Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

There are claims about Christianity that continue to make their way into popular books, movies, and TV, but are simply not true.

For example, claims like the Gospels were written too long after Jesus to be accurate, or that early Christianity was progressive, or that Christianity was spread around the world by force, or that the church was anti-science and brought on the dark ages.

According to the Apostle Paul, Christians should be ready to speak truth at all times, and the Apostle Peter exhorts believers to be ready with an answer

when asked about the hope that should define our lives.

Though the task of defending the faith can seem overwhelming, there have never been more

resources available to Christians than right now.

And, of course, Christ has fulfilled his promise to give us the Holy Spirit, so we can do this.

For example, we have every good reason to trust the four Gospels as reliable sources of

information about who Jesus was and what he taught.

The scholarship on the Gospels is extensive, a great place to start, are the books of

Jay Warner Wallace, especially Cold Case Christianity and Person of Interest.

Also, there's the book dethroning Jesus by Daryl Bach and Daniel Wallace that refutes the

revisionist view of who Christ is as only a political reformer or a mystic.

Or consider this claim that early Christianity was basically just a new agey religion until a group of men changed it in a bid to establish their own power.

No, as Alistair McGrath put it in his book, Heresy, the central tenets of the Christian faith were well established from the very beginning, and not in dispute.

Here's McGrath, quote, Christian writers were perfectly aware

that the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth had transformed the human situation. Their

task was to explore patiently and thoroughly every conceivable way of making sense of this,

end quote. Also consider that the earliest documents from the apostles all weren't against false doctrine.

When false teachers did propose ideas that were outside of the faith,

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