A man who changed my life

Often we are influenced by someone who has a vision.  Perhaps we follow a charismatic pastor with a vision for starting a new church or churches.  Or maybe we are inspired by a teacher in school who has a vision for how society ought to be.

While the Lord called me to work with Russian-speaking young people, He left the specifics rather undefined.  When I was in seminary I met the dean of the Eastern European Bible Institute, a ministry of Greater Europe Mission.

Greater Europe Mission was started in 1949 by Rev. Bob Evans, a Wheaton College graduate.  Dr. Bob had been a Navy chaplain in World War II and landed with Allied Forces on Normandy Beach on D Day.  While driving a scooter on the beach, he hit a landmine and eventually woke up in a hospital in France.  Since he had been a missionary kid in French speaking Africa, he could speak French. As he talked about Jesus with the nurses and hospital staff, he realized that they knew nothing of a personal relationship with Christ.

After the war, Dr. Bob returned to France and was a part of evangelistic campaigns with Youth For Christ along with his college buddy, Billy Graham.  Seeing many young people accept Christ led Dr. Bob to the realization that there was no place for these new converts to train for ministry.  So he started Greater Europe Mission, known affectionately as the Bible Institute Mission. GEM started as one Bible Institute, the European Bible Institute in Lamorlaye, France, just north of Paris.

From these beginnings Dr. Bob envisioned and helped begin ten Bible Institutes and three theological seminaries:  the French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Nordic, Belgian, Greek, Eastern European, and Zaporozhye Bible Colleges; the German Theological Seminary (Freie Theologische Akademie – Giessen), the Spanish Theological Seminary, and Tyndale Theological Seminary. The goal of these schools was to train evangelical young people to be leaders of the emerging churches resulting from the evangelistic campaigns, and to stem the tide of liberal theological education in Europe.

When we joined the Eastern European Bible Institute, it was then the newest of the Bible Institutes founded by GEM. We only met Dr. Bob after we had decided upon joining GEM and EEBI.  We did, though, have to attend Candidate School and also later Pre-Field Orientation.  During Candidate School and Pre-Field we learned how GEM got started and perhaps more importantly got to know the man who started GEM.

Dr. Bob’s enthusiasm for evangelism was infectious.  His main vision as expressed in the GEM motto was: Training Europeans to Evangelize Greater Europe.  Dr. Bob knew that North Americans coming to Europe would be unable to reach most Europeans.  He realized that, unless Europeans were doing the evangelizing, the effect would be limited at best.  For this reason we North Americans were to evangelize and train Europeans so that they could evangelize and train other Europeans.  Europeans would have a much deeper and more intuitive sense of how to reach their own people than we ever would.  So the GEM motto reflected both Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Tim. 2:2 “And the things you have heard from me in the presence of faithful witnesses the same entrust to faithful people who will train others also” and the cultural sensitivity and missiology which said it was best for people from the same people group to reach their own people if possible.  Training nationals to do the work of evangelism and training would mean a greater, long term result.

Dr. Bob was a funny man.  He had a dry sense of humor, which was perhaps a remnant of his Navy days.  Later (many years later, 16 years, I think) we saw him at Tyndale Theological Seminary, where he was speaking at the graduation ceremony.  He made a comment along the lines of “You know I have friends who believe in perfectionism.  I, however, haven’t seemed to be able to obtain it myself.”  He was a down-to-earth man who did whatever was necessary to get the job done.  He even slept on the floor of the elementary school he had found near Amsterdam which was to become the Tyndale Theological Seminary.  At that time if a property was left uninhabited a law, left over from after the war when housing was scarce and owners perhaps dead, allowed squatters to take it over (without remuneration to anyone!).  So, Dr. Bob slept in a sleeping bag on the floor to keep squatters out.  As I recall he also bought the first set of curtains, which served for at least 15 years!

I knew of Dr. Bob Evans even before our joining GEM from my seminary advisor, Dr. Arthur P. Johnston, who was Tyndale’s first president.  Dr. J was considering joining GEM and starting a new theological seminary in the Netherlands.  I didn’t know much about GEM at that time or about Dr. Evans.  This new seminary was to be the English language seminary of GEM which would serve all Bible Institutes which did not have a seminary in their own language.  We as advisees prayed with Dr. J about whether he was to take up this new work.  Linda and I were thrilled when Dr. J joined GEM at the same time we did and started the new school, i.e. Tyndale Theological Seminary.  Over many years at GEM Annual Conferences Dr. J would say to me, “Phil, when you get your doctorate come and teach for me.”  I would usually reply something like, “Sure, Dr. J!” thinking it was a sort of joke; I would never leave Eastern Europe.

Well, time has a way of changing circumstances and other factors.  Eventually I found myself in the Chapel at Tyndale Theological Seminary with Dr. Bob and Dr. J shaking their hands as I joined the faculty.  Though I had a vision (to work with Russian-speaking young people), Dr. Bob had an even larger vision (Training Europeans to Evangelize Greater Europe).  My vision has been implanted in his for all of the 27 years we have been missionaries under Greater Europe Mission, whether as a part of the Eastern European Bible Institute, or Tyndale Theological Seminary.  Dr. Bob’s vision lives on in all of us who continue to serve here in Europe under Greater Europe Mission.  None of us would be here without him and we would be far poorer never to have known him.

The prime directive

The other night I was watching “I, Robot”, the movie with Will Smith as a detective in the 21^st century who doesn’t trust robots.  It turns out he is right not to trust them.  The main computer system, VIKI, who controls all the robots, has basically declared war on the human race.  

Well, actually VIKI hasn’t given up or changed its prime directive.  “She” has in fact rather misunderstood or over-interpreted the prime directive.  Of course her prime directive was to protect and serve the human race.  Since she has determined that the human race is its own worst enemy, she has decided to use the army of “servant” robots to keep humans from exterminating each other. She will do anything necessary, even if it means enslaving all humans and killing some.

Fortunately for the 21^st century Will Smith is able to save the day with the help of a rogue robot, who has been designed and programmed by the maker for just this eventuality.  Once again robots return to following Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I haven’t indulged in this movie review for the sake of boring you or reviewing potential disaster or End Times scenarios.  The movie made me think. I started thinking about the prime directive and the importance of a prime directive.

What prime directive have we been given as Christians?  Obviously the first and foremost for any missionary is:  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Matthew 28:19, 20.

For evangelical Christians and especially evangelical missionaries the Great Commission is our prime directive.  All of us are doing all we can and investing all of our efforts whatever we do to see that this prime directive is fulfilled.

All mission agencies have a prime directive.  In one way or another, the Great Commission is behind their prime directive. Though all these groups aim at the same goal, each agency has a different focus since not all agencies do the same thing. Some missions are aimed at reaching so far unreached or least reached peoples.  Other agencies focus on things like Bible translation.  Their goal is to advance the cause of world evangelization by making God’s Word available in the languages of each and every people group.

When we joined Greater Europe Mission in 1984 GEM had a motto: “Training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe”.  Our Bible verse was 2 Timothy 2:2 “and the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses the same entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Greater Europe Mission was the “Bible Institute” mission.  GEM started with the founding of the European Bible Institute in Paris, France.  GEM missionaries went on to found the German Bible Institute, the Nordic Bible Institute, the Spanish Bible Institute, the Italian Bible Institute, the Portuguese Bible Institute, the Greek Bible Institute, Eastern European Bible Institute, Zaporozhye Bible College, the German Theological Seminary, the Spanish Theological Seminary and Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands.

The goal of each of these Bible Institutes and Seminaries was to train Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.  Dr. Bob Evans, the founder of GEM (and Tyndale), felt that it would be much more efficient in the long run if missionaries trained Europeans to evangelize Europeans.  Missionaries trying to evangelize Europeans would have to spend a lot of time and effort to understand various European cultures.  Whereas, Europeans trained by missionaries would be able to adapt and apply the teaching so that they, the Europeans, would be better evangelists.

When we went to Yugoslavia back in 1986 with the goal of learning Serbo-Croatian the prime directive was to learn the language well enough to teach Yugoslavs at the Eastern European Bible Institute, so that they could reach their country for Christ serving as pastors, teachers, and evangelists.  My personal goal was to train apologists, people who would engage the contemporary culture and present convincing evidence for the credibility of Christianity.  During our time in Yugoslavia and with the Eastern European Bible Institute from 1986 – 1994 we did just that: we trained Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe or more specifically we trained Yugoslavs (Serbs, Croats, Slovaks, Albanians, Macedonians) to evangelize Yugoslavia.

When we left Yugoslavia for a year in the US and then went on to Belgium where I did my doctoral studies our goal was still GEM’s prime directive: training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe. While in Belgium I studied most of the current European philosophical trends and schools.  My goal was to be able to train European apologists, those who would engage the minds of their countrymen and make a persuasive case for Christianity.

During our time in Belgium we were not a part of a formal Bible Institute or Seminary, but our goal was still the same.  While in Belgium we were very active in the ministry of the International Church of Evangelicals in Leuven (ICEL).  We led Bible studies, led worship, preached and evangelized among the international students at the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain).  We had teams come to help reach these students.  We held special evenings of outreach along with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).  I held a series of philosophical evenings.  All of these events and activities were aimed at the prime directive of the Great Commission, but in some ways they were not completely in line with GEM’s prime directive: Training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.  But our goal was to return to a teaching ministry as soon as possible after required residential study at the university.

Initially Greater Europe Mission did not encourage sending American evangelists and church planters to Europe, since the idea was that the Europeans trained in the Bible Institutes would do these tasks.  However, eventually it was felt that some evangelists and church planters would be sent to model these activities for the Europeans being trained.  In time due to the indigenization of the Bible Institutes and Seminaries Greater Europe Mission’s focus shifted from founding and running Bible Institutes and Seminaries to evangelism and church planting more specifically.  The prime directive of Matthew 28:19, 20 (The Great Commission) is still the main goal, though the method of reaching Europe has changed.

As our time in Belgium drew to an end we considered various teaching ministries, mainly seminaries, in various Eastern European locations.  Due to our children having learned Dutch and their need to finish high school in one place (in English) we accepted the invitation of Dr. Art Johnston, Phil’s advisor from seminary, to join Tyndale Theological Seminary, near Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  Tyndale was founded to be the seminary founded GEM to train any Europeans from all over Europe who needed a Master’s level training in English, if they came from countries where there was no seminary in their language.  

As in Belgium at ICEL our scope of ministry here at Tyndale has been very broad.  We have many European students from eastern and western Europe, especially a lot of eastern Europeans: Bosnians, Bulgarians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Serbs, Slovenes among others.  Besides Europeans we are also training Africans and Asians.  Some of the Africans are involved in evangelizing Europeans and planting churches, even here in the Netherlands.  So, although our student body is broader than Europeans, our goal is primarily to train Europeans so that Europe will be evangelized.

So, our prime directive still is: Training Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.  Our method is still basically the same: classroom instruction and hands on life-on-life discipleship.  Times change and economic circumstances may force us to change our methods, but the most effective way to evangelize Greater Europe is still to train Europeans to evangelize Greater Europe.

Doubts and Community

Today was a good day of realizing that church is people, people one cares about and people who care about you. It is not that everyone agrees on everything, but there is a caring for one another, and we all care about worshiping our Lord. Ministry may eventually carry me elsewhere, but my heart is in the community.

Dr. Peter Davids

An adjunct professor of Tyndale, who is a very well known New Testament exegete, posted this comment above on his Facebook page.  I can only say, “Amen! And Amen!”

We have another friend, who was active in our church, who recently wrote to me that he needed to take some time away from “organized religion”.  He needed some time away to figure some things out and get in touch with God.

I have to say that I understand to a point what he means.  I think he means that we all at times are aggravated with someone or others in the church and wish we could just disappear or leave.  Sometimes people do leave a church for this reason.  I have been tempted to leave various churches various times in my life for this reason.  Usually I never left a church until I left the city I was in.  

I identify with Peter Davids’ comment above.  Leaving church would be like leaving my family.  I may not like them all at times, but I always love them as brothers and sisters in Christ.  I have at times withdrawn from some ministry in the church, e.g. church leadership, if I disagreed or felt my involvement was hindering the advancement of the church, i.e. if I disagreed with some policy or program being pursued and it was pointless to remain as a complainer or “brake” when the majority agreed.

My other friend may have also meant that he was experiencing doubts.  Often people seem to feel that they need to leave church when they have doubts.  Sometimes this is motivated from the modernist idea that we must as individuals solve all questions and answer all doubts by ourselves without relying on someone else.  

Personally I think this is madness.  We are not lone individuals.  We are born into families.  We generally live in families and God’s church is a family.  Scripture is full of metaphors of the Body of Christ as a family.  Frequent reference is made to fellow Christians being brothers and sisters and even fathers and mothers.  Paul tells Timothy to address men his age as brothers.  He tells him to address older men and women as fathers and mothers.  He tells him to treat younger women as sisters. (1 Timothy 5:1,2)

When you are ill you are glad for family who care for you.  When you feel sick or are incapacitated you are glad that someone else can take care of things, e.g. go to the drugstore and get your prescription, keep things clean and washed up, etc.

When a person has doubts or questions withdrawing into the “furnace” as Rene Descartes did is not wise. (Descartes' furnace ) Descartes decided he would withdraw into this “side room” which was a part of the hearth.  One could enter and be warm without being bothered.  He went into the room intent on figuring out just what he could believe in.  He employed his famous strategy of methodological doubt. Despite what Modernists have taught we cannot resolve doubts “boldly and bravely” on our own.  The famous “I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am.” is fraught with both philosophical and personal problems.

The church may not be perfect, but it is where God instructs us to seek help and counsel.  The Modernist demand that we create ourselves from our own resources is just false.  We were given to be by a loving God into a family, a human family, with whatever flaws and faults it had.  As new believers we are also given into a family, the family of God, the church of Christ.

Similarly the existentialist’s call for individuals to make meaning in a meaningless world is also flawed.  No one exists alone.  Descartes would have starved if he had remained alone in the furnace.  Despite existentialist demands for us to make meaning, to find value in the face of the nonsensical nature of life, life does in fact have meaning.  When a tragedy occurs we don’t say, “Oh, too bad for the Japanese.  A tsunami hit them.” We feel compelled (as we should) to do something to help.  This is our natural human reaction.  If the existentialists were correct we should, rather than do altruistic things, do our utmost to get ahead ourselves.

When I accepted Christ it was within a church community, St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church in West View, PA.  It’s true that I was asking lots of questions, but who answered them?  Perhaps Camus with his novel, the Plague, sparked some of the questions, e.g. about the meaning(lessness) of life, but it was people in the church who answered my questions or at least listened to my endless jeremiads as I tried to solve these questions.

The first person to listen was (and often still is) my mother.  She was both obviously my mother (human family), but also a sister in Christ.  My mother has read very widely and has always been a very wise person, as well as gentle and patient.

Another person to listen to my endless expositions was Dave Hrach.  Dave was our Sunday School teacher and one of our Luther League (youth group) leaders.  He was obviously a member of our church and a brother in Christ.

If you have not heard my testimony before, basically reading the Plague by Albert Camus, the French existentialist, caused me to question God’s existence and the meaning of life.  I was seventeen at the time.

I had been raised in the church, Evangelical Lutheran churches: St. Paul in Pittsburgh, PA and St. Luke, which I mentioned earlier. I had been baptized as a child, went to Sunday School and church all my life, had been catechized (taught church doctrine) and confirmed (officially declared my faith in Christ in church before the Bishop).  But somehow through all that process I had not met Christ personally.  Still, all of this good teaching (good deposit) formed a backdrop to my thought.

As I wrestled with Camus I could not follow his logic at all.  If God did not exist and I was the product of evolution, why would I risk my life doing altruistic things? In the novel that meant staying and fighting the plague for a French doctor, who could have left the scene of the outbreak.  I could not understand that doctor’s choice.  It seemed nonsensical to me.  Evolution teaches the survival of the fittest.  It says that if a species or individual has advantages over other species or even members of its own species it should and will use those advantages to stay alive.  It made no sense to me to remain and risk death.

If there were a God, and God would either reward you if you did help people in need or punish you or didn’t, there was a reason to help people in need.  If those people were created in God’s image and as a result valuable to him and in and of themselves there was a reason to fight the plague or do any other sort of altruistic deed in which one would risk his own life.  If there were a God, and saving anyone’s life other than your own had some eternal value, then there was a reason to fight against the plague or any other disease or disaster in which you would risk your own life.

However, if there is no God and no ultimate meaning to the universe and helping others only endangered oneself, then altruistic acts were just so much foolishness.  From my perspective today I would say if such were the case, then Friedrich Nietzsche was correct and the Superman should take care of himself and reign.

Thankfully there were people who patiently listened to me as I spun out this reasoning.  I’m not sure they would have reasoned the same way, but they listened and affirmed the correct conclusions.  I will never forget sitting in Dave Hrach’s car as he listened to me as I spent I’m sure it was at least an hour explaining all this.  He didn’t lead me in a prayer of repentance, but he said simply, “I hope you decide God exists.”  He left it to the Holy Spirit to draw me (as He was and did).  After a Bible study that night in the church sanctuary as we were praying as a group of teenagers, I gave my life to Christ.  Perhaps I only actualized what I had been taught for many years, but I “owned the Covenant”.  With a bit of a nod to the Modernists I “reasoned it out for myself” and I found the Truth.  But to be fair with a nod to Soren Kierkegaard, I met the Truth and the Truth was a Person, the Risen Jesus Christ.

I am no modern Apostle Paul.  Thankfully I have never persecuted the church (at least not intentionally!  ;-)  ). Yet that day was my “Damascus Road” experience.  It has focused and directed my life ever since.  And I don’t regret it at all.

So to return to the opening theme… I did wrestle through my doubts, but I didn’t wrestle alone.  That would have been foolish and perhaps even suicidal.  The devil desires to separate us from those whom God has given to us to help us resolve our questions and doubts.

We as the church are a family; a family of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. I cannot list here due to space everyone who played a role of “father” or “mother” or “brother” or “sister”: there too many.

However, the point is clear (at least to me). You cannot and should not attempt to resolve your doubts by yourself apart from the church community, the family of God.  It is far from a perfect institution and the members are far from perfect, but family never is.  Still it’s family, the community we are born into.

With a nod to my doctoral mentor, Dr. William Desmond, “we are given to be with a promise”.  God has created us and placed us in families, human and ecclesiastical.  We find comfort and encouragement from God’s Word in the company of others (whether virtual or actual; however, virtual friends can’t give you a hug).

We not only find comfort and encouragement in God’s family, but we are also given TO God’s family.  We, as those born of God, come with a set of gifts and talents (spiritual and natural), which we are to use for the advancement and strengthening of the family of God.  

It is often said that there are no atheists in a foxhole.  When we are under attack physically and we have to fight there is no time to doubt.  We need help and we need it fast.  A similar point might be made about those who have doubts.  Often we are tempted to withdraw and say something like “I need to figure things out for myself”.  This, I believe, is a ploy of the devil. Separated from the warmth and spiritual food of the church we grow weaker and weaker trying to do something God never intended: figuring it out for ourselves.  

Those who are busy in the family of God find that church activities become a means to quell those doubts and help them grow spiritually. We may need to move “sideways”, e.g. out of leadership and into another ministry, e.g. music or setting up chairs.  But our spirits will thrive.  We were never meant to be isolated individual believers.  We were “given to be with a promise” as a part of a family.

Not because of your righteousness...

Deut 9:4  After the LORD your God has driven them (the Gentile nations in Palestine) out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you.  5  It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  6  Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

My daily Bible reading plan is taking me through Old Testament readings from Deuteronomy these days.  As it is Lent, the season of preparation for Easter, traditionally a season of penitence, passages tend to focus on the need to repent and turn to God for his unmerited favor.

I was struck in the passage above with the repetition of the phrase “not because of your righteousness”.  The people of Israel about to enter the Promised Land of Canaan were tempted to see themselves as deserving of inheriting the land, because they were righteous in contrast to the unrighteousness of the Gentile nations.  God, however, didn’t see it that way.  In his eyes they were unrighteous, perhaps just as unrighteous as the Gentile nations they were dispossessing. 

It’s relatively easier for us to see the wickedness of the nations they were dispossessing.  The first custom associated with their pagan idolatry that comes to my mind is the practice of offering their children to the god Moloch.  They made a god of metal who was hollow inside and had hands out stretched as if to hold a burden.  Then they put in wood and fuel and started a raging hot fire inside the idol.  Once the temperature was hot enough to burn someone severely, they laid a newborn infant on the outstretched arms of the idol.

The Israelites could be rightly repulsed by this pagan practice of infanticide, especially in such a miserable, horrible way.  However, they were not guiltless of idolatry, which Moses reminds them of.  When he was on the mountain receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments, the tablets of the Covenant, they forced Aaron to take their golden earrings and bracelets and other objects of gold and melt them down and fashion a golden calf, an idol.  Then they feasted, danced, sang and “rose up to play” (literally my Hebrew dictionary says this term is used “of conjugal caresses”).  So, the Israelites may not have given their children to Moloch, but they did engage in just the same sort of immoral sexual behavior as did the nations they were to dispossess.

So the question arises:  Why was God going to drive out the Gentile nations, who were idolaters, to give it to an undeserving, idolatrous people, the Israelites?

The answer can be found in one word, which I think is my favorite word in Hebrew, chesed, covenant love or loving-kindness or tenderness.  God says to the Israelites:

“It is not because of your righteousness but…, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

God had made repeated promises to the Patriarchs of Israel, not because of their righteousness or accomplishments, but in order to show his great might by choosing them, a despised and small nation.  He made a covenant with them because of his chesed, his covenant love, and he would keep the promises he made to them, even if they were unrighteous.

Despite the fact that they repeatedly failed to live up to their side of the covenant God remained faithful to his side.  As Paul says, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful. For, he cannot disown himself.” (2 Tim. 2:13)

God’s covenant wasn’t without conditions and consequences, but his covenant love, his chesed, never changes.  The Israelites eventually were dispossessed of the land too, but God’s love still attended them eventually - sending them a savior, the Messiah Jesus.

Eph. 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.”