5.  Believed on in the world--Take eleven apostles who have just seen their leader crucified.  He's dead.  Now what are they going to do?  They are frightened for their lives.  They have no future.  They don't have a plan as to what to do next.  So.  What?  They go back to doing what they were doing before they decided to follow Jesus.  They went back to what they knew.  Fishing.

They were (most probably) like everyone else who met Jesus.  They thought he was going to overthrow the Roman government and be the new King.  King of the Jews.  Why not?  It had been prophesied for thousands of years that a king would come.  Of the house of David.  Born in Bethlehem.  Who could heal the sick.  Jesus fit the bill.  But he wasn't supposed to die and leave the disciples that way.  (In their way of thinking.)

But then he arose from the dead.  They saw him.  Thousands saw him.  He called them from their nets, told them to come ashore and fed them fish.  However, Thomas wasn't there and said there was no way it could be Jesus and that he didn't believe it. "I'd have to put my finger in the holes in his hands and side."

Thomas is exactly like people in the world today.  They haven't seen Jesus with their own eyes..  But Jesus appeared to Thomas personally, and Thomas didn't need to touch Jesus,  Thomas fell to his knees and said, "My Lord, and my God."  What a powerful story.  Christ was risen and the apostles had seen him.  Thomas had seen him.  Hundreds and hundreds saw him.  And it forever changed them.

They weren't afraid anymore.  They left their nets for good and began to tell everyone they knew that Jesus was alive.  They left their homes, their families, and finally they left the support they had with each other and struck out on their own to tell the story.  This powerful story has been received by faith and believed on in the world.  Thomas declared Jesus to be God.  The only place in the Bible that those words are found.

Believed on in the world.  That was Paul's fifth point from the list we started on three days ago.
6.  Received up into Glory.   That's tomorrow's blog