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foreign vs home missions

Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by billwald, Sep 19, 2009.

  1. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    Most Baptist Churches support foreign missions? Are not most foreign missionaries shoveling sand against the tide? Why don't you object to foreign missions?

    Why is it good to send money to a foreign country so that someone you don't know can help someone you will never meet? Are we not told by Jesus to help our neighbors? Some guy in Boolieboolie Land is our neighbor but some guy in Detroit who looks just like him is not?

    "Christian" medical ships go all over the world to treat Moslems who probably think we are white devils and that is a good use of our money but our Mexican neighbors who come here for jobs are the enemy?

    Why do Americans and US foreign policy help the people who hate us and at the same time screw over our friends and neighbors by omission?
     
  2. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Our missionaries at our church are mostly homegrown and they range from the woman who runs the local crisis pregnancy center to a young man who grew up in the church and went to medical school specifically so he could go to the Congo and he has now started a Christian hospital there.

    I'm not sure if I'm getting your concern. Yes, we are ministering to those right in our own back yard - but there are also others who need help/need to hear the Word. We're trying to provide both.
     
  3. Tom Butler

    Tom Butler New Member

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    If you ask most missionaries, they will tell you that God sent them to where they are serving.

    From Wikipedia, regarding Adoniram and Ann Judson:
     
  4. Tom Bryant

    Tom Bryant Well-Known Member

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    Why? Because Jesus commanded us to get the Gospel throughout to the whole world.

    This issue of foreign aid is entirely separate and is a poltical issue worthy of debate. But Christ's clear command to be His witness to the most remote part of the earth is not up for debate unless you care to argue with Him.
     
  5. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    Maybe God uses welfare and foreign aid to help those who people on this list find politically and morally objectionable.
     
  6. Tom Bryant

    Tom Bryant Well-Known Member

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    Maybe He does, but the goal of that kind of aid is political not to tell them about Jesus.
     
  7. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    "What in the ever-lovin' cotton-pickin' blue-eyed world" (Pogo) are you talking about? True Biblical missions has absolutely nothing to do with foreign policy.

    It's not home missions versus foreign missions, it's both if a believer and church want to be obedient to the Great Commission: "all the world" and "both Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth."

    There are some who have trusted Christ over the years who are very happy my wife and I answered the call to Japan: N the schizophrenic, T the frustrated old maid (at 28), W the business man enslaved by his company, T the abused and sinned-against wife, S the little girl without a daddy whose mommy worked in a bar, U who lost his wife to fast-acting cancer, U the ex-drug pusher who now has Hepatitis C T the drug addict who died young, etc. etc.

    Are you for or against people of other nations and tribes trusting Christ as Savior through the work of missionaries? Speak up now.
     
  8. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    The only difference between home and foreign missions is that to be a foreign missionary you need a passport (and maybe a few shots :smilewinkgrin:).
     
  9. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Good luck getting an answer...at least one that's on-topic.
     
  10. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >Are you for or against people of other nations and tribes trusting Christ as Savior through the work of missionaries? Speak up now.

    Straw man argument. I support missions that earn the respect of the people and earn the right to be heard by helping people in other nations because they are our neighbors. I don't support missions who think they can speed Jesus' return through Bible translation or who are mostly in "filling the lifeboats" so that God can bail them out and trash the rest of the world.

    Basically, I trust the Holy Spirit to regenerate the elect.
     
  11. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    So your Bible doesn't have Acts 1:8 or the Great Commission in it?
     
  12. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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    God left "the regeneration of the elect" in the hands of 12 men, when he gave them the Great Commission:

    Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

    He had no other plan. He left the salvation of the entire world in the hands of those 12 men. What if they had failed, been to lazy to go out to foreign lands, and be the missionaries that God had told them to. You would not be saved today, and Christianity would not be in existence today.

    "The regeneration of the elect" is only so because God uses men to carry out the Great Commission so that the "elect" might hear the gospel and be saved. He has no other plan.
     
  13. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    rbell was right. You don't give straight answers. But from the answer you gave I conclude that (1) yes, you are against soul-winning missionaries, and (2) you are against Bible translation by missionaries. Am I right?
     
  14. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >God left "the regeneration of the elect" in the hands of 12 men, when he gave them the Great Commission:

    OK. But that's ignoring the plain reading of the text, unless one reads into the text that the authority and obligation is passed on to the next generation by some ecclesiastical process that Baptists don't "believe in."

    >I conclude that (1) yes, you are against soul-winning missionaries,

    No, I am philosophically against missionaries who theology teaches that they can bring in the Kingdom by good works and earn brownie points in the process. But the value of the good deeds doesn't depend upon the intent of the doer. As Joseph told his evil brothers . . . .



    > (2) you are against Bible translation by missionaries. Am I right?

    I think Wycliffe's has a good intent but they are sending good money after bad. Christ's return does not depend upon the existence of a Bible in every human language.

    Why are there dozens of English translations? Because translation is not an easy task. Yet Wycliffe takes a person who is not an expert in Greek, Aramiac, or Hebrew, even English, sends them to the top of some mountain and find a person who maybe knows pigeon English and they "translate" the Bible after first inventing a written form of Boolie-Boolie.

    They would be more useful to the people if they taught the locals English, French, German , whatever the language of their official nation is. If the Holy Spirit regenerates a Boolie-Boolie person, The Holy Spirit can use an existing major language text to convert the person if the missionary has taught the person an existing written and useful language.
     
  15. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Okay, from this you are only against liberal missionaries, because what you have described is postmillenialsm, held by very few if any evangelical/fundamental missionaries.

    I agree that Christ's return does not depend on the existance of a Bible in every tongue. But I'm afraid you are wrong about Wycliffe. This belief that you describe is not listed in their "Beliefs," doctrinal statement or "Our Core Values" on their website at www.wycliffe.org. Please prove your statements or back down.

    For the great good being done by Bible translators in tribal regions, I highly recommend Jungle Jewels and Jaguars, by Martha Duff Tripp, or some of the books out there about Cameron Townsend or other translators. Here we sit in our nice houses, with good salaries or retirement, driving nice cars to well-equipped hospitals when we're sick, while such missionaries risk malaria and other jungle diseases, far from the nearest pharmacy. I have nothing but the highest regard for translators who live in poverty seeking to reach tribal peoples for Christ.

    Even a Bible that is poorly translated from an English version by a half-trained missionary is better than no Bible at all, which is what 2393 language groups have. There you sit with your nice leather English Bible (probably several of them, in fact), criticizing missionaries who spend literally thousands of hours decifering a tribal language. What gall!

    I don't mean to be disrespectful. You are a retired policeman and I honor our policemen. (My best friend is one.) And you are somewhat older than me. (I'm 57.) But you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself for criticizing such missionaries who sacrifice their lives for Christ as you sit there in comfort with your computer and a nice beverage, probably in air conditioning.

    You know what, this is one of the more ridiculous claims by those who oppose Bible translation in other tongues. I've taught English to many, many Japanese and I can assure you right now that unless they live in an English-speaking (or German-speaking, etc.) country and can practice all the time, the average person in the street in a first world country cannot master a foreign language enough to read the Bible in it. This means that it would be even much harder for a tribal person to learn English.

    You are suggesting that a missionary go to a tribal people and, instead of learning their language (and thus showing the love of God), he demand that they learn his language. Do you speak any other languages fluently? I doubt it. I suggest that your idea is much harder to accomplish than translating the Bible into the local language.
     
  16. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    billwald still ignores the Great Commission and Acts 1:8.

    Wow.
     
  17. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    >This belief that you describe is not listed in their "Beliefs,"

    OK, I read between the lines.

    OK, I only know English.

    I still defend the principle of earning the right to be heard. I defend the principle that the Holy Spirit regenerates whom she will and conversion is the human response to one's regeneration.

    I give several thousands a year to missions.

    >I conclude that (1) yes, you are against soul-winning missionaries,

    I reject this most unbiblical phrase which implies earning points in contest.

    >Okay, from this you are only against liberal missionaries, because what you have described is postmillenialsm, held by very few if any evangelical/fundamental missionaries.

    Interesting! see
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_(Christian_political_organization)

    Agree that pre-mil/pre-trib is preached BUT

    Conservative politics seems to have adopted Reconstructionist eschatology even if most don't realize it. see www.freebooks.com
     
  18. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    Acts 1:8 "Bearing witness" is not "winning souls."

    Great Commission. The problem in the Bible is the pronouns!

    The Orthodox and Catholic Churches can logically claim that the apostolic authority has been passed on to them, see

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magisterium

    but Baptists don't "believe in" such stuff.
     
  19. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

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  20. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    This is called giving false witness.
    I'm not even going to touch this. Wow. The Holy Spirit as female? Shades of Jack Hyles, though even he didn't call Him a "her."
    Home missions only, or around the world as God commanded?
    Though some have misused it, this is an entirely Biblical phrase: "He that winneth souls is wise." It is also an old and honored phrase. Charles Spurgeon used it in his book The Soul Winner. I'm currently reading the bio of Hudson Taylor by his son, and Taylor used the term. R. A. Torrey used in his book The Wondrous Joy of Soul Winning (no date, but probably around 1910). Charles Trumbull used it in his 1938 book, Taking Men Alive. I could name many more.
    This link is useless.
    This link is useless.
     
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