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.

Like the Magi who followed a strange light from the East across dangerous terrain, Sundar followed a radiance that interrupted his darkness. And like those ancient seekers, once he found the Christ, he could never go back the way he came. His whole life became an offering — gold, frankincense, and myrrh poured out on an endless road.