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    Case for Faith for Kids
    Case for Faith for Kids
    Case for Faith for Kids
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Case for Faith for Kids

    By Lee Strobel

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Answers questions about faith that even adults struggle to answer. You meet skeptics every day. They ask questions like: Why does God allow bad things to happen? Can you have doubts and still be a Christian? Here’s a book written in kid-friendly language that gives you all the answers. Packed full of well-researched, reliable, and eye-opening investigations of some of the biggest questions you have, The Case for Faith for Kids is a must read for kids ready to explore and enrich their faith.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateMay 25, 2010
    ISBN9780310586845
    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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    Reviews for Case for Faith for Kids

    3.5/5

    21 ratings18 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Ah, such a fresh view of a man’s search for faith. He begins with objectiveness and skepticism. His Frank search for truth surprises him.
    • 5/5
      The books are totally deserving. I loved them, and I think they are must read. If you have some great works like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
    • 4/5
      This is a reworking of Strobel's well received The Case for Faith. Rob Suggs is a well known author in his own right and has done a good job of making this book "kid friendly." It covers five subjects that are considered problematic for faith. These are the presence of evil in the world and God's good nature, the coexistence of science and miracles, the person of Jesus, the claims of other religions, and whether Christians are allowed to have doubts. The explanations are clear and children will be able to benefit from reading this book and discussing it with their parents or older siblings afterward. The whole family can get involved using the different versions.
    • 4/5
      After finishing the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, I decided to read The Case for Faith for Kids by Lee Strobel with Rob Suggs. This short book, 90 pages was obviously written for children, it was basic It covers five subjects that are good to focus on as they relate to the Christian faith. It looks at the problem of evil or (the presence of evil in the world and God's good nature), science/miracles, the person of Jesus, Christianity vs. other religions, and whether Christians are allowed to have doubts. The explanations are clear and well done. I read this book to see if I wanted to read through it with my eldest son. There are many questions and activities interspersed throughout which can be fun and informative. It help the child to think through the topics. I really enjoyed this little book and would give it a solid 4 or 4.25 out of 5 stars. I'd highly recommend this little book.
    • 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.
    • 1/5
      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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 1/5
      If you think there are only Islamic lunatics, read this book. Scary.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      Strobel does it once again in this amazing book defending the Christian faith!!
    • 3/5
      A bit of preaching to the choir, a bit of dissing other religions. Not much to see here.
    • 1/5
      A simplified theology book with pat answers that aren't really answers at all.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      Have you got questions about Christianity? Former athiest attempts to break down those barriers.
    • 4/5
      Refer to my thoughts concerning Case for Christ.
    • 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."
    • 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

    Case for Faith for Kids - Lee Strobel

    Introduction: ANY QUESTIONS?

    Hey, do you like questions? Questions come in lots of different flavors. Of course, there are the boring questions:

    Who was the thirteenth president of the United States?

    What is the state bird of Montana?

    Then there are those corny questions called riddles:

    Why did the chicken cross the playground?

    To get to the other slide.

    Then there are the head-scratching, noggin-tickling questions:

    Why do we drive on a parkway but park on a driveway?

    Why does after dark occur after light?

    Why are whales still chubby after all that swimming?

    Why don’t sheep shrink in the rain?

    Why do cameras have round lenses but take square pictures?

    Why does night fall but day break?

    Why do we call one of the hottest dishes chili?

    Why are many people afraid of heights, but no one is afraid of widths?

    Those questions probably don’t have answers, but they’re fun to ask anyway.

    Then there are questions that do have answers. For example, do you ever stand on the beach and wonder how the moon way up there causes all those waves way down here? Or how long it would take to travel to another galaxy?

    We could get those answers without much problem. That’s why we have science. The kind of science called physics would tell us about the moon and tides. Astronomy would tell us about how long to plan for an intergalactic vacation.

    BIG-LEAGUE QUESTIONS

    Then there are those questions that everyone wonders about at some time or another:

    How did this world get here?

    Is there a God?

    Which religion is true?

    In case you’re interested, a book called Case for a Creator works on the God question. Another one called Case for Christ covers questions about Jesus, such as: Was he really the Son of God? Could he really have risen from the dead?

    This book is filled with big-league questions about believing in God and following Christ. A lot of Christians wonder about these noggin-nibblers:

    If God is good, why does he let bad things happen in the world?

    Do miracles happen or does science prove they are impossible?

    Is Jesus the only way to get into heaven? What about other religions?

    If I have questions or doubts, does that mean I’m not a Christian?

    WHY ASK IN THE FIRST PLACE?

    Those are some brain-drainers! People ask these questions all the time, and why shouldn’t they? The answers are very important. It’s only natural that folks would wonder.

    And here’s one more question: Should people who already believe in God ask for answers? If they wonder, for instance, whether God is really fair, does that mean they don’t trust God enough? Should they just ignore the tough stuff and go on believing in God?

    No, because questions—especially questions about faith—are too important to let us do that. Whether you believe in God or not, it’s a pretty good idea to give these questions some thought. Look at it this way: people have worked on these riddles for thousands of years, and they haven’t proved yet that God isn’t alive. So what do you have to lose?

    Not your faith. Faith is like a muscle that just becomes stronger the more you put it to work. Proverbs 18:17 tells us, The first one to tell his case seems right. Then someone else comes forward and questions him. That’s just a fancy way of saying it’s important to carefully ask the right questions to get the right clues—don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. Then you can make up your own mind about the truth.

    ASK. SEARCH. KNOCK.

    Jesus said this: Ask, and it will be given to you. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks will receive. He who searches will find. The door will be opened to the one who knocks (Matthew 7:7–8).

    Ask, search, and knock. Why?

    Imagine trying to find an old friend who moved away from the neighborhood. How would you go about it? First, you would ask. Anybody know where my friend’s new house is? Maybe someone at school would say, I heard that kid lives over near the park now.

    Ask

    Search

    Knock

    What would you do next? You would search. Maybe you’d get on your bike and ride to the park to look for your friend. Finally, what would you do when you found the right house? You would knock. Then you could see your friend face-to-face.

    That’s why we ask questions about God. It’s a way of finding him for ourselves. Asking leads us to search for him more actively, and searching for him makes it possible to meet him.

    image2

    Remember, even though it’s important to ask questions about God to find him, he is always searching for you.

    In this verse, God’s talking: When you look for me with all your heart, you will find me (Jeremiah 29:13). That means to seek with your best effort.

    That sounds like a good idea. It’s time to really go after these questions. If you ask and think and search for the answers with

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