Christmas Means Theological Training Is Important
At Christmas, we take the time to remember the amazing truth about the person of Jesus. “Remaining what he was, he became what he was not.” When he was born in Bethlehem, Jesus remained fully God, but he also, in a mysterious way, became fully man.
By becoming fully man, the eternal Son of God gained the ability to experience every temptation and trial that we face while also gaining the ability to suffer and die. If Jesus was not fully human then he could not have been the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. By remaining fully God, Jesus was able to bear the penalty for the sins of the whole world and able to be the mediator between God and man.
To misunderstand who Jesus is is to misunderstand the Gospel of salvation. Jesus could not be our Savior if he was only half God and half man. He could not be our Savior if he was created, as some heretical groups teach. Our salvation depends on this important yet difficult Gospel truth.
Please lift me up to the throne of grace in preparation for my trip to Athens, Greece from January 5-14. I will be partnering with Training Leaders International to teach the leaders of the Romanian-speaking churches there. Although some of the older pastors have received training in Romania, many of the younger leaders are unable to receive training in their own language.
It is vitally important for these churches to have men who know how to study and proclaim the Bible. Without training, churches easily fall into errors that can keep them from reaching people for Jesus. As we are reminded every Christmas, what we believe that the Bible teaches has eternal significance!
Please partner with me in prayer as I prepare for this trip. I have raised about half of the $2500 that I need for my portion of the trip. Please pray that God will provide the remaining amount. Also, pray that God will provide a skillful translator for the teaching time. Pray that God will prepare all of our hearts as we study about God’s attributes, and pray that God will strengthen the Romanian-speaking churches in Athens and that many people will meet Jesus through their ministry.
If God impresses on your heart a desire to support my trip financially, then you can do so online by following this link.
I hope that all who read this have merry Christmas that draws you closer to your family, to your church, and most importantly to the God-man we worship! What a privilege it is to proclaim the same good news that angels sang about to those bewildered shepherds all those years ago!
Why Read Books? For People.
Mega-bookstores are overwhelming. On a date last week, Stacy and I went to Barnes & Noble to drink coffee and browse around, and as we were there, I came away with two conflicting impressions. First, so many books exist that should never have been written and should never be read. I saw so many titles that seemed absolutely worthless—books destined to be in the penny bin of a local used bookstore for the next twenty years. I was saddened by the wasted time of the authors, editors, publishers, and readers of such books.
However, just when I was beginning to get discouraged, I spotted a shelf featuring the Barnes & Noble Classics series. I carefully studied the titles to see which books Barnes & Noble had deemed classics. I saw many books that I had read—Pilgrim’s Progress, The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn to name a few—but I began to covet the many books in the series that I have not had opportunity to read. I began to imagine spending a lifetime reading such classic books—treasuries of human thought. I imagined myself locked away in some ivory tower—or rather some cabin in Kentucky with a fireside chair—devouring all this information and storing it away into my mind for—for what?—for me, just for me, all for me.
When I realized where my thoughts were leading, I became disgusted with my envisioned self—the miser of knowledge. So, I reacted in my mind by fleeing in the complete opposite direction—I want to give my life to God’s word and ministering in Jesus‘ name to people. I don’t want to lock myself away for the selfish pursuit of human knowledge but give my life for the sake of humanity like Christ gave his life.
It was then that the pendulum which I had been riding slowed to the center. I had made enemies of friends. Perhaps my years of study at institutions and under teachers that cherish books had unconsciously preconditioned me to this. In Bible college and seminary, it seems that many students choose fairly early on to be either a book person or a people person. I had tried to walk the line between the two, but finally in Barnes & Noble I reconciled these friends by coming to this conclusion: People are the purpose of reading. Reading the Great Books opens a window into the minds, hearts, and souls of people. Great literature opens our eyes to the emotions, motivations, and values of people. By understanding people better, we are better able to apply the gospel of Jesus Christ to people’s lives.
I was even more encouraged by this thought when I realized that I was proposing for myself nothing less than the practice of the greatest missionary the world has ever seen—the Apostle Paul. The great missionary had read the great books of his time, even though such books were not available as $6 paperback editions at mega-bookstores. On Mars Hill, he quoted Epimenides and Aratus (Acts 17:28). He quotes Menander in 1 Corinthians 15:33. Then, again he quotes Epimenides in Titus 1:12. Paul’s wide-reading did not hinder his pursuit of biblical study or love for people—he excelled in both. Rather, he filtered such authors through his biblical worldview and used them to understand, explain, and reach the Gentiles with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There are many, many worthless books, but there are also many that help us understand humanity within their cultural contexts. As any missiologist will tell you, if you want to reach people, you must understand people. Read for the purpose of people. I want to read so that all peoples will worship God in Christ.
Missions and Preserving the Faith
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (Jude 3-4).
“The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” exists. Many people would like to think that we’ve moved beyond such exclusivity into an enlightened age of tolerance. However, if we are going to take the Bible seriously, then we cannot escape the fact that there is one, true, uncompromising faith that has been handed down from Christ through the Apostles in Scripture, and since it exists, it is vitally important that we understand, preserve, and teach it.
However, Jude (the author of the Letter of Jude and brother of Jesus, not to be confused with my son) reminds us just how easily the faith can be lost. These people who have perverted the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ, have “crept in unnoticed.” Even though their theological errors and sins are egregious, this church to whom Jude writes has not immediately perceived the threat and have allowed these people to enter their fellowship and propagate their views.
Jesus instructed his sheep to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” because he was sending them out among wolves (Matt 10:16). Unfortunately, we have not followed his advice. All around the world, God’s people and even the leaders of God’s people are ignorant of God’s truth. In the West, we have no excuse for our ignorance because we have access to biblical resources that are unprecedented in human history, but for many Christians around the world, their ignorance is due to a lack of opportunity and resources in their location or in their language. Missions means more than just reaching people with the gospel. Missions means preserving the gospel by teaching able men who can teach others also (2 Tim 2:2), and without the ministry of teaching church leaders, the gospel is quickly lost and perverted.
God has and continues to engrave this need on my heart. I am not certain how God will use me throughout my lifetime—whether as a pastor, professor, or missionary. He will open and close doors to determine my path, but wherever I am and whatever I become, I want to continue to fight for the preservation of God’s truth, especially on behalf of our brothers and sisters who lack the opportunities and resources we have in the English-speaking world. This is why I am going to Greece in January. I pray that God will use me to preserve the faith. Will you pray with me and will you consider supporting me in this effort?
Teaching Romanian-Speakers in Greece
For the past two years, our family lived and served in the Republic of Moldova because we believe that God wants all peoples to worship him in Christ. There, I taught and trained young people whom I am convinced will be used mightily by God to reach that country for years to come. They have humble hearts enflamed by a passion for the gospel and have received a firm foundation of biblical truth. During my last days with them, I admonished them with words like 1 Timothy 4:16: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Throughout the Bible, and especially in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, we learn that our salvation—and the salvation of the lost around the world—depends on the purity of biblical teaching. This great truth was one of the reasons that compelled me to leave Moldova and continue my studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
I am humbled by the opportunity to study God’s precious Word, especially considering that so many of our brethren around the world do not have such opportunities. Unfortunately, this theological famine is resulting in a growing number of errors and heresies in churches around the world.
My great privilege and the great need of our brethren has compelled me to follow God’s leadership by partnering with Training Leaders International (TLI), a young organization connected to both the Gospel Coalition and Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. TLI desires to send pastors and seminary students to equip and train church leaders around the world.
From January 5-15, I will be traveling with TLI to Athens, Greece. Our team of 6-7 will be teaching church leaders from the substantial immigrant and refugee populations living in that ancient city. Because of my experience in Moldova, I will be teaching the Romanian-speaking church leaders. I am convinced that in order to reach the people of Romania and Moldova, we must reach the Romanian-speaking immigrants throughout the world. Many people estimate that 1/4 of the population of Moldova lives and works outside the country, mostly in the European Union and Russia.
By teaching a course on the attributes of God, I hope that we can help the Romanian-speaking pastors to “keep a close watch on themselves and on the teaching” in order to reach others in their community and even their fellow immigrants who have come from the closed countries of Africa and the Middle East.
I want to first and foremost ask for your prayers. Please pray that God would be glorified by the spirit of our team, that God would use us to encourage and edify the leaders of the immigrant churches in Athens, and that God would provide for the needs of our team according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Secondly, I want to give you the opportunity to become a partner in this work by helping to fund the expenses for this trip. The approximate cost for my portion is $2,500, and, with the trip only a few months away, I am trusting that God will move quickly to meet this need.
You can give online through TLI. All gifts are tax deductible. If you have any questions feel free to email me at josh@gospellife.org.
Continue checking in here to see how God works.
As I’ve mentioned before, we love Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame’s album “Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies.” One of my favorite songs from the album is “Stop.” This song is a great way to introduce children to God’s mission in the world. God is calling the entire world to “stop and listen” to the glorious message of his grace—the Gospel—and it is our privilege to speak the words of Christ to “every boy and every girl in every corner of the world” so that all peoples might worship God in Christ!
