Dear Friends,
This week two men prayed with me according to the pattern of Luke 18:13 & Romans 10:9.
The first is a Jewish man in his late 70s, a retired physician. The videos on origin of life set the stage for this. He wrote the following:
Dear Dr. Tour, I am writing in response to your generous offer to share how you came to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. I am a retiree, who for most of my life have been an agnostic. Although I am Jewish by birth, nobody in my family has been observant. I haven’t been in a synagogue since my bar mitzvah; how rapidly those 65 years have passed! My wife of almost fifty years is Christian and believes in Jesus as her Savior. Over the course of the past year I have become CONVINCED that there is a God. My interest in the amazing complexity of the simple cell has led me to the inescapable conclusion that there is an omniscient and omnipotent creator. Your devastating critiques of the origins of life scientific community cement for me the reality of God. I am strongly inclined to the view that Jesus is the son of God. I would greatly appreciate your telling me via zoom of how you came to your certainty that the resurrection occurred. I know how to enter a zoom call if the user id and passcode are provided- I must apologize that I don’t know how to set it up. Sincerely,
We met and it was a very simple thing to see him fall into the hands of the Lord. His heart had been well prepared. He is now in daily scripture reading and working with Chuck Lloyd in Bible study. He sent me this message after our call:
Dear Jim, Please accept my heartfelt gratitude for starting me on the path to my salvation, by accepting the truth of the Resurrection. I look forward to doing my homework! God bless you,
The next is outlined by this email string from a woman in Egypt. From her name, I could not tell whether she was male or female. Google couldn’t discern either.
Subject: Doubting Jesus
Hi! You always say in your videos “send me an email if you don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus”. So here I am. Thank you for your efforts. Best wishes,
Dear _______,
If you would like to hear about why I embrace the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, it will take 1 hour. You will need a WiFi connection, a camera turned on and a quiet location. If that is agreeable, please tell me your time zone or city so that I can propose a date/time. Are you male or female? If female I will have an elderly female friend attend the call with us. God bless, Jim Tour
Dear Dr. Tour, Wow. Thank you so much! I didn’t expect such a quick response. A meeting is fine by me. Can we make it on the next Friday? Any time between 10 A.M. and 10 P.M. (Egypt time zone, UTC +2) would work for me. I do have a request though. I am a female, and I have a dear friend who also lost his faith unfortunately and is very interested in hearing your thoughts. Can he attend the meeting with me instead of your friend? I would greatly appreciate it. Best wishes,
The three of us met by Zoom. The woman in her 20s is a scientist doing her MS degree. The man, call him Mohammad, also in his 20s, is likewise a scientist in college. Within minutes of my starting to share, I noted that Mohammed was much more open to hearing that gospel than was the woman. She seemed only marginally interested, and at times disinterested, while he was locked in. So I focused my attention on him. Sure enough, when it came time to pray, Mohammed readily prayed. But she did not pray; she only “listened to it,” she said. Mohammed is now in daily reading and referred to Burt Brink for 13-week Bible study in “Growing in Christ”. It seemed like the woman arranged this call for Mohammad’s sake rather than for herself.
I Corinthians 15:11 “so we preach and so you believed.”
Matthew 10:20 “For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”
God bless,
Jim Tour
