Podcasts about wycliffe bible translators

Jennifer Holloran, President and CEO of the American Bible Society, is an avid lover of Scripture and an expert in strategic leadership, operational excellence, and innovation. Jennifer was raised in a Christian home with lots of exposure to the Word, but it was in college that she learned to approach Scripture as a source of grace instead of condemnation. Jennifer's career took an unexpected turn after college when God led her to combine her professional skills and love for the Scriptures at Wycliffe Bible Translators. She spent over twenty years there, starting as a typist and eventually becoming Chief Operating Officer before taking over as CEO of the American Bible Society.   The American Bible Society has a rich history dating back to 1816, and is involved in nearly every aspect of Bible work, from translation to global distribution to engagement and advocacy. Jennifer has an amazing perspective on the power of God's Word, how it is moving in the world today, and how the Church can help people everywhere be transformed as they get more engaged with the Scriptures.   Major Topics Include: Jennifer's faith and career journey How she fell in love with Scripture Her surprise introduction to Bible translation through Wycliffe Leadership principles in unexpected Bible stories How God prepared her for work at American Bible Society An overview of American Bible Society's 209 year history Helping people engage in the Scriptures  ABS's framework of access, engagement, and advocacy Various aspects of Scripture access Their “end-to-end” process—a multimodal approach to Bible access and engagement The story and heart behind the ABS Trauma Healing Institute  Helping people overcome barriers to Scripture Finding solutions to inspire younger generations to engage with Scripture AI as a tool for Bible engagement How to move from Bible engagement to advocacy Creativity in Bible distribution in hard-to-reach places Effectiveness of a collective impact alliance in reaching Bible distribution goals QUOTES TO REMEMBER “It wasn't long after I finished college that God brought me to Wycliffe Bible Translators, and that opened up a whole world of understanding Scripture in a completely new way.” “I found that the more that I began to dig into Scripture, the more there was to discover.” “We want to move people from that place of just having access to the Bible and have them step into engagement, and that starts with curiosity.” “Today, we at the American Bible Society still get to be involved in translation and distribution, but we're looking at the whole Scripture engagement journey and how we can come alongside the Church to support the ministry of helping people to take the next step with Scripture.” “We need to understand where Gen Z and Gen Alpha are coming from and what speaks to them as unique groups with unique values, preferences, and barriers that might keep them from Scripture. Then we can work together with the Church to help co-create solutions to reach that generation.” “There's something amazing about having the Bible as a foundation that we can come together and have conversation around and learn from one another across faith traditions.” “Our vision is ‘God's Word transforming all people.' That's what I want to see happening, and I think the more we can get the Church engaged and we can work together on this, I believe that it's possible.” LINKS FROM THE SHOW Julie Wilson, President of Women Doing Well (see our past interview here) American Bible Society Wycliffe Bible Translators (see our interview with CEO John Chesnut) The Digital Bible Library Audio Video Translation Tool Jesus Film Project (see our interview with Executive Director Josh Newell) LUMO Project Films Faith Comes by Hearing (see our interview with VP Morgan Jackson) Talking Bibles International Trauma Healing Institute IllumiNations Bible Translation Alliance (see our interview with Todd Peterson or John Chesnut) ETEN Innovation Lab The Finish Line Community Facebook Group The Finish Line Community LinkedIn Group BIBLE REFERENCES FROM THE SHOW Matthew 13:1-23 | Parable of the Sower WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! If you have a thought about something you heard, or a story to share, please reach out! You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also contact us directly from our contact page. If you want to engage with the Finish Line Community, check out our groups on Facebookand LinkedIn.

Featuring verses from Psalm 119 that encourage us to see God's Word as the treasure it is. If you'd like to learn more about Wycliffe Bible Translators, visit wycliffe.org/finishline.Don't forget to check out our website! https://treasurehuntpodcast.wixsite.com/realtreasure

As a church, its important to us that we support mission work around the world. Wycliffe Bible Translators are one of the organisations we support.

Presented at Curwensville Alliance on 5/25/25 by Noah Smith. Listen as Noah Smith speaks of his work in the Solomon Islands with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

On today's program, a team of elders is recommending Dr. Michael Brown return to public ministry in spite of a recent report concluding that he engaged in sexual misconduct. We'll have details. And, the Presbyterian Church USA—historically, very involved in evangelistic efforts—is now closing its missions agency. Theologians say they are not surprised given the denomination's leftward drift. Plus, more than a year after Wycliffe Bible Translators listed its sprawling Orlando headquarters for sale, its status remains unclear with the property still marked “under contract.” MinistryWatch reporter Shannon Cuthrell takes a closer look. But first, megachurch Pastor TD Jakes has announced plans to step aside as head of The Potter's House. T.D. Jakes, the well-known pastor of Dallas megachurch The Potter's House, plans to step aside later this year and appoint his daughter and son-in-law as the church's leaders, Christianity Today reported. The producer for today's program is Jeff McIntosh. We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today's program include Kim Roberts, Mark Wingfield, Tyler Hummel, Shannon Cuthrell, Brittany Smith, and Christina Darnell. A special thanks to Baptist News Global for contributing material for this week's podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

National Love Our Children Day is April 5, and as we consider how we love our children, what could be better than to share about Jesus with them? How does the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators play into that love for children around the world? How do Bible translation efforts impact the youngest generations? These are questions answered by Wycliffe Bible Translator's Melissa Paredes, who visits with Seth and Deb and introduces us to Kate and Mack's resources for kids on Friday's Mornings with Seth and Deb!Donate to Moody Radio: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/morningshow/wdlmSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I met Mark Gauthier at our VIP lunch on Tru316 Day 2025 in Orlando. He is Vice President and US National Director of Cru. What a delightful brother in the Lord! At that same table was Dr. Jennifer Holloran, President/CEO of American Bible Society, and former COO of Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. Later that day she gave the Keynote Address. My wife, Dr. Joy Fleming and I, and the Tru316 Foundation team, had gathered that day to honor Judy Douglass with the presentation of the 2025 Tru316 Medallion Award for her lifetime of ministry, especially in encouraging women and men around the world to energetically use the gifts God has given to each one. This episode of The Eden Podcast, and the ones to come, we will present highlights from our Celebration held in the Bill Bright Strategy Center at the Headquarters of Campus Crusade for Christ/Cru. We are grateful for their hosting us and for the Jesus Video Staff for recording the event! Special thanks to Judy, Diane, Andrea, Sam, Mimi, April and more! This was our annual fundraiser and awareness event! You can give now by making a gift as the Lord leads! Go to Tru316.com/donate The Tru316 Foundation (www.Tru316.com) is the home of The Eden Podcast with Bruce C. E. Fleming where we “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16. The Tru316 Message is that “God didn't curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.” Once Genesis 3:16 is made clear the other passages on women and men become clear too. You are encouraged to access the episodes of Seasons 1-11 of The Eden Podcast for teaching on the seven key passages on women and men. Are you a reader? We invite you to get from Amazon the four books by Bruce C. E. Fleming in The Eden Book Series (Tru316.com/trubooks). Would you like to support the work of the Tru316 Foundation? You can become a Tru Partner here: www.Tru316.com/partner

Send us a textBob and Marilyn Busenitz have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators for nearly 45 years. Hear how they have learned the Balantok language and have worked to produce the New Testament in that language. The Balantok language had never been written down before. They share some of the practical aspects of Bible translation, both the rewards and challenges and help us understand the connection between Bible translation and discipleship. Questions or comments? email us at radio@kansasnavs.org. 

Send us a textBob and Marilyn Busenitz have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators for nearly 45 years. Hear how they have learned the Balantok language and have worked to produce the New Testament in that language. The Balantok language had never been written down before. They share some of the practical aspects of Bible translation, both the rewards and challenges and help us understand the connection between Bible translation and discipleship. Questions or comments? email us at radio@kansasnavs.org. 

Raising Expectations with Pastor Joe Schofield, Stefanie and Dr Craig Thayer, Dr Paul Hall, and Ron Greer With Guests Mark and Belinda Rich from Wycliffe Bible Translators and JAARS Friends, We are so glad to have with us this week, Mark and Belinda Rich, who serve people here and around the world with Wycliffe Bible Translators and JAARS. Part of their work is to serve and equip local translation teams so they can bring the Bible alive for their people, and meet supply needs. The logistics involved can be very difficult and different in certain situations but God always makes the way clear and His Word comes alive in the hearts of the people. Mark and Belinda are wonderful servants for the Lord and the power of His Word! God uses Mark and Belinda's committed lives and Faith to bring that Good News around the world! So tune in and watch on one of five platforms listed below and prayerfully share your comments with us! *May God speak to all of US reminding US how much we love Him and His Precious Word! Till then, have a blest selfless weekend! Don't forget to check out the Rich's website: https://www.jaars.org/ So we invite you to tune in, watch, listen, share and pray with us on Raising Expectations!

Grant Church had the privilege of hosting Nard Pugyao as a guest speaker. Nard, one of the keynote speakers at Missionfest Manitoba 2025, is a seasoned missionary pilot with four decades of dedicated service with Wycliffe Bible Translators. He shared a moving testimony about how the Gospel transformed his life and led him to become a missionary.Watch the complete service: https://youtube.com/live/du5OSqoG9f8We would love to hear from you!Instagram: @grantmemorialchurchFacebook: grantmemorialchurchEngage on our website: https://www.grantmemorial.ca

Lynda Wake and her husband have served with Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1998, and currently reside in Melbourne, Australia.  She is a grandmother of two and a mom of four, including her daughter Bethany Joy who lived her brief life to the max!  She is the author of two devotional books, “Heartbreakingly Beautiful” and “Waiting Well with Jesus”, and the founder of BE Blessings ministry.  Lyn will be my guest over the next two episodes as she shares God's faithfulness in her journey with Bethany, which is remarkably similar to my own.  I believe you will be blessed by our conversation today.  I would love to hear your thoughts on the show. Click here to send me a message!** IMPORTANT** - All views expressed by guests on this podcast are theirs alone, and may not represent the Statement of Faith and Statement of Beliefs of the While We're Waiting ministry. We'd love for you to connect with us here at While We're Waiting! Click HERE to visit our website and learn about our free While We're Waiting Weekends for bereaved parentsClick HERE to learn more about our network of While We're Waiting support groups all across the country. Click HERE to subscribe to our YouTube channelClick HERE to follow our public Facebook pageClick HERE to follow us on Instagram Click HERE to follow us on Twitter Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation to the While We're Waiting ministryContact Jill by email at: jill@whilewerewaiting.org

Message by Bruce Wiebe – Wycliffe Bible Translators

Welcome to the Drive Thru Mom's Podcast!  Have you thought about the access people around the world have to a Bible?  What about a people group so remote, it isn't even translated into their language yet? As Americans, we have such an advantage in access to scripture…it's literally at our fingertips. But that's not the case for everyone. Today on the podcast, Melissa Paredes joins us from Wycliffe Bible Translators.  Melissa spent the first 12 years of her life as a pastor's kid in Colorado before her parents joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and served in the Philippines. Today Melissa serves as the Director of Content Marketing with Wycliffe Bible Translators USA, telling the story of what God is doing around the world through His Church.  God is on the move and this episode Melissa shares statistics that will blow your mind! ENJOY friends and HAPPY WEDNESDAY! CONNECT WITH US: Email: lynn@drivethrumoms.com Website: https://www.drivethrumoms.com Book: Faithful Before, Faithful Again: Finding God Faithful in An Anxious World  https://a.co/d/ernpYJS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drivethrumoms Linktree: https://linktr.ee/drivethrumoms?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=bf81e359-b976-4b95-bb82-699e19a26f2e Subscribe: Drive Thru Moms Podcast Review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/drive-thru-moms/id1528282382#see-all/reviews  CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Website: https://www.wycliffe.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wycliffeusa Email: melissa_paredes@wycliffe.orgKids Information:  https://www.wycliffe.org/kids

September 30 has been designated as International Translation Day, and on Seth and Deb we're focussing on how Bible translation has accelerated because of emerging technology like AI and the men and women stepping up to translate the Bible into their heart language. Meg Hunt from Wycliffe Bible Translators will update us on the exciting acceleration of the translation process and the role we can play in helping Scripture be translated into all languages by 2025.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This morning we were joined by Paul Moores from Wycliffe Bible Translators, who spoke both on their work in translating the scriptures, and on Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 and Jeremiah 18:1-6. The post Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 & Jeremiah 18:1-6 – I believe in God … Creator of heaven and earth appeared first on Elmdon Church, Solihull.

Click here to send us your email for our newsletter OR to send a message to the show!➡️Get Your FREE Guide "How to Study the Bible" at www.coffeeandbibletime.com!How do you bring the Bible to life for communities that have never encountered its teachings? Join us on today's episode of the Coffee and Bible Time podcast as we sit down with Kermit Titrud, a dedicated Bible translator with Wycliffe Bible Translators, who has spent 50 years in the Philippines bringing the Scriptures to people in their native languages. Kermit's journey transitioned unexpectedly from dreaming to be a farmer, to a profound calling to bring God's Word to those who have never heard. Hear how this spiritual awakening led him to dedicate his life to translating the Bible as well as the highs and lows of Bible translation work.Through his compelling storytelling, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the intricate process involved in Bible translation and the profound impact it has on the lives of those who receive God's Word for the first time.Kermit's Links and FavoritesEmail Address: kermit_titrud@sil.orgWebsite: wycliffe.orgGo-To Bible: NLT TranslationFavorite App/Website - LogosAsk Ralph - Christian FinanceJoin financial expert Ralph Estep, Jr - Daily tips for balancing your faith and finances. Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showCheck out our website for more ways to fully connect to God's Word. There you'll find: Coffee and Bible Time Prayer Journals Coffee and Bible Time Courses Coffee and Bible Time Shop Find more great content on our YouTube channel: Coffee and Bible Time Our most popular video is “How I Study My Bible + In-Depth Bible Study!” with over 2M views! Follow us on InstagramVisit our Amazon ShopLearn more about the host Ellen KrauseEmail us at podcast@coffeeandbibletime.comThanks for listening to Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living!

In this episode we speak with Larry Cheng and Sean Cantwell, Co-founders and Managing Partners at Volition Capital, a Boston-based growth equity firm that invests in founder-owned companies in the software, internet, and consumer sectors. The firm was founded in 2010 and has over $1.7 billion in assets under management. Larry focuses on investment opportunities in transactional internet applications, e-commerce, digital health, and next-generation consumer brands, while Sean focuses primarily on companies in the software and tech-enabled services sectors. In this episode we speak with Larry Cheng and Sean Cantwell, Co-founders and Managing Partners at Volition Capital, a Boston-based growth equity firm that invests in founder-owned companies in the software, internet, and consumer sectors. The firm was founded in 2010 and has over $1.7 billion in assets under management. Larry focuses on investment opportunities in transactional internet applications, e-commerce, digital health, and next-generation consumer brands, while Sean focuses primarily on companies in the software and tech-enabled services sectors. Larry supports Wycliffe Bible Translators. To learn more about this organization click here. Sean supports Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts. To learn more about this organization click here. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode, click to follow.

Curious to know how God is at work on university campus' across the United States? In this episode of the Lausanne Movement Podcast, we hear from Tom Lin, President and CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, about his remarkable journey from discovering Christ through varsity ministry to leading one of the largest campus ministries in the U.S. We delve into the strategic importance of university ministry, hear leadership insights, and the impact of global collaborations through movements like Lausanne. Main Points: Tom Lin's Journey: From aspiring economist to faith-driven leader, Tom shares his inspiring personal story and the pivotal moments that shaped his path. Foundations of Leadership: The significance of building strong foundations in faith, making risky decisions for Christ, and the essential role of community. Revival on Campuses: Hear about the spiritual awakening among students and the profound impact of recent revivals on secular and Christian campuses alike. Current Trends in Campus Ministry: Addressing key issues like mental health, diversity, and sexuality while presenting the gospel as good news to today's students. Global Partnerships: The importance of collaborative efforts in ministry, exemplified by initiatives like EveryCampus and the Lausanne Movement. If you have enjoyed this episode of the Lausanne Movement Podcast please take a moment to subscribe and don't forget to leave us a rating and review. Links & Resources: InterVarsity Christian Fellowship EveryCampus Initiative Urbana Student Missions Conference Lausanne Movement Guest Bio: Since 2016, Tom Lin has served as president / CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Previously, he served as pioneering missionary and country director of campus ministry in Mongolia and vice president of missions and director of the Urbana Student Missions Conference. He has also served as a trustee on the boards of Wycliffe Bible Translators, Missio Nexus, and the Leadership and Legacy Foundation. He currently serves on the boards of Fuller Theological Seminary, The Crowell Trust, and the Lausanne Movement. Tom is the author of Pursuing God's Call (2012) and Losing Face and Finding Grace (1996), a coeditor of the Urbana Onward book series (2012), and a contributor to Still Evangelical? (2018)—all published by InterVarsity Press. He is also a contributor to Uncommon Ground (2020, Thomas Nelson). He has a BA in economics from Harvard University, an MA in global leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary, and an honorary doctorate in public service from Taylor University. Tom and his wife, Nancy, have two daughters.

Have an episode idea or feedback? Text us here!Join Heather and Andy as they kick off a new mini-series focusing on support raising in ethnically diverse communities with a compelling conversation featuring Brandon and Cat Samuel from Wycliffe Bible Translators. They delve into the Bridge Program, an initiative aimed at bringing more diverse staff into global missions, and share their unique journey from atheism to a Christ-centered mission life.Brandon and Cat reveal how they transitioned from traditional jobs to fully embracing their calling in missions, highlighting the challenges and blessings of support-based ministry. They discuss the importance of representation in the mission field, the innovative approaches to fundraising in minority communities, and the spiritual formation that comes with relying on God's provision. This episode is a must-listen for anyone involved in or considering support-based ministry, especially within diverse cultural contexts.✍️ Episode ReferencesWycliffe Bible TranslatorsPerspectivesVanguard of a Missionary Uprising by Michael FarrisThe Spirituality of Fundraising by Henri NouwenThe God Ask by Steve ShadrachMore Than Money, More Than Faith by Paul JohnsonAfrican-Americans in missionsRebecca ProttenGeorge LieleBetsy StocktonLott CareyMaria FearingIt would be so helpful if you would take a moment to rate and review the show - thanks in advance!Have an idea for a guest or topic? WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!Contact us!on Instagram @ its.not.about.the.money.podemail us: provisio at provisiofundraising.comTHANKS FOR LISTENING!

God is calling you. Are you positioned to hear? This week's message is from Harry Harm.Bio: Harry Harm has been a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL since 1979.  He and his wife, Geri, first worked with the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi on Bible translation.  There they met John Letterman.  (Harry actually helped build John's church there.)  In 2000 Harry and Geri moved to the Middle East and worked in North Africa, the Middle East and all of the countries ending in 'stan.  They also worked in Ethiopia, Thailand and China.  In 2005 they moved to Manila, Philippines.  They led translation training and checking in Asia.  During that time they got more involved with the Deaf and Bible translation into signed languages.  They helped with training and checked sign language translations in Africa as well.  Eventually they worked mainly with the Deaf.  In 2012 they were asked to move to Europe and lived in Romania from 2010 until 2022.  Then they moved to Dallas. Harry has been privileged to visit 66 countries.Support the Show.

I met Gaylyn last year at the Messiah conference. She is an accomplished Author and we had a very interesting conversation.Gaylyn Williams, President of Relationship Resources, is an inspirational speaker and author of over forty books. In her writing and speaking, Gaylyn uses practical, biblical principles to inspire people to be all God created them to be.After receiving her degree from Dallas Bible College, Gaylyn spent 16 years as a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Using her degree in Bible, linguistics, and Greek, she conducted linguistic analyses on five different Mayan dialects, developing a written language for each. She then helped train the native speakers to translate the New Testament into their languages.Following her years as a missionary in Guatemala, she trained potential missionaries in basic linguistic and literacy skills, preparing them to go to the mission field. Gaylyn also developed the Wycliffe International Cookbook, one of Wycliffe Bible Translator's top selling books after over 25 years. She later joined The Navigators as a full-time missionary, leading a single-parent family ministry.Mother of two adult sons, Gaylyn currently resides  part-time in Israel and part-time in view of the majestic Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She is passionate about Israel and empowering others to learn about God's heart for Israel. Her latest book is Explore God's Heart for Israel. She enjoys hiking, walking, reading and spending time with the Lord and her friends and family.

In our final episode of this season, I speak with Dr. John Chesnut, president and CEO of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Wycliffe Bible Translators exists to work with churches, communities, and partner organizations until everyone can access God's Word in their heart language.

Raising Expectations with Pastor Joe Schofield Today's table discussion includes Dr. Paul Haul, Pastor Ron Greer, Mark & Belinda Rich Pastor Mark and Belinda Rich Wycliffe Bible Translators on “Raising Expectations!” Friends, We are blest to have with us this week, Mark and Belinda Rich, who serve people here and around the world with Wycliffe Bible Translators and JAARS. Part of their work is to serve and equip local translation teams so they can bring the Bible alive for their people! The logistics involved can be very difficult and different in certain situations, but God always makes the way clear, and His Word comes alive in the hearts of the people. Mark and Belinda are wonderful servants for the Lord and the “Power of His Word!” God uses Mark and Belinda's committed lives and Faith to bring that Good News around the world! *So, tune in and watch on one of five platforms listed below! *Please continue to prayerfully share your comments with us and in doing so encourage and “raise the expectations” of our audience everywhere you live, here and around the world! *May God speak to us all - reminding us how much we love Him and are called to serve Him! Till then, have a blest selfless weekend and see you on… “Raising Expectations!” LIVE: MONDAY BBSRadio.com/RaisingExpectations 6:00pm Pacific 8:00pm Central 9:00pm Eastern Facebook YouTube LinkedIn X Amazon podcast Pastor Joe Joe Schofield Dr. Paul Paul Hall Stef Stefanie Shaw Thayer Dr. Craig Craig Tank Thayer Pastor Ron Ron Greer

On today's program, Liberty University faces a record-breaking $14 million fine from the Department of Education. We'll have details. Also, Dream City Church in Arizona partners with Turning Point USA to host a politically flavored conference for ministry leaders. Featured speakers included Eric Metaxas, Sean Feucht, and Jentezen Franklin. We'll take a look. And, later in the program, Wycliffe Bible Translators is selling its Florida headquarters. We begin today with a look at Lifeway Christian Resources…the Nashville-based Southern Baptist entity hit a financial low in 2020…but seems to be making a comeback. FINAL THOUGHTS: I was in Texas this week meeting with donors and supporters of MinistryWatch. It was a great visit. Thanks to those of you who showed up for these events. I'll be home for a few weeks, but in April I'm headed to the True Charity Conference in Springfield Missouri. If you plan to be at that event, please send me and email and I'd love to connect. I also want to remind everyone that we're offering an important new book this month to everyone who donates to MinistryWatch. It's called “End The Reign of Pain – Identifying and Treating Toxic Leadership.” It's by Rickardo Bodden, and we'll send it to you absolutely free, as our thank you, for a gift of any size to MinistryWatch this month. Just go to MinistryWatch.com and hit the donate button at the top of the page. The producers for today's program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today's program include Tony Mator, Magdalena Rojo, Steve Rabey, Kim Roberts, Brittany Smith, Zach Rivas, Christina Darnell—and you, Warren. Special thanks to Religion UnPlugged for contributing material for this week's podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

After a frustrating and boring start to his day, twelve-year-old Brock Billings has no idea of the dangerous adventures that await him in a Papua New Guinea jungle… A brush with a hungry crocodile, a kerosene fire, and getting lost alone in the jungle—at night—are the least of Brock's worries when he's captured by rival hunters. With the help of his friends, Brock and his missionary family work hard not only to bring peace to the opposing groups, but to spread the love of Jesus and translate God's Word. Will they succeed, or are pride and fear too strong to overcome?Luci Brockway Tumas has authored three books: Mission Possible (Tyndale House, 1998), The Power of the Word (Wycliffe Bible Translators, 2000), and Jungle Hunt (Anaiah Press, 2023.)For most of her years with Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL International, Luci served as a writer in Communications, documenting real-life stories of the impact of Bible translation and literacy. Jungle Hunt is her first novel. Their family called the south Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea their home for 15 years. Luci and her husband, John, now live and work remotely in Longmont, Colorado. Luci and her husband have served as missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators for over 40 years. Most of those years she's been involved in writing real-life stories about the need for Bible translation and literacy - relating the amazing impact on the language groups who finally receive their written alphabet, literacy materials and Scriptures in their language. Her blog focuses on the unique country of Papua New Guinea: its 800+ languages, unique birds, plants, tropical climate, and other useful homeschooling info.Learn more about her books when you visit her website at https://lucitumas.comPlease share StoryJumpers with a friend if you enjoyed this episode. StoryJumpers is still growing, and your positive review and 5-star rating would help.The Bridge Podcast Network is made possible by generous support from The Boardwalk Plaza Hotel and Victoria's Restaurant on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware - Open 7 days a week, year-round - Learn more at https://boardwalkplaza.comFeedback, or Show Ideas? Send an email to podcast@wearethebridge.orgDownload The Bridge Mobile App to get the latest podcast episodes as soon as they are published!

Raising Expectations with Pastor Joe Schofield, Stefanie and Dr Craig Thayer, Dr Paul Hall, and Ron Greer Friends, We are blest to have with us this week, Grace Townsend-Goreth, our friend from the Wycliffe Bible Translators. Learn more about Wycliffe Bible Translators at: https://www.wycliffe.org/ So tune in and watch on one of five platforms listed below and prayerfully share your comments with us! *May God speak to all of US reminding US how much we love Him and His Precious Word!

In episode 167, Dr. Leoma Gilley pulls from her decades of experience with Wycliffe Bible Translators and ministry in the Sudan to press us into our understanding of the Word and prayer. More, she invites us to consider that it's perhaps not about the "how", but the "Who"; when we recognize that relationship with God is the point, it gives freedom for those seasons when reading and praying is difficult. How do you understand your relationship with God, and how to talk with Him? Connect with Leoma: https://www.facebook.com/leomasbooks https://www.instagram.com/leomagilley/?hl=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/leoma-gilley-b126b1199/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n4lWBHnSTA Website: www.leomasbooks.com ~ Have a story to share? Hard questions to process? A desire for authentic, accessible space? You can leave a brief message at (804) 372-3836, or schedule a conversation at  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wheredidyouseeGod.com/pastoralcare⁠⁠⁠ ~ Check out our website: ⁠⁠⁠www.WhereDidYouSeeGod.com ⁠⁠⁠ ~ I bet one of these books will be relevant to your life right now: ⁠https://amazon.com/author/paulgranger⁠ ~ Wear an amazing conversation-starter! ⁠https://www.bonfire.com/store/where-did-you-see-god/⁠⁠ ~ The music in this episode is "You'll walk, you'll run" by Urban Doxology, from their amazing album "Bread for the Journey." ~ If you appreciate what God is doing through this podcast, you can help keep it going through financial support. Gifts can be processed at  ⁠⁠https://worldoutreach.org/707 ⁠⁠ ~ Learn more about how God's calling us: Pray: ⁠⁠tinyurl.com/GrangerPray⁠⁠ Follow: ⁠⁠tinyurl.com/GrangerList⁠⁠ Give: ⁠⁠worldoutreach.org/707⁠⁠ ~ #authenticspace #dialogue #Godstillspeaks #WDYSG #conversation #invitation #Riversidefm #wycliffe #Sudan #Scripture #Prayer --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wheredidyouseegod/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wheredidyouseegod/support

Raising Expectations with Pastor Joe Schofield, Stefanie and Dr Craig Thayer, Dr Paul Hall, and Ron Greer Mark & Belinda Rich: Wycliffe Translators on “Raising Expectations!” Friends, We are blest to have with us this week, Mark and Belinda Rich, who serve people here and around the world with Wycliffe Bible Translators and JAARS. Part of their work is to serve and equip local translation teams so they can bring the Bible alive for their people! The logistics involved can be very difficult and different in certain situations but God always makes the way clear and His Word comes alive in the hearts of the people. Mark and Belinda are wonderful servants for the Lord and the power of His Word! What a perfect time to hear from them as we celebrate Christmas- the giving of the “Greatest Gift” ever given by God… His only begotten Son and our Savior Jesus Christ. He became ONE of US… that He could…PAY the PRICE for US and friends, He is…Coming Again for US - all who repent and put our faith and trust in Him! God uses Mark and Belinda's committed lives and Faith to bring that Good News around the world! So tune in and watch on one of five platforms listed below and prayerfully share your comments with us! *May God speak to all of US reminding US how much we love Him and His Precious Word!

The Gospel must be preached to all nations because God has elected some from every tribe, language, people, and nation to be in heaven. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Turn in your Bibles if you would, to Mark, chapter 13, and you can also turn as well to Matthew 24. We're going to be looking at both of those places. The Scripture reveals that despite all of its swirling complexity, human history has a purpose. We are moving to a destination. We're going somewhere with all of this. It's not just random chaos, but God has a plan and a purpose. The destination the Bible reveals, to which we're going, is a perfect universe, a perfect world free from all sin and a beautiful radiant city. The New Heavens and the New Earth are that perfect universe and that radiant city is called the New Jerusalem. The Bible reveals that the light source of that new universe and of the New Jerusalem, according to Revelation 21 and 22, is the glory of God, the glory of God. Revelation 21:23 says, "The city”[the New Jerusalem] "does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light and the lamb is its lamp." Again, in the next chapter, Revelation 22:5 it says, "They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light." But what is that? What is the glory of God? In my studies and my meditations, I've thought a lot, it's an important topic. I believe the glory of God is the radiant display of the attributes or the perfections of God. Sometimes it's just brilliant light, as 1 Timothy 6:16 says, "God dwells in unapproachable light." Well, think about that, unapproachable light. How amazing must that be? For this reason, the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision were constantly covering their faces, though they had no sin or guilt, but just in that unapproachable light, the presence of the glory, they were covering their faces. For this reason also, the theophanies, or the displays of God, where God shows up in human history are frequently attended by overpowering light, like in Ezekiel's vision of the likeness of the glory of God by the Kibar River east of Babylon. Ezekiel 1 says, "High above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. And I saw from what appeared to be his waist up, He looked like glowing metal as if full of fire. And that from there down He looked like fire and brilliant light surrounded Him, like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell face down." So radiant, light, brightness connected with the glory of God. Also at the time of the birth of our Lord in Bethlehem, an angel appeared to shepherds outside Bethlehem and it says in Luke 2:9-10, "There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over the flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified." This was a glory of the eye, not of the mind or heart. It was just bright light, and it stunned the shepherds that night. But the glory of God is seen not just in brilliant light, sometimes it's in the radiant display of the perfections of God, the attributes of God woven into the tapestry of historical events. That takes the eye of faith to see it, but it's there. The attributes of God woven into the tapestry of history. The perfections of God, attributes of God, include His wisdom, His power, His love, compassion, justice, patience, kindness, mercy. These are attributes. God has ordained history, the story of history, for this reason to put Himself on display in the sequence of events and unfolding history. He put Himself on display in a history, a story, that He predestined before Christ began, written in His own mind before time began. The sequence of events, this history, has all been written out by the author of history and it's intrinsically connected with the Christ event, the story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said in Revelation 22:13, "I am the alpha and the omega. I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end." History is linear, and Jesus is history. Jesus is what the story is all about. The radiant display of the glory of God in heaven, I believe, will consist in part in a retelling of His mighty works in saving His people from their sins and in their individual context all over the world, across the centuries, a retelling of the mighty works of God and saving sinners. I believe it's the most glorious thing God has ever done. His glory is greatly on display in salvation. Revelation 7:9-10 says, "After this, I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes, and they were holding palm branches in their hands, and they cried out in a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.'" "The radiant display of the glory of God in heaven, I believe, will consist in part in a retelling of His mighty works in saving His people from their sins and in their individual context all over the world, across the centuries." Here's a multitude, a huge quantity of people, from all over the world, every imaginable context, standing around the throne of God in heaven praising God for salvation. The specific stories of these individual people that make up these millions from every nation on Earth, will bring infinite and eternal glory to God. A few verses later, Revelation 8:13, "Then one of the elders asked me, 'These in the white robes, who are they and where did they come from?'" As I've said many times before, that story will take forever to tell fully. It is so complex, but it is woven through with light, it’s woven through with glory. "These redeemed," who are they and where do they come from? Well, how long do you have? We have all eternity. So, pull up a chair and let's hear the story of how God redeemed this one and that one and the other one from all over the world. Heaven will be filled with the stories of the greatness of God put on display in the amazing tapestry of history that He wove in every century. This is the story of missions. The spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth across every generation of history, that unspeakable glory as before us this morning. We're going to focus just on two verses of scripture. Mark 13:10, right in the middle of our Mark study, and then a parallel verse, Matthew 24:14. Mark 13:10, "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come." I want to tell you something about the science of Bible interpretation. The Gospels, there are four of them, three of them basically take the same approach to the life of Jesus. Matthew, Mark ,and Luke. They're called synoptic because they see things from about the same perspective. Then the fourth Gospel, John, comes at it from a different perspective, but they all tell the same thing. We believe that all scriptures God-breathed is perfect, so therefore these are four perfect accounts of the life of Christ, but they have some differences with one another. When we have those differences between, let's say, Matthew and Mark, we harmonize. We don't pit them against each other, we put them together. We try to harmonize, and that's not always easy to do. Generally, I look on it as a two-for-one sale. I'm going to take both statements here as true, and if one of them tells me one thing, He said that and that's true, and if one of them tells something else, He said that, and I just harmonize, I put it together. I. Context: Jesus’ Prediction of the Destruction of the Temple Let's talk about the context here. We're moving through the Gospel of Mark. Mark 13 is Jesus's description of the history of the end of the world and the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the end of the world. It came from a statement Jesus made in Mark 13:2: "Not one stone will be left on another. Everyone will be thrown down." This was a prediction of the destruction, at least of the Temple, but probably really of the whole city of Jerusalem and focused on the temple. It was the final week of Jesus's life. Things were hurdling to a conclusion, the dramatic turbulent events culminating in His arrest and His trial before the Jewish leaders. His condemnation by them is being handed over to Pontius Pilate for condemnation by the Romans and then His crucifixion by Pontius Pilate and the Romans. So that's where we're heading. Jesus has given a seven-fold denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees, the spiritual leaders of the Jewish nation. It's fully depicted in Matthew 23. It's just quickly summarized in Mark. But it culminates in this statement in Matthew 23: 38-39, "Jesus says, 'Behold your house is left to you desolate.'" This is a very important statement—your house is left to you desolate. “Desolate” means “empty." The reason I'm saying that is, "For, I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say ‘Blessed is He comes in the name of the Lord.’" “Not seeing Me again” is the essence of your desolate house. That's what makes your house desolate. Then Jesus dramatically walked out of the Temple, never to return again. The disciples came up at that moment and chose that moment to talk about how beautiful the Temple was. We shouldn't be surprised at this. This is what the disciples, the apostles were like, frequently off message. This is who we are as well. “As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, teacher, what massive stones, what magnificent buildings.’ ‘Do you see all these great buildings?’ replied Jesus. ‘Not one stone here will be left on another, every one will be thrown down.’" That must've been incredibly distressing to them. They come to Him later, privately, when He's out of the city, He's up on the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley, they're out of the city and they're there. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, Matthew 24:3, “The disciples came to Him privately. 'Tell us,' they said, 'When will this happen and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?’" Matthew 24 and Mark 13 cover roughly the same ground, but Matthew 24, in much more detail. There's almost nothing found in Mark 13 that's not found in Matthew 24, and there are other things besides in Matthew 24, so I have my eye on both. Matthew 24 has the full question the disciples asked and the fuller answer that Jesus gives. The three parts of the question in Matthew 24 are, "Tell us, when will this happen?" And, "What will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?" The complexity of Matthew 24 and of Mark 13 comes in discerning and kind of to some degree, unweaving the tapestry of Jesus's answer. What is He talking about right now in this part? Is He talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 870 AD by the Romans? Is He talking about the end of the world? What is it? They weave it through. Jesus, I believe, is giving a history of the world between His First and Second Comings. It's bigger than just the destruction of the Temple. Just to tell you, if you look at Mark 13:10, a key word for me in that is the word “first.” First. "This gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations." First before what? Before the destruction of the temple? That didn't happen. So clearly, Jesus's scope is bigger than the destruction of the Temple. He's looking at, I believe, all history, from the First to the Second Comings of Christ, and He's traveling and traversing that history. Look at verses 5-13, Mark 13. Jesus has said to them, “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name claiming I am He and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There'll be earthquakes in various places and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. You must be on your guard. You'll be handed over to local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of Me, you'll stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them." Here's our focus verse, verse 10, "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given to you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit. Brother will betray brother to death and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents, and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of Me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." Last week, we traced out those thirteen verses and looked at the whole answer. Just to summarize, it begins with a warning against false teaching. He goes from that to a prediction of the ordinary convulsion of events of history, wars and rumors of wars. That happens in every generation, almost every year of history, nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom. That's all the time. There'll be famines, earthquakes, various places. He calls all this the beginning of birth pains. The birth pains means a terrible convulsion or pain resulting in something beautiful and wonderful. We're heading to a good destination, but we have a lot of pain to go through first. That's what “beginning of birth pain” means. Then He mentions persecution. They will be handed over to the local councils. They'll be flogged in synagogues. These will be opportunities for them to be witnesses to Him. They will testify to Jesus. "On account of me, you'll stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them." The flow of human history is a canvas on which the masterpiece of redemptive history is being painted. These commonplace convulsions, wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, arrests, trials, all of that is being sovereignly controlled to accomplish the spread of the Gospel, to accomplish the salvation of God's people, to accomplish the glory of God. That's what's going on here. It's amazing how God controls history even down to the micro-level, to achieve His purposes. I found a number of years ago a great example of this in the life of John Calvin. John Calvin is a great reformer who spent most of his life in Geneva, a great theologian, tremendous leader. However, he was not originally Swiss. Geneva is a city in Switzerland. He was French and he was basically a refugee, a religious refugee running for his life because he believed in the Reformation. The Catholic King of France was persecuting what they called Lutherans, and he was running for his life. By this time, he had already written a significant theological work, and he was on his way to the French city of Strasbourg. He had in mind a quiet life as a scholar. He was going to be quiet in his room and eat little bowls of gruel and write theology books, and that was going to be his life. That would've made him happy. He was that kind of person. At any rate, he was a scholar but already well known. Amazingly, en route to Strasbourg, he couldn't go there because an obscure war had broken out between the King of France and Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman Emperor. It's not at all one of the most famous wars ever. It's one of those wars and rumors of wars that Jesus talked about. But as a result, the straight road to Strasbourg was blocked with troop movements. So here, this fleeing man, this refugee has to divert through the city of Geneva. At any rate, there he is in Geneva, and William Farel, who started a Reformation work there hears that Calvin is there, and he thinks this is just the guy that we need for the Reformation here in Geneva. He was right, but Calvin had no such intention. When Farel came and said, "I want you to work here in Geneva," he said, "No, no, I'm going to go have a quiet life writing books in Strasbourg." He didn't say it just like that, but it probably went something like that. After Farel tried to persuade him and wasn't successful, Farel rose up in what Calvin called intemperate zeal and threatened him with the judgment of God if he chose a quiet life of academia rather than taking part in the Reformation in Geneva. Calvin was wired to fear that kind of thing and said, "Okay, I guess I'll stay in Geneva,” and he did. He was there most of the rest of his life. What's my point? Wars and rumors of wars for a purpose. "Are you saying that God orchestrated a war between Catholic King Francis of France and Catholic King Charles the Fifth, so that John Calvin would end up in Geneva and not Strasbourg?" Yes, that's what I'm saying, and other things too. Other things too, but at least that. That's what God does. Isn't it amazing that history has a purpose? Even as it seems to be churning and random and destructive, God is at work in the midst of all of it. The central work of all of this is, "You will be witnesses for me. You'll be my witnesses. You are going to proclaim this gospel." Look at verse 10, "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." The power of the Holy Spirit is central to this mission. He said, "Do not worry ahead of time what to say, what to speak. It will not be you speaking, but the Holy Spirit." The Spirit is the driving orchestrator and force of the spread of the gospel, the third person of the Trinity, that is His role and He's extremely good at his job. As Acts 1:8 says, "You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes in you and you'll be My witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria to the ends of the Earth." In the midst of all this, there'll be a tremendous amount of pain for the witnesses, painful betrayals, family relationships will be compromised. Your own closest relatives will turn their backs on you. "Everyone will hate you because of Me," Jesus says. Intense persecution, and that's what makes this journey so glorious. The courage, the boldness, the suffering, the willingness to pay the price. That's the story. That's big picture. II. A Command in Mark Let's zero in on the command, Mark 13:10, “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." In Mark's version, Mark 13:10, it takes a command form, effectively. It's a command in Mark. It uses the Greek word “dei”, which means “it is necessary,” but that's frequently a command, a sense of a command. It is necessary for the Gospel first to be preached to all nations. What is the Gospel? The Gospel is the message of the kingdom of God with Jesus as the King of the kingdom of God. He's the centerpiece, he is the King, he's the Lord, he's the Savior. The Gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ and all that that means. That's what the Gospel of Mark has been unfolding all along. It's a message about the kingdom of God, that God is King. "What is the Gospel? The Gospel is the message of the kingdom of God with Jesus as the King of the kingdom of God. He's the centerpiece, he is the King, he's the Lord, he's the Savior. The Gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ and all that means." The kingdom is the spiritual realm where the subjects of the King are delighted to have God as their King, and they're pleased to obey Him and to follow Him. They're delighted about it. God's sovereignty over rebels is a different matter, but the advancing kingdom of God has to do with individuals who throw down their weapons of rebellion and come in gladly under the kingship of Christ. The Gospel is, as we've said before, God, man, Christ, response. That God created the universe, the heavens and the Earth, and as the Creator, He has the right to make laws and rules by which we live our lives. God, the Creator, God the King, God, the Lawgiver and God the Judge. That's God. Man, we are created in the image of God to have a relationship with Him, to have a love relationship with Him and to love each other, but we have sinned. We have broken the two Great Commandments. We have not loved God with all of our hearts, all mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We have sinned. Therefore, we stand under God's judgment, physical death, eternal death in hell. Christ is God's answer to that problem. The Son of God, fully God, fully man, born, took on human flesh. We celebrate it this time of year. He lived a sinless life under the laws of God. He died in our place as our substitute, a transfer of guilt effected. When we believe in Jesus, our guilt put on Jesus, He dies in our place, His righteousness is given to us, and that's the white robes that we're going to stand in on Judgment Day and for all eternity. The imputed righteousness of Christ, that's what Christ came to do. Then the response, we need to repent of our sins, turn away from our rebellion against God the King. Believe in Jesus, trust in Him, and we'll receive forgiveness of sins. That's the Gospel: God, man, Christ, response. It is necessary for that message to be preached, to be proclaimed to all nations. That's what He's saying. That has to happen first, before the end of the world. That's what first, first is tied to the end of the world. Why? Why is it necessary? Why don't I give you four reasons, four reasons why it is necessary for the Gospel. Let's keep it simple, because Christ the King commanded it. We'll start there. Christ told us to do this. These were his last words before He ascended back to heaven. The Great Commission, so-called, which is a commandment to all of His followers, to make disciples of all nations, is in all four Gospels, a different version but in all four Gospels and in Acts. The most famous version is Matthew 28, "Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and Earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age.’" To all nations in all eras of history, that's the Great Commission. It is necessary, therefore, that this happened because it is the will of God and of Christ for us. Secondly, it is necessary because the Gospel is the only way for sinners to be forgiven and reconciled to God. There is no other way. There is no other plan. The Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Or as it says in Romans 10:12 -15, "There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then, can they call on one they have not believed in and how can they believe in one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they're sent?" As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring Good News?’” That's the logic of missions. It's a logical work that Paul does in Romans 10, using a series of rhetorical questions, assuming negative answers. The statement is made worldwide, anyone in any nation on Earth who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus in faith will be saved. But how can someone call on someone they've not believed in? They can't do that, can they? No, of course, they can't. No one can believe in someone they've never heard of, can they? No, of course they can't. And no one can hear without someone preaching or proclaiming the message. No, they can't. Absolutely not. And no one can do that preaching unless they're sent out. Hence, the need for missions. That's the logic of missions, and it's the answer to why it is necessary for this Gospel to be proclaimed. Thirdly, it is necessary for the Gospel to be proclaimed to all nations because God has chosen people in every tribe and language and people and nation. They're called the Elect, chosen before the foundation of the world. God wants those people reached. Jesus said in John's Gospel, "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. They must be brought in, and there'll be one flock and one shepherd." Those are people, not just Jews, but all the ends of the Earth. God has people out there. There will be people from every tribe, language, people, and nation. It's been ordained. They were chosen in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless and they have to be brought in, and the only way they're going to be brought in is by the preaching of the Gospel. That's the third reason. The fourth, it is necessary for the Gospel to be preached for the maximum glory of God. That's the ultimate reason for everything. It is for the glory of God that this be done. Ephesians 1:11-12 says, "In Him we're also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him, works out everything in conformity to the purpose of His will, in order that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory, that we might be, exist, for the praise of His glory and that we might praise His glory, that we might ourselves notice His glory.” So we will be glory, and we will see glory, and we'll praise Him for it. That's the reason why. Or again, in Romans 15:9, "That the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy." So those are four reasons why it is necessary for the Gospel to be preached. To whom should the Gospel be preached? What we've already said, to all nations. To all nations, the Greek is “panta ta ethne”. The word “ethne” is from which we get the word “ethnic”, and that's the key. We as Protestants, as Evangelicals, we have had a progressive, growing understanding of missions over the last 500 years. Little by little by little, we've understood more and more clearly our obligation in this matter. For the first three centuries, the church just exploded all over the Roman Empire. People were going everywhere preaching the gospel. Apostles, non-apostles, everybody, and it was spreading everywhere. It went as far north as Scotland, it went as far south as Sub-Saharan Africa. There's clear evidence of this. It went as far east as India. It went as far west as Tarshish, which is like Gibraltar. It was all over the place, and the Gospel was spreading. However, once the Dark Ages fell and politics wove together with some form of Christianity, Christendom came about. We had the Crusades, which are the most abhorrent misconstrued incident of mission that's ever been in history; we still paying the price. But there was this mixture of church and state, and it was a mess. To make matters worse, the Gospel itself, for the most part, was lost in a false “gospel of works" religion. The Dark Ages fell, but praise God, the Reformation came and scraped away all that darkness and the Gospel was reclaimed. The Gospel of justification by faith alone, apart from works of law, was shining in those Protestant churches, Lutheran churches, Calvinist churches, the Anabaptist churches. But those folks weren't doing missions initially. They were really just trying to survive. Missions, at that point, was done mostly by Roman Catholics through the Jesuits, who were spreading the power of the Pope and of their Catholic kings, like the King of Spain and the King of Portugal to distant places like Japan and other places. But they didn't bring the true Gospel with them. Meanwhile, the Protestants continued to establish doctrine and to reach their own countries, but not doing missions. But God worked in Protestant churches, little by little, a clearer understanding of our obligation concerning missions in four key steps. The first step, or insight, comes from William Carey. He was a Baptist, a cobbler, a blue collar guy, and he wrote an incredible work called An Inquiry into the Obligation Christians Have to Use Means for the Evangelization of the Missions to the Heathen. Heathen will be pagans or lost people. He was a trailblazer in Protestant missions. The insight is that we Protestants should do missions. We should go to distant lands and share the Gospel. Not just the Jesuits should do that, we should do it. That was step one. Step two came from a leader named Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China. He went on his first missionary trip and just like most missionaries did in the mid-nineteenth century, he stayed on the coastlands such as Shanghai, port cities. He had a vision for the inland regions of China, teeming hundreds of millions of Chinese that had no hope of hearing the Gospel. He founded something called the China Inland Mission. So step number two is, we need to get off the coast and go into the dark heart of Africa, the dark heart of India and of China, and find people there who have no physical access to the Gospel. Step two, inland missions. Step three came from a leader at the end of the 19th century into the beginning of the 20th century named Cameron Townsend. He was a missionary in Latin America and South America. He was working with some tribal people, and they were doing all of their work in Spanish, the trade language. At one point, one of these tribal men said, "If your God is so smart, how come he doesn't speak my language?" Good question, right? Good question. So Cameron Townsend started a ministry called Wycliffe Bible Translators to get the Bible into the heart language of people all over the world, and that work continues to this very day. Insight number four came in the middle of the 20th century from a missionary leader named Donald McGavran, and he began to see that the issue wasn't reaching political nations, like nations that are represented at the United Nations. It had to do with understanding the word ethne as a people group, a group of people characterized by a language and a culture and a heritage and a self-identifying focus. And so that started the people group conception of the work. “Panta ta ethne” means to all people groups. Now, how many people groups are there in the world? No one knows, only God knows. It's very difficult to see lines of border and demarcation between people groups. Donald McGovern did his work in India, and there are probably at least 5,000 people groups, if not more, in India, but there's a lot of overlap. Joshuaproject.net, which you can go and check that out, they say 17,446. As an MIT engineer, I'm like, "I don't think there's that many significant figures." I would say roughly 18,000. or roughly 16,000. I don't think we can get down to 17,446. However, there's a lot. There's a lot of people groups. IMB has a smaller number of people groups. Then you go to the next level, which is “unreached people groups.” What are unreached people groups? It's defined as less than two percent evangelical in that nation. When I was a missionary to Japan, the Japanese were the largest unreached people group in the world, less than two percent evangelical. Since then, they've been superseded by another group. But that's a people group. That's what “unreached” means. “Unengaged,” another U is added, meaning, as far as the IMB knows, there is no effort to try to reach that people group. There's no one working on that, as far as they know. So you've got the UUPG, which is unengaged, unreached people groups. That's the focus. That's where the work should go. It is necessary for us to do that, for the church to do that. It is necessary for us to reach them with the Gospel. And this stands as a permanent command from our Lord and King Jesus Christ. "If you love Me, you'll keep my commandment." That's Mark 13:10, the command. III. A Prophecy in Matthew Look over at Matthew, where it comes across as a prophecy, or perhaps a promise. I'm okay with either one. Look what it says in Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as the testimony in all nations and then the end will come.” So prophecy, promise. What is Jesus saying there? "And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as the testimony of all nations, and then the end will come." The preaching of the Gospel to every tribe, language, people, and the nation is as guaranteed as the end of the world is. They're equally guaranteed. It's going to happen. This is a remarkable assertion by Jesus, more remarkable than not one stone left on another. Picture Jesus on that tiny little rocky outcropping there in the Mount of Olives surrounded by a band of followers that were frequently off message. You know those guys. Surrounded by a very small number of people saying, "This thing that we're doing here is going worldwide, everyone on Earth will hear about this." All peoples on Earth, all peoples, all nations will hear. That's incredible. Effectively, then, “the Jewish conception of their own kingdom will end, the Messianic kingdom, and My kingdom will be established and will reign for all eternity." That's awesome. How does He know that? He knows it because He's God, but He also knows it because the Old Testament scripture predicted that this would happen. God willing, next week, we'll look at Isaiah 49, but in Luke 24, "This is what is written. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. And repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." It's going to happen. Which scriptures? Many. There are many scriptures. But I'm going to look at Isaiah 49 next week. Isaiah 49, 1 and 6, "Listen to me, you islands, hear this, you distant nations." Islands and nations, distant nations. God says to Jesus, "It is too small a thing for You to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make You," [Jesus] "a light for the Gentiles that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the Earth.” Jesus is actually not saying anything different than Isaiah the prophet said or that many other prophecies gave. Friends, this is a great encouragement. How does a team play if it's guaranteed, if they think they're absolutely going to win? They're going to play better than if they think they're going to lose. How does an army fight if they think ultimate victory is guaranteed? They fight better. We are going to win because Christ is going to win. This gospel is going to win. The task seems difficult. 3,150 unreached, unengaged, unreached people groups. None of them are easy to reach, or they would've been reached. They're in very difficult situations or places. I went through and thought about some of our units. If you guys don't know what the word “units” means, it means either a married couple, like a family or single. That's why we use the word units because some of them are single men and women, but sometimes family. We call them a mailing address or a group, a family unit. That's what we mean by it. I was reading about units in Turkey, 1.29 million practice Shia Islam. They speak North Levantine Arabic, a significant minority in Turkey. Their goal is to keep their Arabic culture alive in the secular Muslim state of Turkey and pass that on to their children and grandchildren. They mix elements of Sufism, which is Islamic mysticism and Shia Islam. Then we've got Thailand, where we have some units, I won't say their names, but they're there working, and there are people there that are following a certain flavor of Theravada Buddhism. Then in Bangladesh, overwhelmed with poverty, where we have another family unit there. People there are practicing Sunni Islam. They're tragically poor, and they're in darkness, in the grip of darkness. When we think about how difficult it is, and how long it takes to learn a language well enough to share the Gospel in it, and how long it takes to learn a culture, and how long it takes to make friendships, and then that whole journey, and then how long it takes to see one person cross over from darkness to light, that's the challenge in front of us. We need to be encouraged. Remember the lesson of the fig tree that we preached on a number of months ago? Mark 11:23-24, "Truly, I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he has said will happen, will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mountain moving, faith-filled prayer is made for the Great Commission. That's the mountain that needs to be moved. Remember what I said about prayer at that time. Prayer is not you giving God an idea He didn't have before or persuading Him to do something He didn't want to do. That's not what prayer is. Prayer is you learning from Scripture what God is doing in the world and asking Him to do what He has decreed and ordained to do but hasn't done yet. That's what it is. God has decreed and ordained that people from every tribe and language and people and nation will be standing in those white robes around that throne. That's what He's decreed. It is encouraging to see the progress of the Gospel. Those other signs, wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, those don't mark anything. They're characteristics of every generation. But the progress of the Gospel, that's like a ticking clock to the end of the world. If you were to put dots on a map all over the world of what we would consider to be healthy Bible-believing, gospel-preaching churches in the year 1550, where would you put the dots? It would be almost all Central and North Europe, 1550. If you advance 50 years later, [1600] you would see more dots in those same areas, but still nowhere else. If you put dots where you had healthy Bible-believing, gospel-preaching churches in 1650, by then you would have to add some North American colonies, in Virginia, and New England, and other places, and more over Europe, but nowhere else [1650]. If you advance another 50 years, many more dots up and down the 13 colonies. Many more dots in Europe, and nowhere else. By 1750, by then you had the Great Awakening, lots of dots all over the 13 colonies that eventually became the United States of America. You have some dots in the Caribbean where some Moravian missionaries went and sold themselves into slavery to preach the Gospel to the slave population there. Then, of course, Central and North Europe, some in the Catholic areas in Europe as well, but nowhere else. By 1800, William Carey's in India. So you put a dot there. But all the rest, just more dots in those same areas. As the new country of the United States spreading westward, there's more dots there, et cetera. In 50 more years, unbelievable. The 19th century, called the great century of missions, and they started to explode. By this time you've got Hudson Taylor in the inland regions. You've got dots in China. You've got a lot more dots in India, definitely dots in Burma. Because by the time Adoniran Judson finished his work, there were 25,000 baptized Burmese Christians. Now in 1850 there are dots all over. And by this time you can start putting them in Sub-Saharan Africa and other places. Add another 50 years, 1900, the great century of missions has ended. You got churches all over Asia, Mongolia, India, Burma, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa. In 50 more years, post-World War II, you've got the Gospel spreading to the islands of South Pacific, Irian Jaya, and Papua New Guinea. Soldiers that had fought there then went back to some of those places with the Gospel. Remarkable. 50 years later, the year 2000, the map's covered with dots, the entire world map. There's not a political nation on earth that doesn't have a healthy church. Not one. All the nations, I don't know how many nations are in the United Nations,230 some odd, all of them have some healthy church planted. But still, you've got those unreached people groups. So big picture, I can't tell you this progression without smiling. We are winning, the Gospel's spreading. The Holy Spirit is good at His job. He puts a compulsion on people, and they go where He wants them to go, and they lay down their lives as He wants them to, and the Gospel spreads. But there's still work to be done. I'm not going to burden you with statistics, that would be hard to communicate. But there's been a kind of a flattening of mission endeavor over the last 10 or 15 years. It's a little discouraging as you look, and it's just a narrow window, but missionary thinker Ralph Winter said, "More of the same will not get it done.” The burden is laid on churches like us and many other churches around the world to recommit ourselves to missions, recommit ourselves to the work left to be done, and to give sacrificially as we are called to do. IV. Applications First and foremost, if you're here listening to this mission sermon, but you came in here not a Christian, your work is to believe in Jesus. No point in talking about missions if you're lost. First and foremost, you've heard the gospel: God, man, Christ, response. I'm calling on you while there's time, repent and believe in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. If you're already a Christian, understand both the command in Mark 13 and the promise or the prophecy in Matthew 24. Take it seriously. This is the command laid on us, but rejoice in the sovereignty of Christ to get it done. Be confident in the final outcome. The Lord is going to win. He will be glorified. I'm looking forward to all eternity of hearing those stories. It's going to be phenomenal. Pray confidently in the spirit of Matthew 9 for more laborers, laborers in the harvest field. Churches like ours send out two precious commodities to the mission field: people and money. That's what IMB does. We gather people, and we gather money from Southern Baptist churches and point them strategically in directions. The Lottie Moon Christmas offering that we take every Christmas, our goal is $150,000. The Southern Baptist Convention exists in part for that. It was originated for that, and it's why we do. It's the crown jewel, I think, of our cooperation with Baptist churches all over the country. We pool resources to do a job too big for any one church to do. We couldn't afford to send very many fully-supported missionaries, just one church, to these various places. So we pool resources with thousands of churches. Truly, 100% of the money you give to Lottie Moon goes to missions. I was a trustee for nine years. What that means is we take more money in than Lottie Moon. It takes more money than Lottie Moon to put those missionaries on the field. I don't know how they tag dollars that go... Whatever, it gets pooled. The point is, the budget is bigger than the Lottie Moon offering. Where does the rest of the money come from? It comes from something called the Cooperative Program, where throughout the year, 12 months a year, we pool resources and a chunk of that goes to missions as well. A hundred percent of your giving goes, and our goal is $150,000. What I always say to you as a member of this church is engage, pray about your financial giving. We also have the opportunity through our home fellowships and through just your own initiative to get to know our friends that are serving overseas. We live in an iPhone or a smartphone world. You can contact them and be with them real-time. I FaceTime with these folks. You can find out what they're going through, support them, pray for them. I'm going to end this time now in prayer, and then we can get ready for the Lord's Supper. Father, thank You for the message that we have heard, the Gospel message of the Gospel going to the ends of the Earth and to the end of time. Now as we turn our hearts to the Lord's Supper, we thank You for the Word that we've heard and for the ordinance we're about to partake in. In Jesus' name, Amen.

[Eph 5:15-21] What does "be filled with the spirit" mean, and how do you do it?

The Isnag people in Dibagat, Philippines, finally have the Bible fully translated into their heart language--a project that took 66 years. (More than 150 known languages are spoken in the Philippines.) Nard Pugyao, native Isnag speaker and a retired missionary pilot, joins to share the amazing story.  "For many years, the people of the Philippines were on the receiving end of mission work. But now they are on the sending side—the work of evangelism and discipleship belongs to the people of Dibagat, spreading the Gospel using the Isnag Bible,” said Dr. John Chestnut, president of Wycliffe Bible Translators in a recent op-ed about the translation. Follow The Common Good on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Hosted by Aubrey Sampson and Brian From Produced by Laura Finch and Keith ConradSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you trust the Bible fully? Are you sure that the translations haven't distorted the original message? Let's clear all your doubts in this captivating discussion with the Dean of the Pacific Christian College at Hope International University. We promise an enlightening journey into the authenticity and reliability of the Bible, beginning with the scripture's own testimony of its authority. We've got 2 Peter and Timothy serving as our guides, helping decode the concept of divine inspiration. But that's just the beginning. We're going to untangle the intricate structure of the Old Testament and how it is relevant even today in our contemporary society. Plus, we'll demystify the role of translation in preserving the Bible's authenticity. Prepare for an insightful exploration of the necessity of translation, the different types, and the importance of understanding the original language. We'll also be shining the spotlight on the commendable work of Wycliffe Bible Translators and delve into the historical process of copying the Bible.What's more, we'll be taking a deep dive into the Christian perspectives on Genesis 1. Learn about the concept of God using intelligent design and evolution in the creation process. We'll discuss the importance of applying Jesus's teachings to our daily lives and how crucial it is for our actions to reflect His words. This episode will not just broaden your understanding of the Bible, but also reinforce your faith in its truth and reliability. So, gear up for a thought-provoking experience that promises to change the way you perceive the Bible. Support the showWith Northgate Online, you can join us every Sunday live at 9:00a and 11:00a, and our gatherings are available on-demand starting at 7p! Join us at https://thisis.churchSubscribe to our channel to see more messages from Northgate: https://www.youtube.com/@Northgate2201 —If you would like to give, visit https://thisis.church/give/—Check out our Care Ministries for prayer, food pantry, memorial services and more at https://thisis.church/care—You are welcome at Northgate just like you are. Life may be going great for you or you may have hurts, hang-ups, and habits. No matter where you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome at Northgate. We value the process of journey. We believe in the transformative power of Christ. Northgate has a clear vision of transforming our homes, communities, and world by Pursuing God, Building Community, and Unleashing Compassion.—Follow Northgate on Instagram: https://instgram.com/ngatecfFollow Northgate on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsNorthgate/Follow Larry Davis: https://www.instagram.com/sirlawrencedavisSubscribe to Northgate's Podcast (Apple): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/northgate/id1583512612Subscribe to Northgate's Podcast (Google): https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS81ODE2ODAucnNzShare your experience with Northgate by leaving a review: https://g.page/r/CRHE7UBydhxzEBM/review...

Today on Karl and Crew Mornings, we continued our discussion on the current situation in Israel. Our scripture passages today were Ephesians 1:18-23 and 6:10-13. When we remember that our battle is in the spiritual realm but that Jesus is sovereign above all, we can find peace even in the midst of turmoil. Our special guest was Andrew Flemming, Vice President of Global Partnerships Engagement at Wycliffe Bible Translators. He told us about how the Gospel is being shared across the world with the help of AI. We also shared a special feature called "Five Minutes on the Ground" where Host John Gauger interviewed Dr. Erez Soref, President of One for Israel, about what is currently going on in the Holy Land. Hear the highlights of today's program on the Karl and Crew Showcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of the Essentially Translatable podcast, CEO Rich Rudowske and Emily Wilson interview John Chesnut, the President and CEO of Wycliffe USA. They discuss the partnership between Lutheran Bible Translators and Wycliffe Bible Translators, which has spanned over several decades. They also touch on IllumiNations, a collective impact alliance, that bands together the efforts of 11 organizations. John Chesnut shares insights into his backgroundand the importance of embracing multiple ways of working in the global Bibletranslation movement. Tune in to learn more about the mission and impact partnerships between translation agencies.

Hyatt Moore and his wife Anne came to Jesus late, in their later 20's and they've never stopped serving God all these many years. Hyatt, in his third career—when you're just about to ready to celebrate your 80th birthday, you have time for at least 3 careers—describes himself as a Christian who is an artist. Father of 5 and grandfather of 17, Hyatt wants his legacy to be something that goes on through his kids long after he dies, and he's very intentional about modeling his faith and pouring into his kids and grandkids. First career: Art Director of Surfer Magazine, Dana Pt, CA; second career: Missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators for 32 years (Director for 5 of those years); Full-time painter (currently painting for many organizations, including donating many each year, and on commission.) See his commission gallery here.  We talk about art and creativity and the talents that God gives all his children. Hyatt says he's a two-talent guy, and God has definitely doubled those. I'm thinking he has five to ten, but then I'm his sister and his biggest fan. Some gems: Creativity is basically problem-solving. God and his mercies are new every morning; I get ideas, solutions, creativity every morning. After running from God and then found by Him, I wanted to live my life to serve others the way I had been helped. Be humble, but step up to your gifting and you'll get more yet.  I want to live a "bless-able" life—I can prevent God's blessings by how I live. God said, "Be holy for I am holy" which implies it's possible for us but only with his help, Spirit and fullness.    Hyatt's portrait painted by a friend and student, Pil See his art at hyattmoore.com View his blog here and join his mailing list here.  Hear his testimony on YouTube here. Hyatt's signature piece is The Last Supper with Twelve Tribes - hear that story HERE. One of the paintings Hyatt created for fellow-artist, Joni Eackenson Tada:   He's known for his large canvases as in Heroes of the Faith:  

Hey Friend,   If you are overwhelmed, on the verge of burnout, and are frustrated with your repeated cycle of stress eating - this episode is for you.   I imagine if you're like me, the title isn't that appealing to you. I tend to think things like, "Rest? No. That's not what the problem is. I just need to figure out how to do this better."   My guest today drops some important wisdom for all of us, and whether we choose to take to heart can have a major impact on our physical well being.   About Sue Donaldson: Speaker, author, podcaster, Sue Donaldson and her husband, Mark, live in San Luis Obispo, California. Sue taught high school English, part of the time in Brazil with Wycliffe Bible Translators. She and her husband, Mark, have raised 3 daughters who keep them at the bank and on their knees. Sue loves connecting people to one another, to God, and to His Word, and has been speaking for the last 20 years or so with long pauses for babies, diapers and soccer pasta parties. She blogs at WelcomeHeart.com and hosts a weekly podcast: WELCOME HEART: Living a Legacy Life- https://welcomeheart.com/podcast   Sue's books include: Come to My Table: God's Hospitality and Yours Hospitality, 101: Lessons from the Ultimate Host, a 12-Week Bible Study Table Mentoring: A Simple Guide to Coming Alongside Say Something Special: 252 Conversation Starters, The Ultimate Guide to Stimulating Table Talk   ***** Grab the Overcome the Overwhelm PDF.   ***** When you're ready, here are 4 ways I can support you in your health journey:   1. Grab my free 5 Day Sugar Fast Devotional In this 5 Day Devotional you have the opportunity to drop weight and sugar cravings while gaining a totally new approach to health that is grounded in Jesus. Download it here.   2. Join my free Facebook group, The Made Well Mastermind In this group you'll have access to years of resources I've shared along with the new content I put out weekly. Additionally, you'll be in good company with fellow Jesus loving ladies looking to live a sustainable healthy lifestyle. Join us here.   3. Take the Healthy Cooking Made Easy Mini Course This short course will show you how to enjoy healthy cooking with confidence by saving time, cooking less, and loving what you make! Sign up here.   4. Apply to work with me and my team directly In the Sustainable Health Transformation 16 Week program clients receive hands on support in creating a healthy lifestyle that fits their unique context. Whether your goal is to lose weight, increase your energy, or create healthy habits you'll keep, the Sustainable Health process guides you into a way of eating, exercising, and thinking that partners with God and His grace for results that last. For more info and to apply, click here.

"There's an inner compelling that God allows that helps us get over, leap over, any fear." - Sue DonaldsonIn today's episode, our guest Sue Donaldson shares her journey of teaching in a Christian school, moving to Brazil to work with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and eventually transitioning back to the United States to work with the mission organization full-time. She also opens up about her experiences with singleness and finding love later in life. Sue's BioSue Donaldson and her husband, Mark, live in San Luis Obispo, California. Sue taught high school English, part of the time in Brazil with Wycliffe Bible Translators. She and her husband, Mark, have raised 3 daughters who keep them at the bank and on their knees. Sue loves connecting people to one another, to God, and to His Word, and has been speaking for the last 20 years or so with long pauses for babies, diapers and soccer pasta parties. She blogs at WelcomeHeart.com and hosts a weekly podcast: WELCOME HEART: Living a Legacy Life- Stay Connected:Sue's FishSue's Podcast: Welcome Heart PodcastSue's Website Page: Welcome HeartSues InstagramSue's ResourceRachel ScottWebsite| https://rachelgscott.com/Website| http://the5leaps.com/Instagram| https://www.instagram.com/iamrachelgscott/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamrachelgscottSponsored Resources Mentioned:5 Week Leap Mentoring: Sign Up HereRGS Group: Learn More HereThe 5 Leaps Quick Guide: Grab it Here

We are asking the Lord to encourage and strengthen our hearts as we hear from our very own missionaries at Trinity about what God is doing and how He is advancing His gospel throughout the globe. This week, we welcome Dale Peacock! Dale works with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and he and his beautiful wife Miranda…

What can we learn from the early Celtic Christian saints who brought the gospel to Scotland and Northern England: St. Patrick, St. Aidan, St. Columba & St. Cuthbert?These were the wandering & worshipping monks & missionaries, the peregrine pilgrims, devoted to prayer, justice and sharing the good news amongst the pagan tribes.And what about the Early Church Fathers & Mothers or the Nestorians who travelled deep into Asia?Matthew Burden, our guest in this episode, is the author of a fascinating new book called Missionary Motivations: Challenges from the Early Church. He grew up in Brazil, spent time in Africa and now pastors a church in Maine, USA.We discuss the attractional nature of the Desert Fathers, inaugurated eschatology, Christus Victor & much more!____________________________________________________________________________________To connect with Wycliffe Bible Translators, click here (UK) or here (USA).To connect with Matthew and to see the books that he's written, visit his blog here.To hear a brand new uncut, unplugged album, written and sung in caves, mountains and on beaches over the last few weeks while on a Celtic Pilgrimage from Iona to Holy Island (with 247-Prayer's Pete Greig,) check out Rich Dawson's Pilgrim Songs here on Spotify or wherever you listen to music online.To follow their journey and to access a 21 day devotional about the Celtic missionary monks, check out the Lectio365 app (11th June - 2nd July)._________________________________________________________________________________Do get in touch if you have any questions for Matt or for any of his guests.matt@frontiers.org.ukYou can find out more about us by visiting www.frontiers.org.ukOr visit www.frontiers.org and select from one of our national offices. For social media in the UK:Instagram: frontiers_ukFacebook: @frontiersukfriendsAnd do check out the excellent 6 week video course, MomentumYes:www.momentumyes.com (USA)www.momentumyes.org.uk (UK) _________________________________________________________________________________

In this episode of Life Reframed, hosts Rick and Lauren engage in a captivating conversation with their dear friend Mark Granger, who recently made the bold decision to leave behind a thriving business career and join Wycliffe Bible Translators as an organizational consultant. Join them as they delve into Mark's compelling journey, uncovering the profound impact of his faith-driven transition, the joys and hurdles of working with Wycliffe, and the transformative power of bringing the Gospel to life through Bible translation. Get ready to be inspired as they navigate the intersection of faith, purpose, and career in this thought-provoking episode.Today we are joined by Mark Granger who is a former elder at Fellowship Church and has now stepped into a position with Wycliffe Bible Translator as an Organizational Strength Consultant where he assists Bible translation organizations and their partner churches. Here's a video of Mark telling his story. Here's the link Mark shared. Email Rick at rickdunn61@gmail.com or find him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Email Lauren at laurengmorgan@gmail.com or find her on Instagram.

Devotion on Sharing the Gospel, Missions, Joy in the Journey, Psalm 118:24. 1 page. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24). The first Bible to be translated into an indigenous language in Australia was the Kriol Bible. Their dedication ceremony was in May 2007. Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, first thought of going to Australia to translate the Bible into indigenous languages back in the 1940s. What better cause for celebration than to read the printed Bible in one's heart language for the first time – to think, “God speaks my language.”  All quoted Scripture is from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers). Used by permission. All rights reserved. Joyful Celebration by Jill Kohlert, Dixon, Illinois Copyright © 2017, revised 2020 Lutheran Women's Missionary League. All Rights Reserved. Download the printable PDF of this devotion Joyful Celebration

In today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly is going to talk to Terry Whalin. He will be talking with us about many things, including his new book proposals that sell. Episode Highlights: 01:01: Terry loves books and loves publishing and that's something he started at a very young age.  02:58: Terry shares how the book "Jesus Be A revolutionary" changed his whole view in life. 04:10: Terry shares how he joined Wycliffe Bible Translators out of college, and he spent 17 years with them. 04:33: Terry explains how he had a genuine love and relationship with God that he didn't have, and so that's why he needed to get a Bible and begin to sing those songs and go that direction in his life as well. 05:08: In Terry's publishing life. He has written biographies on people like Billy Graham and Chuck Colson and John Perkins and Luis Palau, and people like that. 05:24: Terry has co-authored books with more than a dozen people over the years, so books have really driven a lot of his life. 06:14: Terry had written about 50 books for traditional publishers, but he had never worked inside a publishing company before. 06:23: About 15-16 years ago, Terry was hired as the acquisition's editor at David C Cook in Colorado Springs and it gave him a look inside publishing that he had never seen before.  07:31: Terry wrote book proposals that sold originally in 2004, just as a frustrated editor because he wasn't getting the kind of submissions from authors that he really needed then. 09:12: As far as who the audience is, what they are going to do to sell the book, all those kinds of things, you can't just write a book. 10:05: There are over 4500 new books that are published every day. A publishing plan will help you not to get lost in 4500 books per day. It will help you float to the top rather than sink to. 11:23: If you have a plan, execute your plan, then that's where you are going to find your readers out there and really help people with the stuff you are putting in your books. 12:12: Terry has published more than a dozen children's books, and he knows that that's a very important area to people as parents read those books. 14:04: Terry shares how he benefitted from reading books to his children. 15:48: Terry wants to encourage authors to envision where their book is in the bookstore. 3 Key Points: Terry explains how to get a book launched or why their favorite book was launched. Terry shares how publishing has changed a lot since 2004. Terry's mission is to store enjoyment by helping authors be successful, and he is one of the reasons every book needs a book proposal out there.   Tweetable Quotes: "One of the things that really drives me day in, and day out is the fact that books can change people's lives." – Terry  "I can think of many times in my life when the right book came across my path and gave me sometimes, I wanted, sometimes I not so much wanted, i.e.; a wakeup call." - Terry "We go to the library or the bookstore and come back with a whole bunch of books and read them over and over to our kids." - Terry Resources Mentioned Helping Families Be Happy Podcast Apple Familius.com Terry Whalin  Podcast Editing

The Deaf community has not always been prioritized in terms of technology, but in recent years, significant milestones have been achieved, and since April is National Deaf History Month, this is a good time to bring awareness and celebrate these new developments. On Monday's Mornings with Eric and Brigitte, Andy Keener, Executive VP of Partnerships at Wycliffe Bible Translators recognizes that there's plenty of work left to do to reach people worldwide in this community, but with the new sign language translation technology, it's important we bring recognition to this groundbreaking opportunity. Changing the Way the Deaf Community Discovers Jesus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Carole always loves to share books about Christian missionaries from the past, but what about missionaries who are at work in the world now? You'll hear about: - how God called these missionaries into linguistic work- about Wycliffe Bible Translators- the work these missionaries did overseasClick HERE to listen to more episodes about missionaries!Click HERE to learn more about upcoming seminars! Support the showHelp us share the message of homeschool made simple with others by leaving a rating and review. Thank you for helping us get the word out!Follow along on Instagram here!Visit our website to sign up to receive an exclusive discount for your first purchase in our online store!

God is using regular men and women to reach the lost around the world. In this episode, Art has an inspirational conversation with Chris Winkler of Wycliffe Bible Translators. This episode will motivate you to get financially healthy for the sake of advancing God's Kingdom.Resources:ChristianMoneySolutions.comWycliffe.orgEpisode Sponsor:Most churches struggle to get people to give. SecureGive, has created a system that helps churches increase giving so their ministry is funded to reach their community. SecureGive helps churches increase giving in 3 ways: software that makes giving easy, a custom growth strategy, and ongoing stewardship resources. They stand out by offering a real ministry partnership, the most cost-effective solution with the lowest processing rates, and the most comprehensive giving platform available.

INTRODUCTION: Barry Bowen is the Staff Investigator at Trinity Foundation, a nonprofit organization that investigates religious fraud, theft and excess. From 2005 to 2010 Bowen served as one of the third-party whistleblowers assisting the U.S. Senate in its investigation of six TV ministries.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):  ·      Explanation Of IRS Forms 990 & 990T·      The Cora Jakes-Coleman Potter's House Sex Scandal·      Bisexual Televangelists ·      Do You REALLY Know Your Pastor?·      Insight Into The Bible Translations Industry ·      Pastors Paying Pastors aka “Honorariums”·      Church Music As A Business·      Church Of God In Christ (C.O.G.I.C.) Tom Foolery·      How The Church Is Like The ‘World'·      Revelation Chapter 18 CONNECT WITH BARRY: Website: https://trinityfi.orgTwitter: https://twitter.com/barrybowen  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: Barry Bowen Part 3[00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Barry Bowen, staff investigator at the Trinity Foundation is back with me for the third time. Y'all. Trinity Foundation investigates churches and televangelists and stuff like that, and so Barry Bowen. The perfect fit for my show. Now, in this episode, we discussed the financial trail found within the Bible translation industry, and we're talking about millions of dollars people, millions, we're gonna talk about child molesting, [00:01:00] televangelist, atheist preachers who don't even believe a word they fucking preach. And so much more. Y'all, when I say I can't even, I mean I can not even. Please listen to this episode and share it with someone you love. And feel free to reach out to me with any comments that you might have.I'm curious to hear what you have to say.Hello everyone and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. My name is Devana and I am so glad that you decided to join me again on the day. I've got my homeboy, Barry Bowen back with me again, and we are here to break all the religious teeth down for you.And so the last time I had you on the show, We were talking about all these different churches and everything, and when we left we were gonna do like a Lakewood follow up. And so we, we, I know you've requested some information from the irs, they refused to [00:02:00] give it to you, so we're still waiting to get a lot of that.We did find out that they just started following their nine 90 tees back in like 2018. So basically we are still waiting for information on them, but can you explain everyone what a nine 90 T is? Barry: The irs requires non-profit organizations that have $1,000 or more an unrelated business income to file this Form nine 90 T.The income can be taxed and there are certain loopholes to the tax. The weirdest loophole in my opinion is rental income. So if a church is renting a facility and then they use that. Property for an outside event and they get money for, for it. It's taxable income if they own the building outright and do outside events [00:03:00] there and are paid for it.It's not taxable. It, it's really weird how the system works. But regular non-profits have to file a form called a nine 90, which is separate from the nine 90 T. There are different versions of it. One's called a postcard nine 90. That's for organizations with, I believe, $50,000 or less than revenue.Then there is a nine 90 easy form, which is for organizations with 50, more than $50,000 to under, I think $200,000. And anything more than that was the regular nine 90. And so a regular nine 90. They will disclose this kind of information in it. De'Vannon: And so we shall see in the future, you know, how transparently liquid gets so far we've been unable to attain, obtain their, their true income.[00:04:00] Though there has been some articles published, unlike their spending, but not so much on the income breakdown. So we shall see as time goes on. Did you hear about over at the, over at the Potter's house, the the the sex ring scandal with Jake's daughter, Cora? Barry: Yes. . De'Vannon: What are your thoughts?Because years ago, his son was caught up in some kind of sex shit too. And so now, We're talking about T Jake's son was caught up in some kind of sex bullshit too. And now his, as I understand it, the, the daughter core Jake's Coleman and the her husband was apparently running them holes. , what do you Barry: I have a friend who's following it very closely behind the scenes and she is like, and not in [00:05:00] shock because she knows how corrupt some of these people can be.And there have been a number of sex predators in the church. It's a tragic thing. It really does happen. What happens is churches try to be a place where people are trusted and where you can parents can trust their children to be Watched and not harmed. We know that in some cases that's not what happens.They do get harmed. Cora has, I believe, filed for divorce. I think she has, I haven't followed this it that closely. I don't know what she knew and when she started knowing it, but [00:06:00] often in the case of when these type of sex scandals happen in a church, they try to get the parents of victims to sign out of court agreements with confidentiality clauses.They try to buy their silence. So, and that's the one of the main ways of churches tried to handle these scandals. Now, that's not legal by the. What you're supposed to do is, it's supposed to be reported to law enforcement. Pastors are considered mandatory reporters. So when you have a sex scandal in a church and you report it to church staff, by law, they're supposed to contact law enforcement.De'Vannon: Well, the divorce is not going to absolve her of any guilt or clear her name or un muddy her name or anything. It's too late for that . [00:07:00]Barry: So, yeah. I attended a church years ago. There was a, where there was a sex scandal and it was tragic. I mean, I did not expect this person to do those kind of things. And he abused a young boy and that was, there were people that stopped attending church because of it.The police. So what happened is, in this case, the church cooperated with authorities and they did not try to rehabilitate him as in trying to provide a new church job for him or anything like that. I mean, in my opinion, a a sexual predator should never be hired by a church. De'Vannon: Well, the Catholic church didn't get that [00:08:00] memo.At least this church seemed like maybe they have some type of a soul. But I'd like to point out is that. , you know, these people who are doing this are not members of the BT Q I A plus community. You know, cuz these churches always trying to act like we're working around, they're trying to rape and molest their boys and everything like that, you know.But when it actually comes out, it's men who are married to women, men who identify as straight, or in case of mis cho, she's female herself. And you know, if fatt is true, then honey, then she was in there doing the dip too and fucking with these children. So we'll see what comes out in court Barry: when, and as an investigator of televangelist and other religious organizations, we get all kinds of tips and one of the things that I have learned is when a person has zero self-control in the area of [00:09:00] money, they usually have no self-control in other areas of their lives, including their sexuality.We have seen a large number of televangelists that are bisexual. I'm not about to out a bunch of people, but there are tons of rumors. Lots of them and almost all of 'em are credible. There is one that I wanna talk about though. There is a televangelist now deceased who in the 1990s, a TV network decided to do a TV expose on him.And I'll tell you who it is, after I finished telling you this story the a TV network decided they wanted to launch a new investigative one hour TV show a competitor to 60 Minutes. And this would've been one of their first TV shows. And so they started investigating a [00:10:00] televangelist and he was involved sexually with a male judge.Yes, you heard that, correct? Mm-hmm. this TV expose would've been a blockbuster. They had cameramen going into gay bars. There was employees of the organization going to gay bars. It was a wild story. But it was, or Roberts founder of, or Roberts University, the famous healing evangelist of the 1950s and later he was involved with a male judge.De'Vannon: None of this surprises. Barry: The, the, what happened was he had a health problem. I can't remember if it was a stroke. [00:11:00] Some type of a me medical emergency almost died, and this was right before the TV expose was scheduled to air. And what I think is happened is they canceled the program and I think it may have been induced by stress.He knew this expose was gonna come out. But yeah, there's, that's one of the wildest stories. But I mean, there are others that we've heard of. I mean, there's there are rumors about different televangelist committing rape. There's one case I know about that the records got sealed. I think it's a protective order or something that, so they, the results can't be disclosed.I can't drop a name or anything. But the allegations were. Absolutely horrendous. De'Vannon: Well, everyone just remember, you don't really [00:12:00] know your preachers. And for all the photo ops and all the social media visits, I remember, I think when Joel and Victoria Oing would go visit Earl Roberts and it was this whole media production thing.What I always wonder is what do these televangelist talk about when they were around each other? When the cameras turn off? Because whenever they're in front of a camera, they're at work. That is a version of them. They're selling no matter who they are. In all of television, it's the same thing. So I try to encourage people to remember that you don't know you're a preacher.You're not sitting down having dinner and you doing cocaine or whatever the fuck it is you like to do with him. Like you don't really know what the fuck he does when he is not around you or who he really is. So oral robber's, fucking the shit out of this judge. At least he had enough sense to go for power , you know?You know, and so, so this, none of this surprises me. And so, okay. I wanted to talk a lot today about the [00:13:00] Bible translations industry. This is super duper important because so many people read the Bible and then they tell their life off of what they perceive it to mean. Preachers try to control their congregations through the Bible and so much, you know, politicians, especially Republicans, try to make policy in everything based off of what they believe the Bible mean.So much stuff revolves around the Bible. And so I wanted to get into the finances behind the Bible. It's a very interesting thing to me because the Bible is, we know, came from the Middle East at some point. Oh, king James decided he wanted to make an interpretation of. There's a documentary on the Discovery Plus channel right now called The Book of Queer, where they go over queer people from history who we didn't know were queer.Abraham Lincoln, this certain Pharaoh, [00:14:00] and King James himself of the King James version. According to this documentary, he was a big old queer girl and it didn't matter, you know, what he put in there, but he was fucking around with boys too. So of course, in, you know, people from Europe come over here, start fucking with the indigenous people and whatever, and they bring their religion, their Catholicism, or whatever the hell you know, they had.So now we're here in present day in the, in. This Bible is just everywhere, all over the world, and people don't really, in my opinion, treated with respect. Like it actually came from the Middle East and that we're actually worshiping a God that was originally not our own. So this, this ownership of it. It seems like a bastard bastardization of its value to me.Now, in a blog you wrote or something I found on your website, which will go in the show notes, I believe you said that there's an estimated [00:15:00] 500 million per year in the Bible translation industry. Barry: We reprinted an article from Ministry Watch. The author of the story is Warren Cole Smith. Warren Cole.Smith has written for World Magazine. He's worked for the Colson Center. He's a very credible investigative reporter. He's written a book, faith-Based Fraud. And so we've looked into religious organizations involved in publication of Bibles. He's done a very thorough dive into them and. So he wrote that a half a billion dollars annually is spent on a revenue, goes to these organizations involved in translating the Bible.But I wanna go back a few centuries before the printing press. Bibles were handwritten. It would take a [00:16:00] scribe a long time to hand write the Bible. And when Gutenberg invented his printing press, he was able to speed up the process big time. A lot of people don't know this, but one of the first things he printed was indulgences for the Catholic church so people could buy their forgiveness all way out of purgatory.So that was one of the first things he printed. The. The printing press allowed a lot more access to the scriptures. And before the printing press, I'm sorry, before the printing press, people were generally oral learners. They learned by hearing. For example, in the in Islam, there are people [00:17:00] that will memorize the entire Quran and word for word, they'll be able to memorize the entire thing.And often they will lead in prayers at the mosque. That was the way of preserving it from generation to generation is is by knowing it by heart, by memorizing it. For Christianity. There, there's even a Bible verse and that says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So again, throughout most history, people learn by hearing.It was with the printing press that allowed people to have access and read for and study for themselves, and which is a huge development in the intellectual development of human kind. So in the [00:18:00]England, there was a man named John Woodcliff, I believe he was in England. He decided to translate, no was Tin decided to translate the Bible into English and he was actually put to death for it.The Catholic church had one translation Latin Vulgate. I think Jerome was the name of the translator. So the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, in Latin. Jesus spoke Aramaic. That was another language used in in Israel. If you study languages Greek is a very precise language. So we say the word love well, they have multiple words for love.Feel for like a friendly type, love agape, love for pure type love, ero, erotic type love. So [00:19:00]because of the preciseness of of Greek, it's easier to translate certain things. So when the printing press happened, Gutenberg did his first print run of the Bible. Wealthy people in Europe were able to buy Bibles for the first time often, and other publishers started building their own printing presses and they started publishing the Bible as well.In some cases there were crazy mistakes made. There was one Bible that when they, they did the printing plates, there was a mistake. And for like one of the 10 commandments, instead of saying dalt, not the word not was accidentally left out, I think it said Dalt committed adultery. The publisher was arrested and imprisoned.[00:20:00]So we started seeing the beginnings of the Bible publishing business. In the late 14 hundreds I believe, or early 15 hundreds. And eventually there were organizations, missionary organizations started to try to make disciples around the world. In the 18 hundreds, late 17 hundreds, early 18 hundreds, there was a Christian named William Wilberforce.He worked with the London Missionary Society and several other societies to do these type of projects. Then you start seeing America start starting to play a big role in this area, in the 18 hundreds, especially the 19 hundreds. The American Bible Society is, I believe, the largest.[00:21:00] Organization, them and wla Bible translators are two of the biggest organizations in Bible translation, especially Woodcliff. And there is a, like a federation, a group of organizations that they work together. According to Warren's research it costs approximately $30 million to complete a Bible translation.One of the problems is some of these languages it's not so easy to do. You don't necessarily have a font for them, a typeface for them. So if you sit down at a computer there are some languages that are oral only. So when, when they do a translation, it's an oral translation, they will use a microphone, they'll record verse by verse.But, but the they're, they're building databases that help speed up the process. [00:22:00] And the, the process is slowly moving forward. But because it's so, they, they, these bible translators, sometimes when they're questioned about the effectiveness of their work it's really hard for them to be able to answer in a forthright manner.When you're doing ministry, you want it to be effective, you want measurable results. And in the case of Bible publishers, a completed Bible translation is a key metric. Well, how many translations can you produce in a. I believe there are approximately 700 languages waiting to be the scriptures waiting to be translated to them or it's 700, no, I'm sorry.It's 700 [00:23:00] languages I've been translated from Bible times till now. Sorry. Got my figures wrong. It's a lot of work to be done and I think people need to be held accountable. So when it comes to translating the scriptures, one of the things that Uff Bible translators will do is they may send a missionary to an area so that they can learn the language.That's the first thing. You have to know a language before you can translate the Bible into the language. And the next problem is what if they don't have words for certain things? Imagine an Indian tribe would they have a word for the, for sword? Would they have a word for chariot? If [00:24:00]they'd never used chariots before, they would not have a word for it.Well, how would you translate that? Or is there several words that you could use to describe a cart pulled by a horse that would be used in warfare? I mean, so you're trying to figure out some things. It, it's a lot of mental work to it. The money often goes from one organization to another organization.So they will give grants to another organization to support a translation in another language. And. How effective is the organization they're working with? Does that organization file a form nine 90? Do they disclose it? When you look at these organizations, you can see what their salaries are. [00:25:00] You can go to an faa flight registry and look to see if they own any aircraft.If they own jets, it's typically not a good use of donor money. But I mean, there's a lot of key metrics to look at to try to figure out if an organization is being frugal with the money that's given to them. Do you De'Vannon: know who like if a certain person owns, they like the new living Bible or I mean, I mean the Living Bible or the, the New Living translation or the word Bible, like all of those different versions that we have in English.Does somebody own each of those? Barry: I would say in some cases, companies do. Publishers would, sometimes you can have a publisher that creates their own English language translation. So Zondervan [00:26:00] they are the copyright holder for the niv, the new international version. The King James is so old that copyright is expired.Anybody can print a King James Bible. De'Vannon: Cause what I'm wondering is like, so say Zondervan and I've seen their name, you know, in a, in NIV Bibles before, but I never knew what it meant till now. You know? So are they making royalties off of this every time it's sold or downloaded? That you know of. Barry: There are websites.Uverse is one of the biggest ones. They have a Bible. They've created a Bible app, so you can download a Bible app to your phone and it's free. They're another popular new translation is the esv, the English standard version. [00:27:00] And esv bible.org thinks their website and you can actually listen to the, to it or read it on their website for free without even buying a print version.But in some cases they, in the past, they would sell the Bible on dvd. There's one one Bible that there's an oral version of it. It's read by famous actors. They read different chapters of the Bible. The, the way this works is the, sometimes it'll be an academic effort. You'll have translators from different colleges, Christian seminaries.These are professors. They're, they're experts in biblical languages. So they've spent their life [00:28:00] studying the Hebrew and Greek. And so they'll be put on a committee, and so they will work on a Bible translation. This is actually how the NIV was done. They had a committee a working group that oversaw the translation, so.And then what happened was, there was, there was, I don't remember the guy's name, but you can actually look up a lot of these translations in Wikipedia, for example, and you can find out the history of that translation. But there was, there was a guy that, he used the King James, but did not like it. He did not like the old English, and he wanted a more modern, more current English version.And so he was the person that got the ball rolling on, on doing the niv for for college [00:29:00]students working on a, on a, getting a PhD, becoming a doctorate. Getting a doctorate degree. Sometimes they study biblical languages and if they work on a Bible translation that looks great on their resume.So they often do the work. De'Vannon: I wonder who, even in modern day times, you know, when these people are setting down to translate the Bible, are they making sure that there's proper representation? Do you have people of all races, all ethnic backgrounds, all sexual orientation backgrounds? My feeling is that, that that's not quite the case because, you know, when I read through so many different Bible translations and stuff like that, it's like I don't, I don't really, [00:30:00] there's just like, like you were saying, like there's not some words that exist, you know, like from, from Arab may that translate, you know, to English.But tho that's the same for even like current. Like, how can I say this? Like contemporary languages. So like whenever, like whenever I'm in Japan, you know, my friend lives over there and sometimes I go over there to visit her and everything and, and I'll be like, well, how do you say this? And she'll go like, well, we, we don't say that over here.That's just not a part of our culture. That's just not what we do. You know? And so, and that's, and that's for a nation that's currently like alive right now. And so, so what her point to me is like, don't think this because you do this in America, that someone, that they do that everywhere else, all over the globe because it may not be a part of their culture.And so I feel like there is a cultural lack when it comes to [00:31:00] biblical interpretation because not everybody is at the table. So if you have a whole room full of white conservative people, you know, interpreting the Bible, you know, then I feel like that's the reason why we have a. Women, you know, feeling discredited from the way they're described in the Bible and, you know, in other races just completely, you know, left out and oit it and things like that.But do you know anything about, at these organizations actually, who is in there doing it? And if there's like true diversity? Barry: I haven't done a thorough study of that. Original bible translations were generally done by conservative believers. People that I don't wanna say they had an agenda. They their goal was to make the Bible available so that other people could know it better could learn, [00:32:00] could learn the language.Could learn what the Bible to say in their own language. So in the Catholic Church, they used a Latin version of the Bible. That was why their masses were spoken in Latin. And it was done that way in the Catholic church for centuries. So during the Reformation period, you had a number of people try to translate the Bible into other languages making it a language of the people.And some cases it'd be one person doing the translation work. It wasn't a committee. John Woodcliff Tindel, Martin Luther, they primarily, I did their, their bible translation work alone, I believe. Mm-hmm. . Things have obviously changed. But even in the 19 hundreds, there was one, there have been a couple of guys that have done one.Basically, one person has authored a Bible translation or [00:33:00] transcript, or not transcript a paraphrase. For example, the Living Bible is a paraphrase. So a paraphrase is taking a, reading a verse and basically putting it into your own words. That's a paraphrase. When it comes to translations, there is a word for word and there's thought for thought, a word for word.You'd read one word and then you try to translate it into one word, the closest that would translate to that. And a word, a thought for thought. You try to take the thought represented and put it into the same thought. Give you an example in one verse in the Bible, Jesus said, asking it shall be given you seeking.You shall find, knock on the door shall be opening to you. If you read that verse in the Greek, it has a verb tense that we don't really have. It's a continuous action. So when you [00:34:00] read some modern translations of that verse, it says, keep on asking and it'll be given to you. Keep on seeking and you'll find, keep on knocking and the door will be open into you.So I mean, that gives you an idea how a translation works. So, but getting back to your original question the people doing these studies, I don't think they were really concerned a lot with diversity when they first started doing translation work. I think that would be a more recent development. There have been some women that have worked on Bible translations Historically it's been mostly men doing it, the work.Mm-hmm. . De'Vannon: But what I'm thankful for is this, is that, you know, knowledge is so much at our fingertips in this day and time that we can go online, we can get our own books, we can interpret the, you know, as much of the original language of the [00:35:00] Bible as we can find, you know, for ourselves. And so it's as painstaking as that may be.And it is not easy because I do it myself. So I like to employ this whenever there's a, a scripture of contests, like, say like the club of passages that the conservative like to use to tell people in my community or we're gonna burn in hell cuz we're not straight, you know, or if there's a script or someone's trying to use to justify slavery or the demeaning of women and stuff like that.And so, you know, I don't go in through the painstaking task of trying to interpret Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Unless it's something that's like a big deal like that and somebody's trying to act like, oh, I absolutely know what this scripture means and there's no other way to look at it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.And then I go in there myself, and I, and I come up with a different interpretation. And, and the whole point, the whole, the whole thing of that I get out of why we have so many of these different translations is [00:36:00] that the, is that it is such, it's just so subjective. And my whole point of diving into this is to is to get people off of the, the dependency that we can develop on any certain one translation and for God's sakes, not a person's translation.So I wanted people to know there is actually a money trail behind this. And so I feel like that that affects the way it's interpreted. And so, People can draw their own conclusions. I'm a fan of, of interpreting it myself because at this point I don't really trust what anyone has to say about the Bible.You know, I wanna, I just wanna know for myself and when we're reading an interpretation, it's important to us to know that humans interpret it. That, you know, and whatever English is print in English is not the original text. Barry: One of my favorite things is there's a website Bible hub, and they will take one verse and then list, show it in [00:37:00] a bunch of different Bible translations.So you can, like Young's literal translation and, and King James and English Standard version and the New Living Translation. So you can see the different word choices that are used. There are a lot of people that like to see how a favorite verse is translated into different script and different.Uses different word choices. So for me, as a investigative religious fraud, one of my favorite Bible verses a second Timothy I'm sorry, second Peter two verse three, in the King James version, it's talking about these false teachers and it says they will make merchandise of us, of, of people.Basically the idea is they've turned, they turned the church into a marketplace. That's what Jesus noticed when he went into the temple and threw out the money changers. They had turned it into a business, a [00:38:00] marketplace. And you read that same verse in the New Living translation. It's hilarious. It says, and they're greed.They will make a clever lies to get hold of your money. The verses are worded very differently, but I agree 100% with both . De'Vannon: Well, that brings me to my next point. I wanted to talk about two things. These honorariums, they call them, that preachers pay each other when they go to preach at different churches.And then the licensing of music, we'll start with the licensing of music. I personally, as a music writer, I kind of have a problem with the way this seems to be done in churches. So like, if you're gonna, so say if Hillsong Church is gonna create this album, you're gonna license it. And then in order for another church to use it, they're gonna sell it to them.Like, I think another church has to buy the [00:39:00] rights and things like that to use this music. And so for my perspective, if, if God gives me a song, and this is all supposed to be, you know, divinely inspired and everything like that, I feel bad about taking this song and saying, Hey you church, you can use my worship song, but you have pay me first.You know, now if it's a radio station, some sort of syndicated broadcast, that's different to me because that's not like a house of worship where people feel like they need to go. You know, you're listening to the radio or whatever you're streaming, that's on iTunes. I'm okay with that business model for worship music, but charging churches, you know, to do it.I think that that's fucked up. Barry: It is a business. So there is, there's different kinds of rights. There's copyright, there's performance rights, there's [00:40:00] broadcast rights, and there are companies that manage all these different kinds of rights. There have been churches sued for having performed songs for and didn't pay for appropriate license.churches have been sued. I mean, and so that's why it's become a business. Trying to, I lost my train of thought for a moment. Okay. So I took a media law class in college. That was one of the things that we had to learn about was copyright. And copyright has an expiration date. It's changed over the years.So I believe now it's like it expires a certain number of years after the original author dies. And if the [00:41:00] person lives a very long life, it can expire at a very, a long distance into the future. The, there's an organization, creative Commons, creative commons.org is, I believe, their website.They wanted to. Create a movement for the allow of resharing of information. And so they created a number of licenses and these are alternatives to regular copyright. So the way that the US copyright law is written, if you write something, you're the original copyright holder. It can get complicated.If you're hired by a church and you do what's called a work for hire, then the copyright can belong to the church. But for Creative Commons, they created a [00:42:00] public domain license. This is a work would then be in the public domain. Anybody could use it for whatever purpose. They, you could take their lyrics or their music rewrite, rewrite it.Remix it, whatever, and for free, there's no payments required. They have what's called an attribution license where people can use, reuse your original content as long as they give attribution. And so this is often used by photographers. For example, they'll post their pictures online with, at attribution license.Then you can use their photos to illustrate an article that you write and you just credit the photographer. There are licenses that provide for share and share alike. There are some that are for non-commercial only use. [00:43:00] So, and they give you a wide range of, of ways to work with content. And I believe that's a better model than what we're seeing right now.There's a guy named Carl Entz, who I believe we discussed in a previous podcast. He was a preacher at Hillsong. His dad Steven Entz, wrote a book, the Business of Church, and he wrote about copyright. And he suggested that a pastor could could, well normally the church would own the copyright of a sermon.The pastor be a work for a hire, what he says. But what he said that you could also, a pastor could license their sermons to the church. And so I don't feel very good about that. I think when you start doing stuff like that, then you preaching becomes about what can make the most money, [00:44:00]what can you sell the most?And worship music has become big business. Nowadays, fewer people are buying. Albums. Well actually LPs have seen a big increase in sales. It's weird. Who has seen a increase in sales albums? LPs records have had a increase in sales. I think it's people in nostalgia for old albums collectors buying them on vinyl.But a lot of people would buy a song from iTunes or instead of entire album. So records have become a big business. Or the, or gospel worship. Worship music become a big business in the church. Hillsong has made a lot of money. [00:45:00] I believe they sold 20 million albums. That's the Celtic I've seen for Hill.De'Vannon: I don't know this, it's something with this like, like what you're saying with this merchandising and you know, and everything like that, you know, it seems so innocent. Oh, we're just gonna sell a few things and, you know, the way they package it and, you know, in church, you know, here take this sermon homes, you can listen to it again and again and still be blessed and you know, get this book, get this, you know, get these conferences.You know, I used to be a member of the Church of God in Christ, and I had, I reached out to the headquarters. I wanted to go overseas and do a missions working, something like that, you know, and it was very, the missions page on their, on the international headquarters website [00:46:00] didn't have anything there.And so I emailed them. , I got informa, I think I got as far as to the gatekeeper for like the, the bishop maybe, you know, of the, of the whole hand of the whole church of God, Christ. And then they like just stopped responding because I couldn't, you know, I wanted to go do missions. I think there was a way that they would fund it or something like that, but it didn't seem like they really wanted to do it.What they did have up to date though, was their page that had all of their conferences coming up, you know, the speakers and all of that. And I just thought that that was pretty shitty because I'm like, you are always sending these preachers here and there and raising this money, but when I'm trying to talk to you about philanthropy in humanitarian efforts, that's gonna cost you money, then the line went cold, , you know, and so, and and there's a verse in the book of Revelation that has always stuck out to me is in Revelation chapter 18.[00:47:00]And it starts around, you know, verse 10 ish. And this is talking about when they say Babylon, the great is fall. And there's all kinds of different interpretation of what, what they think Babylon means. Is it you know this or is it that? I think Babylon stands for a great many forms of corruption of humanity, but I'm gonna read this anyway.And it says, in the kings of the earth, who have committed for occasion and lived deliciously with her shall BeWell her and lament her when they shall see the smoke of her burning. Standing a far off for the fear for a torment, saying, alas will last that great city, Babylon, that mighty city for in one hour is your judgment come And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her for no man buys their merchandise anymore.The merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and of pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and all thy wood and all manner of vessels of ivory and all [00:48:00] manner vessels of most precious wood and of brass and iron and marble and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and slaves and souls of men.And I just thought it was very interesting after listing this really, really, really long list of material things that it ends unlike humanitarian issues and the destruction of people. So as we're talking about all of this buying and trading and selling in the temple, I personally feel like from the churches to like a lot of these social media companies and things like that, and they're haste to make money and then they're greed and stuff like that.They're sacrificing people in the process. And I think that, that this verse is talking that these verses that I just [00:49:00] read are talking about that. But what do you think about the, what I just read Barry: There is different ways of interpreting the book of Revelation. It's very fascinating. So it deals with end times.A word for that is eschatology study. End times. And basically the Bible teaches that wickedness is gonna bound. People's hearts grow cold because of, of wickedness lawlessness of people and because of hypocrisy. And because of that, God will eventually pour out his wrath upon mankind and there will be punishment for sin.And there will, people have made commerce [00:50:00] an idol. They've made the entertainment industry an idol, social media and idol, all these kind of things, idols, they put ahead of God and things that they hold dear have become idols and they will see their idols destroyed. That's one of the ways that I see that passage.The. Experience that you had with Koji? With the conferences, I actually wrote an article about the these conference businesses the hum the speaking fees of honorariums. And I think there's a legitimate need and opportunity for people to network. A conference can be a great place to network and meet people.I've gone to film festivals, for [00:51:00] example. I previously worked in the film industry years ago, and so going to a film festival, you meet lots of like-minded people. You meet writers, filmmakers, actors, actresses people that wanna get their start in the industry. And so, You meet people and develop friendships that way, and then you go see their movie on when they have a movie coming out, and I know them.So it, it's a different experience than seeing a movie by nobody, you know. And so I do enjoy the aspects of networking. I've been to conferences before and that was my favorite part about it. But for the motive of the people throwing on the conference, what is their motive? And we know that like not this week, but the previous week so this would've been around the end of July [00:52:00] or beginning of August, my mind's have gone.Kenneth Copeland had his conference it's called the Southwest Believes Convention, and. It was in Fort Worth, Texas. Televangelist like Jesse de Plans would fly into Fort Worth to preach and then fly back to where he is from, and then the next day, fly right back to Fort Worth and then fly back to new Orleans.I don't think he likes to stay in hotels. Just a theory I have. Why would a person make multiple trips to day after day? It's weird to me cause those are, those trips, those flights cost thousands of dollars and but to put on a convention like that, you have to bring in a lot of money to pay for all those [00:53:00]speakers.And if you're doing that, then do you pay for their transportation? Do you pay for their jet to fly? I mean, that could have been 20,000, $40,000. I don't know. I'm guessing at a bare minimum it costs $20,000 for all those flights. I mean, you have to pay for the fuel, you have to pay for the pilots.And that's just an unnecessary expense. The conference business I think it's a lot of gamemanship. You speak at my conference and I'll speak at yours. So it's a way of self-promoting each other. I wrote an article about honorariums. It's on the Trinity Foundation website, and I, I looked at nine 90 s for non-profit organizations.[00:54:00] Sometimes they will disclose honorarium revenue. Sometimes they'll disclose honorarium expenses. So for example, some pastors or or ministry leaders, They speak at a location, but you have to pay 'em a speaking fee of their organization. So that's revenue to the organization. And so that's how that shows up.For honorary expenses, sometimes like when you host a conference, you're paying an outside speaker and they list that on their statement of expenses page. There are organizations that will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in honorariums. In the past, TBN did that, that have special guests for their beon and for some of their a praise the Lord broadcasts.And so they would spend literally, I think in some cases, over $700,000 a year on speaking honorariums. De'Vannon: I know when I was at one church in Southern California, they, you know, they had a speaker there, they already paid for her to come down. [00:55:00] They decided they want her to stay for one more sermon. And they were like, we'll give her $10,000 to, to preach again, you know, for one more hour or whatever.And of course she was like, yes, Lord. You know, and everything like that. And the highest I saw them go was maybe like 30,000, you know, now we're talking about for one sermon for about an hour. You know, to me that's exorbitant because it was US tithing, you know, and paying for them. It's not like the preacher was doing that.So what you're saying is Right, so these preachers have this whole brotherhood or whatever to include the sisters too. And they're like, okay, you got your church, I got mine. We're gonna come speak at each other's church, and we're gonna pay each other about 10 to 30,000 each. Right. Cool. And so , now the.Barry: The craziest thing I've heard of is a seed twice. So this is how I consider it a scam. The seed twice. [00:56:00] So Kenneth Copeland does this. You give him, wait, he gives your ministry a donation and then you give him a donation. It's a seed twice. So , you're getting your money back. , in some De'Vannon: cases. Wait, say that Barry: again?they call it a seed twice. Some you donate to one organization and then that organization donates back to you.De'Vannon: which organization? His, he's talking about his church. Barry: Yeah. Eagle Mountain International Church. It's also known as Kenneth Copeland Ministries. But yeah, he does this C twice zone thing. He gives donations to different organizations and then they give him a donation.De'Vannon: I don't get it. So he's gonna do, so he's personally donating to another church. His Barry: organization gives a donation, his church donates to an organization, and that [00:57:00]donation, that organization donates back to him. What's the point? You get your money back. It looks great on, Hey, we spent this amount of money on ministry, but you're getting your money backThat's what it looks De'Vannon: like to me. So it, so Kenneth Cole Ministry is gonna donate a thousand dollars to feed the children or whatever, but then they're going to also donate a thousand dollars back to Kenneth Cole Ministry. Sometimes Barry: they may not donate the full amount but I think it's a way for a bunch of organizations to put on a balance sheet or something that we, they can promote it.They can say, Hey, our audited financial statement, we gave this amount of money to ministry. De'Vannon: Hmm. Oh, so they're like scratching each other. There's backs in a way, and they're moving money around to manipulate the tax system. Okay, you Barry: give me the money and then I get it back. I mean, [00:58:00] that's what it looks like.They'd probably eject to the way that I describe it, but that's what it looks like to me. , but that's what they call it. See, twice soon. De'Vannon: They probably rejected this whole podcast , not just this episode. , it's the whole thing altogether. You know, the people who raised me though, like my evangelist Nelson, who I talk about a lot, you know, you know, they, when they traveled the country, and the world preaching and they always said that they never charged people to go.They were like, if God's gonna send me over here or, or whatever, then he's also going to provide, now I'm talking about people who were probably born in like the twenties, 1920s, thirties, forties, that sort of thing. So these people were old. And so I think she was 80 when she died about three, four years ago.And so you can do the math to see probably when she was born, but she never, you know, she felt like [00:59:00] God was calling her to Washington DC to go preach. And she had a relationship with that church as I understand it. You know, we, you know, might raise money to help her go, or she would pay for herself or something like that.But she wasn't like, I ain't showing up unless you have this amount of money. You know, it wasn't anything like that. Now they did once they would get there, you know, if they wanted to raise a speaker. A speaker's offering, then it's whatever that amount would be. It's not like it had to be a minimum for it to show up, you know, for the speaker to show up.And so I feel like her style was more in line with how the apostles started doing Jesus's ministry. You know, they took what they had and went out and preached the word and they kind of took care of these, of these preachers when they got to different towns. I don't find anywhere in the scripture where go and preach the gospel, but only do it if you're paid a minimum amount of money.Barry: you know, I don't, that [01:00:00] verse isn't there,De'Vannon: And so what this is, is the church being very hypocritical and wanting to look like the world. And so if it's something that the church doesn't want you to do, drink, masturbate, have sex outside of marriage, or generally enjoy your life. They're like, you don't want to be like the world. We can't have you being worldly rah ra ra, ra.But when it comes down to finances, they want to pattern themselves after Fortune 500 companies and they wanna pattern themselves after the world. They're like, why shouldn't we make, it's the same thing as a corporate executive does. Why shouldn't we make the same thing every other speaker does? It's because we're in the church doesn't mean we shouldn't be paid.Right. So then it's okay to be like the world . Barry: Well, some of these preachers, I don't think they believe a word they preach . And I don't wanna name names, but we have an [01:01:00] informant that told us about a pastor that was an atheist. He didn't pray. And in fact, I just mentioned that in one of the articles that I posted this morning.I can't identify the preacher's name. He's definitely on our radar. But there's a preacher that he's an atheist agnostic. He doesn't believe what happened is it, I'd wrote an article about privacy laws preventing transparency. Attorney Foundation did a report on him to the irs and we're not able to know the status of that report because of the way the IRS laws are.But yeah, preacher doesn't believe the Bible. It's just a scam to get money. Preaches the Prosperity Gospel, but he doesn't believe the Bible. And and there are, there are [01:02:00] a number of preachers that I would put in the same category. Obviously I can't read their minds. There's a guy named Mike Murdoch.I have serious doubts that he believes what he, some of the stuff that he preaches, Tilton. Robert Tilton. I seriously be doubt he believes some of the things that he's said. Again, that's my own opinion. But I just, some of the things they say, don't look authentic to me, don't look real. And some of these people are the ones really pushing the prosperity gospel.De'Vannon: It's I've observed a pattern, like when I was still in the church, they would do this thing and they were doing like escalating offering amounts, so they would be like, , they would get every one all pumped up. We want you to give a hundred dollars and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or perhaps deescalating.It would go [01:03:00] both ways. Sometimes they would make a whole big deal out of somebody who they were to give a thousand or a hundred, and then they'd go, okay, well if you can't do that, then we'll take 80 huge blessings come your way, miracles and all of that, not that, and we'll take 60, you know, whatever. Then they'll work their way down the 20.You know, at first I thought maybe it was a legit thing, but then I noticed other preachers doing this at different churches, you know, if I'm recalling correctly. So it's like they were borrowing best practices and then saying that it was divinely inspired every time they did. . And one time when I was at this church in Southern California, I went to go give, like the last few dollars I had, it was like three or $4.I'm thinking I'm gonna be like, you know, the lady who gave the two mites or whatever and be honored, the preacher, he was like, I don't need this . You know, he like, he like rejected my offering because it wasn't at his minimum. And so because they have this mind, [01:04:00] right? They have this, these preachers, they have this mindset that they're worth so much.They're like, I shouldn't, you know, don't give me any less than $20. That's, that seems to be the standard. And they were like, I don't want an offering. If you're gonna gimme less than 20. And then they would turn around and try to prime us up and be like, if you have somebody out there who's broke them, even let them ride in your car, you don't want that rubbing off on you.You know, if they don't, you know if there's somebody who's gonna pull you down. I'm like, well, Jesus wouldn't have told me to not give someone a ride because they don't have, they don't make over 40,000 a year or a hundred thousand or whatever, you know? Yikes. , Barry: did you see the news about the recent preacher that was allegedly robbed of him and his wife of jewelry worth a million dollars?De'Vannon: That does sound vaguely familiar, but Barry: just recently, a couple weeks ago, this event happened on a Sunday and [01:05:00] in New York City, and the preacher looks like a conman. I mean, you, like, how does a pastor afford a Rolls Royce? I mean, you look in his Instagram videos and he does some of these videos inside his car, and if you look on some on the headrests, they have the double R, that's the Rolls Royce symbol there, and you're like, okay, are you using church funds to pay for this lifestyle?The IRS has a standard for pay. It's called a reasonableness. If something is not considered, if it's considered unreasonable, then it should be illegal. Or you should be taxed extra for it. That's I'm in regards to non-profit salaries. And churches are nonprofits. De'Vannon: Yeah, I'm looking at this guy now.Well, perhaps the Lord made it right, you know, he [01:06:00] robbed others. Now his ass got robbed. You know, God is not mock. Whatever you, so you will reap. The Lord didn't tell me he was, this was his karma. I'm just saying. I don't know. Seemed like with all that money, he might have had better security. , Barry: there's a person on the stage sitting in a chair or, or next to the stage, let say this person is sitting in a chair when this so-called robbery happens.And it's interesting watching that person's mannerisms as he is watching this go down. He does not look scared to me anyway. And when I see that, I'm wondering, okay, is this insurance fraud? Is he, is this actually a scam? I mean, that's what it looks like to me. I mean, obviously I'm not a juror and I don't have any inside information, but it doesn't look legitimate to me.Doesn't look authentic. De'Vannon: Oh, so you think it's like a scam and he knew it was gonna happen. ? Barry: Yes. Totally. De'Vannon: Looks like a scam. . [01:07:00] No, it has been done. It has been done. So, so knowing all these things we know about churches, People like you and I work to inform people so that they can be more aware of where they're spending their time, where they're spending their money, where they're investing their trust.People still are gonna go to these churches no matter what we say. Some people might stop. So why is it that we fall for this prosperity Gospel? Why do we keep going to these churches? I did it like I'm, I'm, I sat there, listened to these people telling me things that I knew was bullshit, that that preacher rejected my dollars that I wanted to give them.And I still kept going to that church. You know why? I know I started going to these churches? Cause it was just really nice to hear a preacher being somewhat positive rather than growing up in the south where everything's a sin and you just can't do any fucking thing. So it was a lesser of two evils.But the person I am now, I'm like, you know what? I don't need any [01:08:00] church at all. I know how to go to God for myself. So, Why do you think people still put themselves in front of this abuse, even with, you know, all this knowledge that we're giving them? Barry: When I was a teenager, we had an event one night with our youth group.It was a lock in. And so in the midst of all these entertaining things that we did, games, et cetera, we had some Bible studies and et cetera and discussion times. And we had a discussion about what did you wanna become, what did you wanna be in life? And as our group when to discuss that sort of like became a thing.Everybody wanted to be successful. And I think that's right at the heart of the Prosperity Gospel, people wanna be valid. They wanna be seen as a success. They do not want, they wanna be [01:09:00]self-reliant. They don't wanna depend on anyone for anything. So when a preacher preaches that you can get your heart's desire, if you do this you'll get, well, if you do this, your debts will be paid if you do this.People sometimes are desperate and it's sometimes the desperate people that are donating to the Prosperity Gospel preachers. Often it's the poorest of the poor that donate to 'em. We know for a fact that there was one preacher that was deliberately send letters to people in low income zip codes.They give more than wealthy people.I mean, it's, it's sad targeting the poorest of the poor, but that's what they do. And it's a white [01:10:00] preacher targeting neighborhoods that are, a lot of them are black. I call it racism. What he's doing I believe it's absolutely evil. What how this is being done and why do people keep doing it?Some are desperate. Some have bought into the Prosperity Gospel. They, they wanna be rich. I think it's, sometimes it's people, they just haven't heard the truth and they're, they don't, they've, because of that, they accepted a lie. If they had a preacher instead of preaching the prosperity gospel was, would, would teach things like.there's a Bible verse where Jesus said, the poor will always be with you. You didn't say you everybody would be rich. If, if, if they, you had a preacher that was telling them a different message. [01:11:00] I think some people would be, more people would be open to it, but it just, that's all they hear. And one one of the verses that I mentioned earlier was the verse where asking shall be given you, seeking you shall find.Seeking is a big part of scripture. There's a Bible verse in the Old Testament where it says, it's the glory of God to conceal a matter, the glory of kings to seek it out. Mm-hmm. . So God deliberately conceals the truth. He wants us to look for it. There's another verse in the Bible that says to study, to show yourself approved on demand so you can rightfully divide the word of truth.Basically, we need to study the word on our own. We can't rely on just someone to tell us everything. And so I think people have not been taught to seek the scriptures to learn for themselves. They've not been taught to do [01:12:00] that. De'Vannon: No, not until now, because motherfuckers like you and I are preaching, you know, you know, autonomy to people.I want people to not only study the Bible, but to study these motherfucking preachers because you know, you're investing, like, you're literally trusting your entire eternity and soul to this person on stage. You know, they have an entity to run, so no, they're not going to tell you to go. They go. So follow God without them, they need you to keep coming back to the church.I don't have an agenda other than I want you to be spiritually fit and spiritually independent so that if those churches fall, if organized, religion should fall and you don't know what the hell is gonna happen from one day to the next. You're not sitting there. Like in a spiritual limbo. Cause you don't know what to do.You can't go to church, you can't do this. The saddest thing that I heard from the war in Ukraine was there was a Ukrainian lady who was fighting against the Russians and she was like, I'm not afraid to die. I'm just afraid to die because I haven't had a [01:13:00] chance to make it to confession. Like, you know, that's too much control for the church to have over somebody's eternity, for you to think that you can even repent until you can go and talk to a physical human.There was no point in Jesus coming if it was gonna be all that. And so, so I want people to. study their leaders, like we were talking about before we hopped on this broadcast. I want people to find out when these different, all these teachers and preachers are running around these churches, when the hell are these people really called?You know? Are they really called? How do you know that, you know, there has to be some sort of reason in the Bible. No, Lord, you know, appears to people. There's a moment when they're not called. There's a moment where there is, you know, something has to change. You know? Was it a dream? Was it a vision? You know, don't just accept them because they're up on stage and, and we're wrapping up now.So after I say all this, I'm gonna let you say whatever you wanna say and have a last word. I, I do not believe that just because somebody is the son of a preacher or they [01:14:00] inherit a ministry, I don't, I don't subscribe to this whole, everybody in the family is called, you know, you know, God. I just, I just don't, because in the Bible,I don't see like many situations and I can't, I can't think of any right now where the mom, the dad, the aunts, the uncles, all the kids, everybody has a special mission from God. I don't see family ministries, you know, you know, that span generations in these, you know, in these books. And so, and even kings, you know, you know, the, you know, the bloodline of Abraham, you know, is different, you know, and then we're talking about even then just the son was the leader and everything like that.And then even at that, he technically wasn't a priest, you know? And so, you know, so this, everybody's called, I question it. And so what I'm seeing now is like, These, these kids or these preachers are starting to preach. You know, I saw one [01:15:00] not too long ago, you know, I'm not gonna say the preacher's name, but you know, both parents are rich.Now he's starting to preach and he's talking about telling people you know, about being poor and how they're gonna make it, you know, and they hard times and everything like that. And I'm all like, boy, what the fuck you know about hard times? You know, I don't, especially financial hard times, you know, so these, these children are preaching what they know people want here, but you have not lived on food stamps, social security, food and security, not knowing how you're gonna keep the lights on.That is not a life, you know, because you were born a millionaire. And so now that you are a preacher's kid and you were born rich, you're gonna get up there and, and speak this package match message that you know you can sell to your audience. I don't. I don't know. That just pisses me off.Barry: My dad was a minister and he felt [01:16:00] called of God to become a minister. It's not what he wanted to do. My dad wanted to be a professional baseball player. He loved sports, but he ended up becoming a minister. His title was Minister of Education and Outreach. He worked in several Baptist churches over his career.And so in his job he would train Bible teachers and recruit Bible teachers for the church. He would visit the hospitals each week he would visit nursing homes each week. And he enjoyed serving people that they couldn't do anything for. Going to see somebody that's sick in a hospital, seeing somebody in a nursing home that's weak and they can't go anywhere.He would bring joy to their lives. Some of these people, they wouldn't have any family members visiting them during the week and just him going to, and to see them, [01:17:00] it made their day. And so that was the type of home that I grew up in. One time there was a family they moved to where we lived in Louisiana.They were, he was job hunting, the dad, the husband they had a newborn child and they're broke. Homeless. We let them live with us and our house for months, I think about six months. So we took in the homeless. That's what I believe real Christianity's about. It's about sacrifice, not success.It's about taking up your cross and following me, and that doesn't include a dollar bill and profits. De'Vannon: Yeah, that sounds super sincere. You know, his part, he sounds like he was accessible to people and not like the big guy on stage. You know, who we have to stand in line [01:18:00] with. Maybe they'll sign our book even though they're our pastorBarry: When our Sunday service would end Sunday morning, my dad almost always would try to be at the back door of the church. When people were leaving, he would greet people. So he would shake people's hands and say hi. He wanted to greet everybody. He wanted people to get to know who he was.My dad loved visitation. He loved visiting people in their homes. That's, again, something that's going outta style. Fewer and fewer people doing are doing church visitation. Also, there's more and more of a mindset of my home as my castle. It's a place of privacy. And so you see less of that,