Several of my recent website “Perspectives” have featured incidents from the lives of prominent Christians of the past which are included in my book Timeless Stories: God’s Incredible Work in the Lives of Inspiring Christians. Here are six quick reasons I think this book is well worth reading and sharing with others:
1. The lives of great men and women of faith are replete with fascinating and spiritually-beneficial stories. Not fictional stories; rather, actual events from the experiences of those committed Christians. Some of those stories touch the heart – or the funny bone. Many touch the soul at a deep level by inspiring, instructing, encouraging, comforting or convicting. The stories in this book are grouped into eight chapters, each having to do with some practical, primary aspect of living out one’s Christianity: Family, Service, Faith, Prayer, Witness, Forgiveness, Stewardship and Adversity.
2. This book features stories from the lives of ten eminent Christian couples or individuals who ministered in the last three centuries: John Wesley; George Whitefield; George Muller; William and Catherine Booth; Hudson Taylor; Charles Spurgeon; Dwight Moody; Amy Carmichael; Corrie ten Boom; Billy and Ruth Graham. Timeless Stories is an enjoyable way to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with many interesting and instructive incidents from the lives of those outstanding Christian servants. Hopefully this book will whet the appetite of many individuals to read more about these (and other) remarkable believers and to gain much further benefit from their personal examples.
3. Timeless Stories is a treasure trove of illustrations that can be used with great benefit by Christian pastors and teachers. Each chapter in the book contains 20-25 true stories that model various aspects of the life-related theme treated in that chapter. Throughout my own ministerial career I have shared hundreds of such historic anecdotes (along with plenty of contemporary illustrations) to profitably flesh out scriptural principles being promoted. This book also includes a helpful Scripture Index, as over fifty of the stories in the volume include references to specific Bible passages.
4. These stories can be used with great profit as a supplement for family devotions. Once when my three daughters were very young I offered to tell them a story before bedtime prayer. That was a periodic feature of our nighttime family devotions, and they knew the type of tale I often shared. So they spontaneously started chanting, competition-like, the names of two individuals about whom they had heard a number of stories. “Moody! Moody!” shouted two. “Hudson! Hudson!” countered the third with equal enthusiasm. Some families have read clear through Timeless Stories (a few stories at a time) as part of their family devotions. Kids will enjoy and benefit from these stories if we will but share them.
5. This is an easy book to read, even for people who don’t read a lot. The stories are short and interesting, so they tend to engage the reader’s attention. If the book is set aside for a time, it’s easy to pick up on the theme of a chapter when one gets back to it. It’s easy to read a few or several stories in a short period of time. Before a person knows it, he or she has finished another chapter, then the entire book. This is the kind of book (not heavy but very worthwhile) that’s a pleasure to read during a relaxing afternoon or evening at home, at bedtime, while traveling or while on vacation.
6. Timeless Stories makes a great gift book. Even people not acquainted with historic Christian biography will find these stories engaging, relevant and beneficial. Christians of various maturity levels can profit from the positive models and life-lessons communicated in this book. I have not hesitated to share this book with non-Christians too, knowing that they’ll read of the Gospel and of people coming to faith in Christ through its pages.
If you’ve not read Timeless Stories, I hope you will. If you have read it, I would enjoy hearing how it encouraged and helped you.
Copyright 2014 by Vance E. Christie
