Josh McDowell Quotes

I am not a Christian because God changed my life; I am a Christian because of my convictions about who Jesus Christ is.

After I set out to refute Christianity intellectually and couldn't, I came to the conclusion the Bible was true and Jesus Christ was God's Son.

True love is spelled G-I-V-E. It is not based on what you can get, but rooted in what you can give to the other person.

Prayer is talking with God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart.

One who claimed what Jesus claimed about himself couldn't be a good moral man or a prophet. That option isn't open to us, and Jesus never intended it to be.

Forgiveness is the oil of relationships.

No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary.

The Christian faith is faith in Christ. Its value or worth is not in the one believing but in the One believed - not in the one trusting, but in the One trusted.

Paul the apostle recounted that Jesus appeared to more than 500 of His followers at one time, the majority of whom were still alive and who could confirm what Paul wrote.

For centuries many of the world's distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd.

Love can wait to give; it is lust that can't wait to get.

Rules without relationship leads to rebellion.

The first thing that stuck in the minds of the disciples was not the empty tomb, but rather the empty grave clothes - undisturbed in form and position.

We do not develop habits of genuine love automatically. We learn by watching effective role models - most specifically by observing how our parents express love for each other day in and day out.

Leaders of the world's religions said, 'What do you think about what I teach?' Jesus said, 'Who do you say I am?'(Luke 9:20)

Because the New Testament provides the primary historical source for information on the resurrection, many critics during the 19th century attacked the reliability of these biblical documents.

While the resurrection promises us a new and perfect life in the future, God loves us too much to leave us alone to contend with the pain, guilt and loneliness of our present life.

Belief is knowing what you believe. Conviction is knowing why you believe it.

Here's the simplest answer: Within weeks, the disciples proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that He had been bodily raised from the dead and appeared to them.

If they had connived a scheme, and Christ had not been raised from the dead, where would have been the hardest place on the face of the earth to convince anyone? In Jerusalem.

Christ appeared alive on several occasions after the cataclysmic events of that first Easter.

I would say 90 percent of Christians do not have a worldview, in other words a view of the world, based on the Scripture and a relationship with God.

Every kid needs to say, 'I want what my mom and dad have.’

Why don't the names of Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius offend people? The reason is that these others didn't claim to be God, but Jesus did.

Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context.

I once had a lot of hatred, mainly toward my father, an alcoholic.

The downfall of the church will not come from a lack of apologetic teaching; it will come from disintegration of the families in the church.

If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity.

This is the age of the new tolerance and it is producing a bumper crop of anti-Christian and anti-American sentiment.

My greatest asset now is my focus.

Where I once constantly lost my temper, I found myself arriving at a crisis and experiencing peace.

Few people seem to realize that the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone to a worldview that provides the perspective to all of life.

If there were more than one path to salvation then it would totally negate Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, his life, his teachings.

Jesus claimed He had the power to raise himself from the dead and His followers would be raised from the dead. That's a unique claim in the literature of religion.

On that Sunday morning the first thing that impressed the people who approached the tomb was the unusual position of the one and a half to two ton stone that had been lodged in front of the doorway.

I've never had anyone define purity. You probably can't define purity. Purity is to live according to original design.

You better arm yourselves to answer your children's and grandchildren's questions... no matter what the question is... without being judgmental.

Both Jewish and Roman sources and traditions admit an empty tomb.

As a reward for their efforts, however, those early Christians were beaten, stoned to death, thrown to the lions, tortured and crucified. Every conceivable method was used to stop them from talking.

It is more rewarding to resolve a conflict than to dissolve a relationship.

If someone tries to tell you you are the greatest generation in the history of America, don't believe them. You aren't. You have the capability to be, but you aren't.

We've had a major shift in what truth is and where it comes from. We've gone from being God-centered to self-centered, from being objective to being subjective and from being internal to external.

My heart and mind were created to work in harmony together. Never has an individual been called upon to commit intellectual suicide in trusting Christ as Savior and Lord.

Tolerance is the worst roar of all, including tolerance for homosexuals, feminists, and religions that don't follow Christ.

Parents are heroes already - all they have to do is start acting like it.

Well how can a holy, just, righteous God allow sin into His presence?

I thought Christians were walking idiots.

Most Christians when asked what is the essence of the Christian faith will say it is all in the rules to be acceptable by God. That is anti-Christian, but they don't know that.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

Where I once believed people were there to be used, I started thinking of other people first.