Those Who Are Where You Once Were

Statistics startle sometimes. Case in point: Bible sales. Every year in the U.S., the Bible is the top-selling book. So, the fact that its sales in America soared 22% in 2024 seemed statistically impossible to me. How do we account for such a surge in the perennial bestseller? I think we have an answer: “a groundswell of commitment to Jesus over the last four years.”¹ So observed a study from the research organization, the Barna Group. Barna’s recent data shows “66 percent of all U.S. adults say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today. That marks a 12-percentage-point increase since 2021.” Moreover, “Among the biggest drivers of the Jesus resurgence are younger generations—particularly Gen Z and Millennials.”² What does this tell us but that people still search for meaning and truth? And that some are finding life’s purpose in God and truth in His Word.

Do you recall when “seeker” described you — when you were the one struggling in the search that ultimately led to God through Christ Jesus, His Son? God calls us to remember our plight and, in such remembrance, to extend justice and mercy to those who are where we once were. In giving the Law, God commanded His people, “You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.”³ Similarly, God directed His people to the generosity and compassion He had extended to them: “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. . . You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.”⁴

Today as ever, there are the many who cry out from their own “Egyptian” captivity, those seeking cleansing from guilt and removal of shame, those searching for the purpose of life and the certainty of truth — people who are where we once were. Today may we remember when this was us, and in this remembrance, extend the hope and freedom which, through others, God extended to us.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”⁵ Yes, Lord, grace us to remember your comfort and to extend your compassion always. In Christ we pray. Amen.

^{1, 2} “New Research: Belief in Jesus Rises, Fueled by Younger Adults,” Barna, accessed August 5, 2025, https://www.barna.com/research/belief-in-jesus-rises/ (emphases added)
³ Deuteronomy 24:17-18 ESV (emphasis added)
⁴ Deuteronomy 24: 19-22 ESV (emphasis added)
⁵ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV