PBS: Secret State of North Korea

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North Korea

PBS/Frontline’s “Secret State of North Korea” is worth watching. While watching, my wife quipped, “Look at the scope of the Evil One.” I remember, too, the word of a friend from South Korea: “We [South Koreans] believe North Korea will soon collapse; it cannot survive.” Find the air time of the show in your area.

I just added Lankov’s, The Real North Korea to my Amazon cart.

 

 

 

Ferguson, MO, Unreached

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Ferguson MO, Unreached People Groups

Someone who loves me dearly asked me not to make public commentary on the happenings in Ferguson and the related conversations about racial injustice in America. (Sigh.) It is hard to let such a significant series of events pass without comment. However, it is great to have someone who deeply loves you make a plea for you to use wisdom. So I am not making public commentary.

I do not need to add my little voice to the streams of important observations made by the likes Wm. Dwight McKissic, Sr., Voddie Baucham, Thabiti Anyabwile (also here), Benjamin Watson, Leon Brown, Jarvis Williams, Carl Ellis, Russell Moore, Al Mohler, and Harold Dean Trulear. However, I do want to say this again: I ask, “Where are all the brothers?” because African American men remain one of the most Unreached People Groups in North America:

An unreached or least-reached people is a people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group.

The original Joshua Project editorial committee selected the criteria less than 2% Evangelical Christian and less than 5% Christian Adherents. While these percentage figures are somewhat arbitrary, “we should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a whole culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision.” – Robert Bellah, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, originally quote in Psychology Today in the 1970s, currently quoted in Christianity Today Oct 2011: 42.

(The Joshua Project provides this definition. We assume African American men are reached. I would suggest they fall well within the definition of “Unreached.”)

Reaching my brothers in the flesh is part of the task of those being obedient to the Gospel. If those men of color in Ferguson we see in the news throwing rocks and bottles, swearing in absolute rage, burning cars and buildings, and taunting the police and National Guard were, instead, men transformed by the good news of Christ’s death for sin and resurrection for righteousness (cf. Rom. 4:25), the local and national responses to Ferguson would be vastly different – even in the midst of a perceived miscarriage of justice. Such truth does not nullify the need for institutional justice. Yet it does remind us that the real battle lines are not in human realms even though they are played out in the human realms:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore… as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. (Ephesians 6:12-15 ESV)

Comments are good and necessary. Boldly sharing the Gospel has eternal and present implications. Go tell an African American man about the love of God in Christ, and do so without fear.

 

 

 

 

 

Voddie Baucham Heading to Zambia

From the Grace Family Baptist Church site:

During the Semi-Annual business meeting on November 5, 2014, the GfBC Elders announced that Dr. Voddie Baucham will be moving his family to Zambia in the fall of 2015.  Dr. Baucham has been appointed as the President/Head of the Seminary at African Christiian University in Lusaka, Zambia.  Here is an abbreviated portion of the announcement that was made:

In 2007, I traveled to Zambia to preach at the Zambia Reformed Family Conference. It was my first time on the African continent, but I knew, Lord willing, it wouldn’t be my last. I knew I would return to Zambia; I just didn’t know when, how, or in what capacity. The work God was doing in Zambia was compelling, the needs there were overwhelming, and I came to see that I was suited for the work there in unique and obvious ways.

I would return to Zambia four times over the next six years. Over that time, I developed and deepened both my relationships with the Zambian Christian community, and my understanding of the work that needed to be done there. In 2012, I heard the vision for African Christian University (ACU). For the first time, my passion and desire to serve my brothers and sisters in Zambia became a tangible possibility. However, not a word was spoken by me, or by the leaders in Zambia.

This past summer, I returned to Zambia with my wife and our seven youngest children. It was then that Bridget sensed God’s call as well. Subsequently, we began to discuss the matter with my fellow elder, Stephen Bratton and two key Zambian leaders, Conrad Mbewe and Ronald Kalifungwa. There was little doubt that the timing and opportunity seemed right. We committed the matter to prayer, started having conversations with others who could offer wise, biblical counsel, and concluded that this is indeed the Lord’s providential hand at work, and we would do well to follow.

I have been offered the position of President/Head of the Seminary at ACU. The school opens next fall, and our plan is to move to Zambia at the end of next summer. There are, however, several issues that must be addressed between now and then.

In the meantime, I would ask that you would pray for me and my family as we consider what is by far the most challenging act of faith and obedience we have ever considered. Pray for our elders as we work to position GfBC for a healthy transition. Pray for our Zambian brothers and sisters as they trust God to do something beyond their limited resources and ability. Pray for ACU, the Seminary and the ministers who will train there, and for the impact they will have in Zambia, across Africa, and beyond.Please continue to pray for Voddie and his family as well as Grace Family Baptist Church as we begin working toward this transition.  We will continue to post information as it becomes available.

Thank you, Voddie, and the Bauchams, for your humble obedience to the Lord, your example of Christ, and your love for the lost. You are a blessing to the kingdom of Christ. May you, brother Conrad, and fellow believers in Zambia reach all of Zambia and surrounding regions with the Gospel, and may your ministry strengthen the church there, North America, and the world.

Evangelism: Self-Benefit as a Catalyst

Kindly, christianity.com has posted my article, “Evangelism: Self-Benefit as a Catalyst.”

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Sharing one’s faith often is the mature believer’s Achilles’ heel. As we grow in grace in all other areas of the faith, we tend to lag behind in preaching the Gospel to unbelievers in our workplaces and neighborhoods. Excuses for our lack of obedience in this area abound.

While we see the immediate benefits that sharing our faith has toward unbelievers, we do not see the immediate benefits that sharing our faith has toward ourselves. Yet the benefits toward our own walks with the Lord should move us to share. Here are five benefits:

Sharing Expands Your Study of the Bible and Theology

As you share your faith with unbelievers, especially those less familiar with Christian culture and jargon, they are likely to raise questions about the Christian faith. In particular, they are likely to raise questions related to evil in the world or current events. But we do not always have the answers. So then we have to go back to the Scriptures, pull out commentaries, apologetics books, and systematic theologies so that we can be better equipped for answers to future questions. “Why is it that you must believe in theism in order to be morally good when many atheists seem to be upright citizens?” “Is Cain’s wife a problem for the trustworthiness of Scripture?” You will need to study in order to answer these questions and give reason for your hope (1 Pet. 3:15). In the process of study, your own knowledge of Scripture and theology will deepen.

Sharing Encourages You to deepen in Prayer

Regularly sharing your faith quickly will lead you to people who are hostile or simply will not listen to reason. Unfortunately, when we run into such people, we might be tempted to “win” an argument rather than explain the Gospel. This is prideful response—a one that focuses on oneself and the desire to be victorious rather than defeated. In effect, we act as if the Lord would be glorified only by our power to convince another. We fall into this self-centered response due to a lack of dependency on the Spirit (cf. Mk. 14:38). In contrast, the Spirit’s power comes through prayer (Acts 4:31).

Sharing Fosters Humility When We Realize our Weakness to Rescue a Soul

Being full of the Spirit through prayer does not guarantee the conversion of the one with whom we are sharing. Even our clearest presentations of the Gospel with the most loving approaches toward the unbeliever cannot make someone respond to the truth about Christ. A heart that is blind to God’s glory, corrupt in its thinking about God, hateful toward its creator, and completely unregenerate is not overcome by the craftiness or perfection of our speaking. Only the power of Christ opens lost eyes to salvation in Christ; it is a work of divine grace and mercy, not of human skill.

For someone burdened for the souls of the lost, this can be frustrating. However, it should be humbling, for our lack of ability to convert a soul shows that we are yet helpless. Being helpless, we are unable to view ourselves as significant, important, or powerful. Instead, we are insignificant, unimportant, and weak. With this view of ourselves, we are prepared to receive great grace, “for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Ja. 4:6).

Moreover, Christ told his disciples that they would reap [souls] for “harvest” (salvation) where others had sown [the Gospel] (Jn. 4:38). When we witness someone’s eyes open to Christ as a result of our sharing the Gospel, even then it is because of work on the part of God through others. We, weak as we are to save a soul, only have been vessels of the Gospel.

Sharing Sensitivity to Lostness of World—to the Experiences of Others

Sharing my faith is a great vaccine against ministering to others in a manner that is overly influenced by my level of social mobility, healthy family background, or measure of grace given to my marriage. While sharing my faith, I run into people who have given up on “church” and “religion” because “life” has dealt them a bad hand – a hand with which I often have no personal experience. As the people on the other end of my sharing of the Gospel relate to me stories of childhood molestation, abandonment by a parent or spouse, their family’s fall into poverty at the death of the breadwinner, or of growing up fatherless, I am moved to pity for them. However, if I stay in my isolated and protected world of a strong Christian church, and a faithful and loving family, I will miss hearing of the ravages of sin in the lives of others. By sharing the Gospel I stay sensitive to the various forms and consequences of sin in the lives of people.

Sharing Makes You Faithful to the Great Commission—to Giving Gospel to the lost

The most obvious benefit to ourselves is that we are obedient to the Great Commission (Mt. 28:19-20), and thus to the Lord. This comes with the added benefit of the promised presence of God himself: “I will be with you always, even until the end of the age.”

Share your faith with others. You will bless them with the offer of the Lord’s love, grace, mercy, joy, and peace through the preaching of the Gospel. In doing so, the sharing will bless you too.
Eric C. Redmond is Executive Pastoral Assistant and Bible Professor in Residence at New Canaan Baptist Church in Washington, DC.  Follow Eric at his blog, A Man from Issachar, and on Twitter @EricCRedmond.