Why Didn’t Jesus Write a Book?
I guess one could make the argument right off the top that Jesus did write the Bible. The Bible is the inspired word of God (1 Timothy 3:16), Jesus was the Word made flesh (John 1:1), but what I’m talking about is the fact that he doesn’t take time out in his 3 and a half year ministry-career to write a particular book, and have it published with his name as the author.
Yesterday morning during the Christmas program a video was played and a certain line caught my attention. You can see the video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Ya2YXvIU4). The line mentioned that caught my attention and made me start thinking was that “Jesus never wrote a book”.
Jesus obviously has had the greatest impact on humankind that the world has ever known and only a few years of his whole life are recorded for us. We see a picture of his birth in Bethlehem, we see his flight to egypt with his family sometime between 1 and 3 years old. We see him in the temple teaching when he’s 12 years old and then nothing for 28 years. I really wish Jesus would have journaled these years! Given us insight on his day to day life, what he’s thinking and how he is feeling. But nothing, he doesn’t write it down for us. When he begins his ministry we have no record of a prayer journal, study notes or outlines. It’s a good thing someone else was taking notes. On a side note, Jesus doesn’t tell people to write anything down for notes, He normally said, “Listen, Behold and Hear”, there is a lot to say about paying attention. But anyway, He also doesn’t write a book, and why not? He was popular, had a ministry with a respectable following, he even had a healing ministry that had a 100% effective rate, while also raising dead people. So much to write about!
Another thing I noticed from the video, it makes the statement that Jesus doesn’t travel more the 200 miles. All I’m saying is that people would have probably paid a lot of money around the world to attend a healing service, especially since Jesus never prayed for someone and had to turn them away not healed. Afterward, he could have sold books in the foyer!
So, do I think writing books is a bad thing? I do not. Do I think having conferences is a bad thing? I don’t. In fact, I love books and I literally have 4 books going at the same time right now. I read throughout the day from different ones. I wish I had some kind of superhero capability of reading them all at the same time. Amanda is reading a book right now that I wish I could be reading too, but I got if for her as an early Christmas gift and I don’t want to steal from her; making it seem as though I got if for myself. Because I didn’t. I promise.
I have my favorite authors and some of them are pastors, so again, I don’t think it’s a bad thing if a pastor wants to write a book. Just seems to be the next step after your church has a few thousand people.
I think we can learn something from the way Jesus did ministry and how much of his attention was directed toward his flock. He focused on tending to them and concentrated on their growth. He did a good job because those 11 disciples turned the world upside down. If you have 11 people in your church you might as well shut the doors because that sure is not the standard of successful church ministry. Maybe Jesus knew that if he would have written a book, people would have picked up a copy, read it, maybe highlighted some lines, put it on a bookshelf, only to not think about again. So, maybe he didn’t think the proceeds from the book would be worth the time spent on writing it, when the time could’ve been spent on something else. I don’t know. You’re message may be really good and good for the whole world to know, but maybe God has given you that message to be concentrated on the flock he’s given you so that once it’s in them they can take it to the world. As I write this I think of how I could be spending this time in preparation for our youth service so I might also be wasting my time.
No matter what God has called you to, I just think it’s important to stay focused on exactly what He has you doing no matter how small it might be. The next step might not be book deals and a fancy website but another life to pour into.
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Was following the link to the blog page and read this blog. I may have read it before but don’t remember doing so. Anyway this is a great message. Thanks for sharing it.