That happened yesterday.

I call it a “knighting” of sorts, because there is a commissioning that goes way beyond just handing each of them a copy of the Truth Project DVDs.

We are on a quest. The quest is to ask God to use our humble efforts to prepare the Body of Christ…to make her ready, strong, healthy.

That means we seek for God to deeply transform His people—a transformation that we believe comes primarily through the intimate fellowship of small groups, authentic discussions, and supported with the fervent prayers of the host.

We have heard thousands of testimonies from those who have followed this pattern, which we believe is blessed because it is what God desires of us, and not too many from those who haven’t.

So, we “knight” our students to go forth, committed to the proposition that God is the One whom we will be calling upon to do this work and that there is nothing magic in the DVDs to do so. We also hope and pray that they will catch a vision to establish an on-going work at their university, targeting the very vulnerable freshmen, so that there will be someone to perpetuate the small groups long after they have departed.

What an exciting work to be involved in!

So, go forth, Sir Gregory. Go forth Sister Anna (is that how you address a female knight?)

We begin each day with a devotional time, class runs all morning, followed by an “open forum” over lunch, where any and all questions are fair game. The rest of the afternoon is filled with individual 1:1 time in my office.

Monday we talked about Truth and God’s Design for Social Order;
Tuesday we dealt with the Trinity, the Family and the Church;
Wednesday and Thursday were dedicated to understanding God’s design for the state and the American Experiment;
Friday we wrestled with some of our culture’s burning issues;
After a weekend of play, Monday brought us to the sphere of labor and God’s design for work and vocation;
Tuesday we looked at the sphere of Community and God’s heart for the needy;
And Tuesday afternoon and evening, as is our weekly custom, we were all in the park eating together and enjoying a wonderful time of worship…and then the Ultimate Frisbee challenge began.

Once again, I provided the handicap for the strongest team.

I love these students! They are so bright and engaging and energizing…and they have a deep heart for God. Don’t sell them short. This is a powerful generation that is rising up behind us!

It is Sunday, and I am somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, probably around 35,000 feet. Juan picked me up at the hotel this morning and got me safely to the airport. He has been our chauffeur, our tour guide, our faithful friend throughout this wonderful week in Costa Rica. He has sacrificed to do so…early mornings, late nights, and evenings away from his beautiful wife and their new son, Pedro. We, too, have been away from those we deeply love, often not able to communicate with them when we wanted to, but it has been worth it.

Thanks to the great efforts of Sixto Porras, an amazing man, and his professional staff, we finished the training with our new international friends and then Saturday began again with another conference. This one was open to the public and hundreds of Costa Ricans came to be trained in leading Truth Project small groups.

I never ceased to be amazed at how God continues to bring people to these events. He blesses despite our frailties and weaknesses.

I met so many new friends…brothers and sisters in Christ. We prayed together, laughed together and sometimes cried together…they were a great blessing to me.

Who knows what will come of this.

If the Lord chooses to bless, then we may see our small efforts here become a tiny part of a larger work of God in Latin America. Enfoque a la Familia is working hard to make a difference. I promised Sixto that we would be praying for them and for those who attended and for those who will be transformed by the power of God through their faithful work.

I would ask you to join us in this as well.

Pray for the blessing of God upon those who came to each of the training conferences; pray that they will be led to open their homes to others; pray that their guests will be deeply changed by the truth of God and His Spirit; pray for the countries of Latin America; pray that they will lead this continent in revival.

It really can happen, you know.

“You have not, because you ask not…” James 4:2

Goodbye to all of you in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, etc.
Until we meet again!

It was long, but we began a two-day training event for 120 influential leaders who had come from all over Latin America to be trained and prepared to implement Truth Project small groups in their countries.

And what great people!

They came from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and of course, Costa Rica.

They were engaged, attentive and even though we had to communicate through a translator, I felt the closeness that we share in Jesus Christ. I could also see in their eyes and hear in their voices that they, too, share a deep heart to see the Body of Christ healthy and strong.

I was struck again by the awesome oneness that exists between true believers, regardless of language or race or culture. This is the amazing work of the Spirit.

I was also greatly surprised by the presence of several former students, from Honduras and Guatemala. I was elated to see them.

Today, we will begin very early and go another long day with these wonderful leaders. In addition to all of the content and practical things, we will once again talk of the importance of prayer and how critical it is for us to understand that the work we seek, the deep transformation in God’s people, does not come from us or from something magical in the Truth Project DVDs, but from God.

We must ask Him to do it.

“…apart from Me, you can do nothing” John 15:5

I love the people here. Spanish, of course, is the primary language and about 75% are Catholic. Greater San Jose counts about 1.5 million people, over one-third of the entire country’s population.

What is sad, however, is that the long history of strong families in Latin America is no longer immune from the ravages of modern culture. Teenage pregnancy is high, spousal abuse is rampant and pre-teen sexual activity is widespread. Costa Rica is also dealing with “famicide”, a horrible rise in spousal murder & suicide.

Enfoque a la Familia, led by Sixto Porras, Focus on the Family’s Regional Director for the Hispanic World, has a great staff that is working hard to change all of that. It is a privilege to labor with them.

All of today was spent in a private training of Sixto’s staff, preparing them to begin the task of developing small group leaders for the Truth Project throughout Latin America and beyond. Although we had to do this through Juan’s tireless translation efforts, there was no barrier between us. I love the bond that exists among believers…no matter what cultural or language differences exist. We took the time to read John 17 together and dwelt on the extensive expressions of oneness and call for unity by Jesus.

We had that today.

And, most exciting to me…as we say within the Truth Project team…they get it. They get the importance of prayer. They get the importance of small groups. They get the importance of Christian dialogue and true fellowship.

They understand that these are things that God desires and has designed us for, and they will be working to make that happen…in their own unique way, of course…as it best can be implemented within the Hispanic culture. And they will do it well.

It will be hard to leave this place and these wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are here to launch the Spanish translation of the Truth Project. Most of our efforts will be to train small group leaders, both in the Focus Latin America staff and in representatives from throughout Latin America. We will also hold a regular training conference, although through a Spanish translator.

This really excites me!

We have waited for this day for several years…and now it is here. I have a deep heart for
Spanish-speaking people, especially the Latin Americans. My family lived in Puerto Rico for a number of years and, I suppose, that is where my love for them developed.

I’ll tell you more as we progress…and more about this beautiful country that has about everything going for it.

Well, it does lack one thing…my iPhone doesn’t work!

(Amazing how you can get so utterly dependent upon these slim little boxes.)

I was talking with two families from the Baltimore area who were vacationing here together. When they found out I was from Focus, our conversation immediately turned to parenting (they each had three kids). They were elated that their children’s cell phones went dead upon arrival. One mother looked at me and said, “There is a possibility they will have to talk to us for a change!”

That provoked some questions from me regarding how they handle this technological challenge to parenting and I was intrigued by the boundaries they had set up. Their children are required to “turn in” their cell phones every evening…sort of a “texting” curfew.

I thought that was pretty clever—worthy of consideration for other parents struggling with a generation that has become almost addicted to the things. In fact, one of the moms told me that her oldest son asked if he could just “turn in” the battery because he felt better holding his cell phone.

(I later wondered if he also might have a second battery somewhere!)

Anyway, I think I understand.

Mine is totally useless right now (although it does make a stylish paper weight) but I still keep reaching for it.

Hmmm…maybe our kids aren’t the only ones…anyone else out there addicted?

In your responses, however, there were several questions and some misunderstandings that I would like to respond to.

First, we are hoping to get Set 1 edited and released for the coming school year. That means around September. The second set will be finalized and released late in the fall so as to be ready when students have finished the first one. Sets 3 and 4 will be filmed later this year (if the Lord provides) and be released in time for students to continue on from Sets 1 and 2.

Second, there is a persistent misunderstanding about the purpose of TrueU. It is NOT a Truth Project for teens. It is an apologetic ramp or prequel to the Truth Project. It is intended to prepare students for the skeptical and hostile challenges to Christianity that they will find on the university campus and in life in general.

We will actually be encouraging students to immediately get into a Truth Project small group on campus and form a “band of brothers” that will be crucial to their survival.

Finally, TrueU will not be distributed like the Truth Project, but will be made available as a normal product.

Finally, finally…some of you have asked about the funding issues. I hate to say anything because I know so many are struggling. However, since you asked, I will simply request that you pray with us as we seek the Lord’s blessing. The filming is very expensive. Enough said.

Finally, finally, finally…I chased a bear this morning as I was running. I wanted to get his/her picture, but, alas, he/she was camera shy. All I got were pictures of trees. (There really is a bear in there!)

The basic theme of these final four lessons was to examine the New Testament documents in the same way any historiographer or papyrologist would examine ancient documents for validity. We walked through each of the five criteria used to determine veracity and found that the New Testament documents can be overwhelmingly confirmed from a scientific perspective…unless, of course, one’s presupposition would automatically discount any document that recounts supernatural events. To reject the validity of a document based upon that presupposition isn’t scientific, it is prejudicial philosophy.

We do not need to be buffaloed by anyone who would scoff at the historicity of the New Testament. Now, whether one believes what is presented within its pages is a different matter. But don’t let anyone discount it as unreliable from a historiographical sense. There is much more evidence supporting the validity of the New Testament documents than any of the other ancient documents: Illiad, Gallic Wars, Tacitus, Homer, Euripides, etc.

One of the things that struck me as we progressed through this filming was how often the Scripture gives specific historical facts that provide us with the means to validate it. Here is one from Luke 3:1-2:

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Phillip Tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilene—during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiphus, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the Desert.”

Confession time! How many of you have gone “ho-hum” through this or just skipped it?

I slowly raise my hand.

However, these are the “historical anchors” that have been provided for us by the Holy Spirit to confirm the historical reality of the Scriptures.

So, we spent a good bit of time looking at the archeological evidence that the people, positions, places and other historical facts presented in the New Testament had external support: from the Gallio Inscription stone to a statue confirming the goddess Artemis; from an alter to an unknown god to a limestone block that confirmed the existence of Pilate. We found it in coins and ossuaries, pottery and tombs, wells and pools, external documents and architecture. We found it everywhere.

The final lesson dealt with the historicity of Christ and the resurrection. Here is the closing slide:

“Ancient historical documents with wide and varied attestation have demonstrated that Jesus of Nazareth was, in fact, a historical person. Many of these documents describe His character, actions, and major life events such as His crucifixion and resurrection. The historical documents argue that He was crucified and then His body disappeared from the tomb—explained as resurrection in the earliest sources. Thus, Jesus and the events of His life should not be regarded as myth, but instead as history.”

That is, of course, unless your worldview presupposes the impossibility of the supernatural, in which case you discount the scientific evidence and discard the New Testament as unreliable.

However, that position is getting harder and harder to defend.

TrueU is dedicated to prepare God’s people to recognize that and to remain internally confident in the midst of the battle. Hopefully, some will even be able to engage openly in the debate.

In a winsome way, of course.

Pray for us, now, as we work on the editing of these first two sets and prepare for sets three and four to be filmed later this year; pray the Lord will provide the funding; pray that I will get the script written for set #4; pray that we will get interviews with our top apologists; pray for God to bless all of this as He has the Truth Project.

Thank you! We are pumped about this!

On Thursday, we looked at more Old Testament archeological evidence that counters these nihilistic or minimalistic positions. We discussed the recent finding of David’s palace on the west side of the Kidron Valley; the Dan Tel Stele that references the “House of David”—a common Aramaen, Assyrian and Babylonian phrase referring to a nation-state; excavations that reveal the large building projects of Solomon, especially his 6-chambered gates at Hazor, Gezer and Megiddo. We looked at the Mesha Stele, the Kurkh Stele of Shalmaneser III and his Black Obelisk, each confirming battles and interactions as expected from the Biblical texts.

Finally, we looked at the sad ending of Israel and Judah—the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests. Here we found abundant evidence in the inscriptions, prisms and battle cylinders of the triumphant kings as the cities of Israel and Judah fell before them. Thankfully, the braggadocios nature of man moved them to crow about it on stone—preserving a great deal of evidence that corroborates the historical narratives of the Scripture.

One moment in all of this, however, became quite emotional for me—for it seemed I was seeing our own day and time as we looked into the window of the past. After the Assyrian King, Sennacherib had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, he turned his attention to the southern kingdom of Judah. Assyria was a huge, fierce kingdom and Sennacherib a powerful leader. Here is the translation from the Sennacherib Prism:
“As for Hezekiah, the Judean who did not submit to my yoke, I surrounded and conquered 46 of his strong-walled towns…by leveling with battering-rams and by bringing up siege-engines. 200,150 people…I brought away from them and counted as spoil.”

Hezekiah and Jerusalem were in a dismal spot. All the major cities had fallen to this overwhelmingly powerful enemy. They were surrounded. The Assyrians were taunting the inhabitants of Jerusalem. “Why do you trust in your God? We have conquered all the nations around you. We have conquered your fortified cities. Will your God save you from our mighty hand?”

I had read the story in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles many times before, but for the first time I finally sensed the despair and fear that must have shaken the people. It would have been very easy to believe the Assyrian press. How could they stand against these giants? It did appear that God was not going to help them.

But Hezekiah responded with deep repentance. He prayed. He called for the prophet Isaiah. He called upon the Lord on behalf of the remnant. He finally realized that it is the Lord, and the Lord alone, who gives us victory.

And the Lord did so.

An angel in the night struck down a large number of the Assyrians. Sennacherib headed home and was shortly thereafter assassinated, just as God had prophesied through Isaiah.

The archeological evidence supports this miraculous turnabout—not directly, but indirectly. Here is Sennacherib’s last boast, found in one of the prisms:
“He (Hezekiah) himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage…Fear of my lordly splendor overwhelmed that Hezekiah. The warriors and select troops he had brought in to strengthen his royal city Jerusalem, did not fight…”

But the battle narrative ends. There is no boasting by Sennacherib of his final defeat of Hezekiah and the sacking of Jerusalem, because it didn’t happen. He, strangely, picked up everything and went home. Why? The Scripture fills in the story. Those who have a presupposition against miracles will discount it, but you cannot discount the corroboration that Assyria, on the verge of finishing the conquest of Judah, left silently.

Jerusalem survived and remained until the Babylonians conquered her a little over a hundred years later.

But as we walked through the story again and examined the supporting evidence, it was more than the reality of the story that hit me. It was the reality of the battle that rages around us today.

Are we becoming fearful that the enemy has won? Are our hearts beginning to melt? Are we quick to give up?

The Old Testament lays out for us the physical picture of what we know and experience today to be spiritual realities.

I have a deep sense that it is time for God’s people to go before the Lord.

Repent.

Pray.

Trust in Him.

But do not, do not, give up the good fight.

The first 10 lessons were dedicated to build the case that an honest evaluation of the evidence from cosmology, physics and biology should leave one with the conclusion that it is actually NOT irrational to believe in the existence of God.

On the contrary, the highly complex, finely tuned cosmos and the exquisite order and presence of information-based biological molecular machinery provide a compelling reason to believe that the “God hypothesis” is, in reality, the best explanation for the evidence around us.

The second major attack usually involves the undermining of the validity of the Bible. This comes in various forms, but it basically attempts to declare that the Bible is just the evolved writings of man, filled with fabricated narratives crafted to establish and maintain some religious order. The primary method skeptics use to discount the Bible is through arguments that it is historically inaccurate and unreliable.

Wednesday’s filming began the second set of lessons, dedicated to examining the reality of the Bible’s historicity and whether or not the charge of the skeptics is valid.

We examined a dizzying amount of archeological evidence that provides increasingly credible support for the historical biblical claims: 18th century Syrian tablets; Middle Bronze Age tablets discovered at Mari, on the Euphrates River; texts discovered at Alalakh in southern Turkey; the Code of Hammurabi; from numerous excavations; from steles and battle cylinders; archeological, inscriptional and geographical evidence…on and on.

…for the argument that the Israelites were never slaves in Egypt, we found the evidence that they were;

…for the skeptical argument that the Bible refers to domesticated use of camels way too early, we found the supporting evidence that the Bible turned out to be right after all;

…even in minor historical facts, such as the 20 shekels paid for Joseph, we found the external evidence to support that this was the exact price of a slave in 18th century B.C.

The old skeptical views that the Bible contains little or no historical value has been increasingly shown to be a poorly-informed, non-scientific position. Those who still hold those views and use them to undermine the Bible in classrooms today show they either lack knowledge of recent archeological findings, or simply hold a prejudicial and hostile presupposition to the Bible itself.

Either way, our students should walk away from this with an internal confidence that the Bible is very accurate in its historical facts.

Good stuff!