The Bible is filled with role models, or examples of how we should live. We also see how not to live. Jesus Christ is the only perfect role model, but God has given us many life stories in the Bible.

Biographies also offer a great application of Proverbs 13:20: “He who walks with the wise grows wise.”

A walk with John Knox in 16th Century Scotland shows how Christ prepared a man for Scotland’s reformation, with times of exile in Geneva and England. God uses these times for our preparation.

A walk with Alexander Henderson in 17th Century Scotland shows how a very capable pastor and scholar could dedicate his gifts to Christ’s building of His church. With relational maturity from growing in Christ, he became the rare Christian who could gain the confidence and respect of King Charles I even as he led the growing group of Covenanters in Scotland.

A walk with William Symington in 18th and 19th Century Scotland gives an example of a pastor and scholar who was used in Christ’s building of His church and in writing Messiah the Prince, which is still an excellent political science textbook.

A walk with Work Carithers in 19th and 20th Century Oklahoma shows how an RP missionary helped many Indians come to salvation and growth in Christ, as told in the excellent story by Faith Martin and Charles McBurney in The White Chief of Cache Creek.

These people dedicated their natural strengths to God’s service, and God even worked through their weaknesses. Their successes and weaknesses give us hope that God can use the rest of us for His kingdom advancement. Good biography offers us a vision of how God has worked across the centuries. He can do so with us as well.

I use role model instead of hero because the word hero seems to suggest a one-sided emphasis on a person’s virtues. Heroes or role models, we put our trust only in Christ and try to see the lessons even in the failures as well as the successes of the lives of other people. Psalm 146:3 says, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save.” A Liberian friend, Second (Indianapolis, Ind.) RPC ruling elder Donald Cassell, suggests that some people have had heroic moments through Christ, even though they have had shortcomings and failures. Jesus is our perfect hero. And we also gain inspiration from role models who have walked before us.