You’ve just picked up your Egg McMuffin and large decaff coffee at the counter, grabbed a napkin at the fountain and plopped yourself down in a booth. It’s the beginning of your morning breakfast at your neighborhood McDonalds.
All the employees and regular customers know you and you know them. But suddenly you realize there are some new “regulars” you hadn’t noticed before.
In the booth in front of you sit a group of four older men. “This is Tuesday morning,” you think. “Weren’t they here last Tuesday? Yes, yes they were. In fact, they were here the Tuesday before that.”
The men talk in whispers while you eat your McMuffin and check out CNN.com on our smart phone. Suddenly bits and pieces of their conversation creep into your consciousness.
“Which one of us…kill…? Monopolize…drug trade… Who…bribe…? I’ll get the…pimp…”
As their words catch your attention, the muscles in your neck involuntarily tighten. You realize that these are no ordinary men. They’re the mafia and they’ve come to your neighborhood to claim it as their territory.
The implications of your discovery overwhelm you as you picture the impact these men are going to have on your community: a mounting murder rate, increased crime, drug abuse, family breakdown and a dysfunctional city government and police force.
Now I want you to imagine a similar scenario, only this time, as you sit next to the group of four older men, you overhear them saying something like this:
“Which one of us…rent…video? Body in trunk…The Godfather…drug trade…pimp… But I like…Amish Mafia Who…bribe…?
In this scenario, you realize that the four older men are not the mafia at all. Rather, they’re getting together to talk about the mafia. They like everything relating to the mafia. It’s their hobby and the basis for them meeting once a week.
So you breathe a sigh of relief. They’re not meeting to have any kind of negative impact on your community. They’re simply meeting because they’re buddies and they like all things mafia.
Now I have a question: which of the above scenarios best describes your weekly men’s bible study?
Are you meeting once a week because you’re making plans, like those four mafia men in the first scenario, to have a dramatic and irreversible impact on your community, only in your case an irreversible impact for good? Are the implications of what you discuss in your group deep and profound, reaching far beyond your small circle of friends? Will Satan be defeated? Will souls be saved? Will marriages be restored? Will your city government function better? Will people be delivered from slavery to sin? Will the poor be served? Will anything good come of your meeting together?
Or, are you just meeting because you want to talk about the the bible and about the things that could happen if someone were to actually do them? In other words, is Satan breathing a sigh of relief because you’re not really taking the resurrection and exaltation of our Lord seriously, because you fail to realize the power of the Holy Spirit that is available to you, and because you don’t recognize the importance of good works in your community? Are you just meeting because you guys are buddies and you like all things Christian?
I know I’m being rather severe here. But men, it’s time for us to get off our butts and do what God has called us to do. Our communities desperately need us.
So what do you think? Are you a part of a men’s bible study? Which scenario best describes it? What can your group do to change?
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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