Ordinary Saints (Bible Hero Series)
What if the heroes of the Bible were not born heroic? Ordinary Saints pairs six of Scripture's best-known figures with six modern Arizona teenagers whose lives, unexpectedly, run along the same road. Eli is dropped into a dry cistern by his own friends. Danny is carried away from a mining town to a prep school as strange as Babylon. Essie keeps a secret that could save her whole village. Ruthie climbs into a grieving woman's truck and does not get out. David walks onto a football field to face a giant. And loud, impulsive Simon steps out of a boat.
Each book weaves the modern story together with its biblical counterpart, and every chapter opens with a King James verse to light the way. The settings are real and dusty and close to home: desert towns, mobile-home parks, pecan orchards, Rim country, Roosevelt Lake. The trouble is real too: mockery, grief, favoritism, cheating, fear, failure, and the quiet courage of doing the next right thing when no one is watching.
What a teen gains is a truer picture of the faith heroes. They were frightened, tempted, and sometimes wrong, and the story was never held up by their strength but by the faithfulness of God. Written with a pastor's warmth and a scholar's care for the text, these stories invite young readers into Scripture without preaching at them. Each book stands alone, so begin anywhere, and meet the ordinary saints.
Each book weaves the modern story together with its biblical counterpart, and every chapter opens with a King James verse to light the way. The settings are real and dusty and close to home: desert towns, mobile-home parks, pecan orchards, Rim country, Roosevelt Lake. The trouble is real too: mockery, grief, favoritism, cheating, fear, failure, and the quiet courage of doing the next right thing when no one is watching.
What a teen gains is a truer picture of the faith heroes. They were frightened, tempted, and sometimes wrong, and the story was never held up by their strength but by the faithfulness of God. Written with a pastor's warmth and a scholar's care for the text, these stories invite young readers into Scripture without preaching at them. Each book stands alone, so begin anywhere, and meet the ordinary saints.
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BOOK 1:
The Coat (Joseph) Eli Navarro has a dream: a way to bring shade and water to the desert neighborhoods where people are suffering the heat. His friends call him "the Dreamer" behind his back, and his father's gift of a coat with his name stitched inside makes it worse. Then comes a camping trip, a dry pit, and a betrayal by the very boys he trusted. Sold out, misjudged and pushed to the edge of hope, Eli must decide what to do with the people who hurt him when the tables finally turn. |
BOOK 2:
The Window (Daniel) Danny Whitlock leaves the copper-mining town of Ajo on a full scholarship to Belcourt Prep, a school of marble, money and perfect scores. His grandfather gives him a compass and a warning about Babylon: don't forget which way home is. But Belcourt's success rests on a secret everyone shares, and everyone benefits from. Danny quietly decides not to, and it costs him. As pressure, flattery and a golden idol rise around him, one boy must find out what it means to keep his window open toward home. |
BOOK 3:
For Such A Time (Esther) Essie Navarro has spent ten years in Space 41 of Las Palmas Mobile Village with her great-uncle Mateo, the night custodian who raised her. When she wins a place as her school district's student ambassador, she is careful to keep quiet about where she lives, because the district has a plan for that land. But when the plan is finally announced, silence will not be an option. Essie must walk into a room where she is not invited, and risk everything for the people who raised her. |
BOOK 4:
Handfuls on Purpose (Ruth) Ruthie Marsh's world washes away in a single desert flood. Her mother, stepfather and his brother are dead, and her sister Opal and Aunt Deb leave for St. George, so only her stepgrandmother Naomi, a grieving and bitter woman, remains. But when Naomi loads a truck to go back to her old family home in Bethel Wells, Ruthie climbs in. In a dead pecan orchard and a strange town, where she has no name and no place, a fifteen-year-old gleaner begins to learn what it means to be gathered in by the hand of God. |
BOOK 5:
Five Smooth Stones (David) David Ramsey is the youngest of eight boys, the one sent to watch the sheep while his brothers play football. He carries his grandfather's sling, his mother's guitar, and the memory of a brown bottle of oil that Pastor Sam once poured over his head. When a 6-foot-9, 320-pound lineman taunts the whole town and no one will answer, David is the last person anyone expects to. But the giant is only the beginning. The harder test is what to do when the coach who took you in turns on you. |
BOOK 6:
Upon This Rock (Peter) Simon Jonas is loud, quick, big-hearted, and always the first one to speak. When a quiet dock carpenter named Amos Halloran asks him to leave his empty fishing boat, Simon follows without a second thought. He walks on water, he says the right thing, and he makes a grand promise: "If everyone else runs, I won't." Then the night comes when he does. This is a story about a rash young man who fails, and the Savior who won't let his failure be the last word. |