CHILLING IN WARM CHILE

Why are we chilling in warm Chile? Chile is the country shaped like a long strip of bacon applied to the southwest side of South America. It is approaching fall here and still warm in the Patagonian Rain Forest with beautiful lakes, mountains and live volcanoes. Our granddaughter Naomi and her husband Jorge, a civil lawyer, live in a forest cabin near the village of Panguipulli which is about 700 miles from the southern tip of the continent. They have blessed us with our first great-granddaughter Pippa who is why my son Caleb, a grandpa now, his son Mishael, and Nancy and I are here.

A relaxing lunch outside Naomi and Jorge’s forest cabin with a babbling brook just feet away.

Before coming we were invited to do two weekend seminars on biblical church leadership and the Christian family for Naomi and Jorge’s church, The Christian Community of the Forest, which is only a year old. It was exciting to worship and fellowship with many new believers. They had good questions and were hungry to know the Scriptures. Naomi and others translated our sermons and seminars into Spanish. God was doing a work here that we suddenly found ourselves a part of.

We also were invited to homes to visit with church leaders like Pablo and Migno. He is an ER nurse but also preaches most Sundays and is is doing correspondence courses on ministry since there is little opportunity for formal training in the country. Mignol is an architect but also studies with Pablo. They had many questions on preaching, teaching, how to develop the church, the family, and dealing with sin problems. Pray for them as they grow and help lead the church in unity.

Pablo and Mignol invited us for coffee and questions about ministry.

Chile has only 18 million people but is a unique place to do mininistry for many reasons. Their Atacama desert is the driest place in the world with no rain for 400 years. A few people live there. Only in a few small areas it rains every three or four years causing beautiful blooming flowers. This is a good illustration of how spiritually dry some places are until the Gospel causes spiritual life to bloom as we saw.

Chile also has the biggest open pit copper mine in the world which is three miles wide by two miles long and over half a mile deep. So people do have jobs here. You probably have copper house wiring from it. They also have volcanoes with as many as six in a close cluster. Many are active and can be seen smoking where Naomi and Jorge live. Here the world’s largest earthquake happened in 1960 leveling thousands of buildings and creating a tidal wave killing people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines. It was so large the Richter scale pegged out, therefore the true intensity is unknown. In the last two weeks over 25 quakes have taken place. That is normal here and a reminder that the largest ever earthquake is still coming (Rev. 16:18). I will happen before Christ returns in judgement on the earth. Chile rocks because it needs the Gospel now.

By the way, hot chili was not invented in Chile. Most historians believe it was invented in Texas. But Texas needs the gospel too.

Therefore pray for Chile as a unique place where some of our family is involved in ministry and a new generation is coming. Pray The Christian Community of the Forest will grow in maturity and size and impact in this small but unique country.

Pastor Mark

SHEPHERDS' CONFERENCE TEAM REPORT 2019

As I write it is a rare opportunity to be listening in person, to John MacArthur, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, and others here at the Shepherds’ Conference in LA. They are doing a Q & A which is very interesting. All of these men are known here and around he world.  What a privilege for Graham, Chris, Caleb, Vladimir, and myself to be here with many others we know too. Nancy is being grandma with the grandkids at our son Ezra’s home. Thanks for praying for us. Her neck pain is much better.

Me with my son Caleb and his father-in-law, our mission associate Vladimir.

My friend Vitaliy Shipuk surprised us. I knew him as a child in Odessa and in Makarovo. He is now a second year student at the Masters’ Seminary with plans to become a pastor in a Slavic church. What a blessing.

The conference theme is Faithfulness. Isaiah 26:4 “Trust in the LORD forever, For in God the LORD, we have a everlasting Rock,” It is also MacArthur’s 50th year here so he gave the first message about God’s grace  working through him. He discussed the sin of pride which we all struggle with and emphasized the work was God’s work and not John’s. It was a challenge to all of us. Most of the conference main sessions you can watch live or watch later at www.shepherdsconference.org when they are posted after the week is over.

There are about 4,000 Christian pastors/leaders here. About 1,000 volunteers from the church serve us making us feel welcome. They serve the breakfast, coffee, lunch, and many snacks all day long. I’ve been coming since the early 90’s. This conference has been a great help and encouragement for me.

Singing in the main auditorium…when it is our turn. :-) 

We also worship in song. This week Irish Christian music writers and musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty are leading in some of the music. It is amazing to praise God with thousands of others in the auditorium.

Our team gathering at our son Ezra’s house for pizza after the last service of the evening.

After the conference is over on Friday some of our team will go home.   Nancy, Caleb and I will visit friends, and go to a local church with our son Ezra’s family. Later we will go to Chile to see our granddaughter Naomi and family and our first great-granddaughter. We’ll send pics. Caleb, Nancy and I will be doing some ministry in the churches there also for the next few weeks. Pray that we might be helpful to the people during that time.

-Pastor Mark along with our Team.

BIBLE: HOW MANY MANUSCRIPTS REMAIN?

How did the Bible come to us? Some believe it came by people writing down their personal or fanciful ideas and somehow these writings were put in book form. Many believe it is not inspired by God, so they dismiss it as myth multiplied. If that were the case, you would expect the book to eventually fade from history and be forgotten. However, it remains the most popular book in history and a constant best seller. One estimate said 100 million are sold annually. The Lord of the Rings was the next best seller but it took 55 years for it to sell 150 million copies. Clearly the Bible stands alone and unique among books.

This is amazing since it was written over a period of 1600 years by forty authors from different walks of life from fishermen to kings. It was originally written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) over three continents yet it has a unifying theme that points in one direction toward Christ and God’s glory.

But do we have the original manuscripts? The answer is “no.” You got it. We have many ancient copies of the Bible, but we don’t have the originals. Why? Because ancient scribes copied them so they could be spread abroad. Before originals became too worn to read they were either hidden in sacred places or simply burned to prevent anyone from making incorrect copies because they were hard to read.

How do we know our bibles are accurate? This is where Lower Criticism comes in. It is a study in which scholars look “low” or down close at the manuscript words to detect when and how they were written etc. This is a fascinating study to look at and much too deep to address here.

Check out my blog last week for the impact of the 1948 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and how it verified the accuracy of the Old Testament we have in our Bibles today.

Regarding the New Testament, it came along only 1900 years ago but we don’t have originals of that either. Yet we know it is accurate because of the massive number of copies or fragments that have been found. More are being found all along. For example, copies of well-known books written by Caesar, Plato, Thucydides etc. in the first 400 years after Christ have an average of about a dozen copies each. No one disputes them. But the New Testament now has about 24,000 manuscripts or fragments from the same period of time.  Amazing!  

We had the privilege of seeing the amazing codex, The Book of Kells, while in Ireland a some years ago. This complete Latin copy of the Bible with elaborate script and ornamentation was produced about 800 AD and eventually lost for centuries until found more recently. We were able to also see the oldest fragment, (P52), of the New Testament. It is from the book of John and dates to about 125 AD and may be a first generation copy of the original.

The more copies the merrier because it allows scholars to compare and verify accuracy. There are fragments of all NT books but there are also recent finds of old copies of the entire NT bound into book form (a Codex). Look up Codex Sinaiticus for some fascinating reading of how this was discovered near Mt. Sinai.

Learn more Sundays at 9:15 as we continue the powerful new The God Who Speaks DVD Sunday School series on the subject. We’ll also hear missionary friend Dan Kain during that hour as he tells us of the ministry he now has in Russia. Don’t miss it.

Scripture is His Word to us to live by, find forgiveness, direction and purpose for our lives. Read it and heed it!

Want to learn still more. Listen to Dr. Al Mohler’s interview of an author of a new book on 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible. It is a helpful interview as the author discusses it with Al.

-Pastor Mark