In interviews, Knevel pointed at a specific moment that God entered his life during an economics lecture, and that he decided that he wanted to become a minister instead.

[2] Knevel changed his field of study to theology: first at the Vrije Universiteit, but after a year he switched to Utrecht University, where he graduated in 1979.

In 1978, Knevel started as free lance desk reporter at the Evangelische Omroep (EO), a Dutch public broadcasting organisation with evangelical-protestant roots.

In 1992, he started presenting the national television talk show Het Elfde Uur (the eleventh hour).

[4] In 2005, Knevel declared in a radio talk show that he no longer accepted the classical creationism teaching that the earth was created in six days.

[5] In 2009, he angered several of the EO members because he signed during a TV show a document that he did not literally believe in the creationist teachings, and that Darwins theory may be true.

He stated that he could be an devout orthodox Protestant, without believing that the world was created six thousand years ago in six times 24 hours, and that he regretted that he misled viewers and children in the past.