Advice for the Next Apologist | J. Warner Wallace

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Welcome to a very special video. My name is Nate Sala. I'm the president of wise disciple and here at wise disciple

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We're all about living effectively as Christians in today's culture now a lot of you might not know this

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But before I jumped over to YouTube, I had done some work Previously developing a team and an organization of 501c3 nonprofit along with an audio podcast for years and years

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Where I would invite theologians Authors apologists on the show just to talk about their latest books and do all that kind of stuff and I've been doing that for years so I've had the wonderful privilege to make friendships and sit down and talk to people like William Lane Craig Greg Koekel JP Moreland, Elisa Childers So I don't know if you know that side of me

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But you're about to find out because I invited an old friend to join me to talk about his latest book person of interest

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So, I hope this conversation blesses you Well today is a very special treat my guest is an ex -cold -case homicide detective now speaker and author he's on TV He's on radio.

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He gives amazing lectures on apologetics all over the country Some of his books are cold -case Christianity God's crime scene forensic faith and now

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Person of interest available everywhere. Jay Warner Wallace. Thanks for joining me. Thanks so much for having me.

01:26

I so appreciate I feel like we Wish we live closer because we're always doing this virtually we need to do this in person

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So I had plans to come see you a couple years ago And then that kind of fell through so maybe we can make it happen soon.

01:39

Okay, let's do that for sure Yeah, but also how long is it? It's been a couple of years. You've been holed up writing person of interest this whole time

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Well, yeah, I think that if it wasn't for the pandemic it wouldn't I got written probably I thought I Underestimated the amount of work it would be and so then when we had a few trips shut down You know a few months there were nobody traveled.

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No, no conferences were being held So my calendar just opened up and it was kind of rainy and cold here for Southern, California So that not that rainy and cold

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But we were burning fires and making soup and just researching and writing and researching and writing

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So, yeah without that that margin, I don't think we would have been able to write the book Yeah, well praise

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God. It's here. It's an excellent excellent book, man I I don't know if you've done yourself, you know

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Like if you hold it up against like all the others forensic faith is a real personal favorite by the way This is totally separate from the interview

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But like my son is such a big fan of yours and I keep talking it up I'm gonna talk to Jay and he's like ask him, you know

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He wants to be a detective because of you then he should then he should that's it's great Hey, we need more

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Christians more Christ followers in this this work for sure So I always this is my you know

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When you write a book you have to spend a period of time kind of getting the word out about the book So there's like a season where you don't you aren't really doing anything other than talking about the book

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But before we launched it, I was just starting to build our thin blue life

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Website so you can find that that's our that's really for police officers And what we're trying to do there is the flip of what we do at coldcasechristianity .com

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they're like cold case what we're trying to do is describe and kind of examine the

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Christian life the Christian worldview from a detective's perspective on the thin blue life site

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What we're trying to do is to examine the cop life From a Christian perspective just the opposite.

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So hmm. So yeah, that's a it's a real I mean, you know, I love young people who want to be involved in this work

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It's it's a calling for sure And and if you want somebody who understands the nature of calling who it is that's calling us

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It won't it won't go as well for you So I do think in the end it's better to know who's calling you and what they're calling you to Before you take on a job that is by definition.

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I think a calling so yeah Anyway, I hear you Well what I wanted to do today is something that we've done with other sort of apologetics powerhouses

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That is I want to ask you some questions. Maybe nobody has asked you before It's all about you today how you came up how you got started where you see the future of maybe

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Apologetics Christianity, so let's start here. Tell us how you got started in apologetics

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Did you immediately jump in after getting saved or did it take a while? No I saw everything

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I write about now is really that process by which I examined in Christianity about 20 plus years ago when when

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I Was first looking at Christianity seriously I was working as a detective so I had a certain skill set and I was looking at well

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Do I have a real a reason a reason do I have a good evidence to believe there's something that? Caused the universe to come into do it like do

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I why would I believe there's a God at all and then you know? Do I have reason to believe that these accounts called the

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Gospels are reliable accounts that describe something accurate? They happened in the past and and then you know

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Was there any evidence outside of the Gospels that would incline me because wouldn't Jesus have the kind of impact you'd expect for all these things were the things that I was investigating simultaneously, but after that, you know

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I I'm the kind of person that once I arrive at it. I think is a reasonable evidential inference

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I move on to the next thing So so in other words if I've got like 20 things or 50 things

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I've examined on a guy a guy who's a suspect in a case and I determined my mind. Oh, this is our suspect.

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He's our guy Well, unless something new comes up, but there's no point in revisiting the old stuff.

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I've already revisited I've already examined that stuff unless something new appears Once I reached a conclusion and I tell us to jurors as well

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You've got all the evidence we can present to you got all the evidence the defense could present to you now You're gonna make a decision and once you make that decision

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You don't need to relive it because you've you've made a reasonable inference you can move forward and that's what

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I did with Christianity, but what happened was my own kids Were involved in children's ministry at the church, you know, they were attending the children's ministry before long

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They wrote me in and then I would you know through two or three years later. I'm in seminary I become the coordinator for the children's ministry and then

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I become their youth pastor By the time I was their youth pastor I realized that a lot of the the methodology that I used to determine if Christianity was true

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Was actually helpful to young to high schoolers. I didn't think so at first You know,

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I have a background in the arts. And so my first endeavors in ministry were really very artistic

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Very creative. Yeah, I almost didn't think that this generation gave a lick about What's true?

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That's I think a misnomer. That's that's something that I mean, maybe we're moving in a direction That's further along than we were 15 years ago

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But I can tell you when I was working with high schoolers. They really did have a desire to know what's true

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And so I came back to this approach I mean I had all my resources and I knew how to make a case in front of a jury and I started making these cases every

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Sunday That developed into years of ministry that was really apologetics grounded

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And so when we were on one of these immersive trips, you know Teaching our kids how to interact with atheists at a

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Cal at University of California at Berkeley Sean McDowell who was with us said hey, you should think about writing this stuff in a book

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And I thought well, I mean, I'm real so busy I just didn't know how I was gonna stop my life to write a book

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Right my wife said no, but he's gonna you know, maybe he can help you find a publisher. Well a long story short That's how we ended up writing cold -case

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Christianity and that just kind of Direction, but it wasn't I think I was chasing it just kind of happened organically out of our youth ministry.

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So it's Sean's fault Yeah, I always I owe a lot to Sean. You know, it's what what what struck me as as interesting in all of this is

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That the the kindness of people who are involved in this work this these kinds of ministries

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You you do meet some people in these ministries where you think wow, I mean right away

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Lee Strobel has been nothing but I mean, these are the kind of folks who make you want to be generous and Gracious toward others because you recognize how gracious they were toward you.

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That's right Yeah, so Sean was one of those who got me started Lee Craig Hayes and at Biola Greg Koukl, these are folks who are

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You know important to me because they have been so kind to me. Yeah, I Know you're absolutely correct in my own sort of personal goings -on behind the scenes, you know with our particular ministry,

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I met Lee and He was very very kind I probably shouldn't talk about but he did something behind the scenes for us that really really blessed us

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And you're absolutely correct. That's that's how it is. Yeah, and that's he's the real deal. He did the same thing for me

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I I was just sending him a manuscript of cold -case Christianity to see if he would be interested in endorsing it

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I really just was trying to Get the endorsements in line first before I went to a publisher and I had only met Lee once at a conference

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But we sat at lunch for a long period of time because he was writing fiction at the time and he wanted to kind of Bounce some ideas like you know, it was detective fiction

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So he just wanted to bounce some ideas off of me, right? So we sat for quite a bit of time, but that was really the only contact

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I had with him So when I sent him the manuscript and I said, hey, I think it was still just an outline It wasn't even in a manuscript form

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He said to me. Yeah, it was definitely in an outline because we hadn't got a publisher yet So he said I'll tell you what,

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I'll be one to write the forward So here he was looking at just the outline Now we knew each other well enough and and he he could see my outline and he also

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I think he figured hey this guy Could probably do it. Yeah, so but that was so so helpful So, yeah,

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I'm indebted to a lot of these folks who are there before you There is no sense of competition.

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I've experienced anyway, right? It's been a really gracious bunch of folks who want to share

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Jesus in one way or the other So you get saved what year was that? 19

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I think it was either gonna be you know, I should know this it's 90 It's sometime between I got on so the process took me so long yeah

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Extended from one year to the next it was like a nine month or so period of time So I know

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I think it's by I can't I gotta look at my 96 or 97. I was a Christian Oh, yeah, so back it up nine.

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I just can't remember if it was 96 or 97 and from I don't understand Well, go ahead. I know

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I have a picture of our the baptism somewhere. That should be dated So if you just back it up from there like nine months, that's about when

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I first walked into the church, right? And from what I'm gathering, you know, you sort of came in with your detective

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Brain, you know, very skeptical wanting to answer questions. So what were the first few apologetics arguments that you interacted with back then?

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Well, I don't like arguments, right? I mean I get that that that we're going to make a case

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And what we typically do is we say okay Here's the these are all the pieces that point to this what same reasonable inference

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But it doesn't usually take the you know If this then that you know, or the if therefore it's not really an argument form per se when you put it in front of a jury

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So so it's just you know, okay. Look this did the resurrection all came down to the resurrection What is a resurrection true if Jesus came out of the grave then and Paul says this to you know

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This is this is if this isn't true. You don't have a resurrection of your own coming You've been lied to by false witnesses who told you there was a resurrection.

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This is a big deal, right? So I just needed to know if that was a reasonable inference

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So I was really looking at like, you know, if you made a list of all the things how do you determine if the resurrection is the most reasonable inference from all of the evidence now granted we're gonna get a lot of that evidence either from Reasonable inferences in the first century or from the

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New Testament Gospels New Testament Gospels first, of course So so a lot of it was to testing the

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New Testament Gospels And so that's where I spent almost all my time and I would write like blogs about this and they were lame

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Because they were just you know log level kind of things, you know When you write a book you have to be able to source it.

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You can't just say I know this So now I want to where'd you get that? Well, hang on. I gotta figure out where I got that I forgot where I got it, you know

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Takes a lot longer to write a book than it does to write a blog So a lot of the stuff

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I would put out I would put out early at a website We had called please convince me calm and we just did that for our high schoolers

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That was a website where everything I preached on Sunday. I would eventually type it out and put it online as a blog entry

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So what you really are getting is the script to the Sunday service Kind of in a blog form and that's what

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I did for years And then those are the things that ultimately became the book because that's the process that I went through, you know

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I know how to test an eyewitness. What are the what are the way we test eyewitnesses? We'll test the gospel authors.

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Do they pass if they do pass? Okay. Well, then you still don't believe what's keeping you out If they pass the test, right probably some kind of presuppositional bias.

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So then you got to examine your biases So this is the stuff I was doing with high schoolers. I Mean, were you looking directly to the primary text like the

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Gospels were there other books that were helping you? Alongside the Bible. Well, I bought a lot of the

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Antony scene fathers back in those days We didn't have the best but there was some internet and some of this stuff was available on the

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Internet I didn't have a computer yet. I had a Mac an old do you remember the old 9 -inch black and white?

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diagonal Macintosh computers they were like they look like a About the size of a toaster. Yeah, right.

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Yeah, and so I had one of those in college Wow for my grad school, but yeah,

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I didn't I didn't have one from that time until I was maybe 10 years on the job It just was just starting to come around people were owning, you know laptops and things like that.

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So I didn't have internet at home But I didn't have it at work So I would go into work over early every morning about an hour and I talked my sergeant into letting me print out

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Everything I wanted from the area as long as you bring the paper and you bring the ink It was a inkjet

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Noah's nature was one of those ones where it has like a powder in it So I had to buy ink and it was expensive

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But I remember it saved me having to have internet at home And I would just come in three ring binders and I would buy these huge three ring binders

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And so I had everything in on a big cup all sealed that Florida ceiling Bookshelves that had three ring binders and I'm with printed material

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So I was looking at a lot of the earliest Church history Like what were the how early can we get in the first century?

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And what are they saying about Jesus? What are the sources that are available? I don't think I bought an apologetics book

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Mm -hmm for I don't even know when I bought my first Apollo man would probably be in CS Lewis's mere Christianity We were closest thing.

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Yeah, and I probably had that within a year or two Yeah, maybe after that it would have been the case for Christ whenever that was published or maybe a couple years after it was published

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It took me a while to even know there was a genre Right theology known as apologetics because I like I dropped into the church out of nowhere

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So I didn't have any idea what them but what these disciplines were. Yeah I mean, let's face it

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Jay not a lot of Christians are still aware of the genre of apologetics, right? Well, this is why we're trying to write books that are we try to be creative I think there are a ton of really good stuff things out there

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You know, for example, if you wanted a really good book on the eyewitness authority of the Gospels Well, then

15:27

Bacchum's book on Jesus and the eyewitnesses is excellent, right? But I also know that most people aren't gonna read it and it's gonna be honest with you

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They're gonna they're gonna find it to be too academic. So we have to write a popular level version It kind of covers the same kinds of topics

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But covers them in a way that they're familiar with from television shows because this is unfortunately The level that we're dealing with right and where I think

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I I want high schoolers also to be engaged in this material So I don't want to write it at a point where you know You have to be geeked out and theology at the age of 60, you know as a pipe, you know

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I'm trying to write these things so they're accessible and so like that's why we we lean heavily and Stand on the shoulders of Jesus and the eyewitnesses when we wrote cold -case

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Christianity Yeah But a lot of the things to that people will write who are academic or who are historians are not really the way that we investigate eyewitnesses

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They aren't because you if you do if all you do is talk to eyewitnesses you start to develop certain kind of rhythms and patterns

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And those serve you well, and if you aren't talking to eyewitnesses, you don't know what those rhythms and patterns are.

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Yeah. No, that's good And that's the thing like so well, so here's the next question what

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Since 96 right like what was the worldview of the culture like when you got started in apologetics and I'll tell you

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I came in About 12 years after you and back then I remember sort of getting into apologetics almost immediately

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But really like hearing about post -modernism, you know, and the emergent church like what was going on back in 96

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Well, I don't know if it was it probably probably was going on in 96 But I encountered it right away when I started doing so I didn't really so the first, you know

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Three or four years was my kids were still young. They weren't in high school ministry yet They were like upper elementary and so I wasn't really in count

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I wasn't doing a lot of we were just doing Bible Bible Bible like what does the Bible say? and by the way

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I think you can do that so much easier when you got elementary school kids because the the questions haven't really come up yet Right, you want to get to those questions as soon as you can

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But but so we were doing a lot of Bible stuff early on But then when I was how much by the time

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I was working with junior hires and high schoolers I had one year in which I was really trying to be creative and it was about music and imagery and Environment and when you came to our

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Sunday service man, I immersed you in some really cool interactive Stuff that didn't help our students a bit

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And and I but I sure was entertaining and sure was creative, but it was not helpful Right and at the same time

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I'm reading the emergent church the first kind of version of the emergent church Is really becoming popular amongst young people and the kinds of claims now when

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I was in architecture Before I became a detective in the 80s like 85 to 88 the language of the

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Architecture the movements in architecture were called the postmodern movement It turns out that all of these movements emerge in academia and in the arts long before they're ever

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Adopted by a culture That's why we have to start working in the arts and in philosophy in those places that are precede

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We think oh we can fix this with politics. No Right. This is being grounded in artistic movements that capture the imagination of cultures and by the time it becomes up It comes up for a vote

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Unfortunately young people have already adopted the view. You're not gonna vote them out of that view So it turns out that we have to do the work

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I think much earlier and we're not so a lot of what I was doing in apologetics At that time was in response to the emergent church

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It was in response, but but I've always kind of like said I've never like thought of this project as hey

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Let me think about what the worldview is we're in right now, and then I'll try to craft a response to that world I am always responding to the direct questions of the young people who are in my ministry

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Yeah, so for me it was like oh we they found the tomb of Jesus remember the old Talpiot tomb

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So now we're gonna spend time talking about right Archeology what the evidence is what's the nature of the culture?

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How many Jesus or Jesus? I should say and Maria's are we gonna have in that culture and Joseph's? In other words, do we have any good reason to believe?

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I mean, I remember writing Just volumes and volumes of articles on and material

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I only have one left on the website on that whole Talpiot tomb thing Yeah, did I think that that was like well?

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No, it was because my students were asking me and had been shaken by what they had seen So I was always responding did a lot of Jesus myth stuff because my couple of my students were

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So I don't know that this was necessarily the thrust of skepticism For everyone, but it was in our ministry

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And so I thought yeah look now how we got that they get to have your feet in both both realms one

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What is the general kind of worldview of the point at which you're starting and this was we were heading toward this relativistic?

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Postmodern view of truth not nearly as saturated as we are now. I think we were still

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Making a case for why we have completely swallowed it now. We're in now I mean people are acting on what feels good to them as the ultimate arbiter of truth their truth your truth my truth

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This has become part of the common language. This was not the case when my kids were in high school They were still debating this issue

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There was but it seems like that's already been settled for a lot of people Right, so it was a little bit different, right?

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So a lot of things we were examining were really straight out of the kinds of questions But a lot of it was emergent church a lot of it

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We did an entire series when I was in doing first doing apologize with students on Just the creeds the most ancient creeds, what do we consider to be essential truth?

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it's kind of like the work that Lisa Childress is doing right now on on on Progressive Christianity, we were just trying to lay down the foundation for why the

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Orthodox Historic views related to the nature of salvation the nature of Jesus the nature of all these things

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Why those should not be abandoned why it was okay to land if you remember the emergent church the kind of?

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Ethos was that it's okay to ask the questions. You just can't ever provide an answer Like the search is fine.

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But if you land something well now you're just an arrogant exclusivist jerk Right.

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So so that's what we were trying to help students to do is to know you have to eventually to land this stuff Yeah well,

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I mean, you know, it makes sense and Like I said when I came into it, you know about 10 12 years after you we were still

22:10

I think Christians were still talking about the far -reaching Effects maybe the threat of the emergent church and you know,

22:18

I mean, I'm even nowadays I'm telling Christians that we really do as much as we need to be good exegetes of the

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Bible we need to exegete people too and We also need to be as Christians like we need to be able to diagnose

22:30

The the culture or diagnose the society that we live in so we know how to best respond In terms of worldview like where do you see us going?

22:42

Especially what's going on? Like right now transgenderism all the things that are happening. You've already started to touch on that What do you see us shifting in the next few years?

22:50

Well, I think we'll become more tribal truth will be in pockets based on the tribe in which you identify yourself

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Will be more and more independent Everything will be on everything will be much more on demand.

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We're already heading that way Just simple things like Amazon creates a world in which we can order it at any time

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We we don't even have to bend our knee to the hours of the business being open We can order in the middle of the night.

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It'll be here tomorrow afternoon Right. I mean this this is this is amplified a sense that we are in control

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That everything can be tailored around our personal tastes and that everyone has the opportunity to become famous this is so centered on our individualism and our

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Identity and You now can find that you can tailor the consumption of your media. You can tailor the consumption of your news

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You can tailor that any everything is tailored around you personally, you know, we're talking about Watching old movies for Christmas, right?

23:52

You know when I was a young man if I wanted to watch the bishops wife With you know,

23:58

Terry Grant Terry Grant How would I even I have to I guess look and see if one of the networks is carrying it and then

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I have to make sure that I Could actually be in front of the television when that thing is showing and it would mean a big deal

24:12

I mean these networks would pay a lot of money to be able to show these really well now I mean I can play that whenever I want

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Everything's on demand and I can go through the IMDB database and find the top 30 movies from the 40s about Christmas I get that list

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I can go through in any order I want I mean we are in a world where we have so much control Even control my son just sent me the latest video game it's like a teaser like a preview of the video game they're making for the matrix and And to see the interaction that you can have with a video game.

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I mean you can enter into things It's all about your desire Being met however you want to meet it

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Now think about how that runs against the gospel and how that runs against a Christian worldview a worldview that says before you begin

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You're gonna have to recognize that you're not so great. It's not all about you

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This thing starts with you recognizing your need for a Savior not with you recognizing that you are the

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Savior Which is what everything else in culture is telling us But instead is to say you start by bending your knee really when do

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I last had to bend my knee? We're not even teaching kids how to practice bending their knee Right because it

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I mean at least there was this thing called delayed gratification You couldn't just put a switch and have what you wanted

25:34

But this is becoming more and more possible for all of us as a culture and I think it does have consequences for transcendent worldviews, you know, if everyone's got a micro narrative and Everyone's micro narrative is equally true

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Don't come along and offer me some meta narrative that I gotta bend my knee to I got my own description of the world

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It works just fine for me. I found a bunch of other people who agree with me and we're in this little clique together I do not need you to tell me

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Anything else and I think that's gonna be the challenge for us with meta with meta narrators like Christianity Wow I mean, that's a whole separate conversation

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Maybe another time you come join me like how do we best respond to that as Christians? Do we completely like unplug?

26:15

you know Issue the normal way of cultural living become the

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Amish essentially like, you know, we yeah well, listen, there's there's always been movements of Reductionist movements there have always been reduction.

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You see this in the church right now. We had huge mega churches I think what you're seeing now is people who are staying in the church are calling themselves.

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They're saying they're deconstructing not because they're leaving Jesus They're not right, but they're deconstructing their experience or the way they've structured their lives in the church.

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They're simplifying They're trying to get back to the main thing Yeah, and I and I think at some point you're gonna see one of these reductionist movements even in culture where people are gonna say

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You know, I could have all this but a flip phone is fine does the job? I don't need all that distraction because it's yeah, but you'd have to love your family

27:03

Like I love my marriage so much. It's not hard for me to turn off the phone, right? But there may be some people who don't feel the same way

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So at some point you have to love the alternative so much more that you're willing to forego all of this stuff

27:19

Yeah, that's good So, I mean you mentioned before you

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Kind of don't like arguments apologetics arguments. So the next question I have is, you know, what is your favorite thing to?

27:33

using conversation Maybe even teach to others in the realm of apologetics Well, I do think that so if we're some of God's existence

27:41

There are arguments for God's cosmological argument the axiological argument the teleological argument

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So some form of the evidence from teleology I think it's really big and I'm like Antony Flew in the sense that I do think that the the information we now have about the nature of DNA and the kind of code it is and The way the code interacts the way the code can be modified the way that the code results in Different kinds of variations as an expression of the code.

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These are things that I think are really strong Evidentially, and I always put it this way again.

28:12

I'm also looking for those things that I can contextualize in my own work So that people so I can kind of figure out how to throw the ball away people can catch it

28:22

Then I always say it this way if we got to a scene of a death and you weren't sure what happened there

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But there's a dead person laying on the floor and there is some blood spatter on the wall Well, you don't really know yet if this is a murder this could be an accidental it could be a natural

28:36

He could have just fallen in such a way that he cut his head and this physics and the chemistry of blood spatter

28:42

Actually accounts for that that pattern on the wall. That doesn't tell you necessarily if there's a murderer in play

28:49

This could be what we call event causation and not agent causation You know this event tripping and he falls and he hits his head and then everything else is chemistry and physics

28:59

Well, but if I got there and the same wall has instead of blood spatter a Sentence written in his blood.

29:05

He deserved it. I think you're probably gonna start looking for a suspect Because you recognize that the words he deserved it our code

29:16

Language information and that you can't get that with just physics in chemistry You can get the spatter with physics and chemistry, but you can't get the code with physics in chemistry

29:26

Yeah, this is such an innate intuitive response that we would have yet Of course, we see this elaborate code in the

29:33

DNA. We're like, oh no, no No, we can get that with just physics and chemistry acting on spacetime and matter Okay. Well if you think you can get that with just physics and chemistry acting on spacetime and matter.

29:43

Well, that's your burden It's not my burden every other place. I've ever seen language or code.

29:48

I'm looking for a coder who is intelligent Now if you think you can get that without a coder who's intelligent, that's not my burden

29:56

That's right your burden So I do think to make the claim that these kinds of things can be found in the

30:02

DNA code without having to inference out coming to the inference that there is a Transcendent coder who is a mind responsible who might be called to see the author of life

30:14

Well that that to me is is the most reasonable inference because I don't think I've ever had any experience in which

30:20

I ever saw Language that I did not infer an intelligent coder Yeah, I think that's a reasonable inference

30:28

I could use it with my own case work to give you an example that yeah I think you're crazy if you didn't look for a suspect and that's the kind of thing that I try to use with students

30:36

And this is true for all of us Look, all of us have got some experience and some discipline that we are geeked out about It doesn't have to be our profession.

30:45

It could be our hobby you know a lot of I use this analogy a lot because it's true for me

30:51

A big football fan football season is huge for me both college and pro ball and you know a lot of my analogies can come out of football because I think you know, but again

31:02

Whatever you're geeked out on I would say use that as your launching point for creating the kinds of illustrations that I'll help people

31:10

Understand what's really going on? Yeah, that's good So what I'm hearing is kind of a two -part answer, right?

31:15

Like so like teleology is probably your favorite thing to sort of talk about and discuss with others

31:20

But then shaping the language shaping that your conversation attuning it to the person's ear that you're talking to That's that's a whole separate skill and Every suspect you try to get a confession from is a different approach a whole different suspect

31:37

You can't you've never gonna use the same approach twice. This is probably true for your kids though, too. You got two different kids

31:42

I've got two boys. They're only separated by two years They look a lot like they were like thick as thieves growing up But they are two very different people and the conversations

31:50

I have with one don't sound anything like the conversations I have with the other right, you know, and that's because you have to tailor those conversations to the what you here's the problem

31:59

Most of us don't and on social media is not helping us So why are we having these kinds of complex?

32:06

conversations With people we don't have any clue who they are We have been we're willing if I've seen you on on my

32:13

Twitter feed for four seconds I'm now suddenly now listen, I get it that we are called to share the gospel, but we're really trying to make disciples

32:22

That will involve sharing the gospel But I don't even know some of these folks well enough to make disciples, right?

32:31

So to me, it's like okay, if I don't know you Well, I'm gonna spend my time the most amount of my time the biggest set of resources

32:39

I'm gonna spend with the people with whom I have the opportunity to make disciples and probably a lot less

32:44

With the people who I'm just gonna be able to give a message to or help them knock down a barrier Somebody else at some point though is gonna need to pick up the burden of making a disciple

32:53

That's that's a different process than just sharing the gospel. No, you're totally right

32:59

No, it's real good. Jesus didn't say go and evangelize to strangers and never see them again, you know, that's right

33:05

That's right now. Well, so I mean so in light of your answer The thinking of those who want to maybe they're up -and -coming like my son or others who are watching

33:16

They want to get into apologetics, but they also don't want to waste time They they want to be effective in the ways that you're saying what?

33:24

What should they be saying? What what arguments should they use in in conversations today?

33:30

Well a couple things. I hate to sell books for Greg Coco, but I will sell books for Greg I always tell

33:35

Greg he should be giving me a percentage of these silly books Tactics is a book that I think if nothing else just learn how to interact with people and tactics is a great way that so But also find that one area that one thing that you feel really geeked out about that You're willing to examine at a level beyond which probably anybody you ever encounter is going to examine

33:56

So you're not going to be mastering everything especially when you first begin But I would say you want to figure out what is that one thing that you know

34:05

If you love the moral law and you think it's impossible to ground Objective moral truths and you think they exist and you want to help people to see the number one

34:13

Objective moral truths do exist and therefore they are going to require an objective grounding for those moral truths something beyond yourself and beyond even

34:21

The groups of people even groups of subjects Well, then that's a place where you can spend some time

34:27

Mastering that reading everything you can on that and be prepared to interact with people on that one area

34:32

Then you can always move conversations in that direction because you've got that one thing mastered So I would say two two things number one learn how to interact number two

34:41

Be really specific and zero in on that thing that you can master and get really good at it's going to be different for each person based on your taste if you're an engineer

34:49

Maybe it is the fine -tuning of the universe because that's like you can see what the problems are You can kind of understand some some ways of throwing that so people can catch it.

34:57

So that's great So that's what I would say is Also, don't spend too much time being a content consumer before you start to create content of your own and That's I think there's more than enough room in the space.

35:11

I was just reading at Babylon be headline I think I like meet Steve the last American who doesn't have a podcast, you know,

35:18

I said that Yeah, you know, we all have a podcast now and that kind of gets to be a cluttered space

35:24

But here's what I've noticed if you're willing to keep on doing it Would you do this if you had no audience at all or you had an audience of 10 like you don't know who's eventually gonna

35:33

Find this podcast and and and listen to it. So there's a book called platform by Michael Hyatt that's the other book that I recommend probably more than any other book and that book will help you to figure out how to take these ideas and Leverage them in a world that's noisier and noisier every day

35:51

So between those two books and Focusing on the one thing that you think you can get excited about.

35:57

That's a good way to start. I think that's funny You mentioned Hyatt He's got a podcast too. It's pretty it's pretty solid.

36:04

Yeah. Yeah. No, so this is a guy who's you know, he's he's He was a publisher. I think at Thomas Nelson Yeah, and then when that got

36:12

I think consumed by Harper Collins or whoever bought it They he you know started to kind of work as a speaker and then he knew he had something

36:19

He wanted to get out in front of the culture if it's just his own ability to speak if it's just a speaking ministry

36:25

Or a speaking profession. Well, you have something that you want to get out to culture It's it's the gospel.

36:30

Then the question becomes what do I need to do? So I for us it meant that I started writing.

36:36

I tried to I tried to to Multitask and leverage the stuff I was already doing anyway, so I was a pastor a youth pastor

36:43

So I have write a message create this amazing a PowerPoint for it To show it one time to a group of about 50 students, right?

36:51

Well, I needed to figure out a way to turn that into resources for the church And so we started a blog and so we could double post everything so that these hey

37:01

Maybe and we built an audience that was just barely big enough that or not that a publishing house, you know six years later

37:07

Said yeah, we'll give you a shot because you have enough platform to be able to To work and then

37:14

I can tell you now in the eight years since then You will not get a chance to write a book Because publishers unless you have a huge platform not a huge writing effect platform because it turns out that publishers don't sell books anymore

37:27

You sell the authors sell books. Yeah, so now now it's like okay, so I have this idea.

37:32

I think it's creative I think I want people to know this about Jesus. I don't think I see anything like it on the market

37:37

So you write this book? Well, no one writes a book They want no one to read the bigger challenge is not writing the book.

37:43

That's a challenge enough How do you get people to read the book? That's an answer channel and I spend as much time on that side as I do on the other.

37:50

So yeah, no, it's really good I Well have a book idea myself, but I'm running into exactly what you're talking about.

37:59

Just thinking through you know What it what it entails to actually get published but right it's not easy.

38:06

And so I think what you're doing right now Anyone right now Can you can the resources are out there so that all of us can create the kind of video that you can put on YouTube?

38:15

And you might think well, yeah, there's a lot of channels. I only got like, you know, ten people Yeah, you start everyone starts with zero, right?

38:21

So you just got to start and just be faithful I don't I don't do any of this because I'm hoping at some point to reach level

38:28

X That is not I don't I don't want to I had a level X. I'm a retired detective

38:34

Yeah, so I'm not trying to start another job start another career I'm trying to be the best I can be in this this part of my life and I want to Share the gospel.

38:44

So I'm just trying to use what God has given, but I have no ambition So so the question

38:50

I have for all of you are listening and thinking. Yeah, how do I get in it? Well, first of all, why are you getting in it? Are you getting in it? Because you think someday you want to be something

38:58

How about just get into it because you want the gospel to be heard and this is what we're all called to do

39:03

So just go start doing what you're called to do. That's right You said something interesting.

39:08

I was wondering if maybe you could just spend another minute on that but you said don't wait too long to become a

39:15

Master of the content before you start getting out there and communicating it, right? What I mean, it's not a hard like six month period of time

39:24

But like how long do you think somebody should take? Well, that's what gets tricky, right?

39:29

So at some point you'll recognize that I can present this material and I'm pretty able now to answer almost any question

39:34

That could be a leveled against it and that's when I think it's time to write stuff down and start going public with on your Positions when you had a chance to answer the questions that could be leveled against your material

39:44

This happens in ministry, right? You make this claim and then someone raises their hand Yes, and they have an objection and you're like going.

39:51

Okay. Well, I gotta think about that So so once you've done that a number of times then you're probably in a place but here's what

39:58

I would say to you Also, yeah, you're gonna wait until you're perfect until you're like, you know The William Lamb Craig of this particular area and then you'll be you won't do anything for 20 years

40:06

How about this when you make I got stuff that I printed that I published that I'm embarrassed that I wrote or recorded 20 years ago 15 years ago even 10 years ago

40:19

I pulled it down once I realized how bad it was and I've rewritten some of it I'm sure

40:24

I'll feel the same way about some of this stuff 10 years from now Get better the more you do it and I again,

40:31

I don't I'm not I'm just a guy who's Got a full -time job who is geeked out on Jesus and this is what

40:37

I do This is how I live out the Christian life So I might make some mistakes.

40:42

I might write something. You might think that's a very poorly written I could you could have said that a little bit better. Okay I'll do it.

40:48

I'll try to do better next time. I don't take myself too seriously. Here's what I think I see happening We all get saved and Jesus does something for us that we cannot measure yeah, and we cannot compare and Then like a your son who?

41:04

You've done all this for your son and he draws this little picture of you Crayons at the age of three and he wants to show it to you and you look at it and it's pretty bad

41:14

But you go Lost when you put it on your refrigerator and it's just this all of us in all of this work

41:21

Regardless of level are just presenting crayon drawings to Jesus. That's all we're doing.

41:26

None of this You think oh, it's better produced. Oh, that's better thought out. Okay It's just a different kind of crayon drawing to the master of the universe, right?

41:36

Okay, the all -powerful God of the universe and we're just giving it back to him in gratitude So I'm not gonna spend a lot of time

41:43

Complaining about how the other guy is giving this his crayon drawing or my crayon drawings better than his

41:50

Who'd I mean, that's like there's Trust me. He's gonna say he's gonna be delighted that we gave him the crayon drawing the same way your father

41:57

It was delighted when you gave him yours Right, or your kids are you know, you love your kids when they give them give the drawing to you

42:04

That's right The reality of it is I don't take it too serious myself too seriously You do the best you can you create the content and so I would say as soon as you think you've got a piece of Work or a concept that you've thought out well enough to be able to handle the objections

42:18

Maybe you can do a series of posts where you're handling the objections start posting and if you are embarrassed by the way

42:25

It was great when you first start your audience is really small. So you make a fool of yourself to a very small Yeah, right and then later on you can rewrite this stuff and repost it.

42:33

So get started. Do not wait one thing about blogging Blogging requires you to go.

42:39

Okay post You're right. I can't like I should rewrite that. No. Mm -hmm now you you spend about an hour an hour and a half on it then you hit post or you'll never post a blog and Blogs are meant to be these short kind of thoughts that you have on informed thoughts, but but they aren't supposed to be dissertations

42:56

This is a blog. It's not even an article. It's just a blog You know, there's sometimes blogs are three three hundred four hundred words

43:03

How much can you say in three or four hundred words, you know, so you just but start somewhere and This is the offering then you'll have a crayon drawing as well.

43:12

Yeah That's really good We're gonna get into questions about there.

43:18

It is person of interest It's really great book and see how many there are that's how many Jay wants you to buy at a time

43:24

So we're gonna definitely get into that and just for saying I hope that was subliminal enough that people saw so he sells me with packages of six.

43:33

No We're gonna we're gonna get into that but the last question

43:39

I had Related to this and this is purely advice to the next generation, right? We saw what happened recently with Robby Zacharias and the nature of The character of the apologist or the character of the of the

43:55

Christian figure who's in the limelight What can young people do to develop a winsome and a persuasive character?

44:03

But also stay grounded stay humble When they go out there and defend the faith It's gonna be hard because you gotta stay out of the limelight

44:11

So so I always say there's three things that are behind any crime the same three things that cause any pastor to fall

44:17

Right sex money power sex money power the biggest section The biggest kind of challenge is probably the power challenge because it's so nuanced everything falls under there.

44:28

It's authority It's it's how we treat people. It's also those celebrities celebrities a subset of power

44:35

So for example, you might say well, yeah, I know how to avoid this problem I can put limits on the amount of money

44:41

I'm willing to make or how that money is is Handled or what elders are gonna have to approve certain think great great.

44:47

No, I know how to handle the sex issue I'll just make sure I'm not alone with a woman or with a man if I'm a woman I'll make sure

44:53

I can have the Billy Graham rule in place blah blah blah And I can have account and accountability people who are traveling with me people who can make sure these things don't happen

45:01

Okay, great. Then it gets to the celebrity part and it's like oh no We want you to increase your celebrity like they don't that nobody sees a negative in this

45:09

Nobody sees that increased celebrity is often the gateway temptation that leads to the other two

45:15

I've never seen one of these temptations scratched where the other two are and eventually scratched as well

45:21

I've never seen it. So so what happens to someone like Robbie is if Robbie isn't famous and We saw early on that kind of the the and I love you know working with Robbie so smart

45:34

Amazing to watch, you know, we just don't know what his personal life is like, right? But the reality of it is that when we started to see the little signs early that maybe celebrity was overly important That's when we started to see those complaints about.

45:48

Oh, is he is he over? Over kind of prom not promising over stating his

45:55

Doctorates are they this kind of stuff that makes you seem like you're something important That's where it starts, right?

46:02

And then after a while you're able to leverage the fact that you have power and money to get the third thing

46:08

So these things are connected so what I tell people is we because we're inclined to know we ought to limit the money in the patent the sex thing and Put systems in place to help

46:21

Regulate that right. We don't ever think we need to regulate the celebrity thing because we think oh, no

46:26

I want to reach people with the gospel and the more they know who I am You know,

46:32

I I own Jay Warner Wallace calm But I don't use

46:38

Jay Warner Wallace calm it just redirects back to cold case christianity .com Isn't the end?

46:45

I didn't I didn't want to have a ministry that's about me now I actually have a subtitle from the first author first publisher, you know,

46:52

Jay critical case Christian with Jay Warner Wallace Well, we're moving away from that. I'm involved more and more on YouTube.

46:59

I took out all of the thumbnails. We have our face Mmm pictures of us preaching or talking or teaching now has it affected our

47:07

Data affected our popularity on some of those videos. I think it has Okay But it's really about the thing we're talking about and not about us

47:17

We have to start to put like that we started doing that all after Robbie We realized that the biggest thing there was the celebrity thing.

47:24

We have to be cautious about Celebrity and by the way, it's not just you and I who have a ministry because there is social media because there are things like Influencers and every social media platform

47:38

Everyone has the opportunity to be something they never had there were gatekeepers before on celebrity

47:44

There are no gatekeepers anymore If you can figure out a way to get the attention of culture and sometimes the most provocative way gets you the most attention

47:51

This is a recipe for disaster so in the end what I would say is yep, you can certainly put all those and probably a lot of those

47:59

Those safeguards were not in place Related to sex and money, but certainly we always think

48:05

I'm gonna increase my platform So I can share the gospel more effectively and at some point we switch and now we're just sharing the gospel to increase our platform

48:15

Yeah, that's right. That shift takes place. You're in trouble I feel like it's like are you more in love with your

48:25

Ministry about Jesus or the Jesus of your ministry, you know, well, I can tell you this I've gotten together with lots of folks who are involved in ministry.

48:32

And what I hear in the conversations amongst themselves is How many views likes subscribers?

48:39

It's really about platform. Yeah, and I hear a lot of that discussion How what are you doing to increase your platform?

48:47

Right This isn't also probably true of church planters, right? Like how many people attend your church?

48:53

Oh, what's your giving? Like how many baptisms do you it's all? Statistical numbers that really aren't about the quality of what it is.

49:00

We're just who is we're discipling or about the gospel. That's right Yeah, it's just about the way

49:06

That's just our fallen nature as prideful humans who want to be able to measure our achievements We want to be able and we leverage these things.

49:13

We are separators. We all separate from each other That's our natural inclination. That's the gospel that ought to correct that right?

49:21

Yeah, but the reality of it is is that I would just say Guard the celebrity issue do your best to avoid it

49:27

Yeah, that's good Well, let's get into person of interest. There it is again and again

49:33

By them in packages of six. That's what Jay's telling me with his eyes Well, so tell us about person of interest, you know, what can the reader expect to see in a book like this?

49:43

Well, I'll just give you the very short thumbnail on this because I don't want I really wanted to do all the other stuff we

49:49

Did in this conversation? I don't want this is to shift toward all about person of interest But what we're trying to do in a book like this is about halfway through writing the book and you know

49:58

The publisher comes to you. They really want you to do your detective thing. Just do your detective thing one more time on Jesus Right.

50:03

Well, I had material I want to talk about for years, but I realized as I was writing It's not really about just the evidence for Jesus because there's great evidence even out

50:12

Even if this book basically it takes this premise that if every New Testament was destroyed You would still have enough impact of Jesus in culture

50:20

Both the fuse leading up to the appearance of Jesus and the fallout after the explosion We know is

50:25

Jesus those would be enough for you to conclude that Jesus is who he is described to be in the

50:31

New Testament So I wanted to show the kind of impact but as I was writing it halfway through I realized this is a different kind of book in the sense that Not just mechanically because you know

50:42

This is a book where we had one third police mystery all the way through one third Story of Jesus all the way through one third personal journey.

50:51

So I wanted to kind of trace those three lines, but That was a bit of a challenge But but I can tell you that what

50:57

I really was concerned about is this was not going to be in it You know all my subtitles on my books the publishers always want to have like a cold -case detective

51:06

Investigates X so you'll see on the first three. It's some version of that, right, right?

51:12

Well, that was gonna be the subtitle or some kind of similar subtitle on I thought this is not this is a book about why?

51:18

Jesus is so outrageously beautiful Why he matters like no one's had this kind of impact

51:25

You should just be and want to be even if you didn't believe there was any God You should still bend your knee to Jesus because he matters

51:32

Because that dude that dude changed everything in a way that is so Phenomenal that the things that you love as an atheist which were for me literature art music education and science

51:44

Those you could not experience those today If not for the impact of Jesus the worldview he established and the followers who took that worldview and put it into practice

51:56

That is why we have those five areas of culture the way we have them So I just wanted to show what the fuse it's kind of like when you work in nobody murder

52:06

And you don't have any she gets rid of his wife. He says oh, yeah, she ran off and 30 years later

52:11

There's no record of her ever appearing anywhere on planet Earth to even use a business a credit card

52:18

Really? And and she left her kids, you know, I've had cases of that was she left two small toddlers

52:24

So I traced one of these cases and just show you that yes Even without a body and no crime scene because no one took it as a crime scene.

52:31

No one took any photographs No one reported it as a murder. It was just recorded as a missing person well even without anything you can make a case in front of a jury by tracing the fuse before the

52:42

Explosive moment and the fallout after the explosive moment is fuse and fallout fuse and fallout fuse and fallout

52:48

We do the same thing with Jesus and I think when people see it now again, there's over 400 illustrations in this book

52:55

That's one of the things is on have been allowed me to do They gave me a year more than a year to just do the illustrations

53:00

Yeah for stage presentations and then they gave me three months to do the line drawings for this book

53:07

So in three months, we did over 400 drawings and those drawings are really designed to help you flip through And see the case sequentially and I'm a visual learner, right?

53:19

So it's a graphic novel and I think in the end when people see it I hope the young people will at least you know, kind of grab on to the idea that it's not just that there's good evidence for Jesus It's that Jesus is

53:30

Is he still matters and I just wanted it because that's what we always talk about We're a book with Sean McDowell called so the next generation will know we talk about the

53:38

Gen Z Got to give two whys for every what with you? What is the claim you're making about Jesus fine?

53:44

Why do you think it's true first? Why? Why should I care second why that's right. Well, this book does a lot

53:50

I hope to answer the second why for a lot of young people. Why should I care? That's good. So this is for both adults

53:58

Young adults high school. I have a nine -year -old, you know, so I was kind of considering going through it with him

54:05

Like this is for everybody. Well, yeah and a lot of it, you know, this involves a murder So there's we did a bunch of videos on this igniter

54:11

TV was so gracious. They decided to do basically a 10 part movie It's about two and a half hours and it's divided into ten parts and it's on igniter

54:20

TV it's on right now media and it kind of was like a movie and you can see the

54:25

Investigation of Tammy Hayes and her husband and he can also see and they took a lot of the illustrations from the book and they animated

54:33

Them and brought them to life in the videos So it's been really cool to see And I think that has been one of the best things about doing this project and it's still a bit

54:41

You know, it's it's funny how when you write a book We're still not quite We don't see like to me

54:48

I think of the whole package at once But I think a lot of people who buy a book may not even know that there are videos and a study guide to go

54:55

With this but right there are right Well, look, there you go, right?

55:00

There it is. So I want to thank you go purchase the other five what's wrong with you, right?

55:09

Pass them out right? There you go Jay it took you Wow just a year to do the illustration

55:16

So a couple years for this particular book like you got another one in the can like you get another one in the head

55:22

Yeah, I'm working on next. Oh, wow And I'm gonna be starting on it takes about three months to Begin the marketing process for any book that an author gets asked to be part of that, right?

55:34

And so I that is this published on September 21st. We are now approaching the end of the three month mark

55:40

So that gives me the freedom to kind of turn a corner So what I'm gonna do next is tell another tale another homicide mystery

55:48

But we're gonna be looking at human anthropology, I think in the next one and this is gonna be I hope

55:54

The goal is to tell to maybe provide somewhere between 10 and 20 things

55:59

I've learned about life from investigating death So it's kind of like life lessons that you learn from working homicides and we're just gonna trace one long homicide and What you'll find is that all of these principles you learn just from common sense and working murders

56:18

It turns out there were people who wrote about this sometime between four and two thousand years ago. It's in the scripture because the

56:24

Bible describes the world the way it really is and It even describes us the way we really are and so I discovered this it got provoked in a trial

56:34

I was doing where the defense attorney was so committed and so sure that his defendant the suspect in the case was innocent

56:41

There was no way this guy could do all the good things that he truly had done in life

56:47

Right duplicity of humans right the enigma of man. He just didn't have a biblical worldview

56:54

He was like there's no way that a guy like that could do this evil thing

57:00

Right now if he had a if he held a Christian worldview he'd go like no, that's pretty much all of us, you know

57:07

Described about every single one of us. No one is good You know, you might have moments when you can look like you're good

57:13

But there's so much scripture on that right and so because he didn't hold a Christian worldview He just could not process that possibility.

57:21

I mean he was just at now Of course this guy didn't have come it was a nobody missing and he ended up confessing to the murder afterwards

57:28

And I felt bad for the defense attorney he was literally crushed Yeah, and he was crushed because he had felt like he'd been fooled

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Yeah, now, but I I'm never fooled anymore. I can never surprised by the depth of anyone's

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Depravity because that's in our heart of hearts. That's all of us and duplicitous nature of man.

57:48

That's good So this next thing is gonna make the case and again trying to find a creative way To make a case for Christianity What did it from looking at the eyewitness accounts in the

57:59

Gospels We did it by looking at the universe as a crime scene. We did it by looking at Jesus as a nobody murder

58:05

You know We're trying to find ways to to take a different because again people have written great books on all of this material and I'm Collecting these resources to get ready to write the next one

58:16

But I also know that most of the resources I'm collecting the person who's attending Church Who really doesn't even know what apologetics is doesn't even know how to answer those questions for his kids when they're in high school when

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They're in junior high. It just wants to know how do I become a more articulate defender of what it is? I believe is true.

58:32

They're not gonna probably read those books. They're gonna read a derivative We are gateway drugs to all the heavy hitters.

58:38

That's all we're doing with our books. That's that's good way to put it I was thinking Blinkist like the Blinkist version of academic.

58:44

Yes, that's right Yeah, wait, we're the gateway book and hopefully we'll lead you. You know, we're the

58:50

I don't Take that analogy too far I get the idea.

58:56

Well, let me encourage you Jay cuz you know, whatever you do It always is very compelling and I was thinking about that before Calling you up here.

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Like what is so engaging about you? What is so compelling? I mean aside from the ethos of it, right, you know the ex -homicide detective and all of that at base you you use

59:15

Illustrations you use stories in a really good way in it and it you can it goes a long distance in communicating effectively, so We'll look forward to the next one as well

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And well, I appreciate that I think it's so encouraging about that for me is to know that all of us have stories

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You know this if you're from the South I go to the South, you know all the time to see my dad and we were sitting in a

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Pizza joint waiting for a pizza guy walks in who just knows that we're Wallace's or very small town

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He's got he's a different family in town. He sits down with us and he starts telling us stories.

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Oh my goodness He had us laughing so hard. He could have sold us anything

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Because he was such a good storyteller Well, all of us can tell some stories really powerfully because they come from our own personal lives

01:00:02

Well, just figure out a way to include Jesus in your stories and you'll see you'll increase your effectiveness

01:00:08

So what I love about that is you don't need to know anything to tell a good story from your life and turn a corner

01:00:13

Toward the gospel. All you need to know is your life and we all have something we can tell a story about Yeah, that's good

01:00:21

Jay Warner Wallace author of the brand -new person of interest for more from Jay Check out his

01:00:27

YouTube channel and of course his website cold case Christianity .com Jay. Thanks very much for being with me.