Lee Strobel was an an atheist journalist. When his wife became a Christian, he went on a personal quest (it took him two years) to disprove the existence of God.
Guess what? He ended up becoming convinced of the historic and philosophical validity of Christianity.
This is his story:
It was reflective of my story. My story is a love story that started when Leslie and I met when we were 14 years old and grew up together and got married young. I was atheist and she was agnostic, so we were pretty evenly matched and happy in our marriage.
And then she ends up becoming a Christian—which, the first word that went through my mind was “divorce.”
I didn’t want anything to do with a Christian spouse and set out really to investigate Christianity using my investigative background and journalism background for two reasons: One is I did see some positive and winsome changes in her; but at the same time, I wanted to get her out of this cult, because I didn’t want her to change into some holy roller or something I couldn’t relate to.
I felt like she was cheating on me with this Jesus guy. I was the man in her life and now all of a sudden there’s this Jesus character who she is looking up to and worshiping. It felt very intrusive into our marriage. I didn’t understand any of the spiritual dimensions of it.
So finally I launched an investigation to try to determine whether or not Christianity, or any other world religion, made sense and had any credibility. I thought I could resolve it in a weekend, but it was like a punching bag that you hit and it would bounce back.
I found that I was finding answers to my questions. I was finding footprints of Jesus in history and evidence that I found compelling and surprising. I did that for almost two years of my life to finally come to the point where I sat down and said, “A good jury reaches a verdict. I’ve got to reach a verdict.”
I spent two years looking at the evidence, and in light of what I consider to be an avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, I came to the conclusion that it would take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.
That’s when I concluded that Jesus not only claimed to be the son of God, but backed it up by returning from the dead. And then John 1:12 has this sort of this faith equation: Believe plus receive equals become.
Through that, I realized OK, I believe it but that’s not enough I had to receive this gift of grace through Christ. So when I took that step on November 8, 1981.
Then, like my wife’s, my life began to change and ultimately I ended up leaving journalism, which had been my life, and taking a 60 percent pay cut to going on the staff of a church. God has taken us on all kinds of unexpected adventures ever since."
*Awesome. Our faith is not based on a fictitious event. There was a man called Jesus. He truly walked the face of the earth. He did die and He did rise on the third day. Any one who believes in Him will not die but have eternal life. We call Him the Son of God!
Lee Strobel's story was documented in a movie titled Case for Christ. I know he isn't the only atheist that had set out to disprove God and returned believing. That's how powerful God's Word is. It has the power to deliver, to transform, to save.
Guess what? He ended up becoming convinced of the historic and philosophical validity of Christianity.
This is his story:
It was reflective of my story. My story is a love story that started when Leslie and I met when we were 14 years old and grew up together and got married young. I was atheist and she was agnostic, so we were pretty evenly matched and happy in our marriage.
And then she ends up becoming a Christian—which, the first word that went through my mind was “divorce.”
I didn’t want anything to do with a Christian spouse and set out really to investigate Christianity using my investigative background and journalism background for two reasons: One is I did see some positive and winsome changes in her; but at the same time, I wanted to get her out of this cult, because I didn’t want her to change into some holy roller or something I couldn’t relate to.
I felt like she was cheating on me with this Jesus guy. I was the man in her life and now all of a sudden there’s this Jesus character who she is looking up to and worshiping. It felt very intrusive into our marriage. I didn’t understand any of the spiritual dimensions of it.
So finally I launched an investigation to try to determine whether or not Christianity, or any other world religion, made sense and had any credibility. I thought I could resolve it in a weekend, but it was like a punching bag that you hit and it would bounce back.
I found that I was finding answers to my questions. I was finding footprints of Jesus in history and evidence that I found compelling and surprising. I did that for almost two years of my life to finally come to the point where I sat down and said, “A good jury reaches a verdict. I’ve got to reach a verdict.”
I spent two years looking at the evidence, and in light of what I consider to be an avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, I came to the conclusion that it would take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.
That’s when I concluded that Jesus not only claimed to be the son of God, but backed it up by returning from the dead. And then John 1:12 has this sort of this faith equation: Believe plus receive equals become.
Through that, I realized OK, I believe it but that’s not enough I had to receive this gift of grace through Christ. So when I took that step on November 8, 1981.
Then, like my wife’s, my life began to change and ultimately I ended up leaving journalism, which had been my life, and taking a 60 percent pay cut to going on the staff of a church. God has taken us on all kinds of unexpected adventures ever since."
*Awesome. Our faith is not based on a fictitious event. There was a man called Jesus. He truly walked the face of the earth. He did die and He did rise on the third day. Any one who believes in Him will not die but have eternal life. We call Him the Son of God!
Lee Strobel's story was documented in a movie titled Case for Christ. I know he isn't the only atheist that had set out to disprove God and returned believing. That's how powerful God's Word is. It has the power to deliver, to transform, to save.
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