Tag: Evangelism

The Bible’s Multiple Lenses for Understanding The Unreached

The category of Unreached People Group has recently been getting some (justified) pushback. This is true for multiple reasons.

First, the term has been defined by missiologists primarily in sociological, ethno-linguistic terms, not in biblical-theological terms, which undermines its claim to be the way to apply the Bible’s panta ta ethne (all the nations) emphasis. See more on this here.

Second, even a cursory reading of Paul and Luke shows that their main categories for the unreached are primarily geographical, not ethnic and linguistic (Acts 1:8, Acts 19:10, Rom 15:23). In our circles, David Platt has been influential in restoring some of this emphasis on reaching both unreached peoples and places.

Third, the category of UPG has been applied to so many different kinds of lost people that need evangelizing that it is in danger of losing much of its meaning. Do global youth count as a UPG? Because I’ve been to a gathering where that claim was made from the platform. Or, how about Canadian hockey players? When everything is an unreached people group, nothing is. The term is being robbed of its meaning through sloppy usage.

Fourth, even the official UPG definition of less than 2% evangelical is, in the end, somewhat arbitrary. This threshold was chosen as the benchmark by which an indigenous church was considered self-sustaining and able to reach the rest of its people. But this percentage was only chosen by a committee after the original 1970s sociology 20% threshold was deemed too difficult (Hadaway, p.17).

All this means that the authority of this category of UPG has often been overstated and misapplied. It is not the biblical category for understanding the unreached, nor the only way to understand the barriers that prevent certain groups from hearing the gospel.

When it comes to what is the best matrix or lenses for understanding who the unreached really are, three things need to be acknowledged.

First, churches and mission agencies that seek to be good stewards of their people and funds need a way to prioritize this kind of work over that kind of work. And to do this, they will need a faithful and practical way to understand and categorize lostness. The concept of UPG has, in this way, been a helpful improvement over the older modern state category of organizing missions efforts. When you only view the world through a political modern state framework, there really are going to be thousands of ‘hidden peoples’ that get overlooked.

Second, merely discarding this kind of lens that prioritizes ethno-linguistic groups that have little or no access to the gospel will likely mean that the vast majority of missions funding and personnel keep flowing to those peoples and places that already have strong indigenous churches. It’s still only 1% of missions money and 3% of missions personnel that are going to UPGs, while 99% of funding and 97% of missionaries serve in contexts that are considered ‘reached.’ This imbalance still exists even with all the hype around the idea of UPGs that has been there for the past few decades. I don’t know how this is possible. But jettisoning the UPG category does not seem like it will help this gross imbalance of resources.

Third, the Bible does not have one lens or category by which it defines or tracks the gospel’s global spread; Instead, it has a handful. One of these is ‘peoples’ or ‘nations’ (Matt 28:19). Clearly, the main difference in view here with this terminology is what we would now call ethnicity, even if these terms can also be used by the biblical authors to refer to all the Gentiles in general. But another lens that the Bible uses is ‘all languages’ (Is 66:18, Dan 7:14). That means that language is another valid barrier recognized by the Bible that God will overcome. Geography and political borders, as mentioned above, seem to be a further kind of lens, valid enough, it would seem, to be the main way Paul was thinking about places being reached or not. Ultimately, I find it instructive that the best-known verse on this subject, Revelation 7:9, includes not one, but multiple categories of lostness:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

Because the Bible’s emphasis seems to be that the gospel will overcome all the barriers dividing lost humanity, wisdom suggests putting all of these biblical categories in our toolbelt and not arbitrarily limiting ourselves to one.

In our region of Central Asia, one unreached people group shares the same language as another group considered reached. Here, differences in ethnicity and religion mean the gospel is not bridging from one group to the other.

But we also have minority people groups in our area that share the same ethnic name as the majority group, but that have their own, distinct mother tongue. Here, the barrier to the gospel is language, not ethnic self-identification.

However, there are also places like North Korea, where a political border prevents gospel access to an unreached population that shares ethnicity and language with its kinfolk to the south.

Friends, the ethnicities, language groups, tribes, and places that are currently without a witness, believers, or churches are that way for a reason. They are exceptionally hard to reach. We need all of these biblical (and practical) lenses to, first, not overlook them, but also to keep them prioritized for the long-term effort it will take to see them actually reached and worshipping Jesus.

No, not in some frenetic and misguided way to get Jesus to come back more quickly, but as a way to truly fulfill the Great Commission, which is still our marching orders. Matthew 24:14 has been abused. But that does not rob it of its actual meaning, which is that the Church’s posture will be one of preaching the gospel to all the nations when Christ returns. Paul’s holy ambition was to take the gospel to places where Christ had not already been named (Rom 15:20). Even as we seek to thread the interpretive needle right, we must not lose this emphasis.

To do this well, we need to recognize the multiple lenses the Bible gives us to think about concepts such as the unreached. If we need to put the category of UPG back in its proper place, then so be it. But let’s make sure it still has a seat at the table.

We only need to raise 2k ($160 per month) 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.

Photo from Unsplash.com

Two Paralytics Have Their Sins Forgiven

Sometime around when our Iranian Bible study ran afoul of Mohler’s security and fell apart due to claims of espionage, Reza* had a dream in his small Louisville apartment. In his dream, a man was nailed to a sort of tree. The bleeding man spoke to him with kindness and told him he loved him. Reza didn’t know who he was, though he couldn’t help but feel like he knew his voice from somewhere in his past.

Upon waking, he asked his secular Turkish roommate who he thought the man in the dream might be.

“Really, bro? That’s Jesus, of course. Everyone knows that.”

It wasn’t long after that dream that Reza reached out to see if I wanted to hang out again. Walking up and down Frankfurt Avenue, Reza didn’t tell me about his dream. Instead, he and I discussed his diplomatic questions about what Christians believe about various topics. It seemed like he might just be making polite conversation, since he knew I was studying theology. But at some point, I asked him if he’d like to study the Bible one-on-one with me. To my delight, he agreed.

We started in the book of Romans but quickly shifted to Matthew. Romans was pretty tough to understand since Reza knew so little about Jesus, coming as he did from a more secular, leftist Iranian family. And I was hopeful that Matthew’s very Middle Eastern way of building the case for Jesus as Messiah might prove just as helpful for my new Iranian friend as it had for Hama* back when I was doing my gap year in the Middle East.

Reza, as I would quickly learn, was very sharp, very stubborn, and from a family of proud dissidents to boot. Once, when the Iranian president had visited Reza’s prestigious high school and held a time of Q&A, Reza had seized his opportunity to publicly ask the turbaned politician some very awkward questions. The president, of course, was not used to being called out like this, and by a kid no less, so Reza was blacklisted. That’s how things go in Iran, and an accumulation of similar developments like this is why Reza and his family eventually fled the country.

This defiant spirit was the same posture that Reza brought to our study of the Bible. So, as we sat in the sparse living room of our first apartment and my pregnant wife poured us chai after chai, Reza and I fought over every single millimeter of the claims of the gospel. Gone were the diplomatic questions, and out came all the guns and missiles of Reza’s intellectual and worldview bunker. There were times when the discussion got so heated and Reza seemed so offended that I was sure that he wouldn’t come back. But he did, week after week, for months on end. And every night as we fell asleep, my wife and I would pray that somehow God would break through Reza’s defenses.

As her first pregnancy wore on, my wife started falling asleep earlier and earlier in the evening. Often, after a valiant effort to stay awake and present for the discussion, Reza and I would look over to see her passed out in an armchair. It was on one of these nights, after we had sent my wife back to bed, that the breakthrough came.

Reza and I had made it, a millimeter at a time, up to Matthew 9, the story of Jesus forgiving the sins of the paralytic – and proving he had the authority to do so by healing the man’s legs as well.

There was something about this story that hit home for Reza. He wanted to know if Jesus really had the authority to forgive sins. I didn’t know it at the time, but Reza’s embrace of the worldly college lifestyle was weighing heavily on his conscience. Since he was more of a materialist than a Muslim at heart, I found it curious that, in this miracle story, he didn’t question Jesus’ ability to heal a paralytic. No, it seemed that Reza’s thinking was, in fact, largely in line with Jesus’ logic in the passage. Healing paralysis is small potatoes compared to forgiving someone’s sins. After all, a good prophet can do the former. But only God himself can do the latter.

I assured Reza that, yes, Jesus indeed had all authority to forgive sins, even his sins, even that very night. This story proved it. The whole Bible proved it. We sat in silence for a few minutes as the effect of this truth washed over Reza. Gone were the intellectual objections and the cultural offenses. Now it was simply Reza and his sins facing the stunning claims and power of Jesus Christ.

The realm of the spirit is, for now, invisible. But I could have sworn I saw a change that night. There was something about Reza’s response to our study in Matthew 9 that felt qualitatively different. Although it was raining heavily outside, Reza insisted on walking the short distance alone back to his place. He spent that walk thinking, praying, and feeling the rain wash over his body, just as it seemed the grace of God and the beauty of the gospel were washing over his soul.

As soon as he left, I texted a group of close friends to pray for Reza, telling them that it seemed like he had come closer than ever to really grasping the claims of the gospel.

“He seems so close! Or is maybe already a believer! Pray!”

Then I went back to tell my wife the good news.

“Hey, love. Wake up! I think Reza may have become a Christian tonight!”

With some difficulty, she rolled over and propped herself up on one arm.

“Wait, what? Reza got saved? Oh no, I missed it!”

And then we prayed together for him one more time.

As far as I can tell, Reza did indeed come to faith that night. But there was another part of his story that I didn’t learn for years to come.

Often, believers look back on their story and, over time, see more and more of the ways that God was drawing them to himself, preparing them years before they ever heard the gospel. These parts of their story aren’t in their testimony early on, but they tend to get added in over time, as God reveals more and more to them just how active and present he had been in their lives all along.

This was very much the case with Reza.

As a boy in the mountains of southwestern Iran, Reza had become unexpectedly paralyzed. After about a week in this condition, he had a dream in which a man appeared and told him that he was going to heal him. In the dream, the man touched Reza’s back and told him that he was going to roll him over. When Reza woke up, he was not only able to get up and walk, but also to go out later that day and play soccer with his friends. His grandparents, who took care of him, were stunned, unable to explain this miraculous recovery.

Years later, and some time after coming to faith, Reza realized why the voice in his dream about the man nailed to a tree had seemed so familiar. It was the same voice as the man who had appeared in his childhood dream and healed his paralysis so many years earlier. The man who had told him that he would heal him was the same man on the tree who told him he loved him.

No wonder the story of the paralytic man from Matthew 9 had such an effect on Reza. Some part of him already knew that Jesus had the authority to heal the lame. What he didn’t know was that this also meant he had the authority to forgive his sins.

But just like the man in Matthew 9, Reza reached out in faith that somehow, hope beyond hope, this could be true, that Jesus could work this deepest of all healings, the forgiveness of sin.

And just like that first paralytic so long ago, Reza walked home, a new man.

We only need to raise 9k ($750 per month) 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. 

Three English-language international churches in our region are in need of faithful pastors. 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.

*names changed for security

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

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Should I Keep Sharing the Gospel With Someone Who Has Repeatedly Rejected It?

Every believer who shares the gospel has a relationship or two with unbelievers that they don’t quite know what to do with. This might be a family member, a friend, or a coworker, someone who has heard the gospel many times, yet has not embraced it. Their bearing toward the gospel can run the spectrum from super friendly to somewhat hostile, but for whatever reason, they still want to be in regular contact with you. Or, in the case of family or coworkers, they are somewhat stuck in a relationship with you.

For my American readers, today is July 4th, Independence Day. That means you may even today find yourself at a cookout with just the sort of person I’m describing.

The question is, what should our posture be toward these sorts of people? Should we go on sharing the gospel when they seem so, well, hardened? Should we keep investing precious time and relational energy into those who have rejected the gospel so many times, especially when there are others who have never heard?

The answer, I believe, is a nuanced yes. In this post, I want to share how I have tried to navigate this over the years, in hopes that these principles and practical suggestions might prove helpful to others also wrestling with this.

First, we should aim to be sure that the gospel these individuals have rejected is actually the gospel, and not a misunderstanding of it. Far too often, we think someone has rejected the gospel when they’re actually rejecting a caricature of it. Remember, lost people are spiritually dead. Dead people do not naturally and easily comprehend the meaning of the good news you are sharing with them. They misconstrue what we are saying constantly. It often takes a lot of repetition before it becomes clear that they are rejecting the gospel from a place of having firmly grasped its message. Even Paul asks for prayer that he might make his gospel message clear (Col 4:4). But lost people can reach a place of rejection from understanding. As one of my Central Asian friends recently said to me when discussing how Jesus takes our curse upon himself, “I’m a Muslim and not a Christian, but wow, I can see how this is the heart of the Bible right here.”

He sees and understands the heart of the Bible. But he doesn’t believe it. Since that’s the case, what do I do with him?

This brings me to my second point. If this person is still open to spiritual conversation, then from here, I’m still going to aim to regularly seed my conversation with biblical truth. If, at this point, my friend has heard the message of the gospel clearly a good number of times, I will often back off from repeatedly pressing to the center of the gospel itself, instead looking for opportunities to inject all kinds of other aspects of the truth into our conversations. My hope in doing this is to impress upon my friend how the gospel affects and transforms everything else. I want to focus on the fruit of the gospel, the power and change that the gospel and the rest of God’s truth bring, in hopes that my friend will then want to revisit the gospel itself from one of these different angles.

Paul reminds the Romans that God’s kindness is meant to lead them to repentance (Rom 2:4). It may be that some simple but genuine remarks upon God’s kindness in a conversation are what lead to breakthrough. Or, it may be talking about how the faith transforms marriage and parenting. Or, how eternity and resurrection give us an answer for the countless desires we have that in this life will never be fulfilled. Sometimes it feels unnatural or redundant to revisit God, Man, Christ, Response yet again, but there are a thousand other angles of truth I can touch on in conversation that can strengthen and support that central refrain.

Injecting my conversation with spiritual truth also gives me a sense of whether or not my friend or relative wants to get into the claims of the gospel in this particular moment or setting. Believers can, with practice, learn how to naturally and tactfully fold spiritual truth into our everyday conversations. And every time we do that, it functions like an indirect invitation. If we are continually and graciously opening the door like this, there is no need to force unbelievers through it. If they are ready and willing, they will often take the conversation to the next step – and sometimes even reveal the specific questions they are wrestling with. This approach is a great way to not only see if unbelievers are open to spiritual conversation but also to keep the conversations in a place where our friend or relative feels that they consented to once again discussing these weighty and personal things.

For long-term relationships, this sense of consenting to the spiritual conversation is very important. We want to avoid being seen as the person at work or family gatherings who forces gospel conversation on others against their will. In the long run, this type of posture will serve more to close doors than open them. Rather, we want others to see us as those who genuinely care for them, genuinely believe the gospel, and truly enjoy speaking about Jesus.

Third, when someone has repeatedly rejected the gospel through my words, I want to double down on winning them with my life. As Peter says about wives married to unbelievers,

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

– 1 Peter 3:1-2

We must use words to make sure that the unbelievers in our lives have clearly understood the gospel. But after that point, there are times when it is not only appropriate, but even faithful to focus on displaying the gospel to them ‘without a word.’ Similar to seeding our conversations with other aspects of biblical truth, we can show by our lives and actions the power and the difference that the gospel makes.

One refugee friend who came to faith when I was a newlywed told me that observing my marriage was a big part of how the gospel came to make sense for him. I was surprised by this, since we were so new at the whole marriage thing, but I praised God for it nonetheless. This brother and I had argued about the gospel for months on end. At times, I was convinced we were getting nowhere. But the whole time, he was not just arguing, but also watching.

This point helps us know what to focus on when we’re not sure what to do next with an unbelieving friend who has rejected the gospel. But it’s also particularly helpful for family and friends who have made it clear to us that the door is closed for any conversation about spiritual things. What do we do with that kind of relationship? In spite of all the pushback against that “preach the gospel, when necessary use words,” quote, the fact is that our lives do, in fact, ‘preach’ something. At least in the fact that they powerfully illustrate, apply, and argue for what we’ve already verbalized and would like to verbalize again.

Fourth, we should consider how to stay in relationship with unbelievers who have rejected the gospel, even while we prioritize others who are more open. We are called to redeem the time and untold numbers Jesus’ sheep are out there, just waiting to hear his voice (Col 4:3, John 10:16). We should not be spending all our time on those who have clearly heard and clearly rejected the gospel. At the same time, we do not want to cut off those who have heard and rejected and who are still open to relationship with us. How should we thread this needle?

One practical way to do this is to have regular gatherings that are open to all. These sorts of gatherings are places where you can always invite that stubborn or seemingly hard-hearted unbelieving friend, even if most of your time is spent elsewhere investing in those who are showing a genuine openness. When we were doing refugee ministry in the US, we hosted weekly community meals together with our community group. This was a time when we could invite all of our unbelieving friends for a no-expectations gathering of food and community. Similarly, when I was an English teacher in Central Asia, we had a weekly conversation cafe. If I didn’t feel I should prioritize a certain friend who had heard and rejected the gospel, I nevertheless had a time when the relationship could be maintained, and we could see each other.

Because the Holy Spirit is sovereign over salvation, not me, I want to keep the relationship going in the chance that, defying expectations, this person really is seeking the truth. Regular gatherings of this sort mean I have a place to invite all of them to, even while the bulk of my time goes to prioritizing those friends who are responsive to the truth.

The other advantage of having regular ‘bucket times’ like this is that unbelievers can, in this way, be exposed to believing community. This could have been a point by itself, since there is great power and wisdom in getting our unbelieving friends and family into places where they can see Christian friendships displayed. The Bible says our love for one another proves the incarnation and proves that we are Jesus’ disciples (John 13:35, 17:21). That’s one powerful apologetic. Also, we never know if exposure to some other believer with very different gifts than we have might be the key that leads to breakthrough for that unbeliever we’ve made so little progress with.

Fifth, we can continue to pray for those unbelievers who have repeatedly rejected the gospel, those whom we just don’t know what to do with. I remember reading how George Müller prayed for decades for one of his friends’ sons to believe. He didn’t give up praying for this young man, even after so many years had passed. Decades later, he repented and believed. There is great power in persistent prayer, even for those for whom we see no hope that they will ever believe. Spiritually, they are no harder to the gospel than we were before we believed. One sovereign word from God is all that is needed to break their resistance and to flood their hearts with the love of Christ. We might not know if we can or should say another word about the gospel to certain individuals. But we can keep praying for them. If they are still alive, the verdict is not yet out on their soul.

Sixth, and last, there is a category in scripture for unbelievers who reject the gospel and are therefore to be cut off by us, though still in hopes that they might be open at some point in the future. Jesus calls them ‘pigs’ and ‘dogs’ and in other places commands the disciples to wipe the dust off their feet in protest against their rejection (Matt 7:6, 10:14). It seems that there is a kind of evil and violent rejection of the gospel message that can occur, one that responds to pearls of gospel glory with fangs and violence or scandalously shameful rejection. The points I’ve made above are not for this kind of person, perhaps with the exception of persevering prayer. No, the purpose of this post has been to help us with those unbelievers who want to or have to stay in some kind of peaceful relationship with us.

For long-term relationships with unbelievers, seek to make sure the gospel is clearly understood. Seek to saturate your conversations with all kinds of spiritual truth. Seek to win them with your lives. Seek to invite them into community even when you can’t prioritize them. And pray for them with perseverance.

I am deeply troubled about my unbelieving friends who have heard the gospel so many times yet have not bowed the knee to Jesus. Like my Central friend who can pinpoint the heart of the Bible, I know that their situation is a very dangerous one. They have been exposed to so much light, and if they ultimately reject it, their fate will be worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. And I will have been to them the aroma of death (2 Cor 2:15-16).

And yet, at the same time, I’m so thankful for my unbelieving friends who keep coming back around, even though they’ve rejected the gospel so many times. I desperately hope that if they are still open to friendship with me, then there may be some part of them that is also open to friendship with Jesus. The verdict on their soul is not out yet.

No, if they’re still living, there’s still hope.

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.

*Names changed for security

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

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

Can Jesus Forgive Me for Being a Muslim?

“Can Jesus forgive me for being a Muslim?”

It was the first time I’d ever been asked this question. And it wasn’t asked in jest, but in earnest. My new friend, Jonah*, really meant it.

“Of course!” I replied, “When Jesus forgives you he forgives you of all your sin, all your shame, all your mistakes, and all your background and past. His blood even covers all the sins you’re going to do in the future.”

Jonah took in my response. Then told me he was getting goosebumps.

This past Friday was Jonah’s first time attending a church, first time getting his hands on a Bible, and first time hearing the gospel. One day a foreigner on the bus next to him asked him to help him figure out how to pay. That foreigner was a Christian and a member of our international church. That was how Jonah showed up at the church that morning, and how he and I were then able to talk at the fellowship lunch that followed.

Like many here, Jonah is trilingual. His father is from our focus people group, his mother from a neighboring people group, and he also has decent English. Here, they don’t believe people can be biracial, so Jonah identifies fully with his father’s people group, even though he’s fluent in both tongues. While talking, he and I did the dance where we tried to figure out whether communication would be smoother and more natural in English or in the local language. We used both languages interchangeably for a while, but when we got to spiritual things we moved mostly into his ‘father tongue.’

After the post-service fellowship meal, held at a member’s house, the pattern here is to go around the room and to have everyone share one or two things they found encouraging from the service. I leaned over Red*, who was sitting between us, and whisper-explained the format to Jonah, who then scribbled some notes in Engish and passed them to me. He nervously wanted to make sure that what he had to share was appropriate.

He shared three things with the group. First, that this was his first time attending a church. Second, that he loved the joyful singing. “Sometimes there’s a kind of singing in the mosque, but it’s not happy, more like mourning.” And third, that he was shocked by a sentence he’d heard during the service – that Jesus died so that we might live.

Imagine being a thirty-something-year-old man and hearing this idea for the very first time. This was Jonah’s situation. When he heard this truth it left him stunned. Jonah then concluded his sharing by telling the group that he was ready to become a Christian and wanted to go as deep as possible in learning about Jesus.

“Well, first, start by reading your New Testament carefully,” I told him when he later expressed to me the same desire to become a Christian and go as deep in as he could.

I asked Jonah about his story and why he was so ready to follow Jesus despite knowing almost nothing about him. He told me that even as a child he had always felt that Islam was wrong. Then, one day during work he fell off of a three-storey building. This had somehow not killed him, despite the doctors believing he was done for. Here, he showed me the scars on his neck from where he had been intubated in a desperate effort to keep him alive.

“I know that Jesus saved my life,” Jonah said to me matter-of-factly.

I didn’t press him on how he knew this, instead deciding to press into the gospel. Like so many locals, Jonah seemed to have had some kind of experience of Jesus’ merciful power. In the beginning, they tend to think this makes them Christians. We know that it does not. What it does do is blast open a wide door for gospel proclamation.

I proceeded to walk through a basic God-Man-Christ-Response outline with Jonah, which he listened to with rapt attention. When I was talking about the need for repentance is when Jonah dropped his unexpected question about if Jesus was willing to forgive him for being a Muslim.

The way that Jonah listened to me as I shared the gospel reminded me of the first time Darius* heard the gospel years ago. Some need to hear the gospel a dozen times before they begin to feel its beauty and power. Others? They feel it right away. As if the thing they have been searching for all their life has suddenly and wonderfully been set before them. Initial response isn’t everything, but neither is it nothing. The natural man doesn’t find the gospel message compelling. Something is happening in Jonah.

I pray that this encouraging early response to the gospel is genuine, good-soil faith. Importantly, he’s agreed to meet up weekly with one of the leaders of our church who is a native speaker of his mother’s tongue. They’ll be walking through the book of Mark together.

Pray for Jonah to be faithful in this commitment to Bible study. The Lord knows where his heart is. If I had to guess, he may have just this week entered the kingdom. Or, he may be right on border, right on the cusp of the new birth. Yet these thing are mysterious, so it might turn out that he needs another six months. Pray regardless. If he does turn out to be a new brother, then I’ll be sure to let you know.

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.

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

*Names of places and individuals have been changed for security

Photos are from Wikimedia Commons.

Fear, Freedom, and the Sovereignty of God

This week we stumbled upon a curious parallel.

We were in a discussion with some other believers about the sovereignty of God in salvation when one of them said,

“But if God is completely sovereign over salvation, then wouldn’t that mean I’d stop praying for others’ salvation or sharing the gospel? If it’s all up to him then it seems like I wouldn’t obey like I should.”

The believer that made this comment seemed genuinely worried, afraid even, that if salvation is ultimately up to God’s free choice and will, then they would not have the motivation they needed to obey faithfully when it came to their unbelieving friends and family.

What jumped out at me was how similar this logic is to that of Muslims when we tell them that we are completely saved by faith in the sacrifice of Christ, and not by our own merit. Muslims tend to respond by saying, “Well, if that were true, then I would just live a sinful life because there would be no motive powerful enough to compel my obedience. We need to be afraid of not being good enough on the last day so that we will do what is right and not do what is wrong.”

In this kind of evangelistic conversation with a Muslim friend, I’d normally try to help them understand how grateful love and the new birth are actually more powerful forces for obedience than fear. The free son will, in the end, always do more than the slave. But I’ve seldom thought that this conversation I’ve had hundreds of times might also apply to my Christian friends who struggle with the doctrines of grace.

Muslims are afraid of God’s free grace in justification because they feel like it would lead to an immoral “let’s sin that grace might increase” lifestyle. Our Christian friend, on the other hand, is afraid of God’s free grace in election for similar reasons. Both are nervous that if it’s ultimately up to God’s effort and not human effort, then they will not live as they should.

Even though our Muslim friends are not regenerate and our Christian friend is, both are falling into a similar error – the belief that God’s grace undermines human obedience rather than empowering it. Both are convinced, afraid even, of what they would do (or not do) were they to believe that salvation is in God’s hands. For the Muslim, this error is completely consistent with the rest of their doctrine. For the Christian, it is a curious inconsistency. Having begun by grace through faith, they feel they must now continue (at least in their evangelism and evangelistic prayers) by some other principle. Alas, the human heart is deeply afraid of the implications of a God who saves. We are much more comfortable when it depends, at least in part, on ourselves.

These fearful implications go in two directions. One, the heart is afraid of itself, as we’ve already been discussing. But two, as my wife so helpfully pointed out in our conversation, the heart is also afraid of trusting God with that much power. To believe that he is absolutely sovereign is to risk believing that he will in fact use that power in good and just ways. It is to risk trusting him with our suffering, with our mistakes and others’, and with our prayers for unbelieving family and friends that go unanswered for decades.

I remember my own struggle in high school and college to surrender to the doctrines of grace. At one point, I realized that I believed that God was sovereign in everything except for the will of individuals. I have long chalked that up to pride, that my heart still wanted one tiny piece of credit in my salvation. God did everything, yes, but once he had perfectly set the stage I chose to follow Jesus. No doubt, there was some pride in my struggle. But I wonder if there was fear also. Fear of a God that is utterly sovereign. Fear of my own flesh’s response to a truth this radical.

It seems we would be wise to look for fear underneath a Christian’s resistance to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in salvation. Perhaps behind a combative response is a heart that is simply scared to trust that God is truly good. Is he good enough to really love us even if he doesn’t need us? Is he good enough to honor and use our decisions and actions even if everything is also, somehow, ordained? Is he good if he can save my parents but he doesn’t?

Scripture is clear and consistent regarding the good character of God. But it’s also clear about the wiles of the human heart, making fears about our propensity to abuse truths about God’s sovereignty not completely unwarranted. Hyper-Calvinists really were and are a thing. I have a grandparent who dismisses their own sin by appealing to God’s sovereignty. But the Bible anticipates and answers these objections. “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (Rom 6:1-2).

Paul shows us that the way out of this error is to embrace that the gospel doesn’t just make us clean, it also makes us new (Rom 6:3-14). And that new nature means that obedient fruit now naturally sprouts out of us just as certainly as green and purple clusters weigh down Central Asian olive trees in Autumn. The new nature that keeps us from sinning that grace may increase is the same new nature that will also empower obedience.

We don’t need to be afraid that we will obey less if God is sovereign over salvation. The great secret is that we actually end up obeying more once we find out it’s not up to us in the end. There is mystery here, for sure. But what should become increasingly clear to us is that fear is only effective for short-term obedience. For obedience in the long-term, freedom is a much deeper source of power. That freedom is the reason we need not be afraid of God’s sovereignty in salvation.

The free son will, after all, always do more than the slave.

The Lord has provided all the funds we need for our vehicle and our first year on the field! Thank you to all of you who have prayed for us, encouraged us, and given to us during these past nine months of support raising!

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

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

Photos are from Unsplash.com

Radio, Jail Time, and Regeneration

Sometimes the way the Son sets you free is by first sending you to prison. This is what happened to Red*, a Central Asian friend whose path keeps intersecting with mine in ways both curious and unpredictable. Finding out that he is now born again, a new man, has been one of the best surprises of our return so far.

The first time I met Red I was perusing a bookshop in the heart of the bazaar. This was back in Poet City*, during our first term. I was scanning the shelves when a young bespectacled man approached me, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. He asked, in English, if I was a foreigner. I responded in the local language that yes, I was. He was delighted I could speak his language and introduced himself as Red, telling me that he lived an hour and a half to the east, in one of the most conservative cities in our region.

Red told me that he led a weekly philosophy group with some of his peers and that he wanted me to come and visit the group sometime. I was fascinated. This was the same city that had lost 500 of its young men a few years earlier. They had been radicalized by an extremely violent terrorist group and had gone off to die in Jihad. What was going on with Red and these other students such that rather than go along with the dominant religious culture of their city, they instead gathered to discuss philosophy? Chances were, some of them were genuinely searching for the truth. We exchanged numbers and I fully intended to visit Red’s group. But for some reason, I never made it out to visit those high school students. Recalling this when we were preparing for our first furlough, it felt like I had missed something that I had been supposed to pursue.

For our second term, we were asked to relocate to the Caravan City*, three hours away, where we planned to form a church planting partnership with the international church. And who should approach me after the very first service we attended? Red, of all people. It had been a couple of years since our bookshop encounter, but we recognized one another right away. I was thrilled to see him attending this solid, gospel-preaching church. Red explained to me that he was now going to university in Caravan City and that he had developed a deep love for Jesus – an affection fostered by his discovery, of all things, of “Positive, Encouraging!” American Christian Radio online.

Inwardly, I chuckled at myself. I was not a huge fan of mainstream American Christian radio music. I felt most of the songs were too shallow, too individualistic, too generic, and too “Jesus is my boyfriend.” This kind of disillusionment with Christian pop worship music had even led me to give up on Christian music outside of church settings for about a decade. But just like action figure Jesus or the song, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, God seemed to enjoy taking parts of American Christian culture that made me cringe and using them to draw Central Asians to himself.

Red was not yet a believer. But he was clearly drawn to Jesus and also to the church community. Though he would often attend the English-language service over the next six months, he didn’t seem interested in attending our local language Bible study. This trend was not uncommon among young men, but it did make it harder to tell if they were genuinely drawn to Jesus versus English and friendships with Americans. Then the Covid lockdowns came, universities shut down, and Red was stuck back in his hometown. It was at this point that he asked me if we could study the Bible together over the Internet. I happily agreed.

Normally, I start in the Book of Matthew with my Muslim friends. Matthew’s concrete language, regular takedowns of pharisaical religion, and slow and steady case for Jesus’ divinity have meant multiple Central Asian friends have come to faith somewhere in the middle of the book. But, remembering that Red was drawn to philosophy, I decided to read the book of John with him. For the next couple of months, we walked through the first half of John together. It seemed like Red’s mind and heart were being engaged by the Word, but it was still not clear that he understood the gospel.

After a short period, our video call Bible studies came to an end. I can’t recall exactly why, but it was right around when my family was suddenly plunged into crisis when my daughter got terribly sick from what we soon learned was new-onset diabetes. By God’s grace, her life was spared. But this meant the next six months were spent, first, in trying to get out of the country at a time when international air travel was almost completely shut down, and then, trying to figure out in the US if we could stabilize enough to come back.

When we finally did return in the fall of 2020, Red had a unique proposition for me. What if we started an English-language radio station together? Red’s father was the owner of dozens of radio towers in our region. Because of this, he had a good relationship with one of the major media networks here. His son had inherited his father’s knack for all things radio, and so with a few good words from Dad, Red had been invited to pitch a new English-language radio station, focused on the youth of our region.

The pitch had gone well, in part due to the executives’ surprise at this cocky 20-year-old who didn’t seem fazed at all to be interviewing with some of the more powerful media men in the country – including the network CEO, the president’s cousin. Red was very confident in his vision for this new English radio station and in his own abilities to form a solid team. In this, he was not wrong. He was extremely smart, a visionary, and able to form a great team. But Red had no idea how to manage his team or how to break down his vision into a practical plan. As a fellow visionary-type myself (at the time trying to lead my own deeply divided team), I could relate. Unfortunately, this weakness as a manager would ultimately spell the doom of Red’s grand radio plans.

I was brought onto the team to do short, engaging content on the history of our region. Because our locals really value concrete, visual proof of competence, I showed up to the next interview in my nicest teacher jacket, carrying a huge stack of history books. When the president’s cousin and the other radio executives asked me what I was doing with all these books, I was able to tell them that they were full of fascinating stories about their past that none of them had ever heard before. Holding up my chai cup as an example, I shared with them how the American revolutionaries’ boycott of British tea eventually led to tea becoming the reigning hot beverage in our region, replacing coffee. The British needed a market for all their excess tea now that the American market was closed, so they pivoted hard to Central Asia. “And that’s why you drink chai so much,” I concluded. Apparently, my little demonstration had the intended effect and I was officially dubbed a history expert fit for national radio.

In the following weeks, we made it as far as visiting a fancy new tower under construction to give our input on the blueprints for our new studio. This step made it seem like it was really going to happen.

There were six of us on the team: Red, myself, a local who had grown up in Canada and was now a gifted trilingual DJ, and several other young men and women who were in charge of running other fun or educational shows. Since I was in my early 30s, I was the old experienced guy among this crew of 20-somethings. I was hoping to leverage my ‘old man’ status to help hold the team together since serious signs of dysfunction were already showing.

Good questions about timing, expectations, and compensation were dismissed by Red as people not being optimistic enough or not truly understanding the vision. Consistently, Red was able to describe the end goal, but not what we needed to do to practically get there. And though he was brilliant in some ways, he was also very young and often unreliable. He might go dark for days at a time, leaving the rest of us to text each other to figure out what was actually happening. When the team found out he had merely been preoccupied with a new girlfriend, for example, tempers flared.

In the end, the new radio station never came to fruition. There was no clear announcement, just longer and longer periods of silence from Red until eventually the rest of us concluded that the thing must have been killed for some reason behind the scenes. The others moved on to other projects. My family found ourselves suddenly asked to move back to Poet City. And the whole radio thing became a strange unfinished story that only came out unexpectedly with friends. “Weren’t you supposed to be doing history stuff on the radio? Whatever happened to that?”

That was the last I heard of Red – until this month, that is. Upon our return to Caravan City, I learned that not only had Red been around, but he was now a beloved new believer. He had recently moved back to Poet City and everyone in the church here seemed to miss his presence. Could this be the same Red that I knew? This past week he visited Caravan City again and shared with me what happened.

Last year, Red had traveled to another country in our region. There, for some reason, he took a selfie in front of the Mexican embassy. Apparently, this is a big no-no. Red was arrested and ended up in prison for two whole months before being extradited back to his home country. While this all sounds like overkill to me, it must have been some kind of providential overkill. This is because while in prison, Red came to the end of himself. For the first time, he knew himself to be a sinner. He came under conviction for his different addictions, for his womanizing, for his pride. His Bible came alive to him as he read it for hours every day in his cell. And for the first time, he experienced the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

“The Bible is so clear and rich to me now,” he told me. “I could never understand it when we would read it before. But now I feel like I can finally understand it and like I could study it forever.”

Red’s physical demeanor even seemed different to me. True, he had aged a bit. There were now hints of grey showing up in his beard and hair. But he also seemed more at peace than he had before, humble even. He told me excitedly about how he’s hoping to get baptized soon and trying to figure all that out now that he’s going to be joining the international church in Poet City. Because he’s been discipled as a new believer here in Caravan City, the two churches may end up doing a baptism picnic together to celebrate.

Red and I hugged as we said goodbye and laughed about all the ways we keep running into one another over the years, from the bookshop to our season as prospective radio hosts, to the brotherhood we now finally share together. If our future paths are anything like what our past paths have been, then I’m sure I’ll see him again soon.

I now see that same fancy tower where our radio studio was supposed to be every time I look out my bedroom window. It’s a good reminder to pray for Red. In years past, we had prayed a lot for Red to be set free. For that to happen, God had to first send him to prison. An unexpected means of answering prayer? Yes. But Red, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind at all.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (only 3k currently needed), you can reach out here.

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

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

*Names of locals and cities changed for security

Photos are from Unsplash.com

We’re Off Again! Plus Some Thoughts on Taxis

Tomorrow evening we’ll board the first flight of our return trip to Central Asia. Yes, tomorrow! A lot has taken place in the last few weeks and the fast-paced developments have shifted us into quick-move-the-household mode and prevented me from writing as much as I would prefer.

In short, all of the sudden we are nearly fully funded. Many generous friends have come together to provide enough support for us to get the green light to buy tickets so that we’re on the ground a full two days before our kids’ school starts. The very last piece that we are working to raise is 14k for our vehicle (If you can help with this one-time need, let us know!).

In the meantime, we’ll be making use of our city’s over-abundance of taxis – and hopefully getting into some good conversations with them. You never know what kind of conversation you might fall into with a Central Asian taxi driver. Sometimes they may teach you some classic Central Asian poetry lamenting the pharisaical tendencies of Islam:

A wish for the days of homemade naan
In a thousand homes, a pilgrim only one
Now for all, “Pilgrimmy pilgrim” is claimed
But pilgrims they’re not, nor their bread e’en homemade

Or, they may take things in a more political direction, complaining about the corruption in their government or telling me who they would vote for if they were an American citizen (Our taxi drivers strongly favor Republicans). Many will also ask if we know how they can get a visa to the West or even secure an American wife. That will be a negative on both fronts, my dear driver.

Somewhere in there, they’ll often ask us if we are Muslims. This of course is a wonderful opening into sharing what we believe. “You know, there’s a lot of external similarity between Christianity and Islam, but at the core, their messages about how a person is saved are completely contradictory…”

I hear we may even be getting fare meters on our taxis soon, which will be a nice change from the haggling typically required before you get in one (which I am particularly bad at). Now, if we could only help them to stop driving like they’re auditioning for a Central Asian version of The Fast and the Furious.

During an especially harrowing taxi ride through the mountains some years ago, I leaned over to a wide-eyed friend visiting from our sending church and hollered, “Times like this make you glad to be a Calvinist, eh?” Needless to say, the best of all possible worlds meant that we did indeed survive that ride, in spite of several close calls with oncoming semis. That same friend is now supporting us as we go back. I have a suspicion the taxis have something to do with this.

How did a post that started as an announcement of our return to Central Asia turn into an exploration of local taxis? I am not completely sure, yet here we are.

Tomorrow we get on a plane and so conclude twenty two months of transition. We came back from the field in late 2022, pretty certain we wouldn’t be able to return. Now, because of God’s kindness to us and the faithful friendships of so many brothers and sisters, we are not only going back, but are excited to do so. We covet your prayers.

As for the writing, I am excited to continue. Moving from one world to another is always a special time of being able to temporarily see things that will soon be overlooked as normal. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for these little glimpses of the absurd and the delightful.

And, more likely than not, a post or two will come from a particularly interesting conversation with a taxi driver.

If you would like to help us afford a solid set of wheels for driving around our corner of Central Asia (14k needed), you can reach out here.

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

Photos are from Unsplash.com

The First and Worst and Best Sermon I Ever Preached

The first sermon I ever preached was to a bunch of Melanesian inmates serving time for murder.

Uncle Mike, a missionary friend from a charismatic evangelical background, had a ministry at a nearby prison, the one the provincial government designated for hardened killers. Although, you’d never know this from visiting these prisoners and worshipping alongside them at the services that Uncle Mike conducted. On the contrary, in spite of their hardened muscles and cut jawlines, the inmates seemed kind and respectful and even humble. Yet each person there who wore the faded blue and red uniform had murdered other human beings – crimes that were most often carried out with machetes, homemade shotguns, or more powerful weapons smuggled in from neighboring countries.

However, I learned from Uncle Mike that a small group of these prisoners had professed faith and a new church of sorts was forming within the prison. In addition, many others were also willing to gather for a service. This was prison in Melanesia, after all, so there wasn’t that much to do anyway.

I visited this prison with Uncle Mike and his family several times during my senior year of high school. I was glad to tag along, to observe the ministry, and to try to get into gospel conversations with the inmates who were willing to talk. But I never expected to preach. So Uncle Mike’s request came as quite a surprise.

“Hey, A.W.! Would you like to preach when we visit the prison on Easter Sunday?”

“Um… preach?”

“Yes! Preach. Preach a short sermon. I think you’d do great.”

“Uh… okay. But I’ve never preached before.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s Easter! Just preach the gospel.”

And just like that, I had accepted my very first preaching engagement. I decided on 1st Corinthians 15, verses 12-28 if I remember correctly. Uncle Mike had told me to preach the gospel, and it was Easter Sunday, so I thought a straightforward text on the reality and importance of Jesus’ resurrection would be a good way to go.

I remember very little about the content of the sermon itself. I know that at that point I hadn’t received any training yet on how to study for, organize, and then actually preach a sermon. But I took to my task with all the gusto of a confident 18-year-old who has been filling his head with Passion sermons and missionary biographies.

I do remember including a bizarre illustration that I had recently read in the local newspaper. Some farmer in our region had successfully performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a chicken (so, technically mouth-to-beak?) and the chicken had – amazingly – come back to life. I included this illustration in an attempt to contrast near-death experiences and resuscitations with the resurrection of Jesus. “The resurrection of Jesus is categorically different from what happened to this chicken!”

Needless to say, the lackluster response from my audience of convicts did leave me wondering if perhaps they didn’t find the story about the chicken CPR quite as funny as I did.

As I wrapped up my sermon in the local trade language, I leaned on my Baptist upbringing to transition to an altar call of sorts.

“With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want you to think about the good news you heard today about the death and resurrection of Jesus. And if anyone here wants to believe and be born again (literally “to turn your soul/stomach” in the local language), then just raise your hand. No one is watching you, every head bowed and every eye closed, just raise your hand.”

At this point, Uncle Mike thought it best to intervene. With all the fire of a veteran charismatic preacher, he cued the worship leader to begin banging the guitar, strode up next to me, and proceeded to bellow to the crowd,

“Jesus didn’t suffer and die in private! Jesus suffered and died in public! So, if you want to repent and follow Jesus, you need to do so publicly! Don’t be ashamed of Jesus! No! You stand up in front of everyone and give your life to Jesus! Open your eyes and come up here and follow Jesus!”

As the believers began singing and Uncle Mike kept hollering, I just stood there, a bit taken aback, though not at all upset that Uncle Mike had deemed it best to take over the invitation part of the service. In fact, at that point a full dozen men suddenly stood up, came to the front, and were now being prayed for by Uncle Mike as he laid hands on their heads, shouting out his confident prayers. He motioned for me to do something similar with a couple of the other men who were now kneeling on the packed dirt floor in front of me. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but if these men wanted to pray to follow Jesus, then I was all in to try and help them do so. I kneeled down next to them, walked them through a basic gospel outline, and prayed with them.

Afterward, the inmate who was the leader of the prison believers came up and thanked me publicly for preaching.

“And I think,” he continued, “this was maybe the first time Brother A.W. has ever preached.” He said this last part with a hint of a smile, just enough for me to pick up on the fact that it was probably a pretty rough sermon to listen to, all things considered.

I left the prison that day very encouraged. Not necessarily that my sermon had been good or powerful, but that God had used it in spite of it all. How had it happened that after a haltering, first-time, chicken-CPR, second-language sermon from a scrawny white kid, twelve hardened murderers had wanted to give their lives to Jesus? The answer, I realized, must be in the gospel itself, in the power of the Word of God.

After lunch at Uncle Mike’s that day, I picked up a missions magazine from his coffee table. There was an advertisement inside it for Christians to spend six months to a year in an Islamic Central Asian country, sharing the gospel.

“Huh,” I thought to myself, “Now that sounds really radical. Maybe someday I could share the gospel somewhere like that. Although, Muslims kind of freak me out.”

Little did I know that two years after that sermon, I would be in that very Central Asian country, taking part in the same program I saw advertised in the magazine that day. And just like in the prison, I would see God take some very imperfect evangelism and do something with it that was downright astonishing.

I’m so thankful Uncle Mike gave me a chance to preach in the prison that Easter. That first sermon may have been the worst one I’ve ever preached. But it’s the only one where I’ve seen a dozen men stand up and want to give their lives to Jesus.

We will be fully funded and headed back to the field when 31 more friends become monthly or annual supporters. If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Many thanks!

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

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