Bible Stories Tell How People Are Changed By God's Word - .BIBLE: for all things Bible online

Bible Stories Tell How People Are Changed By God’s Word: Idea #42

Posted on October 30, 2015 by .BIBLE Registry Categories: Examples

What do you think of when you see the phrase “Bible stories?” It could refer to the stories in the Bible itself. It could also refer to the stories of people who’ve been inspired and influenced by the Bible. This article is about the latter. (and we can save the former for another article another day)

What used to be called testimonies in Christian circles has become more popularly known in today’s times as stories. Everyone has a story. And when that story involves how God’s Word has made a difference in a person’s life, that story is worth telling the world. The Internet is one world wide web of an opportunity to share these kinds of Bible stories.

A Christian website called TruthSaves.org has a section for Christian Testimonies and invites people to share their story:

The Bible says that Christians will produce fruit (John 15:8; Matthew 3:10). Your testimony may produce fruit for God’s kingdom. Don’t waste this opportunity. You can send us your story right now. ... Don’t think your testimony is boring. Your story could be the only one to connect with a person searching for the truth. No life-saving journeys are boring. Every single testimony is unique and gives us a bit more insight into how our God works in this day and age.

Christianity Today has featured a compelling story of Christian conversion in the back page of its print magazine for several years. The most popular ones are listed n this article, The Top 10 Testimonies of 2014: Here are the Christian conversion stories that CT readers shared most. Plus, the Testimonies section on its ChristianityToday.com website has even more stories.

Another example is testimonyshare.com, a large blog of stories with people from all walks of life who have a genuine experience with Jesus Christ to proclaim.

The Gideons International has titled its collection of stories, God’s Word Changes Lives, with this description: “Nowhere is the impact of sharing God’s Word more clearly illustrated than in the testimonies of changed lives that we receive almost daily. We hope you are inspired by these testimonies of lives changed through Gideon-placed Bibles and New Testaments.”

And the Bible itself features a story of life change too—a story within a story—when the Apostle Paul tells his own story of life change and faith in Acts 26:1-23 —

Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak on your own behalf.” Paul stretched out his hand and defended himself as follows:
“King Agrippa! I consider myself fortunate that today I am to defend myself before you from all the things these Jews accuse me of, particularly since you know so well all the Jewish customs and disputes. I ask you, then, to listen to me with patience. All the Jews know how I have lived ever since I was young. They know how I have spent my whole life, at first in my own country and then in Jerusalem. They have always known, if they are willing to testify, that from the very first I have lived as a member of the strictest party of our religion, the Pharisees. And now I stand here to be tried because of the hope I have in the promise that God made to our ancestors— the very thing that the twelve tribes of our people hope to receive, as they worship God day and night. And it is because of this hope, Your Majesty, that I am being accused by these Jews! Why do you who are here find it impossible to believe that God raises the dead?
“I myself thought that I should do everything I could against the cause of Jesus of Nazareth. That is what I did in Jerusalem. I received authority from the chief priests and put many of God’s people in prison; and when they were sentenced to death, I also voted against them. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues and tried to make them deny their faith. I was so furious with them that I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.
“It was for this purpose that I went to Damascus with authority and orders from the chief priests. It was on the road at midday, Your Majesty, that I saw a light much brighter than the sun, coming from the sky and shining around me and the men traveling with me. All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by hitting back, like an ox kicking against its owner’s stick.’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. And the Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus, whom you persecute. But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me today and what I will show you in the future. I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you. You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God’s chosen people.’
“And so, King Agrippa, I did not disobey the vision I had from heaven. First in Damascus and in Jerusalem and then in the whole country of Israel and among the Gentiles, I preached that they must repent of their sins and turn to God and do the things that would show they had repented. It was for this reason that these Jews seized me while I was in the Temple, and they tried to kill me. But to this very day I have been helped by God, and so I stand here giving my witness to all, to small and great alike. What I say is the very same thing which the prophets and Moses said was going to happen: that the Messiah must suffer and be the first one to rise from death, to announce the light of salvation to the Jews and to the Gentiles.”

What an amazing story!

Bible Stories Tell How People Are Changed By God’s Word: Idea #42

More stories of the life-changing Bible