Heaven is for real. Absolutely true. But is this story for real? Did Colton Burpo really go to Heaven and meet Jesus, his great grandfather, and his sister who died in a miscarriage? Does the painting made by a girl who has had visions from God and confirmed by Colton to be accurate really depict the likeness of the second person of the Trinity? There were a couple of things in his account that troubled me, but I think you will be doing yourself a disservice not to pick this book up at your library or bookstore, read it for yourself, and make your own judgment. Be sure to click on the images for more information on the Burpos and on the girl behind the painting.
There is a man at our church who keeps talking about this book. Even though I haven’t read it, I have to admit that I’m skeptical. Not sure if this is something I will check out after I finish the Hunger Games trilogy or not…
I can only hope that this book is doing more to spread the Good News rather than to hurt.
It might help to know the author, Todd Burpo, is a pastor. Short of events being outright lies made by him, everything seems to be on the up and up. The troubles I mentioned are actually kind of small.
I got the fact that he is a pastor from the video but it does sound interesting.
An interesting thing about the painting. Todd had a sort of game going with Colton about paintings of Jesus. He would ask Colton what was wrong with each painting they encountered and Colton would tell him. After coming out with this story to his congregation one of them mentioned this painting and Todd looked it up. He asked the usual question of Colton and this time he quietly looked at it for a bit and finally said something like (I don’t remember the exact words in the book) “Dad, this one’s right.”
I have trouble believing that someone would outright lie about this; especially someone that calls themselves a Christian, let alone a pastor.
What troubles me is the passage I came across the other night – John 3:13 says:
“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.”
I’ll have to look that one up. Thanks.