Why Should We Invest in Minority Languages?

There are over 6,000 languages in the world and many of them are dying out. Little seems to stand in the way of the growth of English as the first truly global language (since Babel). So why are thousands of missionaries all over the world spending years of their lives learning minority languages and translating the Bible into obscure tongues? Why not save the blood, sweat, and tears and focus only on the regional trade languages or on the globally dominant ones?

My own focus language has somewhere around five to ten million speakers. This means it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, but it’s also obscure enough (belonging to an ethnic minority) that it’s not likely to become useful or influential in other parts of the world. So is my investment in this language worth it? I want to outline seven reasons why I believe it is good and worth it to invest in minority tongues.

Theological Beauty and Limitation. Each language is uniquely able to help us worship God and each language is insufficient in itself to fully describe God. Saying that human language is unable to describe God adequately is no mere poetic flourish. Each human language is actually a limited thing, something which can truly describe truth about God, but not ever comprehensively describe him. One of the blessings of Babel is that we now have thousands of languages which can be used to worship God in ways that are uniquely beautiful (and possible) to that language. Specific sounds, titles, adjectives, and verbs exist in some languages and not in others. Some kinds of poetry, songs, and metaphor are only possible certain tongues. In this way, the diversity of human languages acts like a giant choir, where each language gets to sing praises to God in the ways it is particularly gifted. To lose a language is to lose a unique voice of the choir.

A Record for Future Generations. Even languages that die are worth preserving. If the sad day comes where there are no longer any living speakers of a language, having that language recorded and documented is still worth it. Again, it shines an important window into how a certain group of people uniquely spoke about creation and about God. This can help us. Every individual language also contains data that helps us learn about the way language in general can function. Even secular reporters who bemoan the supposed “culture changing” of tribal missionaries celebrate the fact that by learning the language enough to translate the Bible, many missionaries are preserving a record of languages soon to be extinct.

Spiritual Power. The mother tongue or heart language of a person usually speaks to their soul with greatest potency and clarity. To feel this point, you will probably need to be bilingual yourself or have experience learning language in a multilingual environment. It wasn’t random when the Holy Spirit used the native languages of Elamites, Medes, Arabs, and Libyans at the day of Pentecost. When you hear someone speaking your mother tongue, you pay attention. The mother tongue is often the language of dreams, desperate prayers, and curses. It is the language most intimately entwined with our affections. So, if we want to cut to the heart, we should preach in the mother tongue when possible. Many of my friends who come to faith out of Islam report having dreams about Jesus where he spoke to them, not in the trade language or the speech of the foreigners, but in their own language. The thought that God knows my language is a very powerful one to those who have never heard this truth before.

Love and Honor. Learning the language of a minority group is a powerful way to show love and honor, especially if they have been oppressed by others. Denigrating another group’s language as somehow inferior is an age-old form of hatred. Many minority groups around the world have never had an outsider learn and love their language. When a missionary does this, it often communicates a deep love and respect for the people themselves. If a foreigner will love them that much, then perhaps the wild thought that God also loves them and knows their language is true after all.

The Priesthood of All Languages. Here I’m playing off of the phrase, “the priesthood of all believers.” No one language is holier than another. It is no accident that the Bible was written in three languages with loan words from many others. No one human language is the language of heaven (though there may be a spiritual language that is?). All languages are equally affected by the curse, meaning they preserve some of the image of God, though now in marred form. However, they are also redeemed in the worship of God forever in Revelation 7:9. There are many things about Islam that make my blood boil, but the claim that other peoples must worship God in 7th century Arabic and not in the language that God has sovereignly given them is particularly odorous.

The Mysteries of Providence. We don’t know what God might do with a given language in the future. No one 800 years ago could have predicted that English would come to dominate the globe. At the time, Old English was dying out due to the influence of the Norman French of the ruling classes. Yet here we are. English is the primary language not only of global business and education, but also of the modern missionary movement. When Patrick learned Irish, he could not have known how God would use the obscure Irish Christian scribes to miraculously salvage the biblical and classical literature of the Western Roman Empire after Rome fell. Their descendants would then go on to reintroduce Christianity to mainland Europe and found monastery missions that would later become cities like Vienna, Austria. We simply don’t know how God might take a humble, unknown language and do mighty things through it.

The Internet Resurgence. Many endangered languages are experiencing revival with the tools the internet provides. This has given an unexpected vitality to many languages that were supposed to die before now. The internet provides a place for native speakers to easily develop content, classes, and resources in their mother tongue which can be used to help the next generation. Sometimes languages even come back from the dead, like modern Hebrew. Languages are a lot like hobbits. They are full of surprises.

So, are we wasting our time investing in minority languages? No. Each language has unique value to God, to the Church, to current speakers, and to future generations. Learning a minority language is an act of faith. We just can’t predict the future of languages. But we can trust that on the last day, any investment made in these languages for the sake of love will not be made in vain.

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Why I Would Get a Dog If I Lived in America

This post is for those Christian parents in the US who have managed to make it this far in 2020 without yet getting a dog. You have bravely held out in spite of your kids’ tearful pleading, many of your friends getting puppies, and all those extra quarantine hours at home almost second-guessing your decision to go without a canine companion. Your resilience is admirable. As they say in Hobbiton, may the hair on your toes never fall off. Yet, while I commend your resilience, I will also attempt to provide a cultural-missional justification for getting a puppy – seriously – or at least why I would get one if I lived in the US.

You see, when you leave your own culture and begin to deeply study another, you can’t help but see your own culture back home in a new light. You also have no power over what kind of insights unexpectedly emerge as you, the metaphorical goldfish, get a chance to look back on the fish bowl. These insights are sometimes life-changing and other times, well, they more in the category of, “Aren’t Americans odd for never using their front doors?” Sometimes, these insights helpfully have to do with challenges believers face everywhere, such as how to share the gospel.

Living primarily in the non-Western world and traveling back occasionally, we have noticed a few things about when Americans feel its appropriate to talk to strangers. Generally, it feels like it’s harder to talk to strangers in the US than it is in many other parts of the world. The justification required for striking up a conversation with a stranger that could approach deeper things, things like Jesus, seems to be higher. Especially among the middle and upper classes, a good reason seems to be expected for the question, “Why are you talking to me?” This presents a challenge for those who want to regularly engage others with the good news, yet who also do not want to be unnecessarily rude or awkward.

The exceptions for talking to Western strangers that we have noticed are as follows:

If that stranger is pregnant. If this is the case, not only can you strike up a conversation, but many also strangely impart a flood of unrequested advice and anecdotes. I don’t necessarily recommend this, but we have certainly observed it! On the other hand, go forth and multiply.
If you have one of those amazing extrovert personalities, like my grandpa, and somehow random people just light up when you engage them. However, these charming extrovert types seem to be a small minority. If this is you, you have a gift.
If that stranger has a dog, if you have a dog, or both. If this is true, than the high wall of Western resistance to talking to strangers seems to immediately disintegrate in an unexpectedly warm camaraderie of canine appreciators.

This dynamic about dogs is truly there. If you doubt me, try it out the next time you’re at the park. Approach that intimidating total stranger who is walking their dog. Ask a few genuinely happy questions about their pooch (while asking permission to shower said canine with affection). That scary suburban scowl will immediately melt like you had just dropped a polite greeting in the tribal tongue to the grumpy village grandma. Next thing you know it, you’re being invited to marry one of the villagers – or in the American equivalent, you’ll actually be shooting the breeze with a total stranger who just might become a genuine friend.

We’ve seen this confirmed as we’ve spent the last few months in the US. Even in the midst of a pandemic, those who have dogs, walk them, and take them to dog parks are regularly involved in happy interaction with neighbors and strangers. Dogs even make Americans warm up to families with lots of small children, which aren’t always appreciated by mainstream American culture. Friends who have recently acquired dogs have confirmed that it’s been one of the best things for getting to know their neighbors.

All of this leads me to this conclusion: In America, having a friendly dog is a big win for hospitality and meeting strangers. A canine might set you back if your primary ministry is with refugees, but if you live and work primarily among mainstream middle class folk or other similar demographics, a dog is a serious tool for mission!

We live in Central Asia and so far we still sense that a dog would be more of a hindrance to knowing our neighbors than a help. Dogs are traditionally viewed as religiously unclean and dangerous, due to an unfortunate hadith (authoritative religious tradition) where the angel Gabriel tells Mohammad that he hates dogs and won’t come in the tent where young Aisha has hidden a puppy. However, the younger generation is slowly beginning to adopt more of a dog culture.

But, if I lived in America, I would get a puppy and work so that he grows up trained and friendly. Then, as a family we’d think through what stepping-stone invitation makes sense next for the acquaintances we’d make at the dog park or in the neighborhood. Even before the lock downs, Americans were starved for community and friendship – though they are slower than internationals to accept a quick offer of hospitality.

Like when we lived in the US before, we’d probably aim to invite contacts to some kind of weekly or monthly open meal or coffee/chai time at our house or a park where we bring in our relationally-gifted international friends who are believers and pros at the art of good conversation and friendship-building around food. Then with that normal rhythm of hospitality, we’d have a way to simply bless our neighbors with good food or coffee and community. And as always, with prayer and intentionality, this simple yet rare kind of gathering would lead to many gospel conversations. In the past, pairing a regular time like this with a regular Bible study happening another time of the week led to a natural next step.

So, if you’ve been on the fence about getting a dog, let me add one more point in favor of doing so. When done well, having a dog in America can make you more approachable and even more hospitable. In a culture starving for genuine friendship and community, a dog, of all things, could be exactly what God uses to help you reach your neighbors. It’s a bridge of common ground that somehow helps Americans sidestep their normal avoidance of engaging strangers. It’s no silver bullet, but it could help in one of the hardest parts of engaging the lost in busy America – finding regular and natural ways to meet and befriend strangers. Meeting can lead to hospitality which can lead to Bible study which can lead to new birth – and to eternal friendship in the resurrection.

The first phase of mission is always access. So, consider the ways a furry and slobbery friend might increase your access to the lost.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

When the Enemy Sends a Dream

It’s becoming somewhat well-known that many Muslims have a dream about Jesus as a part of their journey to faith. These dreams don’t save them, but they are often full of biblical language and imagery. They function as an important piece of how a Muslim comes to realize the gospel is true.

This dynamic might seem strange or suspicious to Westerners. But when we step back and take the big view of biblical history and church history, we see that God has regularly used dreams to advance his purposes. Among the faithful, spiritual dreams have not served to undermine God’s inerrant written word, which many believers are rightly concerned about.

It’s really only in the last couple hundred years in the West that spiritual dreams have become abnormal. Apparently, even the Southern Baptist Convention has a history linked to dreams. During the first Great Awakening, Shubal Stearns became the founder of the Sandy Creek Association, the Baptist church-planting movement in North Carolina that sparked the planting of Baptist churches all over the southern United States. Why did Shubal Stearns leave New England to plant churches in the South? According to the Baptist historian Gregory Wills, he had a dream where Jesus told him to. So he went to North Carolina and got to work. Church history overflows with these kinds of stories. Stearns’ story may be obscure, but Patrick’s is definitely not. Neither is the testimony of the late Nabeel Qureshi.

If God can use dreams to advance his purposes, it shouldn’t surprise us that the enemy would also seek to use dreams. It’s clear from scriptural example that God and angels have access to the dreams of believers and unbelievers (Gen 20:3, Gen 31:24, 1 Kings 3:5, Dan 2:28, Joel 2:28, Matt 2:12-13, Acts 16:9). It’s not quite as clear from scripture that the enemy has access to dreams (Deut 13, Jer 29:8), but if we remember that Satan and his demons are simply fallen angels, then by inference there is a case to be made that they also can have access to dreams. Many have certainly experienced this on the mission field.

Here is a prayer update from one of our teammates last week:

Pray for my friend. He has heard the gospel for many years and has always claimed to not care about spiritual things or eternity. Recently, he’s been straying from Islam and his mother received a dream warning her that her son was distancing himself from their faith. She confronted him, asked that he return to their faith, and he came back, more devout then ever. However, he confessed to me he is not satisfied and was disturbed by this dream. After sharing the gospel with him he now seems more open to following Jesus than ever.

What is going on when something like this happens? This young man has very close friends who are followers of Jesus who have been regularly sharing the gospel with him. Someone or something is playing serious defense. The enemy apparently sent a dream to this man’s mother, hoping that it would have the powerful effect of scaring them all back into a stricter Islam. Why would God allow this? Interestingly, it looks like this disturbing event might be used by God to make this young man even more open to Jesus than he was before. In other words, it may backfire.

Pray that it does.

We shouldn’t be overly fixated on dreams. Yet an honest survey of the scriptures, church history, and even contemporary evangelical missionaries makes a good case that we should probably find spiritual dreams somewhat normal – though always subject to testing by the word of God. Honestly, the modern propensity to make it merely psychological seems to be the outlier here.

What do we do when God or the enemy sends our friends a dream? Same as always – make a beeline to the Scriptures, share the gospel, and recommit to earnest prayer. Dreams do not save. But God does use them powerfully, and the enemy attempts to also.

Photo by Kasper Rasmussen on Unsplash

Abraham and Ephron’s Honorable Dance

There’s a fascinating book called Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, by Kenneth Bailey. The premise of the book is that the life and ministry of Jesus can be better understood when viewed through the lens of Middle Eastern culture, of which Jesus was a native. It’s a good read and I highly recommend it.

Having lived myself in the Middle East and Central Asia, I’ve found other parts of scripture are also unveiled as I’m able to see them informed by these cultures. Consider this interesting back-and-forth between Abraham and Ephron the Hittite in Genesis 23:

[7] Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. [8] And he said to them, “If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, [9] that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.”

[10] Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city, [11] “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.” [12] Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. [13] And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, “But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.” [14] Ephron answered Abraham, [15] “My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.” [16] Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants. (Genesis 23:7–16 ESV)

Sarah has just died and Abraham seeks a place to bury her in the land where he and his household are nomadic sojourners. So Abraham and Ephron enter into a curious exchange over what to pay for the field and cave that Abraham desires.

In ancient Near Eastern culture, and to this day in that part of the world, generosity and honor are some of the highest virtues. Men seek above all to avoid the appearance of greed or stinginess. Rather, they seek to be hospitable, magnanimous, and honorable.

In this very public and potentially tense exchange between Abraham, the wealthy immigrant, and Ephron, the native (perhaps living in the twilight years of the Hittite empire), it is important that both sides uphold their own honor and the honor of the other party. Both sides need to save face, but they also need to get business done. Sarah has died and it is important to bury her quickly. Abraham needs to find out the price of the field and get permission to buy it. Ephron needs to demonstrate that he is acting honorably toward this sojourner and that he is not greedy for money. Here is how the dance commences:

Abraham announces his desire to buy Ephron’s land, and thus do the honorable thing by paying
Ephron says that Abraham can have the land for free, thus making a very generous offer in front of the elders of the community
Abraham insists on paying, not willing to take advantage of Ephron’s words, knowing Ephron does actually expect him to pay
Ephron once again says that Abraham can go ahead and have the land, but he subtly names the price of the field
Abraham listens to Ephron and pays the full price of the field and buries his dead

Notice how both men were able to get important business done while maintaining one another’s reputation and honor in the eyes of the community. Ephron is able to say that he offered the field for free and Abraham is able to say that he paid was justly Ephron’s due. For both to save face, Ephron’s refusal to accept money for the land had to be understood as what it was, an offer made as part of a very public honoring of Abraham, but not one that he actually wanted Abraham to take him up on. On the other hand, if Abraham had simply taken Ephron up on his offer of free land, the community would likely have been shocked and Abraham’s reputation would have taken a hit.

Why the dance? Why not just speak more directly for the sake of efficiency? Welcome to the complexities of living in a society that values honor and respect more than efficiency and directness.

I had a very similar exchange like this happen today, when texting a colleague’s language tutor. I asked him how many lessons’ payments we owed him. The dance went like this:

Tutor: “About the lessons, let it be Mr. AW, I don’t want to get money for those lessons.”

Me: “Mr. Mhmed, it’s no problem at all. Another teacher has already offered to bring it to you. Just let me know how many lessons you had and I will tell him.”

Tutor: “Mr. AW, just three hours and fifteen minutes, but for me it’s no problem if you let it be.”

Me: “Thank you so much Mr. Mhmed. We appreciate your kind help in teaching our colleague.”

I then went on to set up the delivery of payment for the language lessons. Even though Mhmed said he didn’t want me to pay him for those hours, I have learned that it is important to pay it anyway and to graciously push past my friend’s honorable offer.

A Westerner might initially feel that these offers are disingenuous or even dishonest. Were Ephron or Mhmed being dishonest by making offers they weren’t wanting others to actually accept? I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Offers like this need to be understood more in the realm of poetic flourish, an important way of verbally communicating respect. They are real gestures of respect and generosity, but it’s very important that neither side take them as literal offers. For a rough parallel, think about our own saying: I would give you the shirt off my back.

A former colleague once accepted a delivery driver’s offer of a free pizza. This Midwesterner was new in Central Asia and was thrilled that this kind delivery driver wasn’t going to make him pay for his pizza. “Wow! They’re so nice in this country!” The driver walked back to his motorbike, paused, then sullenly returned to my colleague’s door.

“I’m so sorry, if I don’t bring back the money for this pizza, I will lose my job.”

My colleague was of course mortified that he had almost cost this man his job by taking his offer too literally. We missionaries have all had to learn over time that it’s important to push back at least three times when a shop owner, taxi driver, or anyone offers us something for free. By not accepting these generous offers, we enable the one making them to save face as a generous person, and we also save face as those who don’t take advantage of others.

Like Ephron, many from Middle Eastern cultures simply consider it polite to offer something two or three times, even if they can’t actually afford it. They in turn expect others to decline these offers several times, and then if appropriate (such as an offer for tea) to accept it graciously at the third or fourth offer or in some indirect fashion such as, “please don’t trouble yourself.” While Western mamas teach their kids to say please and thank you, Middle Eastern mamas teach theirs to say no the first few times, even if they desire to say yes.

It’s all a part of the honorable dance, still going strong thousands of years after Abraham and Ephron took the floor.

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

A Bible for the Gas Canister Man

Sometimes we don’t get the chance to follow up. In God’s mysterious plan, we get the chance to share spiritual truth or give scripture to someone, only to never see them again. We might never know until eternity how their story turned out. For me, the gas canister man seems to be one of those people.

Our region of Central Asia has electricity problems. To put it mildly. So natural gas (propane/LPG) canisters of the kind you see attached to a grill are a part of daily life. We use them indoors for our stoves, for space heaters in the winter, and sometimes to power water boilers. Trucks drive around our neighborhoods with loudspeakers playing ice cream truck-style tunes. But instead of a creamy chocolatey treat, you lug out your empty bottle of gas to be exchanged and waddle back inside with your new, stinky, full bottle – that hopefully didn’t get damaged when the driver threw it off the back of the truck. Yes, make a note to pray that your friends working in Central Asia don’t get carbon monoxide poisoning.

Over time, I learned that I could better schedule my gas bottle exchange and get better quality if I drove myself to the store in the bazaar where the ‘ice cream’ trucks get loaded up. There were a couple of men working at the particular store I frequented and one of them was definitely a Salafi. In our area this is a growing religious group. They adhere to a Saudi-backed understanding of Islam that seeks to return to what they believe is an earlier, purer form of Islam. This means that they are much more severe and strict in their application of Islam than your typical Muslim would be.

Salafis are visually conspicuous, sporting shorter pants than others, shaved upper lips, scraggly chin/neck beards, and usually wearing a religious hat or turban. Unlike most of their countrymen, they often insist that their wives wear gloves and the more conservative abaya or niqab, often covering all but their eyes. Salafis usually live peacefully with others, but word on the street is that they would be the first to sympathize with extremist groups were they to take power. Due to their strict adherence to Islamic law and open condescension toward the common people, they actually provide a pretty clean parallel with the pharisees when we are studying the Bible with locals.

“You know how the Salafis act, right? Well, the Pharisees were the Salafis of Jesus’ day.”

“Oooh, now we get it!”

I have certainly been guilty of writing Salafis off as those who would not be open to the gospel.

However, through several interactions with the Salafi gas canister man, I started noticing that he was actually respectful and kind to me, an obvious foreigner and infidel. One day I had my son with me as we ran our gas errand. Something about my interaction with my son made the man compliment us.

“You’re not Muslims, are you?” He then asked.

“No, we’re not. We are believers in Jesus.”

“Oh?” He responded. “You know the Bible’s been changed, right?”

“Well, the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel all contain promises that God’s word remains forever. No human is strong enough to change the words of God because God is powerful to protect his word. Just like he promised.”

The Torah (Tawrat), the Psalms (Zabur), and the Gospel (Injil) are the three parts of the Bible Muslims have heard about from the Qur’an. There is a great deal of confusion though in the Muslim world about how these three “books” relate to the Christian Bible.

To my surprise, the gas canister man didn’t dismiss my response. He was actually thinking about it.

“Yes, but you believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That is blasphemy.”

“Are you not a son of the mountains?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Well, the title ‘Son of God’ has a very deep and important spiritual meaning. It does not have a physical-sexual meaning as many think it does. ‘Son of the mountains’ doesn’t have a physical-sexual meaning either, does it?”

“No,” He continued, still thinking about what I was saying.

“Have you ever read the Bible in your own language?” I asked.

“I haven’t,” he said.

“Well, I have one with me. If you want to learn about what I mean, you should read this book. But don’t take it unless you are one who is truly thirsty for God and a genuine seeker of the truth.”

“I… would like to read it,” he said.

I went to my glove box where we kept a New Testament just in case of opportunities like this. I handed it to him and we said goodbye. I looked forward to asking him the next time I saw him if he was reading and what he was learning. But I never saw him again.

I kept coming back to the same shop, hoping to catch a glimpse of my Salafi acquaintance. But he had disappeared. Had he gotten fired for possessing a New Testament? Had he been run off by his male relatives? Or had he simply changed jobs and thrown away the precious book I had given him?

I’ve never had any clue as to what became of this man. My prayer is that he is now, somehow and somewhere, a follower of Jesus. I don’t lose sleep over this situation, but it does make me wonder about the strange providence of God. Why would I get the chance to give this man the Bible and never get a chance to follow up? This especially since there are so few believers that can lead him into understanding the book he now possesses?

In situations like this, we must simply rest in the sovereignty of God. I was allowed to play a small part in the life of the gas canister man. Maybe someday our paths will cross again. Maybe not. But we rest in the truth of John 10:16, that Jesus’ sheep will hear his voice. We get the privilege to be a small part of that story, whether we sow, whether we water, whether we reap.

If you read this post, pray for the salvation of the Salafi gas canister man.

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.

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

Photo by Marra Sherrier on Unsplash

How to Boast in Our Humiliation

It is not uncommon for Western missionaries to be considered wealthy by the locals where they serve. This is certainly true in tribal contexts. Even in developing regions like Central Asia, Westerners are assumed to be fabulously wealthy. Many locals where we serve own decent homes and buy nice cars. They probably have more cash (or gold) reserves than we do. Central Asians and Middle Easterners value bling and have an uncanny ability to amass concrete wealth even in the midst of ongoing political crises.

And yet we are wealthier than they are in many ways. We are wealthy in our overall finances, compared to many. While we may not have much cash on hand, we have a steady income, generous health insurance, savings, and a retirement plan. We have access to lots of easy credit on reasonable terms. We have powerful credit cards that reward us with free rewards just for using them because we have been deemed a “safe risk” by our credit rating.

We are wealthy in our ability to travel on our blue passport (well, before the pandemic anyway). Our organization flies us out of our host country once or twice a year for meetings or trainings, providing us the opportunity to affordably attach a few days or a week of vacation to these trips. We tend to pay for these times of rest by using our credit card points and some leftover cash.

We are wealthy in our education. Whether we were home-schooled or went to a public or private school, the quality of our K-12 education outpaces anything available to our Central Asian friends. Our bachelors and masters degrees from accredited American universities are powerful for acquiring credibility and employment. We have the ability to find and win scholarships if we desire to get more education. Some universities will give amazing discounts to our children because they are MKs.

We are wealthy in our connections. Even though we come from a society based more on merit than relationships, we know so many people who can point us toward the information we need to advance in a given area. We know how to network globally and how to leverage the internet and the English language to get the knowledge we need. Even in the West, who you know still matters for giving your resume that extra shine if competing with others with similar qualifications.

We are wealthy in our Christian heritage. We have been raised to know so much about the Bible and about Church history. We have countless resources for studying the Bible and history in our language and within reach (often for free) on our smart devices.

If we compare ourselves to other Westerners, we feel we are normal and perhaps less wealthy than most. But when we compare ourselves to our Central Asian friends and the majority world population, we see that we are actually in the category of the rich.

This means that James 1:9-11 is speaking to us when it addresses the rich.

[9] Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, [10] and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. [11] For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. (ESV)

Clearly, the rich are called to boast in their humiliation. So how should we missionaries do this? What does this mean?

It’s not uncommon for local believers to bring up our wealth (real or imagined) eventually. It might be when we’re speaking about enduring persecution and they say that it’s different for us because we have a blue passport and can leave anytime. Or it might be when we are we speaking of putting the kingdom of God ahead of politics and they say that it’s different for us because we actually have a nation-state for our people. We speak about being willing to risk our lives for Jesus and the pushback we receive is that if anything happens our Western families will be provided for by our sending churches, but theirs will be alone and abandoned in a hostile environment.

Sooner or later the differences in our wealth that we have been trying to play down will enter into our conversation with local believers. They see us as rich and see themselves as poor. They are, to some extent, ashamed of their lowly position. Perhaps also envious of ours. And the enemy wants to use these differences to sow division between us and our local friends.

The answer is not usually to erase all distinctions of wealth between us. There is much wisdom in living a simpler lifestyle that does not cause a hindrance to local believers. We Westerners give up our comforts too slowly. But I cannot undo my education, nor should I throw away my life insurance nor my knowledge of the Bible. The kind of wealth that God has given us must be tested by 1st Corinthians 13 – can it be leveraged for the sake of love? If the answer is yes, then we do more for the kingdom by leveraging these things for others than by discarding them. And if we discard, we must also ensure that it is done for the sake of love – not for pride or for mere appearances.

Here is where James 1 can be so helpful to us. We don’t have to pretend that the difference in wealth is not there. We don’t have to awkwardly change the topic when it comes up. Instead, we have the opportunity to turn worldly thinking on its head and to glory in the effects of the gospel. There is a particular way in which the poor in the world’s eyes are supposed to boast in the gospel. And there is a particular boast also for those whom the world calls rich.

Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation…

The good news of Jesus Christ exalts those called poor by this world. It takes the poor and it makes them sons and daughters of king, the heirs of all creation, citizens of heaven, the recipients of infinite wisdom, the possessors of eternal glory and honor – those who sit on the throne of Christ himself. They may be despised in this world, but now in Jesus their true spiritual identity is one of honor and spiritual riches – Even if their position in this world doesn’t change.

The gospel also brings down the rich. Those honored and praised by the world are reminded that they are just as worthy of hell as everyone else, that they are mere slaves of Christ, that they will fade and die like all others. No amount of wealth or power will be able undo the great leveling of sin and death. They are saved by becoming spiritual beggars, just like everyone else. God shows no partiality.

Someone could push back and say that everything in both paragraphs above is true of all believers, whether they are rich or poor. And that would be correct. And yet isn’t it interesting that James commands a specifically different focus for the poor and the wealthy? Yes, I am a spiritual beggar and a spiritual billionaire at the same time. And yet because I am rich in this world, James would have me focus on how the gospel brings me down, how it humiliates me – especially if I am in fellowship with those who are poor in this life.

This is practical! Instead of trying to ignore our difference in wealth, I can now turn my conversation with local believers to this truth. Yes, I am a US citizen, but in Jesus I have become a spiritual pilgrim and wanderer, counting as loss the worldly honor I get from being born in the land of the so-called superpower. Yes, my friend is a member of a persecuted ethnic minority, enduring the shame of having no homeland. But in Jesus he is given a passport even better than the strongest in this world. God has given him a better and an enduring homeland, and proclaimed him fit to judge angels.

God does not see me as more honorable than my local believing friend, even if his culture wants to place me above him as his patron. God sees us, yes, as equals in Christ, but as both unique recipients of the great reversal – he has been brought up, and I have been brought down.

We need to learn how to boast and glory in this. I believe that when we and our local friends truly believe these things in our hearts we will have dealt a deadly blow against sinful comparison, partiality, and shame. And in this world of screaming inequalities, we will be in a place to powerfully share the gospel.

To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.

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A Time to Let the Left Hand Know What the Right is Doing

“Brother, if I ever become a follower of Jesus, I’m going to be a much stronger follower than you are.”

Ouch. My friend *Hama was sharing with me what he was learning as a first-time reader of the gospel of Matthew.

“May it be, my friend! But what do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I would study the Bible every day and I would pray every day so that I could be close to my God,” Hama said.

“But Hama, I do those things almost everyday.”

“You do?!” Hama turned in surprise.

I laughed, “Yes I don’t do it perfectly, but for years now I have sought to begin my day by an hour or so of reading my Bible and praying.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. How had I failed to mention my own spiritual disciplines to Hama in the months that we had been friends? I chewed on this question and on the fact that my closest local friend had been assuming the worst about me. This wouldn’t be the last time I experienced this dynamic while working with Central Asian seekers or new believers.

A few years later I was working with refugees in the US. As we sought to have a few join our local church who were professing believers, we kept encountering the same kind of assumptions. The default belief of some of these refugees was that members of the church who were dating were regularly sleeping together before marriage. Others believed that that the pastors who were getting paid by the church were not themselves giving any money to the church. Another time I encountered the belief that the reason we counted the number of people in services was because of some financial scheme. I often wondered, how are they not picking up on what is really happening here?

Later in Central Asia I would find the disturbing assumptions that the missionaries were obligated to pay all the rent for the owner of the home where the house church met. Many even believed that we were paid a certain bonus for each baptism that took place (mine was rumored to be $25,000 per head!). Scores of my friends probably still assume that I work for the CIA in some fashion.

Why would my friends assume these things, even after coming to faith? Part of it is due to their own cultural and worldview formation. They have grown up in the real, fallen world. Central Asia and the Middle East have a strong religious veneer, but underneath the facade everyone has experienced the powerful forces of love of money, sexual immorality, lust for power, and every other manner of sin. They have learned to assume these things are going on as the normal way the world functions.

But I also came to see that I was from a church culture where many of these areas of obedience were kept in the category of open secret. We Western evangelicals tend to assume that others can somehow see our obedience in areas such as spiritual disciplines, sexual purity, and money, without us ever having to tell them directly (with the exception of an accountability partner). And many of us have learned to pick up on very subtle clues or have rightly given one another the benefit of the doubt. If the public teaching is explicit in these areas, then to casually ask someone about their giving to the church or whether they slept together with their fiance before marriage would seem forward and awkward, even in a healthy Western church.

We also know that temptations to pride are real. This keeps us from speaking openly about our obedience, out of fear of seeming prideful or giving ground for pride to grow. Let another praise you, and not your own mouth (Prov 27:2). We don’t want to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing (Matt 6:3). These things are biblical. So we keep quiet about our giving, about the victories of sexual purity, about the ways we’ve been faithful to seek the Lord for years.

There is much good in our allergy to phariseeism. But there is also danger, danger to new believers. It is imperative that we speak openly about our secret obedience with those who are unchurched and new in the faith. They need to hear that we are actually obeying the seemingly-impossible commands of Jesus. They also need to hear from a role model on how we have obeyed the commands of scripture in a practical manner.

I’ve heard it said that children are wonderful observers and terrible interpreters. I believe this is true of many cross-cultural relationships and new believers as well. Many are prone to misunderstand why certain things are happening in the life of the church. Pagan motives will be projected onto believers by those who have been raised by pagandom. It’s our job as their disciplers to be frank with them about many things regarding ourselves – things we might not bring up to other mature believers from our culture for the sake of fighting pride.

Yes, I seek to spend time daily in praying and in the word. This has gone on for years. This is what it looks like for me…

Yes, I give generously to my church. This is what percentage I give at… Here are the other ways we are giving to the poor as well.

Yes, my wife and I were virgins when we got married. This is not impossible. Here’s how we fought for purity…

Yes, I drank alcohol in moderation and never got drunk. This is not impossible. Here’s what that looked like for me…

Yes, all the pastors at my church give money back to the church, even if they are paid by the church.

No, I don’t work for the CIA or for any other government.

No, I don’t get any money for baptizing people! This is a lie.

We will serve new believers and believers from other cultures if we would be more open with them about our secret obedience. But what about not letting the left hand know what the right is doing? The principle of this command is that we should not publicly trumpet our obedience for the sake of the praise of men. It’s all about the motive of the heart. Therefore, if it’s for the sake of equipping a new believer, I am free to take my financial giving out of the realm of open secret and into the realm of frank discussion.

Let’s not assume new believers are able to somehow intuit our secret obedience. They need role models. And let us not assume that they know the “why” of what we do. Let’s make it plain for them. No question about Christian morality should be off-limits. On a personal note, let’s also be gracious when our friends seem to assume the worst about us, our believing friends, or our church. After all, we are part of the kingdom of God – a kingdom that cannot be understood without new eyes and a new heart. Even after receiving these, we all need the grace of frank discussion with a friend… and lots of time.

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

The Heart-Breaking Complexities of Persecution

Many of us have simplistic understandings of persecution in the beginning. We latch onto radical ideas like “persecution purifies the church” and “the blood of the martyrs is seed” and perhaps we even long for persecution to come to our own churches so that we can experience these things. The reality is woefully more complicated.

The scriptures call persecution blessing when it is for Jesus and the gospel’s sake (Matt 5:10). But they also command us to pray for peaceful, quiet lives, free from persecution (1 Tim 2:2). They hold up examples of how God worked mightily through persecution (Acts 11:19), and tell us that it is inevitable for the godly (1 Tim 3:12), then they offer us warnings which reflect the first century believers who were getting persecuted because of their own sin, not because of Jesus (1 Pet 2:20). Even then it was complicated. The presence of persecution is not the fix-all some think it is. It actually makes the normal life and mission of the church very difficult, and sometimes impossible.

Here’s why I ask that you pray that God end persecution in places like Central Asia and that you also pray that if he doesn’t, he will grant the strength for believers to endure faithfully.

When we look at the history of the Church, we see a mixed result in contexts of persecution. Sometimes the church thrives and spreads like wildfire. Other times it is exterminated. Persecution led to the ascendancy of Christianity in the Roman empire. But next door in the Parthian/Sassanian/Islamic empires, it led to its eventual death. While we have examples like the house church movement in China, we also have examples like the Anabaptists of the Protestant Reformation. While some who fled west ended up surviving, those who fled east were never able to find refuge and were entirely killed off. Or what of the almost immediate extinction of Christianity in North Africa after the rise of Islam? Ever heard of the ancient church of Socotra? It existed for hundreds of years before finally disappearing. How do we make sense of these histories alongside of the heroic stories of Christian witness under Roman paganism or under communism? If we read church history we inescapably find that sometimes God allows persecution to be a spur for revival, but other times God allows it to be that which kills off an entire movement.

I started to get a taste for the complexities of persecution when it started happening to my own Middle Eastern/Central Asian friends. For a number of years I worked with refugees in the US. I was thrilled to find out that many of the Iranian refugees being resettled in my city were religious asylum-seekers. I had heard tales of the underground movement to Christ taking place in Iran. These refugee claimed to have left Islam, experienced persecution, and to have become Christians. The UN had now granted them a new life in the West. But my experiences with most of these Iranians were very disheartening. In the beginning they showed some desire to study the Bible and join a church, but the vast majority stopped showing interest after they figured out that the government wasn’t watching them and making sure they were attending church and staying true to their claim of being Christians. Once they realized it was not advantageous to be a Christian in America, they quickly abandoned their faith and lost themselves in materialism, drug use, or homosexuality. One close friend still possessed the blindfold put on him when he was imprisoned for being a leader-in-training in an Iranian house church. But this experience made him feel superior to other Christians and he balked at the idea of submitting himself to the accountability of a Christian community. So many Iranians quickly abandoned their faith after arriving in the West that the Iranian community passed around comics about it on social media. It was becoming well-known that (alongside a few who were genuine in their faith) a vast multitude was using Jesus to get a visa and then abandoning him as soon as they could.

My friends who came to faith after arriving in the US and I began to develop a serious skepticism towards refugees who showed up as formerly-Muslim Christian refugees. So many of them ended up falling away, consumed by the temptations and freedoms of the West. I started to learn that there were many ungodly reasons that people would identify with Jesus, even in contexts of persecution. Some identified as Christians out of a hatred of Islam, not out of a love for Jesus. Some did it as a way to stick it to their oppressive government or to display their attraction to Western culture. Some did it for promises of a salary and tickets to attend Christian conferences. Again, many did it simply as the ticket to a better life.

The UN was and is on to this dynamic. Their interviewers (most of them pagan) devise many kinds of methods to try to discern whether someone has truly become a Christian or not. But lacking spiritual eyes themselves, they are inept at recognizing the new birth. Instead, they rely heavily on signed baptism certificates, which has created an underground industry of sorts, where “seekers” approach churches or missionaries in the Middle East in pursuit of the coveted piece of paper. Some churches issue these freely, deciding that it’s not worth the effort to walk with someone until they can truly vouch for their faith. Others, like me and my coworkers, refuse to issue these certificates on principle, much to the consternation of local believers who, because of the UN requirement, believe we’re somehow denying them something integral to Christianity.

The presence of historic ethnic Christians in our part of the world also complicates the picture. The historic churches of the East lost the gospel a long time ago and have fallen into a system of religious patrilineage. This means you automatically inherit the faith of your father; you really have no other option. “I’m a Honda, you’re a Toyota, we can’t change that,” is how one ethnic Christian responded to one of my friends who had come to faith out of Islam. Ethnic Christians in the Middle East and Central Asia believe they are Christians because of their blood and because of their infant baptism. They cannot tell you what the gospel is. The overwhelming majority do not know that they must be born again and believe the gospel for themselves. This message has been buried under centuries of tradition, religiosity, and syncretism. If any do come to faith and begin to read the Bible for themselves, they are persecuted by their own community, just as might happen to a Muslim coming to faith. When the term “Christian” is used in our part of the world, it means a certain ethnicity, not a faith that transcends ethnicity. Therefore, missionaries had to come up with a tragic new term: CBBs, Christian-Background Believers.

Unfortunately, evangelical organizations that serve the persecuted and mobilize prayer do not deal with this distinction publicly at all. I’ll read reports written by evangelical Westerners about thousands of Christians experiencing persecution in a certain parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, when the reality is the number of true Christians is in the hundreds, if that. Where are they finding these thousands of supposed Christians? There are no “Christian villages,” unless they are referring to the ethnic Christian villages where they run off those who become born again for going against the traditions of their fathers. Is it tragic that ethnic minority Christians are experiencing persecution? Absolutely. But if you don’t tell your audience that they’re not actually believers, that many actually despise evangelicals, they will fail to pray as they should – that God would be merciful and save them out of their dead Christianity, alongside of ending the persecution. Many who have been killed and proclaimed martyrs by these evangelical organizations sadly never knew Jesus. They trusted in their father’s blood instead of Christ’s. This is worthy of great lament.

When our friends from a Muslim background believe, they often experience moderate persecution. By this I mean they lose jobs, get kicked out of their homes, and lose marriage prospects. Occasionally they experience severe persecution and are physically beaten, experience house arrest, or credible death threats. We know of two or three among our people group that have died for their faith. But even in the midst of these tragic things, those experiencing persecution are often brand new in their faith, and it becomes awfully hard to discern whether their father beat them because of Jesus or because they were simply disrespectful punks in taking their dad’s car to church when he told them not to. Many experience persecution because of brave, but reckless attacks against Islam. If they would focus on Jesus and the gospel more and stop talking so much about Mohammad’s child bride, their relatives might not get so angry and violent. Diving into the real causes of persecution and whether or not someone is inflating their story is woefully difficult – not to mention hurtful to those whose claims are legitimate. But what else is to be done? So many have been played by those who knew how to spin a good tale.

We want to err on the side of mercy, but if Westerners are too quick to intervene they can actually make it worse, facilitating a “believer drain” that prevents the local church from being able to take root. Once persecution escalates, a missionary or pastor find themselves in a minefield of less than ideal options. Each case can become all-consuming and difficult decisions must be made about if/when to intervene, when to wait and pray, how to provide emergency housing, whether to facilitate a way out of the country (which entails visas, tickets, housing, food) – and all of this when other local believers are divided and skeptical about the situation themselves. In a place without a network of local churches, a need exists to develop a persecution infrastructure that can respond when first-generation believers lose their housing, their jobs, or are in physical danger. But the logistics, money, and time needed to pull something like this off is daunting. So proactive persecution response tends to get put on the back burner until the next crisis, when the missionary is faced once again with the bad choice of doing nothing or harboring a new believer secretly in their own home.

While some local believers are set free from their fear by experiencing public persecution, others buckle, compromise, and even apostatize. One young man whose baptism I attended immediately recanted his faith after his father found out, threatened him with death, and then bribed him with the cash value of their house to return to Islam. They then both proceeded to hold his younger brother, a genuine believer, at knife-point while threatening his life. Another promising leader-in-training experienced brutal persecution from his coworkers and tribe, and managed to make it through with his faith intact, but the experience caused him to abandon the small church he had committed to help lead. Out of fear, many local believers have committed to never gather with other locals for worship, but only with foreigners – thus making church planting impossible.

Persecution is woefully complicated. And yet God uses persecution for the advance of his church. Does this mean I should pray for more persecution? No, just as I shouldn’t pray for more physical suffering because God uses that for my sanctification. Should we pray for “stronger backs to endure” as Brother Yun says? Yes, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray for the persecution to stop as well. It’s a both/and, a fiery furnace type of prayer where we call on God for deliverance because he is able, and we proclaim that he will sustain us even if not.

We must never let persecution stop the spread of the gospel, and this requires a dogged commitment to be faithful unto death. Persecution can be a form of blessing, which purifies our faith. Yet seasons of peace are also a blessing, one which the Bible commands us to seek, where the church has time to do the deep work of discipleship, leadership development, and the sending of missionaries. The blood of the martyrs is seed, but let’s not make that formulaic. The seed will inevitably sprout, but that might or might not happen in this age; It will with all certainty happen in the age to come.

In the meantime, pray for the persecuted Church. And pray for those of us who are trying to plant churches in contexts of persecution. We are not sufficient for these things. Yet we pray to a Lord who is. He alone can untangle the heart-breaking complexities of persecution and weave them into glory.

Photo by Nicola Nuttall on Unsplash

Book sources:

Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren

Yun, The Heavenly Man

Baumer, The Church of the East

Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity

Holding Our Timelines Loosely

As a leader, I have been greatly helped by the concept of holding our principles tightly while holding our applications loosely – e.g. major on the importance of evangelism, but allow for a healthy range of biblical evangelistic methods. Too many of us are majoring on the applications in a narrower way than the Scriptures do. The implications of this simple principle could defuse much conflict on the mission field (and in the church) and lead to some great work being done. Alongside this concept comes the related idea of holding our timelines for those applications loosely as well. In our zeal to implement biblical principles, we can all too easily move too quickly, and thereby risk losing our people and undermining our ultimate goal.

I remember hearing Pastor Brian Croft of Practical Shepherding share a story of church reform, where the slower timeline made all the difference. After teaching through the concept of biblical eldership, a pastor came to a members meeting where they were to vote on moving from a single-pastor model to a plurality of elders model of leadership. The pastor knew that they would be able to get just enough votes for it to pass, but he also sensed that in doing so he risked losing older members of the congregation. He decided to defer the vote to a future meeting. In the time that passed between the meetings, the pastor realized that the term elder itself was at the source of much of the opposition. When he switched to speaking about the proposed changes using the biblically appropriate synonym of a plurality of pastors, the opposition evaporated. Turns out there had been an underlying fear that elders were some kind of Presbyterian thing that was being smuggled into a historic Southern Baptist church. By choosing to wait, this misunderstanding came to light, a contextual linguistic shift was made, and those who might have been lost by the change were instead won over.

It has been said that the number one mistake of “young, restless, and reformed” church planters and church reformers is moving to a plurality of elders too quickly. We could probably restate this to say that our number one mistake is trying to implement applied structures of biblical principles too quickly. It’s so easy to do. You chew on a biblical understanding of the local church for years, grow a deep affection for seeing it lived out, then you find yourself in a leadership position over a church or a team – and so you try to change everything at once. The results of this approach (often implosion) can be easily understood from a distance. The time that it took for the leader to see the truth and to love the truth has not been in turn given to those he is leading. Clarity on biblical principles and methods takes time when you are working with real people. What seems so obvious to you today is in reality the result of the Spirit patiently leading you toward greater clarity and affection over an extended period of time.

There is also the issue of trust. Trust takes time to grow, often more than two years – which turns out to be the point at which most pastors leave their church. I don’t know the stats for how long the average team leader overseas stays in his role, but I know that in our region we have incredible turnover. To build real trust with those we are leading takes a long-term posture. When those we are leading are really convinced we are for them and committed to them, then they will feel less threatened by our proposed changes. Because of these things, we should default to moving slowly in the first two to three years, trusting that the necessary trust is being built that will make for lasting, healthy change.

I am as guilty as anyone at introducing changes too quickly. I tend to chew on something slowly for a long time, like a doner kabob gradually roasting and rotating on the spit. Then all of the sudden I cut. off some shwarma, meaning I make up my mind and introduce a change – only to find others are not at all ready for it! Having learned this about myself through lots of trial and error, I am growing in my appreciation for the slower track, where incremental growth in the right direction is celebrated, even if it takes us five years to get to a place where the applications of our principles are mature. If unity is growing around the biblical principles, if those we lead are growing in their excitement about where we are going, then we can be patient with different paces of progress toward that destination.

This holding loosely to our timelines can also help those we are leading, as we assure them that we are not in a rush. There is time to wrestle with emphases, teaching, and methods that feel or sound different. How many of those that we lead have lived through the coming and going of many leaders and fads? Their hesitancy to be all-in with our plans shouldn’t surprise us. But hopefully our grace, patience, and genuine friendship can surprise them.

Yes, there comes a time when we must act, and act decisively. Not all delay is godly. At some point it becomes sin. I do not recommend dealing with a wolf in sheep’s clothing gradually. And yet most of our people are not wolves, but sheep who need patient under-shepherds. There is also wisdom in recognizing the common error of our generation – that of going too fast, not going too slow. We are generally in a rush to implement our vision and see things change overnight – still showing the truth of the old African term for Westerners, mzungu, those who run around in circles.

Let us hold our timelines loosely when it comes to leading others toward biblical faithfulness. As much as possible, let us celebrate incremental growth in the right direction, while we keep holding out biblical principles. Put that desired change on the five-year or ten-year plan and commit it to constant prayer. If we do this, I think our future selves will thank us.

Photo by Metin Ozer on Unsplash

When Matthew’s Genealogy Shook My Friend’s World

There are some passages of scripture that we tend to merely skim before quickly moving on. For me, the genealogies were definitely that kind of content. Sure, I believed that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching and instructing in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). But it was awfully hard for me to see how the genealogies would actually impact my life as a believer or be relevant in evangelism. “Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram” is not exactly the inspirational material that typically shows up on Christian embroideries. Sure, the genealogies served an important historical purpose, but I assumed that was about it. I would be proved powerfully wrong.

When my friend *Hama agreed to read the Bible with me, we started in the book of Matthew, probably for the simple reason that it was the first book in the New Testament which I had given him in his language (The Old Testament wouldn’t be published for another 8 years). As a twenty-year-old new to the Middle East, this would be my first time studying the Bible with a Muslim friend. So why not start with Matthew?

I was not expecting the first half of the first chapter to deal such a blow to my friend’s worldview.

“Bro,” Hama said. “Jesus is incredible.”

“I agree. But why do you say that?” I replied.

“Look at his family line… look at all of the prophets in his line. There are so many, starting all the way back at Abraham. Bro, I never knew this.”

“And?” I was not understanding why we shouldn’t just take note of this neat historical content and move on the meatier portions.

Hama’s eyes had that far-off look he got whenever his mind was working hard. He seemed conflicted.

“…Mohammad doesn’t have a family line like this… he doesn’t have any kind of lineage to compare to this.” Hama was disturbed.

I didn’t know this at the time, but genealogy, specifically the father-line (patrilineage) is a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and Central Asian identity. You are who your fathers were. Their honor and their shame is imputed to you and your success and the success of your descendants depends on being able to draw upon an honorable reputation rooted in ancestry. A traditional Middle Easterner must be able to name their male ancestors at least to the seventh generation. Even though this is becoming a little less common among the modern and urbanized, it still is a primary lens through which people understand who they are and who others are. Your father-line makes a claim about you; it is a message in itself.

Hama was seeing something in Matthew in his first reading that I had never seen despite many years of devotions in Matthew, sermons, and bible classes. His Middle Eastern culture was helping him to understand implications of the text that I had missed as an American raised in Melanesia. In this and many other areas, Hama’s culture was not too far off from Jewish New Testament culture. He saw Matthew 1:1-17 as a devastating blow against what he had been taught his whole life – that Mohammad’s lineage was just as strong as that of the other prophets.

Yes, Islam maintains that Mohammad was descended from Abraham via Ishmael, but from Ishmael to Mohammad spans over two thousand years of plain old human without a whiff of inspired revelation. But Jesus, his line contained Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, and Solomon! And all of them descendants of Abraham through Isaac’s line, not Ishmael’s. Jesus’ claims therefore to be The Prophet of Prophets are bolstered by this amazing pedigree. Mohammad’s seeming emergence out of nowhere six hundred years later as “the seal of the prophets,” in this light, appears to be unnatural and not in keeping with how God acted in history – always sending his prophets through Isaac’s line and with a strong prophetic father-line.

It was a blow that shook Hama’s world. It’s easy to take for granted religious claims that everyone around you simply repeats your whole life. But when faced for the first time with a compelling counter-claim, that’s when we get a true sense of just how strong a case our belief actually has. Sure, everyone in the bazaar says that Mohammad’s descent from the prophets legitimized his claims. But Matthew, in a thoroughly Middle Eastern way, had just thrown down the gauntlet.

It wasn’t the only way in which God would vindicate the gospel’s truth to my friend Hama, the jaded wedding musician. But it was a powerful start. One that I at least had never anticipated. Yet this is exactly what happens when we work through scripture with those who are different from us. We see new aspects of the text’s meaning, not different meaning, but insights uniquely apparent to those from other cultures. The diamond gets turned to reveal new beauty that was there all along. The Holy Spirit uses passages we gloss over as the vehicle for his convicting work. This argues, by the way, for the importance of working through books of the Bible systematically in our cross-cultural evangelism and discipleship – we just don’t know where exactly in the text the lightning is going to strike. And it may be where you never expected it.

Photo by Taylor Wilcox on Unsplash