Breakfast on the Beach: The Development of Simon Peter

Van de r Bijl writ e s in his preface that when first reading the New Testament he was baffled by the actions and reactions of the biblical characters because they lived in a time and place so different from his native Namibian context. Later he was able to fill in the voids with notes from study Bibles, but he was frustrated that those details were not in the text, in the flow of the story. While teaching in Ethiopia and later serving in South Africa , Van der Bijl began to learn how to contextualize the Gospel narrative and its Second Temple Period context. W hile serving with a discipleship ministry in greater Africa, he began to use Simon Peter as an example of how we develop as disciples of Jesus the Messiah. Then he traveled to Israel, where walking the land made the Bible pop into three dimensions. So, in Breakfast , we have the fruit of Van der Bijl’s own development as a disciple and teacher.   

The author achieves his stated goal of not sounding like a commentary. The book reads like a novel but one is certainly learning along the way. The “commentary” is built into the conversations the disciples have as they try to figure out what Jesus is saying. In van de r Bijl’s telling, Simon’s brother Andrew is better versed in the Hebrew Scriptur es and o ften helps Simon along. Sometimes one wonders wh y van der Bijl made a certain creative c hoice, and usually there is a footnote to explain with a Bible reference, a bit of Jewis h background , or an admission of educated conjecture. I so appreciate that Bible referenc es are included throughout but that they are not paren theticals in the t ext. Then o ne ha s the choice to read the story through as one would a novel or to slow down and do a Bib le study.