Cold-Case Christianity – J. Warner Wallace

[00:00:00] your host Kevin Conover bring your time

[00:00:05] welcome to educate for life radio and podcast I’m your host Kevin Conover my web sites educate for life.org if you’re

[00:00:13] concerned about your children having a strong faith or you yourself having a strong faith you can visit my website

[00:00:18] educate for life org and there’s all kinds of resources on there that are meant to equip you to help you be able

[00:00:25] to defend your faith be able to be confident so that you’re not worried about oh if they ask me a question I’m

[00:00:31] not going to be prepared for to give you some confidence so that you’re able to speak out and be that witness that

[00:00:37] Christ is calling you to be especially around this time of year you know we’ve had Thanksgiving we’re going into Christmas and a lot of times these

[00:00:44] conversations come up spiritual conversations come up talking about Christmas talking about you know what is

[00:00:49] the meaning of Christmas and you know the the the conversations inevitably will turn to well is there really

[00:00:55] anything to this Christianity is there really anything to the resurrection of Christ and I’ve got a fantastic guest on

[00:01:01] my pray dia program today who’s an expert in this particular area and himself comes from an atheist background

[00:01:07] somebody who wasn’t a believer but ultimately felt that the evidence was enough to warrant belief in the truth of

[00:01:14] the Bible and the truth of Jesus Christ death burial and resurrection my guest

[00:01:19] today is Jay Warren or Wallace before I invite him on here let me tell you a little bit about him he he is a

[00:01:26] cold-case homicide detective and a very popular national speaker best-selling

[00:01:31] author he actually still continues to consult on cold case investigations

[00:01:36] while serving also has a senior fellow at the Coulson Center for Christian worldview he’s an adjunct professor of

[00:01:42] apologetics at Biola University and a faculty member at member at summit ministry he’s written some books and one

[00:01:50] that he’s probably most famous for is cold case Christianity where he gives ten principles of being a cold case

[00:01:57] detective and how to solve you know homicides in which you may not have any

[00:02:03] living witnesses around anymore or eyewitnesses he also has written a book God’s crime scene and another one

[00:02:09] forensic face excuse me forensic faith not faith and his cases have been featured more

[00:02:15] than any other detective on NBC’s Dateline his work has been on Court TV Fox News and he’s been awarded the

[00:02:22] police and fire Medal of Valor sustained superiority for continuing work on cold

[00:02:27] case homicides including a murder that he solved all the way back from 1979 J

[00:02:35] Warner thank you for being on the program today well thanks so much for having me I appreciate it absolutely it’s real privileged to have you and I

[00:02:41] think you offer a perspective that’s very unusual and not one that you know most people have the experience to be

[00:02:48] able to talk about but maybe you could tell our listeners a little bit about what you do as a job and why it’s so

[00:02:55] relevant to the issue of Christianity and Jesus death and resurrection well I

[00:03:00] said it’s interesting I think all of us kind of have a way to contribute to this conversation if we’re for people who who

[00:03:06] believe as Christians and we have desire to kind of get in the game and actually make a case for what we believe but for

[00:03:12] me it was really the way I became a Christian because I didn’t have a skillset that would help me aside from

[00:03:18] the skills that I used in my professional life I mean I die every Christian when they examined the claims

[00:03:23] of Christianity kind of did it the same way I didn’t realize that that was not the common way in I do how to evaluate

[00:03:30] eyewitnesses and I also had a number of cases that I was investigating where I had no access to my eyewitnesses anymore

[00:03:37] in the supplemental reports that I had from detectives back in the 70s a lot of

[00:03:42] times those detectives were no longer with us so I had to figure out like what really happened 35 years ago 40 years

[00:03:49] ago when I have no access to either the eyewitness or the report writer for the

[00:03:54] eyewitness and that’s really what’s got me started that skill set I found to be

[00:03:59] very helpful as I kind of examined the case for myself looking at all the manuscript evidence for the New

[00:04:05] Testament yeah you know I think one of the big things that I hear from skeptics cuz I’ve had a lot of skeptics on the

[00:04:11] radio program is you know this happened a long time ago how can you really be sure of anything that’s actually

[00:04:16] recorded based on the fact that stuff changes over time you have literally

[00:04:22] 2,000 years ago as when this this happened 2,000 years ago is when people wrote this stuff down how can

[00:04:29] that be reliable considering the amount of time that’s passed and the fact that you know nobody’s alive who was there to

[00:04:36] be able to see this or talk about it well I think you’re right that’s a very valid objection I think that’s something

[00:04:43] that one of the first things I had it’s one of the things we study when we evaluate eyewitnesses in these criminal

[00:04:48] trials and they change their story over time I mean they might have seen something 35 years ago but now they sit

[00:04:54] in front of my jury is there is there some distortion of that initial observation or have they maybe even said

[00:05:00] something back then that they now no longer claim is true does the story change over time and that’s really the

[00:05:07] claim I think that most people make this is not an unusual claim I mean books have been written about this by skeptics

[00:05:13] that the story of Jesus changes from a very simple character in history who did

[00:05:19] nothing more than preach a few memorable service sermons and then finally these these events that are kind of tagged on

[00:05:26] to the story of Jesus over the years the distortions in which now he suddenly is

[00:05:31] a miracle-working born of a virgin rising from the dead Messiah that this

[00:05:37] is somehow late additions to the story of Jesus is there in ancient more a

[00:05:42] primitive simpler version of Jesus out there and that was one of the first things that I knew I really believed

[00:05:50] that was probably the case of all the ways of looking at the story of Jesus I think I probably this is the one that I

[00:05:56] found most compelling as an atheist but there the problem of course is is that we have a chain of custody and that’s

[00:06:02] something that we do in criminal trials all the time where we evaluate evidence to see if it has been tampered with over

[00:06:10] time and we simply ask questions about who touched the evidence what do they do with it how did they document it and who

[00:06:18] they next give it to and then the he or she documented it as well right paper on it take photographs of it

[00:06:24] give it to somebody else we can see the chain of custody over the years on any particular piece of evidence and so one

[00:06:31] of the first things I did as a skeptic was to look at the chain of custody for the New Testament so it’s not as though

[00:06:37] we don’t know who the initial eyewitness is gave this information too we know

[00:06:43] that marks at the feet of Peter we know that Ignatius and Polycarp and Fabius sat at the feet of John we could

[00:06:50] actually look at those ancient writers and see if they describe a simpler version of Jesus and even though I may

[00:06:56] not be able to reconstruct the verses of the New Testament from the writings of the most ancient believers who sat at

[00:07:04] the feet of the eyewitnesses I can look at what they said about His divine nature about the miracles he worked they

[00:07:11] referenced these things it’s not as though that the earliest descriptions offered by those who sat at the feet of

[00:07:17] the eyewitnesses are somehow simpler you know like that Jesus was just a guy yeah that’s not what they said at the very

[00:07:24] beginning they repeated the claims of the gospel authors as we see them today so the idea that somehow the story of

[00:07:33] Jesus was magnified and distorted until finally the Jesus of history became the

[00:07:39] Christ of Christianity is simply not true if you’re willing to look at the chain of custody of that information and

[00:07:45] that’s one of the first things I had to do I I try to describe that you know we try to describe that both on our website

[00:07:51] and in books but the idea here is that I want people to have confidence that the

[00:07:56] story of Jesus is incredibly early in history written at a time when people would have known if it was a lie and

[00:08:03] that the story was just as miraculous just as amazing the high Christology of

[00:08:10] Jesus yeah as early and it’s very hard to deny now you can still reject Jesus

[00:08:16] but to reject him on the basis that you think the story was changed over time that would be unreasonable okay so the

[00:08:22] story is very consistent now I had I had somebody say to me you know the reason I don’t believe the Bible and the reason I

[00:08:28] don’t believe in Jesus is specifically because of what was recorded they actually said to me this is an atheist I

[00:08:35] know personally who said the miracles themselves tell me that the story is

[00:08:41] mythical so for example the idea that he walked on water the idea that He healed blind people and ultimately the idea

[00:08:46] that he raised others from the dead and he himself raised from the dead tells me specifically that this is a this is a

[00:08:52] myth is onra it’s a mythical tale and therefore there’s no reason for me to believe it how would you respond to

[00:08:59] somebody who said something like that well a couple of things it’s not as though everything that Jesus does is

[00:09:05] some miraculous nature well that’s not the case at all if you read through the Gospels you’ll see there are lots of

[00:09:10] very ordinary things that Jesus does that the authors could have inserted miraculous elements and do every single

[00:09:16] twist and turn in the Jesus story but they don’t do that I mean there’s lots of stuff that Jesus does that is he

[00:09:22] isn’t just you know teleport all of his believers from one city to another he doesn’t you know solve he’s basically

[00:09:29] there are times when you definitely see Jesus act in a way that has to be described as supernatural it just has to

[00:09:36] be because it is supernatural so then it comes down to the question well okay so does that disqualify it then in other

[00:09:43] words if I can’t explain that the acts that are recorded on the pages of this book with up with with entirely

[00:09:51] naturalistic explanations involving nothing more than space-time matter of physics and chemistry in other words if

[00:09:57] I can’t do that if I can’t explain it with just those elements does that mean

[00:10:02] I have to reject it if so you’re going to have to reject your physics books also and your your cosmology books also

[00:10:09] because the standard cosmological model that all physicists but not all but the majority of physicists embrace that’s

[00:10:16] why they call it the standard model is that everything in the universe all space time and matter came into

[00:10:22] existence from nothing that there was no space-time or matter until the universe

[00:10:28] began to exist that’s what their evidence is telling them so they already accept that there is a cause outside of

[00:10:37] space time and matter it has to be the cause of the universe it cannot be spatial temporal and

[00:10:43] material because those things don’t exist until the universe exists in other words if you’re saying I can’t believe the words of a book if the explanation

[00:10:50] is being offered are outside of space time and matter well then you’re going to have to also reject contemporary

[00:10:57] astrophysics because that’s also the claim of astrophysics oh that’s a great that’s a great answer you know I look at

[00:11:04] this way if there is a personal being outside of the space a matter that causes all space time and

[00:11:11] matter it seems to me that being would probably have the power to manipulate whatever it is he creates you can walk

[00:11:17] on water those are small potato miracles compared to the miracle described in Genesis 1 and even as an atheist I was

[00:11:24] somebody who said well yeah I think there is least one act one action one event in the course of universal history

[00:11:31] cosmic history that involves a cause outside of space time and matter well

[00:11:37] then the question is why are you limiting yourself then to this one a small slice of history why could it not

[00:11:46] be that that personal deity could enter into his creation and deliver he wants that’s a great answer I actually had

[00:11:52] Michael Shermer president of the skeptics aside have you heard of Michael Shermer yeah he was on my radio program

[00:11:58] and he actually made it was very interesting we have this exact discussion and he he basically was like

[00:12:04] yeah the the everything from nothing is fine but the miracles of Jesus he said

[00:12:09] nah that doesn’t pass the muster of of you know of the skepticism and but

[00:12:15] that’s a fantastic point that if you’re going to disallow one you’ve got to disallow the other if you’re going to

[00:12:21] allow one you’ve got to allow the other that’s a fantasy at least allowed to be reasonable that doesn’t mean again it doesn’t mean that

[00:12:27] the Christianity is true or the theism is true but it does mean you would want to be fair about this right to say well

[00:12:33] I’m going to at least be open to the reasonable inference that there’s

[00:12:38] something outside of space time and matter that is at work in the universe and if it is before that opens the door

[00:12:46] to a lot of other you know leads to it I think it would have to allay your

[00:12:51] concerns that hey on the basis of just that the non naturalist of the supernatural aspect of the Gospels I

[00:12:58] have to discredit them yeah and that’s completely logical and completely intellectual so nobody can say oh this

[00:13:04] is not an intellectual or logical conclusion I mean this is an eminently logical so we’re coming up on a break

[00:13:10] here my guest today is Jay Warner Wallace cold case Christianity calm check it out he has an incredible

[00:13:16] website full of tons of resources and articles that you would find very encouraging and

[00:13:21] really will allow you to ask a lot of questions and get a lot of answers and we’re gonna be right back what I’m gonna

[00:13:27] ask him next when we come back from the break is what was the critical piece of evidence that ultimately caused you to

[00:13:32] decide it is more logical to believe that Christianity is true than not and so when we come back he’ll tell us more

[00:13:40] about his personal travels from atheism to belief in God and to belief in

[00:13:46] Christianity stay with us we’re going to be right back [Music]

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[00:15:48] [Music]

[00:15:54] welcome to educate for life we’re here in San Diego and we are

[00:15:59] broadcasting on Cape Rays 106.1 and AM 12:10 and we’re also all over YouTube

[00:16:06] we’re on periscope or on Facebook and so you can check us out anywhere you like we have a call-in number if you have a

[00:16:12] question for a cold-case homicide detective I had a somebody Joey morones

[00:16:18] actually put on Facebook that he wants to be a homicide detective so Joey if

[00:16:23] you want to call in and ask a question 866 five seven seven two four seven three eight six six five seven seven two

[00:16:29] four seven three my guest today is Jay Warner Wallace and you know we’ve been

[00:16:34] talking about basically if you look at this from a cold case perspective you

[00:16:40] know Jesus death and resurrection happened a long time ago and just like a cold-case detective has to make his conclusions without you know potentially

[00:16:47] witnesses living witnesses and and so forth we’re dealing with the same sort of a situation when we look at the death

[00:16:53] and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that’s a big deal we want to come to good conclusions and so when I left off

[00:16:59] last segment Jim I said well what what was the big piece of evidence that

[00:17:06] ultimately you were you were an atheist for 35 years is that right that’s right and so did you grow up what kind of a

[00:17:13] family did you grow up in well I was on my parents divorce very early and so my

[00:17:19] mom was raised kind of this cultural Catholic but that was never part of our our back story growing up and in the Los

[00:17:25] Angeles County so large and such a dense population it’s not really like the south you know were you necessarily are

[00:17:31] going to be surrounded by a culturally Christian environment so I had no

[00:17:38] problem growing up and not really hanging out with anybody who claimed to be a Christian I didn’t really know any Christians never went to church as a kid

[00:17:45] just not my part of my my ethos and was not my dads either my dad’s a very committed atheist so just wasn’t didn’t

[00:17:53] feel like I was losing anything or missing anything I just was not part of my childhood experience and so and I

[00:17:59] thought it was unreasonable and the only Christians I would meet were people who didn’t seem to be able to defend what they believed anyway

[00:18:04] the people I met who were Christians were not good at defending the case for Christianity or they were the people who

[00:18:11] were taken to jail who weren’t good at living out whatever it was they said they believed as Christians and either

[00:18:16] either way didn’t matter to me I was just not interested in a worldview that was not supported I didn’t think

[00:18:22] supported evidentially you know you asked that question about you know what is the one piece and I think that

[00:18:27] frustrates a lot of people when they talk to me because I am on a death by a thousand paper cuts kind of a guy I

[00:18:33] think cases cumulatively all of my cases in front of a jury trial have all been

[00:18:39] cumulative based on indirect evidence I think that’s very powerful I actually trust cumulative cases more because

[00:18:47] they’re not built on any one particular thing that you might be wrong about but are instead built on the the you know

[00:18:53] the thousand bricks that build the house and and that honestly is how I became a

[00:18:58] Christian it was not I got to a point where I was you know getting at this

[00:19:04] didn’t think it was reasonable anymore to resist the the evidence for the least the existence I’ll tell you that I had

[00:19:11] confidence in the Gospels long before I understood what the Gospel message was

[00:19:17] interesting I didn’t understand why God would have to come and die on a cross

[00:19:22] and I talked to my wife about that that didn’t seem really reasonable to me even

[00:19:27] though I was at a place where I would have said to her and I did that I think that we can trust what the Gospels are

[00:19:33] saying about Jesus of Nazareth well okay then the question becomes I I didn’t

[00:19:39] understand in other words I had read through the New Testament looking at the facts collecting the data on what it

[00:19:47] said about Jesus of Nazareth why really not paying attention to what it said about J Warren Wallace you know I think

[00:19:54] he turned that corner once you start reading I had no real understanding of

[00:19:59] my own need for a savior I was really just interested in Jesus of Nazareth because the first pastor I ever heard

[00:20:05] talked about him described him as somebody really interesting really smart the smartest man who ever lived kind of

[00:20:12] stuff and that’s the stuff that really got me intrigued so I’m curious when was

[00:20:17] the moment where you actually began to engage with Christianity where it was how old were

[00:20:22] you and and what was that moment where you decided you know what I I’m going to explore this more I was about 3035 and I

[00:20:30] was on the job coming up on ten years and I was really enjoying my work my we

[00:20:37] had kids we had young boys at the time I was your wife her name was her wife a believer at the time no but she was

[00:20:42] raised in a much more culturally consistent guy a Catholic kind of

[00:20:48] environment and so she was somebody who enjoyed going to Mass as a kid now we

[00:20:54] already get it at the time about 18 years and and church mass was never something we would do outside upstate

[00:21:00] Christmas you know it’s kind of thing they’re like a cultural thing you do right because that’s what you do and I

[00:21:07] didn’t and my dad’s the same way he is more than happy to go to church with you even though he doesn’t believe it’s true

[00:21:13] he thinks it serves a function and important function in culture he would rather be part of a Christian culture

[00:21:19] than any other kind of culture even though he thinks it’s false now what do you know is your father still an atheist

[00:21:25] well I’m hoping we’re making inroads and yeah lots of people been praying for my dad for a lot of years so I talked about

[00:21:30] my dad publicly all the time yeah he’s like my best friend and I don’t want to be in heaven without him at the same

[00:21:37] time I I recognized that this is a process and that you know God is working on him and and I hope that we are making

[00:21:44] progress with him yeah I mean a lot of people a lot of people are in that situation where they have relatives they

[00:21:50] love deeply and so forth and here you know I I have relatives of my own too in

[00:21:56] the same situation and so as an apologist as somebody who’s you know traveling and speaking about this and

[00:22:03] writing books about it you know where is your father at and how do you encourage

[00:22:08] people who are dealing with this where they have relatives who they want I mean is your father willing to listen to the evidence or is he more closed closed off

[00:22:15] and what do you do in these kinds of situations as somebody who wants to see somebody coming to the Lord yeah well I

[00:22:21] will tell you what I I definitely well I love strategy and I read about it in a

[00:22:27] book called forensic faith where I talk about how do you share what you do Eve and a lot of it comes down to jury

[00:22:33] selection we unfortunately win or lose cases primarily based on our jury selection more than anything else as

[00:22:40] that may sound that is just the truth of it you you put don’t pick the right jury you nothing

[00:22:45] happens it that’s good I mean you could make a great case and still not have any progress because you didn’t pick a jury

[00:22:50] well and jurors are on a spectrum and I call this spectrum in the book I talk about how it’s like a one to four

[00:22:57] spectrum there are people who are Pro prosecutions or I call ones people who are pro defense I call fours and there

[00:23:04] are people in the middle who might be on one side or the other but they are reasonable and will listen to evidence when you sectional jury we’re trying to

[00:23:10] deselect ones and fours because nobody wants a one if you’re a defense attorney and you nobody wants a four if you’re a

[00:23:17] prosecutor so the same thing is true when we’re talking to people and the world around us that they’re on a

[00:23:22] spectrum of belief and I might that the more hardcore anti-theists are in that

[00:23:27] four position and I’ll be honest with you I don’t spend a lot of time interacting with fours because they’re

[00:23:34] not paying attention to anything I’m saying threes are they are not believers

[00:23:40] but they are at least open-minded they are willing to hear you out you can spend time with fours but you’re really

[00:23:47] if you’ve got threes in your life that you’re neglecting to spend time with fours you need to rethink this and so my

[00:23:54] dad has been that for position I was in that for position for a lot of years the strategy for fours is very different for

[00:23:59] fours what you have to do is you have to pray and model Christ for fours because it turns out that our fine arguments

[00:24:07] don’t move people from 3 to 4 what moves people from 300 from 4 to 3 what moves

[00:24:12] people from 4 to 3 is the divine act of God that he moves people from 4 to 3 and

[00:24:18] then suddenly did with me I was a four for many years and then suddenly I was actually willing to buy a Bible to see

[00:24:26] what it said about Jesus of Nazareth and was that anything in particular that that caused that change that you can

[00:24:31] recognize in your life or was it just kind of out of the blue oh no it was because I went to church with my wife

[00:24:36] even talking about going to church for years and years because you wanted the kids you thought well should we raise the kids in church and like my dad why

[00:24:43] sure if you want I don’t know I mean I don’t think it necessary but if your that’s what you

[00:24:48] want to deal I’ll go and and so I was willing to to go with her to church and the pastor that day mentioned said that

[00:24:56] Jesus was the smartest man who ever lived and that was enough to provoke me to buy a Bible and I didn’t think it was

[00:25:03] true but and I didn’t want a Bible though so I couldn’t really and I’m not like Lee Strobel he’s a good friend of

[00:25:09] mine and he wrote the case for Carson yeah when Leslie became a Christian before him it provoked him to try to

[00:25:14] debunk it you know in some way yeah and that and that was not me I thought no

[00:25:19] one he debunks the story of the Easter Bunny you know who worth my time

[00:25:25] I thought I was I thought if there is this mythological or this fantastical

[00:25:30] legend known as Jesus of Nazareth if he happened to say some smart things I’ll

[00:25:36] buy a Bible and see what the smart things are that he said matter of fact Jesus denying that to be a real person

[00:25:42] he might just have been written by somebody who knew some divine wisdom that I could learn from ya

[00:25:49] so I was willing to buy a Bible just to learn the divine kind of time vetted wisdom of this alleged ancient sage but

[00:25:57] as I read through the Gospels I realized that bobby’s if you know anything about eyewitness accounts if you’ve ever worked with eyewitnesses you know they

[00:26:05] never agree and their stories differ in a way that is you start to recognize

[00:26:11] those differences as you listen to eyewitnesses over the years I think I’ve probably spent as much time as anybody

[00:26:16] listening to eyewitnesses and looking at their accounts and measuring them against each other so I got to the

[00:26:22] Gospels that is exactly what provoked me to to examine them and more richly and

[00:26:28] more deeply is that I said wow these truly have the a measure of they feel

[00:26:36] like eyewitness accounts yeah they feel awful and they test them but yeah because I felt like hey this is this is worth testing because they really have

[00:26:44] all these earmarks that I see in the eyewitness stuff that I’m looking at all the time so why wouldn’t I test B so

[00:26:50] that’s not really what started is I started to test them on the basis of what seemed like really powerful

[00:26:58] you know pal really powerful evidence and there’s a way to test these I talked about that process that we actually want

[00:27:05] our jurors to test eyewitnesses before they render a verdict so I just used

[00:27:10] that same process well that’s really cool and and just to summarize that because that’s another big skeptical

[00:27:16] argument is hey look at all the discrepancies between the Gospel accounts but you’re actually saying that

[00:27:22] that’s a benefit and my guest today is Jay Warner Wallace cold case Christianity dot-com if you want to

[00:27:27] check out his resources he’s got all kinds of amazing resources on his website articles answering all kinds of

[00:27:33] different questions and he’s written cold case Christianity God’s crime-scene and forensic faith all fantastic books

[00:27:40] he’s also written a recent book a new book that I’ve actually read with Sean McDowell so the next generation will

[00:27:47] know and we’ll talk more about this book too because what we’re dealing with is a generation of students that are growing

[00:27:54] up as skeptics they’re in a culture that’s more skeptical than ever before and so the question becomes what is the

[00:27:59] best way to reach that next generation Generation Z they’re calling it and so when we come back we’ll continue this

[00:28:05] discussion with J Warner Wallace of cold-case Christianity stay with us [Music]

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[00:30:09] [Music]

[00:30:14] thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover and I’ve got good news and bad

[00:30:20] news regarding my website educate for life.org the bad news is that our

[00:30:25] monthly subscription price because we charge a monthly subscription for a full curriculum it’s a two-year curriculum

[00:30:31] that’s fantastic for high school students and middle school students and adults if you want to really firm up

[00:30:37] your faith in the Bible and answer a lot of the questions that people have we’re raising our subscription fee on January

[00:30:45] 1st to 99.99 cents a month it’s still a good deal but currently we’re charging

[00:30:51] $4.99 so if you want to lock in that super low right there right I sound like a Salesman here but

[00:30:57] but if you want to lock in that super low rate $4.99 a month sign up before January 1st and that’s grandfathered in

[00:31:05] you have that it for as long as you want to so I hope you check it out educate for life now org that’s my website all

[00:31:11] kinds of incredible classes on there that will help you be able to answer the questions that people ask about God and

[00:31:18] the Bible and creation and evolution and how do we know the Bible is actually God’s Word and that’s what we’re talking

[00:31:23] about today with my guest Jay Warner Wallace of cold-case Christianity comm and he is a cold-case homicide detective

[00:31:32] he has a perspective that very few people have and a pretty amazing testimony and I was just asking Jim off

[00:31:38] off the air here Jim so my question was did you go from you know atheism to

[00:31:46] theism and then to Christianity because you know I think to myself when I when

[00:31:53] I’m talking to different people about God or I’m talking to skeptics a lot of times it’s hard for me to believe that

[00:31:59] somebody could think that there’s not some sort of God out there and you know people differentiate between you know an

[00:32:06] atheist that’s absolutely like no we there is no God nothing at all it just all happened by chance versus somebody

[00:32:13] who thinks there’s some force out there where were you on that scale as an atheist well I I was I was I probably

[00:32:22] have argued that it’s an impersonal force that that whatever causes the university come into existence is just an impersonal

[00:32:28] force that the form of course is I hadn’t really examined this deeply to see if everything inside the natural the

[00:32:35] room of the universe is as I talked about it in God’s crime-scene can everything in the room be explained by a

[00:32:40] cause that’s also in the room if you find a dead person in the room but you can explain all the evidence by staying

[00:32:47] inside the room with the dead person that’s more than likely a suicide or a natural or an accidental than it is

[00:32:53] going to be a murder when you’ve got evidence of an intruder and the best way to explain the the weapon at the scene

[00:32:59] or whatever the fingerprints all over they are is it caused outside the room well now you’re going to have to at

[00:33:05] least consider the possibility of a murder and I think that for me that was the approach I had to take I had to why

[00:33:13] I took that approach is because I got look if the resurrection occurred you’re done you don’t need to go any further if

[00:33:18] they’re ready for the grave he’s something other than a guy and that is

[00:33:24] demonstrated by the way everyone in the first century knew that that the Resurrection demonstrated the divinity of Christ so so you can get to that

[00:33:31] point but here’s my problem as a reader of Scripture I rejected the miraculous

[00:33:37] elements I would have said whatever is in there related to the historicity of Jesus that’s fine but when it gets to the miraculous elements that’s where I’m

[00:33:44] out that’s where I know those things didn’t happen because I was biased against anything super any extra natural

[00:33:51] so that was my sticking point and so I knew at some point I just needed to be able to justify my own mind that I was

[00:33:59] right to reject supernatural elements oh this is this is really interesting

[00:34:04] because I’ve had this discussion many times where somebody will say to me because I often will talk to people

[00:34:10] about the the archaeological evidence for the historical record of the Bible and I’ll have a lot of skeptics say hey

[00:34:17] just because some of there’s evidence showing that some of this actually happened it doesn’t mean that all the

[00:34:23] miraculous elements happened so you were kind of in that same kind of situation as a skeptic yeah I know I was

[00:34:30] definitely I could accept just so much and that’s why I thought well I’m probably justified right and rejecting

[00:34:37] extra natural elements and that’s where I had to ask myself the question oh wait a minute I do already though embrace

[00:34:45] some limited extra natural causes because I like I said before I believe

[00:34:52] that the universe came into existence from nothing so then the question becomes what do I have good reason to

[00:34:58] believe that that extra natural first cause is eternal do I have good reason

[00:35:03] to believe that that extra natural first cause is impersonal I think that there

[00:35:08] are several features of the universe that are better explained by an extra natural first cause outside of

[00:35:14] space-time a matter that is personal that is a mind that is creating in its

[00:35:20] own image that is using that information in its mind to inform the human genome

[00:35:27] for example in DNA because there’s lots of good reasons to believe that that first cause so so I have to now process

[00:35:34] before I become a Christian so Jim when you say and that it’s personal what do

[00:35:39] you mean by that and why is that important well what I mean by personal is that it it is a mind that acts freely

[00:35:48] that is not limited to causation there’s two kinds of causation writers event causation and there’s agent causation

[00:35:55] event causation is just like dominoes that fall because a Domino hits them they fall and if that’s case that those

[00:36:01] are impersonal forces there is no mind who is making a personal choice to act

[00:36:07] it just acts because it’s been acted upon if there are no agents acting to create

[00:36:14] the universe then all we have is the inevitable appearance of the universe based on other causes that are entirely

[00:36:21] explained by physics and chemistry acting on space time and matter that make it inevitable that we have a

[00:36:27] universal as such as our own but here’s the problem we have inside this universe we happen to have organic life that is

[00:36:37] not really the result of physics I mean it’d be great if that’s all it was from a naturalistic perspective the problem

[00:36:43] we have is that everything in terms of organisms and biological organisms is based instead on information information

[00:36:50] in the DNA and you cannot get information from physics and chemistry acting on space

[00:36:55] time and matter information comes from mind because the mind makes personal choices about how and what it wants to

[00:37:04] communicate so you have to have both the complexity that could be generated by

[00:37:10] physics but the specificity that comes from mind so for there’s the problem

[00:37:16] you sought both complexity and specificity in the genome and DNA okay so for you then that then and this is

[00:37:23] documented in in one of your books is that right yeah I think gods crime scene yep okay so so then for you was this the

[00:37:31] argument that caused you to believe this is more than just you know the cause and

[00:37:37] effect impersonal force out there whatever that might be and caused you to draw the conclusion

[00:37:43] that it was more it made more sense to believe that there was some sort of volitional being personal being that was

[00:37:52] making these choices yeah I know III think your what it did for me is it

[00:37:57] simply allowed me to not hold a prejudicial view against the miracle

[00:38:04] accounts hmm so that’s that’s the value that that had for me I just needed please like if you if you hold if you

[00:38:11] just say okay I’m going to believe the Gospels I might take out all of the miracles you end up with one view of

[00:38:17] Jesus but if your investigation gives you good reason to leave them in

[00:38:22] poor that’s different now you know you get a different view you get a different idea of who Jesus is and what he’s

[00:38:29] capable of doing for you though is best for us in terms of his ability to save us yes and so my point is I just needed

[00:38:36] to know did I have a good reason to ignore the basically take a view of Jesus that’s kinda like the Jesus you

[00:38:42] know the kind of currently this is not current in the last century scholarship

[00:38:48] that tries to redact out anything supernatural about Jesus to get back to the historical Jesus which is somehow

[00:38:54] much less I think significant and the leads Christ of Christianity I was

[00:38:59] inclined to do that as an atheist and many it seems like many people today that’s

[00:39:04] the position they’re in yeah I think you’re right no I think you’re a bad way to hold that view of Jesus still allows

[00:39:11] you control and that’s what this all comes down to is that each of us is happiest when it is true at your job I

[00:39:20] just taught my wife but this is yesterday the idea is we are typically it’s easy to love things you can control

[00:39:28] and those aspects of your job I suspect right now that you say oh I love this aspect of my job is probably an aspect

[00:39:33] of your job that you have more control over yeah if you love your hobbies even more because you have complete control

[00:39:39] of what you do with your your own discretionary time yeah yeah so so it turns out those it’s hard to love

[00:39:45] something this is why I think you really learn how to love in the context of your marriage right because that’s a person

[00:39:50] you cannot control to love that person you have no control over yeah is an

[00:39:56] entirely different exercise that’s why I think it’s so difficult for us to embrace the notion of God if we want to

[00:40:03] retain control and so I want control over what is appropriate behavior what’s

[00:40:09] inappropriate behavior I want control over the choices I make today to have to look to nobody else for approval on I

[00:40:15] can approve these choices and I’m in control absolutely yeah well I have another baby what I think

[00:40:21] yeah that’s an excellent point I have another big question for you that will answer right after this break in our

[00:40:26] last segment here and that is that I recently heard a speaker say he said the

[00:40:32] difficulty that we’re dealing with here in education me being in education I’m a teacher or if somebody’s a youth past or

[00:40:39] whatever it might be is our fear is not kids becoming adamant atheists our

[00:40:45] concern is students becoming apathetic Christians and I think this is a real

[00:40:52] issue today is that what’s happening is it’s not that kids are embracing you

[00:40:58] know radical atheism or or you know this sort of attitude but it’s more that

[00:41:03] they’re becoming apathetic and they might even say they believe in God they believe in Jesus Christ but they’re just checked out and they don’t see how it’s

[00:41:11] relevant to their lives so my guest today is Jay Warner Wallace and he is an expert on

[00:41:16] the evidence for the truth of Christianity he’s also recently written a book with Sean McDowell called the so the next generation will know preparing

[00:41:23] young Christians for a challenging world and I can’t think of a better need in a

[00:41:29] book to be addressed currently as it pertains to this issue so stay with us

[00:41:34] we have one more segment with J Warner Wallace of cold-case Christianity calm

[00:41:41] [Music]

[00:41:56] Luke Gibson of LG equipment supports educate for life with Kevin Conover Luke

[00:42:01] grew up in the construction industry and now serves LG’s commercial and residential customers throughout

[00:42:06] Southern California whether you need grading paving hauling demolition on-site bulk water service

[00:42:12] water trucks tankers and towers call LG equipment at six one nine nine nine

[00:42:17] eight zero nine two four learn more at LG equipment comm six one

[00:42:22] nine nine nine eight zero nine two four hi this is jason hall president of team

[00:42:28] home loans a branch of synergy one lending i just want to take this opportunity to think kevin Conover for

[00:42:33] the profound impact he’s had on mine and my wife’s spiritual life as well as being an incredible teacher while our

[00:42:39] kids were his students his knowledge and passion have taught us all how important it is to be defenders of our faith is

[00:42:45] our sincere hope and prayer that you will continue to learn to be defenders of your faith through Kevin’s radio show

[00:42:50] and through his educate for life teachings thank you Kevin from the hall family and team home loans

[00:42:55] life insurance is like a parachute if you don’t have it when you need it it’s too late when your family faces a

[00:43:02] challenge you don’t want to face liability because you’re uninsured or underinsured decades of sandy Aegon’s

[00:43:07] have trusted Jim Kelly of Kelly insurance agency and Allstate to insure homes cars businesses and lives no

[00:43:14] matter where they live throughout California your family’s needs are always changing call to schedule a

[00:43:19] checkup today call Jim Kelly and his team right now six one nine five sixty

[00:43:24] to ninety one ninety nine

[00:43:39] [Music] thanks for being with us today this is

[00:43:46] educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover and we’re down here in Southern California and San Diego FM 106.1 North

[00:43:54] County Kay praise AM 12:10 San Diego so we’re on the radio down here if anybody

[00:43:59] out there listening to radio we also are on youtube if you all kinds of shows on YouTube have over a hundred

[00:44:06] shows now with all kinds of experts from all over the world testifying to the truth of the the Bible and to how Jesus

[00:44:13] Christ has personally impacted their lives have on their a show with dr. James tour one of the top 50 scientists

[00:44:20] in the world who’s an organic synthetic chemist who talks about whether evolution is viable or not we also have

[00:44:28] a on their shows with former homosexuals like patty Hite who talked about how

[00:44:35] we’re not defined by our sexuality but we’re defined by God’s definition of us

[00:44:40] as children made in the image of God and all kinds of other resources out there that are available my guest today is Jay

[00:44:47] Warren or Wallace cold case Christianity com he’s a former homicide detective and he he’s also here in Southern California

[00:44:54] up in the Los Angeles area and recently wrote a book with Shawn McDowell so the

[00:45:01] next generation will know preparing young Christians for a challenging world and Jim I wanted to ask you specifically

[00:45:08] what motivated you to write this book in particular because you you’ve written a

[00:45:14] fantastic books cold case Christianity God’s crime scene forensic faith all

[00:45:20] these books about the evidence for the truth of Christianity what made you decide to write a book specifically

[00:45:26] geared towards reaching young people well I think part of it was our own

[00:45:32] experience you know we both work in the settings where Shawn’s Burton high school setting I was a youth pastor for

[00:45:37] years we probably speak to more young audiences than other people doing this kind of work lately a lot of our

[00:45:43] audiences are Jen’s II as high schoolers basically and so I think we learned a

[00:45:49] lot in that process also we’re also like Euler we’re watching the culture and noticing that the younger you are the

[00:45:55] more likely you are to walk away from the church or to stop identifying yourself as a Christian believer and so

[00:46:02] we just thought well it’s time for us to write we’ve written books that we think are what books like what is true about

[00:46:07] Christianity what is true about God what is true about this or that and and this is a book that it turns a corner it’s a

[00:46:13] how-to book it’s like if you even even though people might be interested in the

[00:46:18] facts surrounding Christianity and they may have done a good job of preparing themselves with those facts we still get

[00:46:25] a lot of people who say yeah but I’m not quite sure how to reach this generation with those truth claims is there stuff

[00:46:31] about this generation that is unique and makes the that the project a little more

[00:46:37] challenging or whatever and I think that’s true I think there are some things about this generation that make

[00:46:44] it a little more challenging and so we wanted a book that was very intensely practical that would help both parents

[00:46:52] Christian educators and youth pastors communicate the claims of Christianity

[00:46:58] to Gen Z given the unique nature of really what’s causing Gen Z to be so

[00:47:03] unique is that they happen to be in an Information Age in which technology has shaped and changed the way we see

[00:47:10] everything that glowing rectangle those phones smartphones have smartphone

[00:47:15] technology all mobile information age technology if these are digital natives now these are people who young people

[00:47:22] who don’t remember a time before there was assess technology yeah if you don’t think that that has changed things go a

[00:47:29] restaurant and wait for your table and see what you which you’ll see we’re all

[00:47:34] now on our phones waiting for the table yeah I was just watching an advertisement yesterday for an iPad and

[00:47:42] it’s a brilliant advertising this starts off with how useful they are and stopping your kids from fighting while

[00:47:49] you’re on the way to Grandpa’s house for Christmas and then how useful they are of keeping your kids kind of at bay

[00:47:56] while you’re visiting with grandpa because grandpa don’t want to be annoyed and you can watch videos on then the

[00:48:03] kids take that that that iPad and they create a gift for grand with the iPad in which he can remember

[00:48:10] his deceased wife and I’m watching this advertiser and I’m thinking to myself wow I mean first of all we are now

[00:48:16] saying that to keep your kids quiet and at bay with this digital device is

[00:48:22] actually a good thing yeah and then we’re going to convince ourselves that somehow our kids will use this

[00:48:28] creatively for good when most of the time it’s probably having really even no

[00:48:33] I think at this point what long-term impact these devices are going to have on relationships on mental health and

[00:48:40] the way we see and communicate with each other that stuff is still to be determined yeah we’re already seeing

[00:48:46] some of them I mean I I never before taught classes on specifically like do I

[00:48:52] play too much video games I had a kid a couple years ago who actually last year who played three days straight of video

[00:48:59] games and my question for you you know in your research for this book is one of

[00:49:05] the difficulties I’m finding is that I mentioned this last segment that what

[00:49:11] seems to be happening is that the students to a certain degree are being lolled into almost an apathetic Christianity I

[00:49:19] had a student come to me last year and say mr. Conover I really want to be a Christian I really want to follow Jesus but I just can’t seem to consistently

[00:49:28] walk with him and you know he was he was inferring to things like I’m constantly

[00:49:35] playing video games or I’m looking at pornography or it seems almost like there’s this almost addictive draw

[00:49:42] towards things that are contrary to you know a steady walk with Christ well

[00:49:49] there’s no doubt about that and so two things are a day there though there’s a way there are ways in which be the

[00:49:58] technology actually impedes or harms our progress or how we see God and then

[00:50:03] there are just ways in which the world seems to be so distracting that young people are just not interested that’s

[00:50:09] the one that I think is the most intriguing for us to talk about today because I bet is it has been said by some that the

[00:50:16] biggest challenge to theism is not a theism but is apathy ISM and that is probably true that the biggest

[00:50:23] challenge going forward is going to be and I have a suggestion we talked about this in one chapter in the book and you

[00:50:28] know when that first came up we should write this chapter I was not excited to write it for some reason but I’m so glad

[00:50:36] we did though that we decided to include it because I think now looking back at that it’s it might be one of the most

[00:50:43] important things we could write about and that is what do we do to increase passion and I talked about this way if

[00:50:49] you’ll simply change every conversation you have with the young person from a conversation that’s filled with what’s

[00:50:56] and start to provide to wise for everyone what you give young people you

[00:51:03] will see an increase in passion I think I think you’ll see a lot of your conversations change dramatically and

[00:51:09] noticeably and quickly here’s what I mean you might have in the past and we have attention spans to do this to just

[00:51:15] give a series of things we want to impart upon our kids a list of what is true what what what what I want you to

[00:51:22] do what you want to do what the Bible says you ought to do here’s here’s the Bible what the Bible says about this

[00:51:28] here’s the Bible says about that here’s what Jesus said about this if it’s what what what what what well the the

[00:51:35] Internet’s good for what there’s lots of what’s on the internet but there’s something else that occurs in the internet that I think we have to start to move towards and that is the first

[00:51:41] why tell me why that’s true and by the way please don’t use your Bible to tell

[00:51:46] me why you think the Bible is true I mean young people are actually saying this they want to know is there some good reason for me to number one even

[00:51:52] trust what the Bible is telling me about this and most of us as Christians growing up in the church we haven’t

[00:51:58] really thought about that like we’ve accepted this is true is the word of God but young people want that I’m not sure

[00:52:03] this is the Word of God tell me why II think it’s the Word of God number one give me the first why why should I

[00:52:08] believe what you think you believe why should I think that’s true give me something with evidence to support that

[00:52:15] it’s not that that’s not happening for every other world view online of course it is yeah we’re in a place where that if you

[00:52:22] can’t run a scientific test to prove it most young people are gonna say I’m not sure it’s true then yeah so we need to

[00:52:28] be able to show our young people why this is true the second why though is the lining

[00:52:34] his tours passion and that is okay so you’ve made this claim and you’ve given me some evidence to support why it’s

[00:52:40] true but why should I care hmm I mean how’s this apply to me oh well look it turns out that the

[00:52:47] theological claims we make to our kid do have an impact on how they live their lives as a matter of fact I want my kids

[00:52:52] to see it I want them to see that the reason why they are the loneliest generation in the history of young

[00:52:58] people according to their own self reporting yet they’re the most connected to their friends on social media than

[00:53:05] any other how can these two things be true at the same time yeah it’s rooted in biology it’s that you are not just an

[00:53:11] immaterial being you are a physical being with a body and that your

[00:53:17] relationships need to be both immaterial in terms like that you can have online but they also need to be material in

[00:53:24] which you are in the physical presence you can have a thousand connections to people online today but you will find

[00:53:31] yourself lonely why because the unique nature of the Christian worldview so

[00:53:37] that when you die you will not just be a disembodied angel a disembodied spirit no you will be reunited to a physical

[00:53:44] body a resurrection body why why is that so important because the nature of who you are is described in Scripture

[00:53:51] actually explains why you’re feeling the way you are today on Instagram it

[00:53:56] explains why your there’s a why a second Lyle why this shouldn’t matter to you because it turns out that Christianity

[00:54:03] has incredible explanatory power because it happens to describe the world the way it really is that’s awesome and I think

[00:54:11] our young people need to see that yeah and if they do they’re gonna be in a much better place to understand why I

[00:54:17] should care about this to begin with absolutely when we when we are able to answer what how this practically impacts

[00:54:24] my life and we’re able to bear that out all of a sudden everything becomes so much more relevant and I think like you

[00:54:30] said all of a sudden it stirs up that passion for kids to go oh my goodness

[00:54:35] the light bulb just went on now I realized why this is happening in my life and it makes so much sense that’s

[00:54:42] that’s powerful Jim we’re out of time but thank you so much for being on the program today

[00:54:47] was a really awesome show and I really enjoyed talking with you thanks so much for having me I really appreciate it

[00:54:53] absolutely so that’s jay warner wallace cold case christianity if you’re listening today i

[00:54:58] really hope you enjoyed the program please check out his website cold case christianity calm he’s got fantastic

[00:55:04] books I personally am reading the book so so the next generation will know my whole school Christian high where I

[00:55:10] teach at all the teachers are going through it and love it it’s got so much good practical advice that you can

[00:55:16] actually put into practice right away right there at your school and begin to impact the lives of these young people

[00:55:23] for for the Lord and in a way that’s really going to cause them to connect

[00:55:29] with Jesus Christ personally and on a real everyday and personal practical

[00:55:35] level so I can’t recommend it more a fantastic book I hope you enjoyed the

[00:55:41] show and we’ll be back again next week we are going to have a Greg cocoa on the show soon too also another Southern

[00:55:47] California apologist seems like there’s a lot apologists in Southern California but and we’ll be talking more about his

[00:55:54] new book that he actually just updated the tactics book which is a incredible

[00:56:00] book and he’s added a whole bunch of new content to that and that’s on how to reach your neighbors friends relatives

[00:56:07] with the gospel of Jesus Christ so look forward to being with you next time I hope you have a great weekend god bless

[00:56:13] you

[00:56:22] you