My dear friend who is a pastor and tireless evangelist, Adam Cutshaw (www.aof1.org) from Manchester, Tennessee, wrote to me about my book The Most Powerful Words: A Primer on the Public Reading of Scripture. I hope his words and story not only motivate you to read this short book, but also inspire you to think strategically about how you might read more Scripture not only in gatherings with other believers, but even in the open air. Here’s what Adam wrote initially:
Brother, thank you for your book on the public reading of Scripture. I read about half last night and the rest this morning. Very encouraging. I praise God for your work on this book and the truth it has.
Years ago at the first church I pastored, once every year we would begin early one Saturday morning and read the entire New Testament until it was complete. We had 15 min slots folks would sign up for — mostly church members but occasionally other believers and minsters from different churches would read a few time slots.
One particular year a father and son (unbelievers) had heard about it and came in the building and sat down and heard nearly the entire book of John read to them. For our people the most common reply was, “Wow I really read for 15 (or 30) min straight. I can’t believe how fast the time moved.”
Sometimes when I street preach I will read extended portions of Scripture…with no exhortation or explanation. And most of those times God has used the plain reading to draw truly inquisitive and searching unbelievers to stop and talk at length and listen to me explain the gospel.
Anyways I know the book’s main focus is for believers and meetings (and I agree and it’s needed) but I thought you might appreciate hearing the power of God’s word from other arenas.
Lastly, I’ve been mulling over another New Testament read through but instead of inside the walls I plan on going and standing at the town square one day this fall and reading through the NT out loud publicly.
Your book was the last nudge I needed, thank you!
I’m so happy to report that Adam followed through on doing this public Bible reading with people from his local body and surrounding churches. The picture at the top of this article is from the day of reading the New Testament at the town square. The photo below shows people from Adam’s church, Grace Community Church, reading my book over a period of weeks at special gatherings leading up to the one-day Bible reading event.
The week after the public reading of the New Testament, Adam sent the following information:
I had more people stop in than I imagined.
We had zero issues, all went completely smoothly. Here are some facts:
23 different people read.
Start 4:56am (Kalel)
End 9:48pm (Ben)
Total time reading — 16 hrs, 52 min.
27 NT Books read, making up 260 chapters, or 7,957 verses
6 Bibles given away
4 people heard or saw us, so stopped.
8 people stopped because someone invited them or they saw online.
3 prayer requests submitted
1 person prayed with
2 people invited to church. Of those 2, one man attended our church this Sunday and brought his wife and 4 children.
Of 23 who read, 17 are from our church and 4 of the 17 were children/teens.
Other 6 readers represented churches in Morrison, Manchester, Normandy, and Murfreesboro.
Two people have reached out and said they are now motivated to do something similar in their areas of the state.
When I wrote The Most Powerful Words, I did not have this type of public reading in mind, so this result was a wonderful surprise and encouragement from the Lord. I would be delighted if this “one day public reading of the New Testament” idea would spread far beyond Tennessee.
But is it worth it?
I have no doubt. Think about it: the time reading Scripture will not be a waste even if only a handful of unbelievers stop and listen. God might use it to save them. If nothing else, the readers will benefit in several ways, including developing their public reading of Scripture skills, and, perhaps most significantly of all, getting to read and hear the Bible themselves.