Deeper questions
Bible teaching has recently resumed among the Bulongish people of Guinea after scattered and varied responses to the initial presentation of Firm Foundations Bible lessons.
Months of teaching foundational Bible lessons from Creation to Christ in the Bulongish language wrapped up in mid-December. The missionaries asked people to think about what they had heard, missionary Gene Bacon wrote, and heard a number of different reactions.
“We have heard responses from ‘I believe Jesus is the Deliverer,’ ‘I want to ask more questions,’ ‘We want you to keep teaching every night after we pray,’ ‘I am thinking about what you taught and I want God to give us a way to be in the same place,’ ‘I am bringing my entire family to this teaching,’ as well as other varied responses,” Gene wrote.
The missionary team decided to make a break in more ways than one, and meet in a different place and only on Thursdays and Sundays, instead of daily.
At one recent Thursday session, “all those in attendance tell us that moving our meeting has been good,” Gene wrote.
“We are continuing to move forward in the teaching for some in the village even though there are many who are working now at the ocean fishing and producing salt. Because we have a very transitory population this time of year it also seems that our attendance at the meetings is following this same cycle. We have a few people that are fairly regular but we have some others that are inconsistent in their attendance but still come.”
The lesson are now reviewing Old Testament prophecies and examples relating to the Messiah, and showing how they point to Jesus, as a follow-up to the initial phase of Firm Foundations Bible lessons.
For example, “we shared about God speaking in the beginning for light to begin shining over the dark earth and how that was an example of the Savior that came, the One who was the true Light, to show us the truth of our condition and reveal that through Him we could be delivered from the darkness that was in Satan’s prison,” Gene wrote.
The teaching is in addition to conversations with Bulongish people about spiritual matters.
“We continue to … remind them … that God is the only One that can tell us about Himself since He is the Creator and His desire is that we know Him, not just about Him,” Gene wrote.
And the time spent in conversation and teaching is bearing fruit. “In our last few lessons there have been some deeper questions in contrasting some current beliefs and new information that has been provided through the teaching,” he wrote.
“Please continue to pray with us that we will all grow in our understanding of our great God through this process,” Gene added.