Person of Interest

This article by Tom Gilson (of The Stream) includes a clear and concise dialogue with J. Warner Wallace about his book Person of Interest.

The book follows a cold-case homicide that Wallace investigated. And when he applies the same techniques to investigating Jesus, he finds that no matter how much people try to dismiss Jesus, they can’t erase Jesus’ impact throughout history. Jesus’ “fingerprints,” as it were, are all over everything. Fascinating and compelling. A person who is sincerely examining will see that he can’t brush Jesus under the rug or pretend he’s irrelevant.

I found old notes of Mom’s from many years ago when she taught teen Sunday school. Her teaser for one Sunday’s lesson was to have students consider questions that could be super important for certain people, in certain cases. Like these:

• “Uh … wasn’t that our exit?”
• “Are these scales correct?”
• “Is this deductible?”
• (200 miles from home) “Did you unplug the iron?”
• “To be or not to be?”
• “Who threw the overalls in Mistress Murphy’s chowder?” [That’s actually the title of a funny old song our family liked!]
• “Uh-oh. Is this your toothbrush?”

Then Mom introduced the question that Jesus asked his disciples in Mark 8:29: “Who do you say I am?” And her commentary on that was: “This is surely the most important question of all time. Every one of us, in every age, must answer it!”

Bumper stickers say, “Jesus is the answer!” But for unbelievers, he’s the problem. People can talk themselves into various vague ideas of God: god, higher power, cosmic consciousness, divine energy … But Jesus? Much harder to skirt around God the Son who became man, lived among us, died for us, and is coming back for his own.

Let’s help others investigate Jesus. Who is he? He’s a person of interest all right—and then some.