'Dear Pastor Mohammed, isn't it time you changed your name?'

(Apolgies for the formatting problems- I don't know yet how to fix this. Try the version here

In the book Joining the Family, Tim Green refers to an Iranian pastor called 'Rev Mohammad' and asks "Can 'Rev' and 'Mohammad' go together? Why not?!"

He actually raises an important and quite complex question.

My answer would be that it is a matter of freedom for the believer, and I believe the Bible implicity gives us guidance, but I am aware that many will instinctively have strong opinions for or against a name change.

Some will feel 'how can you continue to be named after a man who...?' I will leave you to complete the sentence. However, consider this imagined conversation up the front of church:

"My name is Mohammed, we joined the church a couple of years ago and I'm overseeing the youth club here. I'm named after my grandfather, whom I love dearly.  I spent many happy holidays in his village learning to keep bees and tend the fig trees in his orchard. Like the rest of my family he is a Muslim - I came to know the Lord was a student ten years ago, so I know it's a funny name for a youth pastor but I wanted to explain why I still like to be called Mohammed!"

Others, of course, may find they associate the name more with the founder of their previous religion, and so prefer to make a complete break with their previous captivity to a worldview they now see as dark and deceptive. Still others may go by two different names.

I recall William Carey becoming clear in his mind that converts did not have to abandon pagan names, because of a name in Romans 16.* For me it was as I prepared a sermon about Epaphroditus in Philippians 2. This unsung hero of the early church retained a name that means 'Of Aphrodite', the Greek goddess of love and procreation. Clearly this was a name borne of an unbiblical worldview: he was, in truth, conceived according to the plan of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not Aphrodite (Venus to the Romans). But Paul did not insist on renaming him, even though alternative names are quite common in the pages of the New Testament account (Joseph was nicknamed Barnabas, there's "John, who was also called Mark", Saul renamed Paul, Simon also called Peter).

Christians sometimes refer to the principle of 'plundering the Egyptians': that is, the gold and silver of idolaters was given to the Israelites as they left Egypt and it must have been what was used to build the tabernacle for the worship of the One True God. Similarly, a name with pagan connotations can be redeemed for holy purposes. We should not think superstitiously of a name as carrying some 'curse'.

This is an important issue, because a hasty abandonment of one's birth name can add insult to injury for the biological family. It is good, as much as possible, for believers to retain good relations with their kith and kin. Remember Jesus' instruction to Legion: “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” (Mark 5:19)

In the case of Mohammed, there is an additional consideration: the root meaning (from the three consonants H-M-D) is something perfectly acceptable to Christians: it means 'praiseworthy' (compare the oft-heard 'Elhumdullilah': “Praise be to God”).

There's plenty of middle ground, too. One Kurdish friend of mine dislikes the prophet and so prefers to be called Hamo. Mo is a common shortening in the West. We should be sensitive to people's preferences: I much prefer being called Jeremy now, but to those who have always known me as Jerry it just sounds strange for me to hear them calling me Jeremy. Names are complex things. In some contexts, locals don't handle foreign names well so people end up being called something similar that trips off the tongue more easily. For a Middle-Easterner trying to get on in, say, the construction industry or the school playground, it may well be prudent to take on a well-chosen Western name. If they don’t, quite likely others will mangle their name for them. Before we moved to Kurdistan, I decided to take on the name Îbrahîm. Jeremy meant very little to Kurds; it was often confused with Jamie (or even Germany! I know too what it’s like to be subject to the Law of Hobson-Jobson). I was glad to have chosen the name Îbrahîm; when people said ‘why did you choose an Islamic name?’ I liked to clarify that Abraham was the one to whom God promised blessing- for all the nations, including Kurds who have so often been downtrodden. However, since our neighbour’s son was called ‘Îbo’, the mother decided to disambiguate by calling me Îbê (Yes- the online marketplace, about which she was blissfully ignorant. And I still bear the nickname Ebay among Kurdish friends- with great pride!).

But panning out a bit from the wisdom calls people may make about diminutives and additional names, we could usefully meditate more deeply on what names are. Fundamentally, they represent our character, and so the real 'name change' new disciples should seek is one where we are known for our kindness, humility, hard work etc.

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." (Proverbs 22:1). Conversely, "As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor." (Ecclesiastes 10:1). Someone who is obsessed with what name they are given should instead labour to put off besetting sins: a bad temper or lying, or addiction to alcohol or nicotine perhaps. This is what will give their name a pleasing aroma rather than a putrid one.

In conclusion, this is an area where we should respect Christian freedoms and keep the main thing as the main thing. When I shared this article with a friend who served in Ethiopia, he instanced another legitimate approach:  But you will sense that I have a strong sympathy with those who retain the name given them by their family, perhaps supplemented by a suitable Christian name that encapsulates something of their new identity. Here's another imagined statement of identity:

"I'm Mohammed, I grew up in Shiraz, but some people call me Martyn; I'm named after the brilliant C19th linguist who died young through his labours translating the Bible into Persian. Like Henry Martyn I love the people of Persia and often share with them the good news of Jesus our Liberator." 

*See S Pearce Carey's biography.

'Neither Demonise nor Idolise': Praying for Governments

The following are famous verses; you may have heard them read out often in church. But their significance, I think, is often overlooked. Paul writes to Timothy:

 First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2 for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.

(1 Timothy 2:1-6 CSB)

I am not sure of this, but I sense that v2 is often misunderstood. I do not think that we ask for governors' policies to lead us to have tranquil and quiet lives, with all godliness and dignity. After all, no government policy can lead you to be godly and dignified. Rather, I think Paul is saying that if we obey v1 and pray for the government, our church communities will be living in a calm and peace-loving way. They'll be on their knees praying rather than running around throwing stones through government windows.
If you have lived in a country where insurrection or violent overthrow of the government is being countenanced, you might appreciate Paul's words a little more. In the UK, we do not expect churches to be plotting against Westminster. But in many countries, the suspicion is that churches are fundamentally seeking to bring about regime change. So, Paul's instruction, as his first remedial step for a church showing many signs of poor health, is to pray for kings, with thanksgiving- fancy that! This is a reminder that governments should not be demonised. If they are corrupt and cruel, it is not because they are fundamentally different from us, but because they are sinners like us, and may be acting with seared consciences, wreaking great destruction on their citizens - or on foreign citizens through unjust warfare. But in every case I can think of, governments, both national and local, do some good even when they are corrupt and heavy-handed.

On the other hand, in some countries the regime tries to court the favour of evangelicals, seeing them as convenient allies to bolster their rule. In such contexts, evangelicals need to treat the authorities not as divine beings who are the source of all good in society. They should pray for them. And although churches generally seem to pray for the policy-making of governments, Paul actually seems to be saying we should pray for the salvation of these magistrates. This takes courage in some countries, because implicitly it is saying that a Mr President with his private jets and militias, and his impressive welfare programmes intending to 'save' the needy is in fact himself in need of saving. Notice also the command to pray for kings and all those in authority. This further undermines the cult of the 'Big Man' who likes to be seen with the army, the airport-builders and the football coach, as if he was responsible for all the nations' successes. A king is of course just one among many authorities; we should pray for those who organise refuse collections, health and safety officers and many others besides.
So, pstors, if you want to influence the government of your country, do by all means expound the texts that explicitly teach how governments should behave- Rom 13: they are to rule for our good, not personal gain, and 1 Pet 2:14, they are to "punish those who do what is evil and to praise those who do what is good"- but also make sure our churches regularly pray for those in authority. We teach a lot by how we mobilise people to pray in public.
Here is a rota you could use to make sure that different areas of government (the UK, in this case) get prayed for over the course of a year, or in one prayer meeting with eight break-out groups according to my schema. Either way, one result should be that members of your church are more aware of who the various government officials actually are!

Non-Christian Festivals as Prompts to Explore the Bible Further

If your church has a smaller, more informal evening service, or an adult Sunday school class, you could make good use of the festivals and special days during the year to teach on some key themes. (One could easily sprinkle a few of these in each year, rather than do them all in one year):

These dates could equally be used in the preparation of intercessory prayer, or be a prompt for cultural engagement in a church newsletter. These were dates in 2023: see correct dates for this year.

Jan 15th- eve of Martin Luther King Day. Huge issues raised here about racial harmony. A study of black people in the Bible also makes for a fascinating topical sermon.

Jan 22 Sanctity of Life Sunday (that's easier done in USA than UK, because we don't have that Sunday set aside)

Feb 5 Lantern Festival (Chinese). Admittedly, I don't know what issues arise from this key Chinese festival. 

March- 

Wed 8 March- International Women's Day. Opportunity to encourage healthy complementarianism...

21 March- Newroz. This Iranian-Kurdish-Afghan festival draws on the redemption story of Kawa slaying the tyrant Zahhak. Signposts Christ. Use Zechariah's song in Luke 1.

March-April Ramadan. In 2023 this will be a test of loyalties for Iranic peoples. Will Nowruz feasting trump Ramadan fasting? 

Apr (often) Passover. Jews will be found all over the globe. No points for finding out if this can lead to a Bible Study!

Sat 22 April (2023) Earth Day. We need great discernment here: we should not worship Gaia, but we should steward God's creation.

Jun - Feast of Sacrifice. Muslims commemorating Abraham's sacrifice. Again, straight into the OT.

October Diwali- this is a festival of light. How about preaching an in-depth biblical theology of light? 

November- Remembrance Sunday. Teach a biblical theology of war and peace. Psalm 46, and the swords to ploughshares hope of Isaiah/Micah.

Further Reading:

I am grateful for the heads-up about Diwali from the helpful article Planting Multiethnic & Transcultural Churches by Reid Monaghan

Applying anti-Pharisee texts to the Majority Faith

Big Point: Following in the footsteps of Jesus' challenge to the Pharisees means we must be eager to show that though some may keep the Five Pillars, we all fall woefully short of the Ten Commandments.

Jesus is criticised: “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” Matt 15:2

Jesus' reply in summary: "you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition." v6.

Yes, I'm referring to the faith that most people in our context adhere to. And increasingly, M people make up a significant chunk of our cities in the UK.

And yet few sermons in mainstream evangelical churches in the West take time to critique their worldview, even though there are often BMBs in our congregations.

A friend asked me how you might preach on the Pharisees as regards this other faith. At one level, it's good to point out how washing is very common in this religion (see also the Hindu practice of washing in the Ganges), and M people will often be quite aware of how people can be outwardly clean but inwardly impure. Just read up on wudu and ghusl on Wikipedia and you'll see how much care is taken to wash the body before worship. Westerners will find it extraordinary how external these regulations are. Note a detail like this: 'flatulence' (breaking wind) invalidates ritual cleansing.

Three Kurdish proverbs will illustrate how popular lore loves to expose hypocrisy, making good use of rhyme & irreverent wordplay:

1. xiyar e; ji tîtkî diyar e - 'it's a cucumber; it will be apparent by its stalk'. Cf Jesus:  'a tree will be known by its fruit'
2. serve qat e, binve pat e: 'a suit on the outside, rags underneath'
3. serve qazî, binve qaz: 'Islamic judge on the outside, goose on the inside' (I've only heard this from one Kurd, so it's less well-known)

One big point that I think needs to be made is that the Majority Faith has done a massive substitution, namely they have placed the Five Pillars in the place of the Ten Commandments. Now I'm not saying that the Pillars are regarded as functionally equivalent to the Decalogue, but that the law of Moses has been obscured from people's sight in this religion. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition you are expected to know the Ten Commandments and they have been, for example in the Anglican tradition, painted on the church walls and read out as a way to bring the congregation to a place of penitence before sins are confessed and forgiveness is pronounced. The Five Pillars make ritual very central to their piety; only almsgiving is what we would call moral law, and then that is the formal aspect of giving not the 'going the extra mile', pouring yourself out in service of others sort of giving.  

I honestly can say that after two decades of ministering to Muslims, I have never met someone who knew what the Ten Commandments were. No doubt those well educated in world religions would know them. But the Decalogue just doesn't seem to figure in their catechising. Please correct me in the comments below if you have examples of where the Decalogue is included in their teaching.

Now it is true that the commandments against idolatry sound like what many imams inveigh against. But commandment 3- using Yahweh's name in vain - does not seem much known and even this year I have seen two Muslim shopkeepers very irritated by Muslims who use God's name to get a discount ("you're a Muslim, aren't you?" said the Nigerian to the Iranian Kurd tailor, pushing hard for a discount; also, the Alevi kebab man in the Midlands who was narked at his Sunni colleague who bunked off at midday on Friday because Sunnis attend prayers. 'Is there even a mosque in Rugby?' I asked the Alevi. "Oh I don't know, he said. But they just leave me to do all the work")

The command against murder amongst extremists gets weakened by the 'but they're infidels' excuse.

Further to this there is the problem of the Tenth Commandment. I really think there is a cultural impact from the neglect/ignorance of this commandment. Greed is just not stigmatised in the way it is in cultures influenced by Christianity. External religious practice gets to cover over the love of money and a host of evils that flow from it.

Romans 4 on Abraham: Turn your Yawns into Songs of Joy

I once preached in a little church outside Oxford on Romans 4: Paul's long discourse on Abraham the man of faith. One of the congregants was clearly not much grabbed by the passage and afterwards told me of his sadness that Paul had taken the simple message of Jesus and messed it up with unnecessarily complicated theological pronouncements!

It is true that Romans 4 is somewhat parenthetical (ie it could be enclosed within brackets). Paul's argument would proceed perfectly smoothly if 3:28 skipped right over to 5:1. But here I will endeavour to show why Paul's long exploration of Abraham's faith is an important strengthening of his argument in Romans- and that in an Islamic context it makes an important point in correcting the false assumption that Muslims are the true heirs of Abraham's religion.

Much preaching of Romans skates over the historical content of the letter. This is a shame, because understanding the setting helps us to preach the doctrine of Romans as inherently practical. Very evident in Romans are the tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome. I enjoyed Christopher Ash's brief introduction to the letter, available in this free sample chapter. These were tumultuous times for Jews in Rome; we know that because in Acts 18:2 we read that Priscilla and Aquila were in Corinth, after the Jews were expelled from Rome by the emperor. But a few years later this famed house-church host and hostess were back in Rome (see Romans 16:3).

Put yourself in the shoes of the first-century Jew. They were tremendously proud; they saw themselves as God's chosen people, morally far above the degenerate pagans around them. And then try and imagine the hostility of many Gentiles to these Jews. The Emperor Claudius had seen fit to turf the lot of them out of the capital city. There must have been a simmering dislike of the Jews, or else his decree would have been so unpopular as to weaken his rule. Some 8 years after the expulsion of the Jews, Paul writes Romans. The church was clearly an uneasy mix of Jews and Gentiles; perhaps the first converts in the imperial capital were Jews who had returned, reborn, from the Day of Pentecost, at which we know Romans were present. But during the Jews' exile from Rome, the Gentiles must have gained prominence in the church. Paul is clearly addressing their dismissive or even contemptuous attitude towards Jews in chapter 11: verses 1, 11, and 19-20. 'Do not arrogantly think God has finally rejected the Jews', Paul argues.

Something to underline in Romans is Paul's beautiful prayer in 15:5-6. This shows us how Paul wanted them not just to grasp sound docrine, but to live out that teaching in harmony, as Jew and Gentile together in one church:

5 Now may the God who gives[a] endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice.

So, how does this help us understand the long excursus Paul makes in Romans 4? Paul is teaching doctrine at great length, with OT backing. The Jews, of course, boasted that they were sons of Abraham, and had circumcision to show their membership of this covenant. The Gentiles were, on the other hand, in their eyes uncircumcised and dirty. If they had been accepted into God's family by faith, which the Jewish believers assented to, it was a stretch for some of them to accept Gentile believers into the inner circle and to think of them as sons of Abraham. This attitude, if left unchallenged, would do great damage to the unity of the church. So, you see, Paul's definition of true Christians - whether Jew or Gentile - as sons of Abraham, was of great pastoral importance.

Now, having gone to Rome, let's zoom to the modern Kurdish context. Is Romans 4 really important for the fellowship of believers here? We believe that all Scripture is God-breathed and useful, but often it takes time and careful reflection to see what precisely its use is.

A Kurdish believer will likely feel very lonely in their new faith; they will be shunned by relatives. This is unlikely to be a showdown between well thought-through doctrinal positions, but there is a deep-seated sense that Kurds have, since time immemorial, been Muslims, and it is a great sin to depart from that faith. That culture, that feeling that Muslims have the pure and simple monotheism that shines a light on pagan idolatry and Christian 'tritheism', owes a lot to beliefs about Abraham. At the very least, every year Abraham is invoked at the Feast of Sacrifice, when his willingness to sacrifice his son is remembered. But also, it is perhaps little known that Abraham is believed to have gone with Ishmael to Mecca to build the Kaaba. So, to be attached to the hajj and the centre-point of Islamic spirituality, the revered city of Mecca, is to stand by the religion that Abraham supposedly founded.

It is not sufficient armoury for believers to embrace Rom 1-3 and argue 'you cannot be saved by works; the only way is by faith in Christ'. Romans 5, too, has tremendous comforts for those who 'have been justified by faith' (v1); even the trial of persecution is for their good (5:3). But in between these vital sections comes a bolstering of Paul's gospel in ch 4, and it comes by way of a long discourse about how both Jewish and Gentile believers are descendants of Abraham.

Evangelical Christianity must be viewed by many in the Middle East as a sort of new-fangled, trendy sect of an ancient faith, a movement that spreads by material and perhaps sexual enticements; it is associated sometimes with guitars and modern praise music, Ultimate Frisbee and English lessons, all offered with alarmingly free mixing of the sexes. So, Romans 4 can help us show how historically-rooted evangelical Christianity is. The gospel goes back (at least) as far as Father Abraham. The evangelicals' controversial claim that you just have to believe and you get free forgiveness actually goes back to Abraham who believed and it was counted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6).

More could be said from the standpoint of Kurdish patriotism. Abraham travelled to Urfa (Harran- see Gen 11:31), and there there is a huge fishpond which commemorates him there. This is a very Kurdish city, the home town of singers Shivan Perwer and Ibrahim Tatlises and a certain paramilitary leader also... The border crossing between Turkey & Iraqi Kurdistan is called Ibrahim Khalil. It refers to Abraham's title 'Abraham the friend of God'. Believers should know the story of Abraham and be able to defend their belief that they walk in the footsteps of Abraham. Romans 4 helps us greatly in this.

7 Giving and Receiving Critique

 As Christians, we should all sign off on the need to be 'teachable'.  Reading through Proverbs this month I have been struck by how many proverbs exhort us to receive correction and not stiffen our necks.

In many seminary and church settings, there are lots of things in church life where review is vital if the church is to grow up in its service of Christ.

However, cultures do this in somewhat different ways and we must be willing to adjust the way we do things. Unless I am mistaken, there is a spectrum and people from the USA tend to be reluctant to critique publicly for fear that they will crush the spirits of the one being critiqued. Brits are more on the direct and confrontational end and perhaps the Dutch are further along that spectrum- but having not lived in Holland that may be only a stereotype.

I was made aware of my own expectations by listening to an interesting Dick Lucas interview. This grandfather of British evangelicalism is asked about the emergence of the Proclamation Trust and he explains that it had its origins in the early 1980s in a group of ministers getting together and critiquing each others' sermons. For one thing, the story of the Proclamation Trust -  a hugely influential evangelical organisation in the UK and beyond - is refreshing. It began not with Dick Lucas or anyone else 'telling everyone else how to preach rightly' but a collective discovery that pastors were routinely getting the text wrong by receiving correction from their peers.

Uncle Dick traces this approach back to the camps on which he was converted and became a leader - the 'Bash' camps that nurtured many British evangelical leaders.  E.J.H. Nash used to publicly review the talks given to the schoolboys and 'called a spade a spade', judging by Lucas' memories.  Clearly the approach exemplified by Bash was later deemed by the network of clergy connected with St Helen's Church to be a painful but necessary remedy for the weaknesses in our preaching.

As it happens, I was converted through the same schools ministry and gained a wonderful training in Christian ministry in that context, so I came to see critique of talks given in a group setting to be a healthy way to help believers grow in their skills as exegetes and preachers.

As for cultures that take a different approach, we should all bear with one another as we bring different expectations to the table in an international setting. But I would want us to distinguish between publicly confronting people for sin - which Matthew 18 tells us should be done privately - and reviewing public pronouncements. In some cases, surely a private word would be better- irritating or embarrassing habits in speech and body language, for example. But the one who steps up to issue a public declaration of what God's word means does have to be prepared to face public correction. The same goes for those who promulgate teaching in written forms- they do have to face a public correction if they lead people astray, or else their false teaching will spread unchecked.

But for the Brits and the Dutch and whoever else may be inclined to be 'brutally' honest: let's remember the Lord Jesus' example:

A bruised reed he will not break,
    and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out (Matthew 12:20 NIVUK)

Exploring Assyria: Opening our eyes to the drama of the OT

A Christian lady in my Mum’s village was interested in my presentation and asked for a bit of a reading-list to help people get to grips with the role of the Assyrians in the OT. So here goes:

If you find dates difficult, just remember your OT ABC!

The Israelites came into the Promised Land but God said if they worshipped false gods and did not respect human rights, eg by practising child sacrifice, they would suffer the same fate as the Canaanites whom they drove out of Palestine. So God sent 

SSYRIA: 10 of the 12 tribes sent off into exile (N Iraq) 722 BC

ABYLON: Judah and Benjamin sent off to Babylon (S Iraq) 587 BC

YRUS: The king of Persia allows the Jews to return and rebuild their temple (539 BC) 

The Assyrian Empire was a desperately cruel superpower. (Check what they boasted in: see panels in British Museum)  Nahum 3:19

However, I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Bible presents a caricature of the Assyrians.  Human beings are precious to God and therefore Assyria are characterised for their oppression and wickedness (Isaiah 14:25; Jonah 3:8) and their pride (Isaiah 10:12-14).

Interestingly, there is an acknowledgement in the OT of the genius of Sennacherib: he was an amazing statesman and water engineer as well as a warmongerer: see 2 Kings 18:32; 19:23-24).  This accords with the Sennacherib documented so well by Dr Stephanie Dalley from extra-biblical sources.

If I was to preach a sermon series on Assyria (in an Iraqi context where there is particular interest in Assyria), I suppose I might sketch it out as follows:

1. Assyria: Who were they? Only mentioned once in Psalms Psalm 83:8
1. Mentioned in the Table of Nations, Gen 10:22; considering Gen 12:3 they have a bright future as recipients of blessing through Abraham’s offspring 
2. But synonymous with pride (much to boast in: Is 10:18) and cruelty, and God promises to judge them
3. But hope held out for their salvation Ps 83:16
4. Mention Tatian the Assyrian, early Bible translator.  Assyrian Christianity was a remarkable movement spreading as far as China (C.Baumer’s book)
2. Isaiah 10: a key chapter about Assyria
1. Note 9:12- Arameans & Philistines fade from view as Assyria looms large…
2. 10:5 very famous description of Assyria as ‘the rod of my anger’
3. A spiritual feast: it teaches us that God is in control of the likes of Hitler and Daesh and uses them, mysteriously, to achieve his purposes
3. Jonah: sent to preach in capital of Assyria
1. Jonah 4:2  shows how much God loves even Nazis and the like
4. Nahum: this book is the twin of Jonah
1. Yes God is merciful to evil people, but his patience is not unlimited
2. Nahum preached c140 years after Jonah and by that stage they had returned to their cruel ways
3. God’s justice is something to rejoice in
5. Assyria has a special place in God’s plan: Isaiah 19:23-25
1. This text is an object lesson in interpretation of OT prophecy
2. Assyria no more important than Britain, Brazil or Burkina Faso, but an encouragement that the most cruel and idolatrous nations - Egypt and Assyria in this chapter - can be claimed by Christ for his kingdom