Month: June 2021

Prayers

Lebanon Prayer: Care for Oil

Post author By Jayson
Post date June 27, 2021
No Comments on Lebanon Prayer: Care for Oil

God,

Our oil supply must come from somewhere.

East or West, or from within.

Some say fuel will surely double

If corruption lifts its hand.

Instead the subsidies are lifted

The rate to pay has doubled—plus.

A slight supply increase to market,

Yet prices surge; who can afford?

Decisions made by the caretaker

Show again that so few care

To push beyond impasse of party

And form a government, to work.

Or could it be they all care deeply?

At zero-sum, no one gives in.

But show us, God, what are the issues?

A blocking third? Tripartite rule?

What must be so strong avoided

To force the people suffering more?

Do they care but for themselves?

Do they fight but for their own?

Bless them, God. And steer them rightly.

But we cast our cares on you.

The oil we need is that for healing.

With prayer, it makes the sick one well.

Can it also restore Lebanon?

God, we hope.

We trust.

We care.

We lay our hands upon the nation—faith is failing, still we try.

We put our hands upon the plowshare.

We get to work at what we can.

We clasp our hands with fellow citizens.

We will not part ‘til all are whole.

Alas, oh God, our hands are empty.

Bless our nation, even so.

Amen.

To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.

It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.

It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.

How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.

Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.

It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.

It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.

How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.

Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.

If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.

2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.

3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.

4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.

5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.

I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.

Tags Lebanon, Prayer

Christianity Today Middle East Published Articles

Messianic Jews Say ‘Fake Rabbi’ Was Wrong Way to Reach the Ultra-Orthodox

Post author By Jayson
Post date June 23, 2021
No Comments on Messianic Jews Say ‘Fake Rabbi’ Was Wrong Way to Reach the Ultra-Orthodox

Image: Illustration by Rick Szuecs / Source Images: Blake Campbell / Tanner Mardis / Unsplash / Ktoytor / Getty / Envato

How far can one go to “reach the Jews”?

The apostle Paul put himself “under the law” to give the gospel to his Hebrew brethren (1 Cor. 9:20).

Allegedly a Gentile, Michael Elkohen did the same to reach the modern Jews most fastidiously under the law—the Haredim, often known in English as “ultra-Orthodox.”

Approximately 1.2 million Haredim live in Israel, jealously guarding their traditions.

Dressed in black-and-white garb with a hat, long beard, and side curls, in 2011 Elkohen appeared next to an Iranian Christian on MorningStar TV and prayed for a Muslim world revival.

“When Jesus walked the earth, he was Jewish,” Elkohen told the host, Rick Joyner. “The church, the non-Jewish part of the body, is supposed to stir us to jealousy.”

For more than a decade, his would-be jealous Haredi neighbors were completely unaware. To the insular community in the French Hill section of Jerusalem, Elkohen was a beloved rabbi, scribe, and mohel—performing circumcisions.

In April, the Israeli anti-missionary organization Beyneynu sent shockwaves through the Haredi world with a report claiming that Elkohen was in fact a missionary from New Jersey, whose father is buried in a Mennonite cemetery.

“Other anti-Semites attack the Jews as individuals or as a people,” said Tovia Singer, a rabbi and founder of Outreach Judaism. “But the missionaries are attacking the Jewish faith and working to erase it from the planet.”

The spiritual damage is considerable.

Though there is no evidence anyone was converted in Elkohen’s community, Singer claims that the alleged missionary’s manuscripts and religious services are all invalid. And his presence at prayer may have falsely achieved minyan, the necessary quorum of 10 adults, prompting Torah readings that to Haredi Jews now constitute speaking God’s name in vain.

The 42-year-old Elkohen first moved to Israel with his family in 2006, obtaining citizenship after presenting papers as a Jew related to a famous mystical rabbi in Morocco. Having obtained rabbinical ordination through an online Orthodox US institution, in 2014 he went on to study at a yeshiva in the West Bank.

It was then he gained the attention of the anti-missionary organization Yad L’Achim, who confronted him. Confessing his evangelistic purpose, Elkohen replied that he had since “repented” and “chose Judaism.”

A few years later, Elkohen was living quietly among the Haredim when they rallied around him as his wife—who said she was descended from Holocaust survivors—died from cancer. The community raised money to support the husband and five children in need.

But in April, Elkohen’s 13-year-old daughter told classmates about Jesus.

Beyneynu investigated and felt it had to act. There are 30,000 missionaries in Israel, the organization estimates, and 300 organizations dedicated to evangelizing Jews.

Messianic Jews were quick to distance themselves.

Michael Brown, a popular radio host, author, and apologist, circulated statements from Jews for Jesus, Chosen People Ministries, and One for Israel that deplore deception.

“I know of no Messianic Jews who support what he did,” Brown told CT. “We are open and forthright about our faith.” Tsvi Sadan, an author, stated that Elkohen was “probably…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today on June 23, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.

Tags Haredim, Israel, Messianic Jews, Michael Elkohen

Christianity Today Middle East Published Articles

Lebanon’s Christian Schools Are Full of Muslims—and They Need Help

Post author By Jayson
Post date June 16, 2021
No Comments on Lebanon’s Christian Schools Are Full of Muslims—and They Need Help

The 2021 graduating class of the National Evangelical School in Nabatieh (NESN) is entirely Shiite Muslim.

While certainly not the image of a typical Christian school in the United States, it is hardly an outlier in Lebanon, where 35 evangelical schools average student bodies that are two-thirds Muslim.

Located 35 miles south of Beirut, Nabatieh originally had a 10 percent Christian population when American Presbyterian missionary Lewis Loe founded the school in 1925. Based in the city’s Christian quarter, NESN drew students from all sects until the civil war drove the once integrated communities apart. From 1978 to 1982, Israeli occupation forced the school to close altogether.

When the city was attacked again during the 2006 war, the school’s bomb shelter gave refuge to frightened children. Relative peace since then has allowed the shelter to become a storage room, but less than 40 Christian families remain in the city. Even so, NESN draws from surrounding villages to maintain a Christian share of 10 percent among its 100-some faculty.

But the new crisis facing Lebanon is financial. Year-end inflation for 2020 was 145 percent, as food prices surged over 400 percent. The World Bank judged the economic collapse to be one of the world’s three worst in the last 150 years.

Teacher salaries have lost nearly 90 percent of their value.

Three years ago, NESN’s 100-foot Christmas tree was Lebanon’s largest. This year—as debt equaled the entire operational budget minus teacher salary—the school could not afford even the Charlie Brown version.

A highlight of the school calendar, Christian elements are welcomed by the local Shiite population—including its substantial number of Hezbollah-affiliated families, said principal Shadi El-Hajjar.

Since he assumed leadership in 2013, the student body of 1,400 has more than doubled.

“We teach compassion, forgiveness, and love of enemies,” Hajjar said, “but as culture and practice, not religion.

“This makes us unique, and draws people to the school.”

It was not always this way.

Decades of appreciative tolerance…

This article was originally published on June 16, 2021, at Christianity Today. Please click here to read the full text.

Tags Education, Evangelical, Lebanon, Nabatieh

Americas Christianity Today Published Articles

The American Mosque: More Suburban, Less Conversion

Post author By Jayson
Post date June 14, 2021
No Comments on The American Mosque: More Suburban, Less Conversion

The American mosque increasingly resembles the American church.

New data released in the US Mosque Survey 2020 reveals a plateau of conversions, a shift to the suburbs, and a challenge with “unmosqued” youth.

“Muslims and their mosques are becoming more integrated into American society,” said Ihsan Bagby, the lead investigator, “and more adjusted to the American environment.”

Released every 10 years, the survey aims to comprehensively dispel misconceptions about the locus of Muslim community in the United States.

How might the findings guide American evangelicals?

Begin with the contrast: the increase in the Muslim equivalent of church planting.

The survey counts 2,769 mosques in the US, an increase of 31 percent since the 2010 report. The prior decade had a growth rate of 74 percent, with 1,209 mosques counted in the 2000 report.

They increasingly appreciate a nice backyard.

The share of mosques in large cities has dropped from 17 percent in 2010 to 6 percent in 2020, while the share in small towns has dropped from 20 percent to 6 percent. The survey found that 8 in 10 Muslims now live in a residential or suburban area.

“As we begin to share the same neighborhood, engaging the Muslim community is no longer just the domain of missionary specialists,” said Mike Urton, the associate director of Immigrant Mission, a ministry of the Evangelical Free Church of America.

“It is now the domain of the local church.”

The now mostly suburban Muslims also “tithe” similarly to their Christian neighbors. Including contributions toward operating expenses and the obligatory zakat charitable giving to the poor, the survey calculated…

This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on June 14, 2021. Please click here to read the full text.

Tags Islam, ISPU, Mosque, United States

Prayers

Lebanon Prayer: Comfort, Comfort

Post author By Jayson
Post date June 13, 2021
No Comments on Lebanon Prayer: Comfort, Comfort

God,

“Comfort, comfort,” wrote Isaiah.

The time of hardship has now passed.

Gentle words to heal a people.

A highway straightened for their God.

God, these words are needed now.

The suffering is not complete.

In the past you punished double recompense for all their sins.

How much more is due for Lebanon?

For civil war, corruption, blast?

Is a call to repentance just more added burden?

Or the only way forward to peace and relief?

Comfort.

For want of it the people flail – strikes and protests, cries for help.

Lawyers. Doctors. Pharmacists. Army.

Even the gauntlet of sanction-barred oil.

“Surely the nations are a drop in the bucket.”

“Lebanon insufficient for your altar fire.”

God is this your vision for our ancient nation?

Kindling and ashes; a place to be burned?

God, “you bring the rulers to nothing.”

Is that what has happened to Lebanon, too?

So many grow tired as they fight and bicker.

God, may it be that they strive for the good.

But certainly no one has come up with answers.

A government absent for more than ten months.

Comfort.

It must be true. It must be somewhere.

It is not here. It is not real.

Many say so.

But no, we cannot let that be the conclusion.

“Hope in the Lord, and renew your strength.”

Maybe this is the secret of doctors and lawyers,

Finding resolve amid hopeless despair.

God, they are trying. God, they keep striving.

Will you honor their efforts? Make everything right?

God, when you come, you come with your power.

But yet like a shepherd, tending the flock.

Do I want comfort? Would I rather anger?

Both are made perfect in your promised help.

When, God?

What now?

Where is that highway made straight for the king?

We cannot run, we grow too weary.

We barely walk, we grow too faint.

“Comfort, comfort.”

“Your sin has been paid for.”

Help Lebanon know this.

Help Lebanon heal.

Amen.

To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.

Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.

It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.

It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.

How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.