Person of Interest: Why Jesus Still Matters in a World that Rejects the Bible Paperback – September 21, 2021

As a pastor and seminary student, I’ve read many books on apologetics, but Person of Interest by J. Warner Wallace stands out as one of the most compelling. This book masterfully combines the rigor of a detective’s investigation with the transformative truths of the gospel, making it both intellectually engaging and spiritually enriching.Wallace takes readers on a journey to uncover the truth about Jesus Christ using the same investigative techniques he honed as a cold-case detective. What’s remarkable is how he builds a case for Christ without relying solely on Scripture, instead highlighting the profound impact of Jesus on history, culture, science, art, and human thought. It’s a powerful reminder of Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”Wallace’s work reminds me of Frank Turek (one of the author's of "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"), particularly in how it demonstrates that faith and reason are not at odds with each other, but are highly intertwined. Like Turek, Wallace equips believers to confidently share their faith with evidence and conviction - reminding me very much of Acts 17:6, where the apostles are described as those who “turned the world upside down.” This book shows how Jesus has been doing exactly that for over two millennia."Person of Interest" isn’t just for skeptics or those exploring Christianity—it’s a powerful resource for believers who want to deepen their understanding of Christ’s unparalleled influence and equip themselves to share the gospel with clarity and confidence. It’s both a tool and a treasure for pastors, ministry leaders, and anyone passionate about sharing the truth of Jesus. Highly recommended!

If you like detective stories, are interested in history, you will like this book. If you also are a Christian, you will definitely love it. You’re not a Christian, you won’t be disappointed and would love to hear more.

This book is dynamite and valuable for both Christians and non-Christians. I think it will have lasting impact because it does for 21st century readers what C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield did mid-20th century. This book shows how artistic expression (symbolic expression) works. A quote from Lewis’s sermon, The Weight of Glory, says it relative to beauty. “The books or music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them…” Wallace shows us the transformative power of the New Testament is not in the text itself; it comes through the text. And what comes through the text is the person of Jesus Christ.To me, books should stretch the mind; help us see with new perspectives. Most evangelism/apologetics books emphasize logic, reasoning, argumentation, and so-called reductive thinking. Example: discussions of the Bible’s New Testament (NT) often deal with details, inconsistencies, uncertain authorship, and other granular issues. This book uses reasoning but invites readers to take a big-picture, holistic look at why Jesus matters in terms of His impact on the world. This frees us from getting bogged down in NT details. He does this by looking at evidence everywhere except the NT. And he looks in unique imaginative ways only an eminent cold-case detective would. To showcase his forensic approach to truth-seeking, the second story line in the book is a 10 year old, no-body, no-crime-scene, no-witness homicide investigation. Both stories are exciting intellectual adventures in analytical and holistic thinking.You might wonder how a hard-nose analytical detective could write a book with an artistic expression theme. The answer is that detective work was his day job. Down deep, Jim Wallace is also an artist. He earned a degree in design and another in architecture before going into law enforcement. This book contains over 200 of his sketches that illustrate key points and make them memorable.Wallace’s investigative model is a dynamite explosion. Jesus had explosive impact; homicides often result from explosive anger. The model is a fuse that leads up to the explosion and the fallout from it. Jim Wallace sees clues and uses them in ways most of us would overlook. Example: He overlays time windows from three independent sources to help determine if Jesus is the Hebrew Messiah prophesies point to. He shows that Jesus appears at the optimum time when his message matches the spiritual expectations of surrounding peoples, when the Roman Empire provides the infrastructure that allows rapid spreading of that message, and when the prophesies from the five prophets that pass Jim’s forensic reliability test predict the Messiah’s appearance. Then comes analysis of the fallout that points to Jesus as the Messiah.The intellectual scope of Jim’s fallout investigation is impressive. He describes Jesus’s continual and lasting impact on literature, the visual arts, music, architecture, education, and science. Then comes the big question. How could a person whose public life lasted only three years and ended with public rejection and execution, have the world-shaping impact Jesus had? C. S. Lewis explained the rational alternatives. Jesus was either a lunatic, a liar or Lord. The claims He made about Himself preclude saying He was merely a good moral teacher. Whether you agree with Jim’s conclusion or not, his imaginative thought process is fascinating and instructive.This book is also an invaluable resource for those interested in details. There are over 50 pages of Notes to help readers verify assertions in the book or learn more about topics covered. Finally, Jim’s related on-line resources invite downloading videos, slide presentations, and further helpful teaching/learning resources. To me, Person of Interest and related materials are well beyond 5 stars.

We used this book as a study guide for our small group! The research about who Jesus is from non-believers and believers alike is astounding! The influence over the centuries to writers, musicians, scientists, world leaders, other religions of this one “Person of Interest” is overwhelming!