Every year I enjoy teaching the “Pioneering Church Planting” lesson for Perspectives on the World Christian movement in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver. Perspectives is a very popular and highly recommended course for any believer who has an interest in what God is doing worldwide. The primary thesis of my lesson is that the cross-cultural church [...]
All Articles having the tag "Islam".
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What kind of God commands people to strap bombs to their bodies and blow up crowds of people? What kind of God tells people to drive passenger planes into the sides of buildings? What kind of God commands parents to kill their children? What kind of God would come to one of his worshippers and [...]
Translation seeks Communication
When our main translator walked into the translation office last December in Shikarpur, Pakistan, I greeted him with, “I have a problem with heaven.” He laughed and responded, “Well, if you have trouble with heaven, what’s left? There is not much more to hope for!” I explained that it was not the concept [...]
Three ways to understand the Bible
My wife, Karen, heard a message by a young woman with no theological training on Jer 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you….” The young woman spoke of the verse as if it was addressed to us today and talked about the plans God has for us. Although [...]
An Inward or Outward focus?
Hudson Taylor was a pioneer missionary to China who recognized the need to immerse himself in the Chinese culture in order to relate the gospel to the people in ways that made sense to his audience. He learned their language, wore his hair in a pigtail, wore their [...]
In the previous article, a missional church was defined as the communal relationship between followers of Christ which stems from intentional gospel transformation in the world (outward orientation). In contrast the more prevalent communal oriented church can be defined as the communal relationship between followers of Christ as an expression of [...]
Bible Translation Shapes Faith
A missionary colleague phoned me up quite irate about a translation choice in the Sindhi NT1. A couple of Muslim friends had dropped in for a chat and asked him why Christians did not pray like Muslims by prostrating themselves to the ground. My colleague replied that the Bible speaks of worship [...]
Part V: Theological Basis for “Christ centered worldviews”
What would this worldview look like if Christ was Lord?
I remember the time a young believer brought a friend to me so that I could explain the gospel to him. We were living among the Muslim Sindhi people of Pakistan working with [...]
Part III: The Problem With a Universal Christian Worldview
Paul Long tells of the conversion of a chief in the African Congo. Those bringing the gospel demanded that he renounce his charms and medicines before hearing the message, culminating with the destruction of his “life charm”.
“Teller of the Word,” [the chief] said, [...]
Jesus, No Justification for Sin
There is much politically correct rhetoric about Islam in this day of suicide bombers. For example, political leaders have proclaimed that “Extremism is not true Islam. True Islam is peace-loving.” Although politically circumspect, it is not all that accurate. Islam cannot incorporate Western values and remain uncompromised [...]
Religions do not bring people to God
H. Kraemer in his influential book, The Christian message in a Non-Christian World, builds a strong case for the inability of religions, as human constructs, to bring people to God. The revelation of God in Christ is solely a redeeming act of God, and not aided [...]
A recent book review in the Evangelical Baptist (March / April 2005, p. 20) on the book Ishmael: My brother – A Christian Introduction to Islam, contained the provocative statement, “from a biblical vantage point, Allah does not exist.” Such a claim is based on the reality that Allah is not [...]
A recent book review in the Evangelical Baptist (March / April 2005, p. 20) on the book Ishmael: My brother – A Christian Introduction to Islam demonstrated an unfortunate attitude towards Muslims and an apparent misunderstanding of Islamic theology. In this and the following two articles I would like to present [...]
A High View of Scripture
Walk into any store in Pakistan and almost inevitably high up in a corner the Koran can be seen wrapped up in expensive cloth and covered in fresh rose petals. Hand a copy of the Koran to a devout Muslim and they will kiss the book reverently [...]
Scripture as “supra-cultural”
One of the frustrations of Bible translation in an Islamic context stems from the Muslim belief that the Koran was written in heaven and is thus “supra-cultural,” that is, it is not shaped or determined by human culture or language. Although written in the Arabic language, the Muslim conviction [...]
"I have become all things to all people so I could save some of them in any way possible." (1 Co 9:22)
Making Room
The beginning of missions is "making room" for others as they are; adjusting our program and perspective to match the concerns and priorities of another society. It is opening [...]
Skepticism concerning One Truth
Billy Joel (1993) wrote a popular song entitled Shades of Grey which illustrates a desperate skepticism stemming from exposure to the convictions and beliefs of others:
Some things were perfectly clear, seen with vision of youth
No doubts and nothing to fear, I claimed the [...]
Approaches to Interfaith Dialogue
E. Stanley Jones was a Methodist missionary in India during the first half of the 1900s who was a strong advocate of interfaith dialogue. He set the rules for his "round table talks" so that "no one argue, no one try to make a case, no one talk [...]
In Pakistan we lived next door to a mosque. The Maolvi (Muslim clergy) and I would occasionally talk and one day I gave him a New Testament to read. The next time we met he informed me that "this is not God’s Word. But it contains God’s Word." Further clarification revealed [...]
One of the greatest shocks a missionary faces when entering a new culture with the gospel is the discovery that other religions can teach us important spiritual lessons. I can still vividly picture the follower of Sufism (a mystical philosophy of Islam) who taught me a good lesson. He stood before me [...]
Karen and I worked in evangelism and church planting for 10 years among the Sindhi Muslim people in Pakistan. Although our goal was to plant a church and a number of Sindhis became followers of Christ, we were not successful in establishing a "3-selfs" church (self-governing, self-supporting, self-propogating). Whenever we [...]
The Perfect Translation Illusion
The translation of Scripture into other languages is a cross-cultural mission activity that enjoys enthusiastic support in evangelical circles. But curiously this support is coupled with wide spread ignorance concerning what constitutes an accurate Bible translation. There seems to be an illusion that the perfect translation is [...]
As an evangelical I cringe when evangelism is described as "humanizing," as if the focus of salvation has somehow changed from what God has done for us in Christ, to what we are to accomplish for ourselves. However it is never wise to quickly dismiss another point of view without grappling with the questions [...]