The Seeker From Punjab Who Burned the Book

Sundar Singh was fifteen years old in 1904 when he tore a Bible apart and burned it page by page in his village courtyard in Punjab, India. The son of a wealthy Sikh family, he despised the Christian missionaries and everything they represented. Yet beneath his rage burned a spiritual hunger that neither the gurdwara nor the Hindu teachers could quiet.

Three days after destroying that Bible, Sundar planned to throw himself beneath a morning train. In the predawn darkness, he cried out one last desperate prayer for truth. He later described a radiant vision of Christ appearing to him and speaking words that broke through every defense: "How long will you persecute me? I died for you."

By sunrise, the boy who had burned Scripture was proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

Sundar spent the next three decades as a barefoot sadhu — a wandering holy man in a saffron robe — crossing the Himalayas with no possessions, carrying the gospel into Tibet, Nepal, and beyond. He traveled thousands of miles to kneel before the King he once rejected.