“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up…” Luke 18:1-10

This week several of our friends who are also currently raising support to start their ministries with Wycliffe reported that they recently received some negative feedback from individuals with whom they have shared. While we’ve been blessed with largely positive responses, we too at times feel discouraged and start down a path of losing hope of ever actually getting to “the mission field,” in our case Cameroon where so many still wait to have God’s word in their own language. But Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:1-10 provides a rock-solid promise to his disciples, a promise based on the fact that God is the one who is at work. And specifically that he is at work to bring about justice in the world or a putting to rights of everything that sin and sinners (like you and me) continue to mess up. Thus, we ought never give up because he is at work. In this way he is our hope.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? But what does this have to do with praying for our ministry of Bible translation for which we are currently preparing? Well, lately we’ve been impressed with the notion that we are ambassadors for and the voice of Bibleless peoples all over the world, especially Cameroon. And while it is at times tempting to give up and lose hope due to less than desirable responses we must remember that our ministry fits within the grander plan of God to bring about a grand redemption of all things through the proclamation of the good news that he is at work saving sinners and reversing the effects of sin.

Accordingly, we will pray, we will not give up, for God is at work.

Praying for the Bibleless

I was not prepared for the beautiful, powerful prayers of God’s people at Union Missionary Baptist Church. We went last night to cast a vision for what God is doing through Bible translation to bring his message of hope and redemption to Bibleless communities all over the world, but we left having caught a vision of the people of God rising up to pray for the Bibleless all over the world and for workers to be sent out. How warmly we were welcomed as advocates for the Bibleless!

Last night two prayers in particular messed me up, put me in shambles.

Pastor Gene read from the Cameroon entry in Operation World, the country in which we’re preparing to serve as Bible translators. But Gene read not from the latest edition of Operation World, which just came out at the end of last year, but from the previous edition. In the Cameroon entry in the previous edition the country’s suggested prayer needs include most urgently the need for Bible translators and Bible translations in order to combat spiritual poverty and nominal Christianity. Gene then pointed to Emily and me on the front pew and said, “Here’s an answer to this prayer request.” I’m an answer to prayer!? Hearing God’s people last night praise him for sending us out was too much for me. The prayers of God’s people messed me up…in a good way.

Secondly, in the picture above you’ll notice a large banner-like printout. This printout is a list of all the languages in the world that still do not have a Bible translation; there are over 2,000 all over the world! When fully rolled out, the list stretched from the pulpit all the way to the back of the sanctuary. Before we prayed God’s people gathered on either side of the list, picked it up and chose a language for which they would pray out loud. The prayer of one gentleman whose face I never saw absolutely messed me up. He held his portion of the list and prayed, “Lord, I had no idea. How many of us went through today without thinking one bit of any of this. I’m ashamed.”

He went on to offer a passionate plea for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. His prayer messed me up and continues to mess me up…in a good way.

Ask yourself how you would respond if your spouse came down with a puzzling illness. Anger? Loss of faith?

What Dr. Black writes isn’t just about how we can pray for his wife Becky but reveals what I think is his prayer for us: that we hang on to the upside-down Messiah who “is sovereign, and He sovereignly disposes.” His goal is not to smooth over the difficulties of suffering but to “put the ballast of biblical truth in the belly of our little boat” as John Piper writes,

Put the ballast of biblical truth
in the belly of our little boats,
lest the crashing waves of calamity
in these changing times
cause us to capsize in the sea of trouble.

Be struck by the gravity of Dr. Black saying at a time like this, “So Jesus can be trusted. We can rely on His good judgment when it comes to our health. The only thing we can never justify is disobedience to His commands.”

Pray for Dave and Becky Black.

I wouldn’t recommend starting this way given the cultural connotations.

For example, a Christian attempts to pray for the food of everyone seated around a table at a restaurant, but not everyone is a Christian, nor is everyone comfortable with prayer. It is verbally proffered that the one offering to pray for everyone’s food simply pray to himself in place of having everyone stop to pray. Additionally, it is interjected, “Yeh, keep that shit to yourself.”

Fair enough, if you believe that one should not pray for other’s food at a restaurant, then say that you think that’s wrong and admit that there is such a thing as wrong. The contranatural inconsistency reveals itself in the interjection when the one objecting also holds to moral relativism. For, surely, if the Christian wants to pray for everyone’s food, his belief should be respected and not rejected in order to be consistent with moral relativism. Moral relativism is betrayed in the interjection.

• If you’re attending Southeastern and getting the Southern Baptist discount (1/2 off tuition) and plan on not serving in a Southern Baptist church and giving back to the Cooperative Program (which pays that other half of your tuition) after you graduate, you should go down to the Business Office right now and tell them not to give you the discount and start paying the regular price

New Testament I (Dr. Black)

• I can’t pray unless the Holy Spirit prays, but the Holy Spirit won’t pray unless I pray; prayer is an inter-trinitarian process.
• “Abba” was an intimate word used by a son to a father wherein obedience (not love) is at the core. The essence of “Abba” is “not my will but yours be done.”

Church History I (Dr. Hogg)

• Early on (at the time of Jerome) baptisms were done in the nude. (How symbolic of casting off that which is earthly and being born again!)
• In translating the Bible into Latin (what would later become the Vulgate) Jerome started to translate the Apocrypha, but ceased doing so, considering them uninspired and not Scripture. The apocryphal material was added back into the Vulgate after his death (in a sub-Jerome translation) and continue to be in the canon of the Catholic church today.

Baptist History (Dr. Harper)

• We think of America being founded on religious liberty for all but, at the time of the colonies, one was only aloud freedom of religious expression insofar as one practiced the denomination of that particular colony. Consequently, to practice otherwise was met with persecution.

The Albert Mohler Radio Program

• Tuesday – Dr. Mohler interviews Dr. Patterson (President of Southwestern Seminary) about a new degree program in their college that has caused a lot of media attention and controversy: a degree in the humanities with an emphasis in homemaking. The point of the program is this: there are those women who have both the desire and ability to be a stay-at-home homemaker, or those women who may find themselves on the mission field needing to make clothes and subsist without electricity and running water; this program is to equip those women. The program is open to women only (“as soon as we get a pregnant man walking in, we’ll sign him up”); but requires two years of both Classical Greek and Latin. Dr. Patterson invited any dissenters to come take the program and see if they can pass!

The Way of the Master Radio

• Wednesday – The hosts of the program are on tour in Europe and toured the John Bunyan museum in England (which reminds me that I need to finish Pilgrim’s Progress). This podcast takes the listener right through the museum with the crew.

I am overcome with emotion. I throw myself upon the Almighty. He throws me back into the ministry believing that he will do a mighty work; and that mighty work is recovering the lost sheep through the exaltation of Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. Amen and amen.