INCLUDES 40 PAGES ABOUT THE MAKING OF WISDOM HUNTER
 
For twenty-two years, from 1976 to 1998, I lived in Norway and Germany as a church planter working in international communities with people from more than seventy-five different nations. During that same period I also wrote three novels dealing with the subjects of spiritual abuse, vengeance, and betrayal. The first of those novels, Wisdom Hunter, became a bestseller.

It’s possible that you are reading this book because of Wisdom Hunter. If this is the case, and you are already a fan, then it might interest you to know that Wisdom Hunter was not born out of a long-held ambition to write a best-selling novel. Rather, it was born out of a therapeutic need to put into writing the lessons I was learning as a young legalistic missionary. To make it simple; it was born out of pain—a lot of pain. My following two novels Jordan’s Crossing and Brotherhood Of Betrayal were also born out of pain, pain so intense and consuming that it nearly highjacked my will to live.

So why do I introduce “46 Stones” with this segment of my life story? Because during the personal battles that preempted my novels I automatically leaned on religiously accepted standards (notions, tendencies, and beliefs) for strength and stability. Frightfully, however, I began to see that many of those standards, when leaned on, were
actually stifling, misleading, and even hurtful. Some of those standards had been shared purposely with me in the context of teacher/student relationships. Others had been modeled indirectly, but persistently, through the traditions of my denomination. But as passed-down examples, these standards proved to be unreliable. Pushed to extreme limits of desperation, I was thus provoked—for the sake of survival—to cast those standards aside and search instead for trustworthy standards that would salvage my life.

I strongly suspect that many of those old standards that failed me have failed you as well. I know that I personally hear testimonies to this effect all the time. Perhaps it is time, therefore, for the church worldwide—in the spirit of Ecclesiastes 3:5—“to throw away some stones;” in this case, the faulty foundation stones, manmade stones, and legalistic stones that have been stumbling blocks in the evangelical church for way too long. So, over the course of the next 46 chapters, let’s do just that—toss a few stones. These forty-six stones are simply a compilation of notions, tendencies, and beliefs that I am “calling out” one by one. Each chapter stands alone. The book can, therefore, be used as a resource for Bible studies, a devotional, a conversation starter for home groups, a teaching aid for discipleship-making, or a
go-to book for personal reflection.

At the end of the book I will share with you the portion of my life’s journey that gave birth to Wisdom Hunter, my first novel. You will then better understand why I feel compelled to rise up and encourage us to actively throw away these old stones.