What a night last night! I went back to the small town, to the families on the hill. At first only men came. There were 5 of us, all men. This looks so different than most home Bible studies, because usually women and children are more interested. Often in this culture, religion is seen as a thing for women and kids. If a man, a head of the family, begins to seek after God, however, that's when you see real transformation take place within the family.
Well, the men arrived first. That was great. Some of the women came later. Two of them were not well, and stayed at home. Our story was from 2 Kings 22. It was the story of Josiah. He was a good king of Judah and sought to repair the temple. When the High Priest informed him that the Book of the Law was found and he heard it read to him. He cried, sought the Lord, and went about a great religious reform in the country, destroying all the idols and recommitting himself and all the people to keep God's covenant.
I told half of the story and some more people arrived, so I started again from the beginning. After telling the story, I asked the group to retell it. The first half was told without flaw, but the second half was a little confused. I stepped through the story with them and made sure everyone got it. We then began to talk about it.
I had really planed to focus the discussion on the need for God's word in our lives, but the Spirit moved in another direction. They could not stop talking about Josiah destroying all the idols, and even household gods. They discussed amongst themselves whether or not their home altars with saints on them would have been destroyed by Josiah and determined that they would have.
This group is anxious to hear about Jesus. I will tell the essential stories of Jesus, but I believe they are ready and anxious to hear, believe and repent. I won't need to take them through a very long series of stories of Jesus, like I did for the family in the big city.
Well, one other thought. The second podcast was released by Story4All. It is the continuation of my conversation with Bryan Thompson. You can listen to the interview here part 1 and here part 2. You can download a copy of the document on storying that we discuss here document.
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