Bob Siegel: An Outspoken Jew for Jesus

Visit any college campus in America, and you’ll likely find students with a wide range of beliefs—just like the campus of Bob Siegel. But when visitors showed up on campus with Christian beliefs Bob didn’t agree with, he hit the roof, until two strangers made him stop and think. Bob Siegel connected with his identity early in life as a Jew. His father, though, viewed Judaism as a heritage, not a religion. And he engrained that message into Bob... "...That there was no God. That the Bible was a bunch of fairy tales, even the Old Testament. So I learned a lot about the nation of Israel. I learned about the Holocaust, I learned about anti-Semitism, but I learned nothing about God." Armed with a scholar’s love for learning, Bob hit the college campus with gusto. But now, as a young man, he began noticing traits in himself that he simply didn’t like. "I began to notice a selfishness in me that I couldn’t control or do something about. Even if I donated money to a charity, I realized I was trying to make myself feel better than to have an altruistic emotion that I really cared about the people," he remembers. Those ugly traits rose up in full one day when Jews for Jesus visited the campus and put up a sign. "That absolutely infuriated me. I thought that people were making this bug-a-boo about a man who had been dead. I thought that Jesus could never be proven, that anyone who read the Bible was a moron. So I thought these people were cowardly and dishonest. It was just plain stupid." He was claiming he had a relationship with God just like we read about in the Bible. Still, Bob couldn’t stop thinking about the sign. He began wondering what Jews for Jesus really meant. His mind full of questions, he decided to pray a simple prayer. "I said, 'God, all my life I’ve been told Jesus is forbidden knowledge. A second grader in Sunday school knows more about Jesus than I do, and I’m almost 20 years old. But if I’m missing out on something, if I can have a relationship with You and it is through Jesus, then help me to learn about Him because I know nothing about Him. I made that prayer, and then I went to bed.' " The very next day, two women approached him asking him to participate in a religious survey. They listened politely as Bob explained his upbringing. Then… "They very simply explained how to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. They didn’t necessarily say anything that was particularly persuasive, but after they left I was bombarded by ... very difficult to describe ... a very mystical, supernatural, loving presence. I was just aware that a loving, intelligent presence was making contact with me, and I said, 'This is the missing piece of the puzzle. This is what people mean by asking Jesus into your heart.' " Bob went back to his dorm room and accepted Jesus Christ as his Savoir. "When I realized God loved me enough to send His Son to die on the cross for me, it was just this incredible gratitude and I felt like I owed Him my whole life," Bob says. Bob graduated and went into ministry. For years he traveled to college campuses speaking to students in an open, relaxed forum. Today his outreach exceeds college campuses with a radio show on a secular station that invites people to call-in their questions about religion. Bob is sure he is reaching people for Christ just like two college students reached him, years ago. "And I think there are people right now listening who are seeking God without knowing it. They think they are searching for meaning, joy, and peace. They are searching for God. There is this empty vacuum in them that’s longing to be plugged into their Maker. They’ve just never realized that that’s what that empty vacuum is. But they are aware of that empty vacuum."