When we donate Packing Hope resources to missions and churches for the work overseas, we routinely ask for a report back. We often receive great stories and images, which we share with you as time allows. Last week, I received this great report from Jeff Hensley who pastors Heritage Christian Fellowship in Medford, Oregon. I think it really exemplifies the ideal scenario for our collaboration: solid, biblical resources getting into the hands of pastors in Asia, Africa, and South America and being deployed in the context of long-term relationships and mentoring.

Thank you so much for the ESV Study Bibles to our Ugandan mission work in March of this year. We have had a partnership with a church body in Mbarara, Uganda for almost 5 years now. Each year we travel over and do pastoral conferences to train the local pastors in the Word of God, typically by selecting a book of the Bible and teaching through it verse-by-verse.

This year we decided to do something different. Instead of teaching them through a book of the Bible, we decided to equip them with resources, like your ESV Study Bibles, and to teach them how to use these resources to study God's Word for themselves. The results were astonishing. The Ugandan pastors and elders felt as if they had been given powerful weapons that none could defend against! In an area riddled with prosperity theology and Islam, these pastors are now infinitely better equipped to teach God's word to their people and to continue to send pastors out into the unreached people groups of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo.

Photos do not adequately reflect the amazement and wonder that was in the heart of each Ugandan as we told them of this gift. Hands trembled and tears fell as they received them. Together, we all used this biblical tool, teaching them how to use the maps, margins, notes, and cross-references, to study through the book of 1 Peter themselves. We believe this has equipped them to carry on with proper biblical exegesis long after the white American missionaries have left town! Thank you for supporting our church, their church, our mission, and God's Kingdom.

Rejoice with us over what God is doing around the world through our partners in mission, and please consider prayerfully these ways of co-laboring with us:

• Praise God with us that in April nearly 200 cases of resources went out to 22 countries.
• Plan for incorporating Packing Hope resources with your next missions engagement.
• Give to our current Relief Project, Piper's book, Finally Alive in English which will be very useful for many regions of the world.
• Read and subscribe to our monthly update.
• Become a monthly supporter of Theological Famine Relief for the Global Church.

Late last month the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Global Review Panel presented a 33-page report with ten recommendations for Wycliffe Global Alliance and SIL International concerning their process of translating divine familial terms, like "Father" and "Son," in Muslim contexts. 

Responding to several Bible translation controversies, Wycliffe and SIL requested last spring that the WEA review their process of translating divine familial terms. These controversies stem from the fact that Muslims often misunderstand the divine familial language found in the New Testament, believing that it implies that God had sexual relations in order to beget Jesus. This misunderstanding is found in the Qur'an (5:116; 17:111; 19:88-92) and leads Muslims to abhor the idea that Jesus is the Son of God. Therefore, in an attempt to avoid miscommunication some translations have avoided using the divine familial terms of "Father" and "Son."

The WEA began forming an independent review panel last summer under the leadership of Robert Cooley, president emeritus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. By the end of September, the WEA global review panel was finalized with 12 evangelical biblical scholars, theologians, linguists, and missiologists from around the world, including from majority-Muslim nations. The panel first met in Toronto, Canada, on November 28-30, 2012, and then in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 9-13, 2013, to conclude their report.

The bulk of the panel's report concerns translation methodology, which their first three recommendations address. The fourth recommends using additional kinds of literature to reach Muslims. The remaining six recommendations concern "guided processes for ensuring accuracy and accountability in Bible translation." Recommendations 1-3 will be analyzed below since they address the heart of the controversy.

Needed Corrective

The panel's report provides a needed corrective to Wycliffe/SIL's process of translating divine familial terms; however, some might contend that the correction did not go far enough. In recommendation 1 the panel argues that when the words "father" and "son" are used to refer to God the Father and the Son of God, these should "always be translated with the most direct equivalent familial words within the given linguistic and cultural context of the recipients." In other words, the terms "father" and "son" should be retained in the translation.

The panel includes compelling biblical support for retaining the divine familial terms. First, they include an exhaustive list of biblical examples that demonstrate that the words "father" and "son" are "among the most common ways the New Testament describes God and Jesus." Second, they argue that the words "father" and "son" are among "the most important ways" the New Testament expresses Jesus' divinity and relationship with God. Through the use of "father" and "son" the New Testament "conveys the central truth that Jesus is and has always been in a relationship as Son to his Father—derived from God and possessing the same divine characteristics (and thus fully divine), and yet distinct from God the Father as well." Third, they convincingly argue that the word "son" is among "the most important ways" the New Testament presents salvation and "links believers to Jesus and at the same time distinguishes us from Jesus." Jesus is God's unique Son, while believers are adopted sons of God. The panel concludes that because of the centrality and importance of the words "father" and "son" in the New Testament, translators should render such words as directly as possible.

The panel concludes its rationale for recommendation 1 by arguing that avoiding divine familial terms may serve to support the erroneous Muslim belief that the Bible is corrupt. Not translating "father" and "son" in direct ways "could belie the Christian heritage of apologetics and add substance to the Muslim claim that Christians have corrupted the Bible."

Potential Concerns

Some potential concerns surface in recommendations 2 and 3. In these recommendations the panel encourages translators to consider using "paratextual material" (footnotes, side-notes, glossaries, and mini-articles), as well as "qualifying words and/or phrases" to clarify and avoid misunderstanding. No problem arises if divine familial terms are translated as directly as possible and then explained in a footnote or side-note. However, adding qualifying words and/or phrases to the text itself is problematic especially if the translation does not make this addition known to the reader. Although the panel encourages the use of paratextual material, it does not appear to rule out the possibility of translators only adding qualifying words and/or phrases.

The panel states that "father" might be rendered as "heavenly father," "God who is Father," or "God who is the true Father." The word "son" might be rendered as "divine Son," "eternal Son," or "heavenly Son." The panel also notes that the phrase "Son of God" has varied nuances and therefore depending on the context could be rendered as "the Son belonging to God," "the Son who comes from God," "the Son who derives from God," "anointed Son of God," "royal Son of God," "divine royal Son of God," or even "royal Son who derives from God" (20, 23). If additional words or phrases like these are added, this should be made clear to the reader through the use of paratextual material. If not, what would prevent Muslims from using these added words in support of their claim that the Bible has been corrupted?

In faithfulness to God's revealed Word and for the sake of consistency, it appears that it would be best to translate "father" and "son" as directly as possible, but then use paratextual material, like footnotes, to provide clarification.

Soon after the release of the report, Wycliffe expressed its gratitude for the WEA and the panel for its work, and stated that it will work with SIL "to take steps to develop a plan to implement these recommendations as soon as possible." Translators, scholars, and other missionaries around the world will be watching to see in the coming months how the recommendations are implemented and if they will put an end to the controversy.

Tucked away in the desert of the Middle East is a land known for its lavish buildings, bustling economy, and international culture. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), located along the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, borders Saudi Arabia and Oman. In a day you can reach Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran—some of the most war-torn countries in modern history. Some may be surprised, then, to learn the UAE is relatively safe and definitely peaceful. What may be more surprising, evangelicals have enjoyed a public presence here since the early 1960s.

One such church, started in 1962, is the United Christian Church of Dubai. UCCD, the longest-tenured evangelical church in the country, hired as pastor John Folmar of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in 2005.

Sharing about the decision to uproot his family and move a 20-hour plane ride from everything they had ever known, Folmar told me:

God says, "My name will be made great from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets" (Mal. 1:11), but there are many people groups who have not yet acknowledged Jesus as Lord. The UAE borders Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, 70 miles from Iran—one of the last bastions of resistance to the gospel. When the pastoral position at UCCD opened up in 2005, I jumped at the chance to live and minister here, so that we might help reach the unreached with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Folmar served as a pastor for Capitol Hill Baptist from 2003 to 2005 before moving to UCCD. His church now welcomes more than 600 people from about 60 different countries in Africa, Asia, North and South America, Europe, and Australia.

Folmar is joined in ministering in Dubai with his wife, Keri, and their three children.

But they are not alone.

They have been joined by Dave Furman and his wife, Gloria, who on February 12, 2010, planted Redeemer Church of Dubai, one of the newest churches since the 1960s.

"The Lord is doing incredible things in places we would least expect," Dave Furman said. "The rulers in our country are very generous, and we're thankful for the opportunity we have to worship freely here."

The UAE, unlike neighboring countries, enjoys a relatively safe environment and stable political climate.

"While no place is ultimately safe, and there is a lot of conflict in our region, by God's grace there is great political stability in this country," he explained. "Again, we're grateful to the Lord and to the rulers of this country for this blessing."

Moment of Opportunity

The churches led by Folmar and Furman aren't formally linked. Each is governed independently. But they share a common vision to spread the gospel in their region. In February 2013, Folmar called Josh Manley, an elder of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, to inform him that the ruler of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), an emirate of the UAE, was prepared to grant land for a new evangelical church. Folmar asked if Manley would be interested in moving to the UAE to plant and pastor this church.

This was an obvious open door the Manley's knew they must step through.

"I'd always thought of a church in this setting as particularly strategic," Manley said. "One has the opportunity to pastor and preach while in the heart of the unreached world. Presently, there are only seven evangelical church buildings on the entire Arabian Peninsula, and land hasn't been given for this purpose in 15 years. All of these factors weighed heavily on me."

Not much in their lives could have pointed to a future in the Middle East. Manley and his wife, Jenny, were aides in the U.S. Senate when they met and eventually married. He served as an aide on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Jenny was the Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi. While in Washington, D.C., they met Folmar at Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

"The Lord allowed me to work out my calling to ministry within the context of that particular local church where I had opportunities to teach and preach, disciple younger men, and be discipled by more mature men in the faith," he told me. "Over time, my heart moved more and more to the ministry of the Word in the local church. We've known much joy since embarking on this path."

From budgets to management, the gifted couple dropped their political careers for Louisville, where Manley attended The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from 2009 to 2012 while serving at Third Avenue Baptist. Now in the UAE, the Manley's have launched Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Church. They began regular services in March.

Eternally Secure Truth

Uprooting their family, Manley explains, doesn't look much different for them compared to other church planters—except for the laws. He explains:

I've done a great deal of meeting believers, talking with people about the plant, and seeking to raise awareness about this work. Yet one has to be careful here to appropriately honor the laws. . . . I've had to navigate where we'll meet until the building is complete and ensure that wherever we do meet is legal. I cannot take the right to free assembly here for granted like I'd be able to in the States. And since the government has invited me here, it's important the church meet in a government-approved venue.

Though many associate hostility with the Arabian Peninsula, Manley says his new neighbors show more interest in Christianity than some in the West.

"I anticipate the plant here will be a slow work in which believers learn what it means to be committed to the local church under the preached Word and are equipped for the many opportunities around them," he said. "And there are many opportunities."

Though they've been granted land, RAK Church is currently meeting in a convention center until they can raise enough funds for their own building.

"A building in one sense is priceless since the land itself has to be given by the government," Manley said. "You can't buy land for this purpose in this part of the world. Obviously, a building facilitates much ministry. In this part of the world, it affords stability, recognition, and even legitimacy in the eyes of the local people. It also provides a valuable center for resources and training. Thinking long-term about this region, opportunities like this one should be seized upon and stewarded with great care."

We recently returned home from the The Gospel Coalition 2013 National Conference in Orlando and are catching up with life and work. What a tremendous time it was for TGC International Outreach! My wife, Cindi, and I felt so privileged to meet with so many in attendance. Our team engaged in nearly 100 meetings with missionaries, publishers, supporters, and nationals from all over the world. The five days were long and intense but incredibly encouraging. We are always touched by how the Lord is clearly building his global church.

As we've done at other conferences, we offered the attendees a chance to preorder cases of "theological famine relief" books through our Packing Hope program. Just from this one conference, 75 cases of books will be packed, sent, and distributed to more than 15 countries through field relationships with many of our partners. If you missed this opportunity, you can always order from our Packing Hope resource page.

By way of a brief annual report, I'm excited to offer two statistical summaries of how God worked in 2012:

• 24 Relief Projects were funded in 11 languages, including resources by Piper, Sproul, Carson, Keller, Bridges, Grudem, Gilbert, and others.
• God enabled us to distribute more than 64,000 resources to 40 countries in 11 languages, including Russian, French, Hindi, Spanish, Telugu, Chinese, and Burmese.

Most importantly, though, our hearts are burdened to get that one critical gospel-centered resource into the hands of the pastor who badly needs it for his own soul and to lead those in his own congregation.

This month please pray for and consider:

• Reading and subscribing to our monthly update.
• Supporting our current Relief Project to translate and publish Mark Dever's What Is a Healthy Church? into the Khmer language (Cambodia).
• Becoming a monthly supporter of Theological Famine Relief for the global church.

Other News from TGC International Outreach

• Standing with the Church in Cambodia
• Ukraine: "In the Light"
• Zambia: A Christian Nation in Need of Christ
• New Haitian Creole Resource: John Piper's Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die

God has provided enormous blessings to today's Christian church in the Western world. We enjoy amazing freedom, resources, and opportunity. Yet world poverty and Christian persecution endures. Why has God blessed our churches in such times? God's call to Abraham gives us insight: "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing" (Genesis 12:2).

Our country, our churches, and our families have been blessed in order to be a blessing to the world. Are we using those resources to bless the world? Many of us have lost our biblical perspective. Our Western brand of Christianity is increasingly out of touch with our brothers and sisters across the globe.

Lost Perspective

If you make $49,802 per year (average income in the United States) you earn more money than 99 percent of the world's population. If your family earns $23,050 per year (U.S. poverty level for family of four) you are in the top 19 percent of the world's richest people. More than one-half of the world's population lives below the internationally defined poverty line of less than $2 a day. We are the richest church in the history of the world.

The gifts we have been given were not intended to merely provide us comfort and security, but instead used to better serve those in need. Our Christian brothers and sisters are struggling. Every year more than 100,000 Christians are killed for what they believe. Today 200 million Christians in 60 countries are denied basic human rights because of their faith. Today 300 million people don't have a Bible available in their own language. Can't we afford to do more? As Tim Keller tells us, "Because Jesus served you in such a radical way, you have a joyful need to serve."

Why We're Blessed

Paul told the Christians in Corinth, "You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God" (2 Corinthians 9:11). God does not need us to expand his kingdom, but he has blessed us with the extreme privilege of sharing his name with the world. Our goal, in everything we do, is to glorify God. We are to bless the world and expand the reach of the gospel. God did not give us good health and resources so we could spoil ourselves. Use all God has given you to expand his kingdom and share his Word.

Doctor, teacher, and janitor is not your only calling. Those are not only the ways you serve your fellow man but also the means God has given to provide his mercy and love to others. "One of the worst things we can ever do," R.C. Sproul tells us, "is to waste the gifts that God has given to us." Our time, our resources, and our heart should be diverted away from primarily seeking our own pleasure and comfort and toward expanding God's kingdom and glory. Serving the poor is not about sympathy for their condition, it is also sharing the gifts we were given when God had mercy for our condition.

James taught the early church, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:27). Serving the needy around the world or on your block is the calling of every Christian. When God places a needy stranger in your path he is giving you the opportunity to show that person the grace and mercy of Jesus. Giving a coat or a sandwich to the destitute is like giving a piece of the new heart you have been given from Christ.

Bless the World

God has richly blessed our Western churches and families. Augustine told us we can enjoy God's blessings, but we must share them in God's name: "Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others." We must use God's resources for what they were intended: God's glory in the world. God's grace and mercy poured out on us should create Christians devoted to blessing the world in God's name.

Giving our leftovers was not the goal when God called for us to give our lives. Make a sacrifice in your life today to better enable the expansion of the gospel into the world. When you give dignity, mercy, love, justice, charity, and respect to others you are letting them see Christ in your words and actions. We must not lose sight of why God has blessed us so richly. Paul reminds us: "who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Corinthians 1:4).

The late Adrian Rogers said, "You cannot obey God without your obedience spilling out in a blessing to all those around you." Let's strive to bless the world with the blessings God has given us.

It seemed like such a small thing in comparison to the Hebrews' deliverance through the Red Sea. Nonetheless, I felt like bursting into a song of praise like Miriam did when the water came crashing down on the pursuing Egyptian army (Ex. 15:21). The Lord had triumphed gloriously on our behalf, parting the tempestuous waves of our fears. We rejoiced to see the rock-solid foundation that remained unshakeable beneath our feet. My husband, David, and I often reminisce about this story from nearly five years ago. We don't want to forget what the Lord taught us that day.

It had been two days since we stepped foot onto the sizzling tarmac at the airport, with all our earthly belongings strategically packed into six black trunks. "Hey guys! Over here!" we heard an American accent lift above the din of the noise once we were outside the terminal. "I think that's him," David said as he scanned the crowd of people. "Can you see him?" he asked. "I dunno," I replied. I had met our friend Rick* only once, about a year before we landed, plus we were at a breakfast buffet at the time. I memorized all the varieties of pancake syrups, but I didn't remember Rick's face. 

"Welcome to the Arabian desert! You guys must be exhausted." He pushed through the crowd to get us. "Hi, Aliza, did you like the airplane ride?" Our 16-month-old gave him a sleepy once-over and laid her head on my shoulder, where she fell asleep while we walked to the car. We loaded our luggage and drove a few hours into the desert to our new home for the next semester. It was pitch black outside, as there wasn't much moonlight to illumine the dunes. I took notice, though, of Rick's unique sunglasses, which he wore on a strap around his neck. I asked a casual question about the glasses, and received a thorough explanation of the importance of proper eye care in this desert climate.

Running Errands 

I don't remember the next day, since the three of us slept for 13 hours. After we came to, we made a list of urgent errands. We would have to go to the big city to get these things done, so my husband, our traveling companion, our toddler, and I climbed into a Jeep to make the drive. Our hosts gave us good advice for our errands, and reminded us not to eat or drink in public because it is illegal to do so while the sun is up during the fasting month.

The sandy dunes yawned on and on for almost two hours before we saw the skyline on the dusty horizon. Although I was tired, overheated, and nauseous from being pregnant, I was excited about this great adventure the Lord was taking us on.

When we rolled into the city my enthusiasm quickly waned. Everything was intimidating and unfamiliar—the driving habits of other drivers, the street signs, the roads that didn't match the GPS, and the people we asked for help. Lost, hot, hungry, and irritated, we pulled into a petrol station to re-strategize our errands and eat a snack in the bathroom stall. Then we all piled back into the Jeep with no more direction than when we parked the car.

Little Aliza began to cry and complain that she was too hot. Her frustration matched ours, and pulling back onto the main road proved it. Like many of us do when we're lost and upset, the two men in the front began to argue about where to go. Then we saw the sign that meant we were about to pass under a tollgate, and everyone simultaneously remembered that the car didn't have a toll sticker. Now all of us were arguing, and I began to pitch in with my unhelpful thoughts. "This whole day has been useless and pointless."

"Fine. Great—just great," my husband muttered as he changed lanes to get on the next slip road. He pulled up to another petrol station and got in line to refill the tank. The tank was nowhere near empty, but we were empty on patience and hope.

Watching the numbers tick by on the gas pump, my anxious thoughts multiplied within me. Lord, how are we going to do anything here? We can't even get a simple errand done much less help start a church. Lord, how? How? The cares of my heart were interrupted by something I saw out of the corner of my eye. Walking into the fast food joint next door was a man wearing a pair of unique sunglasses. It was Rick, the one man we knew in a city of nearly 2 million people. Was I seeing a desert mirage? Of all the places in the city for us to have a meltdown, the Lord ordained it to be a block away from our friend's house when he had a craving for take-out. We cheered and thanked the Lord for his providence and grace. Rick led us to his house where he fed us, encouraged us in the Lord, and sorted out some of our errands. Some of us even dozed off on his couch.

This incident seems so slight when we consider all that God has done, but it's an illustration of God's faithfulness, which is hardly a small thing. What I needed in that moment was to remember that when the cares of my heart are many, the Lord's consolations cheer my soul (Ps. 94:19). God made it clear to us that by his mighty hand and his outstretched arm he takes care of our family. This is how he will accomplish his work in this place. Scripture reminds us again and again of the rock-steady consolation of God's promised presence as he leads us through frightening valleys, tumultuous waters, and overwhelming deserts.

Hear from missionaries, theologians, pastors, and other church leaders on how we can play our part in the Great Commission. We are asking God to bless this event by spreading passion for global missions among those who attend. We dare to pray that many will respond by committing themselves to cross-cultural outreach both at home and around the world.

Watch our free livestreaming video feed (live.thegospelcoalition.org) of the follow events and sessions (all times are EDT):

8:30 AM - Worship and Prayer for the World

9:00 AM - Missionary Testimony

9:15 AM - Expository Plenary #3 - The Heart of God in the Call to Proclaim: Our Goal: To Please Him (2 Cor. 5:1-10) John Piper

10:30 AM - Missionary Testimony

10:45 AM - Topical Plenary #2 - The Individual's Suffering and the Salvation of the World Michael Oh

6:30 PM - Worship and Prayer for the World

6:45 PM - Missionary Testimony

7:00 PM - Topical Plenary #3 - Jesus and Justice - Stephen Um

8:15 PM - Expository Plenary #4 - The Ministry of Reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:11-21) Mack Stiles

 
For more information visit our 2013 National Conference section.

Starting today, hear from missionaries, theologians, pastors, and other church leaders on how we can play our part in the Great Commission. We are asking God to bless this event by spreading passion for global missions among those who attend. We dare to pray that many will respond by committing themselves to cross-cultural outreach both at home and around the world.

Watch our free livestreaming video feed (live.thegospelcoalition.org) of the follow events and sessions (all times are EDT):

1:00 PM - Pre-Conference Begins with Worship and Prayer for the World

1:30 PM - Missionary Testimony

1:45 PM - Expository Plenary #1 - The Biblical Basis for Missions: Treasure in Jars of Clay: (2 Cor. 4:1-12) Don Carson

3:15 PM - Topical Plenary #1 - Are People Without Christ Really Lost? - Andy Davis

6:30 PM - Worship

6:50 PM - Missionary Testimony

7:05 PM - Expository Plenary #2 - Why the Great Commission is Great: Reaching More and More People (2 Cor. 4:13-18) David Platt

For more information visit our 2013 National Conference section.

Imagine, if you can, a training center for young doctors whose curriculum focused entirely on studying individual parts of the human body. One day students might investigate the elbow, which would arrive hermetically sealed and sterile. Next, attention would shift to the kidney or the eyeball and so on. Over time, each part of the body would become the subject of extensive analysis, being dissected and re-dissected into ever smaller units, which would themselves then become the focus of further scholarly inquiry. Yet at no point would students ever investigate the interaction between these parts and their relationship to the body as a whole. Indeed, though the existence of the body was widely recognized as "fact," the very idea of such an enquiry into its combined function was deemed "unscientific" by the authorities and ruled out as a suitable topic for research.

What would be the consequences of such an approach to medical education? To begin, while students might graduate with extensive knowledge about all manner of things, they would understand next to nothing about the parts they had been examining. For how can you explain what a nose is and does without reference to the face on which it sits, the central nervous system, and the brain? Worse still, they would be hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with a person as a whole. Their training would give them no way of distinguishing between a complete collection of diverse human "material"—each piece carefully dissected, labeled, and sealed in individual plastic bags—and their own living, breathing daughter. Without some understanding of the bigger picture, of how the parts fit together within the whole, their knowledge would ultimately amount to almost nothing.

The scenario is of course ludicrous in the extreme. No one in his or her right mind would ever dream of studying human biology in this way. And yet such an approach more or less describes how the Bible is being studied far too often.

Unity of Message

Biblical theology has long been championed by Sydney Anglicans in Australia and has also found wide acceptance in North America. But mainland Europe (and Germany in particular) has widely lost sight of the unity and the one central message of the Bible.

Having rejected the notion of a single divine author, many scholars, teachers, and preachers have lost sight of the theological and conceptual unity within the 66 books of the Scriptures, emphasizing instead their diversity and examining ever-smaller portions of text without regard for their wider literary context.

The consequences have been disastrous. Few today think of the Bible as a book so much as a loose collection of literary fragments that reflect multiple viewpoints and agendas without a coherent center. Even within so-called evangelical theological colleges, there seems to be little comprehension of how the whole Bible can be read as one unified book, leaving many contemporary church leaders with little clarity about what their message is or should be. As a result the evangel (gospel), which stands at the center of the Scriptures, is no longer preached in many Protestant German churches.

All of which serves to underscore Germany's desperate need for biblical theology. In distinction to systematic theology, which represents a thematic approach, biblical theology seeks to discover the unity of the Bible amid its diversity. Taking its cue from Luke 24:27, 44-45, biblical theology seeks to understand Jesus' claim that in some sense the Old Testament is about him and in particular his sufferings, death, and resurrection. As such, it is concerned with God's great message of salvation in the form it actually takes in the Bible. In other words, biblical theology attempts to tell the story of God's interaction with his world, of what he "has done and will do to bring this world to judgment and his people to salvation."

Evangelium21

In order to equip and strengthen church leaders in German-speaking Europe to understand and preach the life-giving gospel faithfully from all of Scripture, the German-language Gospel Coalition—Evangelium21—is putting on its third major conference. From April 4 to 6, Vaughan Roberts and Michael Lawrence will be the main speakers at the Evangelium21 conference in Hamburg, Germany. Our theme will be biblical theology.

Vaughan Roberts is rector of the Anglican St. Ebbe's Church in Oxford, UK, and president of the Proclamation Trust, which offers conferences and resources for preachers and training up the next generation of Bible teachers. His book God's Big Picture is a helpful introduction to biblical theology.

Michael Lawrence has been the senior pastor of Hinson Baptist Church in Portland, Oregon, since 2010 and previously served as associate pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. His book Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church is another helpful resource for those who seek to gain a better understanding of biblical theology. The two main speakers will be joined by some German speakers from the Evangelium21 network. You can get more information on the conference in this English brochure.

Evangelium21 has a mission to revive and strengthen churches and intends to create a network to bring like-minded people together and recommend helpful contacts and resources for one another. To this end, Evangelium21 has begun to translate and produce gospel-centered materials that emphasize the centrality of the gospel, not only for church life, but also for life in general.

Please pray that God would bear much fruit from the conferences and would use the efforts of Evangelium21 and similar national gospel networks to bring revival and fan the Reformation flame in Europe!

As a member of the leadership team that conceived and is launching the Cross Conference, I am thrilled to be part of it. Here is my seven-point answer to why this conference exists (December 27 to 30, 2013, at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville).

One

With 7,000 schools of higher learning, and 15,000,000 students, and a spread of 5,000 miles (from Maine to Hawaii), there is room in America for another conference about the most important issue in the world.

Two

In fact, we believe that God is stirring among young people today not unlike he was in the Student Volunteer Movement a hundred years ago. Between 1886 and 1910, this movement sent out 4,338 missionaries. More than 50 percent of all missionaries from America between 1906 and 1909 were Student Volunteers. We would like to join others in helping students lift their sails into this new wind of the Spirit.

Three

More specifically, we see a growing tide of students with a big view of God as sovereign and glorious. This tide has been fed by decades of God-exalting worship music, Bible-saturated campus ministries, and the book-publishing and social-media explosion of the Reformed resurgence. In other words, there are thousands of students eager to plug the cord of their passion into the great biblical truths of the Reformation. They care about building their lives and ministries on robust theology. We want to point that tide to the unreached peoples of the world.

Four

We are driven by what John Stott called a passion "for His Imperial Majesty, Jesus Christ, and for the glory of his empire." For all we know, America may be a footnote in history someday, and every President virtually forgotten, like the Caesars of Rome. But we know beyond all doubt that the kingdom of Christ "shall never be destroyed. . . . It shall break in pieces all kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever" (Daniel 2:44).

Christ's kingdom will triumph without sword or gun or bomb, because Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting" (John 18:36). Bold and brokenhearted emissaries of Christ will conquer, not with weapons of the flesh, but "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death" (Revelation 12:11). We want to call students to this path of sacrificial triumph.

Five

We are awakened to the terrible reality of eternal suffering, the universal scope of human fallenness, and the absolute necessity of hearing and believing the gospel of Jesus in order to be saved (Romans 10:13-17). One of the flags we want to wave over every generation of students is: "Followers of Jesus care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering."

Jesus spared the leper, and Jesus spoke of hell. Nobody in the Bible spoke so much of eternal suffering as Jesus did. We believe all humans are headed there unless they hear and believe the gospel of Jesus. God has put the remedy in our hands. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. We have the joyful news that God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17). We want to mobilize thousands of students under this flag.

Six

We see the unique task of the missionary to be taking the gospel to the unreached and unengaged peoples of the world. God calls many Christians to many other worthy ministries. But missions is the glorious calling to learn a language, cross a culture, and speak the gospel in order to plant the church of Jesus among a people group with no cultural access to the gospel.

There are about 3,100 people groups in the world that are "unengaged"—that is, there is no known plan being implemented to reach them with the biblical gospel. We want that fact to be prominent in our conference. Under Christ and his gospel, that is our focus.

Seven

We believe that this kind of focus and this kind of student are an explosive combination. That is why Cross exists. We would like to bring them together and see what the Holy Spirit might detonate.

* * * * * * * * * *

World missions is the glorious gospel enterprise of going like Christ into another cultural world to rescue people from eternal suffering, and renovate their broken lives, that they might render to God the splendor of his majesty through faith in Christ. There is no better reason to lose your life and no greater way to live it.

The Cross Leadership Team (Kevin DeYoung, Mack Stiles, David Platt, David Sitton, Thabiti Anyabwile, John Piper, and Zane Pratt) have a burden to build a new student missions conference that would trumpet the global majesty of God's sovereign grace, the gospel passion of Christ to rescue people from eternal suffering, and the remaining task of planting the church among the unreached and unengaged peoples of the world. We are not a church. We are not a new campus ministry. We are not an offshoot of any existing ministry, as thankful as we are for so many likeminded movements and organizations. Our aim is simpler and more focused: We want to host a conference that, we pray, may be used of God to mobilize students in the cause of frontier missions for the global glory of Jesus Christ. That's our passion our purpose.

The first 500 people to sign up for the conference can attend at a big discount: only $50. We'd like you to spend some of your Christmas holiday with us. We promise not to waste your time. You only have one life. We don't want you to waste it—any of it.