The Case for Christ Student Response #9

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus Fake His Death?

Did fake Jesus His death? What evidence do we have proving that He resurrected? During this unit we were studying the book The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Person Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus.  And one of the chapters was Did Jesus Fake his Death? I'm going to explore deeper in this subject.

We know that multiply people saw Jesus after supposedly He rose again. Now some people can argue that they were just imaging it, like a hallucination. The thing is many people saw Him at the same time and it's very unlikely for more than one person to have the same hallucination at the same time. Some of the causes for hallucinations are illness, chemicals or drugs (both legal and illegal), accidental poisoning, or lack of sleep. I don't think that the disciples were poisoned or on drugs but the lack of sleep is a possibility.

Was Jesus just in a coma or in a swoon state? Was Jesus not dead at all? So people believe Jesus never died He was just in a swoon state and then got put in the tomb while in that state and then removed the stone and acted as if He had risen. Jesus by the time He died was in very bad shape, He had been beaten with a whip and had the crown of thorns digging into His skull. And He was on the cross, even though He wasn’t on the cross for very long He still would been pretty weak. In his condition He would not be able to move the stone even if He woke up. Some of the causes for comas are intoxication, poisons or damages or disease of the nervous system. He could of been in a coma because of damages from being whipped which could of exposed his insides. But I think a lot of people forget or don't know that jesus was stabbed in the side in the lungs to make sure he was dead. So he was in fact dead.

As a christian in this world people will question our faith. We need to be ready for this and be able to talk about it. We need to have a reason for our faith and why we believe it. Knowing that Jesus didn’t fake his death is probably the biggest point you can make. When people doubt our faith we don't want to be left standing with no idea why you believe. And through this unit my belief has grown.  

Bibliography:

"Coma." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

"Hallucination." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.

Strobel, Lee, and Jane Vogel. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 20

The Case for Christ Student Response #8

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus Fake his death?

Did Jesus Fake his death? For many centuries people have wondered “Did Jesus fake his death?” Yet Christianity says that Jesus did in fact d`o that. According to the New testament in the bible Jesus got “run over” by the roman government, which lead to some horrifying punishments for that day. Jesus’s body lay dead for 3 days, Then according to the bible instead of his body decomposing, he resurrected and came back to life.

Before a person can be resurrected from the dead, they need to be dead. So the first question that some people may ask is, “Did Jesus really dies on the cross? Or he might have faked his death. And the resurrection that appeared to follow?”

One solution to the problem of a dead person coming back to life from the dead is the suggestion that maybe Jesus really didn’t die on the cross to begin with, but maybe he fainted from the exhaustion on the cross or he took a drug that could make him look dead. Then he revived in the cold and damp air of the tomb.

I did some research and I found a website that had some information about the topic of “Did Jesus Fake his death?” And here is what it had to say (in my own words). Whether Jesus did fake his death, survived his death, or died on the cross, nobody knows that with the evidence that we have, but one thing that we know is certain, He didn’t die and then come back to life 3 days later just to fly up to heaven and disappear from the whole population of Jerusalem. But as I already mentioned there is no reliable evidence that can prove if Jesus did live, die and come back to life, or not.

Bibliography goes here:

Works Cited

Cut2thetruth. "Cut2thetruth." Cut2TheTruth. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2016.

Strobel, Lee, and Jane Vogel. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 2001. Print.

Coasting in class

I recently received a though provoking comment on an earlier blog post. Here's the second half of the comment asking about my flipped classroom teaching: "As each year begins, do you have formal discussions with students to strategize how to learn and assimilate new material independently?"

The answer is yes.

The students who enter my classroom have never experienced learning the way I ask them to. I have to spend multiple classes teaching, in the old style, how to learn in this new style. (Although I have created a series of videos that explain how my class works. I send them to students and parents in the summer before school even begins. Some of them even watch them!)

It does not come easily to the students. By the time they've reached my classroom they've already had 6-8 years of schooling in the traditional style. They've already got some pretty ingrained habits and expectations about what school is and how it works.

I typically end up seeing three groups of students.

Group 1. These students love the subject. They're already good at it. In the traditional classroom they are bored out of their minds because they have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up. In my class they are free to move as fast as they can. They rise to the challenge and love it.

Group 2. These student struggle with the subject. It is hard for them, they often hate it and think they can't do it. They've already spent years struggling to keep up. At first they will often have a hard time with this new way of learning. But at some moment they realize that they can watch the video lesson 3 times over if they want to, they can ask me a hundred questions, have me do 20 examples with them, redo work they don't get yet, and they don't have to take a test until they feel they are ready to. Once this gets into their heads, they love it. It doesn't make the subject easier, but it makes it possible.

The final group is the one that I have the most trouble with.

You see Group 3 is pretty good at the subject, maybe even really good at it. They've spent the last bunch of years, showing up in class, sitting there listening to the teacher, picking up enough in class that they can pass the test. They don't need to do any homework, or anything else really. They just show up and wait.

In my class they do horribly. See, they have to go and get the learning, they can't coast because I check every question, and they don't get to write any tests until they've actually done all the work and studied every topic. It's up to them to get the work done. They have to engage and work and keep up. These students inevitably end up falling behind and I get to have conversations with their parents about doing homework every night. Some of them end up being made by their parents to do math homework over Christmas break in order to get back on track. This is also the group who's parents get the most upset with me as a teacher.

You see, one of the most important things our students can learn is the skill of how to learn on your own. So, I build my classroom to encourage this. If you want to learn you can, but you're the one who has to do the work, not me.

The Case for Christ Student Response #7

In the first term of this school year my grade 7/8 class has read The Case for Christ: Student Edition by Lee Strobel. At the end of the study of the book each student was asked to answer one of the questions posed in the chapters of the book. I told that I would be sharing their responses online. So, throughout the rest of the year I will be posting their work. Please note, I have not edited these responses, they are exactly what the student handed me.

Did Jesus really fake his death!!!!!!

The main question is how could Jesus really fake his death because in the book it said that Jesus got whipped with a whip that had bones attached. It also said that when the whip got embedded to the skin it makes the skin rip and tear. Then they put a big crown on his head that was with thorns and they pressed it on his head and he was bleeding. And then they made him carry a big cross and also they nailed him to the cross. Did you know that the nails were about 7-9 inches and they nailed him in his wrists. He also couldn't fake it because it really hurts and there was a lot of people and there was roman soldiers watching him die and the bible said that when he was dying red blood came out and water. So  how could Jesus possibly  fake a death when he had to go through this many punishments for us.

Why would Jesus fake his own death

Jesus is God’s Son and God sent him to die for our sins so why would Jesus fake his death if he knows that he is going to be risen in three days.

And if Jesus didn’t die for us we would be in hell because Jesus died to save each and everyone of us he went through the pain for us. It said in the bible that every drop of blood was every sin that we all committed.