GZS 026: J Warner Wallace – Cold-Case Christianity

Paul conversation is with J. Warner Wallace, a cold case homicide detective, writer, podcaster, TV host, and speaker at churches, schools, and conferences nationwide. He is the author of Cold-Case Christianity and other books. They discuss how to use evidence to gain confidence and give reasons to believe in the Bible and in God’s creation of the universe and to help others do the same.

J Warner shows us how to use evidence to gain confidence and give reasons to believe in the Bible and in God’s creation of the universe and to help others do the same.

This University of Biola professor, has appeared on Dateline, Fox News, and many other shows and in the recent movie, God is Not Dead 2

Sheila’s Shofar – Today’s Call-to-Action – Tip of the Day

Allow God’s love to be delivered by you

Recently, I was listening to a set of songs by worship team and the songs focused on telling me how much God loves me. That’s absolutely true as we know this from Scripture – he loves everyone and it is certainly great to sing about it. However, I’m sorry but something really bothered me. And this is what it was – I have experienced that although all this is very true – God loves us and his love is never failing, this is unfortunately often not very comforting to many who hear this. And here’s what I mean.

People seeking comfort from their pain and troubles most often need to first see God’s love as it works through you in order for them to initially experience God’s love. This is particularly true for people who are not yet believers.

Now I surely recognize that you and I can be very empty of love to give to others…Yes and that’s when we need to call to God’s heart, His power, and His authority in a supernatural way. Yes God’s love is a supernatural issue. God’s love helps you love the unlovable, love our enemies – that’s supernatural. God will fill your love tank.

We know from the book of Romans chapter 4 that the kindness God, indeed God’s love leads to repentance. We know it leads to healing, we know it leads to comfort….God’s love – seek it, receive it, deliver it.

Today – Allow God’s love to delivered by you – check it out – my call to action tip for the day.

Conversation with J Warner Wallace

Amazing Snippets from J Warner:

Meditate on these Guest Snippets to see the useful wisdom that might come from God’s voice and resonate with your heart a d be implemented today on your journey.

It’s one thing to make the case for why Christianity is true but it has become more critically important for be making the case for why we should be making the case.
It has become important to convince people that might think something is true on the basis of experience, tradition, or family upbringing to see why in this generation in might be important to see why it is evidentiary only true is that consistent with the Christian worldview and is that consistent with the teaching of Jesus.
Any attack on the morals taught by Jesus is, in fact, an attack on Jesus
We are in a golden age of resources available, but we are not in a golden age of interest in the church.
The work that needs to be done is helping the Church realize that experiential faith is one thing and evidentiary faith is another.
Experience has great value if it is tested.
We need to rethink the way we preach and teach young people and move from a teaching model to a training model.
If you have an apologetic event at your church, likely you will have a difficult time getting more than 10% of the people to show up unless you wisely title and describe it to sound relevant – e.g. If you invited people to an event telling them that you are going to offer three hours of training in textual criticism, that likely is not going to be too popular. If instead, you announced that you are going to train people in skills that detectives use at homicide scenes and show them how to apply that to Christianity, that might be successful.

Key Points Discussed:

Structured evidence provides a logical process for belief
As with evidence for God, experience with God must be tested
Preparing youth for confrontation to their beliefs
Standing tall with your beliefs requires your knowledge of evidence
Leaders – Shift from a Teaching Model to a Training Model

J Warner’s Take-Away Wisdom that leads to action today:

Ask yourself – am I taking what I hear in sermons, podcasts, videos, and shows and treating it as entertainment or am I using it to consider issues and actions in my life and in the lives of those around me – am I living differently because of what I have encountered? In some one way, live differently today because of Godly wisdom.

Resources Mentioned

Cold Case-Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by J Warner Wallace

God is Not Dead 2 – video of movie in which J Warner Wallace appears

Forensic Faith by J Warner Wallace (to be released May 2017)

Cold Case-Christianity for Kids: Investigate Jesus with a Real Detective by J Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace

The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell

J Warner Recommends Books

Keeping You Kid’s on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build Lasting Faith by Natasha Crain

Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case by Frank Turek

J Warner also recommended looking into books by Sean McDowell, William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Paul Copan