Anyone born into a larger family can find it difficult to establish an individual identity. But for Mark Taylor—who grew up with two brothers and seven sisters—the task might very well have been overwhelming if he hadn’t known from an early age what he wanted (and seemed naturally gifted) to do.

When Mark was in sixth grade and his parents founded Tyndale House Publishers out of their home, he dove right in. The company had just one product in that first year—Living Letters, which was a paraphrase of the New Testament epistles. Mark’s dad, Kenneth Taylor, had created the paraphrase that would eventually be published as The Living Bible…