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The Witnesses
For five books they are strangers, brushing past one another at the edges of the same afternoon — a thief in a cell, a soldier on a hill, a freed man on a stone pavement, two councillors keeping very quiet, a group of women standing at a distance. None of them knows about the others.
In the sixth book, grace does the harder thing. It gathers them.
Here is every one of them: who they were, what the Bible actually says about them, the world they moved in, and the thread that ties them to all the rest.
The omnibus · all six & the prequel
I · The thief who was told today
born Judah
The man who wasted his whole life, had nothing left in his nailed hands, asked to be remembered — and was told today.
Born Judah under a carved pomegranate, he borrowed a name, wasted a life, and in its last hour turned his head toward the middle cross and asked to be remembered.
Named by tradition · Backstory original
II · The soldier who made sure
born Aziz
The soldier who put a spear in a dead man’s side to be sure of the death — and was undone by the sureness.
A potter’s son unmade by Rome and given a spear. On a hill outside Jerusalem he made sure of a death — and heard himself say a thing no soldier of Rome should ever say.
Named by tradition · Backstory original
III · The guilty man set free
The guilty man who stood on the pavement and watched his own cross given away to somebody else.
A landholder’s son ruined by a ledger, hardened into a rebel, waiting in a cell for a cross built for him — when a crowd outside chose a name. His.
In Scripture · Backstory original
IV · The councillors
Two rich, careful men who found their nerve at the exact moment it could no longer do any good — and became the witnesses nobody could argue with.
Two rich, careful men — one who never said the wrong thing, one who could untie any knot — who found their nerve at the moment it could no longer do any good.
Both in Scripture · Private lives imagined
V · The first to see
& the women
The first person on earth to see it, and the last person anyone was legally required to believe.
Healed, disbelieved, and first. She stood at a distance when the men ran, and before dawn on the third morning walked into the most important morning in the history of the world.
In Scripture · one title from tradition · Inner life imagined
VI · The widow who kept the door
The widow who kept the lamp lit and the door open for thirty years, and around whose table the whole scattered family finally gathered.
A carpenter’s widow from the northern hills, who kept a lamp lit and a door open for thirty years — and around whose table the whole scattered family finally gathered.
Original to the series
And more
Not every life in these books gets a volume of its own. Some of them turn the whole thing anyway.
Which is harder to believe — that grace would reach the worst person you can think of, or that it would then seat you at the same table as them?
Search the witnesses, the books, the places on the map, the Scriptures, the articles and the shop.
Demo shop · sample prices
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The Open Door is the story of a young carpenter who hung a door and left it open, and a girl who learned a blessing in the dark. It’s where the whole series begins — and it’s free.