Yeah, He’s a Hero of Mine

If you’re keeping score at home, you know that over the last three days we’ve thought together about Eugene Peterson, who’s perhaps most famous for The Message Bible.

And his son’s delightful observation that he only really had one sermon.

Again, I hand the mic to friends who are with The Gospel Coalition —

Christ plays in ten thousand places, so Peterson tried to preach and write in ten thousand ways.

He played as he worked, with the joy of a Christ-soaked imagination.

And, through it all, he pointed to the one sermon behind all the books and essays and messages and translations and memoirs: “Here he is! God’s Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I’ve been talking about” (John 1:29, The Message).

The exclamation points weren’t in the original Greek, of course. That was Peterson’s imagination at work and at play. The punctuation was there to point us to what was there in the words of John: awe in the presence of Jesus.

— Yeah, Gene was a hero of mine. It started when I was in my first appointment and drank from his early book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Yeah, he’s a hero of mine. In no small part because of to Whom he faithfully pointed us.

Who are some of yours? I’d love to hear, anytime, so hit me up any of our usual ways these days.

See you back here tomorrow!