The Bible Burner of Punjab

In 1903, a fourteen-year-old Sikh boy named Sundar Singh tore a Bible apart page by page and burned it in his courtyard in Rampur, India. His mother had recently died, and grief had calcified into rage — rage aimed squarely at the Christian missionaries whose teachings he blamed for disrupting his world. He wanted nothing to do with their Jesus.

Three days after burning that Bible, Sundar planned to end his life by lying across the railway tracks near his village. But first, in the predawn darkness, he cried out one desperate prayer: if God was real, let Him reveal Himself. A light filled his room, and in that light Sundar encountered the living Christ — the very One whose words he had set aflame. He heard the voice of the Lord say, "How long will you persecute me? I died for you."

The parallel to the Damascus road is unmistakable. Saul carried letters of destruction; Sundar carried matches. Saul breathed threats against the church; Sundar burned its scriptures. Both were stopped — not by argument or persuasion, but by the risen Christ stepping directly into their path.

Sundar Singh went on to become one of India's most beloved evangelists, walking barefoot through the Himalayas to share the gospel. The One he tried to destroy became the One he could not stop proclaiming. That is what happens when the Lord speaks your name on whatever road you happen to be traveling.