Narratives of Personal Encounters: Meeting Jesus by Ric Keaster

What were they thinking?

Scripture tells us what these people did. It rarely tells us what was going on inside them.

What did Joseph feel when Mary told him she was pregnant? What did Pontius Pilate think as he reached for the water basin? What did Mary Magdalene believe she was seeing that first morning at the empty tomb?

In Narratives of Personal Encounters: Meeting Jesus, Ric Keaster steps into the sandals of fourteen people who crossed paths with the Son of God — and lets each of them tell their own story.

Meet the Witnesses

• Joseph, husband of Mary, watching his world end and begin again in a single dream
• Zacharias, struck silent at the altar of incense
• Nicodemus, the night-time visitor wrestling with being "born again"
• Simon the Pharisee, squirming at his own table as a woman with a bad reputation washes his guest's feet
• Zaccheus, climbing down out of a sycamore tree to host the Christ for dinner
• The Rich Young Ruler, walking away grieved at what eternal life would cost
• The Samaritan Woman at the Well, meeting the Messiah at high noon
• Jairus, watching his daughter die — and then rise
• Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of an innocent Man
• Barabbas, the guilty one set free in place of the Innocent
• Simon of Cyrene, pressed into service to carry a stranger's cross
• Mary Magdalene, the first to see the empty tomb
• Gamaliel, the Pharisee whose voice of reason kept the apostles alive
• Matthias, the substitute apostle chosen after Judas

Anchored in Scripture

Keaster invents no new characters, no new events, no new dialogue. Every story is anchored in the biblical text. What he adds is a careful, prayerful imagining of the inner life — the fear, the pride, the slow-dawning realization — that the Gospel writers leave unspoken.

The result is a book that doesn't replace Scripture but draws us deeper into it, helping us meet these familiar names as flesh-and-blood people very much like ourselves.

Who This Book Is For

If you've ever read the Gospel accounts a hundred times and still wondered what those people were actually feeling, this book is written for you. It's a fit for personal devotional reading, small-group study, Sunday school classes, and anyone who loves the New Testament and wants to draw closer to its people.

You may have read these accounts a hundred times. You're about to meet the people in them.

About the Author

Ric Keaster writes from a deep love of the New Testament and a long habit of placing himself inside its pages. Narratives of Personal Encounters: Meeting Jesus is the first in a planned series of imaginative yet grounded retellings; a companion volume, Narratives of Fellow Laborers, continues the journey beyond the Gospels into the early church.

Format & Specs

• Paperback, 6 × 9 inches
• Sixteen chapters, including introduction and summary
• ISBN: 978-1-964-80582-5
• Published by Spiritbuilding Publishers