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Discernment in Missions Leadership · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine sitting across the dinner table from your family,
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passing a plate of food, just looking at the faces of the
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people who raised you right now. Imagine knowing that the moment
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you speak the truth about what you actually believe, you will
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not just be asked to leave the room.
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You will be disowned, you will lose your livelihood, your
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marriage will be legally dissolved, and you know you
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might face actual physical violence from the very hands
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passing you that plate. It is a severe reality.
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That is the daily grinding reality for a convert to
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Christianity in the Middle East right now.
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The stakes are absolute life and death.
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Yet Western missionary organizations are repeatedly
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sending people into that precise environment completely blind,
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armed with, well, nothing but sociological theories and a
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desire to be culturally relevant.
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It borders on catastrophic negligence.
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I mean, we send people into an active war zone expecting them
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to operate with clinical precision, but we have stripped
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them of the only objective tools that allow them to actually see
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through the smoke. Welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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Today we are undertaking a massive deep dive into the
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realities of global messiology. For you listening right now, we
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are going to look at this entirely through a reformed
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theological lens, applying the rigid standard of sola
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scriptura. Absolutely.
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We have a really substantial stack of source material to
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unpack. Today.
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We are looking at a rigorous analytical paper by Mark Tatlock
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and Christ Burnett on the necessity of missiological
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discernment. Right, which is a fantastic
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piece of work. It really is.
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We are also examining A detailed frontline report by Hana Shaheen
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on the intense geopolitical and social conditions in the Middle
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East and North Africa, commonly referred to as the Meno region.
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Yeah. And finally, we are evaluating
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an open letter from Daniel Surya Avula which addresses some
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highly controversial covert practices currently spreading
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within the Indian Church. So the mission of this deep dive
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today is to really cut through the massive confusion clouding
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modern missions. We are aiming to establish the
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absolute necessity of rigorous biblical truth when engaging
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with foreign cultures. Our objective for you listening
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is to ensure that right doctrine, orthodoxy, actually
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produces right practice, which is orthopraxy.
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We want to demonstrate that theology is not just some
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academic exercise for a Sunday morning.
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It is the core mechanism that dictates how a missionary
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survives and operates on the field.
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OK, let's unpack this. Because Tatlock and Burnett
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begin by forcing us to acknowledge the actual
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environment of modern missions. They make it incredibly clear
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that the field is not a sterile laboratory where variables are
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neatly controlled. No, not at all.
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It is a hostile, chaotic war zone.
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And to illustrate this they introduce us to Kalban class of
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its. Now for those of you who might
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not be military history buffs, Klausuvis was a 19th century
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Prussian general. He was a brilliant military
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theorist who wrote a highly influential treatise called On
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War. And Klausuvis coined a concept
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that has survived for centuries, which is the Fog of War.
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Klausuvitz's premise requires really careful attention here.
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He fought in the Napoleonic Wars.
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He witnessed first hand the colossal difference between
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planning a battle in a quiet, well lit map room and actually
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executing that battle out in the dirt.
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Right? He argued that warfare is
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fundamentally the realm of uncertainty.
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He estimated that 3/4 of the factors on which action in war
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is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.
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That is a staggering percentage. It is.
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Picture a soldier on a 19th century battlefield, say at
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Jenna Auerstadt. You have the literal physical
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smoke from black powder, muskets and cannons completely obscuring
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your vision. You literally cannot see the
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enemy's flanks. Right, you are just blind.
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But Klausowitz was also talking about a psychological and
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informational fog. Orders get mangled by runners.
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The terrain is muddier than the map indicated.
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The enemy moves in totally unpredictable ways.
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So clause of it said that to survive this, a military officer
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requires a highly sensitive, discriminating judgement.
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He needs a skilled intellect to literally send out the truth.
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Amidst all that chaos. He has to separate actionable
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intelligence from just panicked rumors.
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And the authors apply this direct concept to the missionary
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endeavor. The spiritual battlefield is
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entirely obscured by its own fog.
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It is cluttered with unbiblical philosophies, cultural land
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mines, and really subtle theological compromises.
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These ideologies cloud a missionary's judgment.
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They cause massive spiritual casualties.
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We are not talking about minor cross cultural misunderstandings
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here, like, you know, using the wrong fork at dinner.
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These are major ideological distortions that completely
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inhibit at a missionary's capability to fulfill the Great
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Commission. And the author's link this
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military fog directly to the theological reality of First
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Corinthians 2. The apostle Paul underscores the
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absolute necessity for clarity in gospel preaching.
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Paul contrasts 2 opposing forces.
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Here he talks about the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God.
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Let's break that down because the wisdom of men sounds very
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appealing on the surface. It is highly intellectual, it is
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fleshly, and it is aimed at impressing others with superior
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rhetoric. Men constantly create elaborate
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systems of thought, intricate philosophies, and sociological
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frameworks to justify their existence without submitting to
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the God of the Bible. Paul says these systems, no
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matter how academically polished they appear, inevitably align
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with evil desires. They are inherently opposed to
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the truth of God. They are totally void of any
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saving capability. Furthermore, as the apostle
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James points out, this worldly wisdom is, in the end, demonic
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in origin. Well, I should say it is demonic
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in its root. It actively blinds sinners
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rather than saving them. When a missionary adopts the
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wisdom of men to reach a culture, they're adopting the
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very blindness they're supposed to be curing.
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On the flip side, you have the wisdom of God which is revealed
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specifically in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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The gospel cuts through the darkened fog filled thinking of
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the world and actually grants the regenerated believer the
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mind of Christ. Exactly.
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I mean precisely. And this brings us to a really
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crucial linguistic point in our sources.
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The text digs into the Greek terminology for discernment.
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For you listening, we are looking at words like anakrina,
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diakrinu and diacrysis and all of those stem from the root word
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krina. Let's examine that root word,
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Krina. It means to make a judgement
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based on facts. It is an active cognitive
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process of evaluating evidence to reach a definitive
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conclusion. It is not a guess and it is
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certainly not a feeling. When you add the prefixes, the
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meaning intensifies dramatically.
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Diakrinu carries the sense of separating, distinguishing one
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thing from another. It is much like a blacksmith
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separating useless slag from pure iron.
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That makes a lot of sense. And then Anakrinu implies a
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close, rigorous examination, almost like a cross examination
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in a legal setting. It is the careful evaluation of
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what is taught to separate truth from error.
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Biblically speaking, discernment is not a mystical feeling you
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get in your stomach. It is the active, vigorous
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capability of judging reality based on the concrete, objective
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facts provided in the written Scripture.
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Which makes total logical sense. Think about operating at a high
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stakes mission field without this specific fact based
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discernment. It would be like driving a car
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through a raging Blizzard at midnight without your headlights
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on. Yeah, total disaster.
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You are not just going to crash, you're going to veer off a Cliff
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and take your entire passenger van down with you.
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But look at this practically. If discernment is so fact based,
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so rigorously objective, why do so many churches and sending
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organizations treat it like an emotional intuition?
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That is the big issue. Why do they rely on a gut
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feeling or a subjective sense of peace rather than a rigorous
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examination of the theological facts?
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What's fascinating here is how the modern mind inherently
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rejects objective truth. Our current cultural moment
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champions subjective experience above objective reality.
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Your personal feelings are treated as the highest arbiter
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of truth. Yeah, absolutely.
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So when the Bible mandates us to examine all things using that
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Greek word anachronou, it is a highly countercultural command.
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The visible church often absorbs the broader cultures preference
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for feelings, leading to a massive deficit in actual fact
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based discernment. People want to feel led by the
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Spirit. Right.
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Yes, but they completely forget that the Holy Spirit authored
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the objective written Word of God to be our unchanging
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standard of judgment. If your internal feeling
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contradicts the external word, your feeling is lying to you.
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Let's move to the specific instruments God provides to
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clear that fog and the strict duty the church has to actually
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use those instruments. The text provides A fascinating
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historical anecdote involving BB Warfield, AH.
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Yes, Warfield. For you listening who might not
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have the name, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield was a
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Titan of Reformed theology at Princeton Theological Seminary
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in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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We really have to set the stage for Warfield here.
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The 1890s was a period of massive intellectual upheaval.
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The industrial Revolution had changed society.
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Darwinism was fundamentally altering how the culture viewed
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human origins. German higher.
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Criticism was aggressively attacking the historical
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reliability of the biblical text.
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The pressure on academic institutions to accommodate
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these new secular theories was immense.
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In the midst of this, Warfield preached A sermon to the
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divinity students at Princeton titled Incarnate Truth.
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And that was based on John 1.14, right?
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Yes, which says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full
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of grace and truth. And Warfield issued A staggering
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warning to those divinity students.
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He observed that the Church frequently borrows false
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theories from secular philosophy and science.
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Any pinpoint of the reason which was apathy?
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Yeah, intellectual laziness. The church becomes
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intellectually lazy. She becomes apathetic towards
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studying the scriptures thoroughly.
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So she leaves the investigation of nature, history, and even her
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own theological treasures to our enemies.
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That is such a sharp critique. Then, when she is backed into a
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corner and needs to defend herself or explain a cultural
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phenomenon, she instinctively reaches for the nearest tool on
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the shelf, and that ends up being a flawed secular framework
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borrowed from the very people trying to destroy her.
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Warfield understood that nature abhors a vacuum.
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If a church lacks A robust biblical anthropology, meaning a
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biblical understanding of human nature, sin, and redemption,
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they will eventually adopt A secular sociology to fill that
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void. Warfield exhorted those future
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pastors to have courage to examine popular theories by
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bringing the heavyweight of Scripture to bear upon them,
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rather than shaping their view of Scripture based on shifting
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cultural theories. The sources connect Warfield's
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warning back to those Greek words for discernment, pointing
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out that these words are frequently used in courtroom
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settings in the New Testament. Think of Luke 23.14 or Acts 4.9.
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They depict a trial set before an examining judge.
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Yes, exactly. The judge is evaluating
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evidence, listening to testimony and making a binding legal
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determination. And this is a really crucial
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distinction. A judge cannot simply possess a
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mental awareness of the law. Knowing the law in his head is
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insufficient. He is legally duty bound to
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execute justice based on that law.
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He has to pronounce the ruling and ensure the sentence is
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carried out. In the same way, simply
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acknowledging sound reform doctrine in a church
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constitution is insufficient. A church must act on it.
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Wait, I want to push back on that judge analogy for a second.
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Yeah, a civil judge has legal jurisdiction over a specific
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geographic area. He has bailiffs and police to
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enforce his rulings. A local church in Ohio sending a
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missionary to Sudan does not have civil authority.
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They're 5000 miles away, right? So how practically do they
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execute justice and enforce this discernment without
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micromanaging A missionaries daily life?
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They execute it through the ecclesiastical authority granted
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to the local church, specifically through the keys of
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the Kingdom, church discipline and financial stewardship.
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A local church may not have civil authority, but they have
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complete authority over who they ordain, who they Commission, and
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where their financial resources are directed.
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If a missionary begins adopting unbiblical, pragmatic methods on
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the field, the sending church has a duty to examine those
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practices in a canoe and, if necessary, withdraw funding and
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ecclesiastical endorsement. That answers a massive question
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for the listener. Could a local church have
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flawless Reformed theology on the Sunday morning expository
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preaching, a high view of God's sovereignty, rigorous elder
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qualifications, but simultaneously fund total
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heterodoxy overseas? It happens constantly.
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This is the unshakable link between orthodoxy, which is
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right doctrine, and orthopraxy, which is right practice.
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Heterodoxy or errant doctrine inevitably produces heteropraxy,
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errant practice. Many solid Bible teaching
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churches fund missions from a massive distance.
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They write a substantial check every month, but they lack
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consistency between their local philosophy of ministry and their
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international financial support. That is a huge disconnect.
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It really is. Locally, the elders guard the
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pulpit fiercely. They would never allow a secular
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sociologist to dictate their Sunday liturgy.
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But internationally, because of the fog of war and a misplaced
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trust in large sending agencies, they might be funding
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methodologies that completely undermine their own theological
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convictions. Here's where it gets really
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interesting, because the next logical step is identifying the
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target. If we have the tools of
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discernment and we have the obligation to use them like a
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judge evaluating evidence, where should missionaries actually aim
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their efforts when they enter a foreign context?
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That is the critical question. The authors breakdown a model of
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culture using concentric circles.
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There's a very helpful visual. Picture a target with multiple
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rings. The outermost layer represents a
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culture's aesthetics. This includes things you can
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observe immediately with your senses, Pop culture, music,
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architecture, the type of clothing people wear.
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Right, the visible stuff. They're observable daily
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behavior, their literature, their agricultural practices,
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and their food. These are the superficial
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external layers of a society. But then you push past those
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outer rings, through the layers of daily habits and traditions,
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and you reach the core, the absolute center of the bullseye.
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And that core is the worldview. Worldview is the fundamental
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pattern of beliefs that attempt to make sense of God, the world,
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and man's relationship to both. It is the lens through which a
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person answers the biggest questions.
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Who am I? What is wrong with the world?
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How is it fixed? This worldview can be a formal
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codified religion like Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, or it can
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be an informal assumed religion like Western secular humanism or
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materialism. But regardless of the specific
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flavor, the worldview is the engine driving everything else.
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The outer aesthetics are simply the visible manifestations of
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that invisible core worldview. The sources point out a fatal
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flaw in many modern mythological methods.
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They aim their efforts entirely at the outer circle.
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They try to affect change at the level of aesthetics and
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observable behavior. Yes, they focus on digging
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wells, teaching modern farming techniques for altering local
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political structures. Now, providing clean water is a
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good humanitarian endeavor, but Scripture is relentlessly clear
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about the actual target. For Samuel 16.7 states that man
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looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.
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The Great Commission targets the core worldview.
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It targets the dead heart. The mandate of missions is
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redeeming people, not redeeming cultures.
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That is a huge distinction. Cultures do not possess souls.
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Individual people do. A culture cannot stand before
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the judgement seat of Christ. Individuals will.
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Let me give you an analogy for this.
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It is like a doctor trying to treat a patient who has severe
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life threatening internal illness, say total liver
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failure. OK, the patient's skin is
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yellow, they're incredibly weak, and they are dying.
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But the doctor's treatment plan consists entirely of changing
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the patient's wardrobe. He gives the patient a tailored
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tuxedo, a fresh haircut, and a new pair of shoes.
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It might make the patient look significantly better
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temporarily. On the outside, he looks sharp.
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But the internal rot, the failing liver, remains
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completely untouched and the patient will still die.
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That is a brutal but accurate picture.
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For a missionary, there should be immense relief in knowing
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they do not have to fix entire societal structures or clean up
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the aesthetics of a culture they are asked with preaching a
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gospel that changes the heart. We must clarify a sequence here,
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though regenerated people do eventually alter institutions.
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When the Holy Spirit changes a heart, granting faith and
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repentance, that person begins to live differently.
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Right to the fruit of the Spirit.
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They organize with other believers, they form visible
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local churches, they raise their children with biblical
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instruction, and they approach their daily vocations with
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biblical ethics. Consequently, over generations,
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the outer culture is affected. The aesthetics change.
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But that societal shift is a byproduct.
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It is a secondary cascading effect.
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It is not the primary mission. When missionaries confused the
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byproduct with the mission, they abandoned the gospel entirely.
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They become humanitarian aid workers wearing religious name
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tags. If the biblical target is the
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worldview, the core, why are so many modern missionaries aiming
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at the outer aesthetics? Where are they learning to
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practice medicine? By changing the patient's
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wardrobe? Well, that takes us to the.
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Our source material traces this bad strategy back to the place
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where it is taught, which is the academic classroom.
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The text discusses the heavy infiltration of secular
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sociology, cultural anthropology, and humanism into
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Christian universities, Bible colleges, and seminaries.
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This creates A devastating self perpetuating cycle.
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Christian academic institutions begin to integrate secular
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theories into their missiology programs, often in a desire to
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appear academically credible to the secular world.
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They export this compromise theory to their students.
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The students graduate, become missionaries, and deploy these
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flawed, pragmatic methods on the field.
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Just spreads. And furthermore, international
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students travel to these Western institutions, absorb these
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secularized missiological frameworks, and then carry them
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back to their home countries in Asia, Africa, or South America,
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resulting in severe theological drift on a global scale.
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The authors draw a brilliant comparison here to the biblical
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counseling movement of the late 20th century.
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Back then, Christian counseling had heavily integrated secular
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psychology. Secular psychology, stemming
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from figures like Freud or Skinner, essentially viewed man
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as a highly evolved animal. In that framework, man's
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problems were strictly physical, mental, or socially conditioned.
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Sin was redefined as a lack of self esteem or a product of a
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bad environment. The biblical counseling
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movement, led by figures like Jay Adams, had to push back
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aggressively against that integration to reclaim the
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absolute sufficiency of Scripture.
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They had to assert that the Bible actually diagnosis the
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human condition accurately as a radical sin problem requiring
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divine redemption and repentance, not just a
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psychological quirk requiring endless therapy.
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The authors argue that modern missiology requires a similar
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rigorous reform. Today.
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It has adopted anthropological framework that minimize the
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authority of the Bible, treating native cultures as pristine
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environments that should not be disturbed by hard theological
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truths. The sources detail some specific
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dangers regarding subjective reading methods taught in these
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classrooms. They list things like reader
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response hermeneutics, trajectory hermeneutics, and
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queer hermeneutics. Yes, these are major issues in
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academia right now. Now, to maintain objective
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reporting on the source's claims, here we are just
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conveying the author's stance. They view these homedidical
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frameworks as elevating transient cultural values over
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authoritative scripture. Let's break down how these
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actually function. Take trajectory hermeneutics,
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for example. What does it actually mean?
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Trajectory hermeneutics is a method of interpreting the Bible
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that argues the text is not a static final rulebook.
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Instead, it claims the biblical authors started a moral
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trajectory that points beyond the pages of Scripture.
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The argument is that the early church moved from slavery to
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abolition, so we should continue continue that trajectory today
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to overturn things like gender roles or biblical sexual ethics,
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even if the text explicitly forbids it.
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It assumes the Holy Spirit wants us to outgrow the written text.
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And what about reader response hermeneutics?
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Reader response theory completely shifts the authority
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from the author to the reader. It argues that a text has no
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inherent objective meaning. Wow.
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The meaning is created by the reader's personal experience,
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cultural background, and emotional reaction when they
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interact with the text. So a verse does not mean what
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the Apostle Paul intended it to mean.
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It means whatever a 21st century reader feels it means in their
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specific cultural context. The authors maintained when you
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teach a missionary to read the Bible through a subjective
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sociological lens, rather than seeking the objective authorial
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intent, you strip them of their only offensive weapon.
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You leave them with a Bible made of wax.
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That means whatever the current culture wants it to mean.
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Exactly. They argue these methods act as
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a form of secular syncretism, where the Christian faith is
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inappropriately wedded to modern secular humanism, completely
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obstructing a clear reading of the text.
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So what does this all mean for the average church member
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listening right now? If the seminaries are
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compromised, what is the action plan?
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Pastors and local congregations must take absolute ownership of
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the vetting process. They must rigorously vet the
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academic schools, the recommended reading lists, and
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the sending agencies their missionaries utilize.
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Yeah, you have to do the. Work A local church cannot
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outsource its theological discernment to academia.
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According to Paul's letter to Timothy, the local, visible
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church is the pillar and buttress of the truth.
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The church must shepherd its missionaries, ensuring their
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training aligns with historic Reformed biblical principles,
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not the latest anthropological trends generated by secular
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universities. Let's transition from the
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theoretical classroom to the actual physical front lines.
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We are going to apply this framework of discernment to the
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intense realities documented by Hana Shaheen and our second
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piece of source material focusing on the Middle East and
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North Africa, the MENA region. The MENA region presents a
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drastically different set of challenges than anything
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encountered in the West. It is overwhelmingly Muslim, but
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Shaheen points out that the severity of the challenges
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depends heavily on the specific school of Islamic jurisprudence
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a given country follows. There are strict differences in
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how these schools apply the law. For example, Saudi Arabia
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follows the Hanbali school of jurisprudence.
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The Hanbali school is incredibly severe.
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It relies on strict literal adherence to the Quran and the
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Hadith, leaving almost no room for analogical reasoning or
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local custom. Right.
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Under the Hanbali school, straying from Islam or apostasy
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can mean years of brutal imprisonment, torture or state
23:11
sanctioned execution. Is extremely harsh.
23:14
Contrast that with Morocco, which follows the Maliki school.
23:17
The Maliki school allows for a bit more consideration of local
23:20
customs and consensus. It is considered more lenient.
23:24
Challenging the faith there might result in a six month jail
23:27
sentence rather than a death penalty, but regardless of the
23:29
specific school, the overarching religious opposition is massive.
23:33
We have to understand the historical context driving this
23:36
opposition. Shahin brings up the Muslim
23:38
Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928 by a school teacher named
23:41
Hassan al Banna. The explicit stated goal of this
23:44
group and the various radical factions it birthed across the
23:47
region, is to revive the Islamic Golden Age, a period stretching
23:51
roughly from the 7th to the 13th century.
23:54
They want to see the Uma, the universal community of Islam,
23:58
dominate the at the global stage, enforcing Sharia law.
24:02
In this context, being Muslim is not viewed as a personal,
24:05
private religious choice you make on a weekend.
24:08
It is an inescapable ethnic, cultural and national trait.
24:12
You are born Arab, Turkish or Persian, therefore you are
24:16
Muslim by default. It's hardwired into your DNA and
24:19
your citizenship. To leave the Islamic faith is
24:22
not just changing your mind about theology, it is viewed as
24:25
literal treason against your people in your state.
24:27
Yes, but the sources reveal a really surprising layer of
24:31
religious opposition. It does not just come from the
24:33
Islamic majority, it comes from nominal traditional Christian
24:36
sects as well. Yes, groups like the Copts in
24:39
Egypt and Sudan, the Greek Orthodox and various Roman
24:42
Catholic enclaves. These groups make up a very
24:44
small percentage of the men of population, and their opposition
24:47
to evangelicals is largely rooted in self preservation.
24:49
How so? In strict Islamic states, these
24:51
traditional churches exist under a fragile, unwritten Treaty of
24:55
tolerance. As long as they keep to
24:57
themselves, do not proselytize Muslims, and pay their taxes,
25:01
the government generally ignores them.
25:03
OK, I see. When evangelical missionaries
25:05
arrive and begin aggressively preaching the gospel, it
25:08
threatens to agitate the government, which could result
25:11
in a severe crackdown on all Christians, including the
25:14
traditional sex. Therefore, they view
25:16
evangelicals as a massive foreign threat, accusing them of
25:20
being sheep Steelers who only convert nominal Christians and
25:23
destabilize the delicate social order.
25:26
But then you add the layer of cultural opposition, which
25:28
brings us back to that dinner table scenario we started with.
25:31
Shaheen breaks down the concept of an honor and shame society.
25:35
Most of the West operates on an innocence and guilt paradigm.
25:38
Did you break the law or not? If you are guilty, you pay a
25:40
fine or go to jail and your family goes about their
25:43
business. But in the MENA region, the
25:45
social currency is about honoring the family or bringing
25:48
shame to the family. They have a deep seated clan
25:51
mindset. In a clan mindset, the
25:53
individual barely exists. A family name carries infinitely
25:57
more weight than a first name. Your identity, your economic
26:00
survival, and your physical safety are woven entirely into
26:04
your family unit if you bring shame up on your family.
26:08
And converting to Christianity is seen as the ultimate
26:10
unforgivable shame. The consequences are immediate
26:14
and devastating. You face the total loss of your
26:17
marriage, your home, your job, your inheritance and your social
26:20
standing. You become a non person.
26:23
You know, Westerners looking at the Middle East usually fear the
26:25
secret police. We watch the news and think the
26:28
biggest threat to a missionary or a convert is the government
26:31
kicking down the door in the middle of the night.
26:33
But based on this text, isn't the real immediate threat
26:36
sitting right across the dinner table?
26:38
It's the father, the brother, the uncle.
26:40
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it highlights the sheer
26:43
impossibility of the missionary task without divine
26:46
intervention. You combine this honor shame
26:48
dynamic with low literacy rates, extremely limited independence
26:52
for women, and the absolute threat of total social
26:54
excommunication. It is a massive wall.
26:57
Sociological strategies cannot overcome that barrier.
27:01
Clever anthropological methods or a really sharp cultural
27:04
aesthetic strategy cannot convince a man to willingly lose
27:07
his family, his livelihood, and his physical safety.
27:11
It requires a massive, exclusive reliance on the sovereign grace
27:15
of God to regenerate a dead heart.
27:18
Only the Holy Spirit can grant a person the supernatural faith
27:21
required to endure the loss of everything for the sake of
27:24
Christ. That brings us to our final case
27:26
study, looking at an entirely different type of threat to the
27:29
church. In the MENA region, the threat
27:32
is overt physical persecution. It is the threat of jail, loss
27:36
of family or death. But in India, as Daniel Soria
27:39
Ovula writes, the threat to the church is a highly subtle,
27:42
pragmatic deception. And ironically, it is a
27:45
deception born from a desire to avoid the exact type of
27:48
persecution we just described in the Middle East.
27:50
Avila's perspective is critical for this homolysis.
27:53
He's a convert from Hinduism and a church planter living and
27:56
working in India. He is addressing a specific
27:58
mythological phenomenon known as the Indian insider movements.
28:02
These are individuals who identify as Hindu Christ
28:05
followers or church less Christians.
28:08
They claim to have received salvation in Jesus, but they
28:11
utterly refused to leave their Hindu environment.
28:14
They refused to publicly identify as Christians.
28:17
They want the internal spiritual salvation of Christ while
28:20
maintaining the external cultural identity of a
28:22
practicing Hindu, often to avoid the social stigma and
28:26
persecution that comes with conversion in India's caste
28:29
system. Avula rigorously unpacks 4
28:32
distinct biblical failures of this movement.
28:35
The first is a failure regarding the first commandment.
28:38
Hinduism is not a monolithic religion.
28:40
It is incredibly vast and pluralistic.
28:43
It boasts a pantheon of some 330 million gods.
28:47
It is hard to even comprehend. It is.
28:48
It ranges from Azteca, which includes various orthodox forms
28:51
of theism that accept the authority of the ancient Vedas,
28:54
all the way to Mastica, which are heterodox traditions that
28:57
reject the Vedas and can even include atheistic or agnostic
29:00
philosophies, yet remain under the broad cultural umbrella of
29:03
Hinduism. So when a Hindu Christ follower
29:07
claims to follow Jesus while remaining culturally Hindu,
29:10
they're essentially treating Yahweh as just another addition
29:13
to an already overcrowded pantheon.
29:15
It is a synchronistic buffet. They're adding Jesus to the
29:18
shelf next to Shiva and Vishnu, but Ovula points directly to
29:22
Psalm One O 6.28, which describes the Israelites joining
29:26
themselves to Baal of Peor and eating sacrifices offered to the
29:30
dead. A clear biblical parallel.
29:33
The text shows that participating in Pagan worship
29:35
while claiming to worship the true God is blatant, condemnable
29:39
idolatry. The God of the Bible demands
29:42
exclusive worship. He will not share His glory with
29:45
another. The second flaw of Eli
29:46
identifies is that this approach is totally misaligned with the
29:49
Gospel itself. The Gospel demands A strict,
29:52
observable separation from Pagan darkness.
29:55
Colossians 1.13 says God has delivered us from the domain of
29:58
darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son.
30:01
You cannot claim to be transferred to an entirely new
30:04
Kingdom while intentionally hiding in the uniform of the old
30:07
one. The Gospel is a public
30:08
declaration of a change in allegiance.
30:10
The third flaw strikes right at the heart of our Reformed
30:13
ecclesiology. These insider movements
30:16
fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the Church Jesus
30:19
promised in Matthew 16.18. I will build my church and the
30:23
gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
30:25
Yes, the church is a visible gathered assembly of called out
30:29
believers. For those adhering to the
30:31
Westminster Confession of Faith, the doctrine of the visible
30:35
Church is crucial. The visible Church consists of
30:38
all those throughout the world that profess the true religion
30:41
along with their children. It is not an invisible, abstract
30:44
concept that exists only in your private thoughts.
30:47
It is a covenanted body where the Word of God is rightly
30:50
preached and the sacraments are rightly administered.
30:53
By refusing to join a corporate gathering, by remaining a proud,
30:56
churchless Christian, these individuals are denying the very
31:00
nature of Christ's body. They are attempting to sever the
31:03
Head, which is Christ, from the Bride, which is the Church.
31:06
Which leads directly to the 4th flaw.
31:08
They forfeit the ordinances. Baptism and the Lord's Supper
31:12
are mandated by Christ, but they are mandated to be observed in
31:15
the context of a local gathered congregation.
31:18
As. Seen in Acts 2.42, where the
31:21
early believers devoted themselves to the apostles,
31:24
teaching the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the
31:27
prayers. In our Reformed theology, we
31:29
view the preaching of the Word, baptism and the Lord's Supper as
31:32
the ordinary means of grace. Yes.
31:34
Absolutely vital. They are the objective, ordained
31:37
channels through which God strengthens, nourishes, and
31:40
sanctifies His people. Abandoning the visible church
31:43
means intentionally starving yourself of the very means of
31:46
grace God provided for your survival.
31:49
But I want to introduce some serious tension here.
31:51
Let's think about the motivation behind these insider movements.
31:54
I want to argue from a place of human empathy for a second.
31:57
OK, go ahead. These people clearly love their
31:59
families. They know the brutal social cost
32:02
of converting in India. They know they might lose their
32:04
jobs or be ostracized from their communities, much like in the
32:08
MENA region. Right.
32:08
The stakes are so high. They want to reach their
32:10
relatives without creating a massive immediate barrier.
32:14
Isn't their covert strategy a highly pragmatic, highly
32:17
effective way to gain an audience and slowly, safely
32:20
introduce their families to Jesus?
32:22
This raises an important question.
32:24
Do noble intentions justify unbiblical methods?
32:27
Can we use deceit to advance the Kingdom of truth?
32:31
Avula argues, and Scripture absolutely supports, that.
32:34
The answer is a definitive no, right?
32:36
Calling oneself A Hindu while secretly following Christ is
32:40
intentional deception. The apostle Paul in 2nd
32:43
Corinthians 4.2 strictly forbids believers from acting
32:46
fraudulently or practicing cunning, he writes.
32:49
We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
32:51
We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word.
32:54
It is a very clear command. For the more Jesus commands his
32:57
followers to be the light of the world.
32:59
In Matthew 5.14 and 16, he stayed through the city.
33:02
Set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and
33:05
put it under a basket, but on a stand, believers are commanded
33:09
to shine visibly so that others may see their good works and
33:12
glorify God. A hidden lamp provides 0 light
33:15
to the house. It only starves itself of
33:16
oxygen. We have covered a massive amount
33:19
of ground today. We started with Klasovitz's fog
33:22
of war, defining the chaot on unpredictable nature of the
33:25
mythological battlefield. Yeah, we did.
33:27
We examine the Greek text of Corinthians, establishing the
33:31
absolute necessity for an active, fact based judgement.
33:34
To cut through that fog, we looked at BB Warfield's
33:38
historical warning to the students at Princeton in the
33:40
1890s, cautioning against the apathy that leads to borrowing
33:44
secular frameworks. And then the courtroom
33:46
obligation. Right.
33:47
Seeing how that courtroom obligation requires the local
33:50
church to ensure their local orthodoxy matches their
33:53
international orthopraxy, we mapped out the concentric
33:56
circles of culture, proving that the Great Commission targets the
33:59
core worldview, the heart, not just the outer aesthetics of a
34:03
society. We traced the sabotage of modern
34:05
missiology back to academic classrooms pushing secular
34:08
sociology and subjective reader response hermeneutics.
34:12
And finally, we applied all of this rigorous discernment to the
34:15
intense honor shame dynamics of the Mina region and the
34:18
pragmatic, unbiblical compromises of the Indian
34:21
insider movements. The central unifying theme
34:24
running through all of this source material is the absolute
34:28
sufficiency of scripture. Whether a believer is facing the
34:31
threat of a six month jail sentence under the Maliki school
34:34
in Morocco, the total loss of their family name and livelihood
34:37
in the Middle Eastern clan society, or the pragmatic
34:40
temptation to blend in with a pantheon of 330 million gods to
34:44
avoid Casper execution in India, the answer is never a better
34:48
sociological strategy. No, it is not.
34:50
The answer is never a clever anthropological method.
34:54
The answer is a robust, unclouded reliance on the
34:56
objective truth of God's Word and the faithful gathering of
35:00
the visible local church to partake in the ordinary means of
35:03
grace. So for you listening right now,
35:05
here is the call to action. Take a hard, analytical look at
35:09
your own church's missiological footprint.
35:11
When the offering plate is passed on a Sunday morning and
35:13
those funds are allocated to global missions, where is that
35:16
money actually going? Yeah, ask the hard questions.
35:19
Are you funding efforts that aim a sharp theological scalpel at
35:23
the core worldview, or are you just funding aesthetic sociology
35:26
and humanitarian aid disguised as missions?
35:30
Are you supporting missionaries who establish robust, visible
35:33
ecclesiology, gathering believers to hear the Word and
35:36
receive the sacraments? Or are you accidentally funding
35:40
pragmatic, covert insider movements that deny the
35:43
necessity of the local Church entirely?
35:45
You have a duty, like a judge in a courtroom, to examine the
35:49
evidence and judge the facts. I want to leave you with a final
35:52
thought, building on our very first concept.
35:54
From the beginning of this deep dive, we discussed Karl von
35:57
Clausewitz and his theory on the fog of war.
36:00
Clausewitz noted something else about that fog in his writings.
36:03
It does not just confuse soldiers, it rapidly exhausts
36:06
them. That is an interesting point.
36:07
The sheer mental toll of constant uncertainty, of second
36:10
guessing every shadow, of trying to operate without clear,
36:13
actionable intelligence drains an army's morale and energy
36:17
significantly faster than physical exertion alone.
36:20
Marching 50 miles is hard, but marching 50 miles while doubting
36:23
your map is debilitating. That is a staggering observation
36:27
when you apply it to what we are seeing globally.
36:29
Apply that directly to the spiritual battlefield.
36:31
Today we see a massive wave of missionary burnout.
36:35
Men and women are returning from the field completely depleted,
36:38
their families fractured, their spirits crushed.
36:40
Yeah. Could it be that this burnout is
36:42
not strictly due to harsh physical conditions, difficult
36:45
languages, or a lack of financial funding?
36:48
Could it be the severe mental and spiritual exhaustion of
36:52
trying to fight a spiritual war without the piercing clarity of
36:56
solid Reformed biblical discernment?
36:59
What if the highest form of missionary care a local church
37:02
can provide is not a larger financial stipend or a longer
37:05
furlough, but simply giving their missionaries an
37:08
uncompromising, unclouded theology that allows them to see
37:11
the battlefield clearly? The fog of war is real and it is
37:15
thick, but the light of the Word is infinitely brighter.
37:19
Keep your Bibles open, keep your mind sharp, and demand clarity
37:22
in the dark. We will see you next time.