Perspectives- Jim Rhodes

Jim Rhodes is a 30-year Campus Crusades missionary that has planted ministries in the USSR, Japan, Africa, and most recently the Middle East. His introduction to Middle Eastern ministry came when his friend convinced him to join him on a trip to Cairo in the mid-1990's, dropped him in the middle of a crowded plaza and took a taxi to take care of some things. The crowd turned and shouted "American!" and though he thought this would be the end, he really just had to work his way through the crowd buying trinkets and sharing personal space. He said that though it was a new strange place, he felt at home like never before, and his ministry has flourished there. The topic was "Mandate for the Nations," which dug into the Great Commission and related commands. We walked through the history of Judaism and how the These points struck me:

• Every kingdom has a king, so Christianity is not a democracy.
• Al Qaeda is the modern-day Ninevah, where Jonah tried not to go. What is our response for today's "evil empires?" Are we praying for those people?
• God's heart is to bless and save, ours is to curse and destroy.
• The Israelites were under 700 years of military rule, 400 of which God was quiet, and into this world Jesus came.
• To protect their core tenets, Jews were ethnocentric (our culture is best), legalistic (built 6,000 hedge-laws around the 613 laws of Moses to protect against serious infractions), and had a fortress mentality (protect blessing by keeping others out).
• Accountability, a popular Christian discipline, can protect against sins but does not change the heart.
• Street interviews have revealed that Christians are perceived to be against lots of things, which is exactly like the Pharisees of Jesus' time. Christ was against the Pharisees most of all.
• Matthew (a tax collector that took Jews' money to pay Rome, i.e. a traitor) is used to proclaim the Messiah to the Jews. He explains that Jesus has a clear blood line to Abraham and David, but also has blood of other nations mixed in. Therefore, He is the King of the Nations.
• Jews of His time were not as mad about His claim to be the Messiah, but that Gentiles were in God's favor. The Samaritan woman, a line descended from mixed-blood Jews, was the first that Jesus told that He was the Messiah.
• In Mark 4, Jesus goes across a stormy lake where the disciples nearly drown to a really bad town where the disciples are attacked by a demon-possessed lunatic. Jesus heals the guy, then they turn around and go back. This one guy was important enough to Jesus for the whole trip.
• If people really know who Jesus is, they will want to follow Him. But so few know Him.

Jim closed with two points. First, if you are going to walk with Jesus, you have to go with Him, to seek and save what is lost. We were created to have a place in the Kingdom, we just have to find out what it is. Second, it is impossible to say that the Spirit indwells you and not be involved in evangelization. We are blessed to bless others. The question is how we will follow Him.