During the recent kick-off ceremony to America Reads the Bible, actress Patricia Heaton captivated the audience with a moment of revelation she experienced while reading the Bible in its entirety for the first time about two years ago. She says the moment was humorous, but it didn’t leave her laughing – it made her weep tears of gratitude to God.
Heaton explained that while she had read portions of scripture before, reading the whole book was a major undertaking, partly because some parts of the Old Testament can be challenging.
Then she pointed to the humanity and humor she found in an excerpt near the end of the Gospel of John. She broke down in tears and couldn’t understand why. That’s when she realized she was crying because she discovered the only possible explanation is that the Bible is true.
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The powerful experience took place while Heaton was reading the final chapter of John, and she noticed the scene where the risen Christ meets Peter on the beach. In that moment, in a demonstration of God’s profound mercy and grace, Jesus gives Peter three opportunities to reverse his previous denial by asking, “Do you love me?”
Each time Peter affirms his love, Jesus responds with the instruction to “feed my sheep,” in a display of God’s restoration and His call to discipleship even after failure.
Then, as Jesus tells Peter he will one day be martyred for the gospel, Heaton noticed something funny. She says, Peter turned to John and said, “What about him?”
The crowd at the Museum of the Bible laughed as Heaton said it looked just like a scene from a TV show she starred in with two rival brothers – “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
“I couldn’t believe it was in there,” she said. “It was like Ray and Robert arguing.” The full humanity of the disciples was on display, and she found it striking that John recorded that specific example of tension between Peter and himself rather than omitting it to protect Peter’s reputation.
“And I started, like, laughing. And then it kind of turned into like, I started weeping. And this is in my kitchen at like 10 o’clock in the morning. And I was like, ‘Lord, what is going on inside me? Why am I weeping?’ And He said, ‘You’re weeping because it’s true.'”
“If you were writing a fictitious story, you would have Jesus coming in on a flaming unicorn, and you would have had Peter and John just flying off with Him. But instead, Jesus is walking down the beach, and Peter’s being impulsive, and John’s being vindictive.”
“John could have said, ‘You know what? I’m going to do Peter a favor. I’m not going to write down that he said that,'” she said as the crowd laughed again.
“But what did John do? It was like this. Uh huh. The whole world for the rest of eternity is going to know that you said, ‘What about him?'” she said, describing the passage of scripture, playfully characterizing John as being “vindictive.”
But she believes that one specific, unflattering exchange was recorded for the world to read and see just how accurate, authentic, and true the Bible is.
“And I was weeping, and I was like, ‘Lord, it’s true. This story is true,” she said.
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And not only that, she points out that if God can use guys like Peter, whom she playfully describes as “an idiot” who chopped off a soldier’s ear, denied Christ, and wanted to know if John would suffer as much as him, then God can use anyone.
“I thought, I’m an idiot too. But He can use me. He can use all us idiots,” she said as the crowd applauded. “Because it’s not us that does it, it’s Him. All we have to do is say ‘hineni… here I am.'”
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WATCH Patricia Heaton Tell Her Story BELOW:
The Bible reading takes place LIVE daily from 9 am to 9 pm ET, and you can stream it for free via Great American Pure Flix. Nearly 500 Christian leaders are on board to read the Bible from cover to cover over the course of 7 days.
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