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1716 Entries found for Keyword(s) "bart erhman"
Editorial Comment
…Dear Reader, The background for these four global conferences celebrating the famous Edinburgh 1910 conference is both miraculous in one sense and sad in another. But things are somewhat different now. Talk about miracles. Here are a few: Can you imagine how a poor kid from the backwoods of Massachusetts,…
Editorial Comment
…China is, for the first time, experiencing the problems of truly massive industrialization. What is the greatest downside to China’s miracle industrial growth? It must be the extensive damage to millions of families whose husbands have trekked off across the country to south China to take jobs that were no…
China
…Over the last month, we’ve all heard a lot about China. I write this before the Olympics start on 08/08/08. There has been an extended focus on China around the world. If the Olympics are uneventful—as we would pray and China would like—the focus will likely turn elsewhere. For many…
Raising Local Resources
…From Paralysis to Proclamation I have long felt that promoting healthy self-reliance is not an end in itself. The purpose of overcoming unhealthy dependency is to allow churches everywhere to make their own contribution to the global Christian movement. Churches paralyzed by unhealthy dependency not only cannot sustain themselves, they…
But Can We Trust Mustafa?
…There are some Christians who believe that Islam is too evil and therefore it is impossible for any Muslim who puts his/her faith in Christ to stay among his/her own people as salt and light. Let me present a fictional situation to demonstrate this attitude of prejudice that does exist…
Wheelchairs from Jesus
…They crawl across the rocky ground dragging their withered limbs behind them. They should be going to school but this is impossible unless someone carries them. They are often forced to grow up uneducated and beg for a living. They are the childhood victims of polio in Nigeria. Nigeria has…
Fruitful Practices
…Picture yourself, a foreigner (expatriate Christian worker), in a crowded guesthouse in a Central Asian city. Accepting your invitation to dinner is a Jesus follower (another expatriate worker) from your home country, widely respected for his love for and good relations with Muslims. As he sips hot chai, his eyes…
Editorial Comment
…For 500 years before Muhammad was born Christians speaking Arabic used "Allah" for God. It is not an ideal word for God except that no word in any language is ideal. Dear Reader, Here are a few interesting questions. (This is not a quiz!) Why did Muhammad reject the concept…
Learning From the Global Family of God
…We were all ready. We’d just finished seminary and had a sense of excitement about the future. One of my classmates was “Sam.” Sam and I had both been to southeast Asia during a short term a few years before. He sensed God’s call to return, so he was on…
Frontiers
…We had no idea how to organize a new mission agency. What practices should we take from other agencies? What innovations were called for? In the early days, some critics exclaimed, “Frontiers! Isn’t that the group that doesn’t believe in training? Isn’t that the irresponsible mission that will have ‘bodies…
Is God to Blame?
…Why Did God Do This? This is a book about the mystery of why tragic things happen the way they do. So it seems fitting to introduce this book with one of the toughest why questions a person can ever face: Why did a woman’s precious baby die in childbirth?…
Our Amazing God
…I remember flying back from Asia a few years ago. I’d been at a global-level gathering and met with some amazing people God has used. Flying home, I thought, “Wow, I get paid to do this! People give money so I can fly around the world and network with believers…
My African Experience
…In the Sept-Oct.2007 issue of Mission Frontiers I wrote about meeting two kinds of people on a recent visit to Africa. By the responses I received, it became clear that my credentials have not been made known to some of the current readers of Mission Frontiers. One e-mail I received…
Business as Mission
…Editor’s note: Presented here are three companies that are a source of inspiration for all the entrepreneurs who are doing or wish to do Business as Mission. Cards from Africa—Rwanda Years after genocide ravaged its country, the nation of Rwanda is rising from its past to reclaim its future in…
Making God the Hero-King of the Great Commission Company
…Alady had begged for 25 years in a city in one of the biggest countries in the world. She was demon possessed, but eventually delivered from the spirit through the efforts of followers of Christ associated with a Great Commission company (GCC) in the area. As she slowly pulled her…
Editorial Comment
…Dear Reader, This time we have a very delicate issue. Dealing with it here are three very different articles. The issue has dogged the tracks of earnest Christian workers for the last 100 years: What is God’s Mission? Is it to “declare” His glory in all the nations? Does that…
Finding Slavery in my Own Backyard
…Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today.’ Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of…
Root Canals and “Real” Ministry
…Recently a friend of mine, a businessman in India – we’ll call him “Bill” – needed a root canal. One advantage to living in this region and needing this kind of work is the price: US$30! If you were the dental patient in this instance, would you ask yourself, “Does…
Editorial Comment
…Dear Reader, Why go into all this stuff about “unreached peoples” when most of them are actually oppressed minorities and as a result many are poor, fearful, frantic and maybe dangerous? Especially if we can’t really help them transform their conditions in this life? What is actually true? What can…
God’s Patchwork Quilt
…Glistening and unspoiled, Lake Ranau lies tucked into the southwestern corner of South Sumatra.1 Seventy miles to the northwest, Mount Dempo soars a majestic 5876 feet above sea level, its verdant tapering slopes whispering the legacy of this dormant volcano. Yet natural beauty is not the dominant impression on most…