213. Evidence for Christianity with Jim Warner Wallace

[00:00:08] Hi friends welcome to another episode of Making Disciples. I am super excited about today's episode. I am going to be spending some time in this episode and the next episode talking with Jim Warner Wallace,

[00:00:23] who we've added the podcast before he has written some fantastic books. One of my favorites is a person of interest. He was a cold case detective who comes to faith and then explores Christianity from the position of

[00:00:38] if Christianity was a cold case, how do we access and look at the data and what does it tell us about the crime of Christianity who killed Jesus and did the resurrection at the happenwapidoo's body.

[00:00:53] It looks essentially look at the evidence of Christianity and he is just brilliant. I do really love Jim Warner Wallace and loved his books. I did one of the podcasts before and she

[00:01:07] thought could I have another interview with him because I spend a bit more time with him on Zoom so I emailed him and bless him he responded super fast and got a date in the diary for us.

[00:01:17] When you meet people that you really had a cup to or you really had a Maya are you really enjoy or really inspire you it's always fun isn't it? Are they going to be like what you

[00:01:30] imagine Jim first time I met him I just thought wow this is a great guy. I love what he has to say so super excited to have him back and really excited to talk about the kind of things that we're

[00:01:43] going to talk about the podcast so he has got this new book out the truth in true crime and what is that love talking with him is I am really into cold cases. I love watching Netflix cold

[00:01:56] cases it just thrills me when you see a crime that's 40 years old suddenly solved because of a new piece of information I just love it and the way that he deported pro just Christianity in a very

[00:02:09] similar way just really inspires me I love it gets my brain thinking that you know that kind of way bring us together my mind you know my enjoyment of cold cases as well as Christianity so

[00:02:20] I hope you find this interesting we're going to split the interview with two pieces and so I hope this is something that you find inspiring as well don't forget you can subscribe to the podcast

[00:02:33] if you haven't done as yet and don't forget if you want to support the podcast by buying as a couple you can do that in the show notes that you are very very welcome to do that so

[00:02:41] one welcome to making disciples my name is Chris I'm your host let's jump in with an interview with Jim Warner Wallace. Jim welcome to making disciples this is your second time that you've been

[00:03:01] on our podcast and the first time was one of the highest listen to episodes that we've we've had so massive thank you to Quinn back on the podcast you didn't have to but you did so thank you

[00:03:15] no glad to do it I think this this all-ish of discipleship is is what I'm probably the most interested in right now so I'm just glad to be able to contribute in some ways so thanks for having me

[00:03:24] appreciate. So I do have some questions up front I'm going to ask you they actually came out of the last interview where people said oh you didn't ask you didn't ask okay I just you're asked

[00:03:34] this I thought do you know I know I didn't you're right and so let's just go back and ask those questions from people because yeah sure that you know it is interesting isn't it's we

[00:03:43] alluded to in our last conversation about how you came to faith yeah could you just give us a sense of you know what what was life like before faith what were you doing what led you to investigating

[00:03:54] Christianity and you know what what was the difference that made in that transition for you where you did come to fight well I mean I just I wasn't really interested in Christianity and I always used

[00:04:07] to say I'm not a Christian because it works for me and what I really mean is is that I didn't have anything broken that I was trying to fix that was driving me to like seek out the truth on this my

[00:04:17] we had young boys and my wife at one time we you know I think you're an American we kind of think well do we need to prepare them for elementary school by putting them in preschool and a lot of

[00:04:27] the preschools that are offer locally or in churches so we had our kids in a church preschool and that was fine with me I didn't I like my dad in that sense he my dad's a very

[00:04:39] community atheist and he would say that look is not true but it's useful so so let's like if you want to do it I mean he's not he'll even go to church you'll be happy to go to church and that's why

[00:04:49] I was the same way if it's something that Susie thought was useful for the kids even though we had no idea what a Todd or just really no idea what the Orthodox teaching of Christian he was

[00:04:59] we would be happy just to do it if I thought like you know they're socializing with other kids blah blah so now we get to a point where the kids are in kindergarten like they're now going to be going

[00:05:11] into elementary school here and then the question was well do we then to stop everything we're doing with the preschool at church and I was more than willing to stop but Susie was kind of wondering

[00:05:22] well should we try to attend church with our kids because we had them in these preschools and I thought let me want to but I was able to throw about three years in this neighborhood of what

[00:05:31] you're going to church I was busy I was working undercover I was that kind of job is like 24 seven it never seems like an ends you never available you're often working on Sundays so I was

[00:05:43] able to skillfully avoid going to church for all those years and then one Friday or Saturday I knew I was going to have that Sunday off and Susie said you know she really wanted to go and we had

[00:05:52] a friend who had invited us a couple of times to a big church here so I was more than willing to go because Susie wanted to go yeah like like Mike my dad my dad is still a very committed non believer

[00:06:03] but he'll go to church okay and he's not opposed to my writing books about this or but it's just because it's a damn it so useful delusion and I thought that the same thing but but Jesus

[00:06:15] but the pastor provoked me with this idea that Jesus was something special though he was smart that's all it took for me he said that Jesus was the smartest man who lived in that that was enough

[00:06:27] for me to say okay well let's so let's find out what's so smart about him so I bought a few Bible and I just because I remember I don't think that church had few Bibles maybe they did

[00:06:39] but I went on bot one back when they were used to actually have bookstores that you can imagine like actual places you could go to buy books and I bought a few Bible for about five or six

[00:06:49] bucks and started reading it and that's what started me examining the gospels just from the only perspective that most of us have as detectives which is trying to figure out is is anything

[00:06:59] reported in here and I could send a single you have a simple normal report is anything reported in here that you could actually trust and if you've looked at reports from cases that are old

[00:07:09] where people are now dead it's very similar process you have to figure out did that really happen and how would I make a case for this information of a jury if I think it did happen so a lot

[00:07:19] of that kind of approach is what you take when you start looking at this as an detective nice okay we just analyze this because for many of us our brain doesn't work like this

[00:07:29] but yet we've watched enough Netflix to know it's you know you can really get to the facts and the truth yes by analyzing the absolute and so what was that what was the process that you went

[00:07:43] to how did you investigate the gospels of facts so so so I went and tested morning in California anyway is evaluated under like a number of questions that there are in the California jury instructions

[00:07:56] and they're also questions that you can kind of use to test anybody you could use an test your 15 year old when it comes home and tells you something that you don't think is true so

[00:08:05] there's four criteria for I would miss reliability and I simply pressed those four criteria against the gospels to see if they would pass the test and I look none of that's going to make

[00:08:13] your Christian that's going to do is eliminate or at least start to bruise some of your objections you know it's going to start to poke a few holes in that wall that you've built between yourself

[00:08:26] in the gospels that's what it did for me is it started to poke holes in it and it was super powerful because I was not able to hear the gospels or what what what the Bible said about me

[00:08:40] like here's part of the problem for me part of the problem for me is my dad remarried and his second wife was LDS was a Mormon and she raised his second family I was the only one

[00:08:51] from the first family the second family she raised a Mormon and you know those folks will also make a claim about Jesus yeah and and if you've ever heard of the book of Mormon under the same

[00:09:02] criteria that you examine the gospels this this evidential kind of brain work for reliability of witnesses it doesn't pass the test it fails pretty quickly so I just knew that that wasn't true

[00:09:14] and so I was very skeptical about any claim about Jesus because I knew that those claims about Jesus simply weren't true and a lot of what they will rely on my Mormon family would rely on it would be

[00:09:26] personal testimony you know read this book ask out of his true and let me tell you how it changed my life or how how I became a Christian or how I became a Mormon rather and so I just knew that in a

[00:09:37] approach that says just read the book pray about it and then let me tell you how I became a believer in this thing was not sufficient for me and it's interesting to me that for most Christians they would say that

[00:09:48] about their Mormon friends but they don't take that approach themselves that if they have asked why is this true most of the time they're going to say well I'd read it and pray about it and let me

[00:09:59] tell you my story and that's why for the most part the last time I was here with you probably I didn't share my story I don't think of my story matters a bit what matters is a true

[00:10:09] and and reason why don't think my story matters is because most of us who are Christians don't think the stories from others matter and everyone's got a story of why they're Buddhist, why they're

[00:10:21] a Hindu, why they're a Mormon, why there is a W, whatever it may be and the story itself doesn't have to be married to something objectively grounded right like do I believe this the event

[00:10:31] that are recorded in the New Testament actually occurred yeah all right do you believe the books that the events that are recorded in the book of Mormon are actually true so at some point it has to

[00:10:42] be more than just your response to a claim it has to be an examination of the claim so you mentioned full ways of approaching the evidence in moments yeah well what all they so that it basically is

[00:10:57] four things here is there's like thirteen jury instruction questions they break down in four categories one was the person really there to see what they said they saw because if you can demonstrate

[00:11:05] that they weren't even there then they're not a reliable witness regardless this is all by the way as to if I wrote about in my first book which was Colkase Christianity the second one is

[00:11:14] can they be corroborated in some way even though you know the corroboration in a what an Colkase from 1970 is not going to involve video you're gonna have to corroborate is some other touch point

[00:11:24] corroboration which is going to give you a piece of the overall claim but it's not going to give you a video recording of the claim because those things weren't just normal available to us

[00:11:34] three it's have they changed your story over time are they been consistent and on point they never changed their story and four do they have a motive one of the three motives that people used to lie

[00:11:44] do they have one of those three and if they do it it doesn't by the way just because you have a motive to lie does not mean you've lied but if you have no motive to lie then it is harder to

[00:11:54] understand why you live lie especially groups that would lie consistently so so those are the three the four criteria that I simply used and pressed against the gospel to see if they were telling

[00:12:06] me the truth about Jesus of Nazareth so you could you could say how did your love change because of that you know well that doesn't that just gave you believe that just gives you belief that

[00:12:16] doesn't give you belief in right and I we say that you have to examine not what the Bible says about Jesus that just gives you belief that you have to examine critically with the Bible says about

[00:12:26] you because that's what's going to cause you to stop and think okay with hold on a minute but you could have told me I was a sinner in need of a savior I don't believe there's a savior

[00:12:35] of what's the point but once I knew there was a savior I was willing to listen to whether or not I was a sinner yeah and of course if you're really interested back to it then you know yourself pretty

[00:12:45] well you end up like okay yeah I recognize that I have this needed but then you're just connecting easier dots so so I think the problem for me is all the problem is for everyone is it's pride it's

[00:12:55] us thinking that they're cannot be a god who knows better than I do right this is this is the snake did he really say that come on he just as I want you to know what he knows well this is kind of how

[00:13:08] I think most of us who stand at a distance think about it we think about it in terms of well yeah does this book contains something that I couldn't do better you know yeah so I think part of it is

[00:13:20] so no changes um is a process this is this process that you and I know is discipleship it's this process of surrendering my stubborn rebellion to the spirit of God which is not residing inside of

[00:13:35] me good before that I never I never thought there was anything to surrender you know most of us who don't have the spirit of God just just keep on going on as though we are God ourselves we don't even

[00:13:46] recognize that maybe I should change this like there's no sense of need for repentance if the spirit is not tugging at you and saying really really really you're gonna keep this doing this really

[00:13:56] so I needed to have to hear that voice and that this creates a slow now here I am into this now it's 35 when I started examining Christian and I am now 62 so I'm not yet halfway through my life

[00:14:11] as a Christian I mean I've been more my life not as non-Christian then I was as a Christian so it does I think I think it's one of those things that you have to be patient with and you have to be

[00:14:22] intentional like you have to think about these things it's interesting to me that Paul tells us that it's in Romans 12 that it's the renewing of our not our will or our emotion or our experiences

[00:14:34] or our relationships not the renewing of our mind so it's a constant me having to really refocus my thoughts yeah and allowing God spirit to do that now I have things changed I think so as you would tell

[00:14:46] you my wife would tell you the yeah things have changed a lot but here's one thing I would say is that as a non-Christian I was already I think and I had already embraced unknowingly many of the

[00:14:57] difficult principles about how to live like that wasn't like that's why I was living them but I mean I knew what I ought to be doing and a lot of those things I thought I ought to be doing

[00:15:07] that I thought this would make me a better person are things that are very ancient and I had just inherited them from a Judeo Christian culture that was still relatively vibrant enough even in Southern

[00:15:19] California for me to grab it you know so I was I was able to kind of to know and so for if you would get my life you might have said is he a Christian in the sense of the things I would have

[00:15:29] valued I would have said no this is a high value this is a high value well a lot of those things were just coincidentally the same things that are up high value to us as Christians but if you don't

[00:15:38] know how they're grounded then you're doing dockens right you're living in a in a Christian culture embracing the ideas and values of Christianity recognizing them as virtue as recognizing them as the best of alternatives yet you don't know anything about where they came from

[00:15:54] on you certainly haven't been to the author so let's just pause that for a second you've I mean you used to really import word you talked about intentionally you had to be intentional

[00:16:04] I think if there were listeners listening today and it may well be our experience last time was there was many husbands and wives you said you got to listen to this you got to listen to this episode

[00:16:13] so if you're listening to this episode on the key things I think we've just drawn out there as intentionality if you want to explore Christianity we have to be intentional in doing that it's not

[00:16:23] just going to happen around you yes God may intervene and there may be some miraculous moment but for many of us we just need to intentionally say I want to investigate this and that's just

[00:16:34] is this credible and could it be that this is so true I need to change my life to match it so I want to just encourage you if you're listening now be intentional don't just let the world drift by

[00:16:46] but yeah you may want to do some of your own investigation after you've finished on listening to this episode so just give that some thought um what have you noticed you know Chris Chris it's just

[00:16:58] as important there because it seems to me like a lot of us we live our lives in such a way they're at the end of a year the most significant thing we can say about that the way we've changed is we're

[00:17:09] now just a year older and that's I just never wanted to live that way where I said okay so what have I done to advance who what I'm supposed to be who I'm supposed to be who I'm supposed to be

[00:17:20] in the last 12 months am I just a year older or did I in this year I moved the the bar on this issue or I raised the bar on this issue did I did I did I um I mean me that's just I'm being too

[00:17:33] achievement or you and that's probably driven by pride but the point is I think for me it's all about trying to figure out like what what I just don't want to let a year get by without

[00:17:42] being intentional about doing something that is they've got us called me to do anyway yeah I love that all of the questions that we got asked up to the last episode which I think's a great question

[00:17:53] so it was from some people were saying you know I do believe in the gospels I you know believe in the stories that I see of Jesus I just you know struggle with it with the resurrection but

[00:18:05] I'm gonna believe it because I have faith but I you know I just struggle with that and it was a great comment and they you know what they said was you never said you know what what was his confidence in

[00:18:16] the resurrection so like yeah I'm gonna ask that question yeah right you know I know you talk a lot in your your books about the resurrection and how we can approach the resurrection but for you

[00:18:27] like what is the key things that made you go you know well this is now you know it's not just a position it does actually it's facts here that I can grab hold of you know what for you was that

[00:18:40] well I think a lot of videos it's just understanding how evidence works here I think part of the problem is is that we don't it was how maybe this is why I became a Christian when I did because I

[00:18:49] already had so much time you know kind of experimenting with this idea of how we make an evidential case everything is evidence folks everything what he says that's evidence what he failed to

[00:19:01] say hmm that's evidence what's in the crime scene hmm what should be in the crime scene but it's missing hmm it's the yingen ying of everything you can think of so that means that every single thing

[00:19:12] in a criminal trial I am going to bring in as indirect evidence and that's 99% of all evidence if I had an eyewitness this thing when I got solved 30 years ago when I'm working a cold case it's

[00:19:22] because I don't have any direct evidence eyewitnesses all I have is indirect evidence everything else so what does I knew that I could approach the resurrection a little differently because what counts

[00:19:32] well everything and so part of it is that when you make a decision about what happened in this crime scene what you're doing is something called a deductive reasoning you're simply saying given the evidence

[00:19:45] that's in this crime scene and the 10 ways I might explain it which of the 10 ways is most reasonable has the best explanatory power yet the least liabilities knowing that every explanation even true

[00:19:58] explanations have liabilities yeah I've never had a case in front of a jury or I didn't know the defense is going to attack these three things because these are the three liabilities we have even though afterwards his dude confesses to it which has happened a number of times

[00:20:12] okay well so we clearly know we had the truth even though we had the three liabilities because he's dude confess to it okay so I just needed to know of the ways you could explain the empty tomb

[00:20:22] and this classic report of an empty tomb in the first century and I was very minimalistic about this as an unbeliever you know I did believe that Jesus was a guy who lived in the first century

[00:20:32] I'm not a Jesus myth or if you because I'm in the evidence I wrote about this in person of interest in other places I did so what so doesn't mean he's if he's we said he was he could just be

[00:20:41] a first century sage I also believe that he died on a cross because the evidence is even Barturman the skeptic believes that Jesus died on a cross the question is how do we explain the empty grave

[00:20:51] afterwards because if you want to end this quickly as as an objector to this claim you simply get the body of Jesus and drag it around town and this is game over so there's an empty so that so

[00:21:03] now the question is there's like seven ways to describe the evidence I just presented to you simply that there was a guy named Jesus who lived in a cross and the tomb was empty afterwards you could say that they're lying you could say that they've imagined a resurrection

[00:21:19] you could say they were deceived by an imposter you could say that so I've listed and Colcae's Christianity these seven things that I examined six of which are the atheist descriptions

[00:21:29] of the evidence only one is the Christian one which is that he rose from the grave now all of these explanations have a liability some of them are I think are deal killers they're like critical

[00:21:41] liabilities and I think for most people who don't who struggle with the resurrection they might think well is the fact that he simply rose from isn't that a deal killer isn't the idea that something supernatural is the bet could something supernatural ever be the best explanation for evidence

[00:21:57] well I think part of that is well okay ask yourself do you believe the standard cosmological argument that standard cosmological paradigm that that astrophysicists actually the model they actually embrace because right now the most popular model is big bang cosmology the idea that

[00:22:17] the entire universe all space time and matter lept into existence from nothing not from another spatial dimension not from no the standard cosmological model is that it lept into existence from nothing and that means that a universe that has a beginning which is what all the science demonstrates

[00:22:35] that it comes into existence from nothing that means the cause has to be outside of space time and matter in other words if you're simply just belief and they struggle with this too

[00:22:44] there's a one or some of the way that defining space time and matter there's a some of the way of defining nothing well philosophically nothing is nothing it's what Aristotle said rocks think about

[00:22:55] nothing okay so if if if it's coming from nothing that means you've already at least embraced a first extra natural because nature is space time and matter so it's outside of space

[00:23:08] time and matter you've got an extra natural cause so if there's an extra natural cause of the universe the most amazing miracle and the pages of scripture is not in the new testament anywhere to

[00:23:20] be found that's where all small potato miracles the most impressive miracle is Genesis 1 everything from nothing if there's a being out there they can snap everything into existence from nothing

[00:23:32] I'm thinking he could probably walk on water so this is why I think you have to open your hand just hold it with an open hand you've got a bias why do you have the bias it's a bias but

[00:23:44] it's it's philosophical natural of them you have a bias against the supernatural that's what really comes down to because every other aspect of the Christian description is the strongest and best explanation for the evidence except that oh it requires a supernatural resurrection not let's put this

[00:24:01] way there's a lot of skepticism about the new testament gospels and you hear about it all the time both from in the camp and out of the camp but I'll tell you this if the new testament was

[00:24:11] simply a record of the teaching of Jesus on the sermon on the mount how you know he and he never worked as single miracle he's just an ancient sage another Jewish rabbi with lots of teaching like

[00:24:25] other Jewish rabbis in the first century that's all it was he would be the best attested ancient in the history of ancient there wouldn't be a single person on planet earth who would doubt the

[00:24:34] historicity of the new testament because there are so many copies in so many transmit so to diligently over so many centuries but you add one miracle and everyone's like oh no I can't be true

[00:24:47] okay that tells you that the the the bias that the skepticism is not coming from the manuscript evidence it's not coming from the way it was the manuscript were it were treated or preserved or transmitted that that skepticism is absolutely purely a presuppositional bias against super naturalism

[00:25:05] but you probably already believe in something extra natural you believe you have a mind that's not material that's immaterial that exists aside from your brain there's so many ways in the world in which the best explanation is something extra natural is not low cannot lock down by space

[00:25:21] time and that we have to at least be open to the idea that there might be a being outside of space time and matter and if so read the new testament little what the little what the difference

[00:25:33] set of eyes I remember talking to somebody about the resurrection in the same way I mean the cooks of it is this is the event that changes everything if this if this happened then changes

[00:25:47] is who he claims to be right such that this is what you want to research you know you can spend all your time research did Jesus really live you're gonna get you the conclusion will be yes

[00:25:57] you're gonna look at the scriptures and how we got the scriptures are they reliable the answer will be just research the resurrection because if that's true then everything's true and not only is

[00:26:07] it true it has to change everything about the way that you now live your life well the conversation yeah we typically will say and I see people all the time officially in the younger generation

[00:26:17] coming all guy now but they'll they'll examine the validity of Jesus based not on the history of Jesus but on something he said or taught though this he can't be who he said he was because

[00:26:27] he taught so first of all what anything forget about anything Jesus taught anything Jesus said the critical issue is is he who he said he wasn't is he got the resurrection really occur

[00:26:38] is because if he is who that document claims him to be well then all is teaching us so far down stream look it let's put this way even if you thought there's not there's no Christianity's

[00:26:49] not true and it wasn't not true but but at some point you happen to be fortunate enough to stand before I holy God who created you maybe it's something that you've never even thought about

[00:26:59] but wouldn't you say that there is a holy God and you were standing before him you'd probably embrace whatever it is he told you right so this is what we have to deal with Jesus is he who

[00:27:11] he claimed to be is if he is is this resurrection true because of the resurrection occurred then all the teaching is not the way to test who gee that that's not the way to decide

[00:27:20] whether Christianity is true the way to decide what Christianity is true is is way upstream of the teaching of Jesus it's it's it's it's did he rise from the grave so I think you're right I mean

[00:27:30] because if that's the case then that's a category of teacher you will not encounter anywhere else on the pages of anyone else's holy scripture this means he's in a completely different category

[00:27:40] in terms of teachers and we'd have to consider his teaching and otherly as well yeah friends that's a great place for us to end our first half hour with Jin and next week we will be exploring the

[00:27:55] what next what does life now look like because of who this Jesus is I hope that just this conversation with Jim here in his testimony just how we approached Christianity you know Jesus really

[00:28:09] was real you know they the historical evidence is beyond what we need to really believe that he he existed the evidence is there the evidence for his death evidence for his resurrection

[00:28:21] what I would say is if you want to look into more of that then the person of interest why Jesus still matters in a world that rejects the Bible just an excellent book if you want to explore

[00:28:32] that with Jim just a little bit more friends on tonnex time have a blessed week do return next week as we continue our discussion with Jim particularly now as we talk more about the book

[00:28:45] the truth it's the truth in true crimes this is a new book that he has recently put out but friends grace and peace until next time and I hope today's interview with Jim has been an current encouragement to you that your faith has a real foundation