How Bibles Made It To the Moon
The Spiritual Experiences of Some Apollo Astronauts and Results of a Prayer Network
I recently read the fascinating book, The Apostles of Apollo: The Journey of the Bible to the Moon and the Untold Stories of America’s Race into Space
This is a fascinating story of the Apollo lunar expeditions, revealing a lot of information on the behind the scenes happenings at NASA. Even though I was a young adult at the time, I did not realize until reading this how many Apollo missions there were and how dangerous they were. The commitment of the astronauts was amazing. Some lost their lives, and others came close to losing theirs.
The network of people around the world praying for the Apollo missions was incredible. The prayer network was formed by an engineer at NASA who was a former missionary as well as a scientist, John Stout. He was a volunteer chaplain at NASA, and in getting to know the astronauts, discovered where they were spiritually. Some of them were men of faith in Jesus. And some of them experienced spiritual experiences based upon seeing the earth and the moon from the perspective of space. At least one came to life changing faith in Christ due to his experience in space.
One of the Apollo astronauts who died with two others was a committed Christian, and he had shared his dream of taking a Bible to the moon. Certain attempts to fulfill his dream failed, but finally it was accomplished with many, many Bibles in microfilm form making it to the moon. Most of these Bibles returned to the earth and were given to various people who supported this accomplishment.
The attempts to get a Bible to the moon was met with great opposition with both a lawsuit and spiritually through Satan’s attempt to thwart the plan. But as thousands prayed, God moved, and it happened. The very scary story of Apollo 13 is included in the book – a time when it was doubtful that the three astronauts would make it back to earth alive. An explosion kept them from landing on the moon, and therefore a Bible was not delivered. But as people the world over prayed, miracles happened that brought them safely back to earth. That story alone made it worth reading the book!
The book reminded me that God has a way of intervening in the plans of people, especially when people are praying. And He has a way of revealing Himself to unbelievers as well. It is not a devotional book, but certainly its story leads us to marvel at God’s creation and at His work in and through people.
Although I didn’t agree completely with the author’s point of view, I enjoyed reading this. If you enjoy seeing how history reveals the hand of God at work, you’ll enjoy reading this as well.
Isn’t this an awesome thought? If astronauts return to certain previous landing sites on the moon in the future, they could find Bibles!
