Less and less like a judge at a flower show.

May 18th, 2026.

Dear Ehud, thanks for your reply and all your questions were on the nose.

The point you made about dealing up front with the family issue at some level made sense to me,

but there's still a sense in which we can only cross that bridge when we come to it. Let me explain what I mean. In my previous letter, I said that if we conclude that Jesus did rise from the dead, thus vindicating the Christian claim that he is the Messiah of Israel, a decision would have to be made at that time concerning what you're going to do about it. At that point, all the issues would be laid

out on the table in front of you with a terrifying clarity. That is what I was referring to in my last letter.

But there is another sense in which you have to deal with that question now, at least to a certain

extent. If you know enough about your own constitution and personality and situation, to be able

to say that you would not become a Christian at that point,

even if you had been convinced that Jesus was raised, my encouragement to you would be for you

to begin the intellectual dishonesty now. Gathering more light to sin against would in no way make

your situation better. If you already know that you're not going to dig when you find the

location of the treasure, then why bother walking up the mountain to get there? Why carry the shovel all that way? The Christian faith is a serious and demanding religion, one that cannot be approached in a whatever sort of way. If you know for a fact that you would not take that final step, then it makes no sense whatever to take the first one. You should save your breath for cooling your porridge. But on the other hand, if you know what you should do if you came to that conclusion, and you hope that you would do it, although you are entirely unsure about where you might summon the strength to do it, well, that's a different matter. You would actually then be at the point where you could cry out to God for that strength. So that is what I was referring to. That is the sense in which we should wait until we get there.

That would be the time where you would need to count the cost fully, which Jesus was very explicit

that his disciples would always need to do. That reality is baked into all of this.

Quote, then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself

and take up his cross and follow me, Matthew 1624.

And he was very clear that this cost, this cross, might very well involve close members of your

family. His words are not at all ambiguous. Quote, any man come to me and hate not his father

and his mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also. He cannot

be my disciple. Luke 1426. In the parallel passage in Matthew, sisters, yay, and his own life also. He cannot be my disciple. Luke 1426.

In the parallel passage in Matthew, Matthew 1037, we can tell that Jesus did not mean that we

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