Tag: encouragement

A new name to reach a changing world: Ethnos360

A new name to reach a changing world: Ethnos360

The organization Julie and I serve with has changed its name to Ethnos360 because we’re positioning to reach a changing world. Our founders had a vision for reaching the world: “By unflinching determination we hazard our lives and gamble all for Christ until we have reached the last tribe regardless of where that tribe might be.” (Brown […]
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Getting ready for the race

Getting ready for the race

Just up the road a bit, crews work feverishly to get ready for the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. On July 2, the drivers will come to the starting lineup, look out over their logo-bedecked hoods and think, “I could go so much faster if I didn’t have a thousand pounds of sponsor […]
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Unreached, close at hand

Unreached, close at hand

It’s Baja California. Tourists. Beaches. Fish tacos. And hidden in plain sight are a variety of people groups: Zapoteca, Mixteca, Triqui and more. People who have held onto their languages and worldviews in spite of constant pressures to assimilate. As one missionary here said, “The children all say they don’t speak Triqui. But then they […]
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Made it to our conference …

Made it to our conference …

Well, Julie and I are in the second day of our conference here, and all is going well. We’re having a wonderful time reconnecting with missionaries who serve, literally, around the world, and are being enriched by some world-class teaching from Dr. Mark L. Bailey, president of Dallas Theological Seminary. But perhaps you are wondering […]
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Heading for Missouri

Heading for Missouri

We hit the road again Thursday, bound for a conference at our training center in Missouri. So I was, let’s say, disappointed that the car wouldn’t start when we tried to leave for church Sunday. Julie and I continue to drive thousands of miles for our ministry each year. I think the most reasonable course […]
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Encouragement, a lost teaching (part 5)

Encouragement, a lost teaching (part 5)

Looking at the words the Bible uses for encourage  — paramuthia and parakaleo – we saw that they really have no exact English translations. They both mean encourage and comfort and exhort, all the time. In English those are three different concepts – but in the original Greek they are one concept. From that we […]
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Encouragement, Part 4: But what’s that mean?

Encouragement, Part 4: But what’s that mean?

One of the reasons we don’t really understand what the Bible means when it says, “Encourage one another,” is that there are not precise translations for the two words the Bible uses for encourage. That’s why those words are translated also as comfort, exhort and help. So let’s delve into these words a bit more […]
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Encouragement, Part 3: It’s all Greek to me

Encouragement, Part 3: It’s all Greek to me

The problem we have with encouragement gets deeper when we see the depth of what the Bible means. But solutions also start to come into focus. Now I’m going to do something that I generally try to avoid. I’m going to go back to the original New Testament Greek. I usually try to avoid this […]
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