James Early is a Bible teacher, speaker, coach, and church mentor. His focus is on helping people follow Christ in their daily lives. He gives talks and conducts workshops on the Bible to churches and organizations. Since 2008 his Bible study workshops at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, CT have transformed hundreds of lives.

In the fall of 2019, James started The Bible Speaks to You Podcast, which has had listeners in 212 countries and territories, and focuses on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus. His podcast is listed on the Feedspot list of top 80 podcasts about heaven. James's entire ministry is designed to help people think, pray, and love like Jesus. He lives in Bethel, CT with his wife of 36 years. They have three grown children. He loves hiking and organic gardening.

Learn more from James:

https://thebiblespeakstoyou.com/miniconvos/

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, His creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, James.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in Connecticut, which is a state in the United States.

Tell me, in terms of the work that you decided to do, correctional facilities, what led you to that path?

Back in 2008, a friend asked me if I would help them do a Bible study for the prison.

It's a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, and it seemed like a good fit for me.

The funny thing is, two years before that, a different person had asked me to help them with that same Bible study that she had started.

I just was not in a place where I was ready or felt qualified to go and talk to people about the Bible that were in prison.

But this time, two years later, it seemed like it was the right time.

I went because I was asked to help out.

Eventually, within a year or so, I was the one that leading it because this other person moved away.

The thing that motivated me originally was I felt like I could help people get to know the Bible better, get to know God better, understand their relationship with God better, and follow Jesus better.

That was kind of where I started.

What has happened over many years now since then is it has been a real big blessing to me.

I've helped a lot of people.

I've ministered to a lot of people, both men and women.

It's been a way God has revealed himself to me as well.

In fact, people were finding it so helpful.

They would say things to me like, Oh, Mr. Early, you've changed my life.

You've restored my faith.

I feel so much better about things.

I've had so many amazing testimonies from people like that.

Several years after I did that, I thought, You know what?

I've got to find a way to share this message with more people.

That's when I started my podcast, The Bible Speaks to You.

And this whole experience has shown me and taught me and humbled me to see what amazing things God can do and how he blesses everyone involved, whether it's the person sharing the ideas or the person receiving them.

I learn things from the people in the prison.

They know things I don't, or they've had experiences I haven't.

We all learn from each other.

So it's just been a real beautiful, wonderful way God has opened up the world to me.

So 2008, you're at the prisons.

11 years after puts you at 2019.

You start the podcast.

Right around there, the world slows down for a bit.

Did you continue going to the prisons even after COVID or did it slow down for a bit and then picked up?

It slowed down.

It was closed down for a year, a year and a half or so.

I got back in relatively early.

Once the prison was on orange alert instead of red alert, I could go back in with a mask and sit at a distance from people.

So it was nice that we were able to get back in.

But now that COVID is all done with, I've been back in for several years now, which is really good because you kind of pick up where you left off.

The different people there, one guy actually in my men's group, he was there before for COVID.

And so it's fun to have a little continuity there.

How did the time between being there, how did that time feel?

Well, as you pointed out with your excellent mathematical skills, I had started my podcast just in the fall of 2019.

And then it was a January, February of 2020, just a few months later that COVID hit.

So having the podcast every week gave me an opportunity to still reach out and share things from the Bible with people.

So I wasn't completely isolated from that, but it did, it was a big chunk out of my day.

Well, everybody's world was so different during those years, those early years, but yeah, the work goes on.

So there was a momentary lapse, but picked right back up.

When I listened to you speaking there, I immediately felt a patience.

I talked about your temperament, right?

There's a way you speak that's very gentle.

I'm curious again, do you ever get angry, James?

Not as much as I used to.

When I was growing up and I had a little brother, I would get so angry with my little brother.

He would just make, I say, he would make me furious.

There was something in me that reacted to things he said or did.

He could just look at me and I would get angry.

When I was in high school, I got serious about my faith.

I grew up going to church and Sunday school.

We read the Bible at home and all those things.

But when I was in high school, I got serious about my faith.

Right after that, I found that place in the Bible where it says, if you say you love God, but you don't love your brother, if you say you love God who you don't see, but you don't love your brother who you do see, you're a liar.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm a liar.

I say I love God, but I really do not love my little brother.

That was the first time where I consciously had to put what I said I believed into practice.

It's one thing to say, oh, I love God, or I believe in Jesus, or I believe in this and that and the other thing.

But when you have to actually practice that and put it to work in your life, it changes everything.

I consciously decided, God, I need to love my little brother.

Help me do it.

So I started loving my little brother.

It was a conscious choice, and it was wonderful.

It was transformational.

It was a real pivot in my life.

And now I realize, oh, the things that Jesus said are not just for us to say, oh, isn't that beautiful?

That's so inspiring.

We have to go out and do what he said to do.

We have to love the way he did, forgive the way he did, act the way he did.

Over many years, I have pretty much gotten that anger at bay.

It's a powerful formula you just released on us there, because first of all, there's the concept of the Bible being the platform that even awakens you to the consciousness that you're doing something incorrectly.

And then you're building on the decision that you're making, and then following through with the actions.

It's a very powerful formula right there.

And then lastly, which, if not most importantly, you ask God to help you walk through the process.

Very, very powerful right there.

Well, thank you.

You just can't do this by yourself.

The human mind, the human heart, the human affections are just not as smart and as clever and as wonderful as we are as human beings.

It's not enough in and of ourselves to love the way Jesus loved.

We need God's help.

Take me through getting married.

So you talked about your brother, right?

With their other siblings?

I have an older sister as well.

Take me through getting married and navigating relationship with your spouse.

I didn't get married until 32, 33 years old.

And at one point I thought, for many years, I thought, nobody, who would want to marry me?

I'll just be a holy man and be spiritual minded and just, you know, do all the things for God.

And a very wise friend said to me that she had noticed over many years that the people who got married, it wasn't automatic, but it often was the case that when you're married, you have to be unselfish to think about what somebody else's needs are.

Because when you're by yourself, it's not that you're maliciously selfish, but you just are often thinking about when you want to do things, what you want to do, how you want to do them.

Anyway, I was praying about it.

And I actually did a podcast episode quite some time ago called How I Met My Wife.

And it kind of was a wonderful prayer process.

A friend had said, make a list of all the qualities and attributes you would want in a spouse.

And then instead of looking for those in someone else to be your spouse, you need to live those in your own life.

Find them in yourself, because you can't expect marriage to be something that makes you complete.

You have to bring your own completeness to the marriage.

And that was really helpful, because we sometimes consciously or unconsciously think, well, I need another person to make me complete or to make me better or to help me.

Well, yes, we are helped by each other, but God made each one of us complete and whole by ourselves.

And so anyway, I made my little list and I thought, well, you know what?

I may not do this perfectly, but I see that I have all those qualities.

And so it was about two weeks later, I was visiting my sister in New York.

And at church that morning, after the service, I met someone, a young lady.

And the moment I looked in her eyes, before a word was said, I knew this is the girl I'm going to marry.

It was not love at first sight, it was recognition.

And she felt the same way.

We found out when we talked about it later, she felt the exact same way about me.

Somebody had told her this same little prayer exercise about making the list of qualities.

And it was so amazing.

And so she had done it begrudgingly because she didn't want to get married.

And she thought, well, see, I already have all that.

I need to get married.

And then she met me.

And anyway, it was a beautiful story.

Now, once you're married, it's a very different thing.

Because as I said, my wife and I came up with a funny phrase, your selfishness is not being considerate of my selfishness.

And that kind of made us laugh.

And we realized we had to learn to be considerate of one another.

And that has been the beautiful thing.

There've been some beautiful experiences.

And I've been married for 36 years.

So there've been some really wonderful experiences.

There've been some times where, you know, we yelled and screamed at each other.

And we lost our cool with each other.

And we, you know, had those kind of conversations.

But we've always come back to the fact that God brought us together.

Five years from today listening to this conversation, you would have heard the maturity of who you are today, of course, the experiences of making decisions to follow God's word, how it impacted your family.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

Don't be afraid to follow Jesus fearlessly.

If you feel led to, talk to someone, give them a call.

If you feel led to respond to an email, do it right away.

Don't hesitate to do something because you're afraid that people will think you're being ridiculous.

Don't be afraid to follow where God is leading you.

That's what I would say to myself.

James, is there anything else you'd like to share with our amazing audience?

You know, my whole focus in my ministry is to think, pray, and love like Jesus.

And Paul says, we have the mind of Christ.

We need to embrace that.

And you can do that.

You, whoever you are right now listening, you have the mind of Christ.

You can think and embrace the mindset of Jesus.

You can think like he did.

You can learn to love like he did.

Don't be afraid to love as much as Jesus did.

James, really a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on What is Inspired by 12 Acropolis.