Before I received my first paid writing assignment in 2020, I spent portions of the previous six years reading about the craft of writing (why it took so long is a subject for another day …).
As I studied storycraft, I kept reading about the importance of point-of-view (POV). The idea is simple—know who is experiencing the story, who is telling the story, and what motivation, history, and worldview influence how they relate to the story.
As a reader, I became more aware of POV in the stories I read. Of course, it had always been there, but now I had become forever conscious of POV in everything I read.
This has had a profound impact on my reading of the Bible.
POV in the Bible?
The Bible is a big book, written by about 40 human authors across a span of sixteen centuries. It contains an array of literary styles; from historical narratives to poetry, from doctrinal epistles to apocalyptic visions. The Bible is divinely inspired and Spirit breathed, yet God chose to use the uniqueness of its individual human contributors to bring it to life.
You don’t need to be a Bible scholar to recognize how John’s gospel, with its symbolic language and verbose monologues, is quite different from Mark’s fast-paced action-style account of Jesus’ ministry. And you would never confuse Paul’s meticulous (but sometimes lengthy) doctrinal statements with Solomon’s collection of bite-sized proverbs. Even when Paul quotes Solomon, he wraps the proverbs in his own POV.
That’s what Biblical POV looks like from 30,000 feet. Just like we might experience the story of a novel through the eyes of one to five narrators, we experience the Bible through the perspective of a handful of human authors.
A Closer Look
Of course, the POV character is rarely the only person in the story. When reading a novel, we meet a handful of prominent characters, and their supporting cast of minor players. We observe their actions and hear their words through the narrator’s perspective. Even though we are not inside their heads, strictly speaking, we still get a glimpse into their heads through the narrator’s POV.
In a well-written story, we can easily tell these secondary characters apart from the narrator and from each other. We get a snapshot, however brief, of their backgrounds, motives, fears, and ideals.
Sometimes, we find ourselves drawn to these side characters. We want to know them more and spend time with them. We’re ecstatic when an author follows up with a short story or a spinoff novel that elevates a supporting cast member and invites us to experience his or her POV.
But what does this have to do with reading the Bible?
The People of the Bible
We all recognize the key figures in the Bible, starting of course with Jesus, the One that all of scripture points to. Those who grew up attending Sunday school learned other big names such as Abraham, Moses, David, and Peter early on. The rest of us quickly caught up on these key figures, too.
But what about the hundreds of other people that we meet in the pages of scripture? Many are simply names in a long list of names. Some, like Simon the Sorcerer, appear for a single scene while women like Ruth and Esther are the subjects of entire books. Occasionally, the supporting cast isn’t even human (Balaam’s donkey, anyone?).
Still, despite its literary diversity and cast of thousands, the Bible is ultimately a single, cohesive book that focuses our attention on the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
POV and Experiencing Jesus
The Bible is about Jesus, but it uses an array of perspectives to reveal him to us. We read the Bible to know Jesus more fully, and countless theologians have undertaken to extrapolate insights into the mind and heart of Christ from his teachings and actions. My goal is not to repeat their work or distill the infinite, omniscient, perfect, mind of Christ into a summary POV (which would be impossible).
My goal is to invite you to experience Jesus where you are, from whatever POV your worldview, your passions, and your experiences have brought you to. How do we experience Jesus this way? We relate to the people who interact with Jesus.
The People that Jesus Meets
The gospels tell the story of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection, but he is not alone in the story. He takes his disciples with him, and we get to know four of them (Peter, James, John, and Judas) pretty well. Other people, such as John the Baptist, Pilate, and Lazarus also play prominent roles in the gospel narratives.
But what about the rest of the people that Jesus encountered along the way? We actually meet dozens of them. Some are named:
- Zacchaeus
- Anna the seer
- Caiaphas
- Bartimaeus
- Nicodemus
- Mary Magdalene
Many more are anonymous:
- The paralytic
- The demon-possessed boy
- The woman at the well
- The criminals to Jesus’ left and right
- The rich young ruler
- The Syrophoenician woman
- The centurion with a sick servant
The list could go on for pages, and it is quite a diverse array of people. Whether they are named or anonymous, men or women, peasants or powerful, each of them has one thing in common. They all encountered Jesus in a life-changing way that left an impression not only on them but on the observers who preserved their stories.
Yet each of them has a very different POV, just as you and I each have our own unique story. Our individual perspectives cannot and do not change who Jesus is. He is eternal and unchanging (Hebrews 13:8). But our perspectives do inform how we perceive Jesus and which of his attributes best reveal his glory to us.
God uses the personalities of both the forty-or-so writers of the Bible and the hundreds of people described in its pages to offer us each a POV (or several) to relate to. I write to explore these POVs and to invite all of you to explore them with me.
Getting into the Pages
When I prepare a sermon or a lesson, if I am working from a narrative passage, I examine the people in the passage. I try to understand what they are thinking, where they came from, and what they want. Whether the action is cooperative or adversarial, I have found it insightful to look at each scene through the lens of each person present.
In my Advent devotional, Preparing for Jesus, I use Jesus’ genealogy as the framework for the book. Since Jesus is the central figure of the entire Bible, I wanted to explore how each of his predecessor’s stories pointed to his arrival and prepared us for him. Some foreshadow an aspect of Jesus’ character and work. Others reveal our desperate need for a savior.
Similarly, my novel, Coin and Dagger, is my attempt to experience Jesus simultaneously through the near-opposite POVs of Matthew the Tax Collector and Simon the Zealot. Yes, it was fun to develop a backstory and life-in-the-white-spaces for each of them, but the real joy for me was trying to view Jesus through each of their eyes.
What were their individual passions, fears, and hang-ups? How did each of them react to Jesus’ teachings, his actions, and his miracles? What barriers did Jesus topple, what misconceptions did he refute, and how did he do it? Most of all, how did Jesus transform two vastly different lives simultaneously?
The Bible is full of people that I want to know better. As I embark on future writing projects, I look forward to walking alongside them for a season, drawing lessons from their lives, and crafting stories around them.
What about you? What interesting and relatable people have you encountered in the pages of the Bible that you want to know better? Leave a comment and let me know!
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