Who do you believe?

I've been selected for jury duty a couple of times, and on the panel for potential selection a couple times more. The trials haven't been headline-grabbers. Just "ordinary" molestation, robbery, assault, that sort of thing. Even though the crimes under scrutiny were disgusting, I was fascinated by the proceedings of the court, and especially the work of the lawyers as they solicited information from witnesses.

As a juror, it came down to who you believe. Did the State present sufficient evidence to prove the charges against the defendant? Did the witnesses tell the truth?

I've also been called as a witness in court. I've been asked to testify. Sometimes the events under consideration took place quite a while before, and it wasn't all that easy to piece my memory back together in the kind of detail the lawyers were looking for. I told the truth, of course, to the best of my ability. It's unlikely that my testimony made much difference one way or another, but I couldn't help placing myself in the position of the jurors as they listened to my answers. They had to be wondering if they could trust I said.

A trustworthy witness is someone who tells the truth, hopefully with little or no exaggeration or slight. Just the unvarnished truth. That's not as easy to do as it may seem.

The Christian disciples are 'witnesses.' We live/tell the truth of the experience of God in Christ. But if our living doesn't somehow jibe with our telling, the witness doesn't ring true. Are we believable?