Bryan Bishop - Boundless: What Global Expressions of Faith Teach Us about Following Jesus

My head was spinning. I had recently made two trips to Asia. Now, before a third Asian journey, I was squeezing in a vacation. It was 2007, and my thirteen-year-old son and I were blasting our way past semitrailer trucks, trying to hit Iowa by dinnertime. My son had disappeared in the backseat of our minivan, wrapped in a blanket, absorbed in a video game. I had time to think. I watched as the high plains made way for fields of corn. Overhead, a vast prairie sky dotted with clouds stretched out to the horizon.

Very different scenes were tumbling through my brain. I thought of the people Id seen and places Id been. I remembered an odd procession of women who passed me on a narrow street in India. There were about seven of them, wearing neon-bright saris of orange, pink, or green. The gray-haired woman in front pounded on two drums that hung around her neck. I paused at the doorway to an ashram as they walked by me. Then I entered the building. Inside the tall stone structure I met a bearded man dressed in an orange robe. He told me that he followed Jesus as a Hindu sannyasi, one who has renounced worldly pursuits. Thats the reason he wore the saffron color. He explained how he had dedicated himself to a celibate life of seeking God and mentoring others.

I thought of the gold, red, and green carved dragon that twisted and turned along the steps that led up to a temple in Thailand and remembered my conversations with the ex-monk, then clad in a T-shirt and jeans, walking up the steps in front of me. There were so many fascinating people. A handsome young African man came to mind. Dressed in a long golden shirt, he stopped to chat with me at a Thailand conference. He told me about his Muslim childhood in an East African village.

I realized there was something similar between these people. For one thing, many of them avoided the term Christian. In one way or another, these believers called themselves Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or Native Americans who followed Jesus.

They didnt emphasize the labels, though, and thats what really got me thinking as I drove past rolls of hay sitting on fields of stubble. The labels were just words on the surface. Deeper down, they held beliefs about the Bible and what it tells us to do and doesnt tell us to do. I realized I had heard people saying similar things about the Bible but in different ways. I also had observed some common characteristics in the behavior of the people I had met.

What are those biblical foundations, I wondered? More than that, if those principles come from the Bible, then what might these insights mean for anyone, from any culture? How can these movements provide hope even to people like Craig in Colorado or my own son now dozing in the backseat?

Night was falling when we finally arrived at our hotel in Iowa. Staggering out of the van and dropping our luggage in our room, we headed straight for the indoor pool. My son came to life as he leaped into the water. He swam under my legs and raced me from one side of the tiny pool to the other. Later, after showers, my son climbed into bed. I turned off the light but didnt go to sleep myself. I stood by the sink in the bathroom.

I lingered there, because everything was coming together in my head. I realized several streams ran underneath all the geography Id covered. I jotted down a list of biblical ideas that I had heard everywhere I traveled. As I stared at what Id written in the dim light, I realized there were four main principles.

In the years that followed, I have basically left that list intact. My later travels only confirmed what I perceived there in that Iowa hotel room.