This is not what I need, let me try again
1716 Entries found for Keyword(s) "bart erhman"
The ISIS Crisis
…At an interfaith conference in Geneva, the Saudi head of the Muslim World League privately acknowledged that he perceived Christians as infidels because they believe that Jesus is the son of God, and believe in the Trinity and in the divinity of Jesus. After a 15-minute presentation summarizing groundbreaking new…
God of the Thai
…As a Thai Christian, it troubles me that after centuries of mission effort in Thailand, so few Thai people believe in Jesus Christ. In my search to understand why, I discovered some events which seem to hold the key. In 1622, Patriarch Pierre Lambert de la Motte (a Roman Catholic…
Four Ways Culture & Worship Relate
…Christianity, like every other religion, was born in a particular historical and cultural context, in a particular time and place.1 For Christianity, this context happened to be the ancient Middle East at the beginning of the first century. While the historical context of Christianity’s birth is unchangeable and static, like…
Ethnodoxology
…I, Robin, had the opportunity to interview Brian Schrag about the guiding principles of ethnodoxology and its crucial role in cross-cultural ministry. Below is a portion of our conversation.1 RPH: This term—ethnodoxology—is new to most people. What does it mean? BES: Ethnodoxology is a theological and anthropological framework guiding all…
Massive Prayer and Missions Movements of the 90s
…The decade of the 90s was an unprecedented time for massive prayer movements focused on praying for the last remaining unreached people groups of the world. I was caught up in the fervor of the times myself. As I have taken time to reflect on my own history, I have…
Disciples Unleashed
…The Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Mission Frontiers featured the remarkable discipleship model of Real Life Ministries (RLM). Over just a dozen years, two couples in a rural town of 30,000 in Northern Idaho, had birthed a discipling church to involve 8,000 members in small discipleship groups which had baptized 700…
Urbana Gets Radical
…“What happens when every student in this room makes their primary ambition, their primary plan, their primary dream, the proclamation of the gospel to the nations? When that takes hold in our hearts the very gates of hell will not stop the spread of the gospel to the ends of…
From Conflict To People Group Focus
…When an obscure Arab citizen of Mecca claimed to have met a spirit-being in the year 610 CE, the world could never have imagined that this man, under the influence of that spirit, would birth a religion that today numbers about 1.6 billion adherents, twenty percent of the human race.…
The Boy Who Would Not Die
…David’s Early Journey With gunfire cracking around him, David ran as fast as his nine-year-old legs would carry him. He was sure a soldier was right behind him, about to grab his shoulder, but was afraid to look back. He just kept running until his legs would no longer move.…
International Church Reaches “The Nations” Through Refugee Ministry
…The white gunnysack keeps slipping out of my hands. It didn’t feel this heavy when we started walking 20 minutes ago, but now my arms feel like wet noodles in this Bangkok heat and humidity. Calvary Baptist Church volunteer Kim Amihan grabs the bag from me and lets out a…
Introducing the Global Great Commission Network
…What is the state of the Great Commission today? This is a question which should rightly concern every believer. Yet remarkably, even many mission and church leaders remain unaware of the progress being made, or lack thereof, towards discipling all peoples in our generation. Some mission strategists believe this ignorance…
Three Missionary Wives
…The motto of every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or school master, ought to be “devoted for life.” –Adoniram Judson Although five young men were commissioned as missionaries on February 6, 1812, considerable interest was concentrated on the three young wives who were so publicly expanding expectations of the role and…
North American Mission from Judsons to Global Christianity
…It might be tempting, on this 200th commissioning anniversary of the first ordained American foreign missionaries, to directly attribute the current status of global Christianity to their courageous obedience to the Great Commission. Even limiting the scope of their influence to Burma—their primary place of overseas service—the commendable work of…
Translation of Familial Language in the Bible
…A well-educated non-Christian woman was reading the Gospel of Luke for the first time. She came to Luke 2:48, where Mary says to Jesus, “Son,…Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you” (ESV). The woman said, “I can’t accept this! We know that Jesus was born from a…
…This article is an abridgement of “A New Look at Translating Familial Language,” forthcoming in The International Journal of Frontier Missiology 28:3 (2011). A well-educated non-Christian woman was reading the Gospel of Luke for the first time. She came to Luke 2:48, where Mary says to Jesus, “Son,…Your father and…
All Things are Yours
…In a classic text on cross-cultural ministry Paul stated his policy of becoming all things to all men so that by all means he might save some (1 Cor. 9:22). This is sometimes treated as a specialist approach for experts in cross-cultural encounter, but the Bible presents it as a…
Translation Issues Relevant to Jesus Movements
…Historical Debates on Translation Issues The translation of texts is an ancient practice and the discussion and debate surrounding translation date back at least a few millennia. The ancient Greeks spoke of two elements of translation: metaphrase (word for word) and paraphrase (idea by idea). Effective translation was seen as…
The Bible on Church Planting Movements
…Qualified to Lead? A common criticism of church-planting movements (CPMs) is that fairly new believers become leaders of churches. This seems to contradict what Paul says about the qualifications of overseers: He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as…
Avery Willis’ Last Dream
…Dr. Avery T. Willis, Jr. (1934-2010) viewed discipleship through the eyes of a missionary. He was president of a seminary in Indonesia during the 1970s when a work of the Holy Spirit among the Indonesian missionaries led them to train leaders to go out to the villages and do “theological…
Tokyo 2010 and the “Western/Non-Western” Distinction
…The Tokyo 2010 Consultation consisted of 967 delegates from 73 countries, not including the 927 Japanese observers. According to David Hupp, Tokyo 2010’s administrator, “Using a definition of ‘Non-Western’ as any place other than the USA, Canada, Western Europe, New Zealand and Australia, the Non-Western representation ranges from 66% to…