The earliest known painting of a biblical scene comes from a house in Pompeii, the Roman vacation town destroyed in a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79. Just as wisdom is one of the emphases of this blog, this first known biblical painting also focuses on wisdom, depicting one of the most well-known scenes where its power is put on display. The painting (which you can see here) is unmistakable to anyone who knows their Old Testament. It shows King Solomon discovering the identity of the true mother by shrewdly calling for the baby in dispute to be cut in two, which is recounted in 1st Kings 3:16-28.
In an unexpected addition, it seems the artist also painted Socrates and Aristotle into the bottom left-hand corner of the painting. These two foundational Greek philosophers are observing the scene from the margins, looking on in admiration or astonishment as the elevated Solomon dispenses his wise judgment.
What this curious painting seems to tell us is that the Bible and its teaching were present even in this holiday town beloved by the Empire’s rich and influential citizens. The fact that it was painted on the wall of a home like this likely means that there were well-to-do Jews, proselytes, or God-fearers who lived in Pompeii, perhaps even early Christians. I think it likely that whoever commissioned this painting was from a Greek or Roman gentile background, hence the inclusion of Socrates and Aristotle. Viewed in this light, the painting is a kind of apologetic, arguing that the apex of Greco-Roman philosophy points, from the margins as it were, to the superior wisdom found in the revealed Word of the God. This would echo the kind of approach that Paul takes when preaching in Athens at the Areopagus – “As some of your own poets have said” (Acts 17:28).
If a gentile was the one who had this scene painted so prominently in his home, it could be a way of him arguing that his believing in the God of the Jews was not, in fact, a betrayal of the Western pursuit of wisdom, but rather, its unexpected and true fulfilment.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 26k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Long ago, in late 2007, I took my first flight into Central Asia. I expected it to be significant. All first flights into a new place bring their own excitement and anticipation. But I did not expect it would turn out to be quiteas colorful as it turned out to be.
Our motley crew of a team had been sitting on the floor of the old Dubai regional airport, which was not at all like the shiny new international airport we had just flown into. Most of us were signed up for six months of serving in Central Asia. Another couple of single guys and I were considering staying a full year. Our mission was to do relief and development work, along with evangelism and discipleship, hopefully laying the groundwork for a long-term church planting team. However, our coworkers on the ground had recently been chased out of the city we were supposed to serve in, escaping only by hiding underneath a car in a gun battle between terrorist assassins and local security forces. So, we were to land in another city, Poet City* in fact, and to be an ‘office in exile’ as it were. The idea seemed to be to figure it out as we went, and to do our best not to cause problems for the long-term personnel who were already living there.
However, at this point, we were still sitting on a dirty airport floor, camped out near what was (hopefully this time) our actual gate. Near us was a crowd of men from Bangladesh, also sitting and lying on the tile floor. They looked like they had been there for a while. It also looked like we were going to be on the same flight. In fact, these twenty or thirty men had been stuck in the airport for several days, caught in a deceptive migrant labor scheme. We later learned that they had been told they would be traveling to Mediterranean Greece to work in restaurants. Instead, they were being flown to the deserts of Central Asia to be street sweepers, and their passports by this point had already been confiscated, trapping them into doing a job they had never signed up for. In God’s strange sovereignty, some of these men would later come to faith through the faithful work of another missionary.
After what seemed like a very long time and not a little confusion, our plane was finally ready to be boarded.
Walking out onto the blazing tarmac, I caught the faded name on the side of the aircraft – the national carrier of a faraway former Soviet Republic. Must be a rental. The inside of the plane did little to reassure me. The plane itself was an older craft. The cream walls were stained brown, and the flimsy legs of the seats seemed like they might snap off if you leaned too strongly to one side. Even the paint on the lit no-smoking signs was cracking, creating an interesting glowing web design that sprawled outward.
This seemed to be only the second time for many of the Bangladeshi men to be on a plane. And they were still quite giddy at this new experience – the lights, the seats, and the free snacks. They kept pushing all the buttons, apparently just to see what they did. The Russian stewardesses, for their part, mostly ignored them. Some of the men, like the guy next to me from Dhaka, were obviously nervous. He didn’t know how to fasten his seat belt, so I leaned over and helped him, asking him questions about his homeland to try and put him at ease.
Soon, the intercom crackled, and the captain came on. But instead of the usual message of welcome and flight information, he informed us that there was something wrong with the plane’s landing gear. For our safety, we would need to disembark and get on another plane.
Everyone groaned. Our flight was already hours late.
Ten minutes later, we were still sitting on the plane when our captain came on the intercom again, announcing to everyone that he had, in fact, been mistaken.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be taking off shortly. There is nothing wrong with the plane’s landing gear. Really. There is nothing wrong with the aircraft. Let me just say one more time that everything is perfectly OK. There are no problems with our aircraft… so… don’t be worried… again, our landing gear is… fine. [crackle, crackle, silence].”
After this very reassuring speech, we all joined the man from Dhaka in being more worried than ever. One Central Asian businessman in the front stood up and demanded to be let off the plane, but it was too late. We had already started taxiing to the runway, and the flight attendants forced him to sit back down.
The engines roared, and soon we were airborne. We were all in this together now, Americans, Central Asians, Bangladeshis, and even our stern Slavic flight attendants. Scenes flashed in my mind of what it might mean to land on a Central Asian mountain runway with our “perfectly OK” landing gear. But being somewhat accustomed to flying in sketchy aircraft overseas, these thoughts soon faded from my mind.
Before long, the air in the plane took on a distinct odor, just as the regional flights in Melanesia would, the inevitable result of air travelers whose culture pays no mind to deodorant, and who have been stuck in an airport for several days. This pungent yet natural smell was especially pronounced in the area where I was sitting. At some point mid-flight, our stewardess had had enough. Stopping in our area, she started shouting in a Russian accent, to no one in particular, that the shoes should be put back on.
“Poott shooz ohnn! Poott sshhoozz ohnn!”
I stared at my feet. I stared at my neighbors’. Everyone’s shoes were on… so we all just stared back at the stewardess. Met with these dozens of blank stares, she let out a frustrated huff, gave up on her remonstrating, and got back to serving drinks. The man from Dhaka and I had some tea. Unlike airplane coffee, surprisingly horrid stuff, I have always found tea at 36,000 feet truly delightful.
Eventually, we began seeing lights dotting the blackness below. We began our descent, neared the runway, prayed for our landing gear, and then breathed a sigh of relief as the landing gear did indeed perform “perfectly OK.” Praise the Lord.
To top it all off, upon landing, all of our Bangladeshi friends broke out in rapturous applause. Even the grumpy stewardesses couldn’t help but crack a smile.
Soon, we were off the plane into the chilly air of a Central Asian November night. We got through customs surprisingly quickly, grabbed our bags, and most of the team hopped in a car. This left me and the two other college-age guys standing on a curb, alone, in the dark. Over to one side, we noticed a man chilling with an AK-47 and a cup of chai.
Welcome to Central Asia. What had we gotten ourselves into?
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 26k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Humans are not the only rulers or vice-regents created by God in Genesis chapter one. This fact jumped out at me this year when rereading Genesis again – more proof that no matter how well I might think I know a text, there are almost always things that I’ve missed. No, there are rulers other than humans in Genesis 1 that are created and given authority. These rulers are none other than the sun, moon, and stars.
[14] And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, [15] and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. [16] And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. [17] And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, [18] to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. [19] And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Gen 1:14-19
This text says that God created the sun, moon, and stars to:
Separate the day from the night, the light from the darkness
Be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years
Give light upon the earth
Rule the day and rule the night
These entities in the heavens are created to be separators, signs, givers, and rulers. These roles that God himself carries out directly in the first verses of chapter one, he will now do vicariously through his appointed rulers, similar to how he will rule through mankind.
As an aside, this shows the silliness of the objection that holds that Genesis 1 is in error because the creation of light comes before the creation of the sun and stars. Of course, the God who is able to create a light-giving star is also able to create and give light directly without that star. The order of events simply shows a logical movement from direct ruling and giving to mediated ruling and giving. Throughout history, great emperors in Central Asia tended to rule our mountain peoples through emirates, client kingdoms that ruled in the name of the great shah or pasha far away. To govern well, any emperor who conquered our area would, for a period, rule directly, but then quickly raise up representative kings who would exercise his rule locally. This is a helpful metaphor for what we see going on in the Genesis creation account.
Also, what a fascinating window this account gives us into what the sun, moon, and stars actually are, as opposed to merely what they are made of.
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
-CS Lewis, The Dawn Treader
The sun is a separator, a sign, a giver, a ruler – one in the form of a giant ball of flaming gas.
The necessary implication of all of this is that there are things that fall under the creation mandate of the sun, moon, and stars that do not fall under the creation mandate of mankind. Yes, humans are tasked with multiplying and filling the earth, subduing it, and having dominion over the plants and animals (Gen 1:26-30). We are charged with tending and guarding Eden (2:15), and through it, eventually the whole earth. But it seems that this dominion does not trespass into the dominion given to the heavenly lights. They have rightful rule over some parts of creation. We have rightful rule over others. We have neighboring, yet distinct, client kingdoms.
Fallen man is, of course, going to attempt to usurp their rightful place and to take dominion in ways and spheres which do not belong to them, just like our first parents did. And this will somehow lead to disaster, just like it always does. In light of this, it seems like it would be helpful to have a better understanding of what those areas of creation are that are not part of our rightful dominion. True humility and freedom so often come down to simply being honest about what God has or has not given, and then seeking to live within those good, sovereign lines.
First, it seems that we must not attempt to rule the separation of day and night, their light and their darkness. This is one we are actually flirting with, at least in one direction. Advances in technology and the unprecedented affordability of artificial light in our modern age mean that humans are increasingly chipping away at the natural darkness, the nightness of night. This is allegedly resulting in greater economic productivity and physical safety, but it’s also playing havoc with our sleep, health, and happiness. No, the darkness of night is a good part of creation from before the fall. We ignore its importance or set out to conquer it at our own peril.
I have often thought about the fact that the generations living today are likely the first in the history of the world to be largely unable to see the stars in the night sky. Humanity is overwhelmingly an urban race now, living in cities and towns where light pollution means that, when we look up, we simply do not see what every other age of humans before us has seen – stars too many to number. What kind of effect might this be having on us? What happens to a humanity unable to feel how small it is because, when it looks up, all it sees is the haze created by its own electric creations? Does this mean we are losing one of the primary ‘preachers’ of the glory of God in creation (Psalm 19:1)?
To live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars’ separation of day and night.
Second, we must not attempt to usurp the sun, moon, and stars’ roles as the primary signs of the passage of seasons, days, and years. They set the rhythms of time, and we (and our calendars) are wise to honor that. Civilizations that have attempted to organize their time in different ways, which to them seem more convenient or efficient, have discovered this to be either impossible, illogical, or at least extremely inconvenient. Thus, the Soviet Union’s attempts to replace the seven-day week with a ten-day week, the Nepreryvka, ended in abject failure. Similarly, in order to better ambush his enemies, Mohammad did away with the sacred days that served every year to sync the Arab lunar calendar with the solar year. By doing this, he foolishly untethered the Islamic calendar from the solar year, meaning calendar dates were no longer reliably fixed to agricultural seasons, and events like Ramadan rotate through the entire year on a confusing 33-year cycle. In the opposite direction, our modern Western calendars contain evidence of a time when our months needed to be changed so that the West could better align with the rule of the celestial spheres. September, October, November, and December originally meant “seven, eight, nine, ten,” but the Romans had to insert July and August in there because they found their harvest festivals increasingly taking place further and further away from the actual harvest – something they correctly felt to be foolish and unsound. These ancient Westerners wisely sought to align their annual calendar with absolutely crucial things like harvest time.
In contrast to the annual calendar, one of the odd things about being a Westerner living in Central Asia is realizing that my Central Asian friends are still living in daily rhythms closer to the patterns of creation than I am. Their closing up shop and family dinner times are still attached to sunset, not to a fixed 24-hour clock. They know that the appearance of a certain star on the horizon means the hottest part of summer has come to an end. All of the mothers sense at once when the weather is saying it’s time to bring out the rugs for the annual autumn cleaning. In all of this, I can’t help feeling like they know and sense things about the heavens that I should also know and sense, were it not for the culture I hail from, with its relentless impulse to act like nature is irrelevant.
To live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars’ signs regarding the seasons, days, and years.
Third, it seems we must not attempt to usurp the heavenly bodies’ role as the primary givers of light. This is related to the first point, but it’s worth restating that even though cheap, artificial light is a great blessing, it needs to be stewarded carefully. It is not a good replacement for natural sunlight. Things like vitamin D deficiency, poor sleep, and depression are some of the more obvious consequences that come from pretending like LEDs or fluorescent lighting can replace the good old-fashioned light of our patron star. Our teams in Central Asia learned this the hard way as many of the houses we rented early on were like dark cement caves that only increased the mental health challenges otherwise faced on the mission field.
To live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars as the primary givers of light on the earth.
Fourth, we must not attempt to rule day and night, to rule time itself. What might this look like? Well, I like a time travel story as much as the next guy, but it would seem that Genesis 1 makes a case against humans seeking to manipulate time in ways like this. We may not be as far along in invading the heavenly lights’ dominion of time as we are invading their dominion of light and darkness, but stories of time travel continue to captivate our popular culture just as stories of artificial intelligence captivated it half a century ago – and look what’s happening with AI. No, it’s only a matter of time before humanity figures out how to mess with time itself. And when that happens, Christians will need to know and maintain that this is out of bounds, not a part of our creation mandate, the kind of thing that is sure to get very bad, very fast.
Just to clarify, I’m not speaking here about human efforts to organize time and to seek to redeem and steward it well. That is very much a part of our mandate (Col 4:4). But those efforts are attempts to measure and record and live according to something that is governed by another (see point 2). They are not efforts to take over its governance, to mess with the fabric of time itself. Governance of that fabric belongs to God and to some of his other vice regents, the heavenly lights.
No, to live wisely in this created world, we need to submit to the sun, moon, and stars as the primary rulers of time.
Strange as it may seem, and should Christ tarry, we may increasingly face ethical dilemmas that involve invading the rightful domain of the sun, moon, and stars. It seems, therefore, to face this kind of future, we will need to go back to the beginning, back to Genesis 1, to think carefully about what exactly is part of our mandate, and what is not. Yes, we are client kings, vice regents of creation – but so are those shining rulers in the sky.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 27k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
We’ve recently started introducing our kids to some of the Christian bands that we listened to when we were kids and teenagers. In this, I’ve been reminded of just how good some of those ’90s Christian groups really were.
At some point in the late 90s, one of my older brothers came home with an Audio Adrenaline CD from the Christian bookstore, and then played it a lot. Their album, Underdog, will always remind me of that season of life. And this song in particular, “Good Life,” reminds me of the power of good music accompanied by unexpected lyrics. I remember being a 10-year-old and being struck by the surprising turn the lyrics make in the chorus, “This is the good life; I lost everything; I could ever want, ever dream of.”
For a Christian, life is only found by losing it. Our definition of “the good life” is wildly different from that of the world. It involves dying to self and, in that way, finding something so much better in Jesus. This song helped me to chew on that as a 10-year-old and for many years afterward. For that, I’m very grateful.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
A photo of Stalin and Nikolai Yezhov (right)The same photo, but with Nikolai Yezhov later edited out after a purge
The very human temptation after falling out with other Christians is to attempt to memory hole them. We try to speak and live as if they were not a significant part of our story. This is true even of church leaders and missionaries, who are, sadly, not at all immune to serious conflicts that lead to parting ways with formerly close friends and colleagues.
I have often heard Christian friends describe feeling completely cut off from dear friends after making a difficult and costly departure from their previous church or organization. “It feels as if we’re dead to them now.”
Even when Christians have a falling out with one another and serious conflict, why do we treat one another in this way? Why the attempt to sever the relationship, to memory hole or erase others from our past? Perhaps it’s a strategy of self-protection. It’s painful to open up that hurt part of ourselves again by bringing them up in conversation, or by giving them their proper place in the story of our church or missionary team. It may simply feel too complicated to know how to relate to them or to speak about them, given the fact that the story is no longer a simple, encouraging one with a happy ending. Even worse, perhaps it is the sin of bitterness and unforgiveness that causes us to treat one another this way.
This attempt to erase other Christians from our lives is not, however, what we see modeled by Paul. In the book of Acts, we see Paul and Barnabas have a very serious falling out over whether or not to partner with John Mark again after he had abandoned them on a previous missionary journey. We’re told by Luke, the author of Acts, that the disagreement became so sharp that Paul and Barnabas parted ways, with Paul and Silas heading one direction and Mark and Barnabas heading the other (Acts 15:36-41).
The book of Acts is honest, though careful, in its treatment of this conflict. Luke, the author, is writing this second volume with Paul as one of his primary sources. And there’s no evidence that, at the time of this writing, Paul had reconciled yet with John Mark, something we see hints of in later New Testament books (2 Tim 4:11). No, the book of Acts ends with Paul and his team seemingly still separated from Barnabas and his team. And yet, pay attention to how honorably the book of Acts speaks of Barnabas and his crucial role in the early church and in the early ministry of Paul himself.
Acts 11:24 says of Barnabas, “he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” The awkward conflict between Barnabas and Paul doesn’t cause Paul and Luke in the writing of Acts to retcon Barnabas’ generosity (Acts 4), his key role in defending Paul in Jerusalm (Acts 9), his bringing Paul to Antioch (Acts 12), or how he accompanied Paul on the first missionary journey and stood with him at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 13-15). No, despite their eventual parting of ways, in the book of Acts, Barnabas is honored and given his proper place in the story.
Consider what this kind of truthful and generous telling of the story might have done in the heart of Barnabas were he ever able to read an early manuscript of Acts. How much healthier the cultures of our churches and organizations would be if we were to similarly honor those we’ve fallen out with. How much healthier our own hearts would be.
What do we lose if we speak honestly and respectfully of brothers and sisters who made significant investments in us, in our churches, and in our ministries, even if we must also honestly say that they later left because of conflict? What do we lose if we remember them, not just as individuals, but even corporately as churches or organizations? Doesn’t this better honor God’s mysterious sovereignty and how he writes our stories to include these glorious and messy relationships? Doesn’t this better point forward to the coming resurrection, when each of us will delight in one another once again and every relationship will be reconciled?
Yes, there are a minority of conflicts in which it is right and proper to cut someone off and to avoid speaking of them. This would be for divisive Titus 3 wolf-type figures, those who have proven to be exceptionally dangerous or false brothers. But the vast majority of Christian conflicts are not with these sorts of threats to the church. No, they are with other saints, sinners saved by grace, just like us.
The coming resurrection means that all Christian relationships will, in fact, outlive our local churches and our ministry organizations. Thus, seeking to maintain Christian friendships even with those who have left our particular temporary community is an appropriate pointer to this coming future reality.
The resurrection, the new heavens and new earth, means that every relationship story between genuine believers will have a happy ending. Paul and Barnabas may or may not have reconciled in this life. But I can guarantee that they are reconciled now, in the presence of Christ. And that reconciliation will only grow stronger and more beautiful for all eternity.
This is also true of us, brothers and sisters. So, let us honor one another, even those we’ve fallen out with.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
My kids love hot tubs, as do I, for that matter. Whenever we get to stay somewhere that has a pool, that’s a big deal. But if the pool also has a hot tub, and they allow kids in it, well, that’s an even bigger deal.
If we’re in Central Asia and find a place like this, then one more thing has to line up for it to truly be the jackpot. It needs to be a pool that allows for a mixed swimming time, where families and both genders can be in the pool area together. Many of the pools in our region reserve the majority of their time for men exclusively, with some less convenient hours set aside for ladies-only swimming times. But some, especially at nicer hotels, also have one window per week where families can swim together.
The hotel that features in this story was just such a place. So, on the weekend our family was staying there, we excitedly made our way down to the pool area together. We knew that it would probably still be overwhelmingly men, so my wife was wearing her modest Central Asia swimming outfit, basically an Islamic burkini without the head covering. Unfortunately, this pool was the kind of place where the staff were very insistent on women buying and wearing swim caps to cover their hair. This, even though men with very hairy, carpet-like torsos and backs were paddling around shirtless in the pool without being made to wear anything for their copious amounts of hair (see map below for reference). Alas, all we could do was acknowledge this hairy inconsistency to one another, buy the swim caps, and try to make the best of it.
Credit to ‘Terrible Maps’ on FB for this, um, unique infographic
My wife went off to swim in a part of the pool with fewer men, and my kids and I had fun swimming and horsing around for a while in the pool. But it didn’t take long for the offspring to start asking if we could make our way over to the hot tub. I agreed (it’s almost never too early to hit the hot tub), and we dripped and waddled over toward the inground jacuzzi.
There, sitting in the hot tub, was a hairy giant of a Central Asian man, large stomach protruding out of the water and arms spread out as he reclined like a sultan of old in his royal hamam. He eyed us, expressionless, as the four of us scooted into the hot tub across from him. I couldn’t tell if he was from our people group or from one of the other main ethnicities of the region, and he didn’t engage, so I did my best to politely ignore him and to keep my kids over on our side. I was, after all, no stranger to odd hot tub companions, such as that one seminarian who slid into a hot tub next to my wife and me during a date night, strangely determined to share with us why he was really more of a Thomist rather than a Van Tillian presuppositionalist.
Anyway, our corner of Central Asia has changed drastically in recent decades, such that fancy modern things like hotels and hot tubs paint a deceptive picture over cities that, until recently, were literal war zones. A scruffy middle-aged man, just like the one sitting across from us in the hot tub, might be someone who was once a guerrilla fighter, a military interrogator for a dictator, a prisoner, an exile, or even someone wanted for participating in war crimes. You really never know.
My kids did a good job trying not to make things awkward, but they did shoot the occasional glance at our furry fellow bather, who continued to observe us with his dark eyes and a hard-to-read expression on his face.
Suddenly, he leaned forward, holding up a finger in the universal gesture meaning, “one minute.” He then stood up and lumbered out of the hot tub, the water level of the hot tub decreasing by a truly impressive amount. He walked over toward the showers and quickly returned, hands overflowing with shampoo.
As he eased back into the hot tub (raising the water again by a good six inches), he dumped all of the shampoo he’d collected into a side compartment that fed into the bubbling water. Before long, we were surrounded by small mountains of soap suds as our large friend smiled and chuckled mischievously. My kids also cackled, loving the fact that the hot tub had just been transformed into a giant bubble bath, and following the man’s example of picking up handfuls of the suds and blowing them at each other.
But the best part was when this large, imposing Central Asian man grabbed a bunch of suds, put them on his face to make a big white bubbly beard, and called out to the kiddos,
“Look, Babba Noel!”
Babba Noel is, of course, our local name for Santa Claus. My kids were downright belly laughing now, as was ‘Santa.’
I am sure that it was against the rules to put the shampoo into the hot tub like that. But the young pool staff seemed intent on looking the other way. Perhaps they knew better than to confront this burly sasquatch of a man with their little rules. Or, perhaps they knew he really was some kind of general for a former regime, and decided it was best to let him have a little bit of fun with his bubbles.
Whatever the case, for my kids and me, we will always know him as the hairy hot tub Santa Claus, proof that even under the most intimidating of exteriors, there might simply be a man who likes to make kids laugh and play with bubbles.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
This local proverb is used when someone insists that you must do something, but that thing simply can’t be done. The farm/nomad logic here is straightforward. You can’t milk male animals, only females. Perhaps a similar saying in English would be “trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.” It can’t be done.
Our Central Asian locals can be quite persistant when they believe you can and should do something for them, but are perhaps holding out on them. This proverb seems like the kind that comes out after multiple rounds of trying to explain that you really are not able to oblige a given request. It’s a sort of appeal to a third party to side with you in the impossibility of the request.
I haven’t had the pleasure of using this particular local proverb yet, but am hoping that I will have the chance to do so at some point.
“No, elder brother, I’m telling you the truth. There is no way I can possibly acquire an American wife for you. Seriously. It can’t be done!”
“But dear teacher, I’m sure you know someone. Does your wife have any unmarried sisters?”
“Mud of the world upon my head. No. I’m saying it’s a male, he still says to milk it!”
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
I recently listened to CS Lewis’ address, “The Inner Ring,” for the first time. I was struck by these paragraphs, where he describes the ambiguous ‘inside’ that exists in so many human groupings.
There are what correspond to passwords, but they are too spontaneous and informal. A particular slang, the use of particular nicknames, an allusive manner of conversation, are the marks. But it is not so constant. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside. Some people are obviously in and some are obviously out, but there are always several on the borderline…
There are no formal admissions or expulsions. People think they are in it after they have in fact been pushed out of it, or before they have been allowed in: this provides great amusement for those who are really inside…
Badly as I may have described it, I hope you will all have recognised the thing I am describing. Not, of course, that you have been in the Russian Army, or perhaps in any army. But you have met the phenomenon of an Inner Ring. You discovered one in your house at school before the end of the first term. And when you had climbed up to somewhere near it by the end of your second year, perhaps you discovered that within the ring there was a Ring yet more inner, which in its turn was the fringe of the great school Ring to which the house Rings were only satellites. It is even possible that the school ring was almost in touch with a Masters’ Ring. You were beginning, in fact, to pierce through the skins of an onion. And here, too, at your University—shall I be wrong in assuming that at this very moment, invisible to me, there are several rings—independent systems or concentric rings—present in this room? And I can assure you that in whatever hospital, inn of court, diocese, school, business, or college you arrive after going down, you will find the Rings—what Tolstoy calls the second or unwritten systems.
Lewis is so helpful here in drawing our attention to the fact that every group of humans has an inside group and an outside. So, when it comes to church membership, the question is not whether a church will have a membership or not. It’s really whether that membership is a defined system, or whether it is “unwritten” and ambiguous. In the real world, it’s either one or the other.
This is such a needed clarification because once we’ve framed the situation in these terms, we’re then able to ask which approach really is the most helpful, kind, and loving. At our current stage of Western culture, clear and formal lines that include some and exclude others tend to feel unkind and unloving, narrow, inauthentic.
But if, because of this, we choose to forgo a clear system of membership in our churches, we are in fact choosing to hand over the authority for drawing the inevitable inside/outside line to the fuzzy, shifting, and often cruel complexities of group social dynamics – returning as it were to the kinds of relational vibes that governed who the cool kids were (and were not) in middle school. I, for one, do not want that kind of system to be the controlling factor in who is considered a ‘real’ member of my spiritual family. Even worse, in places like Central Asia, the inside group is simply defined by who is currently in the good graces of the strongman pastor.
The thing that Westerners are so worried about implementing in their own countries or on the mission field, because it doesn’t initially feel nice or contextual, is the very thing that, in the end, proves to be truly loving and truly contextual. Because when church membership is implemented in a way that applies the Bible’s inside/outside lines, so that there are clear qualifications and a clear process in (and out), then membership is open to so many more kinds of people. It shouldn’t matter what your social background is, what your ethnicity is, what your personality is. It shouldn’t matter what your interests or hobbies are, your personal clothing style, what your political orientation is, or what your age or gender is. All of these differences that naturally sort humans into little cliques at work or school, all of them are put aside in the church, so that the doors to the local kingdom embassy might be thrown wide open to all born-again believers who are ready to obey Jesus.
Western evangelicals need to wake up and realize that church membership is inescapable. Their churches will always have an inside group, whether they realize it or not. In this way, membership is a lot like contextualization; everyone does it, all the time. To be wise and loving, therefore, we must learn to be intentional and biblical about it.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
A Peruvian, a Pakistani, a Filipino, a Central Asian, and an American get pulled over at a checkpoint.
No, this is not the start to a bad joke. But it is, in fact, how I learned that locals believe Christian clergy can do black magic.
In truth, you never can predict when these kinds of insights might emerge that reveal what the locals really believe. On this day, our source of cultural illumination surprisingly appeared from one of the least enjoyable parts of living in Central Asia. That is, the inescapable, and often petty, government bureaucracy, military checkpoints on the road being one particularly tedious expression of this.
For this particular trip, I was on an outing with four friends, and we were coming back from a long day of exploring some fascinating ancient sites together. Three of them (Peruvian, Pakistani, and Central Asian) had just finished a year-long pastoral internship under the leadership of the Filipino brother, himself a TCK who now serves as one of our pastors in Caravan City. We had been planning for some time to take this kind of trip together. And the timing of it, coming just a few days after the internship finished, made it a fun and celebratory time.
We knew that our unique carload, itself a sort of mini UN, would likely raise eyebrows at the half dozen checkpoints we’d need to pass through during the day. So, all of us had our documents on us. All of us, that is, except for the Peruvian brother. His documents were with the lawyer for his visa renewal process. However, we weren’t worried. He had pictures of his IDs, something accepted by the guards when the visas and passports of those traveling are tied up in other layers of bureaucracy elsewhere. No ID on you for some random reason? Big trouble. No ID on you because your lawyer is (so you say) getting your visa renewed? No problem! Carry on.
The checkpoints proved seamless all day long, until the very last one, as we were on our way back late at night. Here, as soon as the guard laid eyes on the Peruvian and heard us begin to say that he didn’t have his documents, he ordered him to head inside the station for further questioning. The soldier made this snap judgment and began to walk away without letting us plead our case, so I yelled out as quickly as I could,
“But… respected one… he’s of the people of Peru… his documents are with the lawyer for his visa renewal!Visa renewal!”
Missionaries from Latin American countries have both the advantage and the disadvantage of looking like they are from our region, Central Asia. It was likely that the guard had assumed from appearances that the Peruvian was from a neighboring rival people group – and had therefore plopped him into some sludge-slow process of window and desk hopping seemingly designed to be as convoluted as possible.
This last-minute plea seemed to cause the guard to reconsider and relax a little bit. He turned back to us, still told the Peruvian to go inside to a certain room, but allowed the Central Asian brother to go with him for the sake of interpretation.
The rest of us sat in the car and hoped for the best, barely fending off yet another guard who approached and attempted to send us all inside.
As we waited in the dusty darkness, the Peruvian and the Central Asian made their way into the captain’s office. From a similar situation in the previous weeks, I knew the room’s layout followed the standard formula. Large and pretentious desk facing the door, hard couches lining the walls, plenty of ashtrays and tea tables, a rickety swamp cooler whirring in the window, and photoshopped pictures of benign-looking government strongmen up on the walls.
The captain was not in a good mood, so our friends were not making much headway trying to explain their case. That is, until the Central Asian dropped the fact that the Peruvian was actually a pastor. This was, in fact, true. He had been a pastor in Peru and had originally been sent to pastor a team of Spanish-speaking missionaries before later joining the internship for more training.
There is something in the wiring of our local Muslim Central Asians, such that once they find out a man is actually a ‘priest,’ their entire bearing towards him changes for the positive. We’ve seen this dynamic so often here over the years that we’ve begun to joke that rather than hiding the pastoral background that many of us have (as is the norm), we should instead start going around wearing protestant clergy collars. At least in government offices, this contextualization of our garments would make a huge difference. In this, Central Asia has proved yet again to be utterly different from our assumptions of how it would be.
Accordingly, the captain decided that, since our Peruvian friend was a priest, there was no issue here whatsoever, and that he could go his way. However, in parting, he also slipped in a joke to the Central Asian brother.
“Ask him if he could do some black magic for me,brother, har harhar.”
Finding discretion to be the better part of valor, our friends took the opportunity to smile and leave quickly, rather than staying to correct the captain that, no, as a pastor, our friend most certainly did not and would not do black magic. As no true pastor should.
“Wait,” I asked my friends when they were back in the car, “locals think pastors do black magic?”
“Yes,” the Central Asian brother replied, “I’ve heard it from my older relatives many times. They used to go to some kind of ethnic Christian priest to get him to do spells and charms for them – things having to do with fertility or love, especially.”
Apparently, some of the clergy from the local ethnic Christian communities had, over time, fallen into acting like the local Islamic sheikhs, themselves having fallen into acting like the older mages, shamans, and witch doctors so common all over the world. Appease and manipulate the spirits for your own blessing and the cursing of your enemies. The same demonic strategy used in the Melanesia of my childhood, recycled here with just a smidge of Central Asian monotheistic veneer.
I was reminded of how I’d heard that even one of the few evangelical pastors among our people group had himself started acting weird in these ways, sheikh-ish, making people who asked for healing to drink Bible verses he’d written on little pieces of paper. I wondered if he had also grown up hearing from his relatives of how this was simply what Christian clergy are supposed to do.
I’m very glad this bit of local data emerged, even though it came through something as tedious as a government checkpoint. Who knew that this was something so commonly assumed among our locals, lurking down in the basement shadows of their worldview? Now we know. And now we can proactively teach against it. No, true pastors should not and do not have anything to do with black magic. Yes, they may be involved in the occasional miraculous healing or quiet casting out of a demon. But this is not magic; this is simply the Holy Spirit at work in the normal life of the local church.
No, Mr. Captain of the checkpoint, we won’t do black magic for you. But if you hear us out, we can tell you about something infinitely more powerful.
We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Shepherd* was perhaps the first believing poet among our people group. Having come to faith as an older man, Shepherd was able to publish one book of Christian poems in our local language before he passed away in 2022.
I have been hoping to get hold of his book for a few years now. This past month, I finally did. Well, at least I got hold of pictures of the pages of his book. My hope is to steadily work through his poems, selecting the best of them to highlight in our own resources. Our people group is deeply poetic, so there is much potential for poetry to have a prominent place in the churches here. I’m also translating them to English, in hopes that Shepherd’s poems might also be an encouragement to believers in other contexts.
The following is one of the first poems of his that I’ve translated. In this, I’ve been able to preserve the meaning and the rhyme scheme, though not always the meter. When I’ve heard local poetry read, the last word of each line is typically slowed and stressed. So, as you read this poem to yourself, reading the last word in that way will get you closer to the effect of the poem in its original language.
The poem I’ll share today is one that focuses on the persecution and gaslighting that Shepherd faced after coming to faith out of a Muslim background. Rather than stay silent in fear, Shepherd speaks of his determination to boldly speak out about being a Christian, trusting in Christ to protect him.
Without Hesitation by Shepherd H
I desire no more to twist reason and fact They make me see black as white, and white as black I express my heart freely and that without fear I am proud to be a Christian and this silence tear I put my faith in Christ as Savior and divine I'll no longer to illusion's chaos be captive, confined I put the door of my heart behind me, made Christ owner of my home Lest I be shaking my head, empty-handed at God's throne The jewel of the Bible is the capital of my world and life My guardian is the mighty power of Christ
We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Entrusted to the Dirt 
