Every two years the Olympics return to our feeds, providing an entertaining and often informative fortnight of enjoying (and decoding) sports that aren’t usually seen on TV.
Perhaps nothing symbolises the Olympics more than the medal ceremony.
Gold, silver, and bronze have become by-words for describing a “top three” – and former cold-case detective – turned–theologian Jim Warner Wallace reckons there’s a winner’s podium for murder motives too.
Jim can speak authoritatively on this, having lived the reality of a homicide detective.
He spent his prime years filing motions in court, examining crime scenes, and interviewing suspects, all in the hope of putting murderers who thought they got away with the perfect whodunnit behind bars.
Due to his work, Jim got a pretty good sense of some fundamental human principles – what makes people turn to crime, what makes them murder, how people can go on with their lives despite having killed someone decades beforehand, and why someone might suddenly confess.
From a lifetime of experience, Jim developed his Olympic podium for murder motives.
“If you had an Olympics for stupid motives, the gold medal stand would be a stand we call ‘pride’”, he said.
“The gold medalist is the pursuit of power. The pursuit of money and sex are the other two medalists, but the gold medalist, which is the motive about 70 per cent of the time is that there’s something that’s offended someone, their authority has been challenged, or they’ve been disrespected.”
In the middle of his career, Jim turned his forensic skills to investigating the claims of the Bible – and was shocked to find himself convinced of the testimony of the Gospels.
Not only that but the principles Jim had observed in the field were mirrored in the Bible – both in the Biblical stories and also in God’s commands.
This was especially true when it came to Jim’s medal podium.
Accounts of murder due to lust for power, sex, and/or money are found throughout the Biblical scriptures.
The first recorded murder happens in just the fourth chapter of Genesis: Cain murders his brother Abel out of jealousy because his brother made a better offering of food to God. Power takes the gold medal.
King David famously murders Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, whom David has manipulated into sleeping with him, by proxy (2 Sam 11).
Jesus Himself is of course betrayed by one of his best friends, Judas, for 30 pieces of silver – a move Judas knew full well would result in His execution.
Power, sex, and money are potent motivators for the Biblical characters – just like they were for the criminals Jim was working against.
With the perspective of Christianity, Jim now believes that underlying it all is the desire humans have to worship.
“Instead of worshipping the God of all good things, we start to worship the good things (like) sex, money, and power – all of which God created for our good.
“We tend to stop short of the God who creates the good things and only pursue the things that God has created.
“Everyone worships, whether they are spiritual seekers or atheists; we all hold something as the highest value that we are willing to sacrifice for, that we are willing to think about, that we spend our money on, that becomes our master.”
Everybody worships. Everyone is in pursuit of something. It’s what we worship that determines our actions.
For Jim, it was this realisation that helped him make sense not just of the Bible, but the world around him – and it changed his life forever.
Adapted by Alasdair Belling from the Undeceptions episode ‘True Crime’. Listen Here
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