Jesus was born in poverty. His parents had no special status. He never ran a campaign. He never held an office. He left no writings of his ministry.

At age thirty he began preaching to an obscure audience. At first, he gained a following as many were awaiting a messiah, but they were expecting a militant messiah that would lead them to overthrow their enemies. Jesus didn’t live up to that expectation (John 6:15).

After three years, Jesus was arrested in the Garden at Gethsemane. He had around 120 followers (Acts 1:15), all of which fled for their own safety. Following a mock trial, Jesus was condemned to death.

It is written that Jesus rose from the dead, but those writings did not exist when the Christian movement first began. In 70AD the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army. From that point on, the Jews blamed the Christians for stirring up the Roman aggression. The Romans further persecuted the Christians for their refusal to worship the Roman gods. What the early Christians endured should’ve shut them down. So why didn’t it?

I have been blessed to have had numerous spiritual experiences. (see The mystery of the Holy Spirit) What those experiences taught me cannot be learned from a book. It goes way beyond that. In some instances, spiritual experience explained what words couldn’t explain. That is when I understood what Jesus meant when he said, “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things”.

It was that spirit that descended upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. It was that spirit that descended upon Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. It was after these events that the writings of the New Testament came to be written. It was the effect of that spirit upon the early Christians that Christianity came to be spread throughout the land. And it continues to be the effect of that spirit that keeps Christianity alive to this day. Words alone cannot explain the power that spirit can convey. The writings of the New Testament only lead you in the direction where the spirit of God can do its magic. Until you awaken to that spirit, you can't truly know why we know about Jesus.

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