Eric Metaxas - Everything You Always Wanted to Know about God: The Jesus Edition

2010 Eric Metaxas

Published in Association with Ambassador Literary Agency, Nashville, TN.

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Baker Books edition published 2014

ISBN 978-1-4412-2421-7

Previously published by Regal Books

Ebook edition originally created 2011

Ebook corrections 07.16.2015, 10.08.2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other versions used are:

KJVKing James Version. Authorized King James Version.

NIVScripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973,

PRAISE FOR

Everything You Always Wanted
to Know About God

For his stylish and entertaining treatment of this subject, Metaxas deserves a prize.

Dick Cavett

Emmy Award-winning Host of The Dick Cavett Show

Quick, witty, engaging and often profound... vintage Metaxas. Good and profitable reading.

Chuck Colson

Founder of Prison Fellowship and Author of How Now Shall We Live

Theologically coherent and academically robust answers, written in a readable, informal and often witty style. Brilliant!

Baroness Cox

House of Lords, Westminster, London

I am absolutely smitten with this book! The answers are so good humored and easy to read that you almost forget how profound they are.

Ann B. Davis

Alice of The Brady Bunch

An excellent primer on the most important questions of life, engagingly presented in question-and-answer format. A timely and useful book for a searching, spiritually hungry America.

George Gallup, Jr.

Founding Chairman of the George H. Gallup International Institute

It is a pleasure to recommend this book. It is written simply. It is direct. Ive never encountered this subject dealt with so beautifully as it is dealt with in this book.

Bob Grant

Host of The Bob Grant Show

I have never seen a book like this... an extraordinary compendium of questions that people find themselves asking. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God is an evangelists dream!

Reverend John Guest

Pastor of Christ Church at Grove Farm, Sewickley, Pennsylvania

The difficulty is not to gush. Eric has written a wise, funny, and disarming book, one that will, Im sure, be handed around dorms, churches and anywhere smart, curious people (both believers and unbelievers) can get their hands on it.

Tim Keller

Author of the New York Times bestselling The Reason for God

Eric Metaxas is one of the funniest people I know.

Moby

Recording Artist

Rarely do a humorist, a logician and an orthodox theological popularizer inhabit the same skin, soquick now!join Eric Metaxas in this dialogue with skeptics and let him deftly disabuse you of your vexing bewilderments.

McCandlish Phillips

Author and former New York Times reporter

How anyone writes a book on God that reads like a cant-put-it-down thriller is a miracle itself. Metaxas doesnt just knock my socks offhe knocks my robe off!

Judge Jeanine Pirro

Former Westchester County D.A.

Host of the nationally syndicated Judge Jeanine Pirro television program

Finally, a book of apologetics that you can give to your friends without cringing!

Lauren Winner

Author of Girl Meets God

A. Hello there! My name is Eric Metaxas.

Q. Who?

A. The author! In fact, Ill be the author for the rest of the book.

Q. Oh.

A. Let me know if theres anything I can do to make you more comfortable, and feel free to make your way to the salad bar at any time. Ill be back in a minute for your drink order...

Q. What are you talking about? I thought this was a question and answer book.

A. I kid around sometimes. Just to make sure youre paying attention.

Q. Oh.

A. And to lighten things up.

Q. Great. But wasnt I supposed to go first? To ask a question?

A. What do you mean?

Q. Well, Im Qwhich stands for Question. Dont questions come before answers?

A. I guess youve got me there.

Q. Now that weve got that cleared up, Id like a cream soda. No, wait! Make it an orange Fanta.

A. Super. Ill be right back with that.

Q. Wait a sec! Before we begin, Id like to point out that the title of this book is...

A. Go ahead, you can say it.

Q. Well, I guess I think its a bit ridiculous.

A. You have a point. A lot of folks ask me if the book literally includes everything everybody always wanted to know about God but were afraid to ask. And the answer to that question is the simplest of all: no.

Q. But isnt that like lying, putting that title on the cover of the book and setting up that kind of expectation?

A. Um, no.

Q. Why not?

A. Because theres so much to say on the subject of God that a hundred booksor even a thousandcouldnt do the subject justice. In fact, this book is the Jesus edition, so we really zoom in on Him, and Hes just one-third of the Trinity.

Q. The what?

A. Never mind. Lets just get started, okay?

Q. Okay!

Historical Proof for Jesus

Q. Okay, lets just get super basic: How do we know that Jesus really existed?

A. Well, His mother sure thought He existed.

Q. Now cut that out. Can you be serious for one second? We just started.

A. Of course I can be serious.

Q. Thenseriouslyhow do we know Jesus was a real person? Its all so incredibly long ago. I mean, how do we know the disciples didnt just make Him up?

A. Actually thats a very good questionand important, too.

Q. Thanks!

A. And the simple answer is that we have firsthand witnesses. And we have gazillions of documents that attest to His actual existence.

Q. Gazillions is not a real number.

A. I know that! I simply meant many documents. But there are literally thousands.

Q. Thousands?

A. Yes.

Q. But how can we trust them?

A. The same way we trust any historical document. Historians are very rigorous that way. They dont have a dog in the fight, so to speak.

Q. Or a God...

A. Uh, yeah, or a God. Very clever. But its true. Historians are ber-rigorous on the issue of whether a historical figure was actually born, walked on this earth and then died.