The first time I shared the Gospel with Jalil, he was captivated. We’d been talking about what it means to live a holy and righteous life. Then I asked him if he and his family would like to discover what the Bible has to say about holiness.
“How could I not want that?” Jalil responded.
My wife and I met his family a few days later for our first Bible study. We gave Jalil the book of Luke. He handed it to his wife, Hamida, who happened to be the most literate member of the family. My wife pointed her to Luke 6, and Hamida began reading the passage on Jesus’ command to love your enemies.
After discussing the passage, we talked about how to put Jesus’ words into practice. Jalil encouraged each person in the family—from his youngest child to his elderly mother-in-law—to answer how they were going to live it out. Everyone was engaged with Jesus’ teaching.
“You and your family are here to show our people the holy path.”
Two days later I met with Jalil and asked him what he thought of the study.
“That was amazing,” he said. “Since then, my wife and I have been reading more of Jesus’ teachings and are putting them into practice. We want to know more about His path of holiness so we can follow it.”
Jalil shared about his mother-in-law who had been in our first Bible study. “She’s a devout woman married to an Islamic teacher. After you left, she said she knows that you and your family are here to show our people the holy path. She’s praying for more people like you to come and bring this way of righteousness to our people!”
Two weeks later we met for a second Bible study, and even more family members came this time.
At the end of the study, Jalil asked everyone, “How will you apply Jesus’ teaching?”
“When I go back to my village in a few days, I’m going to bring these words of Jesus and share them with everyone,” his cousin Fatima responded.
From the start of our ministry in this country, my teammates and I have prayed for God’s Word to multiply in the hearts of Muslims—beginning with their very first encounter with the Gospel.
Now we are seeing it happen. Jalil and his family are already sharing their newly discovered truths about Jesus with others—and they want to introduce it to their entire people group.