott, The Cross of Christ (IVP, 1996). See also Catechism of the Catholic Church, chapter 2, line 444, paragraph 615, entitled: ‘Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience’. By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who ‘makes himself an offering for sin’, when ‘he bore the sin of many’, and who ‘shall make many to be accounted righteous’, for ‘he shall bear their iniquities’.

5. Raniero Cantalamessa, Life in Christ (Vineyard Publishing, 1997), pp.52–53.

6. We deal with religious concepts using metaphors and parables. For the atonement there is no one seminal metaphor, no one all-encompassing parable. All are approximations, which, like the radii of a circle, converge on the same central point without ever quite touching it.

7. John Wimber, Equipping the Saints, Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 1988 (Vineyard Ministries, 1988).

Chapter 4

1. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (SPCK, 1986), p.127.

2. C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (HarperCollins, 2008 reprint), p.222.

Chapter 5

1. Andrew Murray, Believer’s Secret of the Masters Indwelling (Bethany House Publishing, 1986).

2. C. S. Lewis, Weight of Glory (William Collins, 2013), p.27.

3. For further reading on this subject I recommend Pete Greig, God on Mute (Kingsway, 2007).

Chapter 6

1. See John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World (Allen Lane, 2009), pp.177 and 266.

2. Stanley Baldwin, This Torch of Freedom (Ayer Publishing, 1971), p.92.

3. Quoted in Alister McGrath’s Commemorative Lecture to the Latimer Trust, 2005.

4. For further reading on this subject, please see Nicky Gumbel, Searching Issues (Alpha International, 2013) and Is God a Delusion? (Alpha International, 200...