Race is a social construct. The Bible doesn’t mention race, except the human race, the single Adamic race.

The post analysis of the coronavirus pandemic might and will likely show gross incompetence mainly from leftist mayors and governors in the United States with a corollary influence on everyone else because of the politics and fear. Everyone needs to be prepared for the cover up, massive number of lies.  I’m just predicting here.  The government didn’t know what it was doing.  Other countries, like Sweden and South Korea, did the opposite and succeeded.  This was of the nature of the Russian collusion fraud.  Most of the country is duped and scammed by its most foolish.  The whole nation was hacked.

Today my wife and I drove up separate vehicles to Oregon.  This is the first of a few trips to get moved up.  Straight trip it is less than six hours.  When we got close to the border of California and Oregon, there was a large barn along Highway Five, which on its roof read in gigantic lettering, The State of Jefferson.  If you aren’t from the Western United States, maybe you haven’t heard of it.  I enjoyed seeing those words.  I hope for that state.  Medford would become part of the new state if it came into being along with part of Northern California.

We stopped for gas in a small town in the mountains, and what stood out to me were, no masks.  Masks should feel weird, but I’ve been wearing them so long that now no-masks already felt worse.  “What’s with you people?”  Lighted signs on almost every overpass encouraged to fight Covid-19.  The State of Jefferson has moved on.  I could imagine dart boards with Gavin Newsome on them. The gas station attendant wore no mask.

The two words for missionary are “evangelist” and “missionary.”  Evangelist has in that word, preach the gospel.  Missionary has in that word, mission.  I’m not trying to insult your intelligence.  Indulge this post.  Read on.

The New Testament teaches three offices:  pastor (pastor-teacher, bishop [overseer], elder, preacher), deacon, and evangelist.  From my purview, most people are messed up on the third.  The evangelist has turned into what best might be called an itinerant revivalist.  The evangelist is much closer if not identical to what people call a missionary today.  An evangelist in the Bible really is a missionary.  When Paul and Barnabas were sent out in Acts 13, they were evangelists or missionaries.

1 Timothy 3 says pastors do the work of the evangelist.  It’s a requirement.  Pastors are not evangelists, but they do evangelist work.  What is that?  It is preaching the gospel to the lost.  That is in the word ‘evangelist.”  “Eu” means “good” and “angel” means “message.”  The two together are “good news,” which is “gospel.”  The evangelist takes the front end of a church starting.

The pastor does the work of the evangelist, and the missionary, the evangelist, does pastoring. Paul and Barnabas, neither were pastors, but they both did pastoring.  Scripture lists official qualifications for the office of the pastor and the office of the deacon.  They are slightly different, because they are different offices.  The evangelist should have qualities characteristic of someone who would do that job.  Barnabas was a missionary.  The basis for his being in that position was the following traits (Acts 11:24):

For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.

That list is similar to what we read of Philip, who was an evangelist, and Stephen, who probably was too in Acts 6:5:

And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip.

Philip, who we know was an evangelist (Acts 21:8), was full of faith and the Holy Ghost,  Then Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.  The unofficial qualifications for a missionary are a good man, full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.  It’s obvious he also should be doing the work of the evangelist.  This is a man who should be especially gifted as an evangelist.  There is no spiritual gift of evangelism, but when I say someone is gifted, I mean something like Acts 14:1:

And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.

I’m pointing to two words there:  “so spake.”  Someone can “so speak” that more believe.  What is that?  There are qualities that would result in biblical evangelism.  I see two characteristics of successful New Testament evangelism.

First, since New Testament evangelism is an oral work, those who speak, Peter says (1 Peter 4:11), should “speak as the oracles of God,” which means evangelism needs to be scripture.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).  This is the spiritual weapon to pull down strongholds in people’s minds (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).  1 Peter 4:11 says that “the oracles of God” are what glorify God in spiritually gifted speech.  Paul said this was the basis of evangelism in 1 Corinthians 1-3.

When Paul wrote to Timothy about perfecting saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11), a major part of which is evangelism, it would have been the knowing scripture to the extent someone could use all of it.  A good example of this are all the evangelistic sermons from Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament.  Emulate those.  They are filled with scriptural quotes and allusions.

Second, evangelism that will succeed must be bold.  When the Holy Spirit fills someone, he speaks the Word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).  This was what Paul asked the Ephesians and Colossian saints to pray for him (Ephesians 6:20, Colossians 4:4),  If Paul needed that, every believer needs that.  This is a prayer I pray every time I evangelize.

When my wife and I came to California in 1987, I started as an evangelist and became a pastor.  I’m becoming an evangelist again in 2020.  I am a missionary again.  The church I started in 1987 in the San Francisco Bay Area is sending my wife and I to Jackson County, Oregon to evangelize.  We want to reproduce our church.  I’m leaving someone I trained to pastor.  He has helped me train other men since then.

Upon a church starting, a man trained and ordained as a pastor by our church will pastor that church.  Our church has two pastors.  Hopefully by November our church will have two more pastors.  My wife and I (and also my dad and mom, who live with us) are moving to Oregon, Lord-willing, at the end of June, next month.  Pastor David Sutton will pastor our church.

Our church, Bethel Baptist Church, will support us financially, but we are looking for other support.  I’ve started a church and trained several pastors.  If you are a pastor or really anyone from another church, will your church support our evangelism of Jackson County, Oregon with the true gospel?  Let me know if you are interested in being a part of this work.

I can guarantee you this.  I will work hard at evangelizing this whole area.  I will work at preaching the gospel to every creature.  That’s why we are going.  We want to reproduce our church and we hope you could be a part of it.  We will be true missionaries.   We want to do this and we’re excited about it.

What if a church is started?  If people are saved and a church forms, then we will move somewhere else to start a church.  Right now, when we’re done here, we want to go to England to start another church.  This might sound like an odd combination.  My wife and I took a trip to England two years ago and we are concerned for England in a unique way.  England is hemorrhaging churches.  We want to go there and do something about it.  We want to go there with the rest of our life and preach the gospel, train someone else, and start a church there — but first, Jackson County, Oregon, where 220,000 people live in Southern Oregon on Highway Five just outside of California.

I would be glad for you to call us, encourage us, pray for us, and support us.  Our midweek service is on Thursday night. This first year, I am open either in a virtual way or traveling to your church to present this work.  This will be worth the money your church can give to missions.  You can trust what we will do.  We will do what I’ve described in this post.  Maybe you would just take us on, sight unseen, and some day we can meet in person, so we can get started right away.  If I heard what I was saying, and I was assured it would occur, I would want to support it.

I am a missionary.

A newsletter came to our church mailbox, The Northwest Baptist (January-March, 2020), led by a front page by Bob Straughan with the title, “Hyper-repentance vs. Easy Prayerism Contrasted,” and its first lines:

I have written quite a lot over the years cheap shallow evangelism aka “easy prayerism.”  But I have said less about hyper-repentance aka “Lordship salvation.” . . . .  [I]t is fair to say that at least for some Independent Baptists, their way of making sure they are not practicing Hyles’ type shallow evangelism, (sic) is to overreact and embrace at least to some extent hyper-repentance.

Straughan describes this “hyper-repentance,” a term I’ve never heard, to be “Lordship salvation.”  I don’t comprehend the opposition to the inclusion of Lordship on the front end with the gospel.  Jesus is the Christ.  Someone must believe Jesus is the Christ to have eternal life.  Lordship is definitional to “the Christ.”  He is the Messiah, the King, the Lord.  People have to relinquish to that in order to be saved.  Not doing so is rebellion against Jesus Christ.  That isn’t salvation.  Straughan and all those like him do great damage and undermine the gospel with such writing.  Then Mike Haxton, who publishes the paper, uses it for such eternally harmful means.  It is conspiracy of the worst possible kind.  It distorts the gospel.

Straughan also says:

With the Hyper-repentance (sic) people there is this, “quest”, (sic) for true salvation.  Which is why you see so many people repeatedly going forward for salvation. (sic)

Is “quest” a technical term used by apparent “Hyper-repentance people”?  Remember, these are people who say belief in Lordship of Christ is part of believing in Christ.  I had not heard of these people or their favor for the word “quest.” Pack your bags, we’re going on a quest for true salvation, folks.  It’s as if men who support Jesus’ Lordship are inventing something.

What about “going forward” that Straughan mentions?   In his assessment, “going forward” is worth associating with true salvation, but Lordship is supposed to be excluded.  Someone doesn’t need to believe Jesus is his Lord, but he does “go forward.”  In the article, most times Straughan describes people being saved, he says they “go forward.”  Scripture says nothing about “going forward” as a part of biblical salvation.

I don’t know anyone I would call a “hyper-repentance” person.   I have not seen hyper-repentance.  It’s a term, maybe invented by Straughan as a pejorative.  It’s not helpful.  Who is hyper-repentance?He says pro-Lordship are hyper repentance.  There are many no repentance or false repentance people.  I estimate that might represent 90% of professing Baptists today.

There is only Lordship salvation.  No Lordship, no salvation.  That isn’t hyper anything.  That is salvation.  To call “Lordship” hyper is evil.  Lordship salvation is

• not hyper repentance.
• not a pendulum swing.
• biblical salvation.
• not a quest.
• not accomplished by going forward.
• not a way of making sure not to practice Hyles type shallow evangelism.
• actual repentance.
• not based on a concern to see more decisions made by people going forward.
• not related to being a Calvinist.

When I talk to other people here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I sometimes ask if they will explain what they believe.  For instance, if Buddhism is true and helpful, perhaps a Buddhist could explain it for my benefit.  I’d like to know why I should become one.  Along the same line, if being woke is the best thinking and behavior, could the woke people help me understand in order to become woke?

The awakening of wokeness relates to social consciousness.  Before you weren’t, but now you’re conscious of white privilege, racial inequality, and economic injustice.  Now you’re apparently no longer asleep to those.  Consciousness doesn’t need to offer any real solutions, just display consciousness of their existence.  Don’t deny it.  Admit it.  Does that help?  It doesn’t help anyone, but it appears to care.

The Pharisees became masters of what today would be a photo opportunity, to be seen of men.  Jesus described it in Matthew 6:5:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.