Exloring Life Eternal

Today, I again called the priest of the local Greek Ortho church:
His name is Nick & the church is called St. Nicholas. He was out blessing homes & would be busy for the remainder of the month, unable to answer a simple 5 minute question about the Greek Bible version used in by the Greek Ortho's. Ah, well. The other day a dear local "levite" who loves to share the gospel adamantly insisted that he didn't like a church policy of encouraging generosity & mutuality.

I guess I will just have to ask a "Samaritan" while the levites & the priests busy on ahead.

Ironically, my brother Mark & I have pleasant conversations about the faith at times, and he attends a Greek Orthodox Church where the kids study the Bible. Also, I have co-workers who are Greek Orthodox (one guy helps me learn a few Greek phrases). One person seems a bit frustrated by the $ orientation of church, but that is a common blight in building oriented congregations.

But Jesus never fails.
He loves us, the cross proved it. His resurrection convinced us of it.

That is after all, why we have the Bible, so we can come to know Jesus a little better.

This note was in my inbox this AM which, I thought was ironic. (Everybody needs Jesus, & the Bible is given to us so that we can understand Jesus better.)

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...we had been passing out Bibles by placing them at the doorsteps of apartments in the several apartment buildings that are in our neighborhood. As we were doing this in one building, a lady saw what it was and called the local priest to come check it out. The priest arrived, saw that we were handing out Bibles, and flew into a rage. The woman told the priest that she did what the church had told her to do in reporting anything that might be against the Orthodox church. The priest began asking K. why we are doing that, calling us a “sect” and generally causing an uproar. K. told him that it is not Protestant literature or anything against the Orthodox church, but just a Bible. The priest said that a Bible was not needed for salvation, that salvation is only through him and the church. K. asked the priest if he had a Bible, and the priest defensively answered, “You think I don’t have a Bible?” The interesting thing is that he never said whether he had one or not. Then he threatened K. by saying that he would call the police. K. remained calm, only continuing to press the issue of the importance of giving the people Bibles. Then the priest started to get in his car, but not before holding out his hand so that the people around could kiss it.

We went home for lunch, and while we were eating, the doorbell rang. It was three police officers, and they asked K. to go to the station so they could ask him some questions. K. drove our van, following them to the station. They took him to a room where a fourth police officer was, and asked him what was going on. The man who processes our visas came in to reassure the other officers that our visas and work permits were all in order and in good standing. He asked a few questions also, but it was determined that we had not broken any laws and were guilty of nothing. So, they just told us to give out the Bibles one on one instead of just putting them in front of doors. So K. agreed and they told him he could go. So, K. was never arrested, spent no time in jail or anything like that. K. said they were very civil and not at all antagonistic. And, the police officer asked if they could keep the Bible there, so K. told them that was fine, and that he could bring more Bibles if they wanted them – but they all said that the one was enough.

So, K. came home. ... he walked in the door, but didn’t even tell us he was home. I heard some rustling in the other room, and asked who was there (thinking it was one of the kids messing with something). He answered that he was home, and we all had a good laugh that he was such at peace about it all! We all thanked the Lord as we listened to his story of what happened.

We are now slowing down in our Bible distribution, giving out the Bibles to people we already have relationships with and spending more time talking with them. We went to our neighbor’s home last night and had a good visit with them about the Bible. We will go to several more homes today. We have over 700 more to give out.

Please continue praying for us! We’re so thankful for all that has happened, seeing God’s hand in it all – His hand of protection, His hand of guidance, His hand of mercy. We look forward to continuing to serve and get out the powerful Word of God!

Joyfully,
J.