(or a prophet is not without honor except in his own country)
Some South Korean Christian missionaries are currently being held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan. (Well, all except the one the kidnappers have already killed.) They were warned against going — on a good day, Afghanistan is dangerous for a Muslim. Add Christianity to the mix — fuggidaboudit.
They went anyway. And they were taken captive by the headcases. The reaction from the missionaries’ countrymen? Outrage.
At the missionaries.
South Koreans are basically telling the missionaries that, not only is this their own dang fault, but they’re messing things up for other groups that want to do humanitarian stuff in Afghanistan.
And let’s be clear here. It’s not just the South Korean government or John Doe on the street with this attitude. The former president of the Christian Council of Korea, Park Jong-soon, who obviously hasn’t read Acts 4 recently, said:
Missionary work is about humbling ourselves, listening to what locals say….
I’ve talked about humility before. Clearly, no man can have perfect knowledge of every aspect of an infinite God. Scripture even tells us to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling”. So obviously, there’s going to be a degree of humility in any (honest) Christian’s life. But this guy’s spin on humility is really just a cop-out to avoid doing something unpleasant.
Did these missionaries “push it” and exchange faith for cavalierness and presumption on grace? Seeing as how I’m not God, I don’t know. But drek like the quote above points me toward “no”.
A representative from Gospel for Asia spoke at our church a couple years ago. A large portion of their work is in highly dangerous parts of the planet, and that’s even with mostly using locals. He recounted a story of a young man who believed that God was calling him to a particular town in a very dangerous (at least for Christians) part of his country.
He had been there only a short time when he was “visited” by three large men. The biggest of the three held him upside-down, told him to get out of town by sundown, and promised to kill him if he ever returned. The young man fled the city and conferred with some of his leadership. In the end, they all came to the conclusion that if God had not changed his call, the young man needed to go back.
About 2 years later, K.P. Yohannan (founder of GFA) went and visited the church that the young man now pastored in that town. He pointed out to K.P. the big man on the front row — the man who had threatened his life, now one of the church elders. Ya know, the local that Park says the young man should’ve listened to.
HT to Justin
