Written by Lee Strobel about his journey into writing the book “The Case For Christ” and reprinted here for our edification.
“I started my original investigation [of the resurrection of Jesus] as a spiritual skeptic, but after having thoroughly investigated the evidence for the resurrection, I was coming to a startlingly unexpected verdict. One final fact — described by a respected philosopher named J. P. Moreland — clinched the case for me.
“When Jesus was crucified,” Moreland told me, “His followers were discouraged and depressed. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks. Then, after a short period of time, we see them abandoning their occupations, regathering, and committing themselves to spreading a very specific message — that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God who died on a cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by them.
“And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view. They faced a life of hardship. They often went without food, slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned. And finally, most of them were executed in torturous ways. For what? For good intentions? No, because they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead.”
Yes, people will die for their religious convictions if they sincerely believe they are true. Religious fanatics have done that throughout history. While they may strongly believe in the tenets of their religion, however, they don’t know for a fact whether their faith is based on the truth. They simply cannot know for sure. They can only believe.
In stark contrast, the disciples were in the unique position to know for a fact whether Jesus had returned from the dead. They saw Him, they touched Him, they ate with Him. They knew He wasn’t a hallucination or a legend. And knowing the truth, they were willing to die for Him.
That insight stunned me. The disciples didn’t merely believe in the resurrection; they knew whether it was fact or fiction. Had they known it was a lie, they would never have been willing to sacrifice their lives for it. Nobody willingly dies for something that they know is false. They proclaimed the resurrection to their deaths for one reason alone: they knew it was true.
And based on the historical data I had examined, I became convinced they were right. Combined with the other evidence for Jesus that I describe in my book The Case for Christ, I concluded that He really is the one and only Son of God, who proved it by rising from the dead.”
I would encourage everyone to watch the docudrama produced by Lee Strobel to have an understanding of the apologetic value to his research. You can watch it here (not the feature length movie that came out in 2017, you can rent it at your local video store or catch it on Netflix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92t441KLTos
I also did enjoy the feature length film that came out last year. Check out this trailer to wet your appetite to watching the film: