The Missions Show

The inconvenience of learning a foreign language is a major reason people choose not to pursue cross-cultural missions. But, as Dr. Vern Poythress explains, language isn’t just a barrier; it’s a gift from God that displays his creativity. In this special interview, Dr. Poythress explains why language itself finds its source in the Trinity, how missionaries should approach language learning. Later, we address how missionaries can use presuppositional apologetics in dealing with pagan religious cultures.

Rev. Dr. Vern Poythress (Ph.D., Harvard; D.Th., Stellenbosch) is professor of New Testament and biblical interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he has taught for 43 years.

Dr. Poythress’ academic interests include how Christianity and the Trinitarian nature of God impact all areas of life. He has also spent much of his career studying and teaching biblical interpretation and hermeneutics. A few of his notable books include Redeeming Science, Redeeming Philosophy, or Chance and the Sovereignty of God, and In the Beginning Was the Word, which looks at the Trinitarian foundations for language.

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The Missions Show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund. This episode is also sponsored by Radius International.

Biblical authority is under attack. A missionary’s job is partly to make the transcendents truths of God’s word understandable within human language, context, and culture. But is it possible to know God’s objective truth, or are we always “stuck” within our culture—making modern missions inescapably colonialist? In this episode, Scott Dunford and Alex Kocman dialogue over these important topics.

In the episode, we referenced the following resources:

• The Calvinistic Concept of Culture by Henry Van Til
• Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change by Paul Hiebert

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

While Europe has been the cradle of Christian civilization for centuries, certain countries—like Italy—never truly enjoyed the fruits of the Reformation. Now, Italy is steeped in secularism, paganism, and the occult, in addition to nominal Roman Catholicism. How should missionaries reach into this context, and how can we all engage our Roman Catholic friends and neighbors? Jonathan Kleis, an ABWE missionary in Italy engaged in evangelism and even public debate, weighs in.

Jonathan and Noella Kleis have served in Italy since 2005 in evangelism and church planting. They currently reside in Caselle in Turin, Italy. Support the Kleis’ ministry or email Jonathan to learn more.

During the episode, Jonathan mentioned these resources:

• Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment
• Vatican Files
• The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

Disciple-making movements (DMM) and church planting movements (CPM) are more than just buzzwords—they represent controversial methodologies that are dividing missionaries along organization and theological lines. Do these methodologies represent faulty views of conversion or ecclesiology, or are the critics guilty of prayerlessness and quenching the Holy Spirit? We’ve explored these topics in the past on the podcast, but this week, by popular demand, we’ve brought in a strong DMM proponent to help make a positive case: Dr. Glenn Sunshine.

Glenn Sunshine is Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University and a Senior Faculty Member of the Colson Fellows. An award-winning author, Glenn has published books, articles and book chapters on history, theology, and culture, online and on both sides of the Atlantic. His most recent book, The Kingdom Unleashed: How Jesus' 1st-Century Kingdom Values Are Transforming Thousands of Cultures and Awakening His Church, was co-authored with Jerry Trousdale. Glenn has taught a variety of Bible, history, and worldview seminars and courses to churches around the U.S., Europe and Asia, as well as leading church retreats, seminars, and renewal weekends. He is the founder of Every Square Inch Ministries and he & his wife Lynn have been married for over 30 years and have two children. They live in Newington, Connecticut.

During the episode, we referenced our previous interview with Brooks Buser—listen to that episode here.

Wherever you stand on this critical missiological topic, we believe this dialogue will edify you—and challenge you.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

In much of the contemporary missions conversation, the good, ordinary gifts of God—like marriage and family—are often spoken of mainly as things to be sacrificed, not as things to be cultivated as a part of the church’s mission. This week, Chris “C.R.” Wiley explains why a return to the biblical understanding of the household can be a powerful weapon on the church’s cosmic spiritual warfare, as well as an evangelistic tool in frontier missions.

C.R. Wiley has written for Touchstone Magazine, Modern Reformation, Sacred Architecture, The Imaginative Conservative, Front Porch Republic, National Review Online, and First Things, among others. His most recent book is, The Household and the War for the Cosmos published by Canon Press (2019). His short fiction has appeared in The Mythic Circle (published by the Mythopoeic Society) and elsewhere, and the first book in his young adult fantasy series, The Purloined Boy, was published by Canonball Books (2017). He is a member of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. He can be heard weekly on The Theology Pugcast.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

It’s our 100th episode! Listen all the way through the episode for details on how to win our podcast anniversary giveaway.

In honor of the occasion, we brought back a favorite friend of the show—Zane Pratt, vice president for global training for the IMB—for a heavy-hitting conversation about why our theology must absolutely, unapologetically shape our missiology.

In this interview, we tackle the honor and shame paradigm, the nature of faithful contextualization, the role of systematic and historical theology, and why our theology must ultimately bring us to our knees in devotion and worship.

For twenty years, he served as an IMB church planter and regional leader in Central Asia. From 2011–13, Zane was dean of the Billy Graham School at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he currently serves as associate professor of Christian missions. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University, a master’s degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and is a Ph.D. candidate at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the coauthor of Introduction to Global Missions and a contributor to Theology and Practice of Mission. Listen to Zane’s talk at CROSS 2019, hear our preview interview with Zane on disciple-making movements, and follow him on Twitter.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

The current flood of issues relating to sexuality isn’t just a challenge for pastors in the West, but for missionaries abroad—especially those serving in Asia, where gender fluidity has been accepted into the cultural assumptions of certain countries for some time. How can Christians approach the issues of homosexuality, transgenderism, and more with gospel-centered, missionary mindsets? Dr. Christopher Yuan weighs in.

Yuan has taught the Bible at Moody Bible Institute for over ten years and his speaking ministry on faith and sexuality has reached five continents. He speaks at conferences, on college campuses, and in churches. He has co-authored with his mother their memoir, Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God, A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope. Christopher graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 2005, Wheaton College Graduate School in 2007 with a Master of Arts in Biblical Exegesis and received his doctorate of ministry in 2014 from Bethel Seminary. Dr. Yuan’s newest book is Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

When pastors, missionaries, and others in ministry fail to actively abide in Christ, that’s when pragmatism becomes most tempting—and most dangerous. How can missionaries remain rooted?

ABWE President Paul Davis stops by the studio this week to share what most burdens him for the missionaries he’s met across the world over the last year, and how remaining weak and dependent upon the Lord reorients our ministry. Listen to this week’s episode for these and other lessons from the field.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

Missions always comes with risk, and nothing is guaranteed—especially in hostile, unreached contexts. What should missionaries do when they get kicked off the field? How should they adjust their own expectations when God closes ministry doors?

In this episode, John Klaassen, President of Reaching and Teaching, shares his own powerful story and how he has drawn strength from grasping the sovereignty of God. Born in Colombia, Dr. Klaassen has 18 years of cross-cultural experience overseas in Europe and North Africa, and a further 9 years of experience teaching at Boyce College and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he will continue to teach in the field of missions and global studies. John lives with his wife, Shari, in the city of Louisville where they actively serve amongst Iraqi refugees through their church, Highview Baptist.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.

Why are there so few men in missions? Does the cultural mandate conflict with the Great Commission? And how has the overall downgrade of teaching on biblical manhood in evangelicalism adversely affected the cross-cultural witness of the Christian family unit? Michael Foster joins this week to address these questions and offer insights on the cultural mandate in Genesis, the biblical view of the household, and why so many young men suffer from “failure to launch.”

Michael is a director of It’s Good to Be a Man and co-host of the podcast by the same name. is a serial-entrepreneur who has been in bi-vocational ministry the better part of his adult life. God has blessed him with a beautiful wife and seven children. He is also an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Follow Michael on Twitter.

Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

This show is powered by ABWE International and the Global Gospel Fund.