Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Saturday, June 11, 2022
When we share what’s objectively true about the nature of God, the claims of Christianity, or truth of the Christian worldview, we show a similar concern for the people we love. Christianity may be true, or it may be false, but one thing is certain: our personal subjective opinion about Jesus won’t change who He is or what He did for us. Don’t be afraid to help people understand that truth involves more than their personal perspective. Your efforts might just save their lives.

You’re in a conversation and someone keeps using the word “truth,” but you get the sense that what they mean by “truth” and what you mean by “truth” are not the same thing. What is “truth”?
What would you say?
Definitions matter. Sometimes we use the same vocabulary, but different dictionaries. And if we want to have good conversations, it’s important that we clarify our definitions. The next time the word “truth” comes up in conversation, here are 3 things to remember:
Number 1: Some people mistakenly treat their subjective claims as though they are objectively true.“Subjective truth claims” are grounded in the subjects (the people) who make them. My statement, “Chocolate chip cookies are the best dessert,” for example, is a matter of personal opinion. I (as the subject) get to decide if this claim is true, and while it may be true for me, it isn’t necessary true for others. That’s okay, because everyone is entitled to their personal, subjective opinion about a variety of claims, from what they prefer for dessert, desire in a new car, or favor for a movie.
But many people think all truth claims are a matter of personal or cultural perspective. If this is correct, truth is entirely subjective, grounded either in the personal views of individual subjects, or the collective cultural consensus of groups of subjects.
Number 2: Understanding the difference between subjective and objective truth claims can be a matter of life or death.While my claim about dessert is grounded in my personal, subjective tastes, some claims are true, regardless of my preferences. That’s because they aren’t grounded in the desires of a subject but are instead grounded in the nature of an object. We call these kinds of claims “objective truth claims.”
Imagine, for example, you’re foraging for edible mushrooms with a friend. Your goal is the tasty Asian “paddy straw” mushroom, a variety of mushroom that is used extensively in Asian cuisines. You find one, but your friend abruptly stops you from picking it.
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, June 9, 2022
The historic development of language and communication prepared the way for the birth of Jesus. God orchestrated this timing, along with the development of roads, postal services and a 200-year period peace within the Roman Empire (known as the Pax Romana) to prepare the world for the arrival of Jesus.

It sometimes seems like an inevitability, doesn’t it? Every Christian holiday season, another skeptical article or news story attacking the deity of Jesus or the historicity of the holiday. While some may still doubt what they read about the birth or resurrection of Jesus, the authors of the New Testament were certain: Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a blameless life, was unfairly executed, and then rose from the grave to prove His deity. In fact, the Apostle Paul wrote that God planned the appearance of Jesus perfectly:
But when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. (Galatians 4:4-5 NASB)
But how, precisely, had God arranged time and history to prepare for the arrival of Jesus? What did Paul mean when he wrote that Jesus arrived in the “fullness of time”?
As a thirty-five-year-old homicide detective and skeptic, I also wondered why God – if He really existed – would reveal himself two thousand years ago. Why not come in this generation, given our ability to communicate truth claims on the internet? I began an investigation of the historic “fuse” leading up to the explosive appearance of Jesus.
While it’s true that the internet provides an excellent means by which to communicate claims about Jesus, there’s a much older approach that can be just as effective. Books and manuscripts are excellent messaging tools. They’re inexpensive, portable, easy to produce, and require little in terms of technology. But like much of the information we find on the internet, even the oldest books and documents are dependent on a historic invention: writing.
The first and most ancient forms of writing (dating back to around 3500 BC) are now called pictographs (or proto-cuneiform). Symbols representing objects were pressed into wet clay with primitive writing tools. When dried, these clay tablets were used to retell events and to serve as trading documents between merchants. But pictographs were limited. They could describe only simple topics easily communicated with visual symbols.
Had Jesus arrived at this point in history (prior to 3500 BC), complex concepts involving His nature and teaching would have been impossible to communicate in writing. Worse yet, the tablets would have been incredibly fragile, given the nature of clay.

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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, March 24, 2022
All of us struggle with the allure of notoriety. How many people liked my last post on Instagram? How many subscribers do I have on my YouTube Channel? How many followers on Facebook? Am I liked? Am I popular? Am I politically correct? Am I acceptable? Everyone wishes they had more likes, views, friends, or responses, whether we are willing to admit it or not. It’s even more disproportionately important to young Christians struggling to find their identity in Christ in a culture that applies its own labels and affirmations.

In a year punctuated by the moral failings and faith departures of superstar pastors, famous Christian musicians, and renowned apologists, it might be wise to examine the one thing all of them had in common: celebrity.
I write this as someone who has struggled with celebrity in my own life as an outspoken, public Christian. I leveraged my national reputation as a Dateline featured cold-case detective to write several books and eventually played a role in the movie, God’s Not Dead 2. As my “celebrity” increased, so did my opportunity to share Jesus with people across the country and around the world.
I rationalized the pursuit of notoriety like many other public Christians. Fame, after all, provided the opportunity to share the truth of Jesus with others, right? But at some point, as I pondered the effect celebrity had on my own life as a Christian, I began to examine my own shifting motivations. Was I leveraging celebrity for the purpose of sharing Jesus, or sharing Jesus for the purpose of establishing my celebrity?
If there was one thing I’ve learned as a homicide detective, it’s the motivation for bad behavior. Every killer I’ve investigated committed his or her crime for one of three reasons: financial gain, sexual lust, or the pursuit of power. As the Apostle John described nearly two millennia earlier in 1 John 2:15-16:
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
Here’s the most important thing I learned about these three motivations for misbehavior: they are usually connected. That’s right. If you begin to chase one, you may eventually chase the other two. The pursuit of power (described by John as “the boastful pride of life”) is often nuanced. The quest for celebrity is one expression of this pursuit, and although it can seem benign, it’s often perilous. Well known Christian pastors, Christian musicians and Christian celebrities sometimes find themselves in sexual or financial scandals.
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