One secondary piece of evidence for the validity of the Christian faith is the massive social shift that 10,000 people went through within the first five weeks of the death of Jesus.  These people were all Jews who had been taught “religiously” for centuries that they needed to keep their distinctives; they needed to set themselves apart from the nations around them because their God demanded it (Leviticus 20.26). Some of the changes within the Christian culture:

-The Sabbath was changed from the seventh day of the week (Saturday) to Sunday.

-The righteous would be identified by faith rather than obeying the law.

-The sacrificial “system” in place for centuries was abandoned because of the perfect offering of the wholly holy Jesus for all people at all times.

-Jesus the man was acknowledged to be God.

-The Messiah was identified as one who suffered and died rather than as a military conqueror.

As Lee Strobel says in The Case For Christ, the best explanation for this huge shift was that these people had seen Jesus risen from the dead. And these changes were not all.  Over the next few months, the strict dietary laws were removed.  This was to symbolically make the case that the good news is for all nations – the gentiles are welcome in the kingdom of God (Acts 11.1-18).

This Jesus continues to make changes in lives all around the world as his people are called from darkness into light (Ephesians 5).