This video from the Great Commission Council seeks to define hermeneutics, the study of how to rightly interpret the Bible. Proper hermeneutics is vital for faithful missions, not least because the way we use our Bibles is how the local believers will come to use their Bibles. However, many of the most popular missions methods out there model a sloppy use of the text, seeking to ground methods in the Bible in ways that just don’t fit with the genre or intent of the passage. Therefore, one of the most important things we can do to see sound missions methods on the field is to train missionaries in how they should and should not get their methods from the Bible – to train them in sound hermeneutics.
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“But Jesus himself says he is not God!” In Mark 10 and Luke 18, he says, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.'”
This is one of the more common arguments from the Bible that Muslims will try to use to disprove the divinity of Jesus. Not too long ago, a Muslim commenter on this blog said this very thing. If you spend any time at all doing evangelism with Muslims you are bound to hear this claim. So, how should a Christian respond?
I actually like it when my Muslim friends bring up this passage. This is because instead of Jesus denying his divinity here, I think there’s a case to be made that this passage is an example of the direct opposite – of Jesus in fact claiming to be God.
First, the context. Jesus is here responding to the rich young ruler who asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. But this young man has begun his question by addressing Jesus as, “Good Teacher.” So, Jesus’ response to him is in two parts. First, he calls into question the way in which he addressed him. Then, he goes on to answer what is required for this man to inherit eternal life. Those of us familiar with this passage know that the young man goes on to claim that he’s kept all of the commandments that Jesus draws out of him. But then, when Jesus tells him to sell everything that he has, to give the funds to the poor, and to follow him, the young man goes away sad because he cannot bring himself to part with his wealth. You can read the passage for yourself here and here.
When I’m talking with my Central Asian friends about this, I will often respond first by saying. “Well, what’s going on here is that Jesus is a good teacher, and you of all people should know that the best teachers teach not only direct lessons, but also indirect lessons.”
Usually, this response is met with some level of furrowed brows. So, I’ll go on to explain.
“Here, in Central Asia, you use indirect communication all the time. In little things like saying yes to an offer of tea, you actually don’t say ‘Yes.’ Instead, you say, ‘No,’ then, ‘Don’t trouble yourself.’ Even more, you greatly value the ability of indirect communication to teach profound lessons. So, you should be able to appreciate when Jesus is using indirect communication to make a point – and not all of a sudden become like Westerners who insist something be communicated simply and directly in order to be understood.”
Here, I might remind them of a folk story of their people where a father has seven sons who are always fighting. Fed up, one day he lines his sons up and hands six of them a single stick. Then, one by one, he commands them to break the stick. Each of the six sons breaks his stick easily. But on the seventh son, the father hands him the bundle of broken sticks and commands him to break them. The seventh son cannot break the sticks, even though he tries with all his might. “Do you understand?” The father asks. Eventually, one son speaks up. “Yes, father. When we are divided and fighting amongst ourselves we will always be weak, easily broken. But if we will only be united, together, then no one will ever be able to break us.”
None of my Central Asian friends balk at this father’s indirect object lesson. Instead, if anything, they find the lesson to be even more profound given the subtlety and the indirect buildup. The point is to remind them that they have a category already for indirect teaching, they really respect it, and therefore it doesn’t follow that they should deny Jesus the right to teach in this way also.
Indeed, when it comes to Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler, this is exactly the kind of teaching method Jesus is employing in both parts of his responses. He is being an excellent Middle Eastern teacher, leveraging the subtlety, the double meanings, and the buildup for the lesson to have its maximum payoff.
First, he asks the young man why he calls him good, since “no one is good but God alone.” Notice here especially what Jesus does not say. Jesus does not say that he is not God. He simply asks the young man why he called him good. Then, he makes a theological statement. Only God is good. The direct, simplistic way to understand what Jesus is saying here would be that this young man made a mistake by calling him “Good Teacher.” But Jesus does not say that. He leaves it open – open to another possible meaning. That meaning is this – that Jesus in fact is good and, therefore, that he is God. The logic at play here goes like this: 1) Only God is good, 2) Jesus is clearly good, 3) Jesus is God.
In this way, Jesus is here once again teaching wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove in the midst of wolves. For those who don’t have ears to hear, he is merely saying what every 1st-century Jewish person believed – that only God is good. For those with ears to hear, he is affirming that he is good and therefore he is God. And for those who would accuse him of blasphemy before his time has come, Jesus has subtly claimed divinity in a way that does not yet give them something solid to grab hold of.
The rest of Jesus’ response to the rich young ruler continues to be a masterclass in indirect teaching. Even though Jesus knows that no one can be saved by keeping the commandments, Jesus tells the young man to list out the commandments and then tells him to keep them. When the young man affirms that he has indeed kept them all his life, then Jesus gives him a final command, one that exposes his idolatry. Tragically, money is his god, more important to him than YHWH and more important than following YHWH’s messiah. In this way, Jesus indirectly demonstrates that the young man had not in fact been keeping the commandments at all. He was an idolater. He was not good, because no one is good but God alone.
The subtle and indirect nature of this second part of the response strengthens the case that the first part of the response – Jesus’ question – should be understood in the same way. When Jesus says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone,” he is really saying that heis indeed good, and therefore he is God. The rich young ruler, merely intending to be respectful, was speaking more truly than he knew. His standard of goodness was woefully insufficient, as proved by his assessment of his own life. But God allowed him to address Jesus in a way that was utterly and ironically spot on. Jesus is a good teacher; in fact, the only good teacher.
Our Muslim friends need to understand that the case for Jesus’ divinity is built by dozens and dozens of indirect logic passages just like this one. No one forgives sin except God, Jesus forgives sin, Jesus is God. No one is good except God, Jesus is good, Jesus is God. The examples go on and on. We need to help our friends understand the type of logic and the type of lessons used by Jesus and his Apostles to establish Jesus’ divinity. And yes, they even have an advantage over us in understanding these lessons and logic, which are, after all, very Middle Eastern and Central Asian in their character.
Jesus is an incredible teacher, the very best. And good teachers don’t just teach directly. They teach indirectly also. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
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I turned around, knowing exactly whose voice and contagious laugh that was.
It was Adam*, my very first believing friend in Central Asia, plaster wall visionary, goofball, and dear brother embattled with mental illness. We gave one another a big laughing bear hug in the middle of all the other arriving campers.
This past week I was on a short setup trip to Central Asia and towards the end of the trip I left my apartment-hunting to join a bunch of the local believers for one night in an ancient valley in between our two cities. This came about because my trip had just happened to coincide with the annual camping trip that one of my former teammates leads for a sports outreach he conducts. A good number of the local believers in our previous city, like Darius*, have also been regularly involved with this sports group from the beginning. It’s been a great opportunity for them to do relational evangelism with the unbelieving participants – as well as a chance to learn about mortifying anger when it gets stirred up by the fierce combat otherwise known as ultimate frisbee.
“A.W., what should I do? The other player I’ve been struggling with said ‘Good job’ to me when I scored. Outwardly, I said, ‘Thanks,’ but in my heart, I said, ‘You father of a dog!’ …Do you think I need to repent?'”
Out of the twenty or so men who ended up coming on this camping trip, I was glad to see it was about half believers and half not. In the midst of a trip focused on logistics, I was hopeful that this night would make for some encouraging conversations. I was not to be disappointed. Most of us were up past 3 am. And the conversations ranged all over the place – apologetics, philosophy, linguistics, as well as just catching up and cutting up. Needless to say, my rusty local language skills got put to work. At one point, I wondered what in the world my jet-lagged self was doing trying to discuss Hegelian philosophy in another language at 2 am with a new believer.
Perhaps the most encouraging conversation of the night was with Adam and his friend, Dr. Troy*. I had heard recently that Adam, my dear friend who for the last couple of years has been on the mend from paranoid schizophrenia, had led one of his friends to faith. This friend was Dr. Troy. And this is how it happened.
Dr. Troy had grown up in a family that taught him the way to get ahead was to appear outwardly unimpressive and foolish, but to secretly work harder than all your peers, resulting in the end in a great upset when you came out ahead of all of them. Needless to say, this approach to life did not win Dr. Troy many friends. He grew up isolated, angry, and hating most others around him.
“I was like this all the time,” he said, pulling up a picture of a hissing cobra which was for some reason wearing a seat belt.
But though he was isolated and angry, he succeeded in getting high marks in school, was accepted to medical college, and eventually became a new doctor. One day, a trip to the bathroom at the hospital where he was doing his residency meant that he missed the person who came by to mark down employee attendance. So, Dr. Troy went down to the first floor to find him. Notice here how eternity can sometimes hinge on such seemingly mundane events.
While downstairs, Dr. Troy was approached by a bearded man in his late 30s who wore a mischievous grin and looked at him with bright eyes that carried a hint of either brilliance or insanity – or perhaps both. This was, of course, Adam. Dr. Troy was somewhat confused and offended that this obviously local man began the conversation in English, rather than in their native tongue. Nevertheless, he heard him out and answered his questions about a friend that he was there to see. When asked about his good English and strange insistence on using it, Adam replied by telling Dr. Troy that he was an English tutor and handing him his business card. If the good doctor was interested in IELTS tutoring, then Adam told him he could contact him.
A little while later, Dr. Troy did just that. For quite some time, Dr. Troy had been struggling with major depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. All of his meds only seemed to be making things worse. He wanted to do something that might boost his self-esteem, and so he thought passing the IELTS English test might be just the thing. In the beginning, their relationship was purely focused on English. But one day something shifted. Dr. Troy broke down and told Adam about his deep despair. He told him that things had gotten so bad that he had even become suicidal.
Adam proceeded to share his own story with Dr. Troy, how he had grown up in a deeply dysfunctional local family, how he had found Jesus as a young man, how he had then wandered from Jesus during his sojourn in Europe, falling into drugs and mental illness. He then described how his friends had helped him get back to Central Asia, how that had failed to bring any improvement, but how one day God had unexpectedly freed him from so much of his mental suffering. In the days since, Adam told him about his steady trajectory of healing that included regular church attendance, serving others, cutting way back on meds and stimulants, and seeking to deal honestly with the costs of his unhealthy upbringing.
Dr. Troy was compelled by the testimony of his quirky English tutor and decided to see if a similar path might help him as well. He decided to trust Adam and follow his advice. And Adam provided Dr. Troy with that ingredient of healing so transformative for the human heart and mind – a loyal Christian friend who will simply stick with you, even in the blackest night.
But I was curious as I listened to this tale. Was Dr. Troy really now a believer? It’s one thing to identify with a new group of friends because they’ve shown you kindness in your suffering. It’s another thing to believe in Jesus and apostatize from everything you were taught growing up in an Islamic society.
“Jesus is all about love,” Dr. Troy said to me, “This was remarkable to me. He’s so different from Muhammad.”
Okay, I thought to myself, getting a bit closer…
“The thing is,” Dr. Troy continued, “He’s the only one without our human failures. The only one. Everyone else is so broken, so messed up, does so many wrong things… like me. He’s the only one without… without…”
“Without sin?”
“Yes, that’s the word, without sin. The only one. That’s how it’s so clear that he must be the Son of God. Not like all the other prophets. All of them sin. But not Jesus.”
Dr. Troy shook his head and stared at the tea kettle, now steaming on top of a bed of coals.
“A.W.,” my former teammate said, joining the conversation, “Have you heard the good news? Dr. Troy is going to get dunked soon,” he said with a smile and a cautious look at the other campers milling around.
“Wow, may you be holy!” I said to the good doctor, which is the local language equivalent of ‘congratulations.’ That phrase always feels extra appropriate for occasions such as this. I knew that if things had reached this point, then Dr. Troy must be showing strong signs of the new birth. My former teammates and the mature local brothers are trustworthy soul doctors.
“I don’t know what I would have done had I not randomly met Adam that day,” Dr. Troy said, “I mean, yes, he’s a very strange man, you know how he does the — and the —-”
Here, Dr. Troy, with a clear gift for imitation, made several of the bizarre expressions and body movements that Adam tends to make. This, of course, set Adam laughing like the good sport he is, so I felt free to chuckle as well. The impressions were spot on.
“But my life has changed so much since I’ve been following his advice. I took him to visit my family and my parents and sisters thanked him over and over for all the ways they’ve seen my life change because of his influence.”
Adam beamed awkwardly as Dr. Troy said this latter part. I looked at him and remembered what a hard road he’s had. Back in 2008, he was the most gifted evangelist I had ever seen. But then he had wandered for a very long time. In fact, Dr. Troy was the first person he had led to faith in fifteen years. It seemed that perhaps the gift he had been given as a new believer, the gift of evangelism, was at last being fanned into flame again. What an answer to prayer. I had so long hoped that Adam’s mind would turn away from fixation on the shadowy figures he thought were drugging and tracking him, and turn back to Jesus and to telling others about him. Now I was staring at evidence that it was actually happening.
Later that night Adam and I had more heartfelt conversation together. I told him how proud I was of him, and how thankful I was to see him continuing to gather with believers and now even serving others as well. I reminded him that God has made us to heal in community, that God himself gives us a relationship of complete safety and acceptance through Christ, and thus we can invite others into the community of the church where they can find true healing now – and complete healing in the resurrection.
“Adam, Jesus has granted you a measure of healing in this life. I’m so glad to see it. But don’t forget that this is just a taste. In the coming resurrection, you won’t just have a mind partially restored, but a mind and a whole body perfected and healed, forever.”
“Thank goodness for that!” Adam said, laughing and running a hand over his tired face and through his rapidly graying hair.
Adam went on to humbly ask forgiveness for all the trouble he had put my family through during his darker years. And to ask me to please buy some flowers for my wife on his behalf – since she was the only woman who still showed him kindness and hospitality during that time. He wanted to know what he could do for me, anything at all.
“Adam, you know we will always be brothers and friends, no matter what. Just don’t forget that. But you also know we’ll need to live in another city when we come back in a couple months. So I would ask that you keep on serving this young church that we love so much – and keep on sharing the gospel with others, just like you did with Dr. Troy.”
“You got it, bro,” Adam said, giving me a fist bump. And I knew he meant it.
At that point, Darius snuck up behind me and gave me a big strangling bear hug. And from there, the night continued on with more rich conversations with believers, challenging questions from unbelievers, games, and ultimately a few hours of very uncomfortable sleep.
I have so missed this kind of setting. This past year and a half in the States has been good in so many ways. God has provided rest, refreshment, healing, and help above and beyond what we could have asked for.
But I have to be honest. I can’t wait to be living in Central Asia again. And I can’t believe we’ll actually get to do so.
We will be fully funded and headed back to the field when 35 more friends become monthly or annual supporters. If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
The wall of what would become the homeschool room, nearing completion
Our previous home in Central Asia was an old stone house right on the edge of the bazaar. It was very beat up when we agreed to rent it. Much of the wiring and light fixtures were still from the 1950s. The garden courtyard was an overrun mess of brambles and dust. All the water tanks were rusted out and useless. And two internal walls showed extensive water damage.
At the time, there were only two of us who really believed in the potential of this run-down, dusty old house. Me – and Adam*, my good friend who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Most of my local friends and colleagues understandably said I was crazy for taking on a project like this. But Adam, my one believing friend who technically was crazy, was adamant that we had to get this place. That in itself probably confirmed that the others were right. Nevertheless, I sided with my schizophrenic friend and went for it. My wife (who was nervous about the whole thing, yet bravely willing to follow her husband) and I had always wanted to live within walking distance of the bazaar and here was our chance. Surely, bringing a house back from the dead couldn’t be that hard.
In particular, Adam was captivated by the potential of the thick stone walls of this house, and especially the two internal water-damaged walls. Because of what to me looked like leprous wall spots of Levitical proportions, we would definitely have to replace the plaster, as well as patch the roof cracks. But, instead of then simply replastering the walls, Adam wanted me to let him get rid of all the plaster, polish and varnish the stones, and then put fresh white plaster in the seams of the rocks. The finishing touch would be framing the whole wall with a sharp plaster border. This labor would draw out the natural colors of the large stones, contrasting richly against the white of the plaster.
In this season, Adam wasn’t doing so well and wasn’t yet willing to gather with other believers again. He also needed work. And work, creative work, in particular, seemed to ground his mind and make him less prone to believe that the spy agencies of various Western nations were after him and trying to turn me against him. I thought a big project like this might be a chance for us to spend some time together as friends – and also get him around other local believers like Frank*, who was responsible for the painting and replacing the old wiring.
Some of these hopes turned out better than others. Adam’s enthusiastic work stripping the plaster off the walls filled the entire house with clouds of plaster dust for weeks on end. This meant that Frank was often kept from doing his electrical and painting work because of the conditions inside the house. I would be working on some ministry email or something, barricaded in one of the only rooms safe from the dust when Frank would walk in, fresh from an encounter with Adam.
“How you doing, Frank?” I would ask.
“Great!” he would say with an exaggerated smile, right before silently giving me an “I’m losing my mind and can’t possibly go on like this” face.
So much for the work building camaraderie. Even worse, the dust was covering the floors so thick that to get it out we had to bust holes in some of the walls so that we could use a hose to flush it all out. We’re supposed to be fixing this place up, I thought to myself as we drilled a fist-sized hole at the base of the homeschool room wall, not punching more holes in it. Maybe my bleeding-heart, idealistic, risk-prone tendencies had gotten the better of me in agreeing to let Adam do it in the first place. In the end, the work took three times longer than we thought it would.
But the walls. The stones. They came to life.
The two ugly bubbling and disintegrating plaster walls had been transformed into the most beautiful parts of the entire house. They were now two accent walls consisting of stones that shone in grays, rusty reds, pale oranges, and slate blues. The larger of them graced one side of our homeschool room, a perfect addition to a space that was soon to be overflowing with kids, books, Legos, and artwork. Adam and I loved that my kids would get to learn math and reading and Bible around that big, solid, colorful, stone wall.
When it was finished, everyone loved the end result. Even those who thought the whole project was crazy, even those who couldn’t bear to work with Adam and made fun of him because of his quirks and crazy ideas. You couldn’t deny it. The walls were stunning. Each of us had to admit that the one with the mind that wasn’t completely working correctly had been the only one able to look at something so ugly and see its true potential. And not only see its potential, but also realize its potential with long, sweaty, dusty hours chipping, grinding, and polishing.
I enjoy reflecting on what Adam did with those walls. Even when his mind was in a dark and confused place, the possibility of bringing beauty out of brokenness brought him to life and gave him purpose and focus. It brought him back to his friends for a short time. It even got him some money so he could do the honorable Central Asian adult son thing and help his parents (whom he lives with) pay some bills. In that dusty project, the image of God in a very broken believer shone briefly but powerfully, like a shaft of light unexpectedly breaking through a towering Kentucky storm front.
And it’s no overstatement to say that Adam’s work on the walls reflected the image of God. God is, after all, in the process of resurrecting – not broken down and decrepit walls and houses, but a whole world in this condition. His mind sees what the rest of us so often fail to see, how sinners can be transformed into saints through the mess of sanctification, how the beauty of the coming resurrection will make all of the suffering and sweat required to get there worth it. In our lives, he’s chipping off the old, leprous plaster, restoring a beauty in us that we lost long ago – and making it even more stunning than it was in the beginning.
I’m so glad I took the risk and let my friend tear up those walls. He claimed he could see something in them, what they could become. He was right. I’m so glad that God sees something in us, in me, what we can become. And that he relentlessly keeps up his transforming work.
p.s. Adam is doing great these days. After the initial breakthrough a couple years ago, God mercifully continues to give him a measure of healing from his paranoid schizophrenia. Adam has recently led a doctor friend of his to the Lord and has been bringing him to church with him regularly. Keep praying for him.
We will be fully funded and headed back to the field when 40 more friends become monthly or annual supporters. If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
At first glance, the argument of Hebrews 11:16 might cause some to scratch their heads.
“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”
This passage seems to say that the people of faith mentioned in Hebrews chapter eleven long for a superior eternal home. Because of this, God is not embarrassed to be associated with them. Why? Because he has indeed prepared that kind of city for them, that kind of homeland.
It’s not so much that the logical connections are hard to see in this verse, but that the assumptions behind the argument seem strange. Why does this passage imply that God might be ashamed of those who desire a better and heavenly country? What is so embarrassing or shameful about that?
Is it that these people of faith are messy sinners saved by grace? That their sin is the reason some might feel that God is ashamed to be associated with them? That conclusion, that God is indeed not embarrassed to be identified with sinners, is correct in a biblical-theological sense (Mark 2:16). But it does not actually fit with the context of this passage.
No, here it’s not their sin that leads to the sense that God might be ashamed of them. It is the seemingly-foolish lifestyle choices they are making, based on seemingly-foolish promises.
Noah invests in building an ark because he believes God’s word about a coming flood (Heb 11:7). Abraham leaves his influential city and lives in tents because he believes he is to inherit the land of Canaan (11:8-9). Barren Sarah believes she can give birth as a ninety-year-old woman because the angel of the LORD tells her so (11:11). Childless and elderly Abraham believes his descendants will be like the stars of the sky, like the sands of the seashore (11:12).
Contemporaries would say these people are not living in the real world. Global floods of extinction don’t happen. A family of tent-dwelling nomads doesn’t dispossess nations living in fortified cities. Old and barren men and women don’t produce offspring. They absolutely do not produce millions of them.
In the eyes of their contemporaries, these people are living foolish, even irresponsible, lifestyles. And why? Because of their faith in foolish-seeming promises. “You are living like that because God told you what now? What a waste! What a joke. What a shame.” This is how the wisdom of the world views the costly lifestyles of God’s people of faith.
But not so with God. This text says that God is not ashamed to be called their God. To be not ashamed means that he is honored to be known as their God, he is proud to be associated with them. What a humbling – and frankly shocking – idea. But this is God’s posture because the foolish-seeming faith and lifestyles of these men and women align so well with his character, his eternal plan, and even his past actions. As it turns out, God has already prepared a place for them, an eternal home – though this homeland is invisible now, the kind of place you can only hear about and cannot yet see.
When these foolish-seeming people live not for this temporary world, but for the one that’s coming, God delights in them, even as the world scoffs. God delights because they trust his promises. They trust his character. They risk based on the fact that he is a rewarder. And the heart of God rejoices when his people believe and live in keeping with these realities (11:6).
This truth matters to all believers, since all of us are sojourners and strangers in this age, awaiting our final inheritance (1 Pet 2:11, Rom 8:23). But it especially hits home for those engaged in gospel ministry. Those who decide to pastor, to church plant, to be foreign missionaries, these all embrace seemingly-extra-foolish lifestyles in the eyes of the world – and even in the eyes of many Christians.
For starters, the economic choices of a ministry lifestyle can seem downright disastrous. Pastors might live in a parsonage that doesn’t belong to them, labor in bivocational roles, or struggle with lower-than-average salaries. Church planters take huge risks to see a church birthed that may or may not survive, much less be able to support their family’s needs. Missionaries liquidate their households over and over again during their many transitions, each time incurring significant loss. Over time, these cumulative costs don’t compare very well to peers who have been busy investing in marketplace careers and appreciating assets.
The chances of seeing success and gaining influence also seem disastrous. These ministry Christians tend to choose difficult places to work – thorny church revitalizations, unchurched urban areas, remote agricultural communities, unreached people groups. It’s like they want to fail. As with the figures in Hebrews 11, this quixotic work is all driven by faith in foolish-seeming promises. You cannot truly live unless you first die (John 12:25). The meek will inherit the earth (Matt 5:5). The church will storm the gates of hell (Matt 16:18). Every nation and tongue will one day contain believers (Rev 7:9). Weakness is actually strength (2 Cor 12:9). Suffering is actually meant for good (Rom 8:28).
Yet as year by year the costs mount for minds, bodies, and bank accounts, it’s not only the world or worldly Christians who might say of these kinds of lives “What a waste, what a joke, what a shame.” Even gospel laborers themselves can sometimes look at the material fruit of their lives and feel the same way. “After all the costs, what do I have to show for it? The world is ashamed of my life. I feel ashamed of my life. Perhaps even God is ashamed of my life.”
These gospel laborers – and all Christians – need to remember the truth of Hebrews 11:16. God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has already built the city, the eternal inheritance, that awaits his foolish-seeming tent-dwellers. The world cannot see it, but a new heavens and new earth are coming, more certain than the sunrise. And when it is revealed, when the foundations are exposed by the final storm, the seemingly foolish will suddenly be seen as the truly wise, and the worldly-wise and wealthy will mourn at all that they have wasted. These latter await the terrible prospect of the God of the universe seeing the fruit of their lives and turning away from them, ashamed of them.
A great reversal is coming. The nomads will inherit the earth. And like the saints of Hebrews 11, happy is the Christian whose costly investments reflect the reality of that day. And happy is the God whose name they are given.
We will be fully funded and headed back to the field when 42 more friends become monthly or annual supporters. If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
This week I came across an old note from the end of our first term recording lessons we had learned and were learning when it came to church planting among our Central Asian people group. It’s been six years since I wrote this note, but these takeaways hold up pretty well. For context, see where I’ve written elsewhere about lessons learned from a wolf attack and why it took 7.5 years to raise up our first local elder.
1. Leaders MUST present a united front when dealing with a divisive man, guard against him dividing them.
2. Some believers feel entitled to rent money if meeting is in their house and church salaries. We need to address this upfront.
3. Dig much much deeper before committing to a believer with a really bad reputation.
4. Speak openly about how giving money is and is not used, reinforce regularly that we do not believe in Jesus in order to get money.
5. Be much slower with traditional locals to brainstorm about starting businesses, etc., due to patron/client entitlement issues.
6. Local believers will go to their leaders first when they see a problem with another believer rather than address it directly. This is what they know to do. How to navigate this?
7. Men are tested both by how they use money and what they do when they are not given money. Same thing with power.
8. Meeting in someone’s house gives them a certain measure of power. It is then very hard to discipline them because of that power.
9. Believers bitter about money can very easily twist the truth about our financial situation as missionaries and use it effectively to destroy trust.
10. We should look for trustworthy locals who can interpret indirect communication that is happening around us.
11. Locals will gather semi-publicly if they see a vibrant body of believers, will invite others.
12. Locals will grow in a simple meeting with worship, prayer, and biblical teaching – even if led by foreigners.
13. Some local believers are too quick to do the sinner’s prayer and pronounce someone a believer.
14. House church meetings could use a clear, visible, executive leader to call the shots publicly, but we should guard against the cultural strong man inclinations.
15. We may be somehow able to ask for proof to back up believers stories about persecution, theft, etc. But not yet clear how.
16. It is very tricky to navigate more than two cultures at a time. Multicultural teams have their pluses as well as their minuses.
17. Beware of the Facebook Christian industrial complex that can be predatory. We are not working in a vacuum. Prep believers for when they are approached by outsiders with promises of money, cooperation, or traditions that we have not introduced.
18. Watch out for believers who are super judgmental of small things and other believers. They might be in hidden sin.
19. Mutual clarity on next steps every single week is crucial to avoid misunderstandings as a team.
20. The level of duplicity practiced by some locals is far beyond what we have experienced elsewhere. Pray for supernatural discernment.
21. Locals are not passive regarding leadership. Some will seize it if they see an opportunity. Firm biblical plural leadership is needed, without giving up the temporary apostolic leadership model.
22. Locals tend to idolize then demonize their leaders.
23. Locals in meetings are helped by a clear program and clear boundaries. They are drawn to structure, plans, organization, and institution while we are heading in the opposite direction because of our own Western culture. Our orientations toward institutions are very different. We are skeptical while they are enamored. Seeing a certain amount of organization and program may be part of the threshold which makes locals feel free to gather with others.
24. Our joy must not be rooted in our friends’ performance or in the status of the work!
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Manuel* was ready to be baptized. And since it was late Spring, the church opted to plan a baptism picnic. From where we were living, a short trip into the mountains would take us to a nice lake area created by a large dam. This is a favorite picnic area for locals since the lake and the river proceeding from the dam mean opportunities for swimming and even the occasional rental jet-ski. Hence why it can also be a good fit for baptisms. Some readers may recall that this is the same area where once, during the worst dust storm in decades, we had to buy our kids marijuana-themed underpants.
Beforehand, the women had divided the food responsibilities amongst themselves. My wife was assigned the unenviable task of bringing what in the local language is called the “sweety,” i.e. the cake. Now, locals tend to prefer cakes that look like they are on their way to prom but taste like cardboard. We Westerners don’t care as much about how fancy the cake looks, but we like it to have lots of delicious icing, which locals say makes it way too sweet. This is a bit confusing to us since they like to eat baklava with Coke, which we find way too sweet. In any case, turns out the happy middle ground is sweet-ish desserts like banana bread, carrot cake, and other breads/cakes of this genre. So, my wife had made a carrot cake of this variety (with no icing) in a large glass casserole dish. It was stashed in the back of our family’s Kia SUV, along with some other food and picnic supplies.
As usual, we all met up at a gas station on the edge of town in order to buy any needed supplies and to rearrange the food and passengers in whatever vehicles we had. In all of the mixing and matching, Patty* and her teenage daughter ended up with us, and this somehow meant that our two young kids were asked to clamber up into our vehicle through the back hatch of the SUV. This had them climbing over the food. So, of course, one of them stepped directly in the middle of the baptism cake. The cake had been covered in a layer of plastic wrap, but the imprint of a little foot in the middle of the cake was unmistakable. Oh well, we thought, we’ll deal with that later. It was now almost lunch time and we still had an hour’s drive ahead of us.
To find a good baptism location, we’d need to consider several factors. First, the water would need to be deep enough, slow enough, and easy enough to get in and out of. Second, the spot would need to be both private enough and public enough for a Christian baptism in a context of moderate Islamic persecution. Third, its picnic potential would need to satisfy the majority of the locals – who by then we’d learned love to argue ad nauseam about the pros and cons of various picnic locations. American men pride themselves on their superior opinions about barbecuing, road trip methodology, thermostat settings, and the like. Central Asian men pride themselves on their superior opinions about being able to find the perfect picnic spot.
The first location that we drove to was a picnic house of sorts right up alongside the river. It had been vouched for by Mr. Talent* as an ideal location. Next to the small house, there was a large covered cement veranda for the picnic meal, complete with metal stairs that led down into the current. But one look over the railing down at the fast-moving water had Manuel shaking his head. Like most locals, Manuel was not a great swimmer – and that current was fast and strong, freezing, several feet deep, and running over slick rocks. Even though I had grown up swimming in the rivers of Melanesia, I also wasn’t confident that it would be safe to put a big man like Manuel under the water in a place like that.
Much debate ensued with Mr. Talent vigorously defending his chosen location. At last, we all decided to pile back in the vehicles to go to a spot that Frank* claimed had nice and slow-flowing water and lots of greenery. By now it was past lunchtime. Another fifteen minutes of driving brought us to the picnic spot that Frank suggested. It seemed to have been some kind of smaller river created by an overflow pipe from the dam. It also seemed like it had been very popular this season because it was trashed. Watermelon rinds, flies, sunflower seed shells, and evidence of hookah smoking were everywhere. The water itself was slow enough, but it was quite dirty, even stagnant. The whole place smelled of rotten eggs, plus there was no longer any good ground for our picnic mats that had not yet been trampled into mud. Once again, heated debate ensued.
By this time, Patty was starving. Patty, a foodie and quite the impressive chef herself, decided that it was no longer logical for her and her daughter to wait for these men to make up their minds. She needed to eat something. So, she opened up the back of our vehicle to start rummaging through the food. This is when Patty made a noise and held up the cake to show it to us. To our great frustration, we saw that there were now two little footprints in the baptism cake. We assumed this would make the cake inedible, but while we lectured our offspring about watching where they were stepping, Patty simply grabbed a disposable fork and started eating the cake directly from the dish – though carefully avoiding the areas with the little footprints.
At some point, Manuel spoke up, telling the crowd of haggling and gesticulating men that he had a spot that he knew at the upper part of the lake which would do just fine, at least for the baptism. Everyone seemed good to defer to the actual person getting baptized, so a decision was made that a smaller group of us men would drive up to this spot. Once we were finished the dunking we would all meet back at the original location that Mr. Talent had chosen. The women greeted this news with nonplussed expressions. The kids were starting to lose it, it was getting hot, and all of us were getting hungry. Patty and her daughter, for their part, were hiding behind our vehicle, making good work of the baptism cake.
Thankfully, this third baptism location seemed like it would work. The water of the lake was warm, still, and deep enough. The only issue was the depth of the mud. As you stepped into the water, your feet sank down into many inches of brown muck which sent little chocolate clouds billowing up around you. I double-checked with Manuel that this really was okay. But he insisted that this would do just fine. So, one of the local brothers and I waded out and flanked Manuel in waste-deep water. We asked him the baptism questions, then, based on his profession of faith, together put him under the water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He came up out of that muddy water beaming with joy. I was reminded that, imperfect though our day had been, baptism is still an amazing thing.
We were a happy vehicle driving back down to the picnic house, where we knew hours of drinking chai, eating skewered meat, singing worship songs, and fellowshipping awaited us. To my great amazement, when we arrived, my wife and Patty were passing out little cubes of baptism cake. I raised my eyebrows and gave my wife a questioning look.
“There was a little bit left between the footprints and what Patty had scarfed down,” she said, “so we just cut around those parts.”
I stared down suspiciously at my little chunk of “sweety” that had been through so much already that day.
“Just eat it,” my wife said with a sly smile. “Nobody has to know.”
So I did. I ate my little piece of baptism cake. And it was downright tasty.
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“But do we have any precedent in the Bible for incorporating diverse styles of worship?”
The question was an unexpected one. One reason plural leadership is so good is because invariably one elder will come up with a question no one else is thinking of. The rest of us were just assuming that it was right and good to expand our church’s styles of musical worship to better reflect our diverse congregation. It seemed to fit with the Revelation 7:9 vision and with the fact that the New Testament advocates generally for Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Col 3:16), but otherwise seems to leave the details of musical worship up to the wisdom of the local churches – assemblies which were no longer just Jewish, but were fast becoming also Greek, Roman, Scythian, Persian, etc.
The question got me thinking. How much of a case is there in the Bible for the practice of incorporating diverse styles of music in the regular worship of our churches? After percolating on this for a number of years, I’ve become more and more convinced that a quiet but convincing biblical case can be built that God delights in receiving worship in the many musical styles of the world, just as he delights in receiving worship in the many languages and cultures of the world. And that this case can be built from the hymnal of Israel and the early church – the Psalms. This case is built on the history and context of the Psalms, as well as on the nature of music itself.
When it comes to its nature, music is much like language or culture; namely, like a cloud. Music does not sit still. It cannot. It’s always slowly changing and moving, shifting and developing in ways that clearly reflect where it’s been yet defy even the most skillful predictions of where it’s going next. With music, just add time and you will inevitably get substantive changes in method and style. Seeking to ‘freeze’ a musical tradition as that which truly represents a people is just as futile as trying to ‘freeze’ a language. You can protest all you like, but they will go on changing. They are clouds, after all, not mountains. Their nature is a moving one.
This is where the history and the context of the Psalms come in. We are told that Moses is the author of Psalm 90, which would make it the earliest psalm that we have. Moses was likely living and writing around 1400 BC. Of course, the most famous psalmist is King David, writing 400 years after Moses, around 1000 BC. Yet other psalms are attributed to Hezekiah (Ps 46-48), who was living around 700 BC, 300 years after David. The latest psalm seems to be Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon,” which clearly speaks of the Judean exile to Babylon which took place in the 500s. That means there’s a span of roughly 900 years between the writing of the earliest and the latest Psalm.
That’s a lot of time for a given musical tradition to undergo all kinds of natural internal development. Were you to time travel, you’d likely recognize some elements of the music of the Judean exiles all the way back in the music of Moses. But Moses – were he to travel with you to Babylon – would probably be a little offended at what had become of his beloved Hebrew musical tradition. This is because the changes would have been considerable, perhaps as great as if he were encountering the music of a foreign nation.
Add to this the fact that musical style, again, like language and culture, does not exist in a vacuum. Musical styles borrow from one another, just as languages borrow vocab from their neighbors. Instruments and melodies get adopted from one culture to another at perhaps an even faster rate than words since music itself has a quality that seems able to transcend other natural differences. This is why it’s sometimes been labeled “the universal language.” This means that whatever musical traditions Abraham’s household brought with them from Ur probably picked up Canaanite/Hittite influences in the several generations that passed until Joseph’s time. After this, 400 years of Egyptian sojourn and slavery would have made its own significant imprint on the musical style of the Hebrews by the time Moses got to writing the first psalm. Once back in the promised land, another 400 years of musical mingling in Canaan brings us to the time of David. And the centuries of monarchy would have had their own cross-pollination. Finally, it’s not far-fetched to assume that Jewish music would have been influenced dramatically during the exile. Just remember what happened to the Hebrew language.
So, when the Psalter is finally finished in its current form, post-exile, the Psalms represent roughly 1,000 years of the natural diversity that emerges within one musical tradition – as well as the added diversity of external influence from at least Mesopotamian, Canaanite, and Egyptian musical styles. The finalized Psalter, before its melodies were lost, would not have been a ‘pure’ representation of the Jewish ethnic musical style. Instead, it would have been a collection of songs that represented a Jewish synthesis, one representing a long absorption of melodies and styles from many centuries, geographies, and cultures.
Perhaps a Jew in exile singing the Psalms of David would feel similar to how we feel when singing O Come O Come Emmanuel, one of the oldest melodies that we still sing in Evangelical churches. The song’s lyrics are in fact much older, but the earliest record of its current melody comes from France, about 600 years ago. Hum the melody of this song to yourself and notice how it seems to be from a different world. That’s because it is from a different world. It may be a familiar part of our Western European Christian tradition, but every time we sing it we are singing a song from a very different time and culture. For an even older tune, listen to a song from 1700 years ago, Phos Hilaron. Then compare these old melodies with the music of today. Even if you cut out the warp-speed mutations that happened to music in the 20th century, it’s stunning how diverse music can be in one religious tradition.
What’s my point? Essentially, the Psalms are evidence that the songbook of the people of God was one that originally contained a rich diversity of musical styles. We can know this because of the nature of music and because of the history and context of the Psalms themselves. Apparently, God ordained that his people, for centuries, sing diverse melodies, some of which would not have felt like the stirring tunes of their particular generation, but rather the music of other peoples and other centuries. In this, we have a quiet case for using diverse musical styles in our churches.
This really matters, though we don’t typically feel how much it matters until we are ourselves a minority worshipping in the melodies of other cultures and lands. One of our African American pastors recently stood up and shared, in tears, how much it ministered to his soul that our church choir had sung a song from the black gospel tradition when the Anglo-Irish melodies of our reformed circles are our more standard fare. Back in Central Asia, we once took the melody from one of the most requested local worship songs and wrote new English lyrics to it so that it could be sung in the international church where we were members. Since then it has become a favorite song of the church’s many members who are from a Muslim background. We should want to serve the diverse members of our churches with melodies that help the words reach their souls – and those are often melodies from the musical traditions that they grew up with.
This is why it can be so hard for the majority culture of a given church to incorporate diverse musical styles in its worship. Because the melodies the church typically sings are from their culture and tradition, the majority already feel the sweet union of the words and the melodies down in their bones. It can take a while for them to realize that for those from other musical traditions, that double encouragement is not necessarily taking place. But in the Psalms there seems to be precedent for both – singing the melodies that feel like the songs of your people and singing the melodies that feel like you are being transported to a foreign land.
Here it must be said that it is indeed possible to be edified by singing the songs of another people, another culture, another century. It takes time and growth, yes, but it can happen, and it is healthy to learn how to be fed with melodies from the distant past as well as with others that just don’t hit your heart in thatway (yet). Keep singing them and meditating on the truth they contain. You may be surprised at what happens to you as those foreign-seeming melodies slowly inch closer and closer to your heart. Just as a deep view of church history and a broad view of the global church serve to strengthen the believer’s head, so equivalent Christian music may serve to expand his heart.
Do we have any precedent in the Bible for incorporating diverse styles of worship in our services? I say yes, and not just in the New Testament. Even in the Old, we see that one style and culture of music is not sufficient for the worship and delight of God. Instead, he quietly included 1,000 years of musical diversity in his Psalter long before he sent the New Testament Church out to write and sing new hymns and spiritual songs to the ends of the earth. The New Testament posture toward musical worship that we’ll see in full bloom in heaven (and even now is flourishing) had its first budding in the Psalter. In it we can see the shoots of both freedom and tradition, service to others as well as room for our own souls to drink deep.
So then, sing to the lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth (Ps 96)! Sing an old song too. And while you’re at it, for the sake of that refugee in your service, sing a foreign one as well.
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The first time I remember noticing her was when visiting local museums. The exhibits that showed what the inside of local houses used to look like regularly featured wooden chests. Inside these colorfully painted chests were usually blankets and cushions for guests. But on the outside of the chests were mirror fragments – and a painting of a strange woman-snake hybrid. I’ve also seen her hung up on walls as part of a tapestry or framed painting. In the local languages, she is called the Queen of Snakes. And I’m beginning to suspect that she has played a dark role in the historical beliefs of our people group.
The Queen of Snakes was never quite prominent enough for me to pay her much attention. Far more prominent were the evil eye pendants that seemed to show up everywhere. But listening to the Haunted Cosmos podcast got me thinking more deeply about the folk mythology of our people. Turns out there are some disturbing similarities between the Queen of Snakes and the strategies the enemy has used to deceive the nations from the very beginning. First, the story.
The tale of the Queen of Snakes often begins with a young man who is hunting for honey in caves. While exploring deep in a cave, he comes across a massive snake-like creature that has the body and head of a snake on one end and the torso and head of a woman on the other. He is terrified, but the creature tells him that she is not evil, but benevolent. She says that she is able to give him secret knowledge. The young man decides to stay with her and they eventually fall in love. After a long season of happiness, the young man must return to the city. But the Queen of Snakes warns him to tell no one about her, and that living with her has changed him. Now, if his skin gets wet, it will appear as the scaly skin of a snake.
After the young man returns to the city, the king becomes deathly ill. His viziers tell him that the only thing that can save him now is if he can eat the flesh of the mythical Queen of Snakes. No one, however, knows how to find her. But they do know that water can expose anyone who has been in her presence. So, the soldiers of the king go around pouring water on all the citizens of the city. Eventually, they find the young man when his skin betrays him. Under torture, he reveals the location of the Queen of Snakes.
The king’s men then bring the Queen of Snakes to the city. Right before they kill and cook her so that the king can eat her flesh and live, she gives a warning. She says that anyone who eats her head will be poisoned and will die. But if anyone eats her tail (presumably the snake head, but some allege it’s the other way around), they will live. The king, of course, orders that the Queen of Snakes be killed and cooked so that he can eat the tail. The young man, despairing in the death of his lover, eats flesh from the head. But it was a trick. In reality, the tail contained the poison while the head contained secret knowledge from time immemorial. The king dies, but the young man becomes the wisest man in the land and a great sheikh.
Okay, so this is a weird and creepy story. But is that all it is? How has the story of the Queen of Snakes affected the day-to-day spiritual practices of our people group? Well, more research here is needed. But this is what I’ve been able to figure out so far.
First, the image of the Queen of Snakes is believed to bring good luck and protection in general. This follows the theme from the story that she was a source of hidden wisdom. More specifically, the Snake Queen’s image has been used as a talisman to ward off sickness. This makes sense given the power of the Queen of Snakes in the story to provide healing. But the image of the Queen of Snakes has also been used to promote fertility. A picture of her is a very important part of a woman’s dowry – and that picture is then hung in the bridal chamber. In summary, the grandparents of my Central Asian friends believe that the talisman of this chimera provides protection, good fortune, wisdom, and fertility. And they want to make sure that this image is looking down on the marriage bed.
Yep, this sounds Satanic. First, there’s the twisting of the image of the serpent so that what is naturally repulsive and the enemy of the woman is instead believed to be a benevolent being. The most common position on the internet regarding the Snake Queen has her functioning as a symbol and even a patron saint of sorts for the women of our region. Second, there’s the whole theme of secret knowledge that this being promises. A friendly serpent being that offers hidden knowledge gives off some pretty serious Genesis 3 vibes.
But this is not the only way in which the lore around this creature is attempting to usurp power that belongs to God alone. The Queen of Snakes is also held up as giver and restorer of life. She gives fertility and she gives healing. And how does she do this? Well, in the story you have to eat her flesh. Some versions of the story even have successive serpentine offspring incarnating the Queen of Snakes after each of her deaths, meaning that she also possesses the key to new birth and immortality.
Now, in a disturbing – though honestly predictable – twist, the image of the Queen of Snakes has been adopted by LGBTQ activists in our region to promote their agenda.
Once we are back on the ground I need to do more research to see how this demonic element of folk religion is actually functioning among our people group. I need to ask my friends and their sisters, “What do you believe about the Queen of Snakes – and what did your grandma believe such that she put pictures of her up in even the most intimate parts of the home?” But even from the little bit that I know already, certain steps for local believers seem clear.
First, get rid of any Queen of Snakes images that you might have in your house. Sure, it might make your great aunt upset if you burn that talisman painting she gave you, but you really should chuck it – even if it’s only out of an abundance of caution. Yes, the presence of the Holy Spirit protects believers, but this shouldn’t make us cocky. In the mysteries of the spiritual realm, sometimes even objects can be used by the enemy to cause some serious trouble. You may be immune, but Christian history and common sense would indicate that you really don’t want something like that in your house while you’ve got kids who haven’t yet come to faith. Take dominion over your space, and just like Hama and Tara who took down their Islamic paraphernalia during the saga of plastic Jesus, get rid of the snake woman too.
Second, no longer believe and speak of the Queen of Snakes as some benevolent pro-woman character that’s a positive part of your heritage. All the evidence indicates that there’s at least some level of demonic deception involved in this creature. Christians will need a new posture toward this part of their traditional folk art.
Third, proclaim that the things the Queen of Snakes claims power to do are the territory of God alone. He alone is protector, healer, giver of children, and source of true wisdom. In all of these areas, the Queen of Snakes was a liar, a deceiver, and a usurper.
Finally, celebrate the victory that Christ has accomplished over not just Islam, but also over all the dark things of folk religion that clutter up the metaphorical basement of your worldview. Christ “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col 2:15). When Jesus on the cross crushed the head of the serpent’s seed, he also crushed the power of the Queen of Snakes. Through the open proclamation of that good news in your language, she will no longer able to deceive you, your grandma, or your future bride. And that is very good news.
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This video from the Great Commission Council seeks to clarify the difference between an indigenous church and an international church. For many contexts around the world, it shouldn’t be an either/or, but a both/and. Healthy international churches and indigenous churches can work together to see a city reached. The difference is that one ministers in the indigenous language and culture and the other ministers in a globally or regionally dominant language and culture (such as English).
It is of crucial importance that both kinds of assemblies aim to fulfill the New Testament’s vision for a local church. International churches need to watch out for how transience and a “lowest common denominator for the sake of unity” posture can keep them from becoming healthy churches that exhibit all twelve needed characteristics. Indigenous churches likewise need to watch out for how local culture will be a barrier to their growth into full maturity.
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