Our book will introduce you to a troubled man who came to Jesus by night. His name: Nicodemus. After years of trying, it became evident that he could not render perfect obedience. It was as if he reached out to Jesus saying, “I'm stuck in my ways and traditions. I still harbor sin in my heart. It would be easier for me to re-enter my mother's womb a second time than for me to genuinely change.” The world shares this reality and tries to salve its wounds, too often, in very destructive ways. The Rolling Stones recorded (1997) a song entitled Saint of Me. The heartache in it is palpable. Saint Paul the persecutor Was a cruel and sinful man Jesus hit him with a blinding light Then his life began * * * And could you stand the torture And could you stand the pain Could you put your faith in Jesus When you're burning in the flames And I do believe in miracles And I want to save my soul And I know that I'm a sinner I'm gonna die here in the cold I said yes, I said yeah I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah; You'll never make a saint of me. Where does the power to change come from? This question — made plain by Nicodemus and lamented by the Stones — has but one answer and this book provides it. We believe that God will one day abolish the hopelessness and despair these words portray. After accomplishing this, God will prove that He is more than fair to every person. The Gospel, with its message of grace and peace, will finally be seen for what it is: God's ultimate right to restore all mankind. We give you, the reader, solid reasons for believing all of these assertions.

During the 1950s, a seven-year-old boy from a church-going family in a Texas suburb has a night-time vision of Jesus. In the morning he tells his parents about it. They immediately call the minister, who visits that very day. Best keep it quiet, the grown-ups all agree. So Jim Strahan nurtured his experience, grew in his faith, and Christian character, but always wondered Why me? What was he supposed to do? Jim didn't go to seminary or start a TV ministry. He began a study of Scripture and church history focused on the ultimate destinies of humankind--concluding that the predominant beliefs of the day were wrong. What he saw in the pages of Scripture, and in the writings of many church fathers, convinced Jim that Jesus will at long last save every person who ever lived on earth. Part autobiography, part advocacy, The Brightness Around Him is a compelling tale of walking by faith, processing a transformative spiritual experience, and fitting in at churches that don't want to hear about your deepest-held biblical belief. In the end it's about how God's love will one day win it all.

Jim Strahan: In this book, I will demonstrate how the writings of Moses, John, and Paul, speak to three resurrections, and I will connect them to Paul’s experience when he was caught up to the third heaven. I will also present twenty-one other scriptural references that reveal how this underlying pattern of “threes” spans from Genesis to Revelation. Dr. David Konstan, professor of Classics at NYU following three decades at Brown: You know that what you have to say is important, and you invite your reader to carry on a dialogue. You defend the idea of a third resurrection with due citation of texts, and make a very strong case for it. Boyd Purcell, PHD: I am highly impressed with Jim Strahan’s ability to logically and systematically analyze The Holy Bible in depth, from historical, mathematical, and scientific perspectives. Even if readers do not agree with this author on the three resurrections and the third heaven, they can learn a lot by carefully reading and studying this book, seeing that the Bible is even more symbolic than what they may have ever heard or thought. Michael Riley, Electrical Engineer, and co-author of “Is God Fair? What about Gandhi?”: To the prospective reader, I would like to encourage you to drink deeply from the ideas and arguments in Jim’s book, for you have likely never heard or seen them before–a merging of Scriptures into a belief that today’s Christianity in general, not only does not teach, but likely has never even considered. The number three appears predominantly throughout Scripture. In this amazing book, you will learn of a novel use of this number that explains Paul’s use of the phrase, “each man in his own order.” Intrigued? Well, the answer this book gives is a solid and meaningful explanation of it. And there is more, much more. May you enjoy the exploration.

No two figures could seem further removed than Mohandas K. Gandhi and Osama bin Laden. Gandhi advocated an inclusive religious perspective, and believed that the highest ideals in religion led to the path of absolute nonviolence. In contrast, Bin Laden has concocted a militant and exclusive interpretation of Islam, and tried to justify some of the most barbarous acts of terrorism witnessed at the turn of the century. Can both men be equally 'religious' figures? As leaders of movements of political protest, do they have any points of similarity? Moreover, how can the religious philosophy of nonviolence respond to its nemesis, which takes life so easily and casually? These and other important questions are explored in this work that examines the lives and ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Osama bin Laden, as well as that of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a refreshing, nonviolent representative of Islam.