"What is the meaning of the Bible?" The girl who asked this question point-blank was involved in a cult, so she was only asking for the sake of starting a debate. But still--that's the question, isn't it? The meaning of the Bible. What a wonder. God, in his mercy, speaks. So there is no need to guess. Life and meaning and purpose and hope, all laid out for us in the pages of a single, timeless, living Book. Later at a Bible Study with three elderly people (pictured), we read some stories from the Gospels about Jesus' ministry. They knew of Jesus of course, but when we shared the Gospel with them they were impressed by the display on the Cross of the vastness of God's love for them.
We explained that Jesus lived the perfect life we can't live, and died the death we deserved to die to pay the penalty for our sin, that we might forsake our sin and our vain efforts at righteousness and turn to Him. We asked them what they would do with that news, and they gave their answers to Kuya Luigi who in turn relayed their words to us: "They said, what is good, they wanna follow it."
"Thus says the Lord: 'Stand at the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.' " Jeremiah 6:16
The Bible: the roadmap to the Good Way. Rest for your soul. We don't have to guess. People are waiting to hear.
Rejoice with us over our three new siblings in the Lord! We encouraged them to join us later in the day for housechurch with some other believers in their village, and two of them came. Pray that they would continue to meet together, to grow in their knowledge and understanding of the Gospel, to encourage one another and build each other up. Pray that God would now use them to reach their own families, their neighbors, and friends.