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WORK TITLE: Peter
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Vancouver
STATE: WA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
Unable to select heading in LOC
PERSONAL
Married; husband’s name Martin.
EDUCATION:A.A., B.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, ordained minister. Writer.
RELIGION: ChristianWRITINGS
Blogger at Leah’s Heart Ministries.
SIDELIGHTS
Jacquie Hoekstra, a minister in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, writes on Christian themes. Faith has played an important role in most of her adult life. She grew up in a religious home, but when she was in her teens, problems in her family led her to consider suicide. She continued to have suicidal thoughts for several years, and when she was twenty-five, she was on the verge of carrying through. At that time, however, she says he heard Jesus Christ speaking to her, saying, “Give me another chance.” She decided to do so, and she made a commitment to Christ at a Billy Graham crusade. She earned a bachelor’s degree in theology and became active in church, and in 2008 she became an ordained minister. Her books include This Servant’s Hands, a novel about a young man’s encounter with the apostle Peter, and Peter: A Life Transformed, a study of what the Bible relates about the apostle himself.
Peter, a fisherman before he became a follower of Christ, is considered perhaps the most important of the twelve apostles, with Jesus having designated him the “rock” upon which the Christian church would be built. He also is a study in redemption, as shortly before Christ’s crucifixion, Peter denied knowing him, but he was forgiven and regained his faith. “Peter is very much like any one of us,” Hoekstra writes in Peter. “He was lost and then he was found. He proclaimed Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Messiah, and then he began a walk with Jesus that transformed him from the very core of his being,” This transformation, she explains, took him “from fisherman to fisher of men, from boastful self-made man to devoted servant of Jesus Christ.” Hoekstra examines the four Gospels say about Peter, but directs her audience to study these texts before reading her own. She sees Peter as one of the most fully realized figures depicted in the New Testament. Readers can easily relate to him, she writes, as he experienced grave doubts about his faith and overcame them. “Jesus taught him there is no end to forgiveness for a disciple of Christ,” she says.
Hoekstra’s study is a “passionate, engaging book,” remarked a Kirkus Reviews contributor. She shows that Peter is “the sympathetic human anchor for the Christ story,” as his “questions, affirmations, and even misunderstandings give Jesus the opportunity to clarify his doctrine;” the critic continued, noting that she “smoothly and insightfully” uses Peter’s story “to shine a light on the reader’s personal faith.” Audiences will find the book “richly rewarding,” the critic concluded.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, Februart 15, 2018, review of Peter: A Life Transformed.
Jacquie Hoekstra is gifted with an ability to study scripture from many different angles, and helps readers see the broader picture and bring them to a deeper level of understanding. Her diligence to research history and background helps her readers come to a fuller understand of scripture and a deeper relationship with Jesus. She has walked closely with the Lord for over twenty-five years, but it wasn’t always that way.
Jacquie was seven years old when she had her first suicidal thought. She was raised in a religious home and had a personal relationship with Jesus from a young age, but it was a relationship which was not mentored or discipled. In her teen years she experienced a depth of turmoil in her family life which spiraled her into a season of self-medication and a life of chaos.
Jacquie continued to experience suicidal thoughts throughout her teen years and into her mid-twenties. She kept ending up at the same dead end no matter how she tried to change her life. She decided to end it once and for all when she was twenty-five. Just as she was about to fulfill the dark desire, the very sweet presence of the Lord she had known as a small child entered the room.
“Give Me another chance” she clearly heard Jesus say to her. She asked Him to send someone to show her the way and committed to do the right things she knew at the time. Within a few weeks she was at a Billy Graham Crusade where she accepted salvation and gave her heart fully and completely to the Lord.
In the years since that time, Jacquie has passionately sought a relationship with Jesus. She returned to school and earned an AA degree in Biblical studies and a BA in Theology. She has served in her home church in many different capacities, most prominently in youth group and women’s ministries. She was ordained in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 2008. After twenty-five years of growing in grace and serving, she feels she is just getting started. Jacquie’s passions are the Word of God and discipleship.
Jacquie lives in Vancouver, Washington with her husband, Martin. They are empty-nesters who enjoy the outdoors in the great northwest, making their yard a bird sanctuary filled with floral colors. Besides time in the Word, Jacquie enjoys photography, antiquing, time spent with friends over a good cup of coffee, or sitting in the yard with the birds and a good book.
Quoted in Sidelights: “passionate, engaging book,” “the sympathetic human anchor for the Christ story,” “questions, affirmations, and even misunderstandings give Jesus the opportunity to clarify his doctrine;” “smoothly and insightfully” “to shine a light on the reader’s personal faith.” “richly rewarding,”
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Hoekstra, Jacquie: PETER
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Hoekstra, Jacquie PETER Westbow Press (Indie Nonfiction) $23.95 9, 15 ISBN: 978-1-5127-9810-4
An inspirational journey that draws upon the story of a key apostle.
This new book by Hoekstra (This Servant's Hands, 2016) takes a close look at the New Testament figure
Simon Peter, a fisherman from Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee who was called to service by Jesus, came
to be the "rock" on which Jesus would build his mission, denied him three times, wept over his own
cowardice, and regained the courage of his faith. The central insight of Hoekstra's passionate, engaging
book is that Peter is not only one of the most dramatically developed characters in the New Testament, but
also the sympathetic human anchor for the Christ story. Time and again in the Gospels, Peter's questions,
affirmations, and even misunderstandings give Jesus the opportunity to clarify his doctrine; Peter himself,
Hoekstra notes, very often serves as a stand-in for the reader. The author weaves together the various
versions of the Peter story in the four Gospels and expounds upon the underlying meanings of the various
encounters; she consistently connects the stories to a bit of specific guidance for her target Christian
audience: "There is a time when we know about Jesus; there is a time when we might hear some of Jesus's
teachings; and there is a time when Jesus calls us to leave all and follow Him," she writes. "Have you
answered the call to follow Jesus as one of His disciples? If not, why not?" Hoekstra understands the value
of using Peter's story as a metaphor for the reader's spiritual journey, and she smoothly and insightfully uses
the tale to shine a light on the reader's personal faith. Peter doubted Jesus as deeply as it was possible to do,
and, as Hoekstra writes, "Jesus taught him there is no end to forgiveness for a disciple of Christ." Readers
will likely find all of this analysis to be richly rewarding.
An engaging Peter-focused guidebook to deeper Christian understanding.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Hoekstra, Jacquie: PETER." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527247934/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0e804a8d.
Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527247934