Paul the Aged (At 56) (Philemon 1:9-12)

This study was done using the Amplified Bible, which I don't have permission to publish, so I will replace the verses here with the World English Bible (a modernized version of the ASV).  Because of that some of the comments may not totally make sense because the AMP has expanded explanations.  I would highly recommend going to a site like BibleGateway.com where you can read the AMP version for free.


9 yet for love’s sake I rather beg, being such a one as Paul, the aged, but also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. 

A.  Paul though he has the authority to make commands chooses a more powerful force to make his case, just as God did when he chose to send Jesus to die on the cross rather than force the human race to worship him.  In this way Paul gives a choice, which is love's way. Domination may bring the desired order, it will not be a willing one.
B.  Paul the aged.  This letter was written about 62 a.d..  Taking this into account would mean that Paul was in his mid-fifties when he wrote it, and since he was beheaded about four years after writing Philemon, a type of death he knew was coming, one could see why he would consider himself to be aged.  More so when one considers the technology and life span of the day.  The average life span of a Roman was only 25 years old (this being the average because 50% of children died before turning 10).  Those reaching 40 considered elders who often retired about that age. 

Sources: http://www.brlsi.org/events-proceedings/proceedings/25020
    http://www.innominatesociety.com/Articles/Death%20and%20Disease%20in%20Ancient%20Rome.htm

10 I beg you for my child, whom I have become the father of in my chains, Onesimus, 

A. Onesimus, whose name seems to be more of second name rather than his birth name in the fashion of Simon being renamed Peter.  The name has been debated, as most scholars are confident that his name means "Useful", while others have claimed it a slaves number, such as "Number One".  

B. Paul most likely converted him because Onesimus was in chains himself for a petty crime.  As he was a runaway slave it comes to reason to think he had stolen food or clothing for survival and ended up in the same area as Paul who saw every encounter with someone new as an opportunity to share the Gospel.  This is conjecture of course, but interesting to think on nonetheless.  

11 who once was useless to you, but now is useful to you and to me. 

A.  Unprofitable not only because he ran away and ceased to generate income for Philemon, but also because Paul did not consider financial income to be profit.  He considered the economy of souls to be profit.  Onesimus becoming a believer not only brought spiritual profit to Philemon and Paul, but also an opportunity for Philemon to extend grace and mercy toward a man he in the flesh, before Jesus, would have most likely beaten within an inch of his life. 

12 I am sending him back. Therefore receive him, that is, my own heart,

A.  Calling Onesimus his own heart was an intense statement by Paul, considering the terminology he used to describe each of the others addressed in his letter.  It does put Philemon in an awkward position, knowing that if he mistreats the runaway slave he is in fact openly insulting Paul.  Saying that Onesimus was Paul's heart could be construed as manipulation by Paul, which may have been the case to a certain degree, but it is most likely a sincere compliment by the apostle to show how important the issue was to him.  This way there was no mis-communication and Philemon understood full well how Paul felt.

Schools, Teams, and Secrets

Students, Secrets and Teams

A torrent of activity with so much more to come!

September was such a crazy month.  I can't believe it is already over.  God has been so good to us!  We had the privilege of hosting teams from the World Race for three weeks, which proved to be a great help to us as we had our very first week of the Discipleship Training School in the Comarca (indian reservation).  We had seven students arrive in Tugri from all kinds of different backgrounds.

Here are a couple of testimonies from the students:

Mercides Testimony:

Mercides grew up around Christian family and friends, however, her father was not a Christian.  She, as a young girl would often go to church with her friends, but as a result her father would abuse her in an attempt to dissuade her from going.  At first she decided she would stand firm in her decision to go to church, but as she got older she fell in with the wrong crowd and the combination of friends of bad influence and pressure from her father, she fell away from The Lord for a few years.  It wasn't until Rafael came to Tugri and his influence he had in the area that brought her back to church.  Since then she has decided that she wants to be involved in ministry, specifically in singing.  She is doing the DTS because she wants to stay strong in her walk with the Lord.

Girl from Boquete (Haven't got her name yet)

She was born in Boquete and spent a large part of her life there involved in the church.  She was part of a group of traveling ministers who would go to different villages and towns and run different church services and campaigns.  She really enjoyed this ministry, and wanted to continue in it, however division entered her group of ministers and they began to fight and argue.  She did not like this and thought it was wrong.  

As this continued she decided to leave her group, and her church as well because she saw that there was fighting there as well.  She fell away from The Lord for three years until she tired of the life she was living.  She wanted to return to church but didn't want to have to be around the fighting that goes on there.  As she thought about this, she thought the following, "I need to decide whether or not I am going to follow God or not.  If I decide to follow Him, I am going to do it no matter what anyone else does, whether there is fighting or not."  

The result was her rededicating her life to Christ.  She has been faithful since then, and when Rafael arrived she decided she wanted to do the DTS because she wants to be involved in ministry again, particularly in singing.

Each of the testimonies we heard we amazing stories of redemption.  God calling people back after some issue pulled them away as we see in these stories.  In truth, they aren't much different from what we see in the States and other developed nations.

I will be going back to Tugri on October 7th for another five days to teach on How to Study the Bible in the DTS.  Karmy will be going with the kids to help run our King's Kids program there.

Esther and Elias showing off their crafts from the Kings Kids Camp in Tugri.

Karmy with two ngobe girls from the Kings Kids Camp.  The light bulb crafts represent when God created light!

The Ngobe staff and DTS students of YWAM Tugri.

As I mentioned before, we were able to host four different World Race teams over this month.  It was great having them here.  They went through a lot of God infused experiences with us; everything from the week in Tugri to Bible distribution in our area, working at the boy's home and much more.  We have a team from Kona, Hawaii coming to work with us for two weeks during the month of October.

God has recently opened a lot of new doors for us here that are very exciting.  Many of these in particular are teaching opportunities, but there is one very exciting new event coming up that I want to go into.  

First of all, this month I will be teaching for a week in our Tugri DTS on Bible Study Methods, after that I will be going to Nicaragua for several days for a leadership conference in which I will be meeting with the Central American Frontier Missions council about an opportunity I will be bringing up shortly!  After that, I return to the base here in Chiriqui and teach another week on Bible Study Methods to the classic DTS running on our base.

As you can see, things are quite busy right now!  That is not including an upcoming trip to teach in Costa Rica in December for a week, and an invitation to teach in Africa at a conference which unfortunately I will be unable to attend.  However, this brings me to this upcoming opportunity I would like to share with you all.

Secrets

For those of you who know me I have for many years taught on, and been a part of frontier missions.  Frontier missions is the most neglected part of missions in the world.  It is the mission field where nobody has gone, or less than 2% of the population has been reached, and there are often severe amounts of persecution taking place. 

I spent two years in Turkey where there was some persecution, but I feel like God is calling me to become more involved in the persecuted church and frontier missions globally.  On top of that, YWAM Central America is currently in a push to unite in a similar effort.  As part of the frontier missions council, I have a great opportunity to actually pioneer in this direction.  In order to move this region into unreached nations and people groups, we need to get some boots on the ground and start making connections there.  Once we have made those connections, we can come together and actually have a long lasting impact on these nations.  

For example, there is a group of missionaries in an undisclosed part of the world that currently feed up to 30,000 people a day in a closed nation.  Other groups are sending Bibles and other materials in order to help.  There are parts of the world right now where the church is growing so fast, they are struggling to train pastors and leaders simply because there aren't enough to disciple so many new believers.  We can help with that!

So to start, this coming March I am planning an exploratory trip for three weeks to a closed nation where there is persecution currently taking place.  Because of that, I can't openly name this place in this public newsletter.  I can talk about it over email however if anyone would like to write me.  

I will go for three weeks with the intent to make contacts, and begin this process of making a network of opportunities for those of us here in Central America, as well as our supporters, to have an impact in places that only 1% of all missionaries and church funds ever reach.  From there I hope to continue these trips and strengthening our ministry in these places, and that it will grow into other nations as this develops.

This first trip is going to cost about $3,000, about $2,000 of that is the plane ticket itself.  I would like to ask that you prayerfully consider participating in helping us to raise funds for this.  $3,000 is a very small seed to sow when considering the impact this could have.  This is not a simple mission trip, it is serious and risky.  It will touch people who have never heard the name of Jesus, and will help believers who are being beaten, tortured, and killed for the faith.  It is going to grow from there, and long term partners are a must for this to be successful.

That's all for this month's newsletter.  Thank you all so much for your support in prayer and financially as well.  You will probably never know the extent of what it accomplishes for the Kingdom of God!  

I also have a YouTube channel with a lot of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/user/AlanCrookham

And of course I have a Facebook account with a lot of photos you can check out as well.

If you would like to support our ministry, or the trip to this unreached nation the best way to do so is through Mission Enablers International:

You can either donate online through the following link:
https://www.meigiving.com/mei.php

Simply fill out the short form, and when asking for the account number, write 9052.  Donations through Mission Enablers are tax deductible and you will receive a receipt for them.

If you would rather donate by check, you can also do it through MEI at the following address, just add a note saying the donation is for the account number above.

MEI
P.O. Box 1311
Fayetteville, AR 72702

If you do are donated toward the unreached nation trip, please let me know so I can be sure to designate those funds toward that.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write me either through Facebook or email me at: alan.crookham@gmail.com

Nahum 1:9-12 Notes

                                                        Notes: Nahum 1:9-12 

This study was done using the Amplified Bible, which I don't have permission to publish, so I will replace the verses here with the American Standard Version.  Because of that some of the comments may not totally make sense because the AMP has expanded explanations.  I would highly recommend going to a site like BibleGateway.com where you can read the AMP version for free.

^[9]What do ye devise against Jehovah? he will make a full end; affliction shall not rise up the second time. 

A.  The amplified Bible here says "What do you devise and [how mad is your attempt] to plot against the Lord."  I think this equation of plotting against the Lord to be on par with insanity is about as correct a statement as they come.  Only a complete fool would take the time to plan an attack on Jesus an think it possible to win.  It reminds me of a famous actor on a well known TV series who said he would like the opportunity to disprove the existence of God.  He is followed by tens of thousands of people, is in the world's eyes a brilliant man, but is in fact what a stereotype would look like for a fool by God's standards.

B. Affliction will not rise up a second time.  This promise from God is interesting.  One would so why God allowed it to happen the first time instead of choosing to stop it the second.  The blood of the saints, and explained in the book of Revelation is and important factor in the wrath of God, and as we have seen over and over again in the church, it is usually only the non-persecuted Christians who have any issue with persecution.  The underground church understands fully that persecution for Christ means to relate to Him in a way that no other christian can.  Bleeding as He bled puts us in an honor that non-persecuted Christians often take offense at.

10 For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly as dry stubble.

A.  As will happen at the end of days, people in Nineveh thought  themselves unbeatable, invincible, much the same way modern day America has felt for a very long time.  They abandoned the repentance and revival from the time of Jonah about a hundred years before, and moved into debauchery, wild parties and drunkenness, and then found themselves surrounded by smoke and rubble with no escape.  It was so definite her destruction that the Babylonians even depopulated and de-urbanized the entire 750 hectare (1853 acre) city leaving it as if it had always been piles of shattered stone.

¹¹ There is one gone forth out of thee, that deviseth evil against Jehovah, that counselleth wickedness.

                                    

        

A.  This, as many Bible translators and scholars agree, is referring to two people, not one, specifically Senaccherib and his spokesman The Rabshakeh (not a name, a title for a high ranking military official), as is explained in more detail in Matthew Henry's commentary on the Bible:

"I. The great provocation which the Assyrians gave to God, the just and jealous God, for which, though slow to anger, he would take vengeance (Nah 1:11): There is one come out of thee, that imagines evil against the Lord - Sennacherib, and his spokesman Rabshakeh. They framed an evil letter and an evil speech, not only against Hezekiah and his people, but against God himself, reflecting upon him as level with the gods of the heathen, and unable to protect his worshippers, dissuading his people from putting confidence in him, and urging them rather to put themselves under the protection of the great king, the king of Assyria. They contrived to alter the property of Jerusalem, that it should be no longer the city of the Lord, the holy city. This one, this mighty one, so he thinks himself, that comes out of Nineveh, imagining evil against the Lord, brings upon Nineveh this burden. Never was the glorious Majesty of heaven and earth more daringly, more blasphemously affronted than by Sennacherib at that time. He was a wicked counsellor who counselled them to despair of God's protection, and surrender themselves to the king of Assyria, and endeavour to put them out of conceit with Hezekiah's reformation (Isa 36:7); with this wicked counsellor he here expostulates (Nah 1:9): “What do you imagine against the Lord? What a foolish wicked thing it is for you to plot against God, as if you could outwit divine wisdom and overpower omnipotence itself!” Note, There is a great deal imagined against the Lord by the gates of hell, and against the interests of his kingdom in the world; but it will prove a vain thing, Psa 2:1, Psa 2:2. He that sits in heaven laughs at the imaginations of the pretenders to politics against him, and will turn their counsels headlong."

B. Sennacherib began his campaign and laid siege to Judah and Jerusalem in the year 701, about 50 years before Nahum is thought to have written his book.  It is believed by many Bible scholars, and is pointed out by A.R. Faussett that because of his description of Sennacherib's army, he seemed to have intimate knowledge of it, and was very possibly inside of or near Jerusalem when Sennacherib laid siege.  This would also suggest that Nahum could have possibly been in contact with Hezekiah and Isaiah.  It is likely that Isaiah was an influence and role model in Nahum's life.

¹² Thus saith Jehovah: Though they be in full strength, and likewise many, even so shall they be cut down, and he shall pass away. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.

A. It was twenty years after God delivered Jerusalem from Sennacherib that he was assassinated by his own sons.

"So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.  And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead."  - 2 Kings 19:36-37

                          

Another historical account also says he was killed and his sons pushed a llamasu (pictured above) on top of him and crushed him.  A llamamu, ironically, is a protective deity the Assyrians worshipped, although it dates all the way back to Sumerian culture.

Nahum Chapter 1:8

This study was done using the Amplified Bible, which I don't have permission to publish, so I will replace the verses here with the American Standard Version.  Because of that some of the comments may not totally make sense because the AMP has expanded explanations.  I would highly recommend going to a site like BibleGateway.com where you can read the AMP version for free.

Nahum Chapter 1:8 But with an over-running flood he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

A. The city of Nineveh (located near modern day Mosul, Iraq) was the capitol of Assyria, a nation that has a large role in Scripture, and a long time rival of Babylonia until a joint effort between the armies of the Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Cimmerians and Babylonians approximately 612 BC destroyed it and subsequently destroyed the rest of the Neo-Assyrian empire.  By this incredible flood of enemy forces, the analogy of an overrunning flood definitively destroying Nineveh was fulfilled.

B.  It is generally accepted that Nahum was active somewhere between the years of 663 and 654 BC, which would mean he prophesied of Nineveh's destruction between 40-50 years before the event took place.  Most Christians today call someone a false prophet if the prophecy doesn't take place within a few weeks, maybe up to a year even, but we need to realize that most of the prophecies in the Bible weren't fulfilled for a significant amount of time, and now this lends a lot of credence to their claims.  When Nahum made this prophecy  Assyria was ruled by Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC and was easily one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful nation in the world. 

       Ashurbanipal was a brilliant man who not only squashed Elam, a lingering enemy of the Assyrian empire, defeated his own brother's rebellion who was the Assyrian king of Babylonia at the time, and founded the first library in history to organize books by genre.  The famous Library of Ashurbanipal was huge, containing works from all over Mesopotamia.

All of this being said, to prophecy that Nineveh would be destroyed at the time he prophesied it must have sounded insane to most people.

Maybe Not Exciting on Paper

As I write this post I am sitting in a building with a dirt floor, covered in dirt and mud, wearing clothes that have been soaked by rain and sweat for the past three days, and eating food cooked over a fire for every meal.  And I am so happy about it.  I am happy because this is one of the most momentous occasions in missions here in Panama, and not just within YWAM.  

Missions organizations tend to have an Achilles heel, and it is a big one.  The weakness is that because of the rush, and excitement to fulfill the great commission, there is a massive tendency to go into a place, get some people to make a commitment to Christ, and then move on to somewhere else.  Discipleship is often left behind in favor of numbers.  What you end up with are hundreds, if onto thousands of new converts who can't tell you any more than there was a guy named Jesus who died for them, and they accepted Him into their hearts.  And yet they continue in their same lifestyles, same witchcraft, same idols and sins, no real transformation in their lives or cultures.

We in YWAM Chiriqui have been called to what may seem like a less glamorous, less exciting road on paper.  It is slower no doubt.  However the road we are taking is the road that produces fruit that lasts, something quite elusive these days.  We have launched a ground breaking ministry model here in Central America and many other parts of the world.  Instead of a quick and easy ministry model that allows for exciting newsletters and stories of explosive numbers, we are running with the tortoise and taking one week of every month for at least a year with a group of Ngobe students to teach them Biblical Principles and attributes of God.  They will be trained to multiply this same model, and take it to other villages where true disciples with be raised up rather than become mere statistics

These will be many months of sweat and mud and stinky latrines, but the weight of glimmering jewels that are these Ngobe Christians that come out of it will far out weight any discomfort we feel along the road.  It may not sound exciting on paper, but I assure you the Kingdom of God is tense with excitement to see what is coming.

I am a Missionary (Video)

I am a missionary.  This video was made by the Fire and Fragrance Media team.  The narrator is Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With a Mission.

800 Grams

Here is an article from The Voice of the Martyrs that I really liked and thought I would share it today!

VIETNAM: 800 GRAMS
Front-Line Worker Profile: Xuan in Vietnam

She found Christ 13 years ago when she was a garbage collector. Every day, Xuan would pick through the garbage and find things to recycle for cash to support her family. Her husband had left her. She was paid by the gram for paper.

One day, Xuan saw some people worshiping in the area where she was going through garbage. She kept going back to watch them as they sang and prayed. “I found out that they worshiped God in heaven and I realized that they had a different God than me,” she said.
Then, a woman came by and handed her a Bible. She told Xuan, “Read this book.”

Xuan took it home and weighed it on her scale. It was 800 grams, not a large amount to recycle, but she could get a little money for it. She thought, “How could God be in this 800 gram book?” So she read the book, 10 chapters a day. She finished the book in six months.
“The first time I read it, I did not understand, so I was going to give it back to the lady,” Xuan said. “Then I thought I heard someone say, “I will give you wisdom.” She didn’t have electricity in her home, so she raised the candle she was using to read and looked to see who had spoken to her. No one was there.

“The second time I read the Bible, I still did not understand, then I heard the same voice. I lit a whole newspaper to make light to see who spoke to me,” she said. But there was no one.

The third time she read the Bible through, Xuan heard the same voice saying again, “I will give you wisdom.” Though again she saw no one, she began to understand the Bible, and she turned her life over to God. Thirteen years later, Xuan has read the Bible 21 times through.

Today, Xuan is sharing the gospel as a front-line worker. Every week she is teaching the Bible to new converts, sharing the gospel on the streets, at work and in another village. Thursdays are her day for prayer and fasting at the church. She also leads two churches. One of the young boys she mentored went on to Bible school and is now also in full-time ministry sharing the gospel. Another two are currently studying at Bible school.
She owes her new life and the fruit of her ministry to a small, 800-gram God book.

God's Heart of Restoration

I know I continue to harp on this same subject of God's restoration, but I can't seem to get away from it.  God is constantly bringing it to my thoughts.  Restoration.  God asks Abraham to kill Isaac for Him, Abraham, without getting into a theological discussion about it, just says yes and sharpens his knife.  The very next day, early; he didn't even procrastinate, he gets up, gets his son up, and starts trudging toward that mountain, lines of stress cutting through his gnarled face.  We all know how the story goes.  He gets to the mountain, raises the knife, and God stops him at the last moment and restores his son to him.

This is a theme all throughout the Bible.  Job, David, Abraham, Noah, the planet Earth.  Over and over again people lose everything either because God asked them to leave it, or because they made a mistake and lost it.  But God, so wonderful and merciful as He is, always restores it to them and more if they continue walking with Him.

A couple of days ago I was asked by the leadership team here at YWAM Chiriqui to rejoin my place on the team.  It was an intense, and long meeting that lasted close to four hours.  I won't go into all the details, but in the end I did feel that overwhelming sense of God's grace yet again.

When I came back here, I didn't expect anything really.  As I said in other posts, I didn't think we would have much if any financial support.  I didn't think we would have a house nearly as perfect for us as the one we lived in before.  I didn't think we would have a vehicle.  Yet God gave us all of those things back, plus a better vehicle and the exact same house as before!

Even with that, I didn't expect to be asked back on the leadership team, at least not for quite a while.  Not because there were any hard feelings between myself and the leaders, but simply because I had been gone for a while and it takes time to readjust to changes on the base, new staff, etc....

However God had other plans.  He put it in the hearts of the other leaders to ask me back on the team, and with that everything I left behind when I went to Texas has been totally restored.  On top of that I now have under my belt one of the greatest experiences of my life, which was working with Faith Fellowship.  I grew so much, and learned more than I can express from the leaders there, Pastor Luke, the teenagers, and the great opportunities they all gave me.

Above all I thank Jesus for restoring everything back to me, and even more.  He is so worthy and awesome.  As we are established here in Panama, and planning for the School of Frontier Mission and other big projects God is giving us, life only gets more and more exciting!

The School of Frontier Missions

Did you know that there are still about 3,400 people groups in the world that have never been engaged by the Gospel?  That means no missionaries have gone to work with them yet.

Did you know that only about 1% of missionaries go to unreached parts of the world?
Did you know that less than 1% of church funding goes toward reaching those 3,400 groups?
Did you know that every day an average of 300 Christians are martyred for their faith in Jesus?

Don't feel bad if you didn't, the vast majority of the church is completely unaware of these facts.

I am announcing for the first time, here on the blog before anywhere else, that here in YWAM Chiriqui we will be running the School of Frontier Missions (SOFM).  Frontier Missions is one of the largest parts of YWAM, but in Central America we have not had an SOFM running in some time.  Karmy and I are both qualified to lead it, and will be running the school for the first time in 2015.  We don't have exact dates yet, but I can say that it will probably be later in 2015.

This school is for people who are serious about reaching the unreached, and going to places that 99% of others won't.  These people are the Navy Seals of the missionary world, often risking their lives, and sometimes giving them for the Gospel.

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) through YWAM is a prerequisite, and similar to the DTS, this school has a three month lecture phase, followed by a two month outreach.  This school is not for everyone, it is meant for serious, long term missionaries on the front lines, and although at this time we don't require it (although this could change) we ask for a two year commitment by all students.

The SOFM is going to be intense, and life altering!  If you are interested write me and let me know!  alan.crookham@gmail.com.