Intimate, Credible, & Verfied

Lee Strobel’s story presents an extreme atheist converted because two major difficulties in his own life finally tipped his hand. In fact, they were essential to his conversion. His wife came to accept Christ through a miracle she recognized as an invitation. Her conversion essentially shattered their marital agreement to live as atheists. Lee could not reconcile his wife’s disloyalty to their commitment that nothing or no one could come between them. Fomented in the fine print of their marital contract bubbled up a cauldron of not so hidden pain. Lee had not reconciled an earlier broken relationship with his father; the man had never voiced his love for his son. Lee insisted that his parents were to be ignored. These two intertwined and unhealthy relationship foundations served as the hardner to Lee’s heart. His love for others performed according to a strictly defined and conditional love. 

His evidentiary journey to meet Jesus Christ begins with the overwhelming abundance of data about Jesus’ life. Lee believed the history records were scarce and suspect. The opposite was true. Documentation on Jesus, verifiable and credible, stands unparalleled to any other person in human history. Strobel was stunned by that. That first step to accept the volumes of data about Jesus' life, death and resurrection marks the critical beginning toward a faith decision. Lee eventually found proof that everything spoken about Jesus could be historically and scientifically supported. The evidence was sound, and all of it lay before him. The consequence to the evidence, the follow-through from the truth, presented Lee with a relationship, not just a set of principles, or bound dogmas, or even a practical life. What startled Lee, was who Jesus said he was.

God's Spiritual Handshake


http://usccb.org/bible/readings/121117.cfm
Isaiah 35:1-10
Luke 5:17-26


In Lee Strobel’s testimonial about his reluctant conversion, titled A Case For Christ, he follows a path of evidence that upended his life choice — atheism. Lee set out to uncover a fraud, and discovered instead incontrovertible support in favor of the plaintiff, Jesus the Christ. The award winning journalist ultimately could not reject the truth. In this case, he yearned to expose the lie that Christ existed as witnessed and prophesied in scripture. If a lie, Jesus’ resurrection did not take place. If he lived but did not die as reported, then again, no resurrection. Thus, the Holy Spirit would not then live and act within the world. They were all lies, Lee was certain. Strobel found no lies.

The accumulation of evidence gathered from each of his challenges to Christianity, which Strobel found credible beyond his expectations, did not, though, convert him to faith. Evidence by itself is not enough to produce a submission to a belief. It simply presents the pathway to something real and potentially true. Faith is not believing in spite of the evidence, but following the truth in spite of the consequences.

The evidence prodded Lee to recognize the divine as a substantiated relationship, a distinct opportunity. His search did not require him to take the opportunity to its forgone conclusion. Nor had he lost a bet, forced to take a resultant leap of faith. His search found him standing in the midst of truth and offered a spiritual handshake. God reached out, shoring up all the truths that Lee needed, and then Lee Strobel was asked to reach back. He could have stopped with just the affirmation of the evidence, and chosen not to participate. He’d been an atheist all his adult life, and a hard hitting journalist who exposed the truth and simply moved on. The offered handshake of intimacy with the divine influenced his next steps, because the life-changing relationship that he would encounter erased atheism, and the loving offer from God softened his heart.

This openness to intimacy presents itself as a fork in the road. Those of us who have stepped into God would not want to go back. The fork’s options represent vastly different outcomes. How could we decide any other way? We may think that now, miles and decades later. As Jesus knows, however, the thirsty horse almost always hesitates at an unknown river’s bank. 

The story about the healing of the paralytic by Jesus (Luke 5:17) lays the foundation for such conversions of logic and evidence like that experienced by  Lee Strobel. When the paralyzed man was dropped into Jesus’ presence from a rooftop, Pharisees and Saducees were interrupted from listening to Jesus teach. Jesus told the uninvited paralytic that because of he and his friends’ belief in Jesus’ power, and their actions to bring him, that the paralytic’s sins were forgiven. Their faith in Jesus removed the ill man’s sins.

Jesus did not heal the man just then, for a different purpose was to come from this event. A new witness must be told. New evidence for Christianity.

“Who is this who speaks blasphemies?” those listening to Jesus asked. “Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus had not said that in God’s name he forgave the man’s sins. He said it in his own name. The evidence for this day was that Jesus was showing these men, and therefore us, that he indeed was God incarnate. God made man. It was an impossible thing to imagine.

Then Jesus asked them, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” Jesus then turned to the paralyzed man and told him to rise, pick up the stretcher which he arrived in, and go home.

Jesus knows the complimentary need for evidence and truth. Quite often the evidence eludes us, or the truth seems confusing. It is easy to say something is true, but can it be certified? Jesus tied together his power to eradicate sin and restore the universe in this well attended and carefully recorded event.

Astonishment struck those present that day. They glorified God. Seems very appropriate. The evidence left no other response for those in attendance. It may well be that everyone remained with Jesus. Further scripture stories tell us a different ending, noting that as many as half, if not more, did not follow through, and abandoned Jesus later. They were certainly struck with firm evidence, and believed, that day. Remaining intimate with Jesus carries further and dire consequences.

Lee Strobel’s story presents an extreme atheist converted because two major difficulties in his own life finally tipped his hand. In fact, they were essential to his conversion. His wife came to accept Christ through a miracle she recognized as an invitation. Her conversion essentially shattered their marital agreement to live as atheists. Lee could not reconcile his wife’s disloyalty to their commitment that nothing or no one could come between them. Fomented in the fine print of their marital contract bubbled up a cauldron of not so hidden pain. Lee had not reconciled an earlier broken relationship with his father; the man had never voiced his love for his son. Lee insisted that his parents were to be ignored. These two intertwined and unhealthy relationship foundations served as the hardner to Lee’s heart. His love for others performed according to a strictly defined and conditional love. 

His evidentiary journey to meet Jesus Christ begins with the overwhelming abundance of data about Jesus’ life. Lee believed the history records were scarce and suspect. The opposite was true. Documentation on Jesus, verifiable and credible, stands unparalleled to any other person in human history. Strobel was stunned by that. That first step to accept the volumes of data about Jesus' life, death and resurrection marks the critical beginning toward a faith decision. Lee eventually found proof that everything spoken about Jesus could be historically and scientifically supported. The evidence was sound, and all of it lay before him. The consequence to the evidence, the follow-through from the truth, presented Lee with a relationship, not just a set of principles, or bound dogmas, or even a practical life. What startled Lee, was who Jesus said he was.

When Jesus traveled through all those villages on his way to Jerusalem he continually offered his followers a relationship to him over all others. The evidence piled up everywhere he went, that he was who he said he was. Each person he met was drawn to him. As the followers gathered the remarkable emphasis from Jesus meant they were to love one another. This same witness hammers us today. The evidence hasn’t stopped piling up. The testimony as told by Lee Strobel is simply one more page.

I believe we need this continual stream of evidence, of remarkable stories told of Jesus in scriptures and by 2000 years of believers. There are not just these stories coming alive from the dust of old pages, but daily from our friends and families. We don't just need convincing. We need constant engagement from God.

Lee’s wife was brought to faith by a woman whom God had urged to be present to her. His wife trusted the witness of that woman, and was nurtured by a loving faith community. Her consistency in loving Lee through their newfound marital difficulties, and praying with their daughter, impacted Lee. He would have had no kindling for his faith to be lit without that love. The entire world of the Church’s history and saints opened up to the Strobel household.

The loving relationship of the paralytic and his friends must have likewise grown after that healing experience. The very foundations of the Church were sown like seeds that day, and in every place that Jesus went. The principles of our faith do have importance, but the object of our faith, Jesus the Christ, precedes everything else. Most wonderful, will come the day when God's spiritual handshake will be offered in the flesh.

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