Radical Christmas

Matthew's Christmas story begins with the names of a bunch of dead people. Ray Bakke calls it a "graveyard tour." While we might find this approach boring, Matthew's Jewish audience would probably not be snoozing through this family tree. In the first century a genealogy established a person's heritage, inheritance, legitimacy and rights and therefore was attention grabbing. But Matthew creates a very unorthodox genealogy for the Messiah, "the son of David, the son of Abraham"!

The big surprise in the first few verses of Matthew's gospel is the presence of five women (Mary plus four). This was not standard procedure for male-oriented Jewish culture.

But Matthew doesn't stop there. He wants to increase the shock value of his genealogy, so some of these women are non-Jews. Rahab and Ruth were definitely Gentiles, and possibly Tamar. (In this light it is interesting to note that Matthew begins and ends his gospel with the nations.)

As if that wasn't enough, Matthew includes women with questionable character. Tamar purposely had sex with her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was from Moab, a people who were shunned and hated by Israel. Bathsheba was part of King David's sin story. (Before you jump to conclusions about Matthew's view of women, check out some of the despicable men in his list.)

This messy genealogy is Matthew's way of saying "the Word became flesh and lived among us." God became part of our dysfunctional world, right down to his Son's scandalous family tree. And if God admits this kind of ambiguity in the story of salvation, maybe there's room for messed up people like me.

Gleanings from the book of Ruth

This summer I did a summary exegesis of the book of Ruth, based on the English text (TNIV and ESV). The tools were provided by our Hermeneutics professor, Jeannine Brown.

Book Outline

1:1-5 Famine and death: Naomi loses her husband and two sons in Moab

1:6-22 A glimmer of hope: Naomi returns to the land of Judah with Ruth

2:1-16 Abundant harvest: Ruth gleans in the field of Boaz, Naomi’s relative

2:17-23 Abundant harvest 2: Ruth takes her great gleanings to Naomi

3:1-13 Daring plan: Ruth follows Naomi’s instructions and requests redemption from Boaz

3:14-18 Abundant harvest 3: Ruth takes Boaz’s gift to Naomi

4:1-12 Naomi gains life: Boaz redeems Naomi’s land and marries Ruth

4:13-17 Abundant harvest 4: Naomi gains another son

4:18-22 Postscript: the genealogy links the patriarchs—through Ruth and Boaz—with King David

Plot Development

The historical setting of the book of Ruth (in spite of its title, the book seems to revolve more around Naomi; see LaCocque, Ruth, 6) is the days of the judges, a time when Israel had turned its back on God and “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The geographical setting for a large part of the book is Bethlehem, “the town linked to the name of David” (Nielsen, Ruth, 2). A famine (caused by Israel’s sin?) forces Elimelech, Naomi and their two sons to move to Moab in order to survive. There, in the land of some of Israel’s worst enemies (see Numbers 22:4), Naomi loses her husband and two sons. In one brief paragraph, things are quickly going from bad to worse.

A glimmer of hope appears on the horizon when Naomi hears that “the Lord had visited his people and given them food” (1:6). Based on this news, she decides to return to Judah. She feels abandoned by God (1:13), and says bitter good-byes to her two daughters-in-law. But Ruth opts to stay with Naomi, thus aligning herself with Naomi’s people, Israel, and Naomi’s God (1:16). The reader sees more hope, but Naomi can only focus on her bitterness (1:20), even when she arrives back in Bethlehem after a 10-year absence, just as the barley harvest was beginning (1:22).

The setting for the rest of the book is Bethlehem, where the reader is introduced to the other important character in the story: Boaz. A wealthy land-owner and a relative of Naomi, he protects Ruth when she gleans in his fields, and showers her with food—almost more than she can eat (2:14) and carry (2:17). When Naomi discovers what has happened, her mood changes drastically (2:20). She devises a (risky) plan which will cause Boaz to take Ruth as his wife and thus preserve the family line. Ruth follows Naomi’s orders (3:6), and receives another large gift of grain from Boaz (3:15), along with a promise that he “will do for you all that you ask” (3:11).

There is another possible setback (another relative has first rights to buy Naomi’s land and marry Ruth), but Boaz devises his own plan to become the family guardian (4:3, TNIV). When Boaz succeeds, all the important people of Bethlehem wish the best for him and his (Moabite!) wife (4:11-12). Naomi is restored to life (4:15) when Ruth bears a son, Obed. Obed will be the grandfather of David, the promised king of Israel (4:17; compare Judges 18:1; 19:1; 21:25, “in those days there was no king in Israel”).

Themes

A. Famine/Abundance

The book begins with a literal famine in Judah (1:1), but there is also an existential famine for Naomi when she loses her husband and two sons (1:5). In the remainder of the narrative, the (implied) author shows how God works to abundantly supply Naomi with literal food (1:6, 22; 2:18; 3:17) and spiritual food (2:20; 4:15). The juxtaposition of Naomi’s bereavement (1:5) in the first lines of the narrative and the announcement that “the Lord had visited his people and given them food” (1:6) is a strong indicator that this will be an important theme for the author. This is reinforced when the reader learns that Naomi and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem “at the beginning of the barley harvest” (1:22).

Naomi experiences abundance through Ruth’s gleaning in the fields of Boaz. There, Ruth eats “until she [is] satisfied” (2:14, ESV; “all she wanted,” TNIV). Not only that, she has food left over! As if that were not enough, Ruth accumulates so much grain during the day that the reader wonders how a woman could even carry it back to Bethlehem (2:17)! The ESV marginal note describes the amount of grain as “3/5 bushel or 22 liters.” The TNIV note says “30 pounds.” Ruth then takes her overflowing harvest to Naomi (2:18), who remarks concerning Boaz, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead” (2:20, emphasis added). Through Naomi’s words, the reader understands that God has not forgotten about Naomi, and is working to abundantly provide for her needs. The contrast with Naomi’s prior pessimism is striking.

The abundant gift of grain shows up again when Ruth meets Boaz on the threshing floor, and she leaves with “six measures of barley” (3:15). Although the modern reader doesn’t have a notion of exactly how much this is, the repeated mention of the amount (3:17) is a signal that this is important. The author is also careful to show that the abundant gift from Boaz to Ruth is really for Naomi: “You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law” (3:17, emphasis added)! She is then able to feast instead of suffer famine.

Finally, the end of the narrative shows God giving abundant blessings to Naomi through the birth of Obed. The women of Bethlehem say, “He shall be a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age…” (4:14-15). The reader perceives that the women have become the true voice of the author. In another sign of abundance, they add that Ruth “is more to you than seven sons” (4:15). Seven is more than just a perfect number; it is abundantly more than the two sons Naomi lost in Moab! The abundant blessing culminates in the genealogy (4:18-22), orchestrated by God, which links the patriarchs with the promised King David.

B. Unmerited Kindness/Favor/Grace

Undeserved kindness appears at strategic points in the narrative of Ruth. The reader first sees this trait in the Lord, who caused the famine in the land of Judah to cease (1:6). If the famine was caused by the sin of Israel (a typical scenario in the book of Judges), God’s kindness appears here for reasons that are not apparent in the text. The reader is left to surmise that it is simply the Lord’s favor that has caused this unexplained change.

Ruth shows kindness to Naomi when she decides to stay with her mother-in-law instead of remaining in her home country of Moab (1:16-17). Again, the reader is left with no explicit reason for this behavior (it does not make sense in terms of Israel’s history of animosity toward Moab; see LaCocque, Ruth, 30)! Ruth’s kindness is emphasized by the author’s contrast between her attitude toward God and that of Naomi. Ruth adopts Naomi’s God (1:16), but Naomi is bitter toward the Almighty (1:20). The play on the meaning of Naomi’s name (pleasant) and her attitude (bitter) acts as a signpost to alert the reader to this contrast. Whom does the author want the reader to believe? The voice of Ruth, not Naomi! On a strictly human level, it is Ruth’s selfless act of loyalty to her mother-in-law that sets in motion the events of the rest of the narrative and results in the final redemption of Naomi and her family line.

When Ruth goes out to find food, she intends to “glean…after him in whose sight I shall find favor” (2:2). She finds that favor in Boaz, who protects her and showers her with almost more grain than she can carry (see above)! The extended dialogue between Ruth and Boaz (2:8-14) serves to highlight this favor. Ruth doesn’t understand why Boaz should be kind to a poor Moabite woman (2:10), but he explains that it is because of her kindness to Naomi (2:11). Here, the voice of Boaz becomes the author’s voice. Later, when Ruth tells Naomi about the day’s events, Naomi attributes the kindness of Boaz to the Lord (2:20)!

In the threshing floor scene, Boaz interprets Ruth’s submission to him (the family guardian) as an even greater kindness than her treatment of Naomi (3:10)! (To equate servanthood with kindness is—at least for 21^st century Americans—a novel idea! It would be interesting to see if this theme is echoed in other OT texts.)

The kindness of Boaz is also in focus at the end of the narrative, when he buys Elimelech’s estate and thus saves Naomi and Ruth. The fact that the closer relative refused to redeem Naomi’s family emphasizes the favor of Boaz (since the reader presumes that Boaz could do the same thing in order to preserve his interests).

Finally, God’s kindness to Naomi comes into sharp focus at the end of the story. He enables Ruth to conceive (4:13); he is the one who provided Naomi’s redeemer (4:14); he is the one who gave a son to Naomi (4:17). He is the one who fulfilled his promises to the patriarchs, through the line of Perez (4:12, 18), resulting in the birth of King David. The narrative is replete with human kindness, but the author wants his readers to realize that God is the ultimate source of that favor.

C. The real people of God

Throughout the narrative, the author refers to Ruth as “the Moabite” (1:22; 2:2, 6, 21; 4:5, 10). The readers clearly have not forgotten Ruth’s origin, so we wonder why the author places this kind of emphasis on her ethnicity. In light of Israel’s traditional animosity toward Moab (e.g., see Judges 3:14, Numbers 25:1-3), the original readers must have sensed a heavy irony in the story. Naomi, one of God’s chosen people, bitterly complains against the Lord (1:13), while Ruth, one of the “pagan” Moabites, pledges loyalty to Naomi’s people and Naomi’s God (1:16)!

Ruth the Moabite is also linked to Tamar (4:12), who is presumed to be a Canaanite woman (Nielsen, Ruth, 14). It is one more indication that God has deliberately chosen a “foreign woman [to be an] ancestress for David” (Nielsen, Ruth, 16).

Boaz invokes a blessing on Ruth that reminds the reader of similar blessings that were addressed exclusively to Israel (2:12; see also Genesis 15:1; 1 Samuel 24:19 may be significant in light of the author’s attention to David’s genealogy). She has taken refuge under the wings of the God of Israel! Thus, the reader is invited to think that God’s people are those who trust in him, not necessarily those who were born Hebrew.

Ruth, the Moabite, is acclaimed by all the inhabitants of Bethlehem as “a woman of noble character” (3:11). Boaz, a wealthy man, presumably could have married any woman he wished, but he chose a Moabite! And the author doesn’t stop there. Although Ruth is not mentioned in David’s genealogy (4:18-22), readers know that she was the mother of Obed (4:17). This makes her—a Moabite—part of the royal line of Israel! The author is clearly breaking some of Israel’s closely-held paradigms concerning the nature of the people of God! Nielsen sees Ruth as “a shining example of the foreigner who as a proselyte undertakes to live as the God of Israel requires” (Nielsen, Ruth, 32).

Summary

The author of Ruth meant to communicate that in the turbulent times of the judges God abundantly blessed a faithful Moabite woman and chose her to be part of King David’s bloodline.

Defense

The theme of God’s choice and blessing of Ruth, the Moabite woman, is one that may not carry much emotional impact for Americans, but it is difficult to overestimate the shock associated with the idea in ancient Israel. At the outset, the first readers would have marveled that an Israelite family would have settled in Moab in the first place (LaCocque, Ruth, 2). Moab, the father of the Moabites, was born as the result of incest between Lot and his oldest daughter (Genesis 19:37). Incest was a practice forbidden by the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 18:6). The very name Moab, which sounds like the Hebrew “from father” (see ESV margin, Genesis 19:37) reminded Israel of the Moabites’ sinful origin. Moabites were to be excluded from Israel (Deuteronomy 23:3-6; see Thompson, NBD, 776). According to the Targum to Ruth, marriage to a Moabite woman was punishable by death (Nielsen, Ruth, 18). Worship of the Moabite god Chemosh involved child sacrifice, an abomination to Israel (2 Kings 3:26-27). Military clashes between Israel and Moab were frequent, as early as the days of the judges (see Judges 3:12-30). In light of this historical enmity, the repeated mention of “Ruth the Moabite” and the blessings she receives from God throughout the narrative carry significant weight for the original audience. For ancient Israel, the idea that God would bless a Moabite woman—and then work through her to bless his people—is similar in contextual absurdity to Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan for first century Jews. Thus, Ruth’s positive qualities of loyalty (1:16-17) and submission (3:9) are in stark contrast to what Israelites had come to expect from Moabites. Ruth herself repeatedly expresses incredulity over the way she is treated by Boaz (2:10, 13); this is not normal behavior in Israel! God is clearly doing something new and wonderful.

The setting of Ruth in the time of the judges is not trivial, but crucial to the entire plot and purpose of the book. The era of the judges was dark and chaotic, even though punctuated with glimmers of hope. The final statement, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25, TNIV) is an apt description of an age of anarchy and suffering for God’s chosen people. That there should be “famine in the land” (1:1) would be no surprise for the original audience of Ruth. The suffering of Israel was clearly linked to its evil ways (Judges 3:7-8, 12; 4:1-2; 6:1). That God would bring redemption for Israel (King David, see 4:17, 22) out of Moab was totally counterintuitive!

Ancient Israel, rather than rejecting the story of Ruth, embraced it. In the Hebrew Bible it became part of the Writings and “was read annually by the Jews at the Feast of Weeks” (Beeching, NBD, 1030), a joyful harvest celebration. Far from denigrating David’s bloodline (4:18-22), the story of Ruth legitimates it. The author does that by reinterpreting the Genesis accounts of God’s choosing the patriarchs for his higher purposes (Nielsen, Ruth, 27-28). Readers make this connection as they hear the people of Bethlehem bless Boaz and Ruth (4:12): “Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” Tamar was most likely a foreign woman, just like Ruth (Nielsen, Ruth, 15). Tamar used deception to have a child by Judah, thus preserving the family line; Ruth and Naomi use a carefully crafted plan in order to save Elimelech’s estate and name through Boaz (Nielsen, Ruth, 16).

Relevant Implications

Although our situation is not as turbulent as that of Israel in the time of the judges, we sometimes feel that way. The world economic crisis has caused our missionary salary to fluctuate—mostly downward—and has put us in survival mode. The message of Ruth is encouraging: God is still working during seemingly chaotic times. His plans are not frustrated because of famine or war. On the contrary, God will provide abundantly for us, beyond what we ask or think.

Ruth also reminds me that God is an equal opportunity employer. He takes people who we ignore, and makes them part of his plan to restore the world. In the area of missions, this seems vitally important. A group of people thought to be untouchable by the gospel might be God’s next amazing front. We must not “write off” any people group.

Finally, Ruth convicts me that I am quick to make character judgments based on someone’s origin or appearance. God sees the heart, and he can transform “hopeless cases” for his glory.

Bibliography

LaCocque, André. Ruth: A Continental Commentary. Trans. K. C. Hanson. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004.

Nielsen, Kirsten. Ruth: A Commentary. Trans. E. Broadbridge. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997.

Fall in Minnesota

Fall is probably our favorite season in Minnesota. The state bird (mosquito) is scarce. The temperature is mild. And the Creator exhibits his spectacular color show.

Mother's Day show

Lalia spoke at a Mother's Day "show" at the Pinheiros Baptist Church in Sao Paulo.

Here's a short video from the beginning of her presentation. Her topic was the first mother -- Eve -- and the power of forgiveness.

A pack of lies -- the sequel

Maybe you're curious about 12 Lies You Hear In Church. (If not, you can get off the bus right now!)

In my previous post, I described how I was responsible for checking the accuracy of the Portuguese translation of this book, soon to be published in Brazil by Vida Nova (New Life).

Author Tim Riter has a passion for truth. This book is his attempt to put readers on constant alert, following the example of the early Christians at Berea, who "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11, NIV)

Many lies are like wolves--they come wrapped in sheep's clothing. On the surface, there may even be some truth laced with our misconceptions. In many cases, believing a lie is a question of doctrinal imbalance. Stretching a truth to an extreme position can result in distortion and lies.

Here are some of the lies uncovered by Riter:

• I believe in Jesus and that's enough.
• We must be perfect.
• We can't be perfect.
• Little sins aren't really that bad.
• One sin does destroy us.
• I'm not perfect, but compared to Jim, I'm a saint.
• I married the wrong person.
• I'll never be a Billy Graham.
• Christianity is great on Sundays.
• I'm like this because mom was a nag.
• Only good things happen to good people.
• We have the truth.

In my previous post, I mentioned some "bumps on the road" during the editing process of this book. One example was an affirmation by the author about 3 words in a verse which all reflected the same Greek root. When I went to my Greek New Testament to check it out, I only found 2 words that fit the description!

Decision time. Do I maintain the error in the Portuguese translation, or do I tweak the text a bit? I have great respect for an author's argument, but in this case I nudged the text to better represent the truth! Confession is good for the soul.

Other bumps were less dramatic -- even comical -- related to the translation from English to Portuguese. Lalia and I had a good laugh at one phrase which translated "five o'clock shadow" in a literal manner (something like "casting a shadow at 5 p.m.")!

My passion is creating understanding with words. Working on this book was another twist in that adventure.

A pack of lies

For the past few weeks, I have been immersed in a pack of lies.

Don't call the heresy patrol just yet. Let me explain. In early April, the Vida Nova publishing house asked me to check and edit the Portuguese translation of 12 Lies You Hear In Church, by Tim Riter. I estimated 3 weeks to complete the job. It took me 4! Along the way, I learned a thing or two.

Lesson #1: Never underestimate the complexity of a book. I thought, "At 180 pages, how hard can it be? This is no theology textbook. Easy stuff." I hadn't reckoned with the bumps along the road. More on that later.

Lesson #2: Words are my playground. Once again, I realized how much I enjoy shaping words to create understanding. Adding the layer of another language doubles the fun.

Lesson #3: It's not what you know, it's who you know. When I get stumped on an expression in Portuguese or on a grammar question, Lalia rescues me. She is a gifted wordsmith for whom I have the highest respect.

"Will your church judge us?"

That was the burning question in the mind of Carlos,* a friend who works as a hair stylist. Lalia and I were alone with him in the salon he has set up in his home. His girlfriend, Claudia,* a professing Christian, had been recently kicked out of her church because she was dating Carlos, a non-Christian.

Claudia had even taught in the Sunday school of her former church. After her expulsion, she imagined her former pastor would communicate her demise to the pastor of our church! (Extremely unlikely in a city with millions of people and thousands of churches.)

Now Carlos and Claudia were wondering, would they be tossed out of our church, too? We feel that they are genuinely seeking spiritual truth, and that’s why we invited them in the first place.

“Will your church judge us?” Wow! Talk about an opportunity to explain the gospel!

Trying to avoid Christian jargon, we told Carlos the good (bad) news that we are all guilty before God. No one measures up to his standard; therefore no one has any basis to judge another! There is no room for human arrogance. Only God can judge us, and he will do that on the basis of our faith in Jesus, his Son, not according to a list of rules written by the church.

We are praying that Carlos and Claudia will keep seeking the truth together (they plan to get married next year), and that in the process they will meet him who is the truth and the life.

* The names have been changed .

A gold mine for students of the NT

I am only one chapter away from finishing the revision of cross references in the book of Luke.* It is slow and fascinating work. One of the books I am using is Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, editors, Baker Academic, 2007. It discusses all of the OT quotations in the NT, as well as many of the allusions and "echoes". It is a wonderful tool. Each quotation is examined through six different lenses:

• NT context
  
• OT context
  
• General context within Judaism
• Textual questions
• Usage of the OT passage by the NT author
• Theological use
  

The book springs from the fact that the New Testament was not written in a vacuum. All of the original participants--writers, characters in the text, the hearing audience--were immersed in the Jewish culture which, in many ways, revolved around the Torah (the Hebrew Bible) and its Greek translation, the Septuagint.

In fact, the greatest motivation we have for this type of study comes from Jesus himself: "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27).

Our lack of familiarity with the Law, Prophets and Writings hinders us from understanding the rich nuances of the NT authors. This commentary is one valuable way of "turning on the lights" for us as we read the NT in the 21st century.

Let me share an example from my recent cross reference journey. In Luke 23:31, Jesus says to the crowd which is lamenting his imminent death: "For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" What is going on here? The commentary offers this suggestion: "The proverb...is best explained in terms of the green wood representing Jesus and the dry wood standing for the Jews. The basic idea is that dry wood burns more easily than green wood" (p. 394). The authors (David Pao and Eckhard Schnabel) explain that, in the OT, faithful Israel is often pictured as a green and fruitful plant (see Isa 5:1; Jer 11:16; Hos 10:1). Unfaithful Israel is described as dry and unfruitful (see Isa 37:27; Hos 9:16; Joel 1.12). The conclusion: "If God allows Jesus, who is innocent, the 'green wood,' to suffer the fate that Jerusalem is preparing for him, what will be the fate of Jerusalem, the 'dry wood.'?"

The exhaustive "Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings" allows the user of this book to "backtrack" from the OT to the NT. There are also generous bibliographies for each book of the NT.

The Vida Nova publishing house has acquired the rights to do a Portuguese edition of this mammoth 1200-page work. I can hardly wait...

* The cross references will become part of the new Vida Nova Study Bible when it launches next year in Brazil.

Over my head

My brain was aching yesterday as I edited several documents related to the Manual da Bíblia Hebraica (Handbook to the Hebrew Bible), published by Edições Vida Nova in Brazil. My job was to polish up the English in a descriptive preview of the book and in the sample translation of one of the chapters. Both of these documents will be sent to potential buyers of the English language rights. (This could be the first Vida Nova book to be sold for translation outside of Brazil!)

Hebrew is an unexplored frontier for me, so I was struggling to make sense of the references to Hebrew textual criticism and to the many related source documents which elucidate the text of the Hebrew Bible. I carefully stuck to the English grammatical questions, while at the same time hoping not to accidentally change the meaning of the material!

Today, an article on the web put my (mild) suffering into perspective, and even made me feel good about the process!

Mortimer Adler argues in "Invitation to the Pain of Learning" that true learning does not happen without painful effort. That's because learning is an "internal intellectual activity" that requires thinking, and thinking is hard work! (The locker room version: No Pain, No Gain.)

When I felt adrift in Hebrew studies technical jargon, I was learning. Adler explains it like this:

Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up the ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles.

Some of Adler's comments could well apply to our Bible study habits.

So, embrace the pain of learning. If smoke starts coming out of your head, take a break!

Unpredictable God

God is unpredictable!

That was one of the themes of the pastor's message last night at IBNU--Igreja Batista Nações Unidas, our home church. For example, God told Abraham to leave Ur and head for Canaan, where he would be blessed. When he arrived they threw a big party. Well, not exactly. Abraham's welcome to the Promised Land was a severe famine, which forced him to move to Egypt! How's that for unpredictability! What's going on, God?

In the 21st century, God continues to surprise us.

We just received an email from Gary Bennett, a WorldVenture colleague in Rwanda, East Africa. He is working with an international team from Engineering Ministries International to design several buildings in Rwanda. Gary told us that one of the engineers is a Brazilian, Suellen Maia, from São Paulo. She is a 24-year-old architecture student and helps with the youth ministry at her church here. Suellen has also served as a translator for the Promifé evangelism project, and lives just a few short blocks from our home!

Now, I would like to say that we set up this whole connection, but that would not be true. We had nothing to do with it. We can only admire God's unpredictability as he uses believers in creative ways to build his kingdom around the world!

(The photos show Suellen in her 6-month Africa mission experience.)

Economy dampens Sao Paulo's birthday bash

There will be no giant cake today for Sao Paulo's birthday celebration.


The traditional cake, which measures one meter for each year of the city's age, would have been 455 meters (five football fields) long this year. But sponsors were unwilling to fork over almost US$100,000 to make the massive treat. It's one more sign that tremors from the worldwide economic earthquake are shaking Brazil.

Shortly after hearing this news, I happened across John Piper's comments on the economic downturn (see video below). He suggests that hardship has the potential of drawing us closer to God, more than prosperity. And much more is at issue than 500 yards of cake!

For me, as a missionary, the question boils down to this: Do I want more funding or do I want more faith? Maybe those gifts are not mutually exclusive, but one thing is certain--without repentance and life-changing faith in Jesus, all the funding in the world will not make an eternal difference.

John Piper on the economic downturn

The uniqueness of books

So what's the big deal about books? Brazilian writer Jorge Luis Borges gives us a hint.

Among the instruments invented by man,
the most impressive is, without a doubt, the book.
Other inventions are extensions of our bodies.
The microscope and telescope are extensions of our vision.
The telephone is an extension of our voice,
and finally we have the plow and the sword, extensions of our arms.
The book, however, is something else.
The book is an extension of our memory and our imagination.

Is it any wonder, then, that God's Word has come to us in the form of a book?