Exploring some of the fundamental differences between Buddhism and Jesus’ teachings.

<p>Exploring some of the fundamental differences between Buddhism and Jesus’ teachings.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hope Channel

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

Sebastien Braxton

Felecia Lee

Joe Reeves

Paul Samuel

01 Why Apologetics?

Jonathan Walter

02 Climbing Mars Hill

03 Divine Design

04 The Problem of Evil

05 Jesus and Hinduism

06 Jesus and Buddhism

07 Jesus and Islam

08 Jesus is Different

09 The Resurrection: Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Joe Reeves, with Inverse.

Hello, my name is Joe and welcome to Inverse.

Glad to be here together to discuss some things.

We've been looking at apologetics this quarter.

You can find all of our Bible study written out.

You can go deeper than what we have time to on the program if you go to inversebible.org.

There's past studies there, but our current 1 is apologetics.

And we are looking at the reasons for Christianity, the reasons to believe.

And you can see all of our programs at hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

So we're glad to continue our discussion of world religions, of Christianity and why I should believe, what are the reasons?

We're looking at another story of Jesus, but we will begin with prayer as always.

We want the Holy spirit to guide us today.

Heavenly father, we thank you that you are the God who created the universe and yet cares about us individually everyone, and that you are willing to reveal yourself to us as we step into faith.

And so I pray that you will increase and strengthen our faith, that you will open our hearts and minds to understand your word, and you will speak to us, not just here, but those listening and watching wherever they are.

We have considered during this season of Inverse as we've studied apologetics, that all the different religions of the world wrestle with the same or similar questions, questions about suffering, about destiny, about origin, and there's different answers offered by different teachers.

Today's episode is Jesus and Buddhism, and we are looking at a story of Jesus from the Gospel of John, Chapter 9, where these questions are addressed about suffering, about origin, many of the same questions that Buddha wrestled with some centuries before.

Maybe before you read the passage, Sebastian.

You can tell us about Buddha and his palace and his struggles.

So Siddhartha Buddha, or Guatemala was actually his name.

But Siddhartha Guatemala was basically living in a palace.

He was a prince, he was very comfortable.

And there was a sort of, not like a prophecy, but basically saying you have to keep him from anything outside the palace.

So life, pleasure, money, comfort, food, he had everything.

And 1 day he ends up actually going out into the world and he encounters suffering.

And from that moment in time, he basically saw no meaning in his palace life.

And he essentially went on a journey to figure out how to end suffering.

And through that process, he came up with things of self-discipline, of compassion, et cetera, et cetera, which became like the dharma, the way that it goes.

And essentially, to summarize there at the end, he gets the title Buddha, which means the awakened 1.

So there's a problem, the problem is suffering.

He's on a journey, he's searching for enlightenment.

Well, how to figure out how to get rid of suffering and his solution without letting too much out of the bag is That you need to detach from caring about the things of this world So meanwhile Jesus enters this world.

There's the same problems there's problems of suffering and pain and other teachers Buddha was before Jesus some centuries before, and attempting to offer certain answers.

Jesus is here on earth in John chapter 9.

And let's see what we discover in this story from John chapter 9.

Now, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his birth.

And his disciples asked him saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva.

And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.

And he said to him, go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated, scent.

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Now we need to know that the worldview of these people in this story, these Jewish people, is very similar to some of the Hindu thinking.

They also thought that if a man is born blind, that it must be because Either he sinned or his parents sinned.

And so he is suffering maybe a karma, so to speak.

And they want Jesus to affirm this worldview.

Jesus is not ascribing guilt to any previous birth, to any previous existence.

For instance, I'll read to you from Hindu scriptures, which the Buddha used.

It says, accordingly, those who are of pleasant conduct here the prospect is indeed that they will enter a pleasant womb, either the womb of a Brahman, the priestly class, or the womb of a Kshatriya, the warrior class or the royal class, or the womb of a Vaisya, which is a professional business class person.

But those who are of stinking conduct here, the prospect is indeed that they will enter a stinking womb of a dog or the womb of a swine or a womb of an outcast.

And when The way Jesus responds to the question, did this man sin, did his parents sin?

Jesus refuses to ascribe any inherited guilt.

Jesus says, this is so that God will be glorified in this person.

Diametrically different from either the Jewish worldview or the prevailing Buddhist or Hindu worldview at the time.

Where does this man's blindness come from?

Series

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

06 Jesus and Buddhism

Transcript

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Parent Series

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