Person of Interest: Why Jesus Still Matters in a World that Rejects the Bible

by J. Warner Wallace

The case for Jesus can be investigated in a similar way. As in the Hayes case, we don’t have Jesus’s body, and we don’t have a “crime scene” to provide us with physical evidence. Despite these limitations, we can still make a case for the historicity and deity of Jesus. We can do it without a body—and without any evidence from the New Testament. You read that correctly. The more I investigated the existence and deity of Jesus, the more I realized the Bible wasn’t the only available source of information. I didn’t need the evidence provided by the Gospels to know the truth about Jesus.

OBJECTION: THERE IS NO “REAL” EVIDENCE FOR GOD OR JESUS In legal terms, evidence is any type of material item, statement, or assertion of fact (if allowed by a judge) that is used to convince a judge and/or jury of facts or claims related to a case. This definition is intentionally broad because anything can be used as evidence to prove a case. That’s why we must be open-minded and creative when collecting evidence in the fuse and the fallout. Everything we collect has the potential to be used as evidence.

Jesus’s explosive appearance would demark the pivotal point of history. Even as an atheist, I recognized that the birth of Jesus divided BCE (“Before the Common Era”) from CE (the “Common Era”). Something about Jesus initiated a new historical epoch. His appearance was the explosion that broke the human timeline into two “eras.”

If Jesus was who Christians claim, I would expect the fuse to be long. Impactful events, after all, typically have longer fuses. The events building toward the appearance of Jesus should span centuries if he was the person the pastor described. I also expected the fuse to act as a timer. If Jesus was something more than human, was the timing of his appearance significant? Was there a reason why he didn’t arrive centuries earlier or decades later? Was there a historic “deadline” he had to meet? The fuse would reveal the answer.

If Jesus was more than a mere human, I would expect the appearance and teaching of Jesus to change nearly every aspect of the world, and I should find evidence of this impact in unexpected places.

DOES CHARACTER COUNT AS EVIDENCE? Jurors are allowed to consider the character and trustworthiness of witnesses and defendants when evaluating their statements.1 Michelle’s testimony reveals something about Steve’s character. In a similar way, the character of Jesus can be evaluated by the statements of those who recorded the accounts of his teaching and ministry.

OBJECTION: WHY DIDN’T JESUS COME LATER IN HISTORY? If you’re active on social media, you probably recognize the crowded, noisy nature of the information age. In addition, technology has advanced to the point that “miraculous” events are easily fabricated in movies and videos. Surveys often find that young people are skeptical and distrusting about many claims made in this environment. Would the message of Jesus be more (or less) likely to resonate in this environment than in the past, when these distractions and innovations were still in the distant future?

Had Jesus arrived at this point in history (prior to 3500 BCE), complex concepts involving his nature and teaching would have been impossible to communicate in writing.

Only at this point in history—once the Roman Empire had adopted the Etruscan-modified Greek alphabet, embraced Koine Greek as a common language, and adopted the use of papyrus—could the message of Jesus be effectively communicated with a shared language and letters. Had Jesus arrived prior to 100 BCE, this would not have been possible.

The size of the Roman Empire allowed Jesus’s teaching to spread within its expansive borders, but it was also the power of the empire that allowed the message of Jesus to be heard.

Prior to the rule of Augustus, peace was rare among ancient warring nations. In fact, the history of antiquity is cluttered with power struggles and tales of bloodshed.

At its peak, Rome controlled a portion of three continents and the Mediterranean Sea. With each conquest, the Romans annexed another culture, along with its languages, traditions, and gods. Rome’s early strategy was simple: allow each people group to retain its gods and traditions and embrace these deities as part of the larger Roman pantheon. Rome had done this earlier with the gods of Greece and had, in fact, adopted the Greek gods as their own, “Romanizing” the Greek pantheon. This effort to tolerate the gods of conquered nations served the Roman Empire well in most cases. Annexed regions were encouraged to worship their own gods, and Rome even built temples and facilitated animal sacrifices to the gods of captured groups. All they expected in return was for the annexed groups to submit to Roman authority and to make offerings (however nominal) to the Roman gods.

OBJECTION: CHRISTIANS WERE NEVER REALLY PERSECUTED The Roman historian Tacitus described the persecution of Christians in Rome (c. 64–68 CE) in Book 15, Section 44 of Annals (written c. 116 CE). Modern scholars (even skeptics of Christianity) still regard Tacitus as one of the greatest Roman historians, although in very recent years, some have tried to deny his claims about Christian persecution. But other early manuscripts, including Pliny the Younger’s letter to Emperor Trajan, written c. 112 CE, support Tacitus’s early report of Christian persecution.

They made an exception for the Jewish community, however. The Romans conquered Judea in 63 BCE but later allowed the Jews to retain their monotheism, recognizing Judaism as a legal religion. The Romans allowed the Jews to coexist among the conquered people groups, even though they would not worship the Roman gods. Rome tolerated Judaism, even if it didn’t trust it. In the earliest days of Christianity, Rome did little or nothing to stop its growth, in part because Roman authorities initially saw Christianity as simply a branch of Judaism, partly because of Roman tolerance for local gods in general, and partly because the Christian community was still relatively small. As Christianity grew in the first two decades, Rome may also have tolerated the sect because they hoped it would weaken Judaism.13 In any case, a thirty-year window of opportunity opened to spread the message of Jesus (prior to Emperor Nero’s maltreatment of Christians in 64 CE).14 And even though some Roman emperors in the years ahead would persecute Christians, others returned to a version of Roman tolerance, allowing Christianity to flourish in every region under Rome’s control.

The Roman Empire had unified much of the known world, adopted a popular language, provided a shared alphabet, established peace, constructed roads, developed the world’s best postal service, and embraced just enough religious tolerance to detonate an explosion. Even before the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth, it ought to have been apparent to any careful student of history that events within the Roman Empire were aligning for someone special to arrive and for something special to happen.

OBJECTION: JESUS IS A COPYCAT SAVIOR Scrutiny of pre-Christian mythologies reveals they are less similar to the story of Jesus Christ than skeptics claim. Cynics typically cherry-pick from the attributes of these myths and exaggerate the alleged similarities to construct a profile vaguely similar to Jesus. It is unreasonable to believe that Christian authors would create a story for Jewish readers by inserting pagan mythological elements into the narrative. More importantly, most alleged similarities are extremely general in nature and would be expected from any group of humans considering the existence of God.

I originally noticed the nearly universal human inclination to believe in “God,” a “higher power,” or a “Supreme Being” as I began conducting criminal interviews and interrogations. Kyle was right; over the history of my career, most suspects—surprisingly—shared a belief in the Divine, even if they didn’t belong to an organized religion. Ancient history also reveals this human interest in deities, and many of these gods seem similar to Jesus. In fact, there’s an army of “Jesus mythers” (authors, speakers, and videographers) who share my initial suspicions. They’re eager to disprove the existence of Jesus by claiming that his story was simply borrowed from prior “dying and rising” savior myths.3 Most of these borrowed attributes are, however, overstated.4 But as I investigated the Jesus “fuse,” it was clear that the civilizations that preceded Jesus worshiped gods—many gods. Why? Was it the result of their primitive understanding of the world, or something else?

OBJECTION: IF GOD IS ALL-POWERFUL, WHY DOESN’T HE STOP EVIL? The ancients believed in god(s) but also experienced suffering, sickness, and violence. If God exists and is all-powerful, why would he allow this? Two common beliefs provide an answer: (1) the reasonable expectation that God and those he saves will live beyond the grave and (2) the expectation that God will ultimately judge the living and the dead. If this is true, justice will eventually be served, and peace will eventually reign.

As I finished my investigation of the mythologies, I recognized that there were similarities between Jesus and the mythological deities. The list of the most common attributes of these ancient deities sounded a lot like the Christian description of Jesus: Predicted by prophecy Recognized the need for a sacrifice Born by unnatural means Established a divine meal Protected as an infant Faced a trial Faced temptation Had the power to defeat death Was associated with shepherds Offered eternal life Possessed supernatural power Judge the living and the dead Engaged and taught humans directly At first glance, these common descriptions seemed surprisingly similar to characteristics of Jesus. But a closer examination revealed something entirely different. None of the ancient mythologies possessed all the attributes described on this list. At best, a handful of deities displayed ten of the shared characteristics. Most had far fewer (from five to nine). And while these similarities existed broadly, the details among the ancient narratives differed dramatically. For example, although many ancient deities were said to enter the world unnaturally, the way they entered couldn’t have been more different.

When you examine the details related to each similarity between Jesus and ancient mythologies, the resemblances begin to vanish. Jesus isn’t much like the other gods after all. The few broad similarities that do exist are reasonable expectations on the part of humans who are thinking diligently about their experience of the world and the existence and nature of supernatural beings. In the same way that Dr. Greene imagines a set of otherworldly minds to explain the nature of the universe and creates a set of attributes mirroring classic descriptions of deities, ancient humans arrived at a set of reasonable attributes given their common human expectations. The most common of these attributes—unsurprisingly—was simply the ability of each god to do what

MYTHS, LIES, AND DETERMINING THE TRUTH C. S. Lewis was correct when he noted that not all “myths” are untrue. But can a claim about the past contain an untruth yet still tell us something true about the world? Yes, and this is even true in criminal trials. Judges tell jurors, “If you think the witness lied about some things but told the truth about others, you may simply accept the part that you think is true and ignore the rest.”34 Ancient mythological claims about deities contain many untruths, but they also contain the true, reasonable expectations all of us have about God.

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call “real things.”35 (emphasis mine) Lewis clearly distinguished between two common dictionary definitions of the word myth: (1) “a widely held but false belief(s) or idea(s)” and (2) “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.”36 Lewis used the word according to the second dictionary definition, one that doesn’t equate myth with false.

OBJECTION: IF THE PROPHECIES ARE SO GOOD, WHY DON’T MORE JEWS ACCEPT THEM? Jewish believers typically take the following approach when evaluating messianic prophecies: 1. They limit the verses and prophecies they are willing to include in the investigation. 2. They exclude any verse that describes the Messiah —as a person—in any detail. 3. When interpreting the remaining verses, they reject any interpretation that points to a person rather than the nation of Israel or a group of people within the nation. 4. They ignore the “cloaked” verses (which point to a person of interest in hindsight). But is this approach to the biblical evidence reasonable? Can you imagine doing something similar in a criminal case? Imagine, for example: 1. Limiting the evidence you’re willing to include in the investigation. What good investigator doesn’t want to expand the yellow tape as far as possible to make sure he or she gathers everything? 2. Disregarding any evidence that describes the suspect in any detail. What kind of detective would purposely reject the evidence that most clearly and specifically points to a suspect? 3. Rejecting any interpretation of the evidence that points to a suspect in favor of an interpretation that points to something other than a suspect. Why would a detective try to reinterpret evidence to avoid any inference to a suspect? 4. Ignoring all the “cloaked” evidence (which points to a suspect in hindsight). Why wouldn’t a good detective want to confirm his or her c...

As I examined the claims of the speaker, I organized my investigation using several detective principles. First, I gave clear evidence (prophecies) priority over cloaked. As I read the passages scholars have identified as messianic, I asked myself the question, “If I were reading this prior to the arrival of Jesus, would I clearly understand this as a description of the coming Messiah?” If I could answer yes, I placed it in the “clear” collection. Second, I gave reliable informants (prophets) priority over the others, even though I collected every messianic prediction, placing them in a timeline along the “prophetic fuse.” Third, I examined the prophetic information asking the six investigative questions I ask in every inquiry: what, where, why, how, when, and who? Once the first five questions had been resolved, as in all my investigations, I sought to accurately answer the most important question: Who is the person of interest? My hope in all this was to discover who fit the description of the Jewish Messiah and why this person of interest arrived when he did.

The three-stranded fuse that burned toward the Common Era seemed to make Jesus’s arrival inevitable. He met our human expectations, matched the Jewish predictions, and arrived at precisely the right time in the history of the Roman Empire to be shared with the entire known world. A New Testament writer, the apostle Paul, wrote, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4–5 ESV). What did Paul mean when he described Jesus’s arrival as coming in the “fullness of time”? Did God send Jesus at just the right moment in history? The fuse certainly seemed to agree. But every explosion, whether a criminal act or an important historical event, has both a fuse and some fallout, and I still had more to investigate. If Jesus truly mattered, the fallout of history would be cluttered with evidence.

If someone truly wanted to erase Jesus from history, they would have to do far more than destroy the New Testament; they would also have to destroy every copy of the many letters and books written in the early centuries of the Common Era by Christians who liked Jesus.

So without a single New Testament document or ancient text describing Jesus, you could still reconstruct every detail of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, resurrection—and his impact on the lives of believers—from the hundreds of screenplays that have been written and movies that have been made in just the past one hundred years. That’s the kind of impact Jesus had on our collective literary imagination. But this person of interest didn’t only influence books and screenplays that describe the life and ministry of Jesus.

OBJECTION: THERE ISN’T ENOUGH ANCIENT, NON-CHRISTIAN INFORMATION ABOUT JESUS If you include the noncanonical texts, there are nearly twice as many non-Christian voices as Christian voices in the period preceding the Edict of Milan. In addition, the ancient sources we have for the life and ministry of Jesus are more reliable (and were written much earlier) than the sources we have for the life of Tiberius Caesar, the emperor of Rome who ruled during the latter part of Jesus’s lifetime. Some of these sources (like Tacitus), report on both men. If we have enough information to have knowledge about Tiberius Caesar, then we have enough information to have knowledge about Jesus.

OBJECTION: YOU CAN’T TRUST OLD MEMORIES Jurors can evaluate witnesses to determine how well they “remember and describe what happened.”1 But how can a witness be trusted when their testimony occurs many years after an event took place? Remember that not all events leave the same impression on witnesses. Some events (such as Spencer’s phone call to Tammy’s husband) are more memorable than others. Jurors are told to consider the importance of a memory when evaluating the witness. In a similar way, the gospel accounts, even though they were written about Jesus many years after the fact, recall events that were highly unusual and memorable.

How could gathering believers “set [their] hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1) in spaces that neither reflected the light of Christ nor the nature of “things above”? A desire to better reveal the identity of Jesus and the reality of heaven initiated a movement unique in the history of architecture, art, and music. As Christian groups grew, their creativity and engineering skills were put to the test. How could they build roofs to span greater distances? How could they increase the lighting within these larger spaces? What could they do to create a heavenly environment? Early Christian church architects solved the first problem, even if they did little—at first—to solve the second two. Churches in the first centuries of the Common Era were still relatively dark, uninspiring spaces, although they were much larger than their house church counterparts.4 But even in these heavy spaces, a simple architectural development would eventually point believers heavenward. Domes were not unknown to the Greek and Roman world, of course, but they were mastered by Christian church builders who stretched the limit of the archetype.5 These arched ceiling surfaces provided opportunities to paint images of the angelic realm, and architects designed them to be illuminated in heavenly ways with hidden light wells and strategically placed window openings. Many domes also allowed for the placement of statues, providing yet another artistic ave...

An “A to Z” survey of nations reveals Jesus-inspired artists in every region of the world. No other sacred figure has stirred the imagination in this transcendent manner. Consider, for example, the religious systems that preceded Christianity and are still active today. Indra, Thakur Jiu, Zoroaster, Krishna, and the Buddha had a dramatic head start on Jesus, yet combined they haven’t had the global impact on art that Jesus has had. Jesus is not just the most inspirational historical figure in the West—he’s the most inspirational figure in the history of the world.

Every important detail about the life and ministry of Jesus—as described in the gospel of Mark—has also been painted or sculpted by inspired artists in the earliest centuries of the Common Era. This is also true of the other gospels. Artists looked to every chapter of every gospel for inspiration. Even if all the New Testament manuscripts were gone, the story of Jesus would remain unless, of course, you were willing and able to destroy two thousand years of art. That’s what it would take to erase the evidence of Jesus’s life and ministry. That’s how much Jesus has mattered to artists.

STATEMENTS MADE UNDER “DURESS” From a legal perspective, “duress” occurs when unlawful pressure is exerted upon a person to coerce them to say or do something they wouldn’t otherwise say or do. I was careful to encourage Charley to tell the truth, rather than coerce her with a threat. The earliest Christians were treated very differently, however. Many were forced—under threat of violence—to recant their faith in Jesus and worship the Roman gods. In criminal trials, statements given under duress are inadmissible.

DO YOUNG CHRISTIANS LEAVE THE FAITH IN UNIVERSITY? Studies over the past two decades demonstrate that many Christians (raised in the faith as children) reject their Christian identity by the time they are surveyed in their university years. While it’s tempting to infer that universities are responsible for their deconversion, most studies also show that young people start questioning their faith between ten and seventeen years of age. Parents have more impact on the beliefs of young Christians than professors.1

The early Christians were also thinkers who studied the Scriptures as the “Word of God” and eventually became known (along with their Jewish predecessors) as “People of the Book.” Christians and Jews were students of Scripture. Moses started this educational emphasis many centuries earlier: “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7 ESV, emphasis mine). Christians continued this tradition of education. Paul reiterated this emphasis in a letter to his disciple Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16,

OBJECTION: THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVE TRUTHS Education is predicated on the notion that there are objective truths about mathematics, history, science, and other topics that can be transmitted from one generation to another. Some claim, however, that there are no objective truths. But if this is true, the statement “There are no objective truths” can’t be objectively true. Do you see the problem? If there are no objective truths, education becomes nothing more than the transmission of opinions.

Jesus commanded his followers to make disciples, and this required them to become teachers of the Word.

So important was education to the second- and third-century Christians that new believers were “catechized” and educated for lengthy periods of time prior to their baptism. This training period was tailored to each baptismal candidate and could last from weeks to years. Bishops, deacons, elders, and laypeople taught these students from “the Book” on topics related to proper theology and Christian living.

Early Christians understood their personal responsibility as students. They were individually transformed by learning the truth and by using their minds to continually evaluate the will of God as it was described in the Book: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2 ESV).

Jesus followers took seriously the command to “go therefore and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19 ESV). They branched out into the world and immediately encountered a significant obstacle: discipleship was dependent on the Book, but not every new people group could read. Some groups didn’t even possess an alphabet of their own. This didn’t stop Christian missionaries. Ulfilas (c. 311–c. 383 CE), for example, was born into captivity in a region that the Goths controlled (now known as Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania), but he eventually became a Christian bishop and missionary to the region.4 He evangelized the Goths and invented an alphabet that would allow him to translate the Bible into the Gothic language. This invention made it possible for Goths to read, a foundational skill that laid the groundwork for higher education in the region. Saint Cyril (826–869 CE) and Saint Methodius (815–885 CE) followed in Ulfilas’s footsteps as they made disciples of the Slavic people in Eastern Europe. The Slavs possessed an unwritten language (just like the Goths), so Cyril invented an alphabet to translate the Bible into this language. More than two hundred million people, representing more than one hundred languages spoken around the world, still use the Cyrillic alphabet.5 The invention of an alphabet such as this (for the purpose of translating the Bible) opened the doors for education on a global level.

Jesus followers are largely responsible for advancing literacy across the globe.

These six catalysts ignited an educational revolution in the fallout of the Common Era, a movement driven by “People of the Book” who wanted to share their Book with others. This revolution initiated a series of events that led directly to the creation of humanity’s greatest educational institution: the modern university. If you’ve attended a college or university, you can thank Jesus (and his followers) for the opportunity. The word university is derived from the Latin term universitas magistrorum et scholarium. It means, more or less, a community of teachers and scholars. Christians met in communities of teachers and scholars early in history, and these communities grew into universities as we know them today. While the Greeks and Romans had their own notable instructors and philosophers, they developed no permanent, organized institutions of education like the universities we know today. The creation of formal institutions of learning “represented by faculties and colleges and courses of study, examinations and commencements and academic degrees” sprang out of the Christian community, and it started in antiquity.

The teaching efforts of the disciples and their students, for example, have been captured in an ancient Christian education text known as the Didache (“The Lord’s Teaching through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations”). The Didache was used to teach new believers in a “question and answer” approach. Male and female students spent two to three years learning in an instructor’s home.8 It wasn’t long before Christian students were being taught more than theology and godly living. Ignatius of Antioch (the student of the apostle John that I described earlier) encouraged teachers in Christian communities to “ ‘bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;’ and teach them the holy Scriptures, and also trades, that they may not indulge in idleness.”9

Cassiodorus (c. 487–c. 585 CE) continued this tradition of libraries when he founded the Vivarium monastery about 554 CE. Like Benedict, he collected manuscripts and directed his monks to copy Christian and non-Christian authors. So vast and timely was the collection in his library that without it, much of the wisdom of antiquity would be lost to us today. As the Roman Empire crumbled, Cassiodorus “helped to save the culture of Rome at a time of impending barbarism.”

In fact, Charlemagne (the king of the Franks who later became a Roman emperor) issued several decrees requiring cathedrals and monasteries to establish schools so that “children [could] learn to read; that psalms, notation, chant, computation, and grammar [could] be taught . . .”15 using teachers who had “the will and the ability to learn and a desire to instruct others.”16 Within a few centuries, the first modern universities were established in Bologna, Oxford, and Paris. All were founded by Jesus followers.

Even if you haven’t attended a university, you’ve experienced the impact of Jesus followers at some point in your education. Christians have been educational innovators: If you were asked to read books as part of your education (at the primary, secondary, or university level), you can thank Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468 CE), devoted Jesus follower and the creator of the printing press.21 If you benefited from an organized, public educational system in your community, you can thank Johannes Bugenhagen (1485–1558 CE), a Jesus follower who pioneered the organization of schools;22 Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560 CE), a theologian who was also a pioneer of public education;23 John Comenius (1592–1670 CE), a Moravian Brethren bishop (considered the “father of modern education”) who advocated for universal education;24 and Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (1651–1719 CE), a French priest who promoted compulsory education and spent much of his life educating the poor.25 If you had access to an education as a child, you can thank Martin Luther (1483–1546 CE), the German theologian and religious reformer who argued for universal education and literacy for children;26 John Calvin (1509–1564 CE), the French theologian and reformer who advocated for “a system of elementary education in the vernacular for all, including reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and religion;”27 and Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852 CE), the son of a Lutheran pastor who is known as the “father of kindergarten educatio...

Christians contributed to the progress of education and founded more universities and colleges than all their religious predecessors. Even though Hindus had a 2,300- to 1,500-year advantage, Jews had a 2,000- to 1,800-year lead, and Buddhists and Zoroastrians had a 600-year head start, Christians established more universities than all the other groups combined, by a magnitude of ten to one.34 And universities founded by Christians still dominate the educational landscape.

That’s an amazing collection of data from an unlikely source, but most of the founders of the world’s top fifty universities were devout Christians who regularly preached and wrote about Jesus.38 Even though many of these schools have abandoned their Christian identity, their buildings and charters tell a different story, unanimously pointing back to the man who inspired their creation. Any effort to remove Jesus from history would also require the destruction or reconstruction of the world’s leading universities. No other historical figure is better represented in university buildings, and bylaws, and founding charters.

OBJECTION: CHRISTIANITY ADVOCATES VIOLENCE TO ADVANCE THE GOSPEL Skeptics sometimes claim Christians haven’t historically advanced the gospel with a well-reasoned, educated approach, but have instead acted violently to force people to convert to Christianity. Have people behaved violently under the Christian banner? Yes. Does the Christian worldview as taught by Jesus endorse this approach? No. Christianity grew exponentially in the earliest centuries of the Common Era, when followers of Jesus were powerless, persecuted, and pursued. They simply obeyed the counterintuitive commands of their Master to love their enemies (Matthew 5:44), turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), and to pray for those who abused them (Luke 6:28). Christianity grew not as a result of violence, but as Christ followers advanced education across the globe.