MAY 2018 MISSION LINK Rev. Dr. David Upp “The World IS My Parish” “Arab World” needs Christian Missionaries & Arabic Evangelists Several Thousand Christian Missionaries are needed NOW to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ across the 22 Arabic-Speaking Nations and Speakers of many more Languages across the heavily Muslim areas of the World. Language Schools are over- flowing with people Rising to this Challenge. Please, pray on how God could use YOU to address this critical need. Scholarship $$ and Stipends can be funneled to the Volunteers (IF you can’t Go yourself)… I can refer you to several new Missionaries! <<[email protected]>> Preaching at Amman, Jordan’s Sudanese/Arabic Church, 4/20 One highlight of my recent week in Jordan was giving the sermon at the Arabic-Speaking Congregation from Sudan and South Sudan. Pastor Yagup Kuku invited me to preach and Abeer translated! Matthew 5:21-48 was my assigned text, the “Antitheses of Jesus” in His Sermon on the Mount. It all flowed with Spiritual Challenge, Good-Humor, High Energy! Consecration Text on the wall is God to Solomon: I Kings 9:16. JORDAN is an amazing Country which has been receiving myriad Refugees from many troubled lands. Right now, the biggest groups are from Syria & Iraq. Jordanian Christians meet weekly with Christians who have fled from ISIS & Civil Wars. I also heard accounts of Excruciating Sorrows from the Refugees from Turkish Genocide against Armenians, General Bashir’s EVIL Crimes; & Palestinians & Dargins & Chechens. “Alleluia” x 3
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M A Y 2 0 1 8
MISSION LINK Rev. Dr. David Upp “The World IS My Parish”
“Arab World” needs
Christian Missionaries
& Arabic Evangelists
Several Thousand Christian
Missionaries are needed
NOW to spread the Gospel of
Jesus Christ across the 22
Arabic-Speaking Nations and
Speakers of many more
Languages across the heavily
Muslim areas of the World.
Language Schools are over-
flowing with people Rising
to this Challenge. Please,
pray on how God could use
YOU to address this critical
need. Scholarship $$ and
Stipends can be funneled to
the Volunteers (IF you can’t
Go yourself)… I can refer you
to several new Missionaries!
Preaching at Amman, Jordan’s
Sudanese/Arabic Church, 4/20 One highlight of my recent week in Jordan was giving the
sermon at the Arabic-Speaking Congregation from Sudan and
South Sudan. Pastor Yagup Kuku invited me to preach and
Abeer translated! Matthew 5:21-48 was my assigned text, the
“Antitheses of Jesus” in His Sermon on the Mount. It all
flowed with Spiritual Challenge, Good-Humor, High Energy!
Consecration Text on the wall is God to Solomon: I Kings 9:16.
JORDAN is an amazing Country which has been receiving
myriad Refugees from many troubled lands. Right now, the
biggest groups are from Syria & Iraq. Jordanian Christians
meet weekly with Christians who have fled from ISIS & Civil
Wars. I also heard accounts of Excruciating Sorrows from the
Refugees from Turkish Genocide against Armenians, General
Bashir’s EVIL Crimes; & Palestinians & Dargins & Chechens.
“Alleluia”
x 3
2
MAY 2018 DR. DAVID UPP’S MISSION LINK
The Christian Middle–East! BEFORE Arabs Attacked & Ravaged the Middle–East &
North–Africa, these Regions had had Overwhelmingly
CHRISTIAN Populations for up to Half-a-Millennium!
Jordanian Church Ruins: Gadara & Medaba
Above Left: two colors of columns from two “Downtown
Churches” in Gadara [where Jesus healed a Demoniac,
now called Umm Qays, Jordan; near the Sea of Galilee &
Golan Heights]. Left: Mosaic Map of the Holy Land in an
Orthodox Church in Madaba, near Moses’ Mount Nebo.
Oldest “Purpose-built” Church in the world may have been
found in Aqaba, Jordan [near Eilat, dated before AD 300].
Right: Two Baptisteries in the ruins of
Sbeitla, Tunisia (one with steps [death
to life imagery] & once a roof; another
hypercycloid in shape w/ Dolphins)…
The Sunlight-Dappled Baptistery is a
1901 Version at St. George’s Anglican
Church, Downtown Tunis, where I
worshipped on April 29 (yes, it’s being
used for Believer’s Baptisms now) …
Our Traditions Continue Today
Far Right: Our Methodist Houses
in Tunis are still serving well,
though founded back 130 years ago!
They host refugees, Church
Leaders, ecumenical study, creative
Ministry. Roman Catholic St.
Vincent de Paul Cathedral has
mosaics and fills up. Participants at
all of the Churches are over-
whelmingly Africans, not folks
from Europe nor from America
which offers a Powerful Witness to
all. Jesus Christ also lived in Africa!
3 Tunisian Churches with Deep Baptisteries
3
MAY 2018 DR. DAVID UPP’S MISSION LINK
Attention: Seminary Professors Searching for a
Sabbatical Term or a New Theological College… and by his Failure to perform
assigned duties (skipping MANY
classes, shifting some to evening
hours when off-campus students
can't attend, failing for months to
submit grades). He'd also failed to
make any Progress towards his
Doctorate & was therefore still
UN-Qualified to teach Courses at
our Master of Divinity level. We
are recruiting Profs for our new August—May 2018-19 Academic
Year, especially Fields of Church
History and Theology and Ethics.
Come Join Me, in this
intriguing Field of Global
Missions!
"Tell! Tell Me Do!" "Tell! Tell Me Do!" is to be sung to The Beatles' melody "Love!
Love Me Do!" /Tĕl˙mīdū/ in ARABIC is the main verb in Jesus'
Great Commission = Make Disciples! This Command is
Cognate/related to Semitic/Hebrew verb LMD = to teach & learn
UN–fortunately, our UMC General Conference Sessions Team failed
to correctly PARSE the Great Commission: assuming a Sub-ordinate
Participle 'Going' was a Main Verb. This is False. Here Jesus gave
one Imperative/Command: "Make Disciples!" Yes, I wish more UM's
would "GO!" into Missions, but "Therefore Go!" fails to focus our
Denomination on Christ’s PRIMARY Requirement for each of us!
UNfortunately, BHTS has had
to FIRE one of its Professors. He
was a bad example for the students
in his UN-redeemed Lifestyle
(Alcoholism & making our Chapel
Sermons into a perverse game [Dare
You: to Preach on the most obscure/
seemingly-contradictory of Texts!!]),
by his Abuse of Students (e.g.
making them write his Exam from
2--11 PM, and appropriating for
himself 24 hours in our Final Exam
schedule (each limited to 3 hours
by our Faculty Council’s action);
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MAY 2018 DR. DAVID UPP’S MISSION LINK
What does “Horizon-Less” [Aorist in Greek]
REALLY MEAN in our Biblical Greek Texts?
the Street amidst all that activity}!
Next, the Verbal Aspect of
various "Tense-Forms" of NT Greek,
is Classified. Future & Aorist are
both "Perfective" (seeing the whole
Parade as 1-Event, while 4: Present,
Imperfect, Perfect and Pluperfect
are all "Imperfective" (focusing on
smaller segments of the Parade).
Present is describing our Parade
from the Curbside [Campbell's
Proximity], Perfect is Walking
along in the Street [Con's
Heightened Proximity], Imperfect
is from up on the Rooftop [his
Remoteness], finally Pluperfect is
from a Helicopter [his Heightened
Remoteness]. Narratives may be
conducted in Present or Imperfect;
or in Aorist... but Discourses
within them would tend to be in
Perfect or Pluperfect; or in Future.
We have more nuances when we
move from Indicatives to Non-
Indicatives, & we still have the
varieties of Aktions art {Punctiliar,
Progressive, Iterative, Static, plus
Ingressive, Gnomic, Conative &
even "Summary"}. He covers both
these 1st & 2nd Order Topics. This
Scots Son of two Scholars of Greek
also provides a full set of Exercises
using Bible Verses, to help us
practice these helpful Distinctions!
One of my Discoveries [at BHTS]
in Biblical Languages this term has
been Basics of Verbal Aspect in
Biblical Greek by Constantine
Campbell, in which he moves
beyond the odd observations made
when I first studied Greek ['Aorist
Tense is not really about time-past;
it's more about simple once-and-for-
all Actions.'] towards a much fuller
description of both Aktionsart &
"Verbal Aspect". Campbell feels
that this dimension was missed,
because it is not present in Latin &
most Greek Grammars were written
by scholars who had first mastered
their art through Latin Grammars.
His main analogy relies heavily
upon different ways a person might
view a Parade {but stumbles along
with terms too-similar to different
features of verbs}. If you watch a
Parade from a Helicopter, you see
the whole sequence ["perfective'],
but if you watch from the curb you
attention is on each float/band/
troupe passing by ["imperfective'].
He later adds two dimensions each
of "proximity" & "remoteness" {&
I'll recast his terms}: Remoteness
{Rooftop}, Heightened Remoteness,
{Let's call this from a Helicopter},
Proximity {On the Curb}, &
Heightened Proximity {Walking in
5
MAY 2018 DR. DAVID UPP’S MISSION LINK
APRIL TQ: Has the USA lost more people in its Wars or to AIDS?
A: More died of AIDS than in all the battles of all our Wars! Globally,
AIDS deaths = Grand Total World War II Deaths... 45 MILLION
SOULS extinguished by this Plague of Sexual Perversity & Immorality.
Biblical Sexual Morality is The CURE!
Christians & People of ALL Faiths simply need to OBEY God's Laws,
Honor their Marriage Covenants, & Practice Sexual Purity. That's all it
takes… & … That’s what nearly Every Religion/Culture has always taught!
MAY Trivia Question: HOW were Methodism in The Philippines and
Methodism in India originally connected? MAY…Bonus Trivia Question:
In The Philippines' United Methodist Church… What is a "Home Missioner"?
Captions: Al Kitab Al Muqqadesh [“The Holy Book” [Bible, in Arabic],
Umm Ar-Rasas [actual Pillar of Ascetic Christian “Stylite” >UNESCO!],
Evangelical Free’s “Chapel” in Amman, St. George’s Anglican in Tunis…
worshippers, Congolese Preacher [Jesus says: “I will never forsake you!”].
___________________________________________________________________________
_
6
MAY 2018 DR. DAVID UPP’S MISSION LINK
Des églises réformées Alert Readers recall my many praises for the
explosive growth of the Francophone UMC. I
was blest to meet with a UM Pastor from DR
Congo [& his wife from Brazzaville-Congo]
leading our “Post Arab Spring” era work in
Tunisia, as part of The Reformed Church of
Tunisia. This alliance mirrors the merger of
France’s Lutheran & Calvinist Evangelicals
into new Église Protestante Unie de France!
Recognize Praise-Song? YOU, Light [of the world],
Who has seen our darkness:
Open my eyes let me see.
Grace and Beauty that made
My heart adore You
My Soul Hopes to follow after You.
≈ French Lyrics modified from the
original English by “Plus One”!
“OUT of THIS WORLD” SIGHTS!!
I wouldn’t want to leave you with the false impression
that “All Work & No Play makes David a DULL Man!” In
addition to visiting Churches ancient & contemporary,
I also rode a Dromedary in the Sahara, held a Fennec,
and visited the Desert Planet Tatooine: exploring “Star
Wars Canyon”, Mos Espa & Luke’s Troglodyte Home!
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