“Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house (home).”  Luke 19:5

I find myself sitting in a modest Tamil home.  The formal occasion is my promise to teach the young housewife the mysteries of the Danish language.  The Bible is our textbook -  what an endless source of life, indeed!  We´ve already spent several hours on John 4 about the Lord and the Samaritan woman,  a deeply hungry soul.  I have before me a thirsty soul too.  The young woman´s husband is rejoicing.  He was the one who asked me to come.  What a joyous privilege!

So where are we sitting?  In a home!  Oh, the New Testament certainly portrays Jesus as a friend of the home!  How come that Christian homes are often sadly estranged to Him and other homes or maybe to immigrants?  I´m not picking at the American homes.  It´s not much better over here.  But why?  Christian things are by and large confined to church premises.  Is that necessarily the Lord´s way?

I asked the beautiful young woman, “How many are we right now?”  She smiled, “Just the two of us!”  I went on, “How many were Jesus talking to that noon hour in Samaria?”  -  “Just one!”   How many were approached by me with the gospel yesterday?  Very few, the conversations in the market place
were individual ones  -  one to one.

“Notice what an impact the Savior had on just one woman!”  I said to my precious disciple.  “Many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman…”  The young woman smiled.  We both did.  The Spirit of God was hovering over our table with notes, Bibles in two languages, a short story by Hans Christian Andersen, a pot of coffee and cookies, and above all the wonderful sense of “living water” finding its way to us from the word of God. 

A man once said to a friend, “I like to visit your home, for they tell me it´s like a spiritual spring!”  What a testimony!  While our State Church is a sinking ship in no uncertain terms, may Bethany  homes be revived to the glory of Jesus Christ!  For it was there the first Christians started -  “from house to house”  (Acts 2:46)

August 5, 2012 – jn