Lee Strobel earned a journalism degree and then a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School. He was an investigative journalist and an award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune. I say was because he is now an award-winning Christian author.
His conversion story is pretty fascinating. Lee considered himself an atheist although he really hadn’t given Christianity much thought. Imagine his shock when his wife announced she was a Christian! Lee was not happy and he thought it was the end of their marriage. Partly because the change in his wife was fascinating and partly because he wanted to prove her wrong, Lee began to investigate Christianity. Using his training from Yale and his experience as the legal affairs editor and true to his journalistic roots, he set out across the country interviewing leading scholars and authorities. He asked them tough questions. For almost two years he investigated the evidence of Christ and at the end, he became a believer.
Lee Strobel details this journey and these interviews in his book, The Case for Christ. (This post contains an affiliate link.) It was one of the first Christian books I read and it greatly impacted my life.
My faith had been fed to me from what I had picked up here and there – from church, from friends, from things I heard other people say. I considered myself a Christian, but I was pretty ignorant when it came to what I really believed and why I believed it. And strangely I was content with that level of spirituality and that level of ignorance. And then I wasn’t content with being ignorant. I don’t know what changed. It just did. Suddenly I had this intense desire to figure out what it was I believed. I had many doubts. I was skeptical of some of what I had heard. What if it wasn’t really true that Jesus had risen from the dead? How do we know He did? Was Jesus really God? Why did Jesus have to die? What if it was all a big lie? How do we know the Bible is reliable? Is Jesus the only way to heaven?
And I began a journey. I started going to church regularly (at first often sitting there tearing apart and questioning the minister’s sermon in my mind), I joined Bible study groups, asked people questions (oh my, if I found out someone was going to seminary or had been to seminary, I annoyed them to no end!), read Christian books, and began to read the Bible. I became purposeful to figure it out. It was like a fire was lit under me. I wanted my faith to be genuine and real.
On the front end of this spiritual quest I picked up The Case for Christ and read it. What fascinated me about the book was that Lee Strobel asked profound questions and was being intelligent about Christianity. It blew me away to read a book that laid it out there and systematically went through the evidence that Jesus is Christ. It was my first exposure to apologetics which is a fancy word for “defense of the Christian faith.”
but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;
1 Peter 3:15 (NASB)
This is a book that every Christian should read.
This is a book that every atheist should read.
It is a classic.
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