The Man on the Island, the Man in the Mirror

We expect it in the West, but it’s a curious thing when believers from unreached people groups wrestle with the classic “man on the island” question. You know the one – “But if a good man stranded on an island dies with no chance to hear the gospel, does he still go to hell?”

On the one hand, it makes sense that they would wrestle with this issue, especially if they are among the first generation to come to faith from their people. It’s not just some of their ancestors, but potentially all of them who have died and now inhabit a Christless eternity. Every parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, and renowned member of the family tree died with no witness to the gospel message and is now beyond hope. The costs of the exclusivity of Christ land differently when you haven’t come from a Christian heritage at all.

On the other hand, it’s somewhat ironic when these individuals struggle with this question. Because they in some sense are that man on the island, and they have now been unexpectedly reached with the gospel. As members of unreached or unengaged people groups, they previously had no access to the gospel. They were cut off culturally, linguistically, or even geographically from the truth. And then one day they weren’t.

I remember a new believer in Central Asia posing his question about a hypothetical man in India, which to him must have felt like the remote ends of the earth. I smiled, knowing that many in the West might pose the same question, but place their hypothetical man in the very region where we were sitting having our discussion. I wanted to take my friend by the shoulders and say, “Brother, you are the man you are asking about. And look what happened to you!”

Ultimately, everyone struggles at some point with the exclusivity of Christ, no matter their language, culture, people group, or relative remoteness. This means that disciple-makers need to be ready to give an answer to this common question, whether they are mentoring Gen Z believers in the American Midwest or a tribal patriarch in Southeast Asia.

A good way to begin that answer is with a call to look in the mirror. Any believer asking this question was also at one point truly “without hope and without God” (Eph 2:12). Yet because Jesus has other sheep that are not of this fold, and those sheep hear his voice, they were sought out and enabled to hear the voice of the shepherd (John 10:16). Jesus’ sheep are scattered throughout the world and cut off from the truth, yes. But the shepherd will find each and every one of them, just as he found the particular believer asking the question.

There is a second angle by which those struggling with this question can be called to look in the mirror. Often, the emotional weight of the question is based on the assumption that there are people out there who are better than the question asker. “I’ve got this holy uncle,” as it was once put to me. But in the real world, there are no holy uncles. When we look in the mirror, the person who looks back is someone who is deserving of hell because of their sin. And everyone else in the world, when they look in the mirror and their conscience is honest, feels that same truth down in their bones. We all intrinsically know that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 2:15). Yet we are easily deceived into thinking others are not like us. The classic response to the man on the island objection holds up; namely, the question doesn’t work. There are no good men. Only sinners, just like us.

We must ultimately call the one struggling with this question to look from the mirror to The Book. The Bible clearly commands that we take the gospel to the ends of the earth (Matt 28:18-20). From the very beginning, Jesus has tasked his Church with proclaiming the good news, without which salvation is impossible (John 3:18). We are clearly called to do whatever we can to get the gospel to every man who is on an island (1 Cor 9:22). The logic of scripture is clear – unless they follow Jesus, “the way, the truth, the life,” they are lost (John 14:6). If there were some kind of exception to this rule based on never hearing the message, then it completely clashes with the emphasis of Jesus and the Apostles and their global mission. If sinners can be saved by never having the chance to hear the gospel, then the Great Commission makes no sense.

Further, the logic of the scriptures is not that we are first condemned for rejecting the gospel, but that we are condemned for rejecting the light we have. According to Romans, the man on the island has the law of God in some way written upon his heart (Rom 2:11-16). He has a conscience. He has access to creation, which preaches to him daily that there is a creator who is worthy of his worship (Rom 1:18-23). He himself is a witness to this truth, being made in the image of God, and even his pagan ancestors passed down to him fragments of truth that have clung on in his fallen culture (Acts 17:23). Yet universally, each of these witnesses, whether a small or great light, is suppressed by each and every human heart (Rom 1:18). That’s why we are universally condemned, whether growing up on an island alone or with the strongest possible Christian heritage. Hell awaits in either case, unless God miraculously intervenes and causes the sinner to hear the gospel and love the light, rather than suppress it.

How can it be right and just that after 2,000 years, some people’s ancestors were granted access to the gospel while others weren’t? This doesn’t seem fair. Here, we must hold on to the mystery of how God has scattered his chosen sheep throughout time and history. There is much in this mystery of election to which we are not yet given access (Rom 11:32-36). Yet we also need to remember that what we know of church history is only a very small picture of everything that has transpired. As with history in general, the vast majority of records have been destroyed, lost, or were never made in the first place. And yet what has been discovered is far more global in scope than most Christians are aware of. The ancient church didn’t just preach the gospel in the Roman empire, but also far beyond it. Ancient and medieval Christianity stretched from Ireland to Korea, to Ethiopia, India, the Arabian peninsula, and on up to Scandinavia. There are even old claims of Irish missionary monks striking out for North America in their one-man coracle boats.

Far more people groups than we might expect do indeed have a Christian heritage, or at least a period in history when their ancestors were exposed to gospel preaching. In fact, for many of the unreached people groups of the 10/40 window, the churches planted represent a renewed witness rather than the first one in history. As one mission leader said when in Uzbekistan visiting the tomb of Tamerlane, the great exterminator of Central Asian Christianity, “You’re dead, and we’re back.” Even now, medieval Christian graveyards are being discovered in far-flung places like Kazakhstan, demonstrating that the Church throughout the ages took its Great Commission mandate seriously. Certainly, eternity will present some fascinating missions history that has never been told here on Earth. In this, there is a degree of comfort for the believer who feels that until his generation God had left his people without a witness.

The exclusivity of Christ and the man on the island are questions that all believers are likely to wrestle with, regardless of their background. Fallen human logic simply struggles to understand the wisdom of the sovereign God. Yet there is a wealth of answers in the mirror, in the Scriptures, and even in church history that help us equip the struggling believer with solid truth. This is truth that grounds, but even more, truth that lifts our eyes to wrestle with what it will take to reach those islands – to reach the ends of the earth.

Better get the coracles ready.

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A form of this article is scheduled to be published soon at Immanuelnetwork.org

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The Titanic Was the Safest Ship of Its Time

I’ve been enjoying listening to the recent Titanic episodes on the The Rest Is History podcast. This famous tragedy really is an amazing window into the world as it was around 100 years ago. One of the biggest surprises of the series for me was hearing that the Titanic was, in fact, the safest ship in the world at the time of its christening – and the time of its sinking.

The idea that the Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats – and this being the result of arrogance – is something I had certainly absorbed as fact, right along with so many others who have heard the disaster referenced in popular culture. Indeed, the Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats for all of its passengers. It only had 20, which was enough for only about half of its passengers – and even less than that if the ship had been carrying its full capacity. But this shortage of lifeboats being the result of hubris is a historical fiction.

Instead, the Titanic’s number and size of lifeboats meant that it had the best lifeboat-to-passenger ratio of its time. It surpassed all of its competitors in the number of lifeboats to passengers, and in its other safety features as well. See, during that period, it just wasn’t obvious that a ship should have a lifeboat seat for each and every human on board. This had never been done before, and it wasn’t seen as necessary or realistic.

When the RMS Republic sank in 1909, it had put out a distress signal with new wireless technology, and another ship was able to rescue its passengers as its lifeboats ferried them off of the slowly sinking vessel. This was the emergency plan for the Titanic also. The assumption was that if necessary, there would be plenty of time to evacuate the most safety-conscious vessel of any that had yet sailed the ocean.

Oh, the benefit of hindsight. One hundred years later, it seems like the most obvious thing in the world to us that a ship should have enough lifeboats for all of its passengers and crew. But if anyone had pointed out the danger to White Star, the company that owned the Titanic, they would have laughed as they positively compared themselves to every other ship out there. See, the standard they relied on was the lifeboat-to-passenger ratios of the other ocean liner companies. In this light, they looked completely safe and wise. But we know now that it was the wrong standard. When the iceberg struck, their error – and their doom – was suddenly and tragically revealed.

We shake our heads at the foolishness of shipping standards a century ago. But in likewise manner, heaven will shake its head at any one of us who seeks to justify ourselves by comparison to the sinfulness of others. If, when we think of the day of judgment, we seek comfort with thoughts of how others are really so much more sinful than us, then we make the same mistake the designers of the Titanic made. We use the completely wrong standard. And just like them, trusting this errant standard as our measure will result one day in a sudden and terrible moment of revelation.

In light of what we can now see so clearly, not only the Titanic, but all ships in the early 20th century were utterly failing when it came to the safety standard that counts – enough evacuation craft to keep each human on board from drowning in the frigid North Atlantic. Likewise, in light of what we will one day see so clearly in eternity – and what is seen by heaven now – all of us fail the true spiritual standard, that of the righteousness and glory of God (Rom 3:23). In light of that standard of sinlessness, depending on the fact that we sin less than others is as foolish as bragging that only half of our passengers will drown in icy water, as compared to the other guy’s two-thirds.

We must stop comparing ourselves to the other woefully inept vessels of our age. We are just like them. When the iceberg of divine justice strikes, we will all fail the test. And one day, when the true standard is revealed, all of the cosmos will marvel that we could have missed something so obvious.

The key then is to have the right standard, and second, to be alarmed that we cannot possibly keep it. Then, to do whatever it takes to be found in the only one who can.

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The Story of Harald Bluetooth and His Namesake Technology

The Runestone of Harald Bluetooth at Jelling, Denmark

Have you ever wondered about the little Bluetooth symbol on your phone or computer? If you’ve ever thought that the name of the tech and the shape of its symbol are peculiar, that’s because they are. The Bluetooth logo comes from the overlaying of two old Scandinavian runes for H and B. And these letters stand for Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king of Denmark, and the first Christian king of Denmark and Scandinavia. Who knew that all along a little piece of missions history was hidden in plain sight in a technology many of us use every day?

First, King Harald was nicknamed Harald “Bluetooth” either because he had a dead tooth that was conspicuously blue-gray, or because he had a particular fondness for berries, which stained his teeth blue. Or, my favorite theory, because some Vikings sometimes carved black line pattern tattoos into their teeth. King Harald may have had bluish tooth tattoos that flashed anytime he smiled, laughed, or snarled.

There is debate about much of Harald’s life and story, but the traditional accounts state that he became a Christian around the year 960 through what is known in missions as a power encounter. A power encounter is a spiritual showdown of sorts between the power of Jesus and the power of the indigenous spirits or gods. These can vary greatly. Earlier missionaries to Germanic tribes were known for boldly cutting down the sacred trees of the tribes they were trying to reach. One missionary I knew in Melanesia unintentionally stunned the tribe he was working with by emerging unscathed from a car wreck soon after lightning had hit his house. In their tribal beliefs, anyone whose house was hit by lightning was doomed by the spirits to die. But when this missionary’s vehicle afterward tumbled down a mountainside with him in it and he came out of it all just fine, the tribe knew that whatever power he possessed was greater than what they knew. Yet another missionary team in Africa demonstrated Jesus’ power over the spirits by the wives wearing their babies strapped on their backs out in a gathering area at night – something the local women would never dare to do. Even in our experience in Central Asia, we once prayed for a woman and saw her miraculously healed after the mullah’s prayers had failed to accomplish anything. Of course, Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal is one of the most famous power encounters in the Bible.

The power encounter that allegedly led to Harald’s conversion took place because of an argument. During this period, the Viking peoples of Europe were mostly polytheistic, worshipping Odin, Thor, Loki, Freya, and other gods who have now been coopted and Disney-fied by superhero movies. But the true Viking religion was very dark, including sacred groves where they would hang bodies of their human sacrifices from the trees. But at last, in the 900s Christianity was making major inroads. Not only were missionaries actively preaching within Viking areas, but the politically Christian powers of Europe were exerting state pressure from without. Apparently, some Vikings were willing to absorb Jesus into the pantheon, similar to how a Hindu today might “accept Christ” but merely add him to the many gods they are devoted to. Well, a group of Vikings in Harald’s court and one Christian cleric, Poppo, were arguing about whether Christ was more powerful than the Viking gods or merely a kind of peer. Poppo insisted that Jesus was the one true God and that all the Viking gods were, in fact, demons. So, King Harald, observing this disputation, asked Poppo if he would vouch for his beliefs with his own body.

Poppo courageously agreed, not knowing what this would mean. Harald had him locked up overnight and in the morning set up the showdown. He had a heavy piece of iron heated up until it was red hot and then asked Poppo to carry it across the room. Poppo then proceeded to pick up the scalding iron in his hand, carry it calmly across the room, set it down, and then show his hand to Harald, healthy and unburnt. This demonstration is what later Christian chroniclers claim led to Harald’s conversion and baptism and made him the first Christian king of Denmark, which he had earlier unified. He later went on to briefly control Norway as well, as he famously claims on his Jelling Stone, “that Harald who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.”

Of course, there’s a lot of debate about the legitimacy of this conversion story among historians. They debate whether Harald’s motives for switching religions were really because of personal conviction, like in this story, or whether it was really a politically shrewd move to protect his kingdom from the encroaching Christian powers, the Franks and the Holy Roman Empire. In this world of complex motives, it may have been both. Probably only God knows at this point if Harald was a truly born-again Christian or if it was merely a switch of identity categories in this world, something that seems to have been true of many “conversions” in this period – and can still be true even in our own corner of Central Asia. Many a young Central Asian has become a “Christian” in an Islamic society merely because it felt like the hip and rebellious thing to do.

But there’s also debate surrounding the ordeal of Poppo, the alleged miracle at the heart of the power encounter. Of course, secular historians write this off as the typical Christian embellishment of the period. But many modern Christians also find themselves skeptical of miraculous power encounters like these, even if there were no dispute about motives or the sources themselves. For my part, I do think medieval scribes were prone to overly-embellish their accounts of Christians’ lives. But I also think there is a good case to be made that even in this post-apostolic age, miraculous events will occasionally accompany the preaching of the gospel. This seems to be true especially when the gospel is newly breaking into a people group. Missions history demonstrates much of this going on, particularly in fear-power cultures, where the primary question being asked is not “How can I be forgiven?” or “How can I buy back my honor?” but “How can I not live in abject fear of the spirits’ power?” And though I am a continuationist, even well-known cessationists like Augustine went to great lengths to document that miracles were still quietly happening in his circles in order to confirm the truth of the gospel and to strengthen the faith of God’s people. So, I leave the door open that Poppo’s power encounter may have really happened.

But how in the world did Harald Bluetooth become the inspiration for a new kind of wireless network technology? The answer is to be found in the late ’90s when two engineers from Ericson and Intel were at a bar discussing what to name this new prototype technology. Both of them were history nerds, so one mentioned recently reading about Harald Bluetooth, the Viking king who united the Danes, and how his nickname might work for a new wireless technology that would unite various devices. The name was supposed to be temporary, but it stuck and is still with us today.

Today, Bluetooth tech is everywhere, far more widespread than the name of King Harald ever was. Perhaps the next time you see that peculiar runic symbol on your smart devices, you can remember Harald Bluetooth, who may have been a brother in the faith, and praise God for the way God used him to bring Christianity to his people. And you can remember the power of Jesus, his superiority over any and all spirits and “gods,” and his power to reach even the hardest to reach peoples.

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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons.

Three Things Missionaries Should Be Able to Talk About in Their Sleep

Every trade has certain areas of knowledge that a respectable worker in that trade should be able to teach on the spot. These areas of knowledge would be the fundamentals of that kind of work, the basic frameworks, principles, and formulas that lead to good work being done in that field. Imagine an electrician being unable to easily respond to a question about how electricity works, or a doctor who’s not able to provide an overview of the body’s main systems. We rightly expect that professionals should be able to respond to impromptu questions about the core of their respective fields – and that they would even be able to do this in their sleep. If they can’t, we are right to question the quality of their work.

Three things every church planting missionary should be able to teach on the spot are 1) What is the gospel?, 2) What is a true believer, and 3) What is a healthy church?

If a missionary is not able to provide a biblical summary on the spot for each of these fundamental questions, then how are the locals – with the added difficulties of different language, culture, and background religion – ever going to grasp these concepts as clearly as they need to? I’m not arguing against long sermon series, bible studies, books, or seminars on each of these topics. These are absolutely needed. Mainstream missiology might discount the importance of this kind of deep teaching, but it will continue to be essential for effective frontier church planting, just as it’s always been in the past.

We reformed-healthy-church types, however, sometimes provide the theological treatise and forget to equip our teams and disciples with the practical tools needed to both remember and then faithfully summarize that truth with anyone, anywhere, and at any time. We might differ with missionaries who espouse movement methodology, but they have understood one principle extremely well – if you can’t put your ecclesiology on a napkin, your disciples are highly unlikely to be able to remember it and pass it on to others.

Over the years, here are the three basic frameworks that I’ve used to summarize the Bible’s teaching on 1) What is the gospel?, 2) What is a true believer? And 3) What is a healthy church? All of these are borrowed from others, sometimes with a slight reworking here or there.

First, what is the gospel? Here, I’ve long used the four word summary of God, Man, Christ, Response to summarize the heart of the good news.

God is the holy and good creator. Man, created good, rebelled and is now cursed with death and hell. Christ is the God-become-man who was the perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross and who rose from the dead, conquering death, and who now reigns forever. Anyone who responds to this message with repentance for their sins and faith in Jesus will be saved now and for all eternity. I’ve written previously on how we’ve used this 4-word framework as a regular part of our church plant’s services, with encouraging results.

Second, what is a true believer? Here I’ve used a simple two-point framework. A true believer is someone who 1) confesses the gospel message and their faith in it, and 2) shows evidence in their life of the new birth.

A true believer must confess with his mouth that Christ is Lord (Rom 10:9). So, if someone tells me they believe the gospel, but they can’t tell me what the gospel is (even in the basic spiritual language of baby believers), then I’m not ready to say true faith is present. An accurate verbal confession must be present, though verbal confession is not enough. They must also believe it in their heart. And since we can’t see their heart, we must look for clear evidence of the new birth, evidence of the Holy Spirit’s transforming work in their life (The book of 1st John is a great place to explore this). When both are present, even in seed or sapling form, then I’m ready to affirm that person’s faith and to start discussing baptism.

Third, what is a healthy church? Here, I’ve leaned heavily on the IMB’s 12 characteristics of a healthy church framework, which itself seems to have leaned on the 9 Marks framework. The problem is it’s very hard to remember 12 characteristics. So, as a new team leader a number of years ago I worked to try and find an acronym that would be unique/absurd enough to remember. The best I could do was “5 ships get a mop.” The five ships are Discipleship, Worship, Leadership, Membership, Fellowship. And GET A MOP stands for Giving, Evangelism, Teaching/Preaching, Accountability/Discipline, Mission, Ordinances, and Prayer.

This framework for remembering the characteristics of a healthy church is the most cumbersome of the three, but I have seen teams effectively trained in it and able to then reproduce it with others. This involved a good long season of running through this framework in each team meeting, until the team members were sick of it – which meant they now knew it well enough to write in on a napkin when their local friend asked them what a church was supposed to be like. What I’ve not done yet for this framework is find a way to make it memorable not just in English, but in our local language.

Each of these frameworks is a practical tool for ministry. If I’m interacting with a Muslim or with a local who thinks the gospel is “do more good than bad,” then I can rely on the four words gospel summary in that conversation with them. If a local thinks he is a Christian, but has merely made a shift of mental and emotional allegiance because he hates Islam, I can use the two points of the true believer framework to help him see he’s not yet a true Christian. If I’m sitting down with a first-generation local pastor who has never seen a healthy church, I can bring up the 12 characteristics of a healthy church and ask him how he envisions applying the Bible’s vision for the local church in his own congregation.

But they’re not just convenient tools. They are trustworthy summaries of the rich biblical teaching on each of these topics, which believers should be hearing taught in the normal life of the church. In this way, they can serve local believers in their struggle for the truth just like that peculiar hand gesture of the ancient church served them – pointer finger and middle finger extended to acknowledge the two natures of Christ, thumb, ring, and pinky finger touching to confess the Trinity (see photo above). We should learn from the ancient church that truths that are constantly under attack and at risk of misunderstanding or twisting call for faithful, reproducible ways of holding onto them.

These tools themselves are meant to serve the saints so that they are better equipped to remember and share the inspired Word of God. That means these tools are not themselves the main thing, but rather merely a pointer to the main thing. Therefore, we shouldn’t hold too rigidly to any of these tools or frameworks. The point is, like a good tradesman, to be able to remember and give a helpful answer on the spot for the core areas of knowledge in your field. These three frameworks, or other solid ones that you might come up with, serve to do that for the particular labor of church planters and missionaries – a field where eternity itself is at stake.

These kinds of tools also equip us to serve all believers, regardless of their literacy level. Many of the unreached and unengaged people groups of the world – not to mention many of the poor and working class in the West – are primarily oral in their abilities and preferences. Or they’re only functionally literate, meaning they can read and write when needed, but they don’t choose to do so for pleasure. When we train believers in memorable oral frameworks, we equip all the saints, regardless of their literacy level.

Test yourself. Could you, right now, summarize for a friend the message of the gospel? The difference between a true Christian and a false one? Those elements that characterize a healthy church? If you find yourself unsure of your ability to do this, consider memorizing one of these frameworks, or other good equivalents. Doing so will not only lead to greater clarity in your own mind, but also equip you to lead others also into a better understanding of these fundamental truths.

All Christians should desire fluency in these topics. But missionaries especially need to be “skilled master-builders” when it comes to the gospel, conversion, and the local church (1 Cor 3:10). After all, if they do not have mastery in these central truths, they will not be able to entrust them to local believers. We can guard the gospel and right doctrine by making sure those we send, those we train, and we ourselves know these three things deeply – deep enough to be able to talk about them in our sleep.

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Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

While We Eat Wittenberg Falafel

He agreed to meet with us to study the Bible. Now to see if he really means it.

Ali* is a friend from an unengaged people group. Reza* first introduced us to him when he was a newer refugee in the US. In the years since then, we’ve hung out and discussed the gospel in the US, hung out and discussed the gospel when he moved back to Central Asia, and hung out and discussed the gospel again now that he’s moved back to the US. We laugh about how we keep following one another from one side of the world to the other. But much more than I have, a whole network of believing friends have spent time with Ali and shared the gospel with him.

Ali is one of those confusing unbelievers who doesn’t seem to be drawn to the message of the gospel – nor to be particularly offended by it. His loosely-Islamic live-life-to-the-fullest beliefs don’t seem to have budged in the years since I’ve known him. But he’s clearly drawn to Christian friendship and Christian community. He’s a happy, generous, charming, loyal friend, the kind of guy sure to liven up any gathering. To know Ali is to know that he would give you the shirt off his back if needed – or round up his relatives to bust you out of jail.

All this means I find myself now at a loss when it comes to how to talk to him about spiritual things. My words and the words of so many friends just haven’t seemed effective. Neither has a rich exposure to Christian community. I still try to intersperse my conversation with truth, putting out spiritual hooks as it were, but I find myself surprisingly unsure of how and when to press. This means I’m grateful for other believing friends who do feel free to open up direct gospel conversation with Ali when we are together.

Last night, Reza, Ali, and myself got together at a local Middle Eastern cafe and restaurant. Turns out it was a place Reza had not been to since his days an unbeliever. This environment had him reflecting and talking about the craziness of his life back then and the difference that the grace of God has made since. I finished up my falafel sandwich and nodded gratefully as Reza directed the conversation to Jesus and to what his claims mean for Ali.

As Reza and Ali sparred back and forth in their happy and direct way, politely passing the hookah hose to each other in turn, I felt myself more and more able to enter into the conversation, attempting to play wingman as Reza led. The goodness of this was not lost on me. Here was a friend I had led to faith and taught to share the gospel, who was now years later showing me the way.

There were three points in the conversation where Ali seemed to be internalizing what we were saying in a different way. First, in agreeing that Jesus is the only sinless prophet, and that his birth and life is utterly unique. Second, in perhaps understanding for the first time our claim that as God-man, Jesus was able to die because of his humanity, even though God cannot die. Third, in hearing a metaphor for imputation in which a country’s president honors the son of a war hero for the sacrifice his father has made for the country, even though the son has done nothing other than exist in relationship to his father. This final illustration seemed to help him understand Reza’s biblical argument that we could be accepted by God based on our relationship with Jesus’ as our sacrifice and advocate.

I don’t know if last night’s conversation indeed shifted anything within Ali or not. However, I was encouraged to hear him reference previous in-depth conversations about the gospel, some from years past. He does remember those, I found myself saying internally. Ali’s manner is such that I am tempted to feel that all the truth and love that he’s been exposed to simply bounces off and is soon dismissed or forgotten.

At the very end of the conversation, Reza pivoted toward the importance of actually reading the Bible, rather than just talking about things. I shared with Ali how things had shifted for Reza when we moved from regular debate into regular study of the book of Matthew. As we spiraled around the idea of the three of us meeting to do this, it seemed like Ali actually agreed. There’s always a Central Asian Insh’allah (God willing) noncommittal dynamic when making plans with friends from this part of the world. So the proof will be when Reza and I make a plan and send a concrete invitation.

But it seems as if Ali has agreed to study the Bible with us. After a good long while of feeling like our words have been utterly powerless, I am excited to expose him directly to the words that are like “fire, like a hammer that shatters a rock” (Jer 23:29). I want my jovial friend to know true joy. But for that to happen, we’ll need more power to break through his spiritual blindness. To paraphrase Luther, in the end, all we can do is expose him to the Word, keep eating falafel with friends, and pray the word has its effect. In the end, the Word does everything.

I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
Martin Luther

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*names changed for security

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The Shame of a Prodigal Daughter

Several years ago my wife and others hosted a Valentine’s Day outreach for local women. As a part of the event, they read the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15, and led a discussion about its meaning and implications.

Surprisingly, when they asked the local ladies what they thought about the father’s response to the return of his wayward son, these ladies responded that the response was right and good. “That’s what a father should do for a son.”

Either my wife or one of our teammates then posed the question differently. “What if it had been a prodigal daughter rather than a prodigal son?”

At this question, the mood of the room shifted dramatically. Everyone knew that a prodigal daughter should never be welcomed home and forgiven like that. No, if it had been a daughter rather than a son who had dishonored her family by wasting her inheritance on prostitutes in a far country, she would be a dead woman. She would never be welcomed home with joy and celebration. Instead, if she showed her face again the men of the family would have to kill her in order to restore their honor in the eyes of the community.

In this situation, because of their own culture these local women didn’t feel the shamefulness of the younger son’s actions, even after it had been explained to them. But when the connection had been made with an equivalent example from their own culture, then the weightiness – and the scandalous nature – of the father’s actions sunk in.

Much has been made of the connections between contemporary Middle Eastern/Central Asian honor-shame cultures and the cultures of the New Testament era. And there are many similarities. These cultures are certainly closer to one another than they are to the modern west. Yet there are also some very significant differences that mean a direct understanding or resonance with New Testament era culture shouldn’t be assumed.

One major difference would be the way in which our Central Asian culture places the burden of the family’s honor almost entirely on the conduct of their women (at least in part a downstream effect of Islam). The honorable reputation, community standing, and future prospects of the extended family all hinge on whether the community believes the young women and the married women are sexually pure and faithful. If I had to quantify it, I’d say it’s something like ninety percent of family honor that comes down to this. The other ten percent is made up of whether or not the men are hospitable, loyal patrons and clients, not thieves, not drunkards, not gamblers, and if they come from a line of honorable fathers.

The men do have a small part to play in maintaining the family honor, but in general they are given all kinds of grace and freedom to go out and sow their wild oats. At the end of day, they are the beloved sons who will be welcomed home by mama and papa and all will be forgiven. The same cannot be said for the daughters of the family. One misstep – or one nasty rumor – can spell disaster for them. This is why the women of our people group are so much more observant in their Islam. It’s also why believing women are outnumbered by believing men by about ten to one. If you feel that this is terribly unjust, you are right.

So, what does the gospel laborer do in this kind of situation where the culture means the locals do not understand and feel the point of the parable? In our telling of the story, should we replace the son in the parable with a daughter? Not at all. Though it may be tempting to do something like this, we must remember the proper roles of the word and the culture when it comes to communicating God’s truth. The word of God is where all the authority and the grounding of our teaching comes from. The culture, on the other hand, is what we use to illustrate.

Rather than replacing the prodigal son with a prodigal daughter upfront, instead we need to explain what this parable would have meant and felt like to the original audience. Then, we use a comparable example of shamefulness and scandalous forgiveness from our target culture to help our hearers wrestle with the offensive grace communicated by Jesus in this parable. In this way, we are being faithful to God’s powerful word as it was originally revealed, and we are also doing our best to help our audience understand it with both their heads and their hearts. This is in fact just what the ladies on our team did during their Valentine’s outreach.

Any of us reformed-types who scoff at the study of culture out of a professed trust in the word of God are missing something important here; namely, that effective teaching and preaching requires more than faithful exegesis of the text and argumentation. It also requires faithful illustration and application. To do all of this you must study the text first, and then study your people.

As with any culture, the honor-shame dynamics of our Central Asian culture contain both hindrances and helps when it comes to making sense of God’s word. Though they are wrong to place the burden of family honor almost solely on the shoulders of their women, they are not entirely wrong in their belief that sin means that someone must die in order for honor to be restored.

From the very beginning, sin deserves death (Gen 2:17). This divine law has never changed. Their culture simply needs to universalize it. Instead of just women who have allegedly shamed the family, every single individual deserves death because of how he has fallen short of the glory (the honor) of the Father. The amazing good news is that a perfect Son has been killed so that we don’t have to be. He has died in our place and has taken upon himself the righteous anger of the shamed Father. By doing so, he has also satisfied the demands of divine honor (Mark 10:45, Rom 3:21-26).

The local women at the Valentine’s outreach shuddered when they thought of the forgiveness of a prodigal daughter. But such a daughter’s shame is not any greater than their shame, or my shame. The sacrifice of the divine Son means that we no longer need to kill our children to restore the family honor. Someone else can cover that shame and restore honor in the only court that really matters, the eternal one. Whether prodigal sons or daughters or prideful older sisters or brothers, we must all turn from our futile attempts to deal with our sin and shame and trust in him alone.

For any of those local women, to let go of their hard-fought honor and to admit their true shame is a terrifying thing. How could it not be when your conformity has been enforced all your life at knife-point?

But some will. And those who do will know the amazing warmth of the Father’s welcome – and the wonder of his undeserved honor.

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Seven Years of a Weekly Gospel Review

“Did you have the same evangelism professor when you were in seminary?”

“No, why?”

“Brother, he used the four words! And he explained them just like we do every week in our service!”

Because of his stellar English, *Alan is our first local believer to take online classes at Southern Seminary. As we talked about how his Intro to Evangelism class went, he was beaming. He couldn’t wait to tell me how so much of what he had learned in the class fit with what he had seen modeled by the missionaries and older believers in his little Central Asian church. I laughed as Alan said things like, “Now I understand what you guys were trying to do!”

Though tempted, I did not say, “It’s about time, brother!”

Every week for the last seven years or so, our team has included a five minute portion for gospel review in our church services. To do this, we’ve leaned on the four word summary of the gospel common in reformed circles: God, Man, Christ, Response. We’d either have the person leading the service or one of the members lead this time.

After seven years, here are a few of the effects of this weekly practice:

Local believers in our church are over time able to faithfully and easily articulate the gospel, and understand how it is different from mere theological statements like “God is love,” as well as how it is different from works-based false gospels. When transferring membership to a church in another city, the pastor told us that *Frank and Patty had shared one of the clearer gospel presentations they’d ever heard in a membership interview.
The stable framework of the four words review allows the church leaders to weave in the breadth and depth of the gospel and its many facets in a slightly different way each week, while never departing from the simplicity of the message. At times when I’ve led this time in the past I’ve shared with the congregation the quote that the gospel is “shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough to drown a theologian.” This can equip the body with a flexible framework for evangelism rather than a rigid formula.
Unbelievers attending the service are sure to hear the gospel presented clearly by the congregation in the service, and not just by the preacher in the sermon. Unbelievers who are regular attenders can even end up sharing the gospel four words with others!
Every member of the missionary team gets weekly review and practice in presenting the gospel in the local language. This is a great step toward equipping newer teammates in local-language evangelism – and in sharpening even advanced speakers as they hear new phrases and forms.

Back-translated from the local language, this weekly gospel review sounds something like this:

[Leader] “Like every week, we want to review the message of the gospel together. This is the message that is the heart of everything we believe and teach. When those who don’t yet follow Jesus believe this message, they are saved. And we believers also need this message every day in order to be faithful. In this church, we use four words to summarize the gospel message of Jesus Christ. So, what are the four words that we use to do this?”

[Congregants] “God… Man… Jesus Christ… Response.”

[Leader] “That’s right, God, Man, Jesus Christ, Response. When we say ‘God,’ what do we mean by that?”

[Congregants] “God is the creator of everything.” “God is love.” “God is holy.” “God is spirit.”

[Leader] “Yes, God is the holy and loving creator. But what do we mean when we say ‘Man?’

[Congregants] “Man is a sinner and criminal.” “Man was created good, but we messed it up and rebelled.” “Man is lost and cannot save himself.”

[Leader] “So, what do we mean with the third word, ‘Jesus Christ?’ Who is he and what did he do?”

[Congregants] “He’s the final sacrifice for our sins!” “He’s the bridge between man and God.” “He died on the cross for our forgiveness and rose from the dead.” “He’s our rescuer who makes us right with God again.” “He is the son of God.”

[Leader then clarifies any important points of the gospel missed in the responses]

[Leader] “Because this message is true, what do we mean by the fourth word, ‘Response?’ It has two parts.”

[Congregants] “Repent and believe!”

[Leader] “Yes, everyone must repent of their sins and of trying to save themselves, and believe that Jesus is the only savior. If they do this, the promise of God is that they will be saved and become part of the family of God and have eternal life. All of us should memorize these four words, God, Man, Jesus Christ, Response, so that we can share this good news with our friends and family, and so that we can be encouraged ourselves everyday in the gospel. The order of the words is not as important as their meaning. There are many good ways to share the gospel, but when you use these four words you know you are sharing the heart of the good news.”

There are many ways to faithfully review the gospel in our weekly services, but this simple method has served us well in our cross-cultural, small church context. Do you have a way in which the gospel is made crystal-clear in each of your services? Are the congregants being equipped to better know and better share the gospel by that regular rhythm? Is it simple enough? Is it flexible enough?

To be honest, we originally started this weekly corporate gospel review time without much forethought. But seven years later, I’m so glad we did. We stumbled into something that has truly served the body well.

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*Names changed for security

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Not Yet in the Fold

“Hi, I’m Tom* the Catholic. I’m the only Catholic in this bunch. My daughter goes here.”

I shook hands with the elderly man who sported a ponytail and a ball cap, curious about his story. I hadn’t expected to meet a Catholic Tom at this evening cookout for a rural Southern Baptist church. After conversing with me for a few minutes about U.S. foreign policy, Tom ducked away once a group picture was mentioned. The church pastor then approached me, looking a little unsure about what Tom may have said to me.

“Saw you talking to Tom. Just wanted to let you know that he’s not a member here – not yet a believer. But he keeps coming to our cookouts. We hope that the truth he’s hearing will sink in sooner or later. Anyway, thanks for talking to him!”

“For sure,” I responded, “We’ve got a lot of friends like Tom in Central Asia. At some point, all we can figure is that if they keep coming around, and if we keep talking about Jesus, then at some level, they may be open to Jesus.”

The pastor and I were standing on a rural Kentucky balcony on a muggy summer’s evening, but my mind was already back in Central Asia, thinking about Mohammad* the photographer. Side note: there are a lot of Mohammads in Muslim countries, so we often have to attach some kind of designator to the name to keep them all straight. Mohammad the photographer, Mohammad the redhead, Mohammad the rapper, etc.

Mohammad the photographer has been a regular attendee at our Central Asian church plant’s services, baptism picnics, and other hangouts for about five years. His best friend, Darius*, came to faith at the end of our first term and is now an elder-in-training. Mohammad, on the other hand, a gentle, spectacled, tech-oriented fellow, is still not in the fold.

The issue is not gospel-clarity. In fact, Mohammad will sometimes explain the gospel to other unbelieving friends in his and Darius’ circle. The issue is not even a lack of desire to believe. Just this past month, Mohammad told me that he wants to be able to believe but also that he isn’t interested in faking the presence of genuine faith when he knows it’s not there yet.

“I used to be so focused on logic, science, and evidence, a skeptic. I demanded water-tight proof that Christianity is true. But now I know that doesn’t work. There is proof, but it is the love that believers have that is the proof. The proof is the love. Now that I know this, I do hope that I can become a believer soon. I feel like I am close.”

When Mohammad shared this with me, it was 3 a.m., the day after the grandmother who had raised him and for whom he had been a devoted caretaker had died. A solid core of the believers had attended the Islamic funeral, and Darius had convinced him to spend the night at his apartment with some of us believing men. And while I had hoped that we could comfort Mohammad in his grief, I hadn’t expected to get into such a personal gospel conversation with him that night. So much had been shared with him already, and my brain was foggy from lack of sleep. But Central Asians tend to go deep once it’s past midnight. And the presence of death evidently meant that eternity was weighing on Mohammad’s heart. Laying on a floor mattress close to the couch where Mohammad was laying, I chewed on what Mohammad had shared and ventured a response.

“You are right that the proof is the love. That’s exactly what Jesus says, that the love of his followers for one another is proof that God has sent Jesus into the world to save us, that the message of Jesus is true. Mohammad, you say you hope you can become a believer soon, and I am praying for that also. But you know, you can’t make yourself a believer. God must do that. What you need is for God to reveal himself and his love to you in such a powerful way that it changes you and causes you to truly repent and follow him.”

“Yes,” Mohammad agreed, thinking deeply. “I do want God to show his love to me in that way.”

“Well, then you need to be asking God every day that he will do that, and not stopping until he does. Do you think you can do that?”

“I can. I should.”

“Actually, can I pray this for you right now?”

Mohammad agreed, and we prayed together, asking God to sovereignly reveal his saving love for him.

As far as I know, this prayer has not yet been answered. Mohammad keeps coming around, keeps being exposed to the believing community, to the church, to the love that is the proof that the gospel is true. Thankfully, the body has and will continue to walk with him.

When I think of Muhammad the photographer and Tom the Catholic, I am reminded that, yes, the church needs clear lines of membership for those who are “inside” and those who are “outside.” But the church also needs a category for those who are unbelieving long-term friends, potential God-seekers as it were. Relational space and regular opportunities are needed where these can keep coming around in order to witness the love between believers that is such compelling evidence of our faith’s reality (John 13:35, 17:23).

Do we offer these kinds of relational and physical spaces? Are we willing to keep welcoming, to keep praying for these long-term unbelieving friends, even when we know that there is seemingly nothing else that we can say to help them believe? Even when we have done everything we can, and now await a saving miracle, one that is out of our hands?

May we not lose heart or even grow weary of the awkwardness when it comes to friends like Tom the Catholic and Mohammad the Photographer. It is good for the Christian to exhaust all their evangelistic resources and to see that, good though they were, in the end they were not sufficient for creating the new birth in their friend. It’s good to wrestle with how to keep showing love in long-term evangelistic relationships, even when they seem like they’ve plateaued. Like the persistent widow in Luke 18, may we be willing to pray and not give up, trusting that, sooner or later, our petition will be heard by the judge.

The wind blows where it wishes (John 3:8). The Spirit moves according to his sovereign will. We sow the word, we show hospitality, we pray relentlessly. And we wait, expectantly, for our friends to be brought into the fold.

*Some names have been changed for security. Others, like Tom and Mohammad, are secure enough because there are so many of them!

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

This post was first published on immanuelnetwork.org

Did the Jews Really Borrow Certain Doctrines From the Zoroastrians?

“You know the Jews only got their belief in a fiery hell from the Zoroastrians in Babylon, right?”

This argument from my atheistic aunt was a new one for me. We had traveled to the Philly area to celebrate my engagement, when one morning my aunt opened up an apologetics conversation by asking me if I believed there would be free will in heaven. Somehow the conversation had veered into the territory of Zoroastrianism, which my aunt was putting forward as a point to undermine the authority of the Scriptures. After all, if central ideas like the nature of life after death had been borrowed from other religions, this would cast serious doubt on the Bible’s authority as God’s true revelation.

I chewed on her claim and considered how to respond.

“Well, I don’t know a lot about Zoroastrianism. But I don’t think you should say that there was no concept of a fiery judgment until after the exile. The ending of Isaiah (66:24) speaks of the wicked being judged by a fire that will never be quenched. And he predated the exile by a generation or so.”

That conversation may have been the first time I heard the argument that Judaism (and Christianity through it) borrowed heavily from Zoroastrianism. But it certainly wasn’t the last. This position is held as fact by many scholars, and even shows up in some pretty good Christian textbooks and resources. In addition, Zoroastrianism is enjoying a quiet revival in Central Asia and also has some good PR in the West with claims of being “The first monotheistic religion” and the first to teach a final judgment and resurrection.

So, how should Christians respond to the claim that much of our doctrine has been borrowed from the teachings of Zarathustra/Zoroaster, the ancient prophet who founded Zoroastrianism?

First, it helps to have a basic understanding of the history of this religion. Because that story alone leaves a lot to be desired in terms of statements of historical certainty. As best we can tell, Zarathustra was an influential religious teacher sometime around 1,200 BC to 500 BC who sought to reform the polytheism of ancient Persia into something approaching monotheism. But even here, we should be cautious calling calling it monotheism, since early Zoroastrianism teaches a temporary dualism, where even though there was only one God (Ahura Mazda), now there is a second, his evil enemy (Angra Mainyu), who is a god that must be battled both in creation and in the souls of humans. But later, when Zoroastrianism was codified and organized under the Sassanians in the AD 200s, its sacred text, the Avesta, presents an eternal dualism, or even an eternal tri-theism. Even Mithra, the God of war from the Persian pantheon who became so popular among the Roman legions, is thrown into the mix. The goal of the religion remains the same, to help Ahura Mazda, the god of light, overcome the darkness through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. But the nature of Ahura Mazda as the one true God is not even settled within the history and texts of Zoroastrianism itself. And even if it were, Moses predates Zarathustra by 400 years, at least. So, the claim that Jewish monotheism was borrowed from Zoroastrianism? It doesn’t hold water.

How about the claims that the concepts of a fiery hell and resurrection were borrowed? Here there a couple of big problems, as I see it. First, the later possible dates for Zarathustra’s life could place him as a contemporary of Daniel, Ezekiel, and the other writers of the exile period. A number of scholars maintain that Zarathustra was active during the lifetime of Cyrus the great. So, when the concept of resurrection shows up in Ezekiel and Daniel (Ez 37, Dan 12), why should the assumption be that they borrowed from the Zoroastrians they encountered in Babylon and Susa, when it’s just as likely that Zarathustra borrowed from them? Don’t forget what an influential figure Daniel was for decades in both the Babylonian and the Persian empires. He was not only prime minister, political second-in-command, but also head of the wise men of Babylon – essentially the priestly class. It’s not an unreasonable theory to propose that it is Daniel who is influencing the religion of the Persian empire, and not the other way around.

Further, how do you establish what Zoroastrianism was actually teaching during the time of the exile when its sacred texts were not collected and compiled until 700 years later, during the first generation of the Sassanian empire in the 200s? This is the seriousness of the problem if Zarathustra was a contemporary of Daniel. But if he lived much earlier, say around 1,200 BC, then that makes for a period of 1,400 years between the life of Zarathustra and the compilation of his book of teachings, the Avesta. That would be like the Qur’an only being compiled today, when Muhammad lived and taught in the 600s. Given these huge periods of time, it seems like quite the stretch to read things in the Avesta and to say with confidence that these were indeed the teachings of Zarathustra, therefore they predate the biblical authors, therefore they must be the source for Jewish doctrine. Given this murkiness of the history of Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism, it seems that scholars are not really holding this ancient Persian religion to the same level of skepticism and criticism which they apply to Judaism and Christianity.

Ah, but you can’t find resurrection anywhere earlier than Ezekiel and Daniel, can you? Well, Jesus did, in the Torah, in Exodus 3:6. “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31–33). And if we turn to Isaiah, once again we see this supposedly borrowed concept being taught a generation before the exile, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead” (Isaiah 26:19). For more evidence of resurrection in the Old Testament, check out this great article by Mitch Chase.

Over the years, I have heard these claims of borrowing from Zoroastrianism coming from my relatives, from Christian scholars, from online documentaries, and from Central Asian Zoroastrians trying to return to their roots. But when I dig around in the actual history of Zoroastrianism, of its founder and its beliefs, it doesn’t seem like these claims are coming from an examination of Zoroastrianism itself. Rather, it feels like some scholar made these claims once, everyone believed him, and now it’s just a big echo chamber where all accept these ideas as fact without knowing where they came from and if they were indeed sound in the first place.

Keep an eye out for Zoroastrianism in your evangelistic or apologetic conversations, and even in your resources. It tends to show up more than you might expect, claiming some pretty big things without the historical warrant to do so. A basic understanding of the story of Zoroastrianism – and how much really is debatable – can help provide a surprising answer, and get the conversation back on more profitable ground.

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A Practical and Powerful Bible Tool For Every Christian With a Smartphone

There are certain tools and resources that have passed the longevity test. These tools have proven useful, not just for a season, but for the long-term. I want to recommend just such a tool today.

The Compare feature on Youversion’s Bible app is the kind of tool I have used countless times over the last seven years in order to read scripture side by side with speakers of other languages. This Bible app doesn’t just provide scripture free of charge in 1,950 languages (Which is a stunning thing in itself. Can you imagine Tyndale’s reaction if he knew we had Bible access like this?) But it allows a reader to work through an entire passage in multiple languages side by side, with the texts parallel to one another on the screen of your smart phone or tablet. In our multilingual world, this is an extremely practical tool for Christians eager to share the truth of Scripture.

You can use this feature if you are sharing the gospel with someone from another ethnic or language background and want to make sure the individual verses you are sharing are clear. Instead of only showing your friend a verse in English, you can at the same time be showing it to them in their mother tongue (And in this way also know that you are indeed showing them the verse you mean to). Or, you can use this tool in a Bible study with others as you work through a broader passage, one parallel verse at a time, again, having two or more languages in front of you on your phones’ screens for the sake of clarity and understanding – both yours and theirs.

I have also used this feature to continue growing in my knowledge of other languages. Since I’m very familiar with the text of the Bible in English, it’s an easy way to learn new vocab and grammar in another language. And I’ve recommended this practice to many of my English students as a way to expose them to the Bible while they strengthen their English skills, one parallel verse or passage at a time.

This kind of practice not only helps with language acquisition, but also with language retention. Like our physical muscles, our languages need a little bit of regular exercise in order to not atrophy. A few Bible verses a day keeps that language’s part of the brain online in a surprising way. In this vein, whenever I listen to a sermon I have the Bible app’s Compare feature open in front of me for this very purpose. I’ve found the act of code-switching between Bible languages during a sermon helpful both for the insights as well as the questions that emerge.

What if you are aware of a Bible translation that exists, but it’s not included in the 1,950 languages currently on the app? Youversion provides a form for it to be added (Click My Language is Not Listed on the drop down menu and they’ll get back to you). Several years ago I filled out the request form, asking that the trade language translation I grew up with in Melanesia be added to the app. To my surprise, after a few months, there it was. I could now read the Bible in English, my Melanesian trade language, and my focus Central Asian language side by side. This is a true gift because it means that even if I’m the only one in Central Asia who speaks that particular Melanesian tongue, I can not only keep my knowledge of it alive, but even be edified by the Word while doing so.

I was recently speaking with a missionary friend who didn’t know of this tool, so I wanted to put it out there in case it might serve others who are involved in sharing truth across language barriers. For so many, the realities of immigration now mean that even without leaving our home nations we have neighbors, community businessmen, and fellow classmates from other nations. Few immigrants and refugees ever have anyone from their host nation ask genuine questions about the language they spoke growing up. And many speakers of other languages have no idea that the Bible has been translated into their language. This then can be a great way to invite someone into reading God’s word. Ask about their mother tongue, show them that you have a Bible in their language on your phone, ask them if they’d like to have it on their phone also, then invite them if they’d like to meet up another time for coffee or tea to read some together.

Our team in Central Asia has been able to “distribute” dozens upon dozens of Bibles in this way, with some of them being downloaded the very first time we meet someone and get into a spiritual conversation with them. For long-term or short-term teams, or for any Christian eager to share the Bible with others, this really is a tremendous tool for getting scripture into people’s hands, and for reading it side-by-side.

If you want to use this Compare feature, here are the steps:

Dowload the Youversion Bible app from the App Store or Google Play.
Set up a free account on the app.
Click the Bible button on the menu at the bottom of the screen.
At the top of the screen, choose the passage and English translation. This version will be your default until you change it.
Tap on a verse to select it.
Click on the Compare button from the menu that will pop up when you tap on the verse.
At this point, only the selected English verse will appear on the screen. Click on the Add Version button at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the Language button at the top of the screen in order to select versions in other languages.
Click the magnifying glass button at the top of the screen to search the 1,950 languages.
Tap the language you want.
On the next screen, tap on that language a second time in order to add it to the Compare page.
You should now see the verse you selected in your chosen languages side by side on the screen. Click on the Next Verse or Previous Verse buttons to navigate through the chapter.

I hope you find this tool as practical and powerful as I have. And to the team at Youversion, my sincerest thanks.