Dave Dishman

Guidance from Overlooked Men and Women of the Bible

Category: Mission (Page 1 of 26)

lamy of Santa Fe

Wise Words From the Bishop

November 27, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I just finished the book Lamy of Santa Fe, about the missionary bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who arrived in New Mexico in 1851. Lamy served in the wild west, traveling thousand of miles by horseback, burro and wagon. He went hungry and thirsty at times, fought off bands of raiders and buried co-workers. All to carry the good news to all the peoples of the Southwest.

His quote after years of arduous ministry life caught my eye:

The divine word is a mirror that discloses to the ambitious all the infidelity of the world which he serves. It lets him see his ingratitude
toward God, whom he has rejected, abandoned. This divine word is a mirror without taint that shows the impenitent sinner the danger to which he exposes himself in falling into the hands of the terrible justice of God.

Jean-Baptiste Lamy

The entire time Lamy traveled and taught and encouraged he emphasized the Scriptures. The divine word, a mirror without taint, reflects clearly our issues before the Lord, and Lamy unhesitatingly showed people their reflection.

The divine word works the same for us today, when we’ll willing to give it a look.

sourdough

Not Flashy, Rather Slow, Yet Unstoppable

August 2, 2022 / / 0 Comments

One of the positive side-effects of the covid pandemic was the return of many of us to our kitchens. I read of lots of people learning to cook from scratch and trying recipes never before attempted by their own hands.

Sourdough bread tops the list. Two friends of mine attempted to keep sourdough starters alive. One found other pandemic interests and let hers die, but the other loved it and still bakes bread. I’m amazed at the bread starter—you must feed the yeast to keep it alive.

Jesus borrowed this idea to describe the kingdom of heaven: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.

Not flashy, rather slow, yet unstoppable.

The Christian faith in Africa spread this way over the last one hundred years. From a few missionaries the gospel spread person to person, until today hundreds of millions follow Jesus.

Or consider the Christian faith in China, where over one hundred million people pray to Jesus, despite years of brutal repression and official discouragement. China is on the way to become the largest “Christian” nation on earth and now sends missionaries to their neighbors.

Not flashy, rather slow, yet unstoppable.

Perhaps you’re praying for someone who appears far from the Lord? Be encouraged, the Lord’s not far from them. Pray for a speck of the kingdom to tumble into their life. Hearts soften, the distant return, and the goodness of the Lord rises in their consciousness.

Not flashy, rather slow, yet unstoppable.

Matthew 13 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Geoffroy Delobel

basket of deplorables

Working with a Basket of Deplorables

July 10, 2022 / / 0 Comments

A few years ago a politician referred to her opponent’s supporters as a basket of deplorables. While the description accurately describes many in politics (both sides of the aisle), in this case it galvanized the opposition. Perhaps it would have been better to quote scripture?

Paul wrote the young church-planter Titus to buck him up in the midst of strenuous efforts among insolent people:

One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons. This saying is true.

How should Titus communicate with new church members from this demographic? Speak loving words softly and tenderly? Nope—in this case more truth than grace:

Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith.

Rough crowd for a church-planter, but Titus took to the challenge. He planted multiple churches on the island. He stuck it out through frustrating meetings, provocative sermons and very few five-star reviews.

Paul and Titus considered no soil too hard for the gospel. In fact, the development of churches in Crete led by indigenous leaders showed how the message of Jesus penetrated even the most defiant of cultures.

I actually like the phrase basket of deplorables, and I’m tempted to stamp the label on many I disagree with. But the flourishing Cretan churches founded by Titus pull me up short. No one is too far gone to turn to the Lord.

I’ve seen it happen again and again. God goes after those farthest from him, redeems them and uses them to build his church.

Titus 1 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Maria Teneva

joy and opposition

Welcoming the Message with Joy and Suffering

June 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Birthed in chaos best describes the church in Thessalonica. Paul writes to the church a bit later (1 Thessalonians), and in his praise remembers how they welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

I flipped back to Acts 17 to review the wild account. Paul arrived in town and preached for several weeks at the synagogue. Jews, God-fearing Greeks, and quite a few prominent women joined the Jesus movement. But fierce opposition arose in the form of a riotous mob. They shouted to the city officials, These men who have turned the world upside down have now come here!

Turned the world upside down, indeed. The believers snuck Paul out of town under the cover of darkness, and he escaped to the next city.

But the Thessalonian church members stayed put. Planted in their now hostile hometown, they faced opposition and suffering, accompanied by an unusual characteristic—joy.

People come to faith in Jesus under all sorts of circumstances. As Paul traveled and shared the gospel, multitudes embraced his message. The Holy Spirit empowered these new believers to face hostile neighbors with bravery and joy, exactly like many Jesus-followers today.

When Jesus invades a life, there’s no telling how a person will respond—or how the people around them will react. Joy and opposition often dine together in the lives of those who follow Jesus.

Like Paul, we simply follow the Lord’s command to preach the gospel, and let the Holy Spirit clean up the mess.

1 Thessalonians 1 in week twenty-four of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz

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