Santiago parked his car at the edge of the parking lot, just out of view from the bank doors. He exited, smoothed out his shirt, and pressed down his hair. He looked about the parking lot nervously as he walked toward the bank entrance. One of our team members, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, jumped out of his car and followed Santiago into the business. He communicated to the rest of our team via his portable radio. Like Mark Hill, Santiago was a “demand-note” bank robber. In his past robberies, he never had to show his gun to the tellers; his note was enough to cause them to comply. Today’s teller was no exception. She emptied her drawer and gave Santiago the money; he quickly turned and walked from the bank. The customers in the lobby were completely unaware that a robbery had even occurred.
But my partner knew. He quickly radioed from the interior of the bank and told us that Santiago was, in fact, a bank robber. By this time, Santiago had already run to the Triumph and was now fleeing the parking lot. Our team quickly moved in behind him. In situations like these, we would typically conduct a tactical arrest at the nearest red light, maneuvering our cars into position to prevent the suspect’s escape. But Santiago now had a heightened awareness of his surroundings, and he became suspicious of one of our surveillance vehicles. The chase was on.
Intoxicated rock-cocaine addicts and aging Triumphs are a recipe for disaster, especially when they are partnered in an effort to run from the police. Santiago crashed the car in the first mile of the pursuit. I was the case agent; it was my responsibility to handcuff Santiago and drive him back to the police station for booking. Along the way I was able to talk to him about his life and his future. I began with a simple observation.
“Santiago, you look terrible,” I said.
“I know,” he replied, shaking his head. To his credit, Santiago Ortega was a broken man, remorseful and repentant about his life and crime spree.
“How long did you think you could go on like this?” I asked the question as a matter of genuine concern. Santiago’s eyes were red and infected; he was gaunt and disheveled. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.
“I knew it was coming to an end, really I did. I don’t even know how it got this crazy. I’m not really a bad person. I know better.” He was remarkably talkative and honest.
“So why are you doing this?” I asked.
“I’m a junkie. I want to stop. But I always end up back here. You know, I’m actually married and my wife is a beautiful lady. She left me when I started up again.” Santiago began to cry, and his tears caused him to wince in the pain from his infected eyes. “A couple years ago I went with her to a crusade and I got saved. She did too. But here I am, still messed up.” Santiago told me about his experience at the large evangelistic stadium event he attended. He told me that he was moved by what the preacher said at that event, and he accepted the invitation to walk down from the stands and become a follower of Jesus. He thought his decision that night would change his life forever.
“So I guess you probably think I’m some kind of hypocrite, right? Just another messed-up Christian.” He didn’t know that he was talking to a follower of Jesus.
Santiago made a decision to trust Jesus for his salvation, but he never made a decision to examine the life and teaching of Jesus evidentially. Santiago failed to make a second decision to examine what he believed. He was unable to see his faith as anything more than subjective opinion as he struggled to live in a world of objective facts. As a result, his beliefs eventually surrendered to the facts of his situation and the pressures of his addiction. He allowed his friends and family situation to influence him, rather than becoming a source of inspiration and truth for his family and neighborhood. Santiago was a one-decision Christian, and that decision was unsupported by a reasonable examination of the evidence.
I wrote back and forth with Santiago in the years that followed. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to many years in federal prison. He finally found himself in a place where he had the time and opportunity to examine the evidence for Christianity.
DECISIONS, “BELIEF THAT,” AND “BELIEF IN”
My journey was just the opposite of Santiago Ortega’s. I decided to investigate the claims of Christianity (to see if they could be defended) before I ever decided to call myself a Christian. My investigation (some of which I described in section 2) led me to conclude that the Gospels were reliable. But this conclusion presented me with a dilemma. When the jury in chapter 4 established that Jerry Strickland was a reliable witness, they trusted his testimony related to the identity of the robber. I now had to take a similar step with the reliable gospel eyewitnesses. It’s one thing, however, to accept the historicity of locations or key characters in the biblical narrative; it’s another to accept what the Gospels were telling me about Jesus. Did Jesus really demonstrate His deity as the gospel eyewitnesses claimed? Did He truly rise from the dead? Did He speak the truth about who He was and about the nature of eternal life? I understood that deciding in favor of the most reasonable inference would require me to release my naturalistic presuppositions entirely. C. S. Lewis was correct; the claims about Jesus, if true, were of infinite importance. This decision would likely change my life forever.
I knew I could never take a blind leap of faith. For me, the decision to move beyond “belief that” to “belief in” needed to be a reasonable decision based on the evidence. I ask jurors to do this every time I present a case—to assemble the circumstantial evidence and draw the most reasonable inference from what they have examined. That’s what I did as I assembled the cumulative case for the reliability of the Gospels:
I knew that my concerns about the Gospels had always been rooted in the miraculous events the accounts described. Philosophical naturalism prevented me from taking miracles seriously. But the apostles claimed to see miracles, and in every way that we typically evaluate eyewitnesses, the gospel authors passed the test.
I can remember the day that I finally surrendered my naturalistic biases and moved from “belief that” to “belief in.” I was sitting in a church service with my wife. I don’t remember exactly what the pastor was talking about, but I remember leaning over and telling my wife that I was a believer. Much like Mark Walker, the officer who trusted in his bulletproof vest, in that singular moment I moved from believing that the Gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts to trusting in what they told me about Jesus.
The gospel eyewitnesses had something very specific to say about Jesus. They did not give their lives sacrificially for personal opinions about God; they gave their lives because their claims were an objective matter of life and death. They knew that Jesus offered more than a guideline for personal behavior. They understood that Jesus was “the way, and the truth, and the life” and that “no one comes to the Father but through” Him (John 14:6). The apostolic eyewitnesses gave their lives to help us understand that we, as fallen, imperfect humans, are in desperate need of a Savior. They died as martyrs trying to show us that Jesus was, in fact, the Savior who could provide forgiveness for our imperfection. Peter was clear about this when testifying to others:
You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. (Acts 10:38–43)
The apostles recognized that their message was a life-saving cure for w
hat was (and is) killing all of us; they gave their lives to save ours, so we could save even more. When I recognized the power of this message, I moved from “belief that” to “belief in.” People started to notice a change almost immediately. It wasn’t as though I was trying hard to behave differently or follow a new set of rules; I didn’t even know all the “rules” when I first decided to trust Christ. But I did know this: I was grateful. I began to understand not only the true nature of Jesus, but also the true nature of my own fallen condition. It’s hard not to see your own imperfection when you are confronted with the perfect God of the universe. As I came to appreciate my own need for forgiveness and what Jesus did to accomplish this for me, I became truly grateful and optimistic for the first time in my life. I had been a cop for about eight years prior to being a Christian. In that time, I slowly lost my faith in people. I was suspicious; I considered everyone to be a liar and capable of horrific behavior. Nothing surprised me when it came to the depravity of humanity. I trusted no one and thought of myself as superior to the vast majority of people I encountered. I was cocky, cynical, and distant. My wife and kids were my entire world. I had a few acquaintances who were also police officers, but few other friends. My heart was shrinking and growing harder with every case I worked and with every passing year. None of this bothered me in the slightest. In fact, I saw my suspicion as a virtue.
That all changed when I put my faith in Jesus. As I began to understand my need and the gift I had been given, my compassion and patience grew. As someone who had been forgiven, I now developed the capacity to forgive. My excitement became contagious. It spilled over into everything I said and did. My partners noticed it, even though I was careful in the early days to hide my conversion from them. My wife was perhaps the most surprised by all of this. She was raised in a Christian environment but patiently accepted my resistance and growing cynicism for the first seventeen years of our relationship. She was about to see my life (and hers) change dramatically. Looking back at it sixteen years later, she is still amazed at the transformation. The truth about Jesus impacted every aspect of our lives as I became consumed by the desire to learn more about Him. I slept less, studied more, worked with more urgency, and loved others in a way that I had never loved before. I wanted to share what I had discovered with the people in my world. Everyone I came in contact with eventually heard about the gospel. I became known as a vocal Christian. I entered seminary, became a pastor, and even planted a small church. Over the past sixteen years, as I have studied the eyewitness accounts, I have become more and more confident in their reliability and message. This confidence has motivated me to defend and share the truth.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BECOMING A TWO-DECISION CHRISTIAN
In televised criminal cases, the jurors are sometimes interviewed following their decision. Some make a second decision when approached by reporters. They choose to make a case for why they voted the way they did. Not every juror decides to defend his or her decision, but those who do find that they are far more likely to persuade others and grow in their own personal confidence related to their decision. Had Santiago Ortega made the decision to investigate and defend what he believed, I can’t help but wonder if he would also have been able to persuade those around him or at least grow in his own personal confidence and ability to resist the influence of others.
When I decided to believe what the gospel writers were telling me, I also decided to become a Christian case maker. The second decision was just as important as the first. I began modestly; I started an inexpensive website (PleaseConvinceMe.com) and posted my own investigations in a variety of areas. When I was a youth pastor, I also posted the lessons and messages I presented to my students. Eventually, I started a podcast. Now I’ve written a book. At first, like many Christians, I was uncomfortable defending the claims of Christianity. How would I ever learn enough (or know enough) to be an effective case maker? Don’t I need a doctorate in philosophy or Christian apologetics? Shouldn’t I be an “expert” of some sort before trying to defend what I believe?
Jurors aren’t experts, yet they are required to make the most important decision in the courtroom. In fact, the experts introduced by the prosecution or the defense never cast a single vote. Our justice system trusts that folks like you and me can examine the testimony of experts and come to a reasonable conclusion about the truth. One of the jurors will even become a leader in the jury room. As the “foreperson,” chosen by the other jurors, this man or woman will shepherd the deliberations and eventually present the decision to the judge. You don’t have to be an expert to serve on a jury or lead the jury as a foreperson. Jurors need to be able to listen to the experts, carefully evaluate the evidence, and draw the most reasonable inference. Jurors don’t need to be experts in the field under consideration; they simply need to be attentive, conscientious, and willing to get in the game.
And that’s all we need to be effective Christian case makers: attentive, conscientious, and willing to get in the game. As it turns out, each of us is already an expert of one kind or another. We’ve got life experiences we can draw upon for the expertise we’ll need to answer the challenges of skeptics, and we can make the conscious decision to become better Christian case makers. It’s time well spent and an important part of our identity as Christians.
THE DANGER OF BECOMING AN ABBREVIATED CHRISTIAN
Many of us have neglected our duty in this area. In fact, we’ve been unable to see our duty in the first place. We’ve become abbreviated Christians. Let me explain. Most of us understand the importance of evangelism in the life of Christians. Jesus told the apostles to “make disciples of all the nations” and to instruct these disciples to obey everything that He taught (Matt. 28:16–20). We’ve come to call this the “Great Commission.” We are clearly commanded to make disciples, just as the apostles did in their own generation. As a result, Christians typically feel that they have been called to evangelism of some sort, even though many of us feel ill equipped to share our faith.
Paul seemed to recognize this and discussed evangelism as a matter of gifting. When describing all of us as members of the church, Paul said that God gave “some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11–12). Not everyone is a pastor or a prophet. Some of us are gifted in this area and some are not. In a similar way, only some of us are gifted as evangelists; not everyone has the ability to share his or her faith like Billy Graham. I’ve often been comforted by these words from Paul when struggling to begin a conversation about Christianity.
But the New Testament authors, while recognizing that not all of us are gifted to be evangelists, described a responsibility that does apply to each and every one of us as Christians. Peter said that no one is allowed to relegate his or her duty as a Christian case maker. According to Peter, all of us need to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [us] to give the reason for the hope that [we] have” (1 Pet. 3:15 NIV). While only some of us are gifted and called to be evangelists, all of us are called to be case makers. It’s our duty as Christians. We need to stop thinking of ourselves in an abbreviated manner. As biblical, New Testament believers, we aren’t just “Christians”; we are “case-making Christians.” We can’t allow ourselves to get comfortable and relegate the hard work of defending the faith to those who write books on the topic.
Some of us prepare meals for a living. The world is filled with popular and proficient chefs who make a living preparing meals for restaurants or television programs. We recognize these chefs, and we can learn something from their recipes and experiences. But even if you aren’t a professional chef, I bet you know how to prepare a meal. Meal preparation is an important part of living. Yes, some of us are professional chefs; but the rest of us need to be able to cook if we want to survive. In a similar way, some of us make a living preparing a def
ense for Christianity. The rest of us can learn a lot from the arguments and presentations of professional “Christian apologists.” But that doesn’t get us off the hook. All of us, as Christians, need to be able to prepare a defense for what we believe. It’s just as important as preparing our daily meals. Our meals may not be as creative or flamboyant as those prepared by professional chefs, but they are typically sufficient and satisfying. Our personal defense of Christianity may not be as robust as what can be offered by a professional apologist, but it can be just as powerful and persuasive.
Each of us has to answer God’s call on our lives as two-decision Christians. If you’ve already decided to believe the Gospels, take a second step and decide to defend them. Become a case-making Christian; work in your profession, live your life faithfully, devote yourself to the truth, and steadily prepare yourself to make a defense for what you believe. I want to encourage you to make that second decision. Start small. Read and study. Engage your friends. Start a blog or host a website. Volunteer to teach a class at your church. Get in the game.
My life as a Christian took flight the minute I decided to become a case maker. God cleverly used all my experiences as a detective to give me a perspective that I’ve tried to share with you in the pages of this book. It’s my hope that the skeptics who read this might at least lay down their presuppositions long enough to recognize that there is a substantive circumstantial case supporting the reliability of the gospel writers. It’s also my hope that Christians who read this book will be encouraged to know that God can use you right now, in this very moment, to make a case for the truth.
Appendix
WITNESSES AND RESOURCES
Compiling the resources necessary to make the case
Case Files
Cold-Case Christianity Page 29
