I discovered books late in life. Our home, like others in our neighborhood, was not literary, the margin of survival a bit too narrow for book acquisition. I recall my astonishment when I enrolled in Bible college and discovered the other students' shelves of books. I couldn't believe they owned them all. At eighteen years old, a personal library had never been part of my life. I hadn't realized the loss.

The only exception was a book I came across shortly after my conversion at age sixteen: the Book of Ephesians. It was my first exposure to God's family planning and the first time I felt the exhilaration that comes from knowing I had been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. What joy for a teenager trying to find himself in a society where already he felt alien.

Bible college exposed me to some theology, most of it eminently forgettable. What impressed me most was a small volume (the title escapes me) which told the stories of "famous" Christians from William Carey onward ...