The Bible is full of fascinating stories, but I'm afraid we often become so entranced with the stories that we lose track of the characters. The people in the Bible were just regular people like you and me. They had faults, fears and failures. But I don't believe their existence in the Scriptures is an accident. In fact, I'm sure there were many people Jesus encountered in His ministry that are never mentioned in the Bible. Were they unimportant? No, I don't think that's the case. The Bible simply isn't big enough to contain everything. Some things had to be left out. But I believe there is a purpose for everything that was put in.

As far as the people are concerned, I think we are told their stories so that we can learn from them. We can see what they did right and what they did wrong. Now before I go any further, let me say that our true role model is Christ. He is the perfect example, and you can't go wrong by following His example. But to our more sensible side that argues, "Yea, but Christ was God. Of course, He didn't mess up. But I'm just a human. How can I possibly live up to that kind of standard," God gave us examples. For the next few days, we're going to look at a few of those examples--people who were not perfect, but who set a good example of what a believer should be.

Some of these people walked with Christ. Some of them walked away from Him. But all of them have a story to tell. And from each of them, we can learn some vital steps to becoming the believers we long to be. No, we're not perfect, and we never will be. But we are capable of being more than we are. We have the ability to learn and make improvements based on that knowledge. And that is the purpose for this series. Lord willing, by the end, we will each have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Christian. . . and what it might require of us.