Gen 2:9 - Pleasing to the Eye

In Gen 2:9, Moses describes the trees God planted in the Garden as "pleasing to the sight and good for food" (ESV).

Creation was designed to be pleasing to man and man was designed to enjoy creation. Why would you not want to worship a God who provides such opportunity to experience delight in Him and His creation?

1 John 1:1 - Eyewitness News

" That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life." (1 John 1:1, NIV)

This Apostle, writing at the end of the First Century, makes the claim to have been an eyewitness to something life changing. That something was none other than Jesus, the Christ, or Messiah.

Look at what John is claiming in this verse. There is an eternal being ("from the beginning") who John and the other Apostles had the chance to hear, see and touch. On top of this, he claims that this eternal being is also the Word of life. This is clarified in John 14:6 where Jesus says, "I am the way."

As with all eyewitnesses, you have the choice to believe or not believe the claims the Apostles make. You have several options in response to them.

1. You can believe the claims and move toward belief in Jesus
2. You can deny that these men believed these claims but broadcast them anyway to propagate a new religion
3. You can assume that the claims were false but the Apostles believed them, having been duped by Jesus
   

By the time that this letter was written, the other 10 Apostles (Judas killed himself leaving 11) were all martyred for the beliefs that John states in this verse. The Apostle Paul has also been killed for the same beliefs by this time. Not one of them recanted the claims about Jesus prior to being killed. It is doubtful that all of them would have been willing to go to their death on account of a lie. Option #2 falls apart on the basis of this.

Option #3 falls apart on the basis of the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Either he did or did not appear to the Apostles. If he did not, then we are back to Option 2 because they all claimed he did. It would be difficult to maintain that all of the Apostles had the same hallucination when they thought they saw Jesus. So Option #3 would be difficult to maintain.

It seems to me that Option #1 is the best choice in response to the claims of John and the other Apostles as recorded in the New Testament of the Bible.