"...the writing of many books is endless..."
Ecclesiates 12:12
Biographies are one of my favorite forms of literature. I always have a bio on my bedside table or Kindle (currently, I am reading The Narnian, about C. S. Lewis). I have several volumes on Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite subjects, and probably fifty biographies overall.
The number of biographies on a specific individual are not always commensurate with his or her popularity, influence or notoriety. In many cases this is true (think Churchill, Hitler, or Lincoln). But in others, there is a glaring lack of production.
Perhaps the most obvious example is that of a man who really revolutionized the entire world, yet the entire eyewitness accounts of his exploits are contained in four small novella-sized narratives. They are woefully incomplete in proportion to his importance. These books record many of his most important acts, dialogues and speeches. Yet surely there were so many other amazing things said and done that are not preserved for our scrutiny and enjoyment.
And the author of one of the books makes an audacious statement in his closing:
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25, ESV)What does that mean?
If they were said and done, why weren't they written down? And doesn't the claim itself seem a bit overblown?
Suppose you follow a very busy person—lets use the U.S. president—for a single term. You record every speech and meeting. You record his Cabinet meetings and private conversations. What books he reads. You transcribe his conversations on the golf course. Words shared between with his wife and children. How long he sleeps. Whether he dreams. How many steps he takes in a day. Even how many times he breathes.
If you included every bit of minutae from his life, would the results realistically be larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica? Yet the Enclycopedia Brittanica is but a drop in the ocean of books (The Library of Congress contains over 22 million books).
The whole idea seems preposterous.
The comment seems a bald-faced lie.
Unless...
Near the end of another of these mini-biographies, the author quotes Jesus as saying this:
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).
The rabbi Paul, author of many letters to the early church, puts it another way:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.(Galatians 2:20)
Major W. Ian Thomas, in his book The Indwelling Life of Christ, explains this mystery:
Salvation is so much more than a change of destination from hell to heaven! The true spiritual content of our gospel is not just heaven one day, but Christ here and now. In the economy of God, conversion is only an essential preliminary to discipleship, which is a lifetime of allowing Christ to live in you to do His work through you.
So, according to these witnesses, Jesus Christ is still active, performing acts of love, mercy and service through all those who follow Him. And He has throughout the years since His resurrection, and will until He wraps the whole story up someday in the future. And every one of those followers has countless stories of all the little things He does.
How many books do you think they will fill?
