Born Into Belief: Trusting Testimony from the Cradle to the Cross

The day, time, and place you were born. Your parents. Your older siblings. Your birth certificate. Your grandparents. Your ancestry. You didn’t verify any of it yourself. Everyone could be lying to you. Your mom might not be your mom. Your siblings could be total frauds. Your grandparents could be in on it. Even your proud Irish or Italian ancestry might be the biggest lie of your life.

Why bring this up? Because a lot of people—maybe even you—operate under the assumption that the only way something can be true is if they personally experienced it: “I had to be there. I had to see it, touch it, smell it, taste it myself. If I didn’t, I can’t believe it happened.”

Let me be honest with you from the start—I’m genuinely concerned that you may (without even realizing it) be building your worldview on shaky ground. And if I’m right, the consequences aren’t just temporary—they’re eternal.

I’m not writing this because I get something out of it. Whether you choose to trust Jesus or not doesn’t earn or cancel my place in heaven. I’m not doing this because I have time to kill, either. I have a beautiful wife and four kids (who drive me nuts—but who I love dearly), and a full schedule. I could easily be binging a show on Netflix right now (got recommendations?). But I’m here.

That’s because of my relationship with the Lord, which is rooted in the testimony of His eyewitnesses, and has transformed my life—and I want that for you too.

Can We Talk About Your Birthday?

Let’s poke at that birthday belief a little more.

How do you know the day you were born? Were you sitting there, stopwatch in hand, ready to document the event? Of course not.

You believe what you believe about your birth because someone you trusted told you. A parent. A doctor. A birth certificate. Maybe a baby photo or an old scrapbook. But what you don’t have is firsthand proof.

You are betting your entire sense of self on witnesses.

It probably doesn’t feel that way, because your identity seems so real, so verifiable. But the truth is, you only know these things because someone testified them to you, and you accepted their testimony as truth. And I get it—you had good reason to trust those people.

I believe you are who others have testified that you are. But your knowledge of your origin is based entirely on the word of others. And that, my friend, is the same mindset and intellectual honesty I want you to bring when you consider the testimony of the disciples.

Who Were These Witnesses?

The disciples weren’t religious rock stars. They were twelve ordinary guys—fishermen, a tax collector, everyday men—handpicked by Jesus, a Man who claimed to be sent by God.

According to their own accounts, Jesus said things no one else dared to say and did things no one else could do. They saw Him heal the sick, calm storms, raise the dead, and walk on water.

Still, they doubted. When Jesus was arrested, most of them ran. Peter—one of His closest followers—denied even knowing Him. Three times. Once Jesus was executed, the whole movement seemed over. Some disciples literally went back to fishing. No more preaching. No more ministry. It was done.

So, What Changed?

It’s easy to imagine that first-century Christianity looked like today’s American Christianity—with churches on every corner and religious freedom. But it was far from that.

The Jewish people were living under brutal Roman rule. Declaring a new “king,” stirring up crowds—those weren’t just bad ideas. They were threats to the Empire. And Rome crushed threats. Crucifixion was their favorite method of public warning: “This is what happens if you mess with us.”

So what could have possibly happened to convince these terrified, scattered men to stand up again? To risk everything? They saw Jesus alive after having been crucified on a cross. The same man they saw brutally killed was suddenly walking, eating, and talking among them. He would disappear and reappear, preparing them to carry His message.

So, imagine this: One of your loved ones (let’s say your cousin) says that soon he will be persecuted and murdered by a specific group of people, but then days later, he rises from the dead. As predicted, your cousin dies a short time after. You see the body. You attend the funeral. You cry, you grieve, and you try to move on. Then—days later—your cousin was standing right in front of you just as he predicted. Alive. Speaking. Laughing. Eating dinner.

What would you do? You’d give that person your full, undivided attention. That’s exactly what the disciples did.

Why Would They Die for a Lie?

Jesus told them to share the message—and they knew what it would cost. Their accounts—what we now call the New Testament—are eyewitness testimonies of what they saw.

Back to your birth story:

You can’t be certain of your birthday.

You can’t be certain your parents are your biological parents.

You can’t be sure “your Sweet, Grandma Edna” isn’t fibbing about your ancestry.

But the bigger question is—**why would they lie?** What would they gain? What’s the motive?

Ask the same about the disciples:

What would they gain from making this up?

Jesus taught peace. To love your enemies. That’s not exactly the strategy for toppling the Roman Empire.

And here’s the kicker: Let’s say it was a conspiracy. At what point does someone say, “Okay, I’m out”? History tells us that many of the apostles were martyred, and all of them were willing to die for what they saw (the resurrected Jesus).

If I’m making up a story, and I see my friends getting crucified, boiled in oil, or beheaded—**I’m out.** Game over. You’re telling me that the tenth guy in line watched the nine before him suffer unimaginably—and still wouldn’t recant? That makes no sense.

That kind of story doesn’t survive unless something real happened.

What Makes Their Testimony Different?

These weren’t vague legends passed down for centuries. The resurrection accounts were written and circulated within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses—when both believers and skeptics were still alive to verify or challenge the story.

It would be like someone saying, “9/11 never happened,” or “There was no COVID pandemic.” That kind of revisionism gets crushed in real-time, because people remember it happened in real-time and, more importantly, eyewitnesses to those events are still living today.

Same back then. Sure, there was no FaceTime. No Google. But people knew death when they saw it. And they knew resurrection when they saw it, too. This message didn’t die out because it had weight. It had substance. It changed lives. It’s still changing lives.

So, Now What?

If these ordinary men saw the impossible and refused to deny it—even to death—what are you going to do with that information?

Forget what you’ve “heard” about Jesus. Forget what some “Christian” did that made you walk away or turned you off from considering the truth of Christianity.

The intellectually honest response to the testimony of a group of men who claimed to have seen Jesus rise from the dead—and who died refusing to deny it—is in and of itself worthy of consideration.

Start Investigating for Yourself

Check out these resources to help with your investigation!

The Case for The Resurrection of Jesus with Jacob Vazquez: https://youtu.be/3yUczFqdDd0?si=cQeUMogbWJ2xUZrd

Can We Trust the New Testament? with Dr. Ben Shaw: https://youtu.be/IAaT2GgvD9U?si=FFLEv-KVjC3vjDXw