"You're a Bible thumper!"

From Dave:

There was an open table in the Mod area so I sat down and was joined by several inmates. The leader of the group told me that they were sheduled to have an AA meeting at that table, and I could stay if I wanted. I took the invitation and stayed with the meeting. Most of the guys knew that I was a Christian, and every once in a while during the meeting discussions somebody would ask my opinion on different issues. Christ came into the conversation several times. At the end of the meeting, several of us stayed around and talked and prayed.

After the AA meeting was over, Kurt wanted to talk some more and sat down opposite me. The first thing out of his mouth was, "You are one of those 'Bible thumping' guys!"

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"All you 'Bible thumpers' do is bash everybody about sin. I don't respect that type of witness."

"I'm a Christian—a follower of Jesus. I have Jesus in my life, and I do care about what the Bible says about sin. "

We got into a longer discussion about how we are all sinners, and that Jesus was crucified, died, buried, and rose again. I explained that through Him, we can be clean of sin, and by His power we can live godly, productive, lives. I didn't press him on the sin concerns, but moved onto the good life that God had for Kurt, if he decided to follow Him. But, there was only one way to follow Jesus and get forgiven: to repent of sin!

It finally hit Kurt that rather than criticize "Bible thumpers," he had a need and an opportunity to repent and turn to Jesus for forgiveness and a new life.

And this he did! Kurt left a new man, with a Good News bible study unit, and said that he wanted to get involved with other Christian imates. I suggested that he consider one of the Life Transformation Groups (LTGs) and specifically pointed out the Christians in his Mod unit with whom he could begin to fellowship.