{"id":38851,"date":"2019-03-03T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T11:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/"},"modified":"2019-03-03T11:44:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T11:44:00","slug":"resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Timothy Keller in his sermon: &ldquo;Jesus Vindicated: The Resurrection Makes the Future Certain, Personal, and Unimaginable&rdquo;:<\/p>\n\n<p>We should be more sympathetic to our skeptical friends. The resurrection makes Christianity the most irritating religion on the face of the earth, and the reason is because how do people decide what they believe? They decide what they believe by reading it and saying I like it or I don&#39;t like it. Over the years I&#39;ve had so many people say, &quot;Well, I could never be a Christian.&quot; I say, &quot;Why?&quot; &quot;Well, there are parts of the Bible I find offensive.&quot; I remember years ago it had to do with money. In my little church in Virginia, people were often offended by what the Bible said about money. Today in New York they are much more offended by what the Bible says about sex.<\/p>\n\n<p>I usually say, &quot;Let me ask you a question: Are you saying because there are parts of the Bible that you don&#39;t like, that Jesus Christ couldn&#39;t have been raised from the dead?&quot; They say, &quot;Well, no, I guess I&#39;m not saying that.&quot; I said, &quot;Well, every part of the Bible is important, but would you please put the ethical teaching aside for a minute, and here&#39;s the point: If Jesus was raised from the dead, you&#39;re going to have to deal with everything in the Bible. If Jesus wasn&#39;t raised from the dead, I don&#39;t know why you&#39;re vexing yourself over that. But the fact of the matter is Paul was more offended by Christianity than you. He was killing Christians, and we don&#39;t advise that. But when he realized Jesus had been raised, it didn&#39;t matter what offended him anymore. It didn&#39;t matter, because it was true.&quot; And we have to keep that in mind. The resurrection is a paradigm-shattering historical event.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"> <\/h2>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[405],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3398,3424,3554,3598,3839,3901,4167,4472,4725,4799,4828,4830,5199,5283],"tax_ctp_topics":[382],"class_list":["post-38851","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-afterlife","tax_ctp_tags-apologetics","tax_ctp_tags-certainty","tax_ctp_tags-christianity","tax_ctp_tags-easter","tax_ctp_tags-evidence","tax_ctp_tags-hope","tax_ctp_tags-miracles","tax_ctp_tags-proof","tax_ctp_tags-religion-non-christian","tax_ctp_tags-resurrection","tax_ctp_tags-resurrection-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-truth","tax_ctp_tags-witness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Timothy Keller in his sermon: &ldquo;Jesus Vindicated: The Resurrection Makes the Future Certain, Personal, and Unimaginable&rdquo;: We should be more sympathetic to our skeptical friends. The resurrection makes Christianity the most irritating religion on the face of the earth, and the reason is because how do people decide what they believe? They decide what they Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/\",\"name\":\"The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-03-03T11:44:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-03T11:44:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/resurrection-makes-christianity-most-irritating-religion-on\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Resurrection Makes Christianity the Most Irritating Religion on Earth - CT Pastors","og_description":"Timothy Keller in his sermon: &ldquo;Jesus Vindicated: The Resurrection Makes the Future Certain, Personal, and Unimaginable&rdquo;: We should be more sympathetic to our skeptical friends. 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