Healing and Humbling: The Beauty of Home Bible Study

Dannah Gresh: At True Woman '25, Erin Davis issued a challenge.

Erin Davis: If there are five hundred women in this room (I don’t do math, so that’s maybe a terrible guess), but if there are five hundred women in this room and each of you started a home Bible study next week and had ten ladies coming, that means in two weeks, there would be five thousand women engaged in Bible study . . . like that! (snaps fingers)

Dannah: If every woman listening right now started opening her home, just think how those numbers would multiply!

This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for March 5, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Your home is meant for ministry. It’s a place where burden-bearing happens and the lost are welcomed into the family of God. That’s what Erin Davis shared yesterday in part one of her message, “Open Your Home, Open the Bible.” Today, she’s sharing more about the healing and humbling practice of hosting a home Bible study. Before we listen, let me read you the passage Erin is teaching from. Here’s Mark chapter 5, verses 35 to 43.

While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?”

When Jesus overheard what was said, he told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James’s brother. They came to the leader’s house, and he saw a commotion—people weeping and wailing loudly. 

He went in and said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child’s father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was. 

Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum” (which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”). Immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded. Then he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat.

Now, here’s my friend, Erin Davis.

Erin: All right, let’s make some observations. What does Jesus do in this situation? What do you see Him do? He heals, right? And where does He heal? In her home. If you’ve studied Jesus’ miracles at all, you know that He actually didn’t have to go into her home to heal her. He didn’t have to be anywhere near her. He didn’t have to touch her. 

If we keep reading in Mark 7, we’ll find another mother, a mother who begs Jesus to heal her daughter, and He does it from a distance. He doesn’t go into the home. He does the same thing for the centurion servant in Matthew 28, and in John 4, we find another father, another sick child, and again, Jesus heals from a distance. So, why did He choose to enter Jairus’s home? 

Well, I think one of the reasons is that our homes are where we do the real work of walking through grief with each other. And because they’re where we do the real work of walking through grief with each other, our homes are also where we experience real healing. If you’ve ever been to a funeral for someone you love, you know that that public expression of grief is meaningful, but the actual work of processing the grief happens at home when there’s no more casseroles. Right? 

And the same is true for the women in your community. Yes, they need to see us in public, but they also need to sit on our couches. They need to be invited to dinner. They need somewhere to go when they need to cry, week after week after week after month after year. 

There are a couple of really hard situations in my home Bible study groups. One woman has buried two young adult sons in the past two years. That kind of grief doesn’t get dealt with in an hour on a Sunday morning. It requires us to do the burden-bearing, grief-sharing work over the long haul with our friend. 

Now we did go to the funerals of both of those boys. It’s a moment I will probably never forget. When her most recent son died, my whole Bible study group . . . she wouldn’t get far from the casket. What mother would? And we went, and we stood in line for hours, and we got there, and we just surrounded her, and she collapsed into us. And we had no chill; we wailed. It was an important moment. But I got to tell you that wasn’t where the healing has been happening. 

The healing has been happening when, now, week after week, month after month, we still ask her about her boys. When week after week, month after month, we are not trying to get her to move through her grief quickly and move on. When she can sit on the couch and take all of the masks off and tell us how much she’s still struggling. 

That happens in intimate spaces in ways that cannot happen in public spaces. Yes, the grieving need to hear their pastor’s sermon, but they also need to have their Bible open and be knee to knee with somebody else, especially when they’re hurting. And I submit this question to you: who’s not hurting? There are varying levels, but we can do real grief work with each other in our homes. 

Healing is not a linear process. We’re terrible with grief in the modern West. We rush people through it. But it’s not a linear process, and it can’t be programmed. What women need when they’re hurting is the presence of someone who loves them and will feed them the Word when they cannot feed themselves. And our homes are where we do that. 

Now I need to acknowledge this, that it’s a sad reality that the women who are hurting the most are often the most avoidant of home ministry. And that’s because there’s nowhere to hide. Right? You can slip in and out of a Sunday morning church service with some degree of anonymity. You cannot do that in living room ministry. 

And here’s how I handle this in my group: I call it out. About every three weeks, I say, “Look at me. Look at me. We don’t run; we don’t bail; and if you do, we will track you down and find you.” I say to them, “The weeks when you least feel like coming are the weeks that you most need to show up here.” And I say to them often—and they say to me—“We are committed to each other, and we will keep coming when it hurts.” We expect commitment in our group, and I would encourage you to do the same. 

So, home ministry advances the kingdom through the ongoing work of burden-bearing and through walking with each other through grief, healing, and loss. 

Snapshot number three: Jesus and Zacchaeus. Let’s sing it: (singing) Zacchaeus . . . No, we don’t have to sing. 

(singing)

O and a wee little man was he. 
He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. 
And as the Savior passed that way
He looked up in the tree . . .

And He didn’t actually say what you’ve been singing. Let’s read it. All right. We’re going to go to Luke chapter 19. I know you want to sing it. It’s in you. Let me read us Luke chapter 19, verses 1–10.

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see Jesus who was but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house, since he is also a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” 

Important question: where did Jesus want to meet with Zacchaeus? In Zacchaeus’s home. Another important question: how did Zacchaeus’s heart respond to having Jesus in his home? He repented. 

James 5:16 gives us this command as believers: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power, as it is working.” These are two essential, nonnegotiable rhythms of the Christian life. We confess our sin, and we pray for each other.

I want you to imagine if your pastor on Sunday morning replaced that part in your sermon, which causes all introverts a slow death, where he says, “Turn and say hi to your neighbor. And instead on Sunday, he said, “Turn and confess your deepest sins to your neighbor.” We wouldn’t do it. We would lie. 

And second, we probably shouldn’t do it. Yes, confession of sin is mandatory for all believers, but it is not wise to confess all sin to all believers. And it’s really not wise to do that on online spaces. I get messages like that a lot. People will DM me and tell me things I don’t need to know. And I always say the same thing: I need you to go to your pastor’s wife or your women’s Bible study leader with this. 

It's not that I don’t care, but we need to look somebody eyeball to eyeball when we confess our sin. And the goal of confession of sin is not sensationalism or just sin vomit to just be like, “Here’s all my junk!” Actually, the end goal is accountability. 

And so yes, we can pray together in large groups, but we can’t pray for each other in meaningful ways. I would love to pray for you. I actually have no idea what your greatest needs are. And you probably have no idea what my greatest needs are. And so this happens in small groups. 

An amazing way to steward the gift of your home well is to make it a place of prayer. What did Jesus say to Zacchaeus? Did He say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”? No, He sometimes said that. Did He say, “Go and sin no more”? No, though He sometimes said that. 

Verse 5, He said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” Jesus doesn’t speak the language of shame. That’s the language of Satan. Jesus wants to rid us of our sin, to free us, not condemn us. And so Jesus’ very presence in Zacchaeus’s home made him want to turn from his sin. 

 

I have long prayed that people would pull onto our property, and that whether they recognize it or not, something in their spirit would go, “Oh, that’s better.” One of my favorite stories is about my friend named June. She was four at the time, and her family was coming over for dinner, and they pulled in and she went, “Oooo, I want this place!” That’s the Spirit’s work. But you know what? It doesn’t just start with, “I love this place.” Then it leads to openness, and then we can burden-bear, and then we can pray about what really matters, and then we can be honest about our sins, and we can hold each other accountable. 

I’ve seen how Zacchaeus responded to Jesus. I’ve seen it over and over in my living room. We use our home for many things. We love to hang out. We love to have people there, but something happens special when our Bibles are open in our living room. So, because our homes are the spaces where we sin most often, it also makes sense that they are the spaces where we repent and ask for forgiveness most often. 

Part of the reason we often aren’t consistent in using our homes to fulfill the Great Commission is because it is messy work. Don’t let me put any rose-colored glasses on any of y’all. It is messy work. Just in the stories we looked at, property was damaged. Me-time became group-time. Resources got used up. A grieving family had to deal with an insensitive crowd, in the case of Jairus’s daughter. Jesus’ visit to Zacchaeus was unplanned, which is something we are totally allergic to in our culture. Do not drop by unannounced.

And we’re going to start wrapping up here. But all of this is another reason why I believe all saints are called to home ministry, not just because what it does for others but because of what it will do in you. What is going to be revealed in you when you have to show your house to the people you want to impress? 

I have four sons. The bathrooms in my house could be an episode of CSI at any moment—just like so many bodily fluids on every surface. Like, “Why, why on the ceiling, Lord? Why?” And so it forces me to deal with my pride and my perfectionism when people are in my home. What does it reveal in you when you are somebody who prefers Netflix and sweatpants at the end of the hard day, and you are forced to actually let people in at the end of a hard day? 

Then it becomes a means where we push back against our selfishness, and it becomes a way to fight this platform-building era of the church. Committing to home Bible study—if I never teach at another conference again, that’s okay. If I never write another book again, that’s okay. But until Jesus comes back, I will host Bible studies in my home, because it is my act of resistance against Christian platforming. 

I’m deeply concerned that if there were an eighth letter written to the American church in 2025 that what the Spirit would highlight would not be a letter of commendation. And so the goal becomes less “who can I impress” and more “who can I let in so intimately that I cannot impress them anymore, and so that we can do the real work of working out the gospel together.” 

The people who gather in my home every week, starting with my family, can tell you how utterly unimpressive I am. And if you want to, you can ask them, and they can tell you what sins have the greatest grip on my life, where I’m weak. They can tell you how dependent I am on grace. They can tell you the real answer to how well I love my husband and children, and those are the lessons worth teaching. You guys don’t know any of that. 

My in real-life friends, who will sometimes attend conferences with me, just laugh and laugh and laugh about it. They’re like, “Oh my gosh. People try to take pictures with you.” I know, I’m like, “I know it’s hilarious.” I mean, they think it is the funniest thing ever. It is, but that’s part of the miracle of home-based Bible study is what God will use it to do in you. At the end of the day, this is all about stewardship. My time is Yours. My money is Yours. My gifts are Yours. My home is Yours. Use it all for Your glory. 

Home ministry is actually the norm for our brothers and sisters around the world. And the reality is that the more the institutions of a society reject Christianity, the more we are going to be forced to do our ministry in our homes. And I actually think that’s worth celebrating. 

We see that in the local church. We see that they did both. They worshiped in the synagogue together, and they gathered in homes. And they were devoted to the apostles’ teaching to prayer to breaking bread together and to forgiving each other. 

So that’s the model. Those are things that home-based ministry can do that other kinds of ministry can’t. Now, I know you want me to give you a checklist, because everybody loves a checklist. I don’t have one. You just do it. You just do it. 

You could have a neighborhood Bible study. You could have one for the ladies in your church. You could provide childcare or not. You could do it during the day or in the evening. You can feed them or not. You can do a Bible study book or just go through a book of the Bible. You can host and teach, or you can teach and ask someone else to host. Or you can do the reverse. Trial and error, make mistakes, but you stay committed. 

I’m convinced that when we stand before the white throne judgment, where our works are burned up, that one of the things that’s going to be weighed is how well we loved the saints with the resources we were given. When do you start? How about next week? 

If there are five hundred women in this room (I don’t do math, so that’s maybe a terrible guess), but if there are five hundred women in this room and each of you started a home Bible study next week and had ten ladies coming, that means in two weeks, there would be five thousand women engaged in Bible study. Like that (snaps fingers). And if just 10 percent of them decided in the next six months to start Bible studies in their home, and they had ten ladies coming, then that would mean ten thousand women engaged in Bible study in the next few months.

Now, start doing the multiplication on that. How would marriages change? How many prodigals would we pray back into the fold? How many people who are right now, today, walking through grief and think they’re totally alone would soon feel like, “You know what? This is terrible, and I’m hurting, but people are carrying this with me.” How many people who are deeply entrenched in sin and it is driving their lives would have a place where they could bravely say, “I am a slave to this thing.” 

Ten thousand women—that’s almost twice the size of this conference—bearing one another’s burdens, walking through grief and loss, confessing sin. This is the way that the Spirit has been working since Pentecost, and it is the way that He will work until Christ returns. And I’m simply inviting you to be a part of it. 

I’d like to end our time by commissioning you back into your communities to start home Bible studies. Now you might be on the fence. That’s okay. I trust the Lord to work that out with you.

So, stand up and I will commission us all back into our homes. You don’t have to adjust your shirts. You’re fine. You look good. You look nice. There will be no photo of this moment. In our house before you leave the house, I say put a hand on somebody. So put a hand on somebody. It’s not woo-woo; it’s straight out of the Bible. Do it. And let me pray a commissioning prayer for us as home missionaries.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for calling us Your servants to be heralds of the gospel. As these women go forth to share the good news, I pray for Your Spirit to empower them, fill them with Your presence, Your wisdom and Your love, that they may be bold in proclaiming the truth and compassionate in their interactions with others. 

Lord, grant them joy in their work of home ministry, resilience in the face of setbacks, and perseverance to continue faithfully until You return for us. Lord, may their experiences in the mission field of their homes spread Your kingdom to every corner of Your world. 

Help us to open our hearts to the needs of others. Help us to open Your Word, for it contains the words of life. Help us to open our homes for Your glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the King and Head of the Church, we commend these missionaries into Your loving care. Amen. 

Dannah: Amen. You know, Erin Davis prayed that prayer over the women at that True Woman conference, but I am praying it over you. May each of us offer up our homes for the glory of God and the good of the saints. 

As we use our homes as centers for fellowship and healing, let’s remember the incredible value of kindness. In a world increasingly marked by anger and harshness, Christlike kindness stands apart. 

A Deeper Kind of Kindness by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth helps women understand how their words, attitudes, and actions shape the climate around them. Through biblical teaching and one hundred practical expressions of kindness, this resource equips you to reflect the beauty of the gospel. 

Request your copy as our thanks for your gift to Revive Our Hearts of any amount this month. You can do that by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com, or calling us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Tomorrow, we’re talking about what it means to be an instrument of grace in the lives of the women around us.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We live in a world that is anything but kind. Incivility, rudeness, bullying, arrogant, angry debating on news and talk shows; road-rage, people blasting each other on social media, quick to lash out, no filter on people’s tongues and behaviors. Do you see this around us? Do you ever see it in your own heart, your own spirit?

You see, gals, when we are kind, when we go about doing good, including to those who are ungrateful and undeserving, we stand out! We’re a breed apart; it’s countercultural! We demonstrate the presence of Jesus in our lives when we’re different than all the loud, raucous, shouting, arrogant, raging, unkind world around us.

Dannah: I hope we’ll all become women who live out the beauty of the gospel together. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.

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