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THE PRAYER OF JABEZ: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life
Bruce H. Wilkinson
Multnomah, 96 pages, $9.99 THE SECRETS OF THE VINE: Breaking Through to Abundance
Bruce H. Wilkinson
Multnomah, 128 pages, $9.99

A book that begins with ten names ("Adam, Seth, Enoch, Kenan") and continues thusly, with rarely a verb, adverb, or adjective for nine chapters (all the way to "Obadiah and Hanan") doesn't appear to be rich homiletical ground. It causes one to doubt Paul's affirmation that all Scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness.

It is to Bruce Wilkinson's credit to have discerned something God-inspired in a couple of formerly obscure sentences in the first nine mind-numbing chapters of 1 Chronicles. His The Prayer of Jabez has turned out to be not only an exegetical coup but also a spiritual inspiration to millions.

Lest this sound like clichéd sell-copy: The Prayer of Jabez has sold 3 to 4 million copies (and the number is rising as you read this). And this isn't one of those books people buy but don't read; it is no War and Peace. The little hardback is paperback-small and tract-thin, and a bargain to boot: it lists at $9.99, but many stores have offered it at half price. Pastors are buying it by the carton and giving it away to their congregations: Pete Briscoe, senior pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas, ordered 4,000 copies of the book and audiotape to give to every family for the church's 25th anniversary.

The book's popularity cannot be chalked up to clever marketing. Briscoe's purchase alone would have bought 20 percent of the first print run. Neither was the second run a bold step of Jabez faith: a mere 70,000. Multnomah finally got the picture and started printing in the millions, but by then the publisher was sucking wind to keep up with a phenomenon.

Why one book, and not another seemingly like it, rockets to the top of the charts—and this one has been at the pinnacle of not only Christian Bookseller Association charts but also those of Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and The New York Times—is ultimately a mystery. But, avoiding the cynicism that assumes the masses who buy such books are easily duped by formulaic spirituality, one can hazard an educated guess about the book's success: Content.

The book is a homiletical exposition of the obscure prayer of the obscure Jabez, who is described only as an "honorable man" who received a positive answer to his prayer: "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain" (4:10, NIV). Some discouraged interpreters have likened this prayer to psalms that entreat God to dash the heads of Babylonian babies against the rocks, for the plain meaning seems to be that Jabez is asking for military victory and increased land holdings. Thus one exegete writes, "Jabez's prayer was crude and selfish. His conscience was not troubled by the thought that others would suffer if he gained his wishes. But ours should be."

Author Wilkinson, while acknowledging the original setting, manages to transcend it: "The primary interpretation of the verse is to enlarge your business," he said in one of many interviews he's been asked to give recently. "We've applied it to ministry in the broader sense that every believer is called into serving God and others."

Wilkinson, who has been praying the prayer daily since 1972, when he was a senior at Dallas Theological Seminary, has been preaching its message at conferences for years. He's honed it into a four-point sermon:

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June 11 2001, Vol. 45, No. 8