The Gospel For Japan

Michael Oh is chairman and founder of CBI Japan (cbijapan.org), which includes a graduate level theological seminary (Christ Bible Seminary), church planting efforts (All Nations Fellowship), and various outreach ministries, including Heart & Soul Café. Dr. Oh is the executive director of the Lausanne Movement (lausanne. org). He has also contributed to the book Finish the Mission: Bringing the Gospel to the Unreached and Unengaged.

Michael is also a good brother in the Lord. I have enjoyed fellowship with Michael talking about everything from our families, the church, and the need for the gospel in Japan. I have also had the privilege of having Michael preach at Church of the Saviour.

Recently, the good folks at Ligonier Ministries interviewed Michael for Table Talk Magazine. Here is a portion of that interview:

TT: What is the greatest lesson God has taught you as a missionary in Japan? 

MO: That God alone saves. There are many questions about why the gospel has taken so long to take root in Japan—and why Korea has thrived spiritually and Japan hasn’t. There are many answers that can be offered to those questions. But the clearest answer is that God will save Japan when God saves Japan. God will bring revival to the Japanese church when God brings revival to the Japanese church.

We pray and work toward those ends. We strategize and seek to be faithful. But God alone saves. Many missionaries labor for twenty-to-thirty years without seeing much visible fruit. They faithfully serve their congregation of fifteen people, with just a few responding to the gospel. I thank God for such faithfulness and perseverance. They inspire me. They humble me. But I do hope and pray to see with my own eyes in my lifetime a season of unusual gospel impact and growth. I believe that we may be entering into such a season. Last Sunday I had the privilege of baptizing seven wonderful Japanese people. We’re already planning for our next round as well. God alone saves. 

TT: What is the state of the church in Japan?

MO: The church in Japan is filled with precious believers with sincere faith. I love Japanese Christians and consider it a privilege to serve side by side with them. Overall, though, the church is aging, languishing, and overly self-preserving. There is a need for fresh vision to reach young people, to engage actively with the society around them, and to return to the Lord with devoted prayer, hunger for His Word, and a willingness to pay the price as a witness for Christ.

TT: Historically speaking, why has it been so difficult to reach Japan with the gospel?

MO: Historically speaking, we are talking about a nation with the longest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world, with a centuries-long global isolation, and its entire population residing mainly on one island. Change does not and will not occur easily. On this isolated main island, leaders over the centuries have exercised rigid control over its populace. The Japanese have been as efficiently and effectively socialized as anyone has anywhere at any time. It’s not too different from the totality of what it means to be a Muslim. Add to this the fact that there was a generally lukewarm response to the call for missionaries after the end of World War II (when the spiritual opportunity was greatest), and it’s no surprise that it’s been difficult to reach the Japanese. But God alone saves, and He saves indeed. And He alone will get the glory. Difficult is not impossible. And for God nothing is impossible.

Read the entire interview HERE.

Piper on the insider movement

Should we use "Son of God" in Muslim Contexts?

There has been much debate concerning the so-called insider movement which advocates removing references in the Bible to Jesus as the Son of God. The debate is important. Obviously, Muslims are offended by any language that would refer to Jesus as anything other than a great prophet. And, since Muslims are anti-Trinitarian, references to God's Son would be, to them, blasphemous. What motivates the Insider Movement is, of course, noble. But how far should we go when seeking to reach out?

The PCA has released a report from a study committee charged to consider the validity of removing Son of God references as a strategy for reaching Muslims. The report will be released in a series of installments. This first installment is entitled “Like Father, Like Son: Divine Familial Language in Bible Translation.”

The report concludes:

Bible translations geared for Islamic contexts should not be driven by concerns that Muslims may recoil from biological terms applied to God or Jesus. That revulsion originates primarily out of religious conviction, not any communicative limitation of the terms themselves. The essentially biological terms (Hebrew, ben and ab; Greek, huios and pater) are divinely given and therefore should be translated into comparable biological terms. Footnotes, parentheticals and other paratextual comments may be used to explain the biblical and theological riches of Scripture, while never subverting the important truths embedded in the biological contours of Scripture’s words.

Not all translation workers share these methodological commitments. Therefore, churches should carefully assess the philosophies and practices of translation workers whom they support. Churches should direct resources toward faithful translation and, if loving attempts at correction fail, away from projects and persons advocating problematic approaches to translation. For the honor of the God who has revealed himself in his Word, churches and agencies involved in translation should collaborate to improve the spread of the Christian message worldwide, ensuring that Bibles oriented towards those in Muslim contexts retain the fullest range of theological meanings resident in the original languages.

The responsibility for faithful translation and worldwide gospel proclamation rests finally in the church of Jesus Christ.

Sacrificing the clearly inspired Son of God references to Jesus is giving up far too much. It begs the question, how do we win someone to Jesus, if the Jesus we win them too is not the Jesus revealed in God's Word? Further, if the idea that Jesus is God's Son offends Muslims (and it surely will) just wait until you tell them about the cross and Jesus' substitutionary death.

When you get a chance, check out Colin Hansen's interview with John Piper on the insider movement.

HT: Justin Taylor

The Best Sermon On Missions I Have Ever Heard

Don't Deny Muslims The Son...

It is evangelistically disastrous when, in an effort to reach Muslims, references to Jesus as "the Son of God" are removed from New Testaments. To tamper with the Sonship of Jesus is to undermine such essential doctrines as the Trinity, the incarnation, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the atonement, etc. And yet amazingly there are major players within evangelicalism and missions who are advancing this deadly tactic.

Here are a few helpful links:

"Forty-Year-Old Light on How to Translate 'Son of God' for Muslims" by John Piper

The Bible for Muslims - A Difficult Strategy

More on Bible Translations to the Muslims

Will the Insiders keep the outsiders outside? 2

Apparently, the Insider Movement is a loose coalition of some who are involved in Christian outreach to Muslims. Those within the Insider Movement claim that since Muslims are offended by language that proclaims God as Father and Jesus as the Son, efforts to reach them ought to eliminate that familial language.

In response to the Insider Movement the Reverend Scott Seaton of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Arlington, VA has introduced "Overture 9." Overture 9 calls for PCA presbyteries to pull funding from any missionaries or missions agencies which alter the familial language found within the Scriptures.

You can read Overture 9 HERE.

Pray for our suffering brothers and sisters in North Korea

From Randy Alcorn:

On the second night of the Third Lausanne Congress taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, an 18 year-old girl from North Korea shared her story.

She was born into a wealthy family, her father an assistant to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong II. Eventually her father’s political fortunes shifted, and after being politically persecuted by the North Korean government, he, his wife, and his daughter escaped to China.

In China a relative brought her family to church where her parents came to know Jesus Christ. A few months later, however, her pregnant mother died from Leukemia. Her father started to study the Bible with missionaries and eventually the Lord gave him a strong desire to become a missionary to North Korea. But in 2001 he was reported as a Christian, was arrested by the Chinese police, and was returned to North Korea. Forced to leave his daughter behind in China, he spent three years in prison. During this time the girl shared that it only "made my father’s faith stronger” and that he “cried out to God more desperately rather than complain or blame Him."

After three years he was able to return to China where he was briefly reunited with his daughter. Soon after, however, he gathered Bibles having resolved to return to North Korea to share Christ among that hopeless people. He was given the opportunity to go to South Korea, but he turned them down.

In 2006 he was discovered by the North Korean government and was arrested. There has since been no word from him. In all probability he has been shot to death publicly for treason.

In 2007 this girl, who at the time was not a Christian, was given the opportunity to go to South Korea. While still in China waiting at the Korean Consulate in Beijing to go to South Korea, she saw Jesus in a dream. Jesus, with tears in his eyes, called her by name and said, "How much longer are you going to keep me waiting? Walk with me. Yes, you lost your earthly father, but I am your heavenly Father and whatever has happened to you is because I love you."

She knelt and prayed to God for the first time and realized that “God my Father loves and cares for me so very much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for me.” She prayed, “God here I am. I just lay down everything and give you my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength. Please use me as you will.”

Now God has given her a great love for North Korea. She shared that, "Just as my father was used there for God’s kingdom, I now desire to be obedient to God. I want to bring the love of Jesus to North Korea."

She closed with the following words:

I look back over my short life and see God’s hand everywhere. Six years in North Korea, 11 years in China, and a time of being in South Korea. Everything that I experienced and love, I want to give it all to God and use my life for His kingdom. I hope to honor my father and bring glory to my heavenly Father by serving God with my whole heart.

I believe God’s heart cries out for the lost people of North Korea. I humbly ask you, my brothers and sisters, to have the same heart of God. Please pray that the same light of God’s grace and mercy that reached my father and my mother and now me will one day come down upon the people of North Korea… my people.

Doing good deeds but leaving out the good news?

The Wall Street Journal has included an article by Brad Greenberg concerning the tendency in modern missions to do good deeds but neglect the good news. Certainly good deeds are the fruit of the good news. If there are no good deeds then something is desperately wrong in our understanding of the Gospel. What is more, if we neglect those who are suffering then we are showing a reckless disregard for the commands of the Lord Jesus.

But it is also true that if we fill the bellies of the hungry but leave their souls empty by not proclaiming to them the crucified and risen Christ then we have neglected to give them what it is they need above all else. In other words, to alleviate physical suffering (a good thing) but withhold the Gospel is actually to be guilty of spiritual violence against the ones we presume to help. Doing good deeds apart from the clear proclamation of the gospel will not draw the suffering to Christ. Rather we will be pointing only to ourselves.

In his article, How Missionaries Lost Their Chariots of Fire, Greenberg writes:

The 1910 World Missionary Conference was a watershed moment for Protestantism. Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, the assembled 1,200 Protestants believed that Christianity was on the cusp of spreading to every corner of the world, and that Christ would come again once every ear had heard the good news of salvation. Their master plan for missions would hasten his return.

But Edinburgh 2010, the centenary conference that concluded last month, drew only about a quarter of the crowd and received attention only from a few Christian publications. The modern master plan was less ambitious as well: a call to global missions and "to witness and evangelism in such a way that we are a living demonstration of the love, righteousness and justice that God intends for the whole world."

This dramatic change was summed up at a small gathering of academics and missions professionals at Fuller Theological Seminary in late May. "At (1910) Edinburgh, people thought they were going to take over the world," said C. Douglas McConnell, dean of Fuller's School of Intercultural Studies in his opening remarks. "And now many of our students wonder if they should even try."

Indeed, colonialism is dead (thankfully). But the term "missions" itself now carries with it a negative connotation, even in politically and theologically conservative circles. Christians today typically travel abroad to serve others, but not necessarily to spread the gospel.

While meaning well and certainly doing good, this form of outreach has allowed the pendulum to swing too far from 1910. Today, Christian missionaries need to balance both actions and words. The overwhelming majority of American missionaries today are "vacationaries." Joining mission trips of two weeks or less, they serve in locales where Christianity already predominates.

The purpose, then, of their visit is to battle the ills of poverty and to stretch their own spirituality. According to studies by Robert J. Priest, a missiologist and director of the doctoral program in intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 82% of short-term missions today go to countries in the most-Christian third of the world. Only 2% land in the Middle East.

Greenberg goes on to cite David Livermore, Executive Director of the Global Learning Center at Cornerstone University who believes it is a good thing to shift away from "proselytizing." He says that the "millenials" see efforts to convert unbelievers to Jesus Christ as "al Qaeda in Christian wineskins." And, in the context of his comments, Livermore seems to agree with this assessment.

Greenberg also cites Scott Moreau of Wheaton College who estimates that nearly half of his graduate students once believed that planting churches overseas was a top priority. "Today, it might be 10%." It is clear that the good work of alleviating suffering, instead of being an accompaniment to, is now replacing the matter of first importance - the proclamation of the Gospel.

Spreading Christianity through deeds alone aligns with a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." But research suggests that non-Christians often miss the message without the words.

A 2006 study by Calvin College's Kurt Ver Beek found "little or no difference" in the spiritual response between two groups of Hondurans—one which had its homes rebuilt by missionaries who did not proselytize and the other by local NGOs. Intuition would suggest as much. Unless foreigners explain that they are motivated to help by their religious beliefs, locals may be grateful for the new home but they should not be expected to connect dots that they may not even know exist.

The reality is the Church should be doing both: serving the needy and spreading the gospel. This is what makes the humanitarian work of Christians different than that of the American Red Cross. Both are motivated by the desire to help others, but Christians are spurred by that Jesus thing.

Sunday's Sermon

Last Sunday I preached a message dealing with the primary motives for missions entitled "On Mission for the Glory of God". You can listen to or download the message HERE.

The Workers are Few

HT: Justin Taylor

Sunday's Sermon

I finished "The Gospel-Driven Church" series this morning. The seventh message is titled "Mission: Getting the Gospel Out." You can listen to or download it HERE.

Mission: Getting the Gospel Out

I am preaching the final message in "The Gospel-Driven Church" series. The title is "Mission: Getting the Gospel Out."

Here is something I found in Chris Wright's book The Mission of God:

· We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?,” when the real question is, “Where does my life fit into this great story of God’s mission?”

· We want to be driven by a purpose that has been tailored just right for our own individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.

· We talk about “applying the Bible to our lives.” What would it mean to apply our lives to the Bible instead, assuming the Bible to be the reality – the real story – to which we are called to conform ourselves?

· We wrestle with “making the gospel relevant to the world.” But in this story, God is about the business of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.

· We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission that God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God wants for the whole range of his mission.

· I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should be asking what kind of me God wants for his mission.

Wagner Vs. The Facts

Timmy Brister posts an effective rejoinder to Bill Wagner's assertions about Calvinists and evangelism.