I tell people that THE ADVOCATE feels like the book I was created to write; that it brings the three strands of my life together—pastor, lawyer and writer. (And reawakens a fourth—history teacher). Perhaps that’s because the idea for the book came from several different directions all at once. The first strand came when I was wearing my lawyer hat and teaching advocacy at Regent Law School. We were studying the great trials in the history of the world and I was ranking them in order of importance. The first, at least in my mind, was eons ahead of the others: the trial of Christ. What could compare to that? The redemption of all mankind hinged on the outcome. But the second was less clear. The Scopes monkey trial came to mind, unfortunately clearing the way for evolution to be taught in our schools. Or, on the more spiritual side, what about the trial of Martin Luther before the Diet at Worms? Then again, a few of my own cases seemed pretty significant. I finally settled on a trial that not many people think about—the trial of the Apostle Paul in front of Nero. It seemed to me that the…