From Tennis To Translation: A Pastor's Journey with Jason Peters

We reconnect with pastor and linguist Jason Peters to trace how God redeemed a life shaped by addiction and turned it toward the unreached. We share why our strategy shifted from short-term projects to adopting people groups until churches and Bibles in heart languages exist.

• every tribe and tongue as the guiding vision
• host and guest testimonies of surrender and discipleship
• mentors, study habits, and learning Greek and Hebrew
• planting and pastoring through hardship to Driftwood
• moving from short-term projects to long-term adoption
• why Bible translation and linguistics are mission-critical
• small churches making a global dent with steady giving
• business as mission and practical skills for workers
• urgency around 2033 translation goals and technology
• crowns, rewards, and motivation without works-righteousness
• partnerships with Ethnos360, stories from PNG and Bangladesh
• prayer in Greek and a call to take the next step

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Transcript

Vision Of Every Tribe And Tongue

SPEAKER_02 0:05

In Revelation 7, John shares his vision of heaven with members from every tribe, tongue, people, and language standing in the throne room before the Lamb. Yet today, there are still over 7,000 unreached people groups around the world. My family and friends have been on a journey to find, vet, and fund the task remaining. Come journey with us to the ends of the earth as we share the supernatural stories of God at work through the men and women he has called to reach the unreached.

Season Theme: Unreached Trailblazers

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Over the past several seasons of the Unreached Podcast, we have come across men and women who are carving out unique and creative pathways to fulfill the Great Commission. They are authors, innovators. We like to call them Trailblazers. And this is one of their stories. So today, enjoy this episode of Unreached Trailblazers.

Host’s Conversion And Early Discipleship Gaps

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Unreached Podcast. Dustin Elliott here today, your host. I had a really uh really interesting and really special guest today. So to set the table for this talk, I'm gonna have to go back into my own life. So I I did not really grow up in the church. I got saved and baptized at 17 uh when a when a missionary came through and did a sermon series on the gospel in a little church of Christ on Highway 31 in Brownsboro, Texas, about 30 people, single-room church in the building. And the last week he was there, um I grabbed him before he left and I said, I I want that for my life. And so we cleaned the cobwebs, you know, out of the out of the tub in the back of the church, and I got baptized. And and I'd love to tell you that my life changed from there. But but what really happened was he left town, nobody discipled me. I went to college, you know, was always aware of God and certainly prayed, you know, when it was time to pass a final, but really wasn't walking with the Lord. And then after I graduated, my sister who was at UT at the time said, Hey, there's this church in town, they're doing a a church at this place called the um Austin Music Hall downtown. Why don't we go check it out? So I went down and checked it out and we started to kind of get plugged in at this church, and it was very different, obviously, than what I experienced in a 30-person church of Christ that didn't even have a pastor. And so I started kind of figuring out, you know, what it meant to be a Christian. And while I was there, uh I met some guys that were on staff and we started doing a couple of Bible studies. Well, now one of those guys, Chris Larson, is uh on on staff at Austin Ridge, our church now leading uh our campus up in Marble Falls.

Reconnecting With Jason Peters

SPEAKER_02 2:38

And another one of those guys just reconnected. We just ran into each other randomly recently, and his name is Jason Peters, and we start rapping, and Jason tells me about what God's done in his life since then, and I could not believe it, but of course I could believe it because it's God doing God things. So Jason is now pastoring a church in Driftwood, Texas called Faith Bible Church. He's gone on to seminary, got a master's in Greek and Hebrew, and we start talking about the unreached and the global church, and he's just got this huge heart for it. We start asking, who do you know? Who do you know? We know all these same people. I'm like, dude, we got to come on and tell the story of like how God has worked in our lives for the 15 years we didn't see each other and like what's going on now.

Jason’s Story: Addiction To Surrender

SPEAKER_02 3:23

So, Jason, welcome to the show. And it's super great to be here. I'm so thrilled to have you. So good to reconnect. So let's let's kind of take the listeners through your story a little bit. So, what I know about your background was you were a you were a tennis player in college, and then you became a tennis pro and a tennis coach, and then kind of go take us from there and your wife, and how'd you get to know the Lord and get involved in the ministry?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, so pray to prayer at five. Uh my mom and sister were talking about hell. It was a place I didn't want to go, but got into alcoholism and and all kinds of stuff, debaucherous stuff at a really, really early age. I'd say middle school and and really just couldn't ever figure out how to make Jesus any part of my life. I wasn't hostile to Jesus, but I was very, very, very consumed with the world and sports and things like that. So uh fast forward through high school, just still uh uh, you know, a a closet alcoholic, you could say. You know, went and played tennis in college, flunked out of a couple places, probably a lot due to my inability to stay out of bars and and all that kind of thing, finished at a division two school, had too much to drink one night, got a girl pregnant. So I'm now a single dad. I moved to Austin. And so, man, tennis academy was hard. Life was hard, but God was super faithful. The thing started to take off, and when I really hit a sweet spot with the Tennis Academy, I woke up one morning and just started crying over my life and was like, all right, God, if you're real, here's my life. Do whatever you want. I can't keep living the way I am. Man, I in my room, I mean, it's as clear as as day. There's my dad had given me this book by Charles Ryrie on theology that was sitting on a shelf. So I picked it up, started reading it. Picked up a Bible, started reading it. Three months later, I meet Maggie, my wife, married since uh 2009, November 21st. If you're listening, dear, I know the day and the year. And the month. Dude, come on. Put a deposit in that bank. That's right. And and so we are engaged in July. Her brother-in-law is working for a church. I somehow get hired for that church, and that's how our paths connect, leading up to that.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Aaron Powell That's right. That's right. So then we you're you're leading these Bible studies downtown, and it's just men's studies. With no idea. And I have talked about it. And I had no idea either. Perfect. Yes, yes. Uh forgive us, Lord, and all those listening if we got you uh off the path, or most certainly I'm sure we did. That's right. But we were seeking, we were trying to figure it out. I mean, I my testimony, um, my videos live on my LinkedIn uh that the church did on me, and I talk about it in my testimony, and and really what the way I say it was I was a walking integrity crisis. I was living two lives, right? I was who I needed to be in front of certain people on Saturday night, and who I thought I needed to be fairly hung over on Sunday

Discipleship, Deep Study, And Mentors

SPEAKER_02 6:31

morning, and by the grace of God got to the right place and met some of the right people, and and Pastor Brad Thomas discipled me for 18 months uh with a group of seven or eight guys and went through the whole Bible and that changed my life. So, what happened in your life after we met that set it on a different course, really all in with the Lord?

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, I mean I'd say I was when I came to Christ, I I was all in. I was just never should have been hired. I wasn't ready from sports. My personality is super obsessive, compulsive, right? So if it's with the wrong things, bad, but with the right things, good. And so, man, I just dove in um to studying God's word. Like could not get enough. And so God put a guy named Bruce Hurt in my life. Uh, it was a really funny story. I was with um a couple uh that my wife was good friends with, Zach and Jenny Allen back in the day. And I was at their house and I'm reading the Bible on the phone while I'm supposed to be hanging out with with everybody. And Zach was like, dude, you seem kind of like a Bible nut. I got a guy for you. Show up at his house at 6 a.m. on whatever day. I'm like, okay, like I'm I'm in, dude. I'm in. And so I get there and they're in they're in Daniel 9. And so I walk in to Bruce's house and he hands me a packet of cross references. Like, and I'm remember, I'm green. Yeah, I have no idea. And I'm like, what is this? I mean, I have no context for any of this. So I just sit there trying not to be too red-faced because I have no idea what's going on. But man, Bruce Hurt is one of the most amazing, godly men that I have ever met and know to this day. And he took me under his wing, he bought me logos Bible software with a computer loaded, he taught me how to study the Bible way before any of the academic stuff, but he also just modeled Jesus for me. So that that God had just captured me at that point. It was it was kind of off to the city.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

And that was in like your early 30s?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, that was 32, 33.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Okay. That's about the same time for me in my lifeline. I think that's important for the listeners to hear, right? These testimonies are also different. You know, we have people on the show that grew up as a missionary kid and knew the Lord from the time they came out. Um and I love that. That's a great faithful testimony. And then we have people that didn't get it right for a long time, and and then, you know, it gives you a different level of empathy and understanding for other people that God brings into your life.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, it's interesting with my with my background in a pastoral role, especially, is I have so much street cred with with non or nominal believers, and s there used to be till I got all the acronyms, there used to be so much uh skepticism from those inside the church of like, really? Yeah, your life doesn't look like the way I envision a pastor's life, like your past. Yeah. But you're right. I mean, God uses all of our stories in a brilliant redemptive way, and my stories allow me to connect with a whole lot of people and and and share the gospel.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

And so you start getting into the word and

Learning Greek And Hebrew To Serve Well

SPEAKER_02 9:46

studying the word, and then something clicked, and you were like, you know what, I want to be taught this more effectively. So you decided to go to seminary and in your 30s and kind of tell us how you got there, what was that like, and how'd you get this heart for languages? So you've got a real thing. I remember seeing you at a coffee shop years ago, and you were sitting there and you were writing characters down on a notepad, and I was like, Well, I don't even recognize those characters. Yeah. You were you were learning Greek and Hebrew. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Yeah, so you get in a when you get in a ministry and you're divorced, uh, the first thing that that the churches that, you know, especially conservative Bible churches, um, they want to know, why were you divorced? Why do you think you have grounds to be in ministry? And of course that's a whole nother, you know, uh conversation at some point. But what kept happening is they kept people kept making appeals to the original languages, the original languages. You don't know the original languages. Did you know that the word blah, you know, uh feastami or something like that means to, you know, our apaluo, send away or or reject or whatever. And so I got so sick of hearing it, I'm like, I'm gonna learn Greek myself because like I wanna, I I don't I'm tired of going writing something, and it's like, here's why I should be allowed to be in ministry, and then it's always, you know, well, what do the scholars say? Blah, blah, blah. And so the way I'm wired is that did not sit well with me. And so I my parents growing up took us to some churches that um all the Dallas Seminary faculty uh were pastoring because we lived in Dallas. So the only place I knew of was Dallas Seminary. So I get on there to enroll, of course, and and Maggie and I are like barely scraping by, and I look at how much it costs, and no offense to Dallas Seminary, I love you guys, but I was like, there's no way I can afford this. So I found the cheapest seminary that had Dallas grads and just enrolled. I think it was like 200 bucks a uh an hour or something. Uh non-accredited, but none of that world that's so important to certain people I cared about. I just needed the information. Needed the information. So got in, did a did a degree in theology, and then jumped into Greek. And after that, it was like it's just Hebrew. So I actually taught myself Hebrew because I started to figure out how languages work, and then I tested out of the Mdiv part. I just took the test to get the Mdiv.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

This is totally normal, right? Just totally for the listeners. Everybody's just thinking, oh yeah, that's what I would do. I I just decided one day to teach myself Hebrew.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Once I understood that how like, you know, similarities in language and all that kind of stuff, then Hebrew actually is not it's the only thing that's difficult is figuring out the verbs. Okay. The verbs are wacky. Yeah. They are for like, yeah, they're wacky. But just as far as education goes, so so I'm also planting churches, helping plant churches, doing different kinds of ministry, but really feel called to preach and teach. And so starting to try to get reps, um, not very successfully in churches that I'm kind of tagging along, either my brother-in-law or, you know, or just wherever God is moving uh Maggie and I. But as far as the academic side, yeah. So I sat on those three degrees. An old friend of mine that had had discipled me, their Greek professor was retiring. They knew I had a master's in Greek, said, Hey, will you come and and teach Greek? We need we want someone young in the seminary as well. So I started doing that as well. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

All right.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah. So I've been teaching Greek uh at the undergrad and grad level for maybe five or six years.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Okay, cool. So now you're pastoring Faith Bible Church, but it wasn't always Faith Bible Church in in Driftwood.

Pastoring Journey And Providence In Driftwood

SPEAKER_02 13:36

So how'd you get involved with that group and tell us that story?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

So when we left there, God had had through a dude I was I was tutoring in Hebrew out in he was a pastor in West Texas, he had someone leave his church and and come to Austin, not leave on, but move to Austin. And I was talking to him about a situation I was in, and he somehow or another, they were looking for a pastor, got my number, called me, and it was like perfect fit. So we show up, and honestly, this thing looks like a crack house. I mean, it's three old educational buildings, they're separated. My wife is is I won't say terrified. Yeah, got it. So that's the space we we I teach or I preach a sermon there, and it's just the most loving people I've ever been around in my life, right? So God calls us there, sell the building a year later. Uh COVID hits, all that stuff happens. We rent space for a year. It was really, really, really hard. Yeah, super tight. Yeah. Like people are are leaving. Um, we're doing us, we're doing a a four o'clock service time. It's just it we're about ready to give up. I'm about ready to go do something else, go full time with the seminary to do something. And a guy named Jerry Merritt, who uh had a church in Westlake, it's now where the new police station or city hall is. Okay, there was a little A-frame Bible church there. And I had used that space to plant or start a plant six, seven years prior. And so Jerry calls me uh, or his treasurer does, uh, out of the blue and says, Hey, Jerry's moving to Florida. Do you want the building?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

I'm like, what do you mean, do I want the building? You I want to rent rent it? Like, what are you talking about? He's like, no. So he's got to do something with the property, can't cash it out. So he's just gonna sign it over to your church. So signs it over to church. Long story short, we sell it for a little over six million dollars. That's how we got to driftwood. Come on. So one thing when that happened, one thing that that God had put on my heart at was don't go where Christ is being named. Don't go. Let's say Paul Romans 15, right? He doesn't want to go to a place where Christ has been named. So we are praying as an elder team. Where can we go where we're not on a church row? We don't want to go next to an Austin Ridge or an Austin Stone or or whatever you know, whatever solid church is preaching the gospel and loving people well. We don't want to be next to you.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, we want to go offer a healthy Bible teaching, exegetical Bible teaching church, a place where there's not one.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah. Good for you. So Driftwood across the street from Salt Lake, this wedding venue, kind of iconic place. Everybody has been there for a sports banquet with their kids, uh, was up for sale. So we bought it, um, you know, remodeled it into a church. It was like 10,000 square foot of of chandeliers and concrete and tin roofs.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

And it smells like barbecue because salt lakes across the street.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah. So we've been out there since since 2022. So that's how we that's that's kind of the long and short of of how we got there.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Yeah. Um Yeah, so we reconnect, just for the listeners, this is kinda kind of a more maybe of a more personal version of the pod than you're used to. But so we we reconnect and start talking, and he's telling me his story, and he's like, Well, tell me your story. So I go through Bless uh, as a lot of you know, with with how we kind of got involved with reach and unreach

From Short Projects To Adopting People Groups

SPEAKER_02 17:09

people groups and created the Bless Fund and to hear that little bit of that story again. Bless originally started, we had five pillars, and we were gonna go out and we were gonna fund projects through kind of sending agencies, mission agencies, in these five pillars, and and it was like fighting human trafficking and protecting vulnerable children, advancing the gospel, mobilizing cross-cultural workers, and supplying life sustaining resources. And we were doing these short-term projects and we were analyzing it as we were doing it, right? And and we were just inviting all of our friends in Austin to give with us to these projects, and we would do a uh an event every December called Light the World, and it we would call we called it a Christmas concert and storytelling benefits. So we'd send a a team with some cameras overseas to wherever the project was going to be, and we would film, you know, like a five-minute documentary, and then we would play Christmas songs and we would show the documentaries and then we'd say, All right, who wants to help support this? That's essentially how it went down. And you know, year one we raised like six hundred thousand dollars, and year two we raised one point two million, and year three we raised two point three million, and you know, since then we've been raising three plus million a year and just giving it all away. And so as we as we started learning kind of what this work was about, we we we kind of started to recognize that like short-term mission trips or these short-term projects in Jesus' name, these are good, but to do a project and leave maybe isn't good. It's not necessarily reaching an unreached people group. It's not planting a healthy, indigenous-led disciple-making church in that in that people group and then leaving them with the Bible translated in their heart language. And God really put it on our heart like you need to finish this work when you engage in a work in a certain part of the world. So we created the the the portfolio and started adopting people groups. So through our time with a lot of agencies, we selected pioneers, Ethnos 360, and GSI as our kind of three main partners. And then we went out and we built a portfolio initially of about 22 UPGs. We wanted to have UPGs from every other world major religion. Because we wanted to take our people through what it was like and the differences, you know, to reach uh someone with a Hindu background versus a Muslim background versus a tribal background versus a Buddhist background, et cetera, right? So as we build this out, you know, Austin Ridge had supported us the whole time. And Ridge as a church adopted five uh in the portfolio. And so now we take our body at Ridge through this on mission Sundays, you know, a couple times a year. And then of course the everyone that's really involved in missions is deeply praying for it and engaging and and and um you know being involved with the missionaries and the workers, etc. And so as this kind of develops, we start to say, okay, well, who else who else could sponsor a people group, right? Like it wealthy families and companies and different things like that. But you know, churches. Churches would be a great option to sponsor a people group and take their body through. And and so then, you know, as God would do it, he reintroduces us and I tell you the story, and you're like, Well, we want one. We want to do this. I want to help my body think more globally, think more Great Commission, because your heart really broke for it, as mine did, just in different paths. And here we are today. So tell us your heart for this work and how you're going about this with your church.

Why Churches Should Adopt A UPG

SPEAKER_00 20:22

I came to the conclusion that we get so focused on local missional living that we have forgotten that the Great Commission is to all nations. And honestly, if we're just being super candid and honest, we use the well, that includes your neighbor across the street as an as kind of a rescuing device to not really get go all in with trying to get the gospel to every nook and cranny of this globe, which is what we're called to do. It's not an either or, it's a both and. And so some things that that I you know when I did my my doctor of ministry in linguistics, well, it was because I had been introduced to the Bible translation community through a guy that still mentors me in in linguistics named you know Dr. Steve Rungi. He's a he's a big name in this little niche market. And so just really with the linguistics skill set I have and rubbing shoulders with with PhDs in linguistics, a lot of them working for a weekly Bible translators and and just hearing what it actually takes to get a source language into a target language and and all the benefits of teaching people to read and and all those kinds of things, it's just a no-brainer. If we want Christ to be Lord in every square inch of this, of this, you know, world we live in, for this movement to be really front and center of churches. I mean, uh just in my humble opinion, like taking people along the journey of seeing a group of people that come to know Christ and need a Bible, get a Bible in their heart language is really. One of the most satisfying and God glorifying endeavors I think we could participate in, because that's literally his last words. I mean, some of Jesus' last actual words are Matthew 28, 19, and 20. We know that, and Acts 1, 8, right? Which dovetail into each other. Like, go make disciples, and I'm going to give you the spirit so you can go do it. Everywhere. That's right. Everywhere. That's right. And so I was I was in a conversation with somebody, and they were just talking about, you know, asking me, because I do uh on the side, I train global pastors in just preaching and teaching basic theology stuff. And they're like, Man, you really have a heart for the global church. You should talk to this guy, and his name's Dustin Elliott. I'll try to introduce. I'm like, I know that guy, you know, and and I had remember the only thing that I had remembered is that, you know, former church days. Yeah. And so I did run into you in a Starbucks, and like your life had changed, which honestly was amazing, but we didn't really talk.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

And so And then I didn't understand the words you were writing on the paper. What is this guy doing over here?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Well, I probably didn't understand him either. Uh you know, so like I send this kind of anxious email of like, hey Dustin, remember me? You know, do you think maybe sometime

Bible Translation, Linguistics, And Mission

SPEAKER_00 23:28

we can have a conversation? I hear you're super involved with unreached people groups. And so, of course, you graciously respond and and we you know jump on a Zoom call and and then start, you know, talking back and forth and know the same people and all that kind of stuff. So now we're full circle doing this.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

So we connected you with Margaret Gibson. Yes, he's our director at Bless. And I think you all had lunch.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic lunch. She's super sharp. Great to connect with her and then figure out how little Faith Bible church can join the this movement to actually adopt an unreached people group and see it come to fruition by God's grace and God's spirit. I mean, this is so sweet. Uh honestly, man, it's it's just part of what every church should do. It's a note, it's it should be a note. When you look at at okay, how you know what's your church about, you have your vision and mission, the new testament's given us that. But sadly, you have these pillars, you know, even at like what I would consider Faith Bible Church, a conservative, you know, Bible-believing church, you have, you know, preach the word on Sunday, do small groups, have a mission, you know, send people out or adopt missionaries on the field, right? So that's three, but why do we not have another one of reach unreached people? I mean, that was the early church's mindset. That was Paul's mindset. It's why he wants to go where he's going. He wants the Roman church to get along. Spain, they gotta get to Spain. Yeah, because there's unreached people there. Yeah, that's right. It's that easy. Not because there's nominal people there. He can, he has, he's there's a church now in place in the first century. That he's written letters to a lot of nominal pla well, I wouldn't say a lot, but especially like Corinth, right? He he's got he's holding that down. He needs to get there. So, so at least as far as the church that that I'm pastoring, along with our elder team, we need to get somewhere. We need to put a dent in this, even if it's a small dent because we're a small church, we don't have a big budget. What Margaret helped me understand was you don't need to have a big budget to jump in the fight. That's right. You don't you just don't need it. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

The heavy lifting is done. The due diligence is done, right? We've we've done that part. And we're gonna we're gonna be there to support your church and every other church. If you'll take this, if you're listening to this and you're either in leadership at a church or you're attending a church, you're part of a church, bring this to your church. Have them listen to this episode. They can do this too. And it's not a ma it's not a massive financial lift. If you ha don't have a missions department or have a small missions department, or have a very large missions department, this is still a component that your church can embrace and your body can engage with, and it is not a one-way street. That's the thing, it's a two-way street. Like when your body gets a chance to help another group of people hear the name of Jesus, come to know Jesus, get their own church, make their own disciples, get their own Bible. When you get to walk through that, which is a commitment of, you know, ten plus years, it is life-changing in both directions. And praise God, you'll spend eternity with that people group celebrating it. That is worth giving your life for. It's certainly worth giving a little bit of your budget for.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

I was thinking about this when I was driving over here. It's I I think we're close to Reformation Day or whatever, and and uh you know, a lot of people laid their lives down because Martin Luther

Small Churches, Big Impact

SPEAKER_00 27:01

wanted to get the Bible into a language for people to read. What's the difference? Like that's what that's what Bless is doing, is that's what adopting an unreached people group is doing. You're gonna you need a you're laying your life down to get the Bible into a language that that people can read. It's just as important because it changes everything. Even literacy with them changes everything. It it preserves the Christian faith. Oral tradition is can be very, very, very consistent, but getting them a text preserves the Christian faith in that in that area, I think like nothing else. Otherwise, God would have just had us pass all this stuff down orally. There's a reason why there's a canon and and those kinds of things. Here's the other thing that if you're a small church and you're listening to this and you don't have a missions budget, but you're passionate about unreached people groups like you should be, do this. Invite a bunch of people over for Thanksgiving and get people to commit, get 10 people, 10 of your friends to commit a hundred bucks. Just a hundred bucks a month. That's nothing. A hundred bucks a month, and and grab and and and put it towards an unreached people group, right? Until you get the missions budget to be able to do it. If it's outside your missions budget, um, that's what we're even thinking about doing. Uh, Maggie and I are is faith Bible church adopt one, but but the people that I run real hard with in ministry that maybe don't aren't a part of the church I pastor, I'm gonna reach out to them and and like, hey, don't don't go do this hobby one one or do this hobby one one day fewer a month. Yeah. Give your hundred bucks, not to some bullets if you're if you're a gun guy or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Let's throw it towards a group of people that need Jesus desperately.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

And just get in the game. We say it all the time, just get in the game, get involved, and and you will you will grow so much, and your body will grow so much if they will engage in and get to know these missionaries and even even business people. Like, so there's a it's not only traditional missions, like a lot of this getting to where the church has not made it yet, a lot of this is going to be on the wings of business, right? So you have business people in your congregation, they have certain skill sets, um, they can get involved and help, you know. A lot of these missionaries have to run a business to be viable and stay in a country. They can help them and coach them and how they're running their business. There's so so many different roles to play, right? So if you go to Global Switchboard and you create a profile for your church or you create a profile for the people in your church and you have them do that, like they're gonna start getting connected to workers around the world who need accounting help and web design and you know, how do I think about my profit and loss statement? And what do I need to do, you know, with this product and the and this is how the pricing changes, this is my supply chain issues, and how do I operate this? Like every single possible gift that God has bestowed upon the believers in the world can be used today through technology. It happens to me, and we did we did a switchboard lunch this week. It

Business As Mission And Global Switchboard

SPEAKER_02 30:01

happens to me almost weekly. I get pinged by somebody in another country, and they've got a business question or a finance question or a question about their their ministry or whatever. And I just get to get on Zoom with them for 30 minutes or an hour and have that conversation. And it's it's it's incredibly, incredibly rewarding. Think about how much it means to them. I mean, I was on one with a group uh a couple last week in the Middle East, they've been there, seven kids, they've been there for 16 years. And their kids are now going to college, and they're like, How are we gonna pay for this? How are we gonna figure this out? And I got to just be there for them and then introduce them to a few other people that could help. That was it. What'd it take? 30 minutes of my time and four emails. Right? You can do that. Everyone can do that now. And it's now it's not now it's not a matter of like how. Now it's just a matter of do you really have a heart for it? And will you just take the next step? Will you just take the right next step to get engaged? So, you know, E10 and Illuminations, Mark Green, the Hobby Lobby family, he spoke about illuminations and E10. Everybody has a shared goal of completing completing Bible translation by 2033. Right? Now 2033 is a pretty big anniversary, right? 2,000 year anniversary of the crucifixion and resurrection and the end of Jesus' earthly ministry. That's coming. It's it's coming. It's eight years from now. So if you think we're gonna use AI and we're gonna use technology and we're gonna do these things, you got eight years to get in this game. And if you don't get in this game, you know, I mean we don't ever talk about the beam of seed, right? Nobody talks about the beam of seed. Why don't we talk about the beam of seed? I I want to talk more about it because there's crowns, right? There's rewards. And this is one of the crowns, right? To get out and and teach and make disciples and be faithful, let's talk about this more and get in it, because I don't want everybody to miss it.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

It doesn't take much, it just takes a little taste to get into this game with the global church before it's you know, it's like me and salt. Now I just gotta put it on everything, doesn't matter what it is, because it's so rewarding. And and of course, it eternally, like you talk about Bamasi judgments and those kinds of things. Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a lost doctrine in the church. It it's just you know, we conflate some things theologically and and that reward that that goal of getting a reward to lay at the feet of Jesus to honor him as king, you know, it should be motivating, but if you don't know about it, it's not going to motivate you. Yeah, we should for sure talk about it. It should be.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I think we don't talk about it because we're worried about it being misunderstood. We're worried about it feeling prosperity or like I'm earning something. Oh, a hundred percent. Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah. And the way honor shame culture works in the first century is if you win a race or you do something in a military, uh, you they give you a crown or a wreath so that you can go honor your patron with that. And so we are getting the crown or the wreath to honor Christ our King and our Lord. That there's nothing prosperity

Urgency: 2033 Bible Translation Goal

SPEAKER_00 33:04

in that. I mean, it's just a misunderstanding.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Totally. We were watching Ben Hur last night uh with my kids, and my daughter's six, and she, you know, she sees Judah Ben Hur get the crown after he wins the race with the horses and and the whole thing happens. And I like I'm like, What do you think about crowns like in heaven? And she's like, What do you mean, Dad? And so I opened it up and I I read it to her. I'm like, though there's the crown of righteousness, the crown of glory, and the other ones, and she's like, I can get a crown from Jesus. Yeah, but but like for Jesus, honey, and she's like, Wow, which one do you think I'll get? What a cool conversation to have with your kid, right? Because I mean she's six and she's like a little princess mode, right? Crowns, crowns are everything right now, right? Alright, yeah. But crowns should be everything. And they're just never talked about.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

I'm preaching through Luke, and there are some places in Luke where if you don't have this theological grid of a bamous seat, you're going to turn the gospel into a works righteousness activity because there are rewards to get. And you can either say they are to prove your justification, or they are for you're in the sanctification process that then you will get to lay at the feet of Jesus. And those are two very different gospels. So it's so this is a difficult issue for people because of how it feels in our modern, you know, hyper-individualistic society of oh, I get this, I get this, I get this. Yeah. But it's so important because it keeps the purity of the gospel, at least in my humble opinion, it it keeps that intact.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, like the second half of James too, right? Faith and good works. Obviously, that's been taken way out of context in a lot of ways. Not the exact same theological doctrine, right? But but related.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

A hundred percent, because decasune or deco, that's the verb form, is used in different ways. So we take James, we take Pauline theology and we cover James with Pauline theology and then look at righteousness language in James as if we're looking at Romans one through you know, Romans one through five, and then we get all confused. But James is a really good Jew, so he knows Zedek, the Hebrew word for righteousness. He he understands that it's also relational, covenantal, and vindication language. And so, yes, your works vindicate your faith, right? But they have nothing to do, your works have nothing to do with with proving your justification. I mean, think about that. That's a slippery slope to go down. We become fruit inspectors, and either we get super insecure or we get super arrogant, pick your poison.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Let's let's talk about your buddy in Papua New Guinea for a second that has the Samaritan aircraft, maybe bridge that into why you have a relationship with Ethno 360 and and how that's probably who you're gonna partner with.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, so I got asked to play in in uh uh this dumb game called Pickleball. You're a tennis guy. You're probably good at it. Well, I don't know about that. But anyways, this dude shows up, he's from out of town, he's looking to play a game, and then we're out in the parking

Crowns, Rewards, And Motivation

SPEAKER_00 36:06

lot, and he said something about church to somebody or something, so we struck up a conversation. And so I figured I find out his you know, Mark Palm, and he's the CEO or the founder and CEO, I can't remember what his role is now, of Samaritan Aviation. This dude is nuts. So he flies float planes, whatever those are, onto and lands on rivers in Papua New Guinea. He's been this has been, I think he's been doing this for 20 or 25 years, and does medical missions and shares the gospel. Just amazing ministry, just like he's just crushing it. Talk about crowns. This dude's gonna have a U-Haul store full of crowns, right? He has flown medical missions for people that I that the crab trees are ministering to. That's right. Yeah, so that's how they know each other. Uh, because Papua New Guinea is what do they call like the last frontier. Still, I don't know how many unreached people groups or uh and and languages are yet to be figured out.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Well, there's there's like more different languages per square mile there than anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Right. That's right. That's right. So so we support Mark as a church. He's been here a few times. Everybody seems connected with with Ethnos 360, especially with Papua New Guinea. Yeah. So for the seminary I'm at also has a great relationship with ethnos. It's a no-brainer for us. We're gonna have a uh we'll be at a conference or or having a hosting a conference at Ethnos in Florida uh next year as well. So they're smart, they're savvy, they get how to do language stuff, they're humble, they they use great minds in Bible translation, especially SIL or now Dallas International.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Absolutely. So we've had we've had leadership at Ethnos on for a pod, we've had several of the on-the-ground missionaries uh on the podcast as well, and obviously one of our key partners. And so as you were thinking about what uh people group you would partner with with your church, you were like, hey, because of our existing relationship and appreciation and affection for what they're doing, we're gonna pick one with them, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:12

That's the goal right now. So I did, you know, like I said earlier, I I train a lot of uh global pastors. So my buddy Rossell Rana in in Bangladesh, I asked him about unreached groups in Bangladesh, and he sent me back an email with like details on on you know six different groups close to him. And so now I'm dreaming a little bit, you know. So I'm still want to go the ethnos route, but but Rossell's my boy. Good. This dude is the Bangladeshi apostle Paul. He is he is like just running hard. Good. And so if there's a way to eventually help him with you know, maybe I do that as a side hustle. Great. Uh well I'm interested. Or you can't. Let's talk about it. Yeah, let's do it. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

I love that. So as we always do on the pod, we we love for the uh the guests to pray, for the listeners. Um Jason with his uh linguistic studies wants to wants to bless us with the with the Lord's Prayer in Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah, coin coine Greek, or if you're a uh if you're a Greek nerd, you know that the pronunciation system stuff is changing. It would actually be cunei now if you're depending on who you study under, but I'll we'll just go koine because that's old school people.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

So he'll give us the Lord's Prayer and then uh and then he's gonna pray just his own what the Holy Spirit's got on his heart for us today as well. So take it away, brother. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Pataremon ointus uranus. To artone epis epicusion dose minoron kefe min ta of filemata emonke oske emis afecamen tus ofeletes emonke me isen inques emas is pirasmon a la ruse emas apotu poneru. Our Father who is in heaven, set your name apart, bring your kingdom, cause your will to be done as in heaven also upon

Theology Of Works, Faith, And Vindication

SPEAKER_00 40:33

earth. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven those indebted to us. And don't let us be brought into temptation. Instead, rescue us from the evil one.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Amen. Thank you for listening to Unreached. Our sincere desire is that what you've heard today will cause you to see the mission of God differently and your role in it

Rate, Review, And Connect

SPEAKER_02 41:02

more clearly. If this adds value for you, and we hope it does, would you please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen? Also share with your family, your friends, your church, your life group, small group, D group, wherever you do life. And if you want to connect with us, find us on Instagram at Unreach Podcast or email us at unreachpodcast at gmail.com.