People really react to you differently when you tell them you’re studying the bible, particularly if they’ve known you as someone who has lived a bible-free life. I’m not talking about other believers. I’m talking about people who know you, perhaps those with whom you work, are in the same organizations as you, or whom you simply socialize with from time to time. Maybe you even “ran the streets” with them.
Their reaction is distinctly different from when you tell them you’re studying a foreign language or returning to school to learn computers or something as innocuous as taking a cooking class or ball room dancing.
For the most part, people tend to respond positively to a genuine effort to get closer to God. However, there is almost a universal questioning about whether or not you’re serious. The question of your faith always comes up because most people have a hard time putting you and the Lord in the same thought pattern.
It’s inevitable, then, that people become a little standoffish towards you because they really don’t know where you’re coming from. Some are compelled to remember the sins you committed together. Some just heard rumors about you, but have little proof that the rumors are indeed true. For whatever the reasons, people have a hard time believing you because they can’t or haven’t made the effort themselves.
I’ve experienced astonishment, disbelief, skepticism and, yes, genuine joy, all because I’ve told someone I’m in bible study.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised that a lot of people I’ve known for a long time have opened up to me in ways that have been truly remarkable. I know things now about them spiritually that I would never have guessed before my admission of being in bible study. I can honestly say before then, I hardly knew them at all. Our conversations have changed and subsequently, our relationship has changed, all because I let it be known that I had changed.
Somewhere along the line I said something, did something that opened a side of me to others that allowed them to see me, hopefully in a different light. In the resulting conversations, dialogue has gone on for hours. In other cases, it has brought to my attention that some people, rather than question me, question others about me.
When that has happened, I’m told, it’s usually brought up in such a way as to question my sincerity or, to be insulting at my audacity to think that I actually could be trying to order my steps to put me on a clear path to God. Like I said earlier, you need to be prepared to hear all kinds of things when you let people know you’re studying the Word.
Remember studying the Word is a bit different than telling people you’re going to church. One is akin to habit, while the other is more like desired learning. Think about it.
I’ve come to understand that from now until the day I die, I need to be in some form of structured bible study. I hope to compliment this with informal reading and conscious personal spiritual investigation. To me once you get a glimpse of all that is contained in the written Word of God, you must have more. When the effort is genuine, it’s probably okay to assume that people really are reacting to a changed you. Maybe they are seeing you behave differently and to the extent that their comfort or discomfort is a result of the new you, so be it.
The good news is, if there was no reaction, there would probably be no real difference that anyone could see in you. So for those of you, who have wondered or worried about this, don’t. Keep doing what you’re doing.
