NAMB Commissioning awesome experience

The North American Mission Board commissioning service at First Baptist Church of Rincon on February 22, 2009 was an awesome experience.
The crowd of nearly 1,000 people heard brief testimonies and prayer requests from 144 missionaries serving all over the United States and Canada. Dr. Geoff Hammond, president of NAMB, spoke about how in these difficult economic times, we are to seek the kingdom first, not "all these things" of materialism.
Children from the church and other area churches brought in the flags of the United States and Canadian provinces, and the choirs and praise team of FBC Rincon led music. We also heard pre-service music by a Hispanic praise team and Korean choir.
This picture shows Lon Vining (the man in the aisle seat with his arm over the end of the pew) in the congregation. Lon and his wife Amanda serve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he is planting a church. The population in Montreal is 0.05% evangelical Christian. The need is great, but God's calling is greater!
It was a thrilling worship service. When it ended, Dr. Bob White, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, turned to me and told me that it was one of the most inspiring worship services he had ever been in.
You can read the article by Baptist Press about the commissioning service here.

Why should I believe the Bible?

In the runaway bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code, author Dan Brown claims that Emperor Constantine decided to “rewrite the history books” and so he “commissioned and financed a new Bible” and he “outlawed, gathered up, and burned” the existing gospels (Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p. 234).

While reputable historians have rejected the claims of The Da Vinci Code as having no basis in fact, many people wonder, why should I believe the Bible?

The Bible itself claims to be the Word of God. We read in 2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV) that “all scripture is God-breathed…” I believe the Bible is the Word of God? Why? Not only does it claim to be the Word of God, but it passes three important tests:

I. It passes the test of corroboration.

In a trial, one of the things a judge or jury look for is corroborating testimony. If one witness sees something, and another witness agrees and says he saw the same thing, it gives extra credence to the truth of his words.

The Bible passes the test of corroboration, because so many other witnesses verify what the Bible says. Here are just a few examples:

Genesis 36:20 says the Horites were descendants of Esau, but some historians doubted they existed. In 1995 Giorgio Buccellati discovered the Horite capital city beneath modern Syrian city of Tell Mozan.

According to 1 Kings 9:28, King Solomon brought back 16 tons of gold from Ophir. But nobody knew that Ophir existed. In 1956 broken pottery found at Tell Qasile in Israel was inscribed, “gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon.”

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero persecuted the Christians, and then explained that “Christus” was crucified under Pontius Pilate, just as the Gospels record.

In 1990 a bone chest was discovered in Jerusalem that was inscribed “Caiaphas” and “Joseph, son of Caiaphas.” John 11 says Caiaphas was the high priest at Jesus’ trial, and Jewish historian Joseph says his full name was “Joseph, called Caiaphas.”

There are literally thousands of these kinds of historical and archaeological discoveries that identify people and places named in the Bible.

II. It passes the test of endurance.

The manuscript evidence of the Bible is an amazing story.

The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew and some in Aramaic, and copied down by hand. So how trustworthy is the text that has been copied and recopied for several thousand years? We got our answer when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. The Dead Sea Scrolls were a thousand years older than any other manuscripts available at the time! Scholars eagerly studied them to see what errors would have been made in all those years of copying. To their amazement, there were almost no differences. For example, when they studied the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, which is about 100 pages in English translation, they only found three minor spelling differences, similar to the difference in spelling Savior or Saviour.

The New Testament has by far the best manuscript evidence of any other ancient document. There are 5,400 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that scholars can study to figure out what the original text said. Compare that with the classical works of Plato, Herodotus, and Aristophanes, that have anywhere from one to 20 manuscripts.

At one time, liberal scholars claimed that the Gospel of John must have been written long after John's life, in the late second century. But then a papyrus was discovered in Southern Egypt of the Gospel of John carbon dated to A.D. 125. Since John was probably written at Ephesus, it had to have been written long before A.D. 125 to have time to travel to Southern Egypt.

The Bible has outlasted the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece and Rome. It survived the invasions of the Goths and Vikings and the neglect of the Dark Ages. It survived the skepticism of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. Over the centuries, people have attacked the people, banned the Bible and even burned the Bible, but the Bible continues to endure as the number one bestselling book of all time.

III. It passes the test of experience.

Millions of people have read the Bible and found that it spoke to their hearts.

Lewis Wallace was a Union general in the Civil War, and then became governor of the territory of New Mexico. He met the atheist scholar Robert Ingersoll and was unable

to refute Ingersoll’s arguments against the Bible. So he studied everything he could about the life of Jesus, and became convinced that Jesus was everything the Bible says he was. In the process, Wallace wrote a novel, called Ben Hur about a man who meets Jesus and gives his life to Christ.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a Russian who was sent to the Soviet labor camps for eight years for writing disparaging comments about the Soviet leader, Stalin. There he became convinced that only the message of the Bible explained the human condition of sin and gave the solution for changing the human heart. Solzhenitsyn’s writings about the Soviet prisons and Russian history are considered some of the greatest writings about communism in the USSR.

I grew up the son of a U.S. Army chaplain. In the seventh grade, I began to read about ten chapters of the Bible every day. I could not get enough of it, I was so thirsty to read more and know more about the scripture. And the more I read the Bible, the more my life changed. Finally, in the tenth grade, I sensed that God was calling me to preach His Word.

Why do I believe the Bible? It passes the test of corroboration and test of endurance, but most of all, I have experienced it's life-changing message, and so have millions of others. How about you?

From ice to rainbow

When our Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief team arrived in Radcliff, Kentucky on February 8, most of the ice had melted (except for a little you can see in the cedar tree needles above), but the tree damage was everywhere. Electricity had been restored, but lots of people, especially senior adults, had a mess that they could not clean up themselves and could not afford to clean up. That's where our "Rescue and Recovery" unit helped them. It was hard work, but very gratifying, and at every home we prayed with the homeowners and talked to them about the Lord. We discovered several people who had no church but were open to a visit from a local church, and we passed that on to the local Baptist association. Most of all, we gave people hope. How appropriate that after we finished one of our jobs, a beautiful rainbow came out!

Mrs. K's answered prayer

This is a picture of me with Mrs. K, a widow who lives in Radcliff, Kentucky. She broke her arm trying to clean up her yard after the ice storm. The tree behind us split open from the weight of the ice, and the part that remained standing was leaning toward her house.
She had tried to get the insurance company to get it off her property, but everybody was busy. We did not have the equipment to cut down her tree, but we cleaned debris from the drive where we were standing, and she moved her vehicles around to this drive. We prayed for her to get some more help.
I found out that she is a Sunday School teacher at a Presbyterian church. I gave her a New Testament with devotionals in the front, and a Rick Warren CD and a gospel tract. She was excited to get the materials, saying she would use it to teach and encourage others.
After we left, she called our operations center to say that 30 minutes after our prayer, a man came who was able to cut down that tree so it would not fall on her house. She was praising the Lord for answering our prayers.

Before and after

Here's a picture of a yard in Radcliff, Kentucky that was messed up by the ice storm, and a picture after we cleaned it up. While we were working on this yard, a man drove up and asked me, "What organization are you with?" I said, "We're Christians doing this as a ministry. We're with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief." He said, "I'm on social security and I've tried to get my place cleaned up, but I can't afford what people charge. How much do you charge?" I said, "Sir, we don't take payment. We do this for free." He was amazed. "For FREE?" he asked. "Yes," I said, "It's like God's grace. You can't earn it; you have to receive it by faith. Do you have a local church that you attend?" I handed him a gospel tract. He said, "Yes, I'll be there this Sunday." I then explained that he could go to the fire station and fill out an application for assistance from us. When I got back to the fire station for lunch, he was there filling out the application.
I cannot count how many times I had the opportunity to explain grace to people when they were surprised that we take no payment and we do this as a ministry. That is a "before" and "after" that I may never see this side of heaven, but I know it touched many hearts.

Baptists bring buzz

"Baptists bring buzz" was the headline in today's The News-Enterprise, the newspaper in Radcliff, Kentucky where we worked.

This picture was taken of me moving some limbs in the rain. I'm also quoted in the newspaper article, which was pretty accurate. You can read the entire article here.

I'm tired, so I'm going to rest and I hope to post my pictures from the trip later.

Going to do disaster relief in Kentucky

I am going to Radcliff, Kentucky February 8-12 to serve as a chaplain working with a Baptist cleanup and recovery unit that is helping victims of the ice storm. (I had previously thought it was a feeding unit, but I was incorrect.)
About 100 Southern Baptist disaster relief teams from a dozen different states are working in Kentucky and Arkansas, providing food, showers, and chainsaw teams to remove debris.
I will be serving as a chaplain with Rev. Flinn Gregory of Bluffton, Georgia. We will meet people, listen to their stories, provide counseling, prayer, and spiritual support.
Please pray for our safe travel on Sunday and for our fruitful labor for the Lord.