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Books take you places.
Want to visit Victorian England? Pick up a copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens or The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. How about a trip through Colonial America? Try David McCullough’s 1776 or Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.
Through the wonder of writing, you can be teleported to a different location and time than your own. It’s the power of print, the enchantment of written expression. At the speed of light, words effortlessly zip across both miles and time. I can be writing this sentence in the state of Delaware in July 2026, and instantly you are reading it in your time and place. Books have the power to transport you far away.
And biographies take you further—not only to another world but into another life. Here are three reasons to read biographies.
1. The best biographies introduce you to fascinating people you’ll never meet
Biographies often tell the stories of amazing people who navigated extraordinary situations. Yet the subjects of biographies are flesh and blood. They faced all sorts of real-life situations and people. For starters, they faced annoyances. We see a minor example of this in the life of C. S. Lewis. Four years before he married Joy Davidman Gresham, C. S. Lewis spent Christmas holiday around her and found that she seemed to talk from dawn to dark.
These people also knew the sting of broken relationships. As a teenager, John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim’s Progress) left home to fight in the first English Civil War—on the side of Parliament; his father was on the side of the king.
And they were real-life people who knew the joy of a good joke. After Eric Liddell won Olympic gold in the 400-meter race in Paris in 1924, he was instantly famous. So once, upon seeing a gathering of reporters waiting for him on a train platform, he asked to borrow a porter’s cap. In this disguise, he slipped past the reporters while carrying a load of luggage.
In meeting famous and fascinating people in biographies, you’ll also see that they’re ordinary men and women. They’re people, like you, who got up in the morning, ate breakfast, talked to their family, made mistakes, got sick, suffered, laughed, prayed, endured and overcame.
Through the pages of biographies, we not only encounter real-life people; we’re also shaped by them.
2. Biographies have the God-intended power to change and help us
This transforming power of example is what our Lord intended. Hebrews 13:7 instructs us to “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Of course, there’s only one perfect example: our Lord Jesus Christ. His perfections never falter or dim. As the next verse states, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
The apostle Paul knew this balanced, both/and approach. He commends the Thessalonian believers because they had “become imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). Not only did they conform their lives to Christ, whom they had never physically met, they also had a living, breathing example of Christlikeness in Paul and his ministry companions.
Yet Paul’s words of commendation were not a one-time occurrence. Writing to the same group of believers, Paul says, “You yourselves know how you ought to imitate us” (2 Thessalonians 3:7). To Paul, following the example of other godly Christians isn’t optional. Imitating Christlike examples is not just for some; it’s for all who follow Christ. This wasn’t only for the new believers in Thessalonica.
This kind of instruction, to follow the good example of other believers, arises in Paul’s letters to other churches too. Twice he gives this command to the Philippian believers.
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. (Philippians 3:17)
What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:9)
And when writing to the church at Corinth, Paul again repeats this command to imitate the behavior of other believers.
I urge you, then, be imitators of me. (1 Corinthians 4:16)
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
This means that it’s possible to be a true Christian, following Jesus faithfully and honoring Him supremely, while also recognizing the helpful examples we find in fellow, fallen human beings. This two-fold expectation is not only realistic, it’s also required.
3. Reading biographies can become a way to obey God’s Word
Bible-believing followers of Christ do not neglect to recall, study and follow the good example of other believers. According to Hebrews 13:7, this is nothing less than commanded: remember … consider … imitate.
But doesn’t this kind of imitation elevate humans too highly? Wouldn’t this approach minimize the authority of God’s Word? Don’t we just need to obey the Bible and live like Jesus?
Foundationally, Christians are Bible people. We affirm the inspiration and authority of God’s written revelation. From every word of the original manuscripts to the fullness of the entire canon, from the micro level to the macro level, every bit is God’s revealed Word for us.
Human examples are flawed. And biographies are not inspired. The examples of others are not ultimate; Jesus is. And Scripture is our final authority.
Yet if we are to obey God’s Word, we must follow all its commands. And that includes the instructions to imitate godly human examples. Obeying God’s Word requires us to observe and imitate the flawed lives of those who went before us. This obedience isn’t easy, but there is gold amidst the gravel.
Our responsibility is to recall the facts, sift the data and weigh the worth of the lives we are considering. This harmonizes with more of Paul’s instructions to the believers in Thessalonica. When discussing the topic of people “prophesying” in the church, Paul advocates a reaction that is receptive yet discerning. He says, “Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21–22).
We must have open hearts to receive the helpful example of others. At the same time, we must also have open eyes to evaluate the less-than-helpful parts of the same people. To do less is less than obedience. Biographies are useful ways to see and sift and strive to emulate the example of people we’ve never met.
