Many years ago, history-blasé me happened upon a book whose genre set a direction for my pleasure reading which lasts to this day: Exodus, by Leon Uris, was that book. I happily discovered historical fiction – a novel set accurately in history, mentioning real people, places, and events. From these starting elements, the author weaves a riveting story that sends the reader into that time period, causes him/her to come to know and care about the characters, and skillfully wraps the reader up in all the emotions and tensions of the time. I’m sure I’ve read many thousands of pages of such tomes. And in all this happy devouring, I’ve gotten to know a bit more about history.
There are a lot of such books on the shelves of bookstores which are about Bible characters or stories, but I think there is space for many more. Scripture gives us tantalizing glimpses into so much, but wouldn’t it be glorious to have an imaginative writer who could help us provide plausible answers to all our burning questions, such as: What was it like growing up in a family with your eldest brother being Jesus? What was Zebedee’s life like after his sons left the business to follow Jesus? What were John the Baptist’s growing up years like? Or those of Jesus? What was the process of Saul’s transformation from Pharisee to Paul, Christian missionary? What took place in the life of Barabbas after being set free in place of Jesus? And so very many more!
Hebrews 12:1 urges us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up and to run with endurance the race God has set before us – all because we are surrounded by a huge crowd of witnesses cheering us on. It’s the lives and circumstances of this huge crowd of forerunners that so intrigues me. What were they really like? How did they come to have such buoyant faith, such stick-to-it-iveness? What were their frailties that had to be overcome? What were their defeats, their tragedies?
We know, to a certain extent, that we stand on the shoulders of those Christian witnesses/heroes who have gone before us, those in our own families, those of our communities, and those in our nation, our world. Getting to know their stories would perhaps fan the flames of our faith so that we, like them, could help someone else in their journey to the Father’s heart. Any writers out there? Don’t be shy! PD
Don graduated from Regent University in 1988 and moved to France for seven years, coming back to the US briefly to marry Sue in 1990. The work in France included working in a Christian School and helping plant a church before returning in 1995. He’s been pastor of Peninsula Vineyard since 1999. He enjoys counseling, especially married couples, traveling back to France (with Sue), reading, doing Sudoku puzzles and sleuthing out good, dark chocolate. Don serves as the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church Peninsula, in Newport News, Virginia.