THE CASE FOR FAITH

LEE STROBEL

I. Introduction: Goals
A. To share journey as journalist and lawyer to investigate claims of Christianity
B. To discuss role of Apologetics
1. How apologetics works in life of someone far from God—to reaffirm
Christian belief
2. How apologetics helps seekers find answers

II. Strobel’s Life as an Atheist

A. Did not believe in God
1. Thought it was absurd to believe in God
2. Thought God was created by man to help man cope
B. Consequences of Atheism
1. Had skeptical mind-set
a. Lived in doubt
b. “If your mother says she loves you, check it out”
2. Had no moral compass for life
a. Self-destructive; self-absorbed
b. No understanding of right and wrong
c. Bertrand Russell: “If there is no God, there is no universal”
d. Thought he should destroy someone who got in his way
3. Enraged over inability to find “elusive” happiness in life
C. Witness of his wife
1. Wife became a Christian
a. She was an agnostic; then befriended by Christians
b. Through those relationships with Christians, she came to Christ
2. Strobel’s response to wife:
a. “Don’t give money to the church; that’s all they want.”
b. “Don’t ask me to go with you.”
3. Strobel noticed changes in wife’s life
a. She was winsome and attractive
b. He wanted to know what was behind that
4. He went to church with his wife
a. Pastor blew away his misconceptions about Christianity
b. Remained an atheist
III. Strobel’s investigation into credibility of Christianity
A. Early Suspicions
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1. Knew that if Christianity were true, this had huge implications for his life
2. Decided to take his journalism and legal training to systematically
investigate credibility of Christianity
B. Investigation of his many questions
1. “How many eyewitnesses are there?”
a. discovered there were many eyewitnesses
b. some eyewitnesses took time to record their experiences with Jesus
2. “Who wrote the Gospel accounts?”
a. discovered good historical evidence that the Gospel accounts were
actually authored by the names they bear
b. realized that authors took pains to record only what they knew to be
true
(1) Luke was a first century investigative reporter
(a) Luke 1:1-4
(b) Luke investigated and wrote accounts in order
(2) Peter said they didn’t make up stories; they were
eyewitnesses
(3) John wrote about what they had “heard, seen, and touched
with our hands”
3. “Are the Gospel accounts historical records?”
a. used training from Yale to take a set of documents and apply legal
tests of evidence to determine credibility
b. Wasn’t ready to accept writings as the inspired word of God, but
had to admit they were ancient historical record
4. “ Is the idea that Christ is deity just a legend?”
a. wondered if the oral transmission of the New Testament was
distorted by legend and wishful thinking
(1) were the gospels written down 60-100 years later?
(2) Did they bear resemblance to the real Jesus?
b. realized that early on, Jesus is presented as divine
(1) Matthew, Mark, Luke were written within about 50 years of
Jesus’ life
(2) Paul’s letters were written within 16-20 years of Jesus’ life
(3) Paul and Peter preserved the early creeds, which predate
Paul’s writings
(a) Creeds affirm Jesus in very exalted terms
(b) Phil 2:6, Col 1:15, I Peter 3:22
(c) I Cor 15:3- 7 is creed of early church that affirms
core of Christianity
1. creed is dated by scholars as early as 2-5 years
after Jesus’ life
2. elements of creed include eyewitnesses and
testimony
C. The references to the deity of Jesus were not developed by legends many years later
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1. A.N. Sherman White (classical historian from Oxford): says that the
development of legend takes more than 2 generations to wipe out the
solid core of historical truth
2. Craig Blomberg: when you look at creeds and the early preaching in Acts,
you see that within the first 2 years after Jesus’ death:
a. significant numbers of Jesus’ followers formed a doctrine of the
atonement
b. they were convinced Jesus had risen from the dead
c. they associated Jesus with God
d. they believed they found support for these is the Old Testament
e. German Historian in 1844
(1) Challenged any historian in history to find any case of
legend growing up that quickly and wiping out a solid core
of historical proof
(2) That has never happened
f. Realized that maybe the ideas about Jesus didn’t grow up a long
time after His life and thus get superimposed over the real facts of
the life of Jesus; maybe we really do have a historical root
3. “How can we trust the oral tradition to pass the facts?”
a. realized the significance of the fact that the followers of Jesus were
going around telling people about Jesus in the same time frame in
which he lived
(1) F.F. Bruce: “If there was any tendency by disciples to depart
from material facts in any way, the possible presence of
hostile witnesses in the audience would serve as a
corrective.”
(2) How could Christianity take root in the very city where Jesus
died and rose again? If the disciples were saying false things
about Him, then the movement would have ended
b. In the historical record, the followers appealed to common
knowledge that their audience had about Jesus
(1) Peter’s message in Acts 2: “You know what He did and that
He rose. You are all eyewitnesses!”
(2) Their response: they didn’t deny Peter; 3,000 people said to
Peter, “What do we do? We know we put Messiah to death.”
(3) Then those 3,000 believed that day and the Church is born
there in Jerusalem
4. “Would the disciples die for something they knew to be false?”
a. disciples must really have believed because they were willing to die
in support of the belief that Jesus really was the Son of God, who
died on our behalf, and proved it by raising from the dead
(1) BUT that’s NOT evidence: crackpots all throughout history
have been willing to die for religious beliefs
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(2) The DIFFERENCE: people will die for religious beliefs if

they sincerely believe they are true, but never if they know
they’re false
b. The apostles didn’t just believe the Resurrection to be true; they
knew it for a fact
(1) They knew the truth and were willing to die for it
(2) Throughout history, no one dies for what they know to be a
lie
5. “Did Jesus fulfill Old Testament prophecies?”
a. five dozen prophecies were written hundreds of years before Jesus
was born
b. Lewis Lapides, Jewish scholar
(1) Read Isaiah 53 and came to the conclusion that that is a
picture of Jesus of Nazareth
(2) Wondered if it was a forgery, but then saw that the Jewish
version of Isaiah 53 read exactly the same as the version used
by Christians
(3) Confirmed that Isaiah 53 was indeed about Jesus of
Nazareth; became a Christian and the president of a
network of 15 messianic congregations
c. Could anyone have fulfilled the prophecies? Was it easy?
(1) Peter Stoner of Westmont had 600 students try to come up
with the odds that any human could fulfill just 8 of the
prophecies (which was very conservative consensus)
(a) The odds? 1 chance in a hundred million billion
(b) That is like tiling the entire planet with one inch
square tiles; under one is a gold star
(c) Then walk the planet, bend down one time and
pick up one tile. And the tile you pick would have
the star on the bottom!
(2) What about fulfilling 48 prophecies?
(a) That is like” taking one atom (and remember that
1 hair width is 1,000,000 atoms) and spray paint it
red
(b) Release it in a trillion trillion trillion billion
universes
(c) Give someone a space ship; fly through all these
universes; then stop and pick out just one, and it is
the red one!
(d) The odds that any human could fulfill 48
prophecies exceed the ability of the human mind
to conceptualize odds that great
(3) Luke 24:44—Jesus said that all written by the prophets must
be fulfilled
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6. “Did Jesus rise from the dead?”

a. realized he was not the first one trained in law to take evidence for
the resurrection and investigate it
b. Sir Lionel Luckhoo
(1) Most successful lawyer in history
(2) Defense attorney – won 245 murder trials consecutively
(3) How smart – how savvy? To be able to take what appears to
be an airtight case against a client and find all loopholes, all
shortcomings, all problems with the case
(4) More than anyone, must understand what constitutes
reliable and persuasive evidence
(a) He was an atheist
(b) He took his monumental knowledge and beliefs
and investigated from legal tests of evidence
(c) “I say unequivocally that the evidence for the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming
that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves
absolutely no room for doubt” – Lionel Luckhoo
1. died by crucifixion
2. stabbed in the heart
3. pronounced dead by experts
4. wrapped in 75 spices and linen
5. placed in a sealed & guarded tomb
6. Easter Sunday morning – body was gone
7. people proclaimed to their death they saw
Jesus alive
8. remember creed from I Cor 15
9. earliest writing we have says 500 people saw
him at once – if they were brought to court
and given 15 min each, we would be listening
for 127 hours
10. they had no motive for taking the body
11. Jewish leaders wanted him dead
12. Roman government wanted him to stay dead
13. disciples weren’t going to take the body and
then knowingly, willingly die for the lie –
people don’t do that
(5) Archaeology
(a) Luke corroborates incidental details
(b) Why would he be careless about Jesus
(c) 1 year 9 months of investigating
(d) wrote out on a legal pad
(e) huge avalanche of evidence
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(f) in face of that, takes more faith to maintain

atheism, and he couldn’t
(g) he was trained in journalism and law to respond to
evidence
(h) he was convinced
7. went to John 1:12 – believe + receive = become
a. equation for what it means to follow Jesus
b. Luckhoo believed, received, repented and became child of God
c. told his wife – “I just touched Jesus – it’s real”
d. other women helped her have hope for him – Ezek 36:26 – pray it
everyday – God answered prayer
e. Life was revolutionized
(1) 5 year old Daughter – “I want God to do for me what He’s
done for Daddy”
(2) wrote a story – apologetics for one person’s life – changed
life, family and eternity
f. believe + receive = become – 3 applications points for our lives
D. Implications to apply from “believe + receive = become”
1. Underscores centrality of prayer
a. In process of evangelism & in general
b. Apologetics in particular
c. Wife’s friend prayed for her, wife prayed for him
d. Jesus prayed for lost people right to his last breath
2. Application – pray fervently, consistently and specifically for lost people
in our lives
a. God is working, Holy Spirit is drawing and prayer makes the
difference – don’t give up
b. Got to do what Jesus did – keep lifting up the lost people to God
(1) The guy who prayed for his lost brother for 48 years and 348
days – his brother started reading A Case for Christ – then
was diagnoses with liver cancer and came to Christ on his
death bed
(2) The father-in-law was a tough case, at 89 years old had a
stroke – terminal – his family said they didn’t want to be in
heaven without him – after 21/2 hours he trusted Christ
and they celebrated
3. How does the church rally around prayer for unbelievers for 10 weeks
before Christmas and Easter
a. Pray for 1 person for 1 minute at 1:00 o’clock every day
b. Urgency – same as for 9/11
4. Underscores implication of relationships in reaching lost wife –
friendship-relationship
a. Lee – wife’s life testimony
b. Friends buy from friends – they have credibility
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c. This is the idea behind Case for Christ

(1) That Christians would read it & engage a friend with it
(2) Atheists won’t be the ones buying it
E. Strengthen Apologetics in the local church
1. Traditional apologetics says it in dead
2. PM generation – don’t care about the truth
3. Is Christ worth believing?
4. We need to create real communities that are winsome & attractive to
non-believers
5. Apologetics is not dead
a. People are reading the book
b. Ages 16-24 (PM group) in the largest group reading the book
c. People are still concerned with the truth – “We’ve never heard this
before
6. If we are merely reaching out to the PM youth by creating these loving,
caring communities, what is to differentiate them from the Mormon,
Hindu, Muslim.
a. This is Good, but we must make the distinction of TRUTH
b. Both…and - not either…or
F. Huge role in local church for apologetics
1. Through preaching
a. Willow Creek church growing
b. Most apologetically oriented church
c. “put the cookies on the bottom shelf”
d. practical apologetics – put the “why” out there
2. Train teams of apologists in local churches – form a resource team of
those with this style to be available to the congregation
a. Evangelical intellectuals – Paul
b. Confrontational – Peter
c. Serving – Dorcas
d. Relational – Matthew
e. Testimonial – blind man
f. Invitational – woman at the well
3. Instruction for all Christians on how to discern truth from error – to
defend their faith
a. ¾ of people converting to Mormonism are evangelical Christians
b. haven’t been taught
4. Create Special Events
a. Gary Habermas
b. Phil Johnson – invited all science teachers – they brought their
students
c. “What Jesus would say to Rob Sherman” (Atheist)
d. William Lane Craig & Prof. Zindler
(1) Debate for Atheist vs. Christian
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(2) Let people make up their own mind

(3) Person can be intelligent & a Christian at the same time
(4) Debate took 2 ½ hours
(5) Had people praying
(6) 8000 ballots – atheists, agnostic, non-Christians
(7) 82% said case for Christianity most compelling
(8) 47 walked in as atheists, out as followers of Christ
(9) No one said they became an atheist
e. Churches need to be a center for this type of activity
5. Seeker Small Groups
a. 23% want to be part of a community as they seek
b. 80% conversion rate in seeker community groups
c. Christian couple hosts it
(1) 1st night for getting acquainted
(2) get them to ask their toughest questions about God
(3) curriculum made from those “Tough Questions”
(4) following, if people have more questions, have an evening
with J.P. Moreland
d. People are hungry for community and truth
G. In light of 9-11
1. How 19 people, driven by evil intentions, could shake this country
2. What could we do? Share the truth in a winsome manner
3. Dr. Belzikien – used to preach that there would one day be a church
reaching out to seekers with deep questions in a winsome & attractive
manner – a center for apologetics
4. Bill Hybels was a student in his class and was excited by the idea
5. Bill started a youth group
a. High school students
b. Then their parents and other adults
6. 20 year anniversary – celebration – Willow Creek – 20,000 attended who
had come to Christ through that ministry

Prayer – someday in heaven, Jesus will reveal all the times that He used you, in His
sovereignty, as a link in the chain. Everyone will “glow”.