Becoming a Christian

In Acts 26:27, the apostle Paul asks King Agrippa, "Do you believe the prophets?" A little earlier, he had said, "I stand to this day testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would happen" (v. 22).

What did Paul mean? What did the prophets say would happen?

The prophecies about Jesus are among the greatest evidences that Jesus was who he said he was: the Son of God and the eventual Judge of the whole world. Let's begin with the two prophecies that were used in the first Christian preaching.

Acts 2:16-21

Verses 19-20 of this prophecy are for our future, when Jesus comes the second time. The rest of the prophecy tells us what is important in the New Testament (the new covenant/contract that God has made with his people). You can also read the prophecy in Joel 2:28-32.

Joel gave this prophecy about the Holy Spirit coming to God's people 700-800 years before Jesus was born.

Ezekiel 36:26-27Jeremiah 31:31-34

Again, you can simply google these passages. Peter was appealing to these prophecies to explain what was happening in Acts 2:1-15.

It is a prophecy that the Christ (which means Israel's promised King) would rise from the dead. Of course, we know that Jesus' resurrection from the dead is the central claim of Christianity. Sean McDowell gives brief arguments for Jesus' resurrection on Youtube at https://youtu.be/Dy_xTGRZ9Kg. That's just a tickler. He has a much longer video on the subject.