J. Warner Wallace: A Detective Finds Jesus | Unfolding Short Stories
The Unfolding
Northwestern Media
4.9 • 867 Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"I don't trust eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses often lie."
Homicide detective J. Warner Wallace was on a search for truth that changed his life. Reading the Gospels through the lens of investigation, he discovered that the eyewitness accounts of Jesus aligned just the way truthful testimony does. In this episode, the respected apologist and author of Cold Case Christianity shares how evidence led him to Christ and why every believer can become a thoughtful defender of the faith.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Now look, I knew how to test eyewitnesses. I don't trust eyewitnesses. I wouldn't know |
| 0:06.4 | are these reliable eyewitness accounts. God's story? Your life. Unfolding short stories. |
| 0:17.4 | In Luke chapter 1, the writer says he carefully investigated everything from the beginning. |
| 0:24.0 | Luke was investigating evidence, comparing eyewitness accounts, uncovering what was true. |
| 0:30.3 | That same instinct guided today's guest, Jay Warner Wallace, a respected apologist, speaker, |
| 0:37.2 | and author of the book Cold Case Christianity. |
| 0:41.0 | As a homicide detective, Jim once said, I don't trust eyewitnesses. |
| 0:46.2 | Eyewitnesses often lie. |
| 0:48.5 | Maybe you've heard some version of that, that instead of someone being able to give you |
| 0:52.8 | the entire version of a story, the truth is that |
| 0:56.2 | every witness offers a different angle. |
| 0:58.7 | And together, those details reveal the full picture. |
| 1:02.1 | So when he skeptically began to read the Gospels, his detective senses noticed something |
| 1:08.4 | familiar. |
| 1:09.5 | Independent accounts that lined up just the way that truthful |
| 1:13.1 | testimony does. I'm Jay Warner Wallace, and my story in terms of how I ever got even interested |
| 1:20.4 | in Christianity is, to be honest, I wasn't interested in Christianity. I had a great life. I was |
| 1:25.5 | about 35 years old. I was working as an investigator in Los Angeles County. My father was a police officer before me. And he's a very |
| 1:34.4 | committed atheist. And he would just tell you that. And I was raised by this guy to be much like |
| 1:39.5 | him. And I ultimately ended up in the same job, same agency, where he was working in Los Angeles |
| 1:43.9 | County. I started up as a patrol officer, worked gangs, worked SWAT, worked undercover. During much of that time, my wife was interested. Like, she was like, well, should we go to church? We have kids now. And when our kids were very young, we put him in a preschool that happened to be in, one was in a Baptist church. One was it a Catholic church. |
| 2:01.7 | I mean, we didn't know one from the other way, to be honest with you. And she had a question. Now that our kids are getting close to school age, should we like start attending church? And I thought, I wasn't raised this way. And I had really no interest. but I'm like my dad in this sense |
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