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The Case for Faith Bible Study Guide Revised Edition: Investigating the Toughest Objections to Christianity
The Case for Faith Bible Study Guide Revised Edition: Investigating the Toughest Objections to Christianity
The Case for Faith Bible Study Guide Revised Edition: Investigating the Toughest Objections to Christianity
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The Case for Faith Bible Study Guide Revised Edition: Investigating the Toughest Objections to Christianity

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Does believing in Christ mean refusing to ask hard questions in the midst of doubt?

Doubt is familiar territory for Lee Strobel, the former atheist and award-winning author of books for skeptics and Christians alike. But he believes that faith and reason go hand in hand, and that Christianity is, in rational terms, a defensible religion.

In this six-session video Bible study (DVD/digital video sold separately), Strobel explores the most common emotional obstacles to faith in Christ, including:

  • The natural inclination to wrestle with faith and doubt.
  • The troubling presence of evil and suffering in the world.
  • The exclusivity of the Christian gospel.

Behind each of these considerations is the question: Can I doubt and still be a Christian?

Through compelling personal stories and expert testimony--combined with discussion and personal reflection cues facilitated by contributor Garry Poole--Christians and spiritual seekers will learn how to overcome these obstacles, deepen their spiritual convictions, and find new confidence that Christianity is a reasonable faith.

Sessions include:

  1. The Challenge of Faith
  2. Dealing with Doubt
  3. Evil and Suffering, Part 1
  4. Evil and Suffering, Part 2
  5. Why Is Jesus the Only Way to God?
  6. The Power of Faith

Designed for use with The Case for Faith Revised Video Study  9780310698814 (sold separately).

LanguageEnglish
PublisherZondervan
Release dateDec 23, 2013
ISBN9780310698838
The Case for Faith Bible Study Guide Revised Edition: Investigating the Toughest Objections to Christianity
Author

Lee Strobel

Lee Strobel, former award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Lee earned a journalism degree at the University of Missouri and was awarded a Ford Foundation fellowship to study at Yale Law School, where he received a Master of Studies in Law degree. He was a journalist for fourteen years at the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, winning Illinois’ top honors for investigative reporting (which he shared with a team he led) and public service journalism from United Press International. Lee also taught First Amendment Law at Roosevelt University. A former atheist, he served as a teaching pastor at three of America’s largest churches. Lee and his wife, Leslie, have been married for more than fifty years and live in Texas. Their daughter, Alison, and son, Kyle, are also authors. Website: www.leestrobel.com

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Rating: 3.2 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    If you think there are only Islamic lunatics, read this book. Scary.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've been a Christian for years, and this book still brought up some of the questions I had. I loved how they were answered - we won't always have the answers to things, but the answers we do have should be enough.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am a Christian and read this book out of curiosity. It makes some valid points and conveys some interesting ideas, even if you want to argue with the interpretations. The bottom line is Jesus rose from the grave, and Strobel did a particularly good job of investigating that in the original Case for Christ.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is chocked full of all sorts of history that will keep you wanting to turn the page! I know history that makes you want to turn the page?! It's amazing. You will begin to read something and think "I already know that" but, then it will delve deeper but, on a simple level that is easy to grasp and give you lots of ah hah moments. I love the interviews with "both sides" if you will. From non believers to the very dedicated God fearing and loving Christians. You must read this no matter what your belief. It will give you insight like you have never had before. Lee Strobel is not afraid to sit across from anyone even well known and ask the hard questions. Go get this book! :-)
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I somehow had the urge, on Christmas day, no less, to review this... maybe as explanation for why I'm not sitting in church right now... a "bah, humbug" review, I suppose. I used to identify as Christian. I read this book. I'm now agnostic. Obviously, losing faith isn't that simple, correlation doesn't imply causation, and this book may be great for some people, but I want to add my reaction because I'm concerned for anyone who reads this book while troubled about their faith...it may be a really, really bad idea.

    I grew up in the church, but I've always had doubts. I'm a logician at heart, and there are a lot of direct contradictions in the Bible. There are also a lot of teachings which have been discarded in light of our culture(e.g. the role of women, most of the Old Testament laws, etc) and my very tautological mindset has issues with pick-and-choose precepts. Anyway, growing up in the church, I learned quickly that hard questions were not welcomed. (Yes, this includes those alpha groups. I tried a few--after getting questions shut down, I tried contacting the leaders and asking if it was ok for me to come...I was gently told that my concerns might "contaminate" others.) That "don't confuse me with the facts" mentality is what eventually made me give up. And this book has it in spades.

    I was given this book (as a Christmas gift, incidentally) quite a few years ago by a truly kind and compassionate member of my church who hadn't read it but thought it might help me with those "hard questions." As it turns out, it didn't, and in fact helped to kill most of my remaining faith. I found Strobel's God to be one much more interested in righteousness and justice than forgiveness or compassion. He felt to me like the other side of the coin of C.S. Lewis's God of joy and love.

    Strobel sets out a bunch of "laws" and "rules" dogmatically, not all of which (I felt) are biblically supported. Take, as one example, the fun parts of the Old Testament where God orders pillage, rape, murder and genocide. I sort of developed a comfort with the "continuing revelation" view of the Bible--that God first reveals himself to Abraham as in some ways a god of the mountain, and that as he continued to reveal himself, people understood more clearly about mercy as opposed to hard justice. Strobel doesn't agree. I also never believed in inerrancy--it's the whole direct contradiction issue--and Strobel does. So that means he actually had the fun task of arguing that the genocides and rapes and slaughters,of, say, the Canaanites in the Old Testament were justified. Strobel's response: they were bad people, so they--and their children and camels--deserved what was coming to them.

    Another section that bothered me was about exclusivity. I've always believed (I know, I know, this automatically shows why I couldn't survive in the church) that God must be bigger than the labels and regimented doctrine of Judeo-Christianity. Why would he limit himself to only one small group? What happened to people born before then? What happens to someone who never learned of Jesus? Why could God not have been continually revealing himself to people throughout time, to people who never fully grasp Him and therefore splinter themselves into various religions? (I know, it's heresy. But then, I'm no longer Christian...maybe I never really was.) Strobel asks some of these in his interview...but comes up with neatly packaged answers supporting exclusivity. He argues that God being God, God must somehow give everyone the opportunity. And apparently, all other religions are "wrong" and "arrogant" for "daring" to consider their religion better than Christianity. I cannot reconcile with a God who sends backbiting Christians to Heaven because they jump through some hoops and get all their names right while sending, say, faithful, righteous, and compassionate Muslims to Hell.

    And speaking of Hell...there's an entire chapter devoted to it. It is actually possible, if you're careful, to read what Jesus says about Hell, the weeping and gnashing of teeth, as simply ending rather than eternal torment. For me, that was OK. I'm comfortable with ending and becoming nothing. Eternity scares me. Eternal Hell also seems to me to contradict the argument that God uses earthly pain as a teaching tool like a parent making a child do his homework. (Speaking of which, apparently children get a free pass--Strobel "saves" the children from Hell via the "age of accountability" doctrine--apparently there's a mystical cutoff at which point you become responsible and can go darkside. I don't understand this, and I see no biblical support.) What parent, no matter how sick, twisted, and bad, could ever send their child to eternal time-out, let alone Hell? How could God? According to Strobel and his interviewee, God thinks we each have "intrinsic value", so shoving us in hopeless Hell from which there is no chance of redemption somehow "saves" that "value", whereas nonexistence would destroy it. That sounds dangerously close to a sociopathic viewpoint to me. And how could anyone be happy in Heaven knowing anyone--no matter how bad--was being eternally tormented? Apparently, they're just dandy with that "value" thing. Look, if Strobel's right, I'm headed straight to Hell without passing go or collecting $200. I can't picture my parents feeling happy knowing that I'm eternally tormented. They'd rather I was just gone. The only reason to keep us there would be the CS Lewis Great Divorce style redemption--where even after death, people could be reconciled to God. No chance, says Strobel, because if God is infinitely wise, how could anyone die without having sufficient opportunities? This touches home, as (like most people) I know people who have committed suicide due to serious mental depression (and possibly poor medical treatment for it). According to Strobel, they're downstairs being tortured right now, and will scream in Hell for all eternity.

    The last section is about how it's OK to have doubts. But before you start feeling better, they have to be the "right" doubts. And of course, they will be magically resolved via prayer and supplication and a relationship with God. To be honest, I've tried and agonized. I've never felt God. I've never had a relationship. And I still have (pardon the pun) a Hell of a lot of doubts.

    I'm no longer Christian. This book isn't the only reason why, but it certainly was a contributing factor to my sense of alienation from the church and the community. I want to dismiss it, ignore it, erase it from my mind, but I never can. Much of it also has a significant amount of biblical support. This book scares me, and while it promises me eternal torment for not towing the line, it also makes me physically unable to do so. I worry that for doubters like me, this book is dangerous and toxic to faith. But again, everyone reacts differently; maybe some people will benefit from it. If you are firm in your faith, it may be a very interesting read to contrast with C.S.Lewis.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    My review for this book and The Case For Christ are the same, since I read them at the same time five years ago and can't remember which topics were in which books. I managed to forget I ever read them, and only when I saw them on this site did remember. These books were given to me by a guy I was dating at the time who decided I'd only be an acceptable wife if I converted to Christianity (I'm currently single, if you're wondering how well that went over). It's a shame he chose these books as his main plan of attack, because they're terrible.Lee Strobel's first mistake is that he tries to answer everything with a pat, definitive response. The tone he uses is one that says, "AH! This is so simple, now that you've explained it! How does anyone not understand?" As most people realize, religion is complicated and often requires you to just believe in things that you take on faith, rather than because it's been proven by evidence. Trying to argue for faith makes faith a moot point. When answering the question, "If there's a God, why does he allow such suffering in this world?" Strobel trots out the tired response, "Because God gave us free will." For a book that's supposed to help convert people, that answer isn't going to reassure someone who had strong objections in the first place. It also fails to acknowledge that we really just don't know, and that we tell ourselves this to try to make sense of things, not because we know for sure.Strobel also tried to address deep questions with anecdotes - one that sticks out in my mind to this day was a response to a question about how people who never heard of Jesus could be saved, and isn't it a flaw of the religion if it only applied to people who happened to live in a place where Jesus was brought to their attention? Strobel somehow thought that a story about a Muslim girl in a Muslim country who one day randomly thought "I need Jesus's help" and secretly became Christian answered it sufficiently and proved that we will just know Jesus in our hearts. Other answers required a preexisting belief in order to make sense. They reminded me of the circular argument the aforementioned ex-boyfriend would give for Jesus's divinity - Jesus is God, so since he says he's God, if I don't believe he's God, I'm calling God a liar. The kicker for me was a chapter about the prediction of the Messiah in the Jewish bible - Strobel managed to find an ignorant Jew who must have never done even the minimal Torah study. With his help, Strobel spins a conspiracy where Rabbis hide the fact that the Jewish bible prophesied the arrival of the Messiah. The ignorant Jew tells Strobel all about how he didn't know such a thing was foretold, and it was such a revelation to him that he converted to Christianity. I want to find this guy and smack him up the side of the head with my Tanakh and suggest he look up that little thing about the descendant of King David. Strobel would have done far better to admit that these are complicated questions for which we don't have all the answers, if we have any at all. The fact that he has an answer for everything just makes him look silly and arrogant. If religion were this easy, we wouldn't have the Talmud and Midrash.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    What an incredible unworthy follow up to The Case for Christ. The problem is, of course, that Strobel is not a great theologian. His approach to doctrine is very man-focused rather than Christ-focused.Now, when you are investigating the historical evidence to the Bible, the details of your theology don't matter all that much. Because of that, The Case for Christ is a great work in apologetics. But that is not at all the approach of this work. Instead of looking at actual hard evidence, Strobel instead turns to philosophy to answer tough questions like, "If God is good, then why is there evil in the world."Fair question, but Strobel, being very pragmatic and man-focused, turns to like-minded philosophers for his answers. So instead of biblically-based responses (even if we don't want to hear them), we have a bunch of people trying to twist their brains to defend God's actions in history. We have one philosopher trying to claim that hell exists because it is less dehumanizing than simple annihilation (p. 253), that all children who die go to heaven because they are not old enough to know better (p. 169), and that human free will is the driving force in the universe (throughout).The problem, of course, is having a wrong understanding of God in the first place. When you are Strobel, and you come to this book with the belief that God is helpless against free will, then you have a God who either cannot or will not help. That is not the God of the Bible. The true God is sovereign over all things. He is moving the tides of history by His will. He allows evil for a time, but He moves all thing for His glory and for the good of His children. He is guiding this world to a place that we cannot even imagine right now, and yet every moment will be seen in the end as purposeful and for the good. He is merciful to allow evil for a time, for we are sinful, and if He were to avenge evil fully in this moment, then He would destroy us as well. But in mercy He has given us time, for He is long suffering. He has given us this very day that we might repent and believe in Him and be saved.The book is not all bad. Ravi Zacharias has a very fine interview. But on the whole, this is an exercise in bad philosophy trying to remake God in our own image instead of ourselves being conformed to the image of Jesus. I'll stick with Strobel's more historic-based books in the future.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Strobel does it once again in this amazing book defending the Christian faith!!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A bit of preaching to the choir, a bit of dissing other religions. Not much to see here.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    A simplified theology book with pat answers that aren't really answers at all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As in his other books, Strobel tackles some of the tough objections to the Christian religion--this time objections that would lead to a lack of faith. These include the problems of human suffering and human evolution. Strobel does this by talking to people, he interviews Christian authorities on these matters and then shares his refections. It might not convince anyone who isn't already convinced, but it does offer a personal approach to intellectual problems which at least helps make the book more intersting to read. And I think it does show that to be a Christian you don't have to check your brain at the door.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Have you got questions about Christianity? Former athiest attempts to break down those barriers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Refer to my thoughts concerning Case for Christ.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    He's actually willing to take on some tough questions. That's to his credit. However ... he has no tough answers to go along with them. In the end, it always seems to come down to personal convictions, inner transformations, and ineffable experiences of being "sure."
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Good try at convincing us that there is a God and his son is Jesus, but every time a hard question is asked, the straw-men come dancing in and fail to impress me.

Book preview

The Case for Faith Bible Study Guide Revised Edition - Lee Strobel

SESSION 1

The Challenge of Faith

For me, having lived much of my life as an atheist, the last thing I want is a naive faith built on a paper-thin foundation of wishful thinking or make-believe. I need a faith that’s consistent with reason, not contradictory to it; I want beliefs that are grounded in reality, not detached from it. I need to find out once and for all whether the Christian faith can stand up to scrutiny. It was time for me to talk face to face with Charles Templeton.

Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith

Read This!

If possible, read the introduction (The Challenge of Faith) and On the Road to Answers in The Case for Faith book in preparation for your group meeting. Otherwise, read it as follow-up.

Watch This!

Video Teaching Segment

Space is provided to take notes on anything that stands out to you.

[Your Notes]

Discuss This!

1. What are your greatest doubts in life? What spiritual doubts do you carry around with you?

[Your Response]

Reason and faith are opposites, two mutually exclusive terms: there is no reconciliation or common ground. Faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason.

— Atheist George H. Smith

THINK ABOUT THIS!

All of us want somebody to love us. Well, I want to tell you that God loves you. He loves you so much that he gave us his Son to die on the cross for our sins. And he loves you so much that he will come into your life and change the direction of your life and make you a new person, whoever you are.

Billy Graham

What is faith? There would have been no need to define it for these people listening to Billy Graham preach on that sultry June night. Faith was almost palpable to them. They reached out to God almost as if they were expecting to physically embrace him. Faith drained them of the guilt that had oppressed them. Faith replaced despondency with hope. Faith infused them with new direction and purpose. Faith unlocked heaven. Faith was like cool water soaking their parched soul.

Lee Strobel

But faith isn’t always that easy, even for people who desperately want it. Some people hunger for spiritual certainty, yet something hinders them from experiencing it. They wish they could taste that kind of freedom, but obstacles block their paths. Objections pester them. Doubts mock them. Their hearts want to soar to God; their intellects keep them securely tied down.

Lee Strobel

I had preached to hundreds of thousands of people the antithetical message, and then I found to my dismay that I could no longer believe it. To believe it would be to deny the brain I had been given. It became quite clear that I had been wrong.

Charles Templeton

2. How do you define doubt? Where do doubts come from? What effect do they have on people when they hit? What are the pros and cons of a healthy dose of doubt?

[Your Response]

Faith is a rational response to the evidence of God’s self-revelation in nature, human history, the Scriptures and his resurrected Son.

— Christian educator W. Bingham Hunter

3. Briefly describe your faith journey. When have you been closest to God on your journey in life and at what points have you felt furthest away from him? Explain.

[Your Response]

THINK ABOUT THIS!

If a person has faith and it makes them a better individual, then I’m all for that — even if I think they’re nuts. Having been a Christian, I know how important it is to people’s lives — how it alters their decisions, how it helps them deal with difficult problems. For most people, it’s a boon beyond description. But is it because there is a God? No, it’s not.

Charles Templeton

Is that what faith is all about — fooling yourself into becoming a better person? Convincing yourself there’s a God so that you’ll become motivated to ratchet up your morality a notch or two? Embracing a fairy tale so you’ll sleep better at night? No thank you, I thought to myself. If that’s faith, I wasn’t interested.

Lee Strobel

4. To what extent are questions and doubts regarding spiritual matters inevitable? Why? Is faith a simple process of belief or does it require a certain degree of thought and struggle or a combination of both? Explain.

[Your Response]

THINK ABOUT THIS!

I had gone through a conversion experience as an incredibly green youth. I lacked the intellectual skills and the theological training needed to buttress my beliefs when — as was inevitable — questions and doubts began to plague me . . . My reason had begun to challenge and sometimes to rebut the central beliefs of the Christian faith.

Charles Templeton

Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word — by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word.

Billy Graham

5. Why do you

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