The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Well Hun, while the disciples were with Him they excepted Jesus to come in and remove the Roman authority over Israel and rule on earth. They did not expect Him to die and no just a regular mans death but a death reserved for the worst of criminals. ( psalms 22) What do you think they thought would be their fate would be since they were with Him? They were not those types of people to boldly keep up this lie. Peter wasn't even able to keep cool and denied Jesus when a servant girl confronted him about His association with Him. This is before Jesus hadn't even been crucified yet. (John 18) So you are telling me this guy who at the end of his life was willing to be crucified upside down, out of reverence for God, was doing it out of will power? Peter was done with being Jesus' disciple. He went back to fishing and Jesus had to come to him and call him back to being his disciple.

Also the tomb that Jesus was placed in was common knowledge to the leaders in Jerusalem. That is why they were able to seal the tomb and place guards at the tomb. Also Jesus' female disciples knew where the tomb was. They expected to go there and dress a dead body. If they expected Christ to be alive then why even go back to the tomb? When the disciples went to the tomb and found it empty they didn't start walking around telling people Jesus rose from the dead. It wasn't until they saw Jesus and even then they didn't go around spreading the news about Who Jesus was.

So if it was their intention to usurp Rome they would have the have a weak story. The guy who was a Jew and was crucified has all authority. We are pretty sure he rose from the grave but we don't really know. Yeah and the first one to find the empty tomb were women who's testimony is not accepted in court. Also we don't have any special training we are just some dudes who were fishermen, an tax collector (who were the worst in society). Yes of course this will work.

They were not being disruptive they were living their lives and in some cases because they were Christian they could not work and were considered the worst of society. Paul even says be at peace as much as you can with the people around you. Also obey your government authority. These were not revolutionaries just people who knew that Jesus is God and has risen from the dead.

What I have heard from you is that we don't know where Jesus body is but some guys who could have easily went back to a quite life deiced to hold on to a lie so that in the end of their lives a bunch of people believed the same lie an died like they did. Some even died by bing impaled and burned like lanterns in Nero's garden. It is one thing to believe a lie and take your own life. It is another to allow someone to throw your own child to lions and still believe that Jesus is God. I promise you if I didn't know Jesus and I could save my child's life by just denying it I would.

That is why paul says 1 cor 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Rome considered such people revolutionaries. Jesus was crucified for his claim to be King of the Jews (or at least, for refusing to deny the question), meaning that he was in defiance of the Roman authorities. The disciples, who claimed that Jesus was the Davidic Messiah, were similarly in defiance, regardless of how you see their position. The Romans clearly did not see it that way, as evidenced by the terms/phrasing used by Josephus and Tacitus when describing the Christian religion. 

Whether people are willing to die for their beliefs is not evidence that the beliefs are true. That is why I cited the Branch Davidians, who died almost to the last man, woman, and child when the authorities came for them.

And there is no evidence, not even in the Bible, that anyone was crucified upside down. That's an apocryphal legend. Similarly, there is nowhere in the Bible it says all were crucified except for John; that is a legend that comes from Eusebius in the year 325, three centuries later, in a book he wrote called Ecclesiastical History.