We continue with lessons learned from Sheep Among Wolves, Volume II, a documentary about disciple-making movements in Iran.

The film was released in 2019, but some of what I heard about the Ayatollah I’m hearing today. An October 6, 2022, editorial in the Wall Street Journal said that the Ayatollah’s actions are a “gift to secularism,” declaring correctly that “religion doesn’t flourish when it’s compulsory.”

But the Iranian believers were saying several years ago:

The best evangelist for Jesus is the Ayatollah. People are finding out that Islam is a lie. They’re 40 years into their “utopia,” and it’s not there…Mosques are empty in Iran. – From Sheep Among Wolves, Volume II

Their philosophy of ministry is that they are always discipling people, even before they become believers. Jesus did. They point out that there was A LOT the original twelve didn’t understand. With a large number of new believers, pre-believers the “church” is messy. But that’s ok:

In the graveyard, there is perfect order. Nurseries are messy. Samson wouldn’t be a leader in our churches: he had character issues, anger issues, and lust issues.

The bottom line?

The “software” of the gospel will not run on the “hardware” of the west in the Middle East. (It doesn’t run well in the US either!)

Again, it’s a film worth seeing on many levels.

Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. (Colossians 1.5, 6, ESV)

As I wrote last year, I don’t know why this is the only “holiday” in which the “eve” gets more attention than the day! Halloween = “All Hallows Eve” or the Eve of All Saints’ Day.

All Saints’ Day is a celebration of all Christian saints, particularly those who have no special feast days of their own, in many Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches. In many western churches, it is annually held on November 1…It is also known as All Hallows Tide, All-Hallomas, or All Hallows’ Day.

I can’t do better than the writer of the Hebrews:

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 11.32 – 12.2, ESV, emphasis mine)