Honest to Goodness - Study Guide

This FREE downloadable resource is designed for congregations or small groups to use during weekly gatherings, particularly in the season of Lent or at other times of the year. The guide is based on the book Honest to Goodness: Discovering the Truth & Beauty of a Loving God by Furman Buchanan.

Honest to Goodness invites participants to engage more deeply with scripture, to spend time examining God’s own words in the Old and New Testaments so that we might better understand who we are, who God is, what God expects from us—and what we can expect from God. The book and this guide start with the understanding that the Bible is a human product, inspired by God, a library (not a single book) of texts composed and compiled over more than a thousand miles and a thousand years by real people who searched their faithful hearts to better understand and describe the nature of God and of humankind.

Honesty is a common denominator in scripture and particularly in the passages explored in this guide. Listening to God’s honesty leads us to experience God’s goodness. In other words, as we discover more of the truth and beauty of a loving God, we can move from honest to goodness.

God wants us to think, speak, and act in response—the more honest and good, the better. In a world filled with deception, greed, and violence, people of faith are called to stand up and speak out for honesty and goodness.