Best Way to Know a Book Is to Know the Author

The art and craft of writing books have fascinated me for a long time. Having written, co-authored and edited more than 20 books myself, I know it’s a complicated, challenging endeavor. Author Philip Yancey has described the writing process as something like this: “All you have to do is sit at the computer, fingers on the keyboard, until beads of blood appear on your forehead.” (Who said writing is ‘no sweat’?)

I identify very well with another of Yancey’s observations about writing: “I hate to write – but I love to have written.” Sometimes I can be extremely creative in procrastinating from sitting at the keyboard, but the end result from the hard work of writing can be very rewarding. 

 

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and interacting with a number of other authors. I’ve concluded that we writers are a strange bunch, many leaning toward being introverts since we spend so much time inside our own heads. 

 

Most of us will never meet our favorite authors – especially ones like Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, the Bronte sisters, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and many other literary greats who have passed from the scene. But in reading their books, we can capture a glimpse of who they are (or were). Because most of the time, authors write about things that interest or intrigue them. 

 

For instance, horrormeister Stephen King (whom I’ve met) obviously has a fascination with things that go bump in the night. As did Edgar Allan Poe. Agatha Christie must have thought it great fun to conjure up a good mystery. John Grisham revels in courtroom drama. And Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov had a particular penchant for the collision of science and futuristic fiction.

 

However, while books offer a glimpse into what authors think about, their writings don’t always reveal much about what they’re really like in real life. Are they as clever and engaging in person as characters in their books? Do they have sinister, brooding personalities? Would we enjoy being their friend? 

 

On the other hand, don’t you think you’d understand a book better if you truly knew its author?

 

At this point we should note a very important difference between every other book and…the Bible. Consisting of 66 books (39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament), compiled from about 40 different people who wrote under the inspiration of God, the Bible truly is the Word of God. Its pages teach us not only what interests Him but also reveals who He is – in extraordinary detail.

 

As 2 Timothy 3:16 informs us, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” One new believer concluded after reading this verse, “God wrote a book!”

 

Not only that, but despite its many ‘sub-books’ and numerous human writers, the Bible is unique in that it carries one central theme that spanned thousands of years: redemption through Jesus Christ.

 

Books, whether produced on physical paper or displayed on an electronic screen, consist of words, sentences and paragraphs. The Scriptures tell us something about Jesus that no one else has or could ever claim: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1:1,14).

 

If we wonder what God is like, we need look no further than to Jesus. As Hebrews 1:3 tells us, “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” In one of his books, Yancey expressed it this way: “Jesus became the visible, finite expression of the invisible, infinite, inexpressible God.”

 

When we think of famous authors, Jesus Christ might not be the first name to roll off our tongues. But the Bible states Jesus indeed was an author – in the most profound sense. Speaking to a crowd of people at a place in Jerusalem called Solomon’s Colonnade, the apostle Peter declared, “You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead” (Acts 3:15). 

 

Later in the New Testament we find another reference to Jesus’ authorship. Hebrews 12:2 urges us, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

 

Both passages show Jesus as a different type of “author,” not the writer of a singular work of non-fiction or fiction, but the giver of life itself. Even though we have beating hearts, blood pulsing through our veins, and air in our lungs, the Scriptures teach that apart from Christ we are spiritually dead. Yet because of what He has done on our behalf, we can experience and enjoy new life:

“…because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

 

Another verse I’ve cited before speaks of this new life, available to everyone who will receive it: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

 

Receiving Christ’s gift of salvation, forgiveness and redemption not only assures us of life after death, but also eternal life right now. We know this because of what God says in the Bible: “I write these things to you who believe in the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). Note this doesn’t say, ‘you will have eternal life,’ but rather, “you have eternal life” – present tense.

 

The Lord doesn’t just want to turn a page on our lives. He wants to start writing a new book in us. I like how James Banks, a devotional writer for Our Daily Bread, put it: “The author of life stands ready to write new beginnings for us!” Doesn’t that sound good?

There’s Foolishness – and Then There’s Real Folly

Here we are on April Fool’s Day, the annual day when we can engage in telling folks their shoes are untied – when they’re wearing loafers or leather sandals. Or telling some guy his zipper’s down, when it’s not. “April Fool’s!” 

 

No one knows for certain how and when this custom of carrying out practical jokes and pranks began, but it likely dates back at least several centuries. Seems no generation has lacked for having its share of fools and foolishness. There’s nothing wrong with good-natured trickery, but we need to understand that folly is a devastating year-round pastime for some people.

 

Reading the Bible, we find no mention of April Fool’s Day. But the Scriptures have much to say about fools and folly. The Proverbs, for example, are replete with warnings against the perils of foolishness. Exhortations start with the book’s first chapter: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).

 

There’s an admonition not to foolishly neglect work that must be done: “How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man” (Proverbs 6:10-11).

 

We find folly and its enticements personified in a very sober manner: “The woman Folly is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge. She sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the highest point of the city, calling out to those who pass by, who go straight on their way. ‘Let all who are simple come in here!’ she says to those who lack judgment…. But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave” (Proverbs 9:13-18).

 

Numerous other examples are woven throughout Proverbs, but here are just a hardful:

“Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly” (Proverbs 13:16).

“He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20).

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down” (Proverbs 14:1).

“A fool’s talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them” (Proverbs 14:3).

“The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception” (Proverbs 14:8). 

“A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions” (Proverbs 18:2).

 

I think you get the idea. The Word of God overflows with cautions against foolish thinking and behavior. If we desire to experience a rewarding, fulfilling life, we’re advised to pursue wisdom and avoid folly.

 

But perhaps its strongest admonition of all is found in the Psalms, focusing on the importance of faith in God. King David, who wrote many of the Psalms, declared: 

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:1-3). 

 

Apparently, the king of Israel didn’t want this to be overlooked. In case the reader might have scanned over those verses and missed the urgency of the message, it’s repeated almost word for word later in Psalm 53:1-3.

 

So, on this April Fool’s Day, some of us will be duped by harmless, no malice of intent pranks. Ha, ha! But the foolishness of rejecting God – pridefully refusing to consider, much less accept, His loving offer of forgiveness and redemption through Jesus Christ – is no laughing matter.

 

We read about this in the first chapter of Romans: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them…. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools…” (Romans 1:18-25).

These words might seem harsh, but they assert that God is dead serious about this. There’s no harm in a silly April Fool’s prank, but to foolishly rebel against the Lord is a matter of eternal consequence.