My Daily Pause

If you find it challenging to get an audience for Bible study from among those closest to you, you are not alone.

In Mark 6:4-5, we see Jesus performing the only the most basic miracles in his home town because they didn’t have enough faith in his message. Human jealousy and competition closed their ears to the one among them that wanted to save them.

That was Jesus. He didn’t even have a bad reputation. He never committed a sin. If we were to list the reasons we need to be like Jesus, limiting our personal liabilities to the gospel message is a big one.

Five Ways to Make Others Receptive

To improve the chances of getting someone close to you to listen to the gospel here are some suggestions:

• Practice excellent behavior – make it priority never to use coarse language, shy away from off-color subjects and stay away from TV and radio programming that use these things for humor.
• Live well – When you look like you have it together, never complain, rarely worry, others will want to know why.
• Never criticize –be careful about how you bow out of activities you shouldn’t join. Remember that they aren’t in the same place as you and haven’t made the same commitments to God yet.
• Organically introduce the Bible – Wait for opportunities to teach so that the conversation feel natural to the discussion flow.
• Introduce someone new – A Christian friend is helpful when they do not have the same history as you do with your long-time friends and relatives.

Finding those open to the Gospel from among our peers is not impossible, it just takes a little more planning.

Daily Bible reading for August 10

Psalm 8
Judges 20
Jeremiah 36
Mark 6