Unfortunately, another South Korean medical missionary was killed by the Taliban this morning.
The victim, "identified as 29 year-old Shim Sung-min was found about 50 miles from where the original group of 23 Korean Christian volunteers was abducted on July 19, near Qarabagh on the main highway.
Shim was said to have quit his job at a Seoul IT company two months ago to become a teacher to the disabled at a church in Seoul"
Of late, their church Saemul Presbyterian, has been criticized for sending missionaries to such a dangerous place. I do not agree with this criticism, rather I praise God that he still raises up men like Shim who hear the voice of Jesus say: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." and who answer by saying "I will follow" and dying to self they quit comfortable jobs, and take up their cross and serve their savior in dangerous and difficult circumstances.
In prior centuries, it was understood that becoming a missionary was an assurance of an early death. It was said that the young men and women who served Christ in the mission field went out bearing their coffins with them. They went because they loved their Lord, they heard his call and they saw the need. They saw the sin, the sickness,the want, and the darkness in which many whom Christ died to save were living and their desire was to go bearing light in that darkness; to feed the hungry, tend to the sick, and bring the eternal hope of the gospel to a world without hope. So they went out with Christ's assurance: "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it."
As I read the story of these missionaries, I was reminded of the story of the awesome self-sacrifice of the Moravian missionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries, here is but one of their stories from a letter written by a Pastor R.M. McCheyne to his congregation in 1839:
"The most striking example of self-devotedness in the cause of Christ of which I ever heard in these days of deadness, was told here last week by an English minister. It has never been printed, and therefore I will relate it to you, just as I heard it, to stir up our cold hearts, that we may give ourselves to the Lord.
The awful disease of leprosy still exists in Africa. Whether it be the same leprosy as that mentioned in the Bible, I do not know, but it is regarded as incurable, and so infectious that no one dares to come near the leper. In the south of Africa there is a large lazarhouse for lepers. It is an immense space, enclosed by a very high wall, and containing fields, which the lepers cultivate. There is only one entrance, which is strictly guarded. Whenever anyone is found with the marks of leprosy upon him, he is brought to this gate and obliged to enter in, never to return. No one who enters in by that awful gate is ever allowed to come out again. Within this abode of misery there are multitudes of lepers in all stages of the disease. Dr. Halbeck, a missionary of the Church of England, from the top of a neighboring hill, saw them at work. He noticed two particularly sowing peas in the field. The one had no hands, the other had no feet - these members being wasted away by disease. The one who wanted the hands was carrying the other who wanted the feet upon his back, and he again carried in his hands the bag of seed, and dropped a pea every now and then, which the other pressed into the ground with his foot; and so they managed the work of one man between the two. Ah! how little we know of the misery that is in the world! Such is this prisonhouse of disease.
But you will ask, who cares for the souls of the hapless inmates? Who will venture to enter in at this dreadful gate, never to return again? Who will forsake father and mother, houses and land, to carry the message of a Savior to these poor lepers? Two Moravian missionaries, impelled by a divine love for souls, have chosen the lazarhouse as their field of labor. They entered it never to come out again; and I am told that as soon as these die, other Moravians are quite ready to fill their place. Ah! my dear friends, may we not blush, and be ashamed before God, that we, redeemed with the same blood, and taught by the same Spirit, should yet be so unlike these men in vehement, heart-consuming love to Jesus and the souls of men?"
What is stunning however was the vitriol expressed by other Koreans towards these kidnapped missionaries. Articles in Korean English Language dailies detailed how fellow Koreans actually sent emails to the Taliban exposing how the missionaries were there to evangelize and not merely to heal and encouraging the Taliban to kill them. How anyone could take sides with the Taliban, especially when these bloodthirsty Jihadis would be just as likely to kidnap and kill as infidel "apes and pigs" the same Koreans who were encouraging them would be impossible to understand were it not for Christ's warning:
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:18-20a)
It may seem bizarre, but just as hatred of Christ caused the Pharisees, Saducees, and Herodians to become friendly and willing to work together, so too hatred of Christ can make bedfellows of Korean Socialists and Afghan Jihadis.
The hatred that the Taliban showed towards the Korean Missionaries was understandable. As Jihadis who are waging "holy war" to establish one worldwide Islamic Caliphate they have nothing but contempt for "kuffars" especially those working to bring the light and peace of the gospel to the nations that have suffered so long under the darkness of Islam. They also think nothing of killing teachers and nurses, blowing up schools, preventing the education of girls and doing whatever it takes to ensure the hegemony of Sharia Law is never questioned. (cont'd)
Great shame on all Korean christian missionaries! They have nothing to do with the words of Jesus. You are just salespeople. Simply... empirialist salespeople. Beware of the seeds you are sowing now!
This spreading the gospel to the nations is what Christ's true disciples did and have been doing. The non-Christian Afghans do not know the Father for they deny His Son and do not come to the father through Jesus:
"Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also." (1 John 2:23)
Additionally, they feel they can be saved by their works (including dying in the Jihad), but the word tells us no man can work his way into heaven: "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)
Mike, at one time when I was a pagan, I would have agreed with you, now having had the scales removed from my eyes, I would urge you to follow the instruction of Christ to "Repent and Believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15) for as Peter preached: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)
Your Post: "Jesus prohibited from proselytizing. When you disobey Jesus this will be the result. The Afghans already believe in God."
Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees: Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
He said this because they were wicked religious men trying to make converts to their wickedness and leading people to hell.
However, He did tell His followers to preach the Gospel to every creature and to go and make disciples unto Him of all nations. (Matt 28:19 and Mark 16:15)
My first instinct was simply to delete your comment as neither Christian nor profitable, but I'll leave it up and instead respond and let others do so.
Jesus clearly never "prohibited proselytizing" quite the opposite in fact. During his earthly ministry he sent out his followers to preach the gospel (for instance the seventy of Luke 10), he himself went about preaching the gospel and urging all to repent and believe, he went into Samaria and urged the Samaritans to believe in him telling them their worship was wrong, he gained converts there and they in turn converted others. Christ crossed the Sea of Galilee to bring the gospel to the Greeks of Gadara. When his ministry was over he COMMISSIONED his church to spread the gospel to every nation:
"And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. (Mathew 28:18-20)
"While I agree that the civil magistrate has duty to defend his people from the evil that the Jahadis desire to do, the church has a duty to take the gospel even to those who would make us martyrs, remembering that once we were all just as blind ourselves."
Hallelujah for your post.
Loving our neighbor as ourselves demands the laying down our lives for the salvation of the lost world in darkness. Shout it from the highest mountain and echo it in the lowest valley. Jesus saves!! Jesus saves!!
While I agree that the civil magistrate has a duty to defend his people from the evil that the Jihadis desire to do, the church has a duty to take the gospel even to those who would make us Martyrs, remembering that we were all once just as blind ourselves
You will recall that after Jim Eliott and his 4 fellow missionaries were murdered by the Alca Indians, the response of the church was not "kill 50 Alcas for the five missionaries they killed" rather Jim's own wife and Nate Saint's sister went to the Alcas and ended up converting the whole village. The same sort of thing was done by the same Christians who were being killed by the very Romans whose eternal good they were seeking.
But regardless of whether or not the church is granted success in her endeavors by the Lord, our duty to forgive them and carry the gospel to them is just the same.
Luke 54-56 "And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village."
Maybe I am Peter striking off the ear of Malchus, but I'm so sick of the patheticness of the world when it comes to terrorism. Why do we tolerate it? Should we not strike them 100 fold for each missionary they kill? Or should we resort to Eph. 6:10 and leave what is physical and ONLY deal with the spiritual? Why are we so reluctant to root out evil? Warn them, then destroy them, using maximum force! It's because we tolerate and toy with evil that it's so prevalent. Why suffer Amalek to continually bite us in the heel?
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9/21/07 5:25 PM
