Easter

Easter Devotional
Fake news isn’t new
Pastor Mark Weber, Mount Pulaski Christian Church

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[March 27, 2018]  Fake news has become a huge topic of conversation recently. What’s real? What’s fake? Who’s telling the truth? Does anybody know?

 

But fake news isn’t new. It has been going on since the beginning of humanity. The serpent tempted Eve by taking what God really said and twisting it just enough to make her doubt the truth. One of the names of the enemy is “the deceiver.”

Fake news happened few hours after the resurrection of Jesus, too.

According to Matthew, the Roman soldiers who had been guarding Jesus’ tomb were bribed to spread a fake news story:
 
When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Matthew 28:11-15

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Fake news is a standard political tactic. If you can’t refute someone’s claims, muddy the waters. Jesus’ opponents knew that if there were a way to refute the resurrection, the fledgling movement of Christianity would have been squelched. Paul agrees with this in 1 Corinthians 15:14 where he states that “…if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” - 1 Corinthians 15:14

The good news, however, is that fake news will never win out. The fake news dispersed by the Chief Priests turned out to be discounted by the truth of the resurrection. As Paul says, But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. - 1 Corinthians 15:20 And that’s no fake news.

 

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