Taking the Qur'an out of Context

We felt this article so timely and important that we decided to post the link to it on our blog. The  

author is a personal friend who knows many, many Muslims personally and interacts with them on a daily basis. Thank God and pray for this dear brother!

Taking the Qur'an Out of Context

Loving His Appearing

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.  (2 Tim. 4:8)

The following mail arrived in our box today from a friend and worker who has gone to the Muslim world with another agency--not ReachAcross, but his words express it well--seek the Vine, not the fruit, and the fruit will eventually (and usually slowly!) grow and mature on its own:  

In the recent past, we have been surprised by how much reference to the coming of Jesus some of the . . . * hymns we sing make, “I thirst for your coming; with faith, hope and patience I wait for your return…” These have come as a shock back into reality to us. True, we are here for a reason—to accomplish something! What we are to set our hearts upon, however, is not the fruit of what we have come to do. No! That could become very dangerous, spiritually speaking. Especially when the results are long in coming. Discouragement, cynicism, bitterness, burn-out easily set in. What we are to set are hearts upon is not the task itself. It is the One who commissioned us, the One to whom we belong, to whom we have been joined in baptism by the Spirit—Jesus,  our Bridegroom. 

These . . . hymn writers really had it right. What is it that enabled Paul to endure, with joy, in the face of terrible opposition for Jesus’ sake? It is “loving His appearing” (2Tim. 4: 7-8). Longing for Jesus and His return produces heart-faithfulness and endurance, Paul would tell us. True, he had his eye set on preaching Good News all the way up to Spain, but that ultimately wasn’t what his heart was yearning for. We too have set our eyes on bringing Good News of great joy to . . . .  But, man, what a job! 

After a year, we are beginning to realize how hard, how slow, how dis-couraging a task it can be. In light of what Paul shared with Timothy, what do we need? A continual perspective readjustment! “Don’t seek the fruit, seek the Vine,” Scripture would tell us—to abide in the Vine and in His love (Jn. 15: 1-11). As we continue and as we get ready to celebrate Christmas, be praying with us to this end, that we too may continue to grow deeper in knowing Jesus “who loved us and gave Himself for us” (Gal. 2; 20) that our hearts may long for His coming more fully—an unsatiable, ever increasing hunger and thirst for righteousness. Truly, it is always about who He is—and never about what we do. For the glory is always His—and never ours.  

*For security reasons, the country where our friends are working has been removed in the text, and simply replaced with . . . . For the same reasons, the name of the writer has been withheld.

The Kingdom Vision is Still Alive!

Stephen Carter, Professor of Law at Yale and evangelical Christian author, writes:

The end of the [Vietnam] war in 1975 marked the beginning of the end of rule by the World War II generation, and the dawn of modern America--the mean-spirited America of me-first, trust-nobody, sound bites, revile-anyone-who-disagrees, and devil-take-hindmost. All of this misbehavior is a mark of our timidity, not our confidence. Americans across the political spectrum cannot bear dissent, because we lack the courage to meet it squarely. . . . And yet, within that collapse of American self-belief, individual stories of triumph are possible.

In other words, there is still a dream in the middle of the American nightmare.

There's a new book out, entitled 'Millenials in Ministry', and I'm looking forward to reading it. It will be a while. I have a stack of books to read so high that I can't see over the top, and that doesn't include good novels like Stephen Carter's (he gives an intriguing look into the African-American community, a culture of which I understand so little, even though it is all around me). Novels come at the end of the day, when my mental processes have slowed down to a crawl--or didn't the Psalmist say that he would give the best part of the day to God's Word--'I will awaken the dawn' (Ps. 57:8)?

Be that as it may, I've been reflecting on my impression of the current American situation, and no, I'm not really thinking so much of recent federal legislation. What bothers me is, on the one hand, the inability of Christians to set boundaries and live by them, and on the other hand, our aloofness from the world--the fortress mentality so recently defended by Franklin Graham. (See, by the way, Marty Duren's excellent response to Graham's latest comments about Muslims.) 

It bothers me about myself, first. I just read Psalm 1 again, and having had a very good Hebrew professor in seminary, I'll try my hand at my own paraphrase:

OH THE JOYS of the one who does not get involved in the plans of evil people, nor try and stay neutral on the path that sinners take. And she/he certainly doesn't take part in the critical, reviling, condescending attitude toward others that is often prevalent around us. Instead, good people are filled with delight in God's instructions for life, and they mull over them, and their implications for their daily choices, every chance they get.

It doesn't mean, I don't think, that we don't engage the world; what it means sis that we don't get sucked into the world's ways, including learning to say NO to a critical, negative spirit. 

It means crossing cultural boundaries, and making friends. 

For me, in  the middle of all the troubling things around me, it means believing that a new generation of workers can and will be raised up to communicate and demonstrate Jesus to Muslim people who've never had a chance to learn about Him.

I've got proof of that; we've just gotten 5 new applications (and there' supposed to be some more coming) from young people who want to do just that.

I'm sincerely hoping people will pray them out, because the devil will try and stop them with every thing he can throw at them. 

Still, it looks like the dream is still alive in the middle of the selfie-nightmare. 

Actually, I think I prefer the word 'vision', rather than 'dream'. In other words, Kingdom-vision of God's promise, and not the so-called 'American dream'. The latter is probably more of a fantasy built on sand than anything else. The former is the true City on a Hill.  

And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:3).

Amen.

All the Children of the World

‘Pa!

I have thirteen grandchildren, and I count them among my greatest treasure.

Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. (Psalm 127:3)

So when the three that are at that very cute 2-year stage (we have 7 under 7) hold up their hands and say ‘Pa!’—or walk in the door with a quizzical look, as one (I’ll just call him ‘B’) is prone to do, loudly asking ‘Pa?’ (where's Opa?!) –it moves me. (A word of explanation: ‘Opa’ is a German abbreviation for Grandpa. We used to live in Germany, so that’s how most of our grandkids distinguish us, Opa and Omi, from the other side of their families.)

This morning, the same quizzical grandkid marched right up to the office and proceeded to climb into my lap. I let him stay there as long as he wants. Forget work. Forget reports. Forget bank balances, donation receipts, and whatever. They’re important, but he is more important than any of that.

Is that what it means to the Father when we run into His presence in prayer?

We don’t always know what to say, and I think it often sounds like the babble of a 2-year old. (This morning though he pointed out the ‘whit niff’ on my desk (my old Swiss Army Knife that I’ve managed not to lose—a little unusual edition with its well-worn once-white scales.)  He asks for my cell phone, but that’s not a good idea. Instead, I give him an old phone with the battery taken out, so he can’t inadvertently call 911.

I think we understand even less of God’s work than my grandson does of mine. I don’t let him play with a knife. He’ll cut himself with it—he doesn’t understand it’s purpose, nor have the fine motor skills needed to use it properly. And I don’t let him hit the computer keyboard. I don’t want two-year-olds to start typing in my reports—that’s my business, and he doesn't understand that, either. 

So how often do we try to put our hands on things that belong to the Lord—things that He might give us in due time, but right now isn’t it? Or we attempt to meddle in the Boss’s files, and grasp what He's doing. Maybe we will never be able to grasp some things, and aren't supposed to. Maybe He just wants us to enjoy His Presence?

Little ‘B’ does notice and perhaps understand the tattered photocopy of a young child—I have no idea where it came from (and no, it's not the picture shown above; this child's eyes are almost haunting)—but some of the sadness in that little girl’s eyes briefly interrupts our banter. ‘B’ stares at the page in a way that makes me turn it over in my mind—who is she, and where does she live? What pain is engulfing her? I don’t know, but it reminds me to pray for her, and other folks mentioned in our prayer notes that came in this morning.

I think God delights in a child-like (not ‘childish’!) spirit that sits on his lap, and spills some tears over children in places like Syria, Egypt and the Middle East, where many wield power for their own, often selfish purposes.

But it doesn’t end with sadness. ‘B’ is a child whose smile can light up a whole room. And after a while he climbs down off my lap, and saunters over to the door. ‘Bah (bye) ‘Pa!

Has he tossed off some worries, knowing that Opa will take care of them?  I don’t know the mind of a two-year old. But I do know that we should delight in the One who cares for us, and ‘throw our cares on Him, like a saddle on a horse (don’t ask me about saddles and horses; I got that description of this word from a Greek lexicon). One scholar translates it this way:

You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern.  (1 Peter 5:7, J.B. Phillips)

Good to know. Better to practice, in child-like trust.

And don’t forget the children in the Muslim world. Nearly half the population is under the age of 15. They smile, but they often don’t have much hope.

Does that break our hearts, like it breaks His?

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also . . . . (John 10:16a, ESV)

P.S. the picture on the right was drawn for me by a Bible school student decades ago. And no idyllic nonsense about fluffy sheep. I've worked with them. They are usually dirty, and they stink. Carrying a smelly sheep on one's shoulders is not something I ever wanted to do. But Jesus does it. All the time.

Disappointment

Hopes dashed again.

It's Memorial Day here in the US, but this doesn't really have much to do with that. It's just that I got a call from ‘Raymond’, our prisoner ‘for the Lord’ (Eph. 4:1) who is using his life sentence in order to minister to Muslims. Seems he was talking to the assistant chaplain, who told him that I should be able to do a ‘pastoral’ visit. I had tried that before, but gotten nowhere. But sometimes things can change with a new situation, and especially an evangelical chaplain.

So I called him (the new chaplain) at the appointed time to arrange things. But I got the HEAD chaplain on the phone, which wasn’t supposed to happen.

I’m not quick on my feet. Slow processor, sort of like an old 386 in comparison to most people’s ‘i7’ (Intel’s newest one, if computer language means anything to you). So I rather stupidly talked to the head guy, instead of waiting until I could get the man I wanted.

That was the end of that. No visiting rights for me.

Needless to say, that did not make my day. After all, I’m just trying to minister to a guy in prison—a follower of Jesus who needs encouragement like we all do, right? And I've been trying to visit Raymond for more than two years. So why do I seem to always hit brick walls, or stumble over my own feet?

(Did I mention that I’m a Chicago Cubs fan, too? And Texas Tech. Go figure. But it has to do with personal history; all I’m saying is that you’d think I’d be used to disappointment by now.)

Speaking of brick walls, we got news that one of our good friends—former ESL student in the Middle East, had his house bombed. He had just left his bedroom to go to another room when an RPG hit the side of the house where he had been.

More news this morning: our former landlord in the Middle East was able to return to his house with his  family, except that all of the windows have been blown out by the random shelling.

So I guess disappointment is relative. What’s important, I think, is to do what Peter says (in 1 Peter 4:1): ‘to arm ourselves with the same resolve’? And what might that be? Peter is referring to the sufferings of Christ for us, which He went through ‘in order to lead us to God’ (1 Peter 3:18).  In other words, all that Jesus went through was orchestrated by the Father, who, Paul tells us, was in it all, ‘reconciling the world to Himself’ (2 Cor. 5:19).

Very often we do not understand why God is allowing certain things to happen—especially to our Muslim friends in the Middle East.

I was sitting here, thinking, ‘boy if I only had access to some powerful military, I would intervene on their behalf, destroy ISIS, or whatever’. Then it occurred to me that I have access to the only Power that matters, and the Father does hear our prayers.

We can’t just believe in the Sovereignty of God on Sunday morning: ‘God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least . . . ,’ (Westminster Confession, Chapter V, on Providence) we have to apply it daily.

I believe that God knows what he is doing.

Even through disappointment and suffering. 

Especially then. Come to think of it, maybe Memorial Day is a good day to post this after all. 

Shouts from Beneath the Burqa

Two things are bothering me today. One is such my embarrassment as an American Christian over Franklin Graham's comments on Muslims and the Holocaust -- and the other my consternation at how far behind I've fallen in my reading.

I hope that Graham isn't behind in his reading, and that it at the very least includes books like Nabeel Qureshi's Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (about an American Muslim college student who struggles through to finding his real identity in Jesus; as you can guess, it is not an easy road).  It seems to me that there is enough anti-Muslim feeling among American evangelicals without stoking the fire. And whatever Graham says will always hit the headlines.

I can only wish that we'll listen to other voices.

I'm almost always behind with my reading, including one of my favorite journals, Books and Culture.  So on a recent trip, I took along a pile of the most 'recent editions'--like September/October 2014!  So if you've read that one, my apologies. But 'Shouts from Beneath the Burqa: Eliza Griswold's Translations of Afghan Folk Poems' is one page that is well worth reading a few times.

Here's a small quote from the article:

I am shouting but you don't answer—

One day you'll look for me and I'll be gone from this world.

Such was the landay—a two-line folk poem repeated over centuries among Afghan nomads and farmers—that Rahila Muska recited over the phone to fellow Afghan women in 2010. A women's literary group, Mirman Baheer, meets every Saturday afternoon in the capital, Kabul, and hosts a call-in hotline that attracts young poets from rural provinces. After Rahila's sister caught her reading love poetry, Rahila's brothers beat her and destroyed her notebooks. Two weeks later, Rahila set herself on fire, then died."

And here's a bit more:

Others are brazenly confrontational, challenging husbands and fathers (most of Afghanistan's 15 million women are married by age 16; three out of four are forced marriages) as well as the political forces that shape their future:

May God destroy your tank and your drone,
You who've destroyed my village, my home.

The poems are from Griswold's newest volume, I Am the Beggar of the World.

The statistics show that nearly half of the Muslim population in the world is under the age of 15. And I don't know for sure, but I suspect that half of the Muslim population is also women?

Evidently evangelical Christians in the US care about the 20 million Jews in the world. I'm not always sure that they care about the 1.6 billion Muslims.

I don't think God has forgotten either, especially, 'the least of these.'

US Director

A Special Visit

The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and good news refreshes the bones.  (Prov. 15:30)

Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. (Prov. 25:25)

My wife and I sometimes watch ‘Wheel of Fortune’.  Yep, I’ll admit to some ‘worldly’ stuff in my life. Like dreaming of winning some exotic vacation in New Zealand or somewhere in the Caribbean. But you know what? So far I’ve primarily taken my dearest one to some of the poorest places on the planet. Well, we did live in Europe for a long time—and missed a lot of the typical vacation places most Americans head for (but then, you’ve probably never been to Yellowstone either, right?).

I’ll probably always dream of ‘romantic getaways’—which may not be so romantic once you get there (being a pessimist at heart, the first thing I think of are news stories on the web about cruises where everybody comes down with food poisoning), but really, neither of us would have it any other way.

But pause for a moment to think about what it means for our workers to get a visit from home. Here’s a sample—written from the kids’ perspective—of one m*ssion*ry family (come to think of it—maybe it’s more special to them than my dreams of New Zealand? And when you think about the fact that a lot of cross-cultural workers are former MKs, then one visit may have far-reaching implications.)

Dear Cousin Alyssa,*

We loved playing hide-and-seek with you, finding you behind shower curtains and closet doors. You taught us the thrill of hiding quietly, waiting in anticipation for you to find us. And you're smart, you know, because somehow you always knew where to look.

Mommy and Daddy loved playing games with you too. We noticed they put aside their usual evening "computer work" for playing games around the dinner table. Grown-up games with trains and houses and tracks! It was good to see Mommy and Daddy play.

And you made us laugh. Your silly songs, jokes, and stories made us giggle from the pit of our tummies. Made us throw back our heads and howl, brought out the twinkle in our eyes. At night, as we lay in our beds, we could hear Mommy and Daddy's laugh echoing down the hallway too. We liked that sound.

And oh, the adventures with you! The trip to the mosque and fort and tower

and the ride to the border. The bike rides around the center of town and the yummy schnitzel and noodles you made for us! 

We heard Mommy and Daddy talking about how your visit was a "refreshing gift." Though we don't know what that means, we could tell from the smile on their faces and the calm in their voices that Mommy and Daddy were happy you took a very long airplane ride to see us. We've heard Mommy say our city is a place no one really wants to visit, but you came anyway!

So, we hope you'll take another airplane ride over the ocean again one day. Because we've heard Mommy say how much the people here liked you.

And you know what?

We love you too.
Love,
little s,f, and r 

*Names, and some details changed for security purposes