At the center of the Qur’an’s view of reality are three concepts: The oneness of God, the day of judgement, and prophethood. I had this pointed out to me at a training about five years ago (my thanks, Scott, if you ever read this) and have since tested this framework with the Qur’an itself and with my Muslim friends. It is definitely built into the logic of the Qur’an and also functions as a self-evident truth in the minds of many Muslims that I have known.
The oneness of God (tawhid) means that there is only one God who is supreme over all others beings. Islam emerged at a time when most Arabs were polytheistic and worshiped many gods. The holiest shrine of the Arabs, the Kaaba, is said to have contained over three hundred idols. Muhammad focused on attacking polytheism with this doctrine of the oneness of God. In the process he also used it to attack the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, though there is much evidence that the Qur’an itself is ignorant of what most Christians actually believed (and believe) about the Trinity, since it focuses its rhetoric against the idea that Christians worship three gods: God, Jesus, and Mary. The Qur’an teaches an absolute and simple unity of God. There is one God and any attempt to ascribe partners or distinctions of personhood within God are the worst kind of blasphemy, known as shirk.
The second element of the Qur’anic worldview is the day of judgement. While the Qur’an doesn’t teach that humanity is fallen in the Christian understanding of having a sinful nature, nevertheless, most of humanity is understood to be ignorant and unbelieving. Because humanity has so often turned to idolatry and away from the worship of the one God, they are in danger of being condemned at the final day of judgment. The day of judgment is understood to be a straightforward day of reckoning where God weighs a person’s good deeds and their bad deeds. If the scale is heavier on the side of the good, then that person will go to gardens of paradise. If the bad is the heavier side, then that person will begin suffering right away in fiery torment. The day of judgment is taught to be inevitable, bearing down upon humanity and previewed in history by many destroyed cities and civilizations that were left in ruins because they refused to turn from their idolatry.
However, because the Qur’an teaches that humanity is morally free and able to do righteous deeds which merit eternal life, God sends prophets to call societies back to belief in the oneness of God and the day of judgment. This is where prophethood, the third aspect of the Qur’anic worldview, fits in. The Qur’an teaches that prophethood is a pattern of history that plays itself out repeatedly. A society turns away from God to idolatry and scoffs at the day of judgment. God sends that society a prophet from among them, often with his own book of God’s revelation. That society either repents and returns to the worship of one God and the proper fear of the day of judgment (with accompanying good deeds) or they continue to scoff and God utterly destroys them. This pattern is said to have repeated itself countless times before the emergence of Muhammad among the Arabs.
As the creation, fall, redemption, restoration pattern sets the big plot line for the Bible and shows itself in many smaller, foreshadowing narratives, so the cyclical pattern of Tawhid, judgment, and prophethood play a similar role in the Qur’an. Muhammad is cast as the seal of the prophets, meaning that he is the final messenger who brings this pattern to its final global manifestation. Muhammad is calling the Arabs, and through them the whole world, away from idolatry and to faith in one God and the day of judgment. The regional prophets of earlier times are understood to have been superseded by the global prophet with the final book of God’s revelation.
To tell a Muslim the biblical story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration is to tell them a new kind of story foreign to Islam, even though they themselves end up echoing this story in other ways. The primary narrative of salvation history painted by the Qur’an is much simpler than the Bible’s. According to the Qur’an, humanity’s need is not salvation, but teaching and warning – teaching about the oneness of God, warning about the coming judgment. As long as someone submits themselves to that basic theology as mediated by Muhammad and the Qur’an, Islam gives them a pretty good chance of being able to earn eternal life.
Many of my Central Asian friends believe that Islam and Christianity basically teach the same thing. It’s all we can do to eventually convince them of the mutually exclusive narratives at the heart of both religions. They believe that all the Abrahamic religions hold to this same simple narrative – because the Qur’an teaches that this agreement exists. So using Tawhid, judgment, and prophethood and explicitly pointing out the differences between that metanarrative and the Bible’s can be a helpful path to take when laboring to demonstrate how the message of the Bible is actually very different from that of the Qur’an.
It also helps to explain the shocking differences Muslims find if they actually read the Old Testament. Many prophets who are held up as simple yet exemplary warners in the Qur’an, men like Lot, Noah, and Abraham, prove to be quite complicated, flawed, and sinful in the book of Genesis. Prophets are understood in the Qur’an to be the holiest of humans, essentially sinless in their mission of proclaiming repentance and submission. In the Scriptures, Muslims find out that prophets deserve hell, just like everyone else, and must be saved by God’s sacrifice alone.
Initially that lands as very bad news. But when Muslims have a good Christian friend who can explain and model the grace of God for them, then it can become the very best news of all.
In spite of the late March date, there was a blizzard in Philadelphia. My brothers and I, seeing one another and our families for the first time in two years, had rented an Airbnb together and were spending a few days catching up. On this late morning, it was just the three of us brothers, walking through the snow together to a local diner.
“Three of youz guyz? Right this way, tuhts,” the older waitress said in a classic Philly dialect.
We took our seats in a booth and settled into sipping diner coffee and enjoying breakfast for lunch. Since my family serves in a Muslim country, I of course ordered extra bacon.
I didn’t expect the conversation to take the turn that it did. We ended up talking about home, that elusive concept that haunts missionary kids and others who have grown up in a lifestyle of transition. G.K. Chesterton once said, “After I became a Christian, I understood why I’ve been homesick at home.” MKs are particularly aware of that homesickness, though it’s more often that they’ve been homesick in spite of never being able to define what home is.
One brother had recently bought a house, the first to do so in our family, and discussed the rootlessness of our upbringing, the absence of a settled place, and how even in his thirties, he was still coming to terms with it. His desire was to move toward greater rootedness. As he spoke, I felt that same desire – for roots, for a house, for land, for community and memory – flicker in my soul.
I of course had embraced the nomadic missions lifestyle of our parents and was coming toward the end of my family’s first term on the field in Central Asia. Exciting things were afoot, a church plant that had just begun, friends coming to faith, new potential leaders being trained. As I shared about our experiences my brothers felt that old desire awakened in their souls also, perhaps even some guilt about not being overseas themselves.
I realized afresh in that conversation that my brothers (also believers) and I need each other. Because I have been called to the unsettled life of a missionary, I need them to “hold the ropes” for me in a particular, settled way. And I’m not just talking about having a place to crash when we’re in the US or being present to care for aging grandparents – important though these things are. I’m talking about having a place to channel that desire for rootedness. I can find some level of satisfaction to that desire by praying for my brothers and supporting them in the rooted lifestyle that God has given them – buying houses, investing in a neighborhood, serving at one local church, knowing which Philly diner we should go to in a blizzard. My brothers, in turn, can channel that desire to be overseas into their prayers and support for my family as we live and serve in Central Asia. Their kids can FaceTime with mine and they can even come for visits. We can, in a way, live vicariously through one another, since we must choose one calling or the other. In this way, we can practically fight for contentment as we lean on one another, as we grapple with our lingering sense of homesickness and wonder if we are being faithful.
I really do believe these are different ministry callings – toward rootedness or toward rootlessness. Consider Paul’s exhortation to the believers in Ephesus to pray that they might live “a peaceful and quiet life, dignified in every way” (1 Tim 2:2 ESV). Then consider that Paul did not live this way at all, but instead, “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless… like the scum of the world (1 Cor 4:11,13).”
Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one (1 Thess 4:11-12).” But Paul was often dependent on the generosity and households of others. Yet he also honored those who risked their necks (and their stable life) for the sake of the gospel, like Prisca and Aquila and Epaphroditus (Rom 16:11, Phil 3:25).
So which is it, Paul? Are believers called to a radical apostolic lifestyle or to a more ordinary, pastoral lifestyle? A pastor friend recently pointed out to me that some, like Philip the evangelist, may be called to both in different seasons. After Philip’s early itinerant ministry, at some point he settled down, got a house and had a bunch of daughters (Acts 21:8-9).
It seems that most of us will be called primarily to one of these callings instead of the other – some to rootlessness for the sake of the gospel, others to rootedness for the same cause. This harmony of the so-called radical and the so-called ordinary shows up all over the New Testament and throughout church history. William Carey could have never done what he did without Andrew Fuller and the support of the English Baptists. The Judsons were utterly dependent on the ministry of Luther Rice back in the US, mobilizing the rooted churches. For every one family like us on the mission field, we need at least a dozen families who decide to stay home, work, pray, give, welcome us back when we are burnt out, and disciple their own kids and neighbors to themselves go to the nations.
But it’s not only in relation to this world that these callings work together, it’s also in relation to the next. I believe every Christian is meant to foreshadow the new heavens and new earth by the way they live now. For most, it will be a foreshadowing of degree. “Our family has lived in this house for forty years, in this city for eighty. Those trees were planted by my grandfather. But these seemingly stable roots, this place of home, cannot be compared to the true home and the true stability that is coming. Is this wonderful? Yes, and temporary, even if it endures for a thousand years. Let the lesser joy be a path to hoping in the greater. This country is good, but the country of the king will be even better.”
For others, it will be a foreshadowing of contrast. “You know how we have lived in fourteen houses in the last eight years. You know how we do not own, but only rent. Transition is our constant reality. We live like nomadic pastoralists, like Abraham, because a promised land is also coming for us. In the resurrection, each of us will have his own vine and his own fig tree and will find rest because he will have found his place. Here we have no country… but we will find our true home in the country of the King.”
We should feel no superiority to others if we are called primarily to a foreshadowing of degree or a foreshadowing of contrast. Both callings reflect the coming resurrection. Both can become idols or sources of bitterness when divorced from their good and temporary roles as previews of the coming Zion. Both are dependent on one another in this age. The senders are encouraged in their difficult jobs because they know have a vital part in the spread of the gospel to the nations. The goers are encouraged in their difficult roles because they know their work is also an investment in the sending church and its rooted impact in its neighborhood.
Acknowledging the goodness of both lifestyles can free us from false guilt as well. Are you a tired missionary, worn down by the cost of transition and longing for a stable home? It’s OK, the resurrection is coming. Lament and rejoice. Are you a tired church member or pastor worn down by the tedium and heartbreak of a rooted life, where the growth seems ever so slow? It’s OK, the life of the New World is upon us, it’s just around the corner. Lament and rejoice. Everyone is grappling with spiritual homesickness to one degree or another.
Your calling, whichever it is, is a good one. You get to point others toward our eternal hope, life forever in the presence of the King. TowardHome.
There he was, working hard at his second job, cheerfully selling wares on the street in spite of the chill winter night. I waited until the cluster of customers moved on and then approached *Thomas, who was one of my former English students and was now becoming a good friend.
“Mr. Thomas, how are you, brother? What’s new? How’s your situation? How’s your health? Everything good?”
“Mr. AW! How are you, teacher? Are you good? How’s your household? Everyone doing well? What’s the news?”
This is how a typical conversation begins among our Central Asian people group, with a barrage of respectful questions spoken enthusiastically while the other person is doing the same thing back to you. No one actually hears each and every question or responds to all of them directly, but it’s the cumulative show of honor and friendship that counts. Once this “outdo one another in showing honor” greeting is completed, you can actually begin speaking one at a time.
“How’s business tonight?” I asked.
“Not bad,” Thomas smiled, “With my work in the bazaar pretty slow right now, I need to be out here as much as I can. Diapers are expensive!”
Thomas and his wife had recently had a baby boy, after years of infertility came to an end when they were prayed over by one of his good friends, another missionary in our city.
“May your body be whole, my brother.” I responded, signalling to him that I appreciated the difficulty of his labors.
“Let’s get some chai!” Thomas said and jumped up from his stool.
“Don’t trouble yourself!” I responded, indirectly letting him know that I would indeed appreciate a hot and sugary cup of tea on this cold winter evening. As my coworkers can attest, it’s a rare day that I turn down an offer of our local chai – strong, black, and sweet, with just a hint of bergamot, cinnamon, and cardamom. Not as simple as European teas, not as aggressive as South Asian chais – just an expertly-balanced mix of subtle spices and caffeine.
“Pah! It’s no trouble at all. Sir! Two chais over here!” The chai boy nodded that he had received our order and got to work quickly pouring the scalding water, tea, and generous helpings of sugar into two small transparent glass cups. They were in our hands and burning our fingers in less than a minute.
“May your hands be blessed,” We said to the chai boy as he delivered our order. The chai steamed in the winter air and we began stirring the sugar in, waiting for the tea to cool down just enough to be sipped without scalding.
I knew my friend’s window for visiting was limited, so after a few minutes of general question, I got to the point of my visit.
“Mr. Thomas, you’ve recently shared with me and another fellow teacher in depth that you believe in Jesus.”
“Yes! I have believed for a while. I’ve told you about how I met that older British missionary many years ago in my travels to the countries east of here. I was a conman and a drunkard, but I really did learn a lot from his example and from the church he had there. Those things have stuck with me through the years. And in the past couple of years with my other dear foreign friend, God has answered our prayers for healing and now we have a son. No question about it. I’m not with Islam at all anymore. I’m a follower of Jesus.”
“Mr. Thomas, have you ever attended a church here where there are other believers like you?”
“A church? No, but I did years ago when I was out of the country. It was amazing! Are there churches here? I haven’t seen any.”
“Well,” I responded, “Not church buildings like you would have seen in that other country. But yes, there are a few small groups of believers who meet regularly to worship Jesus together. The real meaning of church is a group of believers, not a religious building.”
Thomas chewed on what I said.
“Do you have any family members or friends who are open to Jesus?”
“No, I have tried to share with them, but it’s just me and has been for a while. My wife might be somewhat more open now… You should bring your wife over sometime so we can have her share more with my wife!”
“We’d like that a lot. And we’ll be praying for your wife to be more open to Jesus. Keep sharing with her patiently and showing her that you are a new man because of Jesus. God willing, she will notice the change in you and want to know the source of it.”
We took some swigs of our chai and I thought about how to phrase my next words. Thomas’ friend had departed for the US and we wanted to be faithful now that we were the primary spiritual influence in his life.
“Mr. Thomas, it’s very important that no follower of Jesus follows him by themselves. God wants us each to be part of a spiritual family, a true church. I’ve been talking with my friends about your situation and we believe Jesus is giving you two very good options.”
Thomas sat up and raised his eyebrows inquisitively.
“We believe that Jesus would like you to either join a church… or to let us help you start one among your family and friends. You don’t have to answer now. You should probably take some time and pray about it. But whatever you decide, we want to help you obey Jesus by being part of a church.”
“I will pray,” Thomas replied. “I am so happy to hear this.”
Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. The usual response to the “church talk” was one of caution and suspicion. Many local believers balk at the idea of gathering with other locals out of concern for their own safety. Thomas seemed to be cut from a different cloth. It appeared his travels out east had had quite an impact.
After a few weeks, Thomas contacted us and asked if he could start attending the gathering of believers we had recently begun, in spite of the fact that he had never met those other believers before. He was tired of feeling alone in his faith and didn’t sense that any in his personal network were very open to the gospel, with the exception of maybe his wife. Thomas came the very next week, brought his son, and beamed with joy throughout the whole meeting.
Missionaries in our region have had to think long and hard about the problem of the church gathering. Decades of dictators and secret police have a powerful effect upon the populations they have terrorized. The warped culture that emerges is one of fear, distrust, suspicion, and deceit. Everyone is afraid everyone else is a spy. This makes gathering local believers into a group that can become a church a mightily complicated task. Implosion is the norm.
This has had the unfortunate effect of causing many missionaries to abandon the idea of gatherings made up of unrelated believers altogether. Instead, most have turned a decent principle, the household or oikos, into a hard and fast rule. The oikos principle states that we often see the gospel taking root in natural households in the book of Acts and that missiology since has confirmed that this dynamic continues among unreached people groups – that the gospel usually travels fastest along previously established relational lines and churches tend to be planted in households.
But description has become prescription. One way churches are planted has become the way to plant a church, even to the point where local believers will stay isolated for years because missionaries are opposed in principle to bringing them to group of non-related believers. Following Jesus while isolated and without a spiritual family (even while enduring persecution) becomes preferred to violating the oikos principle. This is done in the name of rapid reproducibility and in response to the very real persecution and distrust that is in the culture.
On the other hand, there are also local believers who become members of a composite group (made up of believers not naturally related to one another) who fail to ever tell their family and friends that they are believers. They stay mostly secret in their compartmentalized faith. This is not healthy. And it’s true, these composite groups almost always implode. The trust between believers that we expect to naturally develop is awfully slow to grow… and sometimes there really are spies.
And yet we cannot abandon the biblical vision of local churches that are not made up only of people who are already naturally like one another. The church is meant to display how the gospel overcomes natural barriers of family, culture, and ethnicity (Col 3:11). If we plant one church for the Hatfields and one church for the McCoys and stop there, how does that not simply reinforce their blood feud? Better (though harder) to have a church where Hatfields and McCoys worship together and visibly attest to the power of the gospel to break down dividing walls of hostility (Eph 2:13-22). Yes, oikos church planting is one natural way the church has taken root among people groups for 2,000 years. But the church must outgrow the oikos and bring reconciliation between opposing households if these churches are to become healthy and faithful. And we must not leave local believers as spiritual orphans in the name of methodology. Obeying the scriptures and gathering with other believers is worth it, even knowing the risks.
All of this context is why I shared with Thomas about the two very good options he had regarding church: join one or help us start one. In truth, these would be two options worth celebrating with new believers almost anywhere in the world. Join a church made up of those totally different from you and together become the household of God, to the amazement of the watching world. Or, work with godly mentors to start a church within the relationships God has already given you. Do any of our cities actually have an overabundance of churches? Isn’t there always room for one more church plant, especially with the evangelistic energy they bring? Start with your household, but by all means, pray for and work for the gospel to break out of your network as soon as possible, and to bring in those who do not naturally fit as part of your oikos. Yes, reach your household. But also reach your enemies.
Not every new believer will be able to start a church in their oikos. The Spirit gives different gifts. Missiology tends to miss this point. But also, not every new believer will be willing to join a church where they trust no one when they have a past involving trauma and betrayal. How can we plant churches that patiently walk with all of them so that they can obey the scriptures and gather with others? I have encouraged my current teammates to share these two options with their newly believing friends, knowing that as a team we share the vision of developing multi-household and multi-ethnic churches. So whether we start with a household and deal with the trust issues on a slower track or whether take the bull by the horns and plant a composite group right away, our aim is to end up in the same place – a biblically faithful church that visibly displays the gospel.
Back to Thomas – he joined our composite church plant, which then went on to implode six months later. One of our leaders-in-training proved to be some kind of a wolf in sheep’s clothing and caused a world of confusion and mayhem. Thomas sadly sided with the wolf for a season. The rebound has been difficult for many of the new believers in that group, but there are signs that Thomas is still mostly on a good track. He has pursued some reconciliation and his wife has even come to faith in the season since the implosion. The church plant, which he sometimes visits, still continues.
Church planting in Central Asia is very messy and we’re learning to take the long view. There are times when I regret introducing Thomas to this group. What would have happened if he had picked the other option? But at the end of the day we walk in the light we have in a given situation. Even if we walk in biblical principles with a good conscience, in the mysterious sovereignty of God things can implode and even fail. And in spite of the eventual difficulties, Thomas’ presence in this diverse group was one of the factors that led to others hearing the gospel for the first time.
The day will come, sooner or later, when Central Asia will once again be full of followers of Jesus. Planting churches is the only way to get there. I am grateful for two very good options Jesus gives us for how to start.
One night our taxi driver neighbor called me, asking if his family could come by for a visit that same evening. We readily agreed, excited that this more traditional family felt free enough to pay a visit to us, their strange American neighbors. We also had a Texan friend over that evening, who himself had lived in this family’s home city, one of the few Americans to do so. I was excited for the potential of the visit.
Things went well enough for the first hour or so. We had tea together, munched on sunflower seeds and banana bread, and even joked around some. In what I thought an obvious jest, I told my neighbor that my Texan friend was the nephew of George W. Bush. I later found out the sarcasm must have gotten lost in translation as months later my neighbor was telling his taxi passengers that he had actually met W’s nephew! Attempts at humor in a foreign tongue can sometimes go awry.
About an hour and a half into the visit, the conversation took an abruptly serious turn as my neighbor asked me what the new password was for our wifi. The previous tenant had not had a password and since we had installed one, our neighbors had come to request that we give them the password and thus restore their free internet access. The quiet and focused attention of the family on me when this request was made led us to suddenly realize what the visit had been all about in the first place. Our neighbors hadn’t come and invested an hour and half visiting because they were primarily interested in knowing us. They had a request to make. And an hour and half visit was their way of indirectly spiraling into this one simple request.
We were initially discouraged by this realization. It felt like they didn’t value us as people, but had used the relational visit as a means to increase the force of their request. But the more we learned about the culture, the more we came to understand that this kind of indirect communication, couching requests or statements in visits or metaphorical language, this is meant to be highly respectful. It’s also meant to be clearly understood, but we straight-shooting Westerners sure end up missing a lot of it, much to the consternation of our Central Asian friends.
Indirect vs. direct communication is another prevalent difference in cultures which can often lead to misunderstanding. Many cultures which are more honor/shame oriented speak indirectly as a part of everyday speech. This is certainly true of Middle Easterners and Central Asians.
In our corner of Central Asia, if you mean to accept an offer, instead of a direct “yes,” you should say “no,” “don’t trouble yourself,” “thanks,” or “may your hands be blessed.” Instead of refusing an offer with a direct “no,” you should say “If God wills it,” “May your house ever be this blessed,” or “thanks.”
That’s right, “thanks” can be used to indicate either yes or no, and “no,” for the first three uses or so, actually means yes. Confused? Welcome to the murky world of cross-cultural communication.
“We Iranians laugh and say that we eat like this,” a refugee friend once told me, curling his right arm over his head in order to put a bite in the left side of his mouth. I have often thought about this image as I’ve been in contexts where polite questions are asked about someone’s welfare, their parents’ welfare, their cousins’ welfare, Trump’s welfare, etc., before the actual reason for the visit is stated explicitly. Indirect communicators spiral into serious topics, like a missionary pilot’s Cessna circling a jungle airstrip, trying to find a break in the cloud cover. Let the evangelist take careful note of this point. Just because the conversation hasn’t gotten to spiritual things in the first hour doesn’t mean the evening won’t lead to fruitful discussion. The plane may only be halfway done with its spiral descent.
Indirect communicators also make heavy use of poetic and symbolic phrases. Proverbs, metaphors, and similes are all leveraged for the sake of honorable and gracious communication – or sometimes for the opposite purpose, to take a dig at someone. To tell someone to stop being such a pain in the neck, you can say, “If you’re not a flower, then don’t be a thorn!” On the other hand, when a father and son visit another man’s household to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, they lead with the phrase, “You have a beautiful rose in your garden.” All the men in the room know exactly what that means. An engagement negotiation is about to begin.
“But this all seems so inefficient!” our Western sensibilities cry out. Why not just speak more plainly? Several things are important for us to understand about direct and indirect communicators. The first is that both kinds of people and cultures believe they are being clear. The aim of almost all communication is to be understood, so indirect people and cultures are not usually trying to be opaque – though sometimes they are trying to keep plausible deniability. Usually, indirect communicators have been raised to understand the clear meaning in phrases that, without context, seem unclear or even dishonest to a foreigner. My Central Asian friends believe that everyone knows that the first “no” doesn’t actually mean no.
Second, we need to realize that every culture makes use of both kinds of communication. Even in the West, we tend to speak of sensitive or offensive things in indirect ways. Why is it that no one directly asks about your salary, rent, or your giving to your local church? How would you feel if your waiter asked you directly if his service meant you were going to tip well instead of saying, “And how was everything this evening?” Many a Western marriage has learned that “Little man is stinky!” actually means “Please change our son’s diaper for me.” Or, as many a seminary student has figured out the hard way, it doesn’t usually work to speak too directly about marriage the first time you take a girl out for coffee.Brother, keep the fact that you are interested in marrying her an indirect, open secret for at least the first few dates!
Third, the Bible is full of both kinds of communication. Not only do we have examples like Abraham and Ephron communicating effectively and indirectly, but God himself speaks to us in direct and indirect ways. Much of the Old Testament in God indirectly communicating through narrative that salvation by trying to keep the Law just doesn’t work. What is required is faith in God’s promises of a redeemer. Then he says so directly in passages like Galatians 2:16. When Jesus says in Mark 10:18, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone,” he is saying indirectly that his questioner is not good enough to inherit eternal life (he’s in the category of no one after all), but Jesus is also likely hinting that he himself isgood in this true sense, meaning he is God.
As with time-orientation and event-orientation, Christians are in danger of making our preferred directness or indirectness of speech a black-and-white issue, rather than an issue of Christian liberty or preference. If we hold on to the biblical principle of clear, honest, and loving communication (Eph 4:15, Col 4:4), then we are free to leverage different styles of communication as fits the occasion. We all know there is a kind of directness that can be unloving – and that there is a kind of indirectness that can be dishonest. I’m not saying those cliffs don’t exist. But here again I am arguing for a spectrum of biblical fidelity when it comes to the communication cultures of believers.
I can love my American brother by taking his word for it when he says he doesn’t want a cup of coffee. But in order to love my Central Asian brother, I need to press past the first few indirect responses so that I know how I can host him well. Just as we train our children for what questions and observations are polite to deal with directly in our culture, so we can learn these things about the cultures of other believers also. Again, simple spiritual friendship can make all the difference.
What did we do with our neighbors’ request for free wifi? Well, given the honor/shame dynamics of the situation, we made a call on the spot and temporarily agreed to give them the password. But we knew that from a security standpoint we would need to not have others using our wifi network. So a few weeks later, we changed the password again. I think this worked out honorably all around. Our neighbors understood that we were not able to share our wifi as the previous tenant had. They never asked again. We were able to save face by granting their request temporarily, but later indirectly communicating our final decision.
The way to honorably and clearly decline a request is an area we continue to find challenging in our focus culture. And it’s possible we got this situation wrong. Yet we keep trying to learn more so that we can communicate with clarity, wisdom, and grace – whether that be directly or indirectly.
How have you worked through the challenges of direct and indirect communication in your own families and ministries? Feel free to comment below.
A local friend of mine invited me to his birthday party a few years ago. I was excited to get the invitation since this was a good friend who had once professed faith but had sadly been drifting away for years. He was one of many young men in our Central Asian city who had eagerly identified as a Christian in the first wave of house churches planted, only to grow cynical after they imploded. Many of this first generation of believers have fallen away and no longer claim faith in Jesus. Others hold out but are determined to never gather with other locals again. Such is the devastation wrought when new churches are destroyed by domineering leadership, outside money, power conflicts, and prosperity theology. The foundation wasn’t deep enough when the missionaries (too eager not to be paternalistic) went home. Little today remains of that budding movement of house churches once touted as a great success.
Right as things were falling apart, a new group of missionaries arrived and got to work opening an English center. They were to become close partners for my team when we arrived some years later. The birthday party I attended took place after about a decade of steady labor by these partners, a point that I think should not be lost in the account to follow. In the wake of the collapse of Generation One, our partners faithfully taught English, learned the local language, and told people about Jesus. When this birthday party took place, I had probably only been teaching at that particular center for two years. I have since realized just how well set up I was by the labors of this partner team.
Our local Central Asian people group is very much into Instagram-worthy birthday party celebrations. At this particular party (where everyone was dressed seemingly for prom) they included candles that were essentially fireworks and a gorgeous cake that tasted like cardboard – the norm, sadly. While the smoke was still hanging in the air and the world-conquering “Happy Birthday” song had been sung in our local tongue, one of the guests approached me.
“So, you teach at the _____ English Center, right?”
“Yes, I do! You have heard of it?” I asked.
“Of course I have! All over the city people say that there is no better place to learn the English language. Tell me, what’s your secret?”
“Well,” I said, “All of our teachers are native English speakers, so that’s part of it. But our teachers also have a culture of spending time with their students, even outside the classroom. It’s normal for us to go to the tea houses with our students and to go on picnics with them. This kind of relational and conversational way of learning English has a big effect. We’re not like some other foreigners that you only see in the classroom, but not in the bazaar.”
“I see,” my questioner said, narrowing his eyes and leaning in. “But I also hear that you can learn about Jesus there.”
I wasn’t sure where this man was coming from. Could he be a seeker? A Salafi? Unlikely, given his spiffy suit. A member of the secret police? Thankfully, I don’t remember my anxiety spiking, as sometimes happens when it feels like someone is trying to “out” our work as missionaries in a country where it is illegal. This time I felt a welcome confidence and a clear mind. Perhaps it was the effect of the gunpowder birthday candles – or just a simple Spirit-given calm.
“You are right that all of our teachers are followers of Jesus, true Christians. And this makes a huge difference in how we teach because we genuinely love our students as God has loved us. When teachers truly love their students in this way, of course, their students are going to learn well.”
My new friend smiled and seemed to accept this answer. I invited him to visit our center soon, but I’m not aware that he ever took me up on the offer. To this day, I don’t know exactly where he was going with his questions, but I’ve often remembered that conversation as I’ve thought about what it means to do “platform,” or tent-making work, well as a missionary – or even how to work any job for the glory of God.
This man may not have intended this, but he paid our English Center two huge compliments, all the more so because many would view his observations as being in opposition to each other. Sometimes we are faced with a false choice – either work excellently and leave the witnessing to non-business hours, or just do what it takes to get by with the platform, focusing instead on sharing the gospel. Because it could be used by the secret police to shut us down, we tried not to share the gospel too explicitly in our English Center, but we also had a softball policy. If someone lobs you one, hit it out of the park and trust God with the consequences. Plus, even though not always sharing explicit gospel, we labored to model Christian character and alluded to God’s word as much as we could in the classroom and in our discussion groups.
To be known all over the city as offering an excellent product and to be known as a place where people can learn about Jesus – that’s just about as ideal a reputation as you could ask for when running a business or NGO among an unreached people group. Our partners had truly done some great work. And my fellow guest at the birthday party may never know it, but he has helped me better frame my goals for my new team’s current and future platforms: How can we offer an excellent product that gives glory to God? And how can we be the subjects of good gossip as those who can help others know more of Jesus? We don’t have to choose one over the other.
I remember NPR doing an interview with a coffee shop in our home city in the US. The owners were Christians and NPR showed up because, along with winning national awards, this coffee shop had a steady presence of Christians and those becoming Christians. Some locals murmured about it being “a front” for evangelicals. There was suspicion that conspiracy was afoot.
The owner responded to the NPR interviewer with wisdom and truth.
“We are Christians, so we are motivated by the glory of God. Of course, that affects the quality of each drink that we make and the care we put into it! And this naturally leads to good conversations about our product and about who we are as well.”
Exactly. No conspiracy. Just good Christian work, done to the glory of God – and the kind of reputations that follow.
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This account comes from Timothy Tennent’s excellent course, Introduction to Islam, which is available for free on biblicaltraining.org. It’s been maybe ten years since I first heard this story, where Tennent recounts events from the ministry of Christy Wilson in Afghanistan. When I heard it, I was struck by the kindness and severity of God. Kindness in how the (modern) foundation of the Church in Afghanistan was built with a group of believers who were physically blind. How very much like our God to do this. Severity also, in how the government of Afghanistan was overthrown the day after they bulldozed the church building – and the country has been in turmoil ever since. What’s more, this overthrow was predicted by one of the local believers who warned the Crown Prince of the impending judgment if he proceeded, just like some kind of Old Testament prophet come to life. Also watch for the rich irony present connected to the term, underground church.
The following is a transcript of the end of the final lecture in the course:
“Christy Wilson, among many things, was really committed to working with Muslims. He was born in Iran and he grew up in Iran. As a young boy he heard about next-door Afghanistan. Of course, no missionaries are allowed in Afghanistan. When he was asked as a little boy what he wanted to do when he grew up, he said, “I want to be a missionary” just like his dad was. They said, “Where do you want to go?” He said, “Afghanistan.” They said, “You can’t go there, they don’t allow missionaries there.” He said, “That is why I want to go there.” Typical Christy Wilson reasoning. He did go there. He went there as a tentmaker and he has become of course and was, a great leader in the area of tent making and as an English teacher. He ended up teaching English to the Crown Prince of Afghanistan. He had a tremendous ministry there for over twenty years.
In May of 1970, which is now over 30 years ago, they officially opened up the first and only church in the whole country of Afghanistan. This was a huge accomplishment because it had never been done before and Christy Wilson by sheer persistence, which he had a lot of, and prayer – he was committed to prayer – he talked the government into allowing him to build a church for the international community there. They built an international church, in fact a couple. In fact, Dudley Woodberry who wrote this other book I mentioned, pastored that church whenever Christy was gone on sabbatical or whatever. But Christy Wilson was the main pastor of the church and they built this beautiful church. People from all over the world gave money for the building of this church, a beautiful structure. They had open Christian worship happening in Afghanistan. If you know the history of Afghanistan, this is unbelievable.
The reason it happened is because Dr. Wilson worked very, very hard to do things to show them that Christians would be good for the country. He and his wife Betty started the first blind work for the whole country. Betty Wilson learned Braille and when the Crown Prince saw this young boy come before the King and was given a copy of the Qur’an, interestingly, and he was called upon to read the Qur’an, a blind person reading the Qur’an in Braille. The man could not believe it. He kept trying to fool him by instructing him, “Read here, read there.” He thought the guy had memorized it. He would switch around, and he would read it. When he realized this was a blind person who could actually read, he made an announcement to the whole country, “If you are blind, go to Dr. Wilson, he will teach you how to read.” They had hundreds of these blind children show up at their doorstep. Betty Wilson, who of course was with us for our dedication of our Christy Wilson Center, took these blind children and she spent years teaching them how to read. To this day, the leaders of the church in Afghanistan are blind people from her work there. It is amazing. These were those children years ago.
In 1970, they opened this church because they had a relationship with the government. Because of pressures from the Muslim fundamentalists, etc., they finally were pressured to close this church down and destroy it. This was a real tragedy because this was a huge answer to prayer and they were very concerned about it. Christy Wilson was given forty-eight hours to leave the country. It was a horrible thing, which is why he came here, by the way from Afghanistan. He spent a year in Iran doing some study, but then he came here as a professor.
When they destroyed the church, the regime at that time was in its twenty-second year, a long regime in Afghanistan. Before they did the wrecking ball on the church, one of the people in the church said that he was convinced that if you destroy this church, there will be a judgment of God. He went to the Crown Prince and he said to him, “If this church is destroyed, God, the Christian God, will overthrow your government.” Just like that. I would be scared to say that. He had a word from God, he said this is true.
They went ahead with it, they destroyed the church, they completely leveled it. In fact, as Christy Wilson tells the story, they brought in backhoes to dig down beneath the foundation. They thought, “You have already destroyed it, why are you digging this big hole?” It was because they had heard there is an underground church. They were looking for the underground church. There was not only a demolished building, but there was also this gaping hole there. They did not find the underground church. Christy Wilson said, “They couldn’t dig that one out.” The real underground church, Hallelujah! The night they completed the destruction of that church, a coup overthrew the whole government, the government was out of power, as it is to this day.
I don’t know how you feel, but I am convinced that that government was indeed out of power because they destroyed that church building. That says to me something about the incredible commitment God has to seeing the Gospel planted among Muslims. Here is a king who says, “I’m going to destroy this church.” The Lord says, “No, you won’t. This day your soul is required of you.” Boom! He’s gone. Of course, the Muslims have invaded, the Taliban government has come to power, and all of these horrible things have happened. Afghanistan has never settled down since the day they destroyed that church. The government has never been stabilized. I think it says something about the priority of access to the Gospel. If you commit yourself in prayer and in many of your cases actually go and work among Muslims, God will bless you because I believe God is deeply committed. We know this through the Gospel, but also through history, he has commanded us to see people who have no access to the Gospel given access to the Gospel…”
I once took part in an intro to church planting class where leaders of different local church plants were invited to come in and share their wisdom. Being newly back in the US at the time, I was eager to compare notes with what I had seen in the Middle East.
Some leaders from a multicultural house-church plant visited our class one day. These leaders were also students at the seminary where I was working on my undergrad. I don’t remember much from their presentation, but one nugget of wisdom stuck with me and proved to be enormously helpful.
“Listen,” they said. “It’s awfully hard to be a working student who is faithful to your church and still find the time to reach out cross-culturally in this city. The busyness of life can make evangelistic friendships with internationals here very hard to fit in. But we have learned one very important lesson that’s made it more accessible.”
I leaned forward as they continued.
“It’s simply much more possible to live on mission when you are living next door to those you are seeking to reach. When we lived on campus, we found it much harder to find the margin to engage the lost. But when we moved into an apartment complex where many internationals lived, we couldn’t help but interact as a part of our daily routines. With intentionality, this actually led to friendships and chances to share the gospel.”
“Interesting,” I thought. I was a new student, kept very busy by my friendships with believers, my jobs, and my homework (especially NT Greek!). Yet I earnestly desired to find a few Middle Eastern friends with whom I could spend time and share the gospel. I already felt the difficulty of making this happen, living in a suburban-type neighborhood just off of campus in a duplex full of believers.
I took note of this piece of counsel and a few years later my new wife and I had the chance to put it into practice. We were given the chance to move into an apartment complex which had historically been one of the city’s main communities for refugee resettlement. This apartment complex had a reputation for crime and drugs, but after praying and both sensing God’s leading, we moved in.
The counsel I received several years previously proved to be sound. Engaging internationals missionally in America was indeed much more accessible when we lived next door to them and underneath them.
True, there were plenty of challenges. A gang of Somali youth tried to kick in our back door late one evening. The Cuban men shamelessly objectified any woman who dared walk down the sidewalk. We had to break up fist fights between Sudanese neighbors. One friend had a tooth punched out and another his phone stolen at gun point. And there were lots of roaches and bed bugs. Yep, we’ve had bed bugs. Multiple times (written with a shiver).
Yet there were also the chances to talk about Jesus late into the evening with Iraqis in their first year of living in the US. There were the Bible studies that incorporated Nepalese, American, Honduran, and Afghani friends. When many of our friends needed help, they could simply come by and knock on our door, or call us and we could rush over there – as when some Iranian friends called 911 because they couldn’t figure out how to turn off their central heating and needed help communicating clearly with the police that had for some reason shown up!
The first step of mission is access. In the ultra-busy life of the West, access to relationships with the lost is harder than it sounds. While not everyone is able to move into this kind of refugee community, it’s worth asking the question: Is there some way in which living in a different community might help me rub shoulders more often with the lost? Geography is not everything, but it’s one important piece that is worth thinking through as believers seek to live on mission.
Now, it’s certainly possible to have lost neighbors for years and to still not have any meaningful friendship with them. Prayer and intentional hospitality are key to tapping the potential that close geography provides. But after all, we are called to be a people who live prayerfully and intentionally in every area of life for the sake of the gospel.
Therefore, for some, that will mean moving for the sake of more natural access to your lost neighbors. It’s simply much more possible to live on mission when you are living next door to those you are seeking to reach.
I remember well the feelings of frustration and disappointment. After moving to Louisville, Kentucky, to finish school and work with Muslim refugees, four different work opportunities with ministry organizations had unexpectedly fallen through. Friends and mentors had encouraged me that these opportunities were a really good fit and surely would work out. Yet there I was, freshly back from the Middle East, jobless in a new city, and almost completely broke.
I knew the need. The Middle Eastern refugee population was woefully under-engaged by the thriving Christian community in Louisville. I knew what I had been called to, reaching Muslims with the good news of Jesus Christ. So why weren’t the pieces lining up like I had been told they would? If I were to be effective while a full-time student, I’d need the time to engage refugees that a paid ministry role provided. I wouldn’t have the opportunity I needed to go deep into the Middle Eastern community if I had to divide my week between my classes and a ‘normal’ job.
I remember pacing and praying in the upstairs apartment I’d moved into with some friends. I was alone that afternoon in the heat of a sticky Kentucky summer.
“God, you have been so clear with me about my calling, and the need is real… why aren’t you allowing this to work?”
I kept pacing, praying, and thinking. My heart did not want to reenter the secular workforce. I had a deep, inner resistance to this idea and a lot of thought-out reasons why I shouldn’t just go get a job ‘like a normal person would.’ I had a calling. God had been very clear about that. It had been demonstrated as being truly from the Lord through a year of testing it in the dust and wonder of the Middle East. So many had affirmed this and pledged willingness to support me financially.
And yet, there I was. There was no organization that would take me on and let me raise support through them to do Muslim ministry in Louisville. I was too new and unknown. Refugee ministry was not on mosts’ radars. And I was at a dead end. God was silent and I was basically penniless. Why had I made this move based on assurances and not based on an actual position offered?
It was then that this conversation started happening in my head:
“If you went to prison for Jesus in the Middle East, wouldn’t you accept that as from the Lord?”
“Well, yes, of course. That would be clear.”
“Even solitary confinement?”
“…Yes.”
“So being put in solitary confinement with no access to anyone, no one you could share the gospel with or disciple, that would still be enough?”
“Well, yes, because I would still have Jesus, and that would be enough.”
“So Jesus could call you to lose your ministry and go to solitary and you would accept that because you’d still have him.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Don’t you see? Your primary calling has never been to Muslim ministry, your primary calling has always been to Jesus.”
I stopped pacing. My brow furrowed.
“If you lost your ministry because of a season in prison, you’d still have Jesus, and you would see that as from his hand. So, what if Jesus asks you to step away from ministry now? To go out and get a normal job? Why would you not also accept that as from him? Is he not your real calling?”
Once these words were formulated in my mind, there was no undoing them. The logic was sound and biblical. I had never been called to a particular ministry in some kind of fixed, immovable way. I had only ever served at the pleasure of my king. And he was free at any point to ask me to change my role.
I would always be called to him. Other secondary callings were not forever and unchanging as this primary calling was.
What followed was peace – and a clearer view of my identity issues. Turns out I am prone to putting my identity and my value too much in my ministry, in what I do for God, in being a missionary. This is what was underneath my emotional opposition to going out and getting hired to do a typical college student kind of job. There was pride there, confusion, and some fear.
God’s plan was better. I would go on to work some good, normal jobs. I would tutor, mow lawns, paint porches, deliver furniture, deliver sandwiches – and learn hard lessons just like many of my peers of how to share the gospel with unbelieving coworkers in the workplace. I would learn how to still somehow reach out to refugees, even when I was working multiple jobs and taking a full credit load. My best friend, a refugee himself, would come to faith in this season.
When God eventually opened up paid ministry opportunities for me again, I was able to approach those roles with a greater humility and appreciation. I was also able to step into those ministries with much greater freedom, because the pressure of my value and identity was not placed on them. I knew my primary calling was to Christ and I sought to submit to the twists and turns of how he wanted me to live that out – ministry role or not. Some have said, “If God calls you to be a missionary, do not stoop to be a king.” I have learned that it’s just as true that “If God calls to to be a furniture delivery man, do not stoop to be a missionary.”
Yet I do find these old struggles cropping up again these days. Here we are, unexpectedly stuck in the US on medical leave, unable to return to Central Asia while the Covid-19 cases rage in our adopted city and region overseas. So far we’ve been unable to get permission to return due to the high-risk factors our family’s health poses. Once again, the work that we know we have been called to has been temporarily taken away.
But consider the needs! Are are we not called to plant healthy church among our Central Asian people group? Yes, but first we are called to Jesus. And he has asked us to stay put for now, to rest, to visit lots of doctors, to drink lots of iced coffee and eat lots of bacon (unavailable where we serve), and to write more than we have ever written before.
I don’t know exactly what God is doing in our extended season of transition. But I am comforted knowing that so many of us in the Church are wrestling with these very same identity issues at this time of global pandemic. I trust that God will help us to remember that our primary calling is to Jesus, and not to whatever ministry activities we may not be able to do right now.
So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:10 ESV)
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32 ESV)
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 give 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.
Blogs are not set up well for finding older posts, so I’ve added an alphabetized index of all the story and essay posts I’ve written so far. You can peruse that here.
Typical evil eye amulets in the Middle East and Central Asia
Many cultures’ folk religions believe in the evil eye. In our area of Central Asia, some, particularly the elderly and rural, believe that certain persons secretly have the power to curse others by looking at them and envying them. This is said to be the evil eye, or the dirty eye as our local language puts it. In order to protect one’s self from this danger, certain eye amulets can be hung on persons, gifts, or in rooms.
It’s also important to assure others that you are not a secret possessor of the evil eye. Locals do this by prefacing a complement with the Arabic phrase, Mashallah, which means “what God has willed.” In complementing babies and small children, one should say, “Mashallah, what a cute baby!” This supposedly protects the child from an intentional or unintentional curse from the evil eye. Mashallah is also plastered on houses and vehicles in order to protect them from this curse.
A hidden ancestor of evil eye amulets in the West
I knew that the evil eye is a widespread belief in the Middle East and Central Asia. I had even come across it in strange places in Western history. Those unique geometric designs painted at the apex of Amish barns? Artistic descendants of attempts to protect their barns from the evil eye. But I had no idea just how ancient this belief in the evil eye is. Look at this Akkadian language (think roughly 2500 – 500 BC) evil eye incantation from the archives of ancient Assur.
The [eye] is evil, the eye is an eye which is evil, the eye is hostile… the eye which emerges is the eye of the terror of the enemy; (namely), the eyes of father, the eyes of mother, the eyes of brother, the eyes of sister, the eyes of a neighbor, the eyes of a (female) neighbor, the eyes of one who cares for or carries (a child).
The eye called out maliciously (at the) gate, the thresholds groaned and roofs shook. In the house which it enters, does the eye wreck (things)!
It has wrecked the potter’s furnace and caused the sailor’s boat to sink, it has smashed the yoke of the mighty ox, it has smashed the shin of the loping donkey, it has smashed the loom of the skillful weaving-ladies. It has removed the loping horse and the nose-rope of the plow-ox, it has scattered the bellows of the furnace when lit. It has deposited worm-pests at the command of the murderous Adad, it has raised quarrels between (otherwise) happy brothers.
Smash the eye, chase away the eye! Make the eye pass through seven rivers and make it pass through seven canals! Make the eye pass over seven mountains! As for the eye, take it and bind each of the joints of its feet. As for the eye, take it and smash it like the oil-pot of a potter in front of its owner. Whether fish in the river or birds of heaven, (the eye) causes them to fall/sink and destroys them. Whether one’s father or mother or brother or sister, or stranger or…
Akkadian Incantation, ESV Archaeology Study Bible, p. 1270
Westerners struggle to feel the fear the evil eye has exerted over huge swathes of humanity. We tend to write it off as mere superstition. Even as Christians who believe in the power of the demonic, we are likely to miss when this belief might need a direct Christian response among our focus people groups. Yet for many, they are just as emotionally terrified of the evil eye as they are of Covid-19. It is real to them, even if it does not feel real to us.
What might a Christian response look like? Certainly the theological knowledge that the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit now protects believers from whatever demonic power could be manifest in the practice/belief of evil eye. He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world (1st John 4:4). Practically, all evil eye amulets should be discarded and the use of Mashallah discontinued as evidence of believers’ trust in Jesus for protection in the spiritual realm. It may also be appropriate to craft Christian prayers where believers actively “put on” the righteousness of Christ and the truth of God’s word, reaffirming their faith in God against their fears that the evil eye could still harm them. For one historical example of this kind of prayer, check out St Patrick’s Breastplate.
Whatever our response ends up looking like, it’s worth keeping “an eye out” for belief in the evil eye. This belief is surprisingly ancient and still surprisingly widespread.
Frank* and Patty* were refugees from a neighboring country, but from the same people group we were focusing on. Already being political and social refugees, they added one more reason for their government to arrest them when they became followers of Jesus. We were initially cautious, waiting to see if their faith was genuine, but over time they proved to be some of the most faithful in our fledgling church plant – genuine pillars of consistency and faith.
Frank was a renaissance man, just as skilled in discussing ancient history books as he was in electrical and construction work. He was also hilarious, always ready for wordplay and practical jokes. Patty was barely literate, but a hard worker, hospitable, with a fiery temper and loyal spirit. Together with their daughter, they seemed to be a genuine household conversation, all three of them showing evidence of new life in the same season, and all three undergoing baptism together in weather so cold we joked God was preparing them to someday be missionaries to Siberia. You know it’s bad when those baptized shriek from the shock of the frigid water as they go under! But they came up alright, and after they stopped shivering, went on to laugh about their baptism waters of icy death.
Like many believers in our context, their faith for a season was demonstrated in front of their neighbors as an open secret. They showed that they were now followers of Jesus without yet stating it explicitly. To some extent, until something is verbalized in Central Asia, it is not yet acknowledged as fully real and threatening. Believers tend to witness in this way to their families for a while, talking about Jesus, reading their Bibles openly, and attending meetings with other believers. But when the direct questions come, “Have you left Islam and become a Christian?!” – that’s when the honor-shame persecution mechanisms kick in. Once it is spoken of in the bazaar, it has become reality, whether it is true or not.
One night, their neighbor took his gun and decided it was time for the truth to come out. He and his wife aggressively confronted Frank and Patty outside their house. They demanded to know if they had truly become apostates. Patty calmly and openly confessed that yes, they had indeed become true Christians and believers in Jesus. The neighbor and his wife proceeded to get even more aggressive, shouting and threatening and beginning to lay their hands on Frank and Patty.
The neighbor waved his gun in one hand and gripped Frank’s throat in the other, yelling into his face. Frank and his daughter kept their eyes on Patty, knowing that there was great danger in her fiery nature exploding on these neighbors. It had always been her personality to fight back even in response to small provocations, which here could lead to a dangerous escalation… and possibly to their deaths. So they desperately prayed. In their retelling of the situation, here’s what they said:
“We knew that she would start yelling and fighting back, but to our amazement, she was totally calm in the face of being attacked. We thought, ‘Patty has died. Who is this new woman who takes this abuse so calmly?'” Frank said this as his daughter laughed in agreement.
“It’s true!” she said. “Mom had never acted like that before!”
Patti was smiling as they said this, but you could see in her eyes that she was also deeply impacted by her experience that night.
“I have never experienced such a peace as Jesus gave me that night. It was totally different from anything I had known. I normally would have fought back! My family knows this. But instead I was so calm…” Patty said.
“It was a miracle,” their daughter said, smiling at her mom.
Frank, never one to miss the opportunity to joke around, said, “And we had just studied about persecution from Matthew 10 in the church meeting a few days before!”
Frank then rolled his eyes back and grabbed his neck with his hand, shaking his head to model what his neighbor had done, laughing while doing so.
“I just kept thinking as his hand was on my neck like this, ‘Now what was that second point of the sermon that brother AW preached? It would sure come in handy right about now! I know it was about something important in the face of persecution…'”
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, all of us laughed heartily together. What had happened was a miracle, or rather, the evidence of a miracle. The new birth had radically changed this family. Patty was calm in the face of an attack. Frank was making jokes about the death threats. Yes, they had had to flee afterward and had lost their housing – and also Frank’s job, tied as it was to the property their housing was on. Yet there they were, full of joy and laughing to the point of tears.
Sure, we often have to laugh about things like this in Central Asia as a way to cope with life in a region so full of tragedy. Haha, remember that time when you almost got blown up? But there was something else going on that evening. It was as if God’s face was shining on our friends. They had lost so much (again), yet they were full of joy, belly-laughing in the genuine blessedness that can sometimes be experienced by the persecuted.
The promises of Matthew were coming true.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:10–12)
When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:19–20)
Entrusted to the Dirt 