Author: entrustedtothedirt

A Strange Aversion to White Guy Monologues

One of the most curious examples of poor contextualization in Central Asia is how opposed most missionaries are to preaching. By and large, missionaries feel strongly that the indigenous church plants and churches in this part of the world should replace preached sermons with participatory Bible discussions. And they feel even more strongly that if preaching must be present at all, then it should absolutely not be the foreigner doing it.

The reason this is poor contextualization is that these feelings and opinions seem to be based entirely on the missionaries’ own opinions, culture, training, and baggage, and not on that of the locals at all.

Yet very few missionaries seem able to see this.

Most foreign workers here would heartily resonate with the idea that, as I heard it put yesterday, “I didn’t come here to reproduce white guy monologues.” But few are asking themselves why they feel this way – and crucially, whether or not any of their local friends feel the same.

Instead, much of the missionary community has become an echo chamber, reinforcing the idea that preaching, and especially foreigners preaching, is bad contextualization – and therefore to be discarded. As it turns out, however, this is a huge assumption. And one, as I’m increasingly convinced, without any local evidence to back it up.

See, on the level of cultural values and practices, our Central Asian locals highly prize experts and expertise. Whether in the realm of education, government, medicine, art, or religion, when locals want to learn or teach something, they seek out an expert who will proceed to educate the community (often giving out certificates when they’re done). This teacher, ironically, will almost always do this by means of a monologue, a lecture. In fact, the same word is used in our local language for any kind of public teaching like this, whether it be an address, a speech, or a sermon. Every day, all day long, this kind of public oratory is happening here on television, on the radio, on social media, in tribal gatherings, in schools, and in meeting halls. The idea of the wise expert is so prominent and respected here that in our community of Caravan City, one of the most honorable ways to greet a random man on the street is to address him as “Teacher” – whether he actually is a teacher or not.

But perhaps, one might think, it’s different in spiritual settings. To the contrary, week in and week out for 1,400 years, locals have been going to a mosque to hear a monologue, an Islamic sermon. Well, what about before Islam came? Our area had a strong presence of ancient Christianity. Weekly Christian sermons would have been happening in local churches here for 500 years before Islam arrived, with some of the most famous preachers being originally from other nations in the region. What about before Christianity, then? Turns out our area also had a strong Jewish community, which means that weekly Jewish public reading of the Law & Prophets and teaching based on it would have been taking place in the local synagogues for several hundred years before the coming of Christianity. This is quite the history. We are looking at over 2,000 years of local precedent for preaching of one sort or another.

Not surprisingly, given this precedent, if you were to gather a group of our Central Asians today who want to learn about the Bible and then ask them what they expect that kind of activity to look like, they would tell you that they want to be taught (i.e. lectured) by a religious expert. And if possible, they would prefer that the expert be a credentialed foreigner.

Do most missionaries listen to them when they express these expectations? Do they honor this contemporary local preference, one backed by thousands of years of local precedent? Nope. Instead, they assert that preaching is Western, not actually contextual. And they then proceed to import a form that is radically foreign – informal, inductive group study, casually facilitated by a “coach” or “a trainer of trainers” – someone who is not supposed to have the authority of a teacher or an expert. Then, these missionaries go on to assure themselves that they are, in fact, using methodology that is so much more contextual and effective than previous generations of colonial missionaries with their imported Western methods.

To be clear, our locals do not gather on their own for informal, inductive study of a religious text, facilitated by a “coach” or “trainer” or some other Socratically-minded sort-of-but-not-really-leader. There is no local precedent for this kind of methodology. So, when locals are told over and over again by the foreign Christians that they have to do this in order to be good disciple makers, they initially find it very disorienting. This disorientation leads to questions like, “Why are we awkwardly meeting in a house and not in a church or official space?” “Who is in charge here and why aren’t they taking charge of this time?”, “Why won’t the person who is supposed to be the teacher tell us the correct answer instead of hinting and asking us these unfamiliar questions?”, and “Do you know a real priest or pastor who can actually explain things to us?”

Sadly, our locals are also not trained by their education system in critical thinking. This means they can’t easily jump into reading a text, summarizing it in their own words, and finding its main point. And because they’re from a high context, high power distance culture, they often don’t know how to comfortably navigate these informal, “organic” times of group Bible study. Yes, they can certainly learn how to do these things over time. I myself have trained many local believers in group inductive group Bible study (for reasons I’ll get into below).

But the key thing I want to draw out first is the sheer magnitude of the disconnect going on here. Many missionaries in our region are convinced they are doing something closer to the local culture by choosing informal, inductive group study instead of preaching. And yet in reality, the exact opposite is happening. This can only mean that the missionaries are deceiving themselves, importing a radically foreign form that is far stranger to locals than preaching would be, and all the while believing they are doing the complete opposite.

Once you see how upside down all of this is, you can’t unsee it. It would be like a foreign exchange teacher coming to the US who is convinced that bowing is the more authentic way that Americans greet one another, and that waving or shaking hands are outdated foreign forms. So, he insists on bowing and making all of his American students bow also when they greet him and one another. The American students don’t know why this foreign teacher keeps insisting that they bow to one another, since it’s not something they’ve naturally been brought up to do. This teacher is not operating in the normal cultural code of form and meaning as they understand it. But the teacher tells all his colleagues back home that he has adopted this method of greeting in order to be more American in his relationships, more like the locals. It’s not just that he’s getting it wrong. He’s confident in his take on American culture, when in reality, he’s actually deluded, the one who is, in fact, guilty of importing the foreign method. To make our analogy even more complete, imagine that the vast majority of foreign exchange teachers in the US believe this same thing.

Why is the blind spot regarding preaching so powerful among missionaries among the unreached, especially if it’s not being reinforced by the locals themselves? Here, I think a number of powerful factors are combining. First, there is the place where Western/global evangelical culture currently finds itself – a place of overreaction to the structures and methods of the past. This pendulum-swing away from the methods of our forefathers includes strong negative vibes regarding things like institutions and preaching. Missionaries are misdiagnosing the unhealthy churches they grew up in and placing the blame erroneously on things like preaching and formal organization. They end up on the field, not exactly sure what a healthy church is, but awfully convictional about the fact that they don’t want it to look like the churches back home, the very churches that are funding them.

Second, popular missiology and missions training drill into new and veteran missionaries a false narrative about what is and is not effective and contextual on the field. Even if a missionary personally benefited from preaching and enjoys sitting under it themselves, all the loudest voices from missiology and pre-field training tell them that that 45 minute sermons are something must be left back in the homeland, and not something to introduce among the baby churches of their focus people group – who, it is claimed, deserve the opportunity to do church in a more pure, New Testament manner, unsoiled by modern Western accretions like preaching.

Third, missionaries bring preconceived notions with them about people groups in this part of the world. They carry deeply held assumptions about what is normal for Muslim people groups, such as the belief that they will prefer to meet in house churches and do discussion-based study, if only the foreigners would get out of the way and give the locals the chance to be true to themselves and their culture. Preconceived notions are unavoidable. But they must be tested once we are actually living among a people group, and if necessary, discarded.

In the face of this powerful triad of their own cultural baggage, the voices of the missiologists, and their own assumptions, missionaries can spend years on the field completely blind to the fact that their aversion to white guy monologues is mostly a reflection of themselves, and not really a reflection of the locals at all.

However, preaching is good contextualization. I believe this, yes, because it fits with the desires, expectations, and forms of this particular culture. But that point only matters if the form itself is, first, biblical. I firmly believe it is biblical, although when it comes to this question in particular, the theologians and pastors do not agree with the missiologists. Whenever this happens regarding biblical interpretation, I’ve learned you almost always want to trust the theologians and pastors, not the missiologists. This is because the former group is more gifted and wired to be careful with the text of Scripture, while the latter group is often gifted and wired as passionate pioneers and practitioners. This otherwise good gifting comes with an unfortunate downside – the temptation toward sloppy use of the text to justify mission methods. For example, when mission leaders claim that faithful preaching as we’ve known it in church history is not required because it’s not a method rapid or reproducible enough to “finish the task.” As the logic goes, 1) Our church/disciple multiplication methods must catch up to the rate of lost people going to hell, 2) Preaching isn’t rapidly reproducible enough for this exponential rate of growth, therefore, 3) Preaching must not be biblical and should be replaced with participatory Bible studies not dependent upon a qualified teacher – just like we see in Acts!

In reality, the biblical case for preaching is really not that hard to establish from even a cursory overview of the New Testament. Jesus preached monologues to his disciples and others, such as the sermon on the mount (Matt 5-7). The apostles preached evangelistic monologues, as recorded in the book of Acts, as well as preaching to groups of only believers (Acts 2, Acts 20). The book of Hebrews is a good example of a local church monologue, a sermon for believers, adapted into a written form. The New Testament church found its primary model in the Jewish synagogue, where preaching and teaching – monologues – were taking place weekly in the first century (Acts 13:13-43). Finally, add to all this biblical witness the uniform witness of church history that preaching is an apostolic practice (1 Tim 5:17) handed down to us from generation to generation of God’s people.

Because we can draw clear lines like this connecting preaching to the Bible, and clear lines connecting preaching to the strengths and forms of our local culture, I therefore believe that preaching is sound and important contextualization. Yes, even if it’s a foreigner doing it. That leads me to the position that those on the mission field who reject preaching are, in fact, doing poor contextualization. This is because they are missing, first, that it’s biblical, and second, that it’s locally effective. Good contextualization should be able to see both, but for some reason, many missionaries can’t yet perceive either.

Okay then, since I believe preaching is a sound method, does it then follow that group inductive Bible studies are poor contextualization? Not at all. Inductive Bible study is, in fact, sound and important contextualization as well. First, this is because it can also be easily grounded in the Bible (Acts 8:26-35, 17:11, 18:26). But second, when it comes to how inductive Bible study connects to the culture, the way in which it is good contextualization is different from the way that preaching is good contextualization. Inductive Bible study is good contextualization because it directly connects, not with a strong precedent in the local culture, but with a crippling weakness in the local culture. Remember, good contextualization will not only utilize redeemable inside forms but also introduce outside forms intentionally when there is an area of the local culture that is non-existent or woefully underdeveloped.

This is why, over the years, we have labored to preach and to raise up preachers while also laboring to lead inductive Bible studies and raise up locals who can do the same. Both forms are good contextualization because they are both biblical, though one runs with the grain of the culture while the other runs against it. Both, ultimately, serve the church. They are not meant to be pitted against one another, but to powerfully work hand-in-hand.

To do contextualization well, we must be able to see the local culture for what it actually is. Unfortunately, the scales of our own cultural background, assumptions, and training can blur our vision and prevent this kind of clear-sightedness. This is what seems to be going on given so many missionaries’ opposition to preaching in unreached places.

Today’s missionaries among the unreached overwhelmingly have an aversion to preaching, to white guy monologues, or even local guy monologues, for that matter. Missionary echo chambers keep reinforcing this belief. My hope is that someday they will come to see this for what it truly is – a strange aversion indeed. And one that is not ultimately serving the local believers.

We need to raise 32k 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. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com

A Song on the Day When Sorrow Comes to an End

“We Long for That Day” by 20Schemes Music/His Estate

This is a new song for me, but one I’m very thankful to have learned from our international church here in Caravan City. Like we see in this song, I really appreciate the way that 20Schemes Music/His Estate blends stirring melody with blunt and biblical lyrics. How many worship songs do you know that include lines like, “Nowhere left to hide for the abuser?”

Last week, I was at a small conference with a couple dozen cross-cultural workers also engaged in reaching our people group in this region and in the global diaspora. The most open segment of our people group and the one with the most churches is also the one who has witnessed the most wartime atrocities in this past decade. Over the days we met, we heard tragic testimony from several believers of all of the evil they’ve witnessed, yet how in the midst of it God is powerfully building his church.

Since we were singing songs in both English and our local language, I was asked to lead a couple of the worship times. Reflecting on what we had heard from these local believers, I chose this song as one of the English ones we sang. It was new for maybe everyone there, but, I hope, well worth the learning curve.

This is the chorus: 

We long for that day when Jesus comes again
When sorrow and pain will all come to an end
When justice is done and evil cast away
Oh, may we all be found in Christ that day

We need to raise 32k 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 English-speaking churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Why Does John Mention That He Outran Peter to Jesus’ Tomb?

In recent years, I’ve heard increasing references to the apostle John’s comments that he outran Peter as they ran to see what had happened at Jesus’ tomb (John 20:3-6). Often, these comments are focusing on the potential humor in that John, now writing as an old man, still seems to point out that he really was faster than Peter – even when Peter had a head start. If true, there is a relatable humanity in this that is, in fact, funny. It seems to remind us that John was a dude just like the rest of us who enjoyed some good competition. But one preacher I heard a few years ago went as far as to say that John was actually sinning here in pridefully inserting these lines into his account. I was taken aback by this suggestion made from the stage to a megachurch of several thousand. Did this preacher really believe that inspired scripture contains a narrator making comments of sinful and petty one-upmanship?

As I’ve chewed on these brief details included in John’s Gospel, I think we have an explanation that makes a lot more sense than either of the above. See, the gospel of John was written much later than the other three gospels, even decades later. Because of this timing, it is apparent that some of what John is doing in his different accounts is clearing up misunderstandings that had taken root in the early church in the decades following Jesus’ ascension.

Consider John 21:20-23:

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

In this account of Jesus’ post-fish-breakfast conversation with Peter, John gives us details that are not included in any of the other gospels. Why? Well, his overall purpose of the book is evangelism and assurance. He wants his unbelieving readers to know that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, so that they will have faith in his name (John 20:30). Likewise, he wants his believing readers to be strengthened in their confidence in this gospel. But in this passage from John 21, we also see one of John’s other purposes in writing. People in the early church were saying stuff that wasn’t accurate. So, John was out to clear things up. The Christians of John’s day commonly believed that Jesus had said John wouldn’t die. John wants us to know that this is not an accurate understanding of what Jesus actually said.

This brings us back to the curious details that John includes regarding his footrace with Peter to the empty tomb. Given that the resurrection of Jesus is the absolute center of the faith, a core component of the gospel itself, without which everything falls apart, it makes sense that the early believers would want to know with confidence the play-by-play details of its earliest witnesses. Now, it’s clear that some of the believing women, like Mary Magdalene, were the first witnesses. But which apostle, which of the twelve, was the first one to witness the empty tomb?

What if a disagreement existed in the early church based on different oral traditions, with some insisting that it was John and others insisting that it was Peter who first saw that the body of Jesus was missing? In this case, this is where John helpfully steps in and provides the needed clarification. Was John first, or was Peter first? Yes.

John outran Peter. So, he technically made it to the tomb first. However, for whatever reason, he did not go inside. Instead, Peter, true to form, charged right in. So John was first to the tomb. But Peter was first inside the tomb. Both oral traditions would have been true when understood correctly.

If there were indeed dueling ancient accounts about which apostle was the first witness to the empty tomb, this account would have cleared all that up. And this motive for including these details, to me, seems to fit much better with the rest of the book of John, where John seems extra careful to not draw attention to himself. For example, John refers to himself in the third person as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” rather than simply using “I” or even his own name.

Why does this matter? Well, even though it may cause us to chuckle to imagine John getting in one last dig at Peter, that kind of view doesn’t fit very well with a high view of scripture. If John did this, it would not be him writing honestly and repentantly about things he had done wrong in the past, like Peter writing through Mark about his denial of Jesus. Rather, it would be him somehow gloating while writing inspired scripture. As if while being carried along by the Holy Spirit, he would have been able to write, “Ahem, I just want you to know that I was really the faster man.”

No, in my opinion, this kind of interpretation of these details says far more about our own age and how we read ourselves into the text than it tells us about John’s actual purpose and context. Instead of this, I suggest that we consider this passage to be one of several where John intentionally includes details that helpfully clear up things that in his day were becoming muddled among the believing community.

Thankfully, whatever John’s original intention in including these details, the overall point of the passage couldn’t be more clear. The tomb was empty. Jesus had risen. Nothing would ever be the same.

Today, we celebrated that truth at a mountainside picnic service with dozens of Central Asian believers. They sang, preached, prayed, and danced, proclaiming that the resurrection has made them new – made them members of God’s forever household. Mary, John, and Peter’s surprising message is still spreading 2,000 years later, still transforming all who believe it. Even in the Islam-dominated mountains of Central Asia.

Happy Easter, dear friends. He is risen.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Wilkimedia Commons.

The Revenge of The Rotisserie Chicken

Around five years ago, we had just returned to Caravan City after a medical leave in the US. After this absence, plus all the general strangeness of the year 2020, we were eager to get back into some healthy rhythms with our team.

Our people group had mercifully dispensed with the lockdowns after three or four months of going along with the global consensus. But by the summer of 2020, most in our area felt that further lockdowns were something only wealthy countries could afford. The workers and shop owners in the bazaar needed life to get back to normal so that they could survive. So, they threatened protests. The government, to its credit, listened, allowing our area of Central Asia to return to a degree of normalcy much sooner than the rest of the world. Mandatory face masks in malls and airports and bans against big mosque funerals were some of the only restrictions that hung on for another year or so. Other than that, our people group more or less went back to normal life.

This meant that our team could begin face-to-face meetings again, something that I, as the team leader, was very eager to see happen. At that point, we were a year or so into trying to lead a deeply divided team, and only six of those months had been in-person opportunities to build deeper trust and community. Results had been mixed. Some of the team were supportive, some still seemed quite distrustful. So, in addition to planning intentional structured time together, focusing on things like the 12 Characteristics of a Healthy Church, I also wanted us to spend lots of good unstructured time together – ideally while enjoying good food. I had seen in the past how the humble kebab could be a force for team unity. And I was hopeful that by adding a meal to our weekly team meetings, we might all become better friends as well as better teammates.

The challenge is always finding a weekly meal situation that achieves the magic combination of good, reproducible, and affordable. As part of trying to figure this out, a timely conversation with my wife led me to the distinct impression that the ladies on the team were not in the place to take on this added burden.

However, there seemed to be a good option that would check all the boxes – street rotisserie chicken. At the time, we lived in a working-class neighborhood that had its own small bazaar of sorts, centered around a central intersection. Two or three of the small restaurants or fast food places at this intersection proudly displayed outside on the sidewalk slowly-rotating spits of glossy roasting chicken, dripping with sour and salty seasoning and tempting passersby with their wafting aroma. You could buy a whole bird for the equivalent of $6 USD. To me, it seemed like a great solution, especially since a chicken came on a bed of rice, onions, and pickled veggies, all wrapped in fresh flatbread.

When the day came for the next team meeting, I made sure to go a little early to get the roasted chickens. This was earlier in the day than anyone else was buying lunch chicken, but the seller assured me that they were indeed fully cooked, using the same word for roasted that locals use for falling deeply in love. I drove home, rotisserie chickens in hand and optimism in my heart, ready to begin a new season of team life and meals. I had seen in the past the power of solid hospitality paired with studying sound principles together. And I was sure this combination wouldn’t let me down.

What I didn’t know is that these seemingly good-smelling birds would, in the end, turn traitors. Alas, as the sons of the prophets once cried out in alarm, there was ‘death the pot’ – or, at least, food poisoning.

The meeting itself and the following meal went well. But later on that evening, our family started feeling terrible. Kids were lethargic and passing out for naps when they normally wouldn’t. Multiple members of the family started vomiting. And mental fog and physical achiness came over our bodies. Wondering if it had been the food, we texted one member of the team. They said they felt great. So, we turned next to the LPG heaters that had been blazing all day long in our little cement and tile house. It was an unusually cold week, and we were running them more than we normally would. Could it be carbon monoxide poisoning? We googled the symptoms. Alarmingly, they seemed to line up.

I didn’t know much about carbon monoxide poisoning, but I knew it was nothing to mess around with. Every winter there are locals who die from it because they leave their kerosene or LPG heaters on too long during the long winter nights of no electricity. It wasn’t worth waiting around to find out. No, as we had done in previous winters and would do again, it was time for a short-term house evacuation to somewhere with better electricity. While there, we could figure out what was going on and recuperate in a simpler and warmer environment.

Teammates of ours had recently moved into a 24-hour power apartment not too far from us, but they were out of the country for a while to have a baby. We asked if we could stay at their place to recover, and they kindly agreed. So, we packed up our bags and our nauseous and miserable children and drove down the road to the new and shiny apartment towers where their place was. The grass border of the parking lot outside was lined with newly replanted palm and olive trees wrapped in Christmas lights, imports from far away. As soon as we parked and stepped out of the car, one of my sons promptly blessed one of these palm trees with a generous regurgitation of chicken and onions. All we could do was pat him on the back and thank him for not losing it in the car. I was worried the guards would scold us for letting this happen to the pristine landscaping, but thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps they were dads themselves and mercifully chose to let my son puke in peace.

We had just managed to make it up to the 23rd-floor apartment before other members of the family needed to take their turns again. For the rest of the evening, we alternately blessed God for the fact that there were multiple bathrooms and felt bad to be throwing up so much and so often in our friends’ house. We would definitely need to do some deep cleaning when we recovered. Admittedly, there were certain points while lying in the fetal position on the bathroom floor when I wasn’t quite sure I would recover. Over the next day or two, we reacquainted ourselves with the rotisserie chicken lunch in one way or another again and again and again until we were left lamenting that we couldn’t possibly have anything more left in our innerds.

I’ve only had food poisoning a few times in my life, but each time I’ve been struck by the wild intensity of the pain that pulses and stabs in the stomach area. This distinct pain, in fact, is what made me revisit the possibility that it had not been carbon-monoxide poisoning after all, but actually the food. This was a welcome thought, as the latter seemed to be the lesser of the two evils.

After texting a few more teammates, I found out that, sure enough, they were also in a bad way. In fact, at least three-quarters of our team was down with symptoms of food poisoning – almost certainly from the chicken I had bought so cheerfully. Alas, my attempt at blessing my team with good food had gone disastrously wrong.

Eventually, we all recovered our strength. It’s amazing what a few days of rest, hot showers, and 24-hour electricity can do for recovering health in the cold, grey Central Asian winters. Unfortunately, the idea of eating meals together after team meetings was not one that anyone wanted to revisit anytime soon. And the poisonous rotisserie chicken that I had bought became a running joke on the team anytime we spoke of eating food together.

After this, the team continued to stumble on toward better relationships with one another and a better posture toward the church planting work. But we’d have to do so without the help of communal meals with the whole team, something that I continued to regret. It probably wasn’t a make-or-break issue, but to this day, I wonder if certain hard things later on would have gone better had we found a regular time to break bread all together.

My Muslim friends will sometimes tell me how dangerous and unhealthy they believe pork is, as if anyone who eats it is crazy and simply asking to get sick. Often, I will point out to them that they eat something almost daily that is just as (if not more) dangerous when undercooked – poultry, like street rotisserie chicken. That stuff, I will them with all the authority of a wizened old war veteran staring off into painful memories far off, that stuff can kill you.

Of course, that’s no reason to stop eating rotisserie chicken (or pork for that matter). We’re just extra careful now to make sure it’s been cooking on the spit for a good long time. Better to have dry chicken than an entire church planting team taken out for days. And ever since then, we’ve managed to avoid causing any more widespread food poisoning on the different teams we’ve been a part of.

As for my teammates with the apartment, for reasons that don’t come into this tale, they never moved back into that same place. This was probably for the best, considering my family’s days of violent and messy convalescence there. My family also quickly afterward ordered carbon monoxide alarms from the States and made sure to have them on our walls at our house and each place we lived afterward, just in case. We ourselves now live in a 24-hour power apartment. This means when winter comes around, we tell our colleagues who still live in traditional homes that our place is available should they ever need a similar tactical retreat from vengeful poultry, or even just from a house whose systems have collapsed in the coldest week of the year.

We’re now back living in Caravan City, so we occasionally see that same palm tree my son inadvertently fertilized with the remains of his lunch. No joke, it’s looking great, unusually healthy and vibrant for a palm tree in this city of extreme climates. My wife and I chuckle when we point it out to one another, remembering the rotisserie chicken disaster of late 2020. Perhaps our pain at least served to strengthen this one tree, fellow transplant that it was, far away from its native climes.

In the end, I still believe that missionary teams (or any team, really) should eat regular meals together. This is a simple and important way to build the kind of warmth and relationship needed for working well together. But just like any good thing, achieving this is not without its risks, and it can sometimes go unexpectedly wrong. Yes, feed your team. But also, do your best not to poison them.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com

A Proverb on Wishes vs. Diligence

The tree of wishes is a tree that’s fruitless.

-local oral tradition

I recently heard this local proverb for the first time. It points to the wisdom that wishes don’t actually change anything. No, we must live in the world as it actually is, a world that requires work to achieve what we desire. Apparently, we have a saying in English that is similar, “If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.” I’m not familiar with this saying, but it makes sense. Beggars don’t ride horses because wishes don’t actually result in horses. Wishes don’t result in anything – unless they are transformed into action.

Solomon agrees, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Prov 13:4). Solomon tells us that wishful thinking is often linked to being a sluggard. And diligence is so important that it makes the difference between a satisfied soul and a soul that gets nothing, a soul that’s fruitless.

We’ve also seen here in Central Asia that it’s not just sloth that can lead to fruitless wishful thinking. This kind of posture can also come from a culture enslaved to fatalism. If a people group doesn’t believe that God actively intervenes in their daily lives, if they don’t believe that their actions can be used by God to make a significant difference, then they are not likely to translate their wishes into action. After all, if everything has already been determined and God is distant, then what’s the point?

Western culture is very active when it comes to trying to turn desires into reality. Sometimes this borders on being naively optimistic. But the underlying belief that we really can change things through our efforts has deeply Protestant (and biblical) roots. In contrast, the culture here has been cut off from the wisdom of God’s word for so long that they’ve largely lost this practical agency and optimism of the book of Proverbs, even though old local proverbs like the one about the tree of wishes still linger. Thankfully, the Bible is now available in our local language. That means that little by little, its wisdom will be leavening the worldview of our people group, especially that of the believers.

Long-term, this will mean much less sitting underneath the wishing tree – and much more planting, pruning, and picking from trees that actually satisfy.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com

Seven Points on The Careful Justice of Hell

Our age doesn’t naturally resonate with the justice of an eternal hell. Whether in the West or here in Central Asia, the spirit of the age means that the default for most is that hell feels unjust. This hasn’t always been the case. There are periods of history (e.g. the Middle Ages) as well as people groups throughout the history of the world for whom an eternal hell resonated and made all the sense in the world. But for most of us now, something has changed. This particular part of God’s reality has been so successfully suppressed in our cultures and consciences that even the most faithful believers struggle to feel that hell is just, even if they affirm that it is so in their minds and words.

This is certainly true of me. And it has been true for countless Central Asian friends of mine over the years. In this, pressing into the details and nuances of what has been revealed about hell has been helpful. In particular, this effort has helped me to both believe and feel more deeply that the justice of hell is a fitting, careful justice. I, like many, am tempted to feel that an eternal hell is a careless kind of ‘justice,’ a broad-brushed thing involving so much eternal collateral damage. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Deuteronomy 29:29 says that, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” There is much about hell that has not been revealed. We trust in the just and loving character of God for those (for now) unanswerable questions. But when it comes to what has been revealed, here we should lean in and pay attention to what the scriptures are saying or hinting at regarding the reality of hell. Here are seven of these points that I find myself often coming back to in conversations about eternal judgment.

First, God’s punishment for sin has been the same from the beginning and will be the same until the end of history. The law laid down in Eden still holds true. Sin deserves death, both physical death and eternal death in hell (Gen 2:17, Rom 6:23). God will justly uphold this law for every human being ever created. Their sin will be justly paid for with death. This will be either their own deaths or, for believers, the death of the only acceptable substitute – Jesus Christ, the lamb of God. God justly applies this law to every single person, with no exceptions. He is perfectly consistent in this.

Second, every human being is heading to hell because they have personally suppressed the light they were given. Romans 1-3 is clear. The entire human race has suppressed the light of God they have – whether this was the revealed, written word of God or merely the truths written on their conscience and visible in nature – that there is a God who is deserving of true worship. We have all suppressed this light and in its place turned to idolatry. This is universal.

Some shepherd boys recently asked me if I was a Muslim or a kafir, an infidel. I was a little taken aback by the sharpness of their question and simply told them I was a Christian, but later I thought more about how I should have answered. Because we have all equally suppressed whatever light of God we were given and in this willingly become his enemies, we are all, in fact, kafirs – every single one of us. This is square one, a good starting point for understanding how isolated or even seemingly good people could still deserve to go to hell.

Third, hell will justly reflect the degree of light which we have rejected. Even though everyone who does not believe will end up in hell, hell will not be the same for everyone. While what has been revealed tells us it will be terrible for all, it also tells us that hell will be worse for some than others. Jesus reveals this when he speaks of the Galilean towns that did not repent when they had the opportunity to see the ministry of the Son of God face to face (Matt 11:20-24). They had access to a stunning degree of God’s light, yet they rejected it. Because of this, their judgment will be worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, who only had access to a much smaller degree of God’s light. Dante is not completely off in suggesting that there are levels of hell. While we don’t know the details, Jesus tells us that God’s justice will carefully reflect the degree of access someone had to God’s light. More light rejected equals more judgment in eternity.

We instinctively feel that the man on the island is in a different situation than the one who grows up in a Christian family and rejects the gospel. Even though both are condemned for rejecting the light, God’s careful justice also acknowledges the differences that are in fact there.

Fourth, there is no repentance in hell. We tend to assume that once someone goes to hell, their eyes are opened and they genuinely plead with God for forgiveness while God callously ignores their change of heart. But what is the evidence for this in the Bible? On the contrary, the Bible seems to show us that hell will be full of worldly sorrow, not godly sorrow. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), there is no sense that the rich man has been truly humbled. Yes, he doesn’t like being in pain and he doesn’t want his brothers to experience the pain of hell. But that is the very definition of worldly sorrow – I’m upset about my sin because its consequences make me feel bad, yet the grief doesn’t lead me to repentance (2 Cor 7:9-12). The rich man still pridefully presumes to order Lazarus (and even Abraham!) around, showing he has not experienced the godly sorrow of true repentance. The New Testament’s language of weeping and gnashing of teeth are images of worldly sorrow and regret (Matt 13:42). They are not images of repentance. No, those in hell will never repent, but continue sinning forever, which means they are day by day adding to the justice of their sentence.

Fifth, the eternal nature of hell is just given that sin is committed against an infinite God. Many of us have heard the helpful illustration that argues for the fitness of an eternal hell due to the fact that sin is an assault against an eternal and infinite God. Hit my brother, so it goes, he might hit me back. Hit my neighbor, he takes me to court. Hit the president, I may be shot by his bodyguards, or at least locked up for a long time. The position of the one assaulted justly warrants different consequences for the same kind of sin. We know that this is true in this world. So, what if we assault the king and creator of the universe, the infinite one? Then we receive eternal consequences befitting of that crime. This is another point that, together with the lack of repentance in hell, helps us begin to feel how the eternality of hell could be just.

Sixth, those in hell will not appear the same as they did here on earth, but will be radically changed into a form that reveals their true nature and fits their eternal environment. We struggle when we picture an unbelieving family member or friend in hell, and rightly so. This current age is a mixed one, when sin and a fallen nature mingle with the remnants of the image of God in every human being (Gen 9:6). Because of this broken yet still present image of God in every human, every person still alive is rightly deserving of dignity and compassion, even though a fallen sinner. But this mixed existence where sin and dignity intermingle is a temporary one. The time is coming when every one of us will be changed (1 Cor 15:52). This change will display our true natures, whose sons we really are – children of God or children of the devil. It seems as if this change happens fundamentally yet partially after death, and then fully in the future resurrection when both believers and unbelievers are raised with new bodies (Dan 12:2, Acts 2:15, Rev 20:5).

Have you ever thought about what kind of resurrected body God will be giving those who are raised into eternal condemnation? For resurrection always implies embodiment in the original languages of the Scriptures. It seems that, like he always does, God will be giving the inhabitants of hell bodies that are appropriate for their environment. Cherubim and seraphim are made for heaven’s throne room, so their bodies reflect this, covered in wings and eyes and fire appropriate for God’s presence. Fish with their scales and gills are made for the sea and birds with their wings for the air. Humans are made to be gardener-worshipper-kings, with fingers and faces that reflect this. This principle applied to hell means that whatever the resurrected bodies of those in hell look like, were we to see them we would affirm just how fit they are for their dwelling place. Our problem is that we project the bodies appropriate for this sphere onto another one, hell (and heaven for that matter), and this leaves us feeling that things aren’t quite right with this picture. Indeed, they aren’t right, for we are projecting bodies into environments they are not appropriate for, like stumbling upon a panda bear in the Sahara desert – it does not belong there.

C.S. Lewis in his sermon, The Weight of Glory, explores this future transformation that will see believers and nonbelievers become what they truly are:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations… it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

The scholar Anthony Hoekema also explores what happens with the image of God in believers in his book, Created in God’s Image. Hoekema shows from scripture how one day the image of God in believers will be not only be restored, but perfected in a way that outshines even what Adam had. Non posse pecare as Augustine put it, no longer able to sin. Glorified humanity will enter fully into “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).

We should remember, however, that believers and unbelievers are on inverse tracks all throughout the scriptures. What takes place among the redeemed in redemptive history is always reflected in the negative among the lost. This means that there is something that will happen to the lost that is the opposite of glorification – a terrifying thought. Likely, the broken image of God among the lost will on that day be completely lost, fully replaced by the image of Satan – and their spirits and bodies will show this, just as ours with their glorified image of God will shine like stars forever and ever. “For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matt 13:12).

If we were to able see unbelievers who are now in hell, or see them as they will be in whatever form future hell takes in the new heavens and new earth, then we would feel that they are exactly where they should be. Everything about them would reflect this, just as angels so clearly belong in heaven, just as everything about glorified believers will fit so perfectly with a new earth.

Seventh, our failure to feel the justice of hell reflects how little we understand the sinfulness of sin. Hell does not feel just to us because we are a people blind to how evil sin actually is. Or, in the case of believers, we are a people recovering from that blindness. Were God to truly open our eyes to see the darkness of the sin in our nature and in our actions, we would not struggle in the same way with the justice of hell. In fact, we’d probably struggle more with the scandalous nature of God’s forgiveness. It’s curious to me that former ages so much more exposed to suffering and oppression than we are struggled less with the concept of an eternal hell. It’s as if they had opportunity to see more clearly firsthand just how sinful sin actually is. And so their feelings about justice and hell were better aligned to what is revealed in God’s word.

Sin is so evil it doesn’t just make us unworthy to be in God’s presence. It makes us downright incompatible. Our very substance as sinful beings cannot draw near to the substance of God’s being without being exposed to eternal death. He is a holy, consuming fire, after all (Is 33:14, Heb 12:29). This is his nature. And his justice by its very nature will burn and afflict sin eternally. That is, unless we are changed to somehow be compatible with that fire.

This is no less than what is promised in the gospel, not only forgiveness but also transformation. We will be changed so that the holy fire of God’s nature will not afflict and torment us eternally, but will instead delight and empower us in its beauty (Is 33:15-17, 1 John 3:2). We will praise him forever because at last we will see hell clearly for the fitting and careful justice that it truly is.

Yes, one day we will also say about hell, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever!” (Rev 19:3). When this occurs it will be because our eyes are finally fully open. We will see the careful and fitting justice of God. And we will know and feel that it is good.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com

Who Was The King of Assyria During The Ministry of Jonah?

Who was the king of Assyria during the ministry of Jonah?

This isn’t a question I’ve really heard discussed before. Now, having looked into it, it seems we have a strong candidate. And that in part because of an ancient solar eclipse.

The biblical text of Jonah never names the king who presided over Nineveh during its great repentance, simply calling him “the king of Nineveh” (Jonah 3:6). But the Bible does tell us which king was on the throne of Israel during Jonah’s ministry – Jeroboam II. This king of Samaria ruled from 782 – 753 B.C., during a period of a resurgent Israel. Surprisingly – since we know what’s going to happen in a mere generation or two – this was also a period of Assyrian weakness.

While Israel was retaking territory from its former oppressors, the Arameans, things weren’t going so well for the Assyrians. Famines, plagues, revolts, earthquakes, and conflicts with the Arameans and Urartians threatened to overwhelm them. All the while, the Assyrian kings of this period were also steadily losing power to the governors of their own realm. In fact, during this period there were more kingly proclamations published by these officials than by the emperor himself. We know very little about the Assyrian rulers in these years, again, probably because they were weak and presiding over a realm that seemed to be falling apart.

However, this period of Assyrian decline has turned out to be unbelievably important. This is because it’s the key to orienting the history of the entire ancient world. A near-total solar eclipse occurs in the year 763 B.C., which the Assyrians so helpfully record. This eclipse functions as the solid timeline anchor for all the different dating systems of the ancient Near East. See, these societies didn’t use a dating system like ours that goes back to one great event that signifies a new age, but instead kept track of years relative to the beginning of such and such a king’s reign. For example, “In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign” (2 Kings 15:1).

When you look back at all of these king lists that only reference themselves or perhaps the neighbors’ king lists, it becomes extremely tricky to align them accurately in world history – unless there is something objective and external, like a solar eclipse, that they can be attached to. This period of obscure Assyrian kings is when we get just such an event upon which we are able to then hook and build out the timelines of Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Israel, Judah, and so many others.

The specific Assyrian king ruling when this eclipse happened was not one I’d ever heard of before. His name was Ashur-dan III. In fact, there’s only one surviving inscription from his reign that even mentions him, although he is mentioned in later king lists as well. Crucial for our purposes, there is also a brief record of the eclipse from his reign, “[year of] Bur-Sugale of Guzana. Revolt in the city of Assur. In the month of Simanu an eclipse of the sun took place.” Notice the mention of a revolt in one of the empire’s royal cities hand-in-hand here with the mention of the eclipse. Clearly, this was a rough time to be king.

This same king, Ashur-dan III, is the Assyrian monarch with the greatest overlap between his reign and the reign of Jeroboam II – a full twenty-two years. Thus, this is the man most likely to have been on the throne when a gnarled Israelite prophet with hair and skin bleached by fish stomach acid showed up and started preaching doom. We can’t say this with absolute certainty, but when we compare the book of Jonah with the events of his reign, I think the case for Ashur-dan III is a strong one.

Ashur-dan III’s weakened realm alone gives us one possible answer for why the pagans of Nivevah were so open to Jonah’s message. Their society seemed to be falling apart, teetering from one disaster and uprising to another. Their patron gods Enlil, Ashur, and Ishtar seemed to have abandoned them. Now, add in a near-total solar eclipse, and suddenly the seemingly inexplicable mass repentance of Nineveh makes a lot more ancient Near Eastern sense. To the Assyrians, eclipses meant certain divine judgment. It meant that divine wrath was absolutely coming for them. Hence why it’s so likely that the eclipse played some part in Nineveh’s mass repentance.

If I had to theorize, I’d guess that the eclipse happened just before Jonah arrived in Nineveh. It could have happened while he was there preaching, but it seems the biblical authors would have recorded it like they do the sun standing still in Joshua 10, or the sun moving backward in 2 Kings 20. The Hebrew writers of the Bible are happy to record unusual events in the heavens as being caused by God’s sovereign hand and as an authenticating part of his message of repentance. But in the book of Jonah, we hear nothing about an eclipse. No, instead we merely see a city so ripe for repentance that they even put sackcloth on the cows. And this, at the preaching of a grumpy prophet who really didn’t want to be there. Clearly, this was a people divinely prepared for repentance.

If true, does a ‘natural’ phenomenon like an eclipse somehow nullify God’s direct spiritual involvement in Jonah’s mission? Not at all. Similar to the cosmic air burst that seems to have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, if these natural events really happened then they merely give us more information about the means of creation God used together with his words of revelation. God is so sovereign that the fullness of the depravity of Nineveh and the ministry of Jonah around 763 B.C. perfectly aligned with a solar eclipse set in motion at the creation of the universe. It might seem fantastical, but God is doing stuff like this all the time, even though it stretches our brains to think about it. He is outside of time, after all.

I’ve always wondered about Nineveh’s repentance. If it was genuine and so widespread, why don’t we hear more about it? Surely an authentic society-wide repentance and turning to the true God of heaven and earth would lead to some kind of transformation, right? Perhaps this is another reason why there are so few records of Ashur-dan III’s reign. To someone like Tiglath-Pileser whose reign (745 – 727 B.C.) led to a revitalized, unified, and aggressive Assyria, the events of Ashur-Dan III’s reign may have been an embarrassment, something to cover up, an example of the kind of weakness and compromise that comes when you’re not devoted enough to the gods that made Assyria strong in the first place.

No, if there was any kind of genuine awakening that took place from Jonah’s ministry it must have been stamped out, replaced by an even more vicious and wicked Assyria whose scarlet-robed armies’ atrocities would go on to traumatize the ancient world so much that much of the later Persian propaganda was basically, “We’re not like the Assyrians.”

Sadly, if we’re honest about history, this is one pattern that does tend to repeat now and then. Sometimes, genuine awakening is followed not by a triumphant ‘Christian Nationalism,’ but rather by an increase in depravity, a demonic counterreaction that takes a society once full of light into places of terrible darkness. The Bible belt of Christian North Africa almost immediately turned to militant Islam. Lutheran Germany gave rise to Nazism. The Korean Pentecost gave way to the modern dystopia of North Korea. And Puritan New England is now one of the darkest places in the US. The Assyrian atrocities we hear so much about in the Old Testament may be in part because there actually was one generation that turned to God with all their hearts. And that repentance provoked even greater rebellion in a future generation. What a sobering thing to consider.

The message and events of the book of Jonah are true even if we don’t know the name of the Assyrian king, and even if there was no eclipse involved. According to Jesus, Jonah really went to Nineveh and Nineveh really repented (Matt 12:41). God’s mercy is not limited to one people but is for all the nations of the earth, even those as wicked as the Assyrians. Amen and amen.

But I find the possibility fascinating that such an obscure and struggling king like Ashur-dan III might turn out, in the end, to be so significant. One note from his beleaguered reign has become the keystone upon which our entire timeline of the ancient world is aligned. And the repentance which he possibly led would go on to be held up as exemplary by none other than the Son of God himself. Nor was any of this because of who he was or his own accomplishments. God sent the eclipse. God sent the prophet and then God granted the repentance. No, it really had nothing to do with Ashur-dan III at all. Instead, it was all of grace.

Just as it is with us.

For more on this topic, see the ESV Study Bible’s Introduction to the Book of Jonah, this helpful blog post by Tom Hobson, and Wikipedia here and here.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

If God Wants A Man to Hear The Gospel

I recently made a short trip back to Poet City with my oldest son and Rocky*, a local believer and pastoral intern here in Caravan City. My oldest son was participating in a 2-day discipleship gathering there for expat teenagers. As for Rocky, he jumps at any chance he gets to visit Poet City. This is because he’s in a serious relationship with one of the single, believing women at our former church. This kind of relationship is a big deal, given how few mature believing singles there are among our people group. We’re all rooting for them and doing what we can to help. For me, this includes long road trips full of relationship counsel that’s mostly along the lines of “Don’t worry, bro. This too is normal, trust Jesus, be humble and steady. Don’t sweat the small stuff, that’s not the kind of thing that matters anyway in a healthy marriage.”

After we dropped off my son at a house completely overrun with excited and awkward teenage TCKs (God bless that volunteer team), we drove across the city for dinner with a Bible translator. There, over pizza, we got updates on the status of the Scriptures in some of our minority languages. Then, we were off to the narrow alleys of our old bazaar neighborhood to secure our lodgings at an old Catholic church. Our plan was to then drop in on the men’s discipleship meeting, now led by my local friends Darius* and Alan*, an elder and elder in training, respectively.

However, this being Central Asia, the day’s schedule didn’t exactly go as planned, so it was 10 pm before we finally made it to Darius’ place. By that time, all the other believers had left. And Darius was once again hosting a crew of six unbelieving friends. This cadre of skeptics has kept coming back, week after week, for Bible study, arguments over the gospel’s claims, and games and chai late into the night. They have become such regulars – and so disruptive to discussions that were supposed to be for believers’ discipleship – that Darius and Alan were forced to divide the evening. 6 – 8 pm is for believers’ discipleship, and 8 pm – late is for rowdy apologetics and card games. This has been going on for quite some time now.

Rocky and I arrived, gave big hugs to Darius and Mohammad the photographer (still somehow not a believer), and respectfully greeted the crew of guests. We settled into what looked to be an evening of catching up with Darius, eating sunflower seeds, and playing card games like Pit, an old stock-exchange-inspired card game that I hadn’t played since I was a kid. This particular game involves so much shouting that we decided the most appropriate name for it in the local language should be “Donkey Bazaar.”

Like that evening long ago when Darius first heard the gospel, I read the room and thought it would be a night mostly given to relationship building, not deep spiritual conversation. I was wrong.

During one lull in the games and conversation, photographer Mohammad walked over to the coffee table with its growing piles of sunflower seed shells and chai cups and made a show of removing a Bible from it, kissing it, and placing it on a nearby bookshelf, higher than all of the other books. This is how local Muslims are taught to respect Qur’ans. Mohammad and I are close, so I thought I would offer him a friendly correction over this behavior.

“Brother Muhammad, what are you doing? That’s not a Qur’an, that’s a Bible! You don’t need to do all that showy religious stuff with it. Remember, it’s not the book itself that is the important thing, it’s the truth the book teaches. We are those who focus on the inside reality, not those who respect the physical exterior while neglecting what really matters.”

“No… you should respect both,” responded one of the visitors who was sitting to my left. I turned to him and noticed that he wore a big beard, almost Salafi-style.

And that’s how the next three hours of evangelism, apologetics, and gesticulating conversation got started. I had unintentionally provoked one of my favorite evangelistic topics with Muslims, how it’s not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of him. Starting from that topic, we went all over the place. How can we say the Trinity is a logical belief? Do we really believe these friends deserve a literal eternal hell? How can we say God is perfect if he experiences ‘negative’ emotions like sadness? Wait, Noah and Moses and David all made sacrifices that point to Jesus?

While I opened the door and made some decent contributions in the beginning of the conversations, more and more I sat back and let Rocky and Darius take the lead. What a joy it was to watch them faithfully unpack the gospel and the word of God with conviction, clarity, and winsomeness. This, I thought to myself, is one of the sweetest rewards of being a missionary. Getting to tag-team with faithful local brothers. Getting to see them powerfully sharing God’s Word.

The conversation ended sometime around 2:30 am. Afterward, the three of us debriefed and prayed together for these unbelieving friends. There were points in the conversation where it seemed that at least the bearded one had been wrestling with some very healthy fear and possibly conviction as we spoke about heaven, hell, and the only way of salvation. I learned that a couple months previous, he had finally admitted that Jesus is God, dragged kicking and screaming to this confession by countless hours of Alan’s apologetics. However, this shift within his beliefs had scared him so greatly that he immediately went on pilgrimage to Mecca the week afterward, trying to reground himself in Islam. That’s the kind of thing you only do if you know that you are nearing the point of no return, nearing apostasy.

After praying together for the Word to do its work, Rocky and I took our leave, at last settling into our Catholic lodgings shortly before 4 am. We eventually went to sleep, still feeling energized from the “food to eat you do not know about” of getting to share so much truth together (John 4:32).

Two mornings later, I met up with Alan for coffee and told him about what had happened a couple nights previous. He started laughing.

“Brother!” he said, “I think at last I’m becoming a true Calvinist.”

“Oh yeah? Well… good!”

“Yes, I have been trying my hardest to convince those guys of the gospel for the past few months. And all of my best arguments have come up short. I’ve tried everything. Honestly, if the Spirit doesn’t give understanding, nothing we say can make a difference.”

“Amen,” I said, knowing exactly what Alan was talking about. I think God particularly enjoys demonstrating this to guys like us who are drawn to theology and apologetics – who might be tempted to spend more time speaking of beautifully coherent systems based on God’s word rather than God’s Word itself. Yes, unless the Spirit infuse with power, all our most brilliant arguments are, in the end, impotent. As the song says, All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down.

It started snowing outside the cafe as Alan and I continued our conversation.

“The reason I didn’t see you guys that night is because I hadn’t heard you were dropping in,” Alan said. “And unlike every other week, that night I left early. I was so discouraged and so tired from everything seeming to fail, that I just told Darius that I was going home to sleep.”

“But now I know,” he continued, “that even if we’ve given up, if God wants a man to hear the gospel on a given night, he will bring brothers from three hours away to make sure it happens.”

Alan and I laughed together, encouraged at God’s kindness in still choosing to use us even in all our short-sightedness. I encouraged him (and myself) again not to rely on our own logic, wisdom, or words, but on the power of God’s Word. He alone holds the power of salvation. Yet he delights to work through his Word as it is spoken through his people.

If God wants a man to hear the gospel, then that man is going to hear the gospel. One way or another, heaven will arrange earth so the will of the king is carried out.

What an honor to get to be part of this. 



	[9] 	Remember the former things of old;
	for I am God, and there is no other;
		I am God, and there is none like me,
	[10] declaring the end from the beginning
		and from ancient times things not yet done,
	saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
		and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
	[11] calling a bird of prey from the east,
		the man of my counsel from a far country.
	I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
		I have purposed, and I will do it. (ESV)

Isaiah 46:9–11

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com

Consciously Multilingual Mesopotamia

This is a region of so many world firsts for linguistic innovation. Unlike Egypt, China or India, its cities and states had always been consciously multilingual, whether for communication with neighbours who spoke different languages, or because their histories had made them adopt a foreign language to dignify court, religion or commerce. This is the area where we find the first conscious use of a classical language for convenience in communication, as a lingua franca, an early apparent triumph of diplomatic pragmatism over national sentiment.

-Ostler, Empires of the Word, p.34

Here, Ostler is referring to ancient Mesopotamia. This is a region – like our own area of Central Asia – that has been ‘consciously multilingual’ for as far back as we have records. This is a different posture toward language than many of us are used to who come from societies more in the monolingual tradition of ancient Egypt or China.

In a multilingual culture, a person is raised to assume that multiple languages will be heard and used on a daily basis. To gain a competitive advantage, as well as just for the convenience and joy of it, many will pick up two or three other languages in addition to the mother tongue spoken in their home. These societies do not assume that language use is a zero-sum game, where the use of one language inevitably means the demotion or withering of others. Rather, there is often a pragmatic long-term bilingualism or trilingualism. In one city close to us, many are even quadrilingual, using four languages on the regular. And they’ve been like this for countless generations.

Given the strengths and weaknesses of different languages, I prefer this approach that chooses to have not just one, but multiple tools in one’s toolbelt of tongues. For example, English may be fantastic for its motley plethora of specific nouns and adjectives (case in point – motley and plethora). On the other hand, English is a rhyme-poor language. So, for poetry, I’ll take our Central Asian tongue.

The Jerusalem Talmud would also concur with this position that languages have unique strengths: “Four languages are pleasing for use in the world: Greek for song, Latin for battle, Syriac (Aramaic) for dirges, Hebrew for speech.” Even God himself must have, for reasons of his own, chosen Hebrew and a short detour into Aramaic for biblical revelation until the coming of Christ, and then chosen Greek for the revelation that followed. Among his many reasons for this, one of them must have had something to do with the nature of the languages themselves – not that they were more holy or somehow superior, but that they were somehow more useful.

When it comes to missions, all this means that when sharing the gospel with a multilingual people group, we should be like the ancient Mesopotamians. We should feel free to share as soon as possible in a language they understand, even while we gauge over the long term which language might lead to the strongest advance of the gospel among them. The ancient inhabitants of Ur had a ‘diplomatic pragmatism’ when it came to their language use. Our own ‘spiritual pragmatism’ in language use should be shaped by whatever leads to the clearest and most compelling proclamation over the long haul. That might mean learning two languages, perhaps first a dominant (and often easier) trade language to see some friends come to faith and then a much more difficult minority mother tongue to see those friends formed into a church that goes on to multiply faithfully among its people group.

We also need to be careful that those of us from predominantly monolingual societies don’t impose limitations upon our multilingual friends that simply aren’t present in their language worldview. For example, the churches of one of our sister people groups hold all their Bible studies and church services in two languages. Their mother tongue is used for worship, prayer, discussion, and preaching. But the Bible is always read and studied in the national language. This is because they cannot read or write in their mother tongue. Yet because of the school system, they are highly literate in the national language. So, they simply switch back and forth as needed. To outsiders like us, this may seem a highly inconvenient or unsustainable system. But to a multilingual people group, this is fine. “We use this language for this part and that language for that part. What’s the issue here?”

We need to be careful that when it comes to big decisions like who gets a missionary and who doesn’t, who gets a bible translation or not, and whether or not we will make the costly investment to learn a second language, we are truly seeking to understand how ‘consciously multilingual’ people groups actually function.

They have a kind of freedom toward language that may be hard for us to grasp at first. It may challenge some of our categories. But if we can join them in that freedom, then we may be able to leverage it for the spread of the gospel.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com

Good Contextualization Introduces Outside Forms

Many missionaries assume that contextualization means learning the local culture so that you can do things as the locals would do them – that good contextualization means not introducing outside, foreign forms. But what happens when the local culture and the local ways of doing things actually prevent indigenous believers from obeying the Bible? In this case, contextualization means learning how the local culture is weak and what must be added to it so that Christian faithfulness might result. Yes, there is a time when the good contextualizer intentionally brings in outside forms for the sake of the indigenous church.

We must sometimes import things like structures, forms, and methods from other cultures in order for a locally specific Christian culture to emerge. If our missions paradigm rules this out from the beginning, then our contextualization will be half-baked and we will find ourselves stuck in work that never breaks out of the chains imposed on it by our people group’s particular brand of fallenness. Herein lies another common blindspot of contemporary missions.

The brokenness and beauty of every culture mean that certain biblically-necessary categories and forms remain, ready to be discovered and redeemed – while other necessary things have long since disappeared or been gutted entirely. Take language as one clear example. Some unreached peoples, incredibly, retain a good word for atonement. However, others have no word for grace. The former word/form can often be redeemed, filled, and clarified with biblical meaning. The latter word/form must be introduced – and that from the outside.

Sometimes the issue is not language but what a culture lacks in terms of forms or models of organization. Our locals have the hardest time prioritizing the weekly gathering of believers. Local believers are willing to meet in their own homes for years on end with foreigners, but will not prioritize the weekly gathering with other locals if left to the structures, models, and motivations of their own background. Without the right kind of contextual intervention, they end up stuck in this disobedience for the long term.

There are several reasons for this problem of gathering that have to do with our local culture. First, when it comes to Islam, mosque attendance is optional, with prayer at home being a ‘good enough’ equivalent. In addition, there is no such thing as mosque membership. Mosque worship, as it turns out, is a surprisingly individualistic and casual affair, despite what it looks like from the outside when we see those rows of bodies bowing in unison. Political party membership does exist locally but it is a purely patron-client relationship, where locals are paid small monthly salaries to secure their loyal vote and occasional attendance at party events (which may include election-time vehicle convoys that honk and dance their way down our street at 1 am).

The one place that locals will show up regularly and religiously is family gatherings. It might be the weekly family picnics that happen in the spring and fall. Or, the weekly family visit to the grave of a sister who tragically died in her youth. But when Mom or Dad say it’s a family gathering, you have to be there. Locals will cancel everything else in order to be in regular, faithful attendance at family events.

All this means locals have no good indigenous models or tools for exercising committed attendance and membership outside of gatherings of blood family. Add to this the massive issues of trust that exist in this culture – and it’s easy to see why locals won’t/can’t gather weekly with the church. That is, unless they are pushed and helped to do so.

The two indigenous churches that we’ve been a part of have largely cleared this hurdle. How? In addition to the steady drip of faithful preaching and discipleship on these topics (“The local church is your true family!”), they have also introduced foreign structures such as church membership, church covenants, and church discipline – all of which helpfully require and reinforce regular attendance. Remember, none of these are structures that could be sourced in the local culture. As I wrote above, there’s no real model for meaningful membership and faithful attendance here outside of physical kinship. As for church discipline, locals are shocked when they learn about Matthew 18 and often swear that it would never work here. And as for covenant, the only local shell left of this crucial concept is the twisted doctrine of jihad.

This lack meant that the missionaries connected with these two churches made the choice to introduce these foreign structures and concepts (which I would contend are universal biblical concepts that always require local expression). This was not because they were ignorant of the local culture or secretly believed in the superiority of Western ways. No, it was because they were working hard to go as deep as possible in the local language and culture. And while they were doing that, they contextualized. They learned that local culture didn’t have the forms and structures necessary for obeying Jesus. So, that practically meant that forms needed to be borrowed, introduced, and adapted as needed.

The ironic thing is that many missionaries initially look at the use of outside structures like this and think it is sloppy colonial-style missions that just wants to copy/paste what’s been done in the West. What they are missing is that good contextualization shouldn’t merely do as the local culture does. Neither should forms or methods be ruled out simply because they feel old-fashioned or Western to us, the missionaries. No, real contextualization learns a local culture so well that it sees where its weaknesses are, and then it responds accordingly. It’s not about us or our baggage or our desire for some kind of pristine and isolated contextualized Christianity. It’s about helping the locals obey the Bible and working with them to find faithful ways to apply biblical principles in their context. If an imported form fills a crucial gap that would not have otherwise been filled, then so be it. Introduce that word for grace or that helpful process for interviewing those who want to be baptized. Trust me, the locals will find a way to make that form their own anyway. They always do.

Yesterday, we heard of some friends who are going to introduce a system of formal membership into the network of believers they’ve been working with for years. Now, these missionaries are some of the most knowledgeable and deferential when it comes to the local language and culture. They are veterans of great skill and experience. But the locals they’ve been discipling, like many of those we’ve worked with, will not of their own initiative prioritize the weekly gathering in the way they should. So, after years of teaching, modeling, and pleading with these locals, our friends are now going to roll out a system of church membership and see if that helps. They are bringing in an outside form in order to free their local friends from their specific cultural weaknesses – so that they might better obey Jesus.

My prediction? It will work. Not only that, but they will find this to be one of the most contextual things they’ve done so far.

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.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photo from Unsplash.com