Missions 101

The Letter to Pergamum reads:

 12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has ethe sharp two-edged sword.

13 “‘I know where you dwell, fwhere Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith2 even in the days of Antipas hmy faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. 15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’ 

I believe there are two primary ways Satan attacks the church – by killing the saints and through false teaching.   The letter to Pergamum in the book of Revelation plays this out. 

 First, we find Antipas, the faithful witness, killed.  This is the work of the first beast in Revelation 13.  He attacks the saints of God through persecution and at times, death.  Even this week, Newsweek’s current cover-story is “The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World.”  Are you surprised?

A few years ago ago Italian journalist Antonio Socci presented his work during a conference on "Anti-Christian Persecution in the 20th Century" held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum.  "I handed in the draft of the book in January; since then the martyrdom of Christians has had no letup," the author noted.  Socci´s map of the current persecution highlights countries where Christians are dying for their faith and it includes the Molucca Islands of Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, East Timor, Cuba, the former Soviet republics, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, Vietnam, China and others.  According to the author, the two currents that fuel the persecution of Christians today are Communism and Muslim fundamentalism.

In two millennia of Christian history, about 70 million faithful have given their lives for the faith, and of these, 45.5 million -- fully 65% -- were in the last century, according to "The New Persecuted"

This is attack can be pretty easy to see. It is slightly complicated by tribalism (not necessarily direct persecution of faith, but tribal warfare), but the bottom line is still the same.  Persecution that causes economic and physical hardship is easy to identify.

The second attack comes through false teaching being introduced into the church. This is the work of the second beast of Revelation 13 who looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon.  You can’t tell the work of the beast by how he looks, but by what he says.  False teachers never wear a sign announcing themselves.  You have to discern who they are by the content of their words. 

In Pergamum false teachers were syncretizing the Christian faith and with it came some sort of moral compromise (like most false teaching!).  The church of Ephesus had tested every teacher who had come into their fellowship (Rev 2:2) and identified those who were false.  Pergamum has failed in this regard.  It is amazing to think that while physical persecution was taking place, Jesus still challenges them.  You think Jesus would just pat them on the back and encourage them.  Instead, He threatens!  

So here is the question: Which one is harder to deal with?

Satan’s attack of phyiscal persecution is easy to see and agree with others that is happening.  It typically unifies the church and rallies brothers and sisters in Christ of a wide theological spectrum together.  I am not saying that physical persecution is not hard, but at least we can agree on what it is when we see it.  Plus, when a Christian dies, they ultimate defeat Satan.

False teaching causes all sorts of problems.  One, Christians can’t even agree on what false teaching is, sometimes when it concerns the most basic of doctrines.  A cursory reading of the New Testament finds that false teaching is the primary cause of problems in the early church.  Sure, Stephen was stoned and countless others were killed, but that only caused the roots of Christian faith to sink deeper and spread farther.  Someone once said “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”  That is not always true, but most times it captures what happens during physical persecution.

False teaching splits churches, confuses saints, ruins ministries and inhibits evangelism. Has martyrdom ever done that? Maybe at some level, yes, but false teaching does more harm.  No wonder a significant portion of the New Testament is focused on right belief!

Many gracious and thoughtful responses have already been written regarding James MacDonald, Mark Driscoll and their seeming embrace of T.D. Jakes.  For a timeline read here and for some helpful interaction read here and here.  I only wish to make a small contribution.

These days I travel quite a bit and can tell you with almost absolute certainty the the most well-known American pastor in Africa is T.D. Jakes.  When he has come to east Africa, thousands come to hear him and his gospel.  Here is the rub - the missionaries in these countries are constantly fighting against Jake's view of God and his prosperity message. Many (most?) of them perceive him as a dangerous false teacher that brings harm to believers and the church.

In seminaries in east Africa lecturing on the Trinity I have asked if students believe modalism is wrong.  "Of course," they reply!  But when I read to them statements from Jakes (at least statements in the past!) they are shocked to learn he is not Trinitarian.  Maybe he has changed his mind.  I wonder if he believes he was ever a modalist.  

One of the unintended consequences of this whole thing is the impact it will have on Christians around the world - especially in sub-Sahara Africa.  Maybe there were many private conversations that took place between the leaders of the Elephant Room and Jakes where they felt comfortable with his theological convictions.  Maybe not.  Bottom line, harm has been done.  How?

The event was set up as an interaction between brothers who beleive a common gospel.  Later, McDonald edited the statement out, but then reaffirmed it later.  This in the end is the problem.  I don't mind dialogue with people who disagree.  I think it's great.  But the soundbite quality of the discussion means that nothing is really going to be made clear.  Jakes wasn't pushed on his Trinitiarian views or asked about the prosperity gospel.  MacDonald seems to believe the relationship wasn't ready to press on the latter issue.  But honestly, MacDonald and Driscoll have named many people from the pulpit they believe are false teachers, and they certainly don't know them all.  For better (courage) or worse (unwise), they are known as men who do not hold back what they are thinking - ever.

It would have been wonderful and much easier to swallow if the event had of been couched in different terms.  Instead, when I go back to Africa, I will know that men whose theological convictions are close to mine embraced the man that has brought great harm to the Church where I try to help pastors gain solid theological understanding. 

Right to Life Sunday has new meaning for our family.  You may remember a post back in November where I told a personal story of a doctor changing the wording from child to fetus when explaining the option to abort my wife's pregnancy because of a potential tumor on our child's heart. I have had a lot of time to reflect on that conversation and things I might have done better when talking with the doctor.  

First, I should say that we had another ultrasound.  This one was in 3D.  Does that look like a human?

The pictures gave my wife some solace after she has been kicked and punched so often by our child.  So there he/she was, the child with the identical nose of our other three the doctor offered to abort if there was a heart problem.  

I've wondered how to pray about this whole thing.  At our church, over 150 children have been born or adopted this past year.  With so many pregnant women there are bound to be hard situations.  Autism, rare diseases, physical and mental disabilities are all part of web of life at Bethlehem.  We even have families the purposefully adopt "special-needs" children.  I read Greg Lucas's book Wrestling with an Angel last month and imagined what my life could be like.  I've also had friends over the last few months who didn't receive the good news we did.  So I have prayed along these lines:

Lord, I don't know what to pray for.  I love you.  I trust you.  You have never hurt me to harm me. I can look back and see your marks of grace and mercy all over my life and look ahead and see storm clouds.  You know what is coming my way.  I want to pray for healing, but I know you are knitting together this child for your glory.  This is not some punishment, though some I am sure believe this.  Our child is yours.  I have friends with many difficult circumstances regarding their children.  We are all laid bare by the hand we have been played. So I pray for strength.  For those with special children with difficult needs, give them grace to overcome, to be patient and to not be jealous or dream of what they wish their child would be.  Help them to love their children, to love their spouse.  Protect their marriage.  It's hard enough with three healthy children, I can only imagine what it would be like with a child that takes up as much time as the other three.  Still, I am not sure how to pray.  So strengthen my wife, my children and me.  Be with us.  That will be more than enough.

This prayer is full of tension, but that is the point!

I was recently reading an exchange Sam Crabtree had with a pro-choicer.  My conversation did not go so well.  I have read The Case for Life and should have been ready to respond when the doctor gave me the options.  But I froze, still in shock at the news.  Of course, most conversations go better when they are rerun in our head and played out in imaginary conversations.  I have never lost an argument with my wife this way, and I have convinced the doctor that my child has a right to life at least 100 times these past months.  I think it is good that I froze.  It means next time I am ready.  Ready to say that physical disability does not make anyone less human.  That the potential nuerological disability does not make anyone less human.  This is what it boils down to - is the picture being taken during the ultrasound a human being or not?

So on this Right to Life Sunday I will probably look over at my wife and watch my child hit her so hard that the book resting on her stomach is knocked right off.  Yes, that is my child, not just a fetus.

Some of the best advice I have ever received came from Scott Manetch when he warned me not to use a "bag of tricks" when you go into ministry.  He explained how most pastors stay at a church for 3-4 years and then move on.  One reason, he suggested, was because many pastors only had three years worth of sermons, ideas and programs in his bag of tricks.  When the pastor ran out he would move on to another church and recycle everything again.

The root of this (I think) is being a second-hander.  We may push children to make their faith their own, but pastors seemingly must do the same.  Here are seven signs that you are setting yourself up to be or are a second-hander.

1.  In school, when you are assigned an exegesis paper, you run to the commentaries and your conclusion first.  You short-circuit your own work and effort by not staring at the text over and over again.  Time is of the essence so you hurry through the process.  The result - you have just written a paper on Romans 8 that is almost identical to Doug Moo's commentary.  You get a good grade, you learned something about the text, but you skipped the process of learning.

2.  Speaking of languages, you rely on your computer software to parse everything for you.  Even when called upon in class, you look hard into your computer screen and then say what the program tells you.  Teachers would be smart to not allow computers in exegesis classes!

3.  You get assigned a text to preach and you immediately go to The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God websites for help. You listen to a few sermons, make an outline, add a personal story and boom, you are done!  Funny thing - it sounds just like John Piper's sermon last week.  I remember being in preaching lab in seminary and three people having the same sermon.  To say pastors continue to use others sermons in an unhelpful way is an understatement.  Just read here.  By the time you preach on Sundays, your sermon really are just insights from your three favorite preachers.  

4.  You would rather read book reviews than books, books about the Bible instead of the Bible, books on prayer instead of praying. Books reviews are helpful.  So are commentaries and books on prayer.  But these are secondary sources, not primary.  

5.  You rely on what you learned 10 years ago instead of what you learned over the last 10 years.  The Bible is not fresh.   All of your insights are from mentors and teachers before they unleashed you on the Church.  You may have bought books at a conference or from a great online deal, but you only read a few, if you are lucky!

6.  When you awake in the morning, you run to the blogs and news to hear what people say about Scripture instead of reading it for yourself.

7. All of your ideas are someone elses.  This includes ideas for what your church is involved in.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It is bad if you find that you are reduplicating the same plan in different contexts with different people.  

I believe what happens in the process of using secondary sources first, you become a caricature of what you had hoped to become.  You imagine yourself to know far more than you do.  But honestly, the roots of Scripture are only an inch deep.  You can not be a firmly planted tree by streams of water without delight and meditation. One thinks of the end of C.S. Lewis's Four Loves as he reflects on his own experience of God:

God knows, not I, whether I have ever tasted this love.  Perhaps I have only imagined the tasting.  Those like myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have reached.  If we describe what we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that we have really been there.

Seminaries and graduate schools around the world are asking for PhD holders to come as missionaries and teach Bible and theology.  I know of one major seminary in Europe who posted their openings in a major evangelical magazine, only to find no takers.  Why is this and how can we help?

Why They Are Hard to Find

1.  God has not called them.  This is simple enough.  To go to another culture with your wife and kids usually requires God to uproot you in some way that is so clear that you believe God is leading you to the field.   

2.  Some think raising money is below their degree.  I only write this because I have heard it so often.  Raising support is for the M.Div. students, so I have been told.  It is for the staff of some campus ministry or for helping orphans and those on the margins of society. I know of many that would rather work at Starbucks or UPS than ask people for their support to go overseas. 

3.  It is a career killer, or maybe better an inhibitor.  You can't participate at ETS/SBL. Your library (if you have one) is more limited.  The education level of the students (in some cases) is at a much lower level then what you find in the US (though that seems to be changing for the worse here).  Their colleagues might not be as educated and able to provide them helpful feedback or sharpening of ones own skills.

4.  It may involve learning ANOTHER language.  Most PhD students have learned Greek, Hebrew, German and French and now we are asking them to potentially teach it all in another language.  This is a real challenge.  Who wants to spend 2-3 years trying to master Japanese in order to teach Greek when your mother tongue in English after having spent years toiling with participles?

5.  You don't have very many friends who can support you.  One reality that faces graduates is that in the last six years you have probably lived in three different locations, and in each locations you probably did not make a lot of friends.  You have spent a lot of time in libraries or have probably only gotten to know your fellow classmates.

6.  You can still teach modular classes overseas without leaving your job in the US. 

7.  Debt.  Plain and simple, going to school costs a lot of money.  Very few escape with a PhD and less than $45K of school loans from the various institutions they have attended (at least in my experience).

How The Church Can Help

1.  Pray God calls them (or me or you).  There is such a great need for well-trained, godly, pastoral cross-cultural teachers.  

2.  Challenge the belief that fundraising is not for them.  Have them read Steve Shadrach's Viewpoints.  It could be that one of the reasons people have a hard time asking for support is because they do not think the people around them are generous.  That is fair.  That means we should be even more open in our generosity and encourage them to go by pledging our support.  

3. Seminaries in the west must talk to students about the global Church and do so often.  It is not enough to talk about it in the Missions 101 class.  It should permeate all of our classes.  Maybe seminaries should offer some full rides to students interested in teaching in developing countries.

4.  Churches, especially the YRR crowd, should talk about being missional not just in their community, but around the world.  They should also disciple these students and get them into small groups with people in the church who are not theology students, but serving the Lord in different career paths.   

5.  Create a way to get rid of the debt.  I have prayed that some donor would come to TLI or set up on their own a fund that would pay off the debt of PhD's if they committed to 5 years of service overseas. Medical doctors have a program like this.  I believe this incentive would unleash many into service.

I am sure there are many reasons people do not go and many more ways we can help them.  This is just a starting point.