Josh McDowell is a famous Christian writer and speaker who has written over 150 books including “Evidence That Demands a Verdict.”
Born in 1939 in Michigan Josh had a difficult childhood because his father was alcoholic and abusive and he was sexually abused by a farmhand.
After a head injury ended his time in the Air National Guard Josh went to college and planned to disprove Christianity but ended up converting to Christianity instead.
Josh is married to Dottie and they have four children and ten grandchildren.
He began his ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ in 1964 speaking to students in Latin America and North America.
His ministry has focused on youth relationships and self-esteem. In 2021 he apologized for controversial remarks about Critical Race Theory.
Josh’s apologetic writings focus on historical and legal proofs for Christianity and he is known for his classical and evidential approach to apologetics.
Below are some of the best quotes by Josh McDowell.
Best Josh McDowell Quotes
My greatest asset now is my focus. ~ Josh McDowell.
Parents are heroes already – all they have to do is start acting like it. ~ Josh McDowell.
Belief is knowing what you believe. Conviction is knowing why you believe it. ~ Josh McDowell.
It is more rewarding to resolve a conflict than to dissolve a relationship. ~ Josh McDowell.
Love can wait to give; it is lust that can’t wait to get. ~ Josh McDowell.
Well how can a holy, just, righteous God allow sin into His presence? ~ Josh McDowell.
Forgiveness is the oil of relationships. ~ Josh McDowell.
I am not a Christian because God changed my life; I am a Christian because of my convictions about who Jesus Christ is. ~ Josh McDowell.
I thought Christians were walking idiots. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
Must read: Thomas Boston quotes and Jerry Bridges quotes.
Top Josh McDowell Quotes
Christianity is not a religion. Religion is humans trying to work their way to God through good works. Christianity is God coming to men and women through Jesus Christ. ~ Josh McDowell.
Endorsing immoral behavior is not equivalent to loving a person, nor is correcting that behavior equivalent to rejecting a person. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
Tolerance is the worst roar of all, including tolerance for homosexuals, feminists, and religions that don’t follow Christ. ~ Josh McDowell.
Every pastor, youth pastor, and every parent is in competition with the Internet and the information it is spreading. Most young people don’t get their news from CNN or CBS; they get it from bloggers. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
When God balances the scales morally, it is not some standard outside Himself He looks at and then determines whether this is right or wrong. But rather it’s His very nature, it is His very character and nature that is the standard by which He judges. ~ Josh McDowell.
Rules without relationship leads to rebellion. ~ Josh McDowell.
Famous Josh McDowell Quotes
Now, whenever you read any historical document, you always evaluate it in light of the historical context. ~ Josh McDowell.
Where I once believed people were there to be used, I started thinking of other people first. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
Stephen L. Carter coined the phrase ‘the culture of disbelief’ to describe the prevailing hostility in Western culture toward public expressions of faith. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
When I was a crusade director in British Columbia, all of our meetings were at 9:03. Somebody said ‘That’s ridiculous. Why did you do that?’ It’s because you remember it. You’ve never been to another 9:03 meeting. ~ Josh McDowell.
Popular Josh McDowell Quotes
Knowing that God is faithful, it really helps me to not be captivated by worry. But knowing that He will do what He has said, He will cause it to happen, whatever He has promised, and then it causes me to be less involved in worrying about a situation. ~ Josh McDowell.
My joy in life is not because I have not had any problems. I have joy because I have learned there is nothing too great for God’s power to deal with, nor anything too small or insignificant for His love to be concerned about. ~ Josh McDowell.
You can laugh at Christianity; you can mock and ridicule it. But it works. It changes lives. If you trust Christ, start watching your attitudes and actions, because Jesus Christ is in the business of changing lives. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
We no longer live in a post-Christian society, we live in an anti-Christian society, one in which the Christian faith is dismissed or ridiculed and Christians are considered suspect and their motives and behavior berated. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
Wherever Jesus has been proclaimed, we see lives change for the good, nations change for the better, thieves become honest, alcoholics become sober, hateful individuals become channels of love, unjust persons embrace justice. ~ Josh McDowell.
Every kid needs to say, ‘I want what my mom and dad have.’ ~ Josh McDowell.
God is not a harsh taskmaster who simply wants obedience. His instructions in his Word for thinking and acting rightly are for our benefit. He knows that when we live according to his ways, it brings us joy, fulfillment, and meaning in life. ~ Josh McDowell.
No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary. ~ Josh McDowell.
We have no empirical evidence of something emerging without a cause from absolute nothing. The. ~ Josh McDowell.
If Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be, and He did die on a cross at a point of time in history, then, for all history past and all history future it is relevant because that is the very focal point for forgiveness and redemption. ~ Josh McDowell.
Great Josh McDowell Quotes
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
Do not underestimate the role you may play in clearing the obstacles in someone’s spiritual journey. ~ Josh McDowell.
Christ appeared alive on several occasions after the cataclysmic events of that first Easter. ~ Josh McDowell.
Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort have created a biblically sound course that will not only motivate Christians; it will equip them to fulfill the Great Commission. ~ Josh McDowell.
Whenever you do judge, the only basis of judgment is not your own perspective or anything else, it’s the very character and nature of God and that’s why we are to allow Him to exercise His justice, where I personally want to take it upon myself. ~ Josh McDowell.
Anyone with sincere religious beliefs cannot say that all religions are true. That is so illogical it is pathetic. All religion cannot be true because some of them are so diametrically opposed to each other. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
I would say much of religious heresy is the result of a misunderstanding of the basic nature of God. And once we have a proper understanding of God, then usually most of the areas of our life coincide with who God is and what He desires for each one of us. ~ Josh McDowell.
Wise Josh McDowell Quotes
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
For centuries many of the world’s distinguished philosophers have assaulted Christianity as being irrational, superstitious and absurd. ~ Josh McDowell.
Normally when I’ve been in the position where I’ve felt little love for God, it’s because I haven’t understood how much He loves me. The more I understand how much He loves me, I mean it’s unbelievable, it’s almost parallel the more I come to love Him, that’s been my response. ~ Josh McDowell.
Forgiveness is an action, not an emotion. ~ Josh McDowell.
This is the age of the new tolerance and it is producing a bumper crop of anti-Christian and anti-American sentiment. ~ Josh McDowell.
Christ can be trusted to keep His Word that He will exchange our drab existence for joyous living, abundant life! And while true love, total acceptance, and complete security are rare in our frantic world, the biblical evidence that our desires in these areas will be fulfilled in Christ is abundant. ~ Josh McDowell.
We’ve been given a mind innovated by the Holy Spirit to know God, as well as a heart to love him and a will to choose him. We need to function in all three areas to have a maximum relationship with God and to glorify him. ~ Josh McDowell.
I’ve never had anyone define purity. You probably can’t define purity. Purity is to live according to original design. ~ Josh McDowell.
Where I once constantly lost my temper, I found myself arriving at a crisis and experiencing peace. ~ Josh McDowell.
Having convictions can be defined as being so thoroughly convinced that Christ and His Word are both objectively true and relationally meaningful that you act on your beliefs regardless of the consequences. ~ Josh McDowell.
Both Jewish and Roman sources and traditions admit an empty tomb. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
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. ~ Josh McDowell.
So these were the 66 top Josh McDowell quotes and sayings.
- William Barclay Quotes from the Scottish Author & Theologian
- Paul Washer Quotes on Salvation and Prayer
- Andrew Bonar Quotes from the Minister of the Free Church of Scotland
- Albert Mohler Quotes from the American Evangelical Theologian
- John Piper Quotes
- Watchman Nee Quotes for Faith, Success & Motivation
- Ravi Zacharias Quotes on Truth, Prayer, Love & Death
- Alan Redpath Quotes
- Karl Barth Quotes
- William Booth quotes
- David Brainerd quotes
- William Booth quotes
- Jerry Bridges quotes
