Opening the Word of God With Our Friends

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb.4:12).

What would be the sociological result if every family in our community opened the Word of God together every night and let it speak into their lives? What would happen if every household shut off the TV and phones from 7-8pm and just let the Word of God speak into the room? What would we see happen? What would begin to take place in our city? In 10 years I believe we would see upside-down change. We would hardly recognize the place anymore.

Of course this assumes that there are people in every home with sincere hearts who fear the Lord enough to accept what He says. But if we could just imagine the implications for a moment I think we would agree that the results would be astounding. The Word of God is living and active. It cuts and pierces and gets at the deep dirtiness of our hearts. It has the potential to bring about world-wide change because the world-wide problem is the dirtiness of our hearts. And if instead of all the radio, TV and internet junk we feed our minds every day we would begin to channel in the Word of God, even in small increments, the personal and societal changes would be more than could be predicted.

I was recently challenged by an Elder in the church to gather my non-Christian friends together, 3-6 in a group, to read the Scriptures and talk about its meaning. Since daily Scripture reading was already a habit of mine I thought this challenge very doable. So I approached Tom and said,

“Hey Tom, what are you doing on Tuesday nights?” (Let him respond). “I was wanting to get a group of guys together to have coffee, read a passage of Scripture, talk about what it says and maybe take prayer requests for each other. Whenever I have done this in the past it has always been transformative for everyone involved. I want you to be involved. If I could arrange a good time for all of us would you be a part of it?”

Out of 9 people I have asked to be involved only one person said they would not be interested even if they had the time. I currently have two groups of friends gathering every week to read the Scriptures and discuss them and so far everyone has enjoyed it very much. One guy even said, “Knowing that I am created in the image of God I think can help me a ton when I get depressed. It’s like I know I am special.”

I want to encourage you to make daily Scripture reading a habit for you. Then, I want to challenge you to invite your non-Christian friends to participate with you. In your gathering time(s) you do not teach, you do not preach. You just let the Word of God speak and facilitate the discussion accordingly. In order to see personal and societal transformation we must get the Word of God into people’s hands so that it can begin to cut deep into their hearts. I am learning how to do this now; you can learn too.