God’s Word Behind Bars

The men at Muskingum County Jail in Zanesville, Ohio, were at Bible study. Two participants whispered, as if each was trying to convince the other to speak up. They had just listened to Salvation Army Envoy George Bates and ministry assistant Seth Hall talk about the Book of Exodus, and how God told Moses that He would be with him as Moses set up his tent outside of the Israelite camp, where Moses could work and settle disputes. 

“Once we have repented and received Christ, we simply cannot operate as we have in the past,” Hall explained. “We must separate ourselves from where we were before, and set our own tents outside of our familiar camps.”

One of the two men finally spoke. He said on the day before Bible study, they had discussed ways they could separate themselves from the destructive environments of their past. 

Envoy Bates remembers that moment. “The guys were the two biggest, most tattooed ones in the class. Upon seeing them, you knew they were the last ones you’d ever want to mess with,” he says with a smile. 

Hall, a soldier of the Zanesville Corps, recalls that time together as transformative. “When God’s Word appears with a message, it leaves the most hardened tough guys completely vulnerable, and sometimes even in tears. 

“The Holy Spirit was here at work. Before class, in prayer, I felt that God wanted me to preach from the Book of Exodus that day.”

The Zanesville Corps jail ministry was inspired by a community program called the Muskingum County Opioid Response Team, of which Bates was a member. If someone in the community suffered an overdose and was given lifesaving naloxone (Narcan), the response team would send a police officer, a social worker, and a pastor to the person’s last known address and encourage them to seek help for their abuse problem. 

“Before we even came across these people, many of them would first end up in jail,” says Bates. “It can be easy to say, ‘These guys are messed up; let’s just deal with them when they get out.’ That’s being stagnant. Those are missed opportunities.”

Bates reached out to the sergeant at Muskingum County Jail to ask how to acquire the proper credentials. Today, Bates and Hall visit the jail twice a month to share the Word of God with a community that needs to hear it. 

“Most of the men we meet are felons waiting to be sentenced to prison. They have nothing but time to ponder the deep mysteries of life, such as our purpose in life, and where we go when we die,” says Hall. “There is nothing phony or ingenuine about their thoughts. And when you give them a devotional from the Bible and go line by line with them, it springboards into some amazing, heartfelt conversations.”

Bates says, “This is different than preaching inside a church. On some Sundays, no one wants to approach the altar, because they don’t want to give the impression that they’ve sinned. They fear what others will think of them. But a broken person will not care what anyone thinks. They’re honest about themselves, even in front of their peers. Many of the broken men we meet grew up in Christian homes and know of Christ. That’s what blows my mind: not what we have to teach them, but rather how much they already know and are open to share.”

These exchanges are also a crucial step toward receiving help. When someone asked one of the participants what he would do if he could walk out a free man that day, his answer was both truthful and heartbreaking. 

“He said that he knew that he had to be in jail, because if he left, he would go to his mother’s house. There, he could easily go back to abusing drugs,” says Bates. “I gave him our contact information to call us if he got out, so we could get him help. If he needed to be picked up, we would pick him up. If he needed several months of rehab to get clean, we would find a program for him.”

“Scripture talks about the importance of what you do in the unseen, that secret place where you are not seeing or receiving your own reward in full. I will never see how far the work we do in jail can reach. For me, that’s one of the best things about this ministry,” says Hall.

“This outreach is not something that everyone can do, but I would still tell anyone to give it a chance,” says Bates. “When you see a face the moment that the gospel suddenly clicks for them, it’s worth every minute of your time to be a part of this ministry. It may not change the world, but it can change someone’s life.”