Todd Burpo Heaven

In Matthew 18:3 Jesus states, “‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”. Due to human nature, it is difficult to have a childlike faith. Todd Burpo addresses this challenge as he recounts his son’s experience of a trip to heaven and back. As the author of the nonfiction book Heaven is for Real, Burpo is not only a practicing Christian, but also the pastor of his local church. In this book, Burpo reveals the series of events that led to Colton’s journey to heaven as well as the events that took place afterward.
Heaven is for Real is about a four year old boy, Colton, who, after a near death experience, visits heaven and lives to tell about it. Todd Burpo, both the
Because Burpo is not a professional author, his writing style reflects that of a regular person narrating a verbal story. Burpo casts off any kind of fancy literary jargon in favor of a more realistic way of storytelling. The author uses uncomplicated phrases, many times quoting his son, who speaks with a simplistic four-year-old tone, to illustrate some of his most important points. Burpo quotes Colton when he says that “it’s going to be okay. The first person you’re going to see is Jesus”(Burpo 119) to clearly get across his point that, simply, the first person an individual sees in heaven is Jesus. This straightforward way of telling and phrasing the story allows the reader to connect with what the author is saying on a personal level, which enhances the idea that heaven is a real place that any individual has access to, just like Colton. In another instance, Burpo compares his own experience as a father to that of God watching Jesus as he was crucified. Burpo justifies that God essentially turned his back on Jesus “because if he had kept on watching, he couldn’t have gone through with it”(149). In this way, the author streamlines what could be a very complicated biblical teaching, to make his story and motives seem more realistic to his audience, as well as more easily understood. For the same purpose, Burpo labels the titles of each chapter with artless phrases and words that sound very childlike. Titles such as “On Heaven Time”(77), “The Throne Room of God”(98) and “No One Is Old In Heaven”(120), also make the story more relatable for any kind of audience young or old. The directness of such phrases not only shows Burpo’s lack of artifice, but also mirrors the innocence with which Colton reveals his experience. The childlike faith that Jesus refers to in