December 25, 2024 • 46 mins
The episode reveals profound insights into the challenges and triumphs of faith within the Asian cultural landscape, emphasizing the need for deeper reliance on prayer and scripture. Dr. Lockwood discusses the unique context of the underground church in China, the idolatry of self in Western Christianity, and the transformative power of the gospel amidst cultural and legalistic challenges.
• Examines the prayer reliance in Western versus Asian churches
• Discusses cultural influences on Christianity in Asia
• Outlines challenges presented by legalism in Asian faith practices
• Highlights the significance of language learning for mission work
• Explores the resilience of the underground church in China
• Introduces the Mission of Christ Network's grassroots initiatives
• Encourages practical involvement and support for mission efforts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the American Reformation podcast,
tim Allman.
Here I pray.
The joy of Jesus is with you,the promises of your baptism.
You are called a child of God,you are a part of the royal
priesthood and Jesus haswonderful things in store for
you today.
As you take the humble postureof a learner, I get to learn
today with Reverend Dr MichaelLockwood.
(00:34):
Let me tell you just a littlebit about him.
He and I talked a few monthsago and wanted to have him on to
tell the story of what he'sdoing right now learning
Mandarin.
After a multi-decade career asa pastor in the Lutheran Church
of Australia, he now has beencalled to the China Lutheran
(00:54):
Seminary there in Taiwan andhe's in partnership with the
Mission of Christ Network andwe're going to explore his call
there, the history of thepersecuted church in China and
the need for raising up morefaithful confessional Lutheran
leaders to share the gospel wordand sacrament in China and
(01:17):
beyond.
How are you doing, dr Lockwood?
Thank you for spending timewith me today.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm doing very well.
Thank you for welcoming me.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, it's a joy.
Yeah, it's a privilege, it's anhonor.
So, as you look, you've spentmost of your career in Australia
, Papua New Guinea and now inChina.
I'm going to ask this questiona little bit different as you
look at Asia, Southeast Asia, etcetera how are you praying for
reformation?
We're the church of thereformation, right?
How are you praying forreformation as you look at the
(01:46):
Christian church in yourcommunities?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
If I look at the Western world, I'm praying that
we would get back to being achurch of the Word of God and
prayer.
So the Western world, the basicidol of the western world is
the human self.
Right, we don't worship gods ofwood and stone, we just worship
ourselves, we trust inourselves, we live for ourselves
(02:15):
, etc.
And that's true of the westernchurches.
In the western world as well,we share the idolatry of the
surrounding culture and um.
We often say that we are peopleof the word and say that we're
people of prayer, but ourbehavior shows something else.
For example, in the Westernworld, if we have a problem,
(02:35):
what do we do?
We have a meeting, of course,and we'll pray for maybe two
minutes and then we'll plan andstrategize for three hours, and
that tells us where our faith is.
It's actually in the planningand strategizing, not in the God
, who hears and answers prayer.
When I go and teach in a placelike Nepal, if they face a
problem, they'll pray all night.
(02:56):
Now, at the end of that, theymight come together and say,
okay, did God reveal anything tous about what we should do?
But the focus is on the prayer,not on the planning and the
strategizing.
And it's the same with the Word.
I think in the Lutheran Churchwe're proud of being a church of
the Word because we have thisgreat doctrinal inheritance.
(03:17):
But what that actually says isthat our forebears were people
of the Word and we're kind ofliving off the capital that
they've built up for us.
And you know, I've been aLutheran pastor pretty much my
whole adult life, spent most ofthat in the Western world, and I
have several times asked fromthe pulpit, you know, put up
(03:38):
your hand if you can honestlysay that you've read the Bible
from cover to cover at leastonce in your life.
And it's scary how few hands goup right, so there's only one
book that's ever come directlyfrom God.
It's the Bible.
And most people on church pewshave not read it, at least not
(03:59):
all the way through.
They've read snippets of it, ofcourse.
And I found the same withseminary students.
You know, guys going out onvicarage, guys even going out
into the ministry, never readthe whole Bible.
So we often we blame theculture for the problems of the
church and say, oh, theculture's against us or whatever
(04:19):
.
Well, the culture's alwaysagainst the church.
I think the biggest problem isthat we rely on ourselves
instead of actually relying onthe.
It's always against the church,right?
I think the biggest problem isthat we rely on ourselves
instead of actually relying onthe word you know, the word of
the Lord to change us, to changeour hearts, to shape us, to
form us, and then relying on himthrough prayer.
So that's the Western worldGoing to the church in Asia.
(04:45):
It depends so much from countryto country.
You really can't generalizeabout Asia.
You know, you've got highlydeveloped countries, you've got
very poor, underdevelopedcountries.
You've got places whereChristians can worship freely
and operate freely.
You've got places where thechurch is very much persecuted.
(05:07):
So it's very hard to generalize.
Except for this Christianity inAsia is almost always extremely
legalistic, very heavy emphasison the law and not enough
(05:31):
emphasis on the gospel, one ofthe reasons, again, it's hard to
generalize.
But I could talk about Taiwan.
So Taiwan is very much shapedby this kind of Chinese cultural
(05:55):
heritage and the ancientculture of China is very much
shaped by Confucianism.
And so Confucius, I would sayhe was a very wise philosopher,
teacher, ethicist etc.
And many of the things that hetaught were very good.
In fact, one of my colleagueshere at China Lutheran Seminary,
(06:20):
stephen Oliver did his doctoralthesis comparing the ethical
teachings of the New Testament,particularly in the book of
James, with the ethicalteachings of Confucius and found
that they're very similar.
So Confucius taught people towork hard to support their
families and serve theirfamilies, to work hard to serve
(06:42):
their communities, to be honest,to honor heaven.
It's a bit vague about what'sin heaven, but nevertheless
taught people to honor heavenand so on.
These are all good things, andyou see this in Taiwan.
So, for example, in Taiwan, Ialmost never drive a car because
(07:03):
it's too hard to find a placeto park that car.
So I almost always drive alittle motorbike or a pushbike
and I'll usually have my phoneon a phone holder so I can
navigate.
And I've lost track of thenumber of times that I've
forgotten my phone and just leftit on the bike while I've gone
into a short shop or something,and it's always still there when
(07:25):
I come back.
So they are very honest people,but what's missing?
What's missing is the gospel.
So Confucius taught them tohonor heaven, but he did not
know the one who came fromheaven.
So there's no forgiveness ofsins and when they fail they
experience deep shame andthere's nothing to take that
(07:47):
shame away.
And if you look at theirreligion, they worship many
different gods of wood and stone.
It's very transactional.
So if you want a particularblessing, there's something you
need to do to get that blessing.
If you want to pass your exams,you go and pray at the temple
to Confucius right and offerburnt incense before him, et
(08:13):
cetera, hoping that he will thenhelp you on your exam.
If you want to get rich, you goto the Taoist temple of
Khaishan and you pray to him andoffer sacrifices to him, hoping
that he'll make you rich inreturn.
So it's very transactional.
What tends to happen is thatwhen people become Christian,
they swap out their old gods ofwood and stone for a new God,
but they bring the same thinkingwith them, thinking that it's
all about what we do to makeourselves into virtuous people
(08:35):
and to earn the blessing of God.
And they struggle to understandthat in the Christian faith,
that in the Christian faith, godgives us every good thing by
grace and anything that we do issimply a response to what he's
first done for us.
That's probably the biggestproblem.
I think the other big problemis that Christianity in Asia
(09:01):
tends to be shaped by thechurches that have worked in
Asia, tends to be shaped by thechurches that have worked in
Asia.
So it tends to be shaped by theRoman Catholics who've worked
in many countries such as thePhilippines and Vietnam, but
also by sort of reformedProtestants.
And although reformedProtestants teach justification
(09:23):
by faith so they definitelyteach the gospel they don't tend
to emphasize it the way thatLutherans do, and so what tends
to happen is that they willpreach the gospel to new
converts.
So when you first become aChristian, you'll have the
gospel proclaimed to you, butthen, once you're already in the
church, now it's about all thethings you need to do, and so
(09:45):
you sort of graduate from Christto Moses, right.
And so I've found that whenI've taught about how you know
the gospel is the driving forcein the whole Christian life,
it's not just about ourjustification, it's also about
our sanctification, because it'sthe gospel that actually
(10:08):
changes the heart, so that welove our Lord from the heart.
Christians here find that quiterevolutionary.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well sure, there's nothing like it, dr Lockwood.
The gospel is the most radicalteaching of grace and love
that's ever been dispelled uponall of humanity, all of the
cosmos for that matter.
It's very unusual.
I heard recently and this isexciting, I think, in our
(10:36):
American context Lutheranism andwhen I say Lutheranism I mean
word and sacrament,gospel-saturated conversation is
having a ripple effect in thewider evangelical church here in
America.
And I read a book recently fromJD Greer.
He's a megachurch, multiplecongregation, southern Baptist,
(10:59):
but he's reading a lot of Lutherand in his book it's a
missiological book, it's calledWinning by Losing, and it's a
sending book.
It's about how many leadersthey're sending to start new
ministry.
It's wonderful.
Start new churches, it's great.
But one of their mantras I'dlove to get your take on this is
the gospel is not the divingboard.
And this didn't make sense forme until I understood right
(11:24):
their context, because I wouldhave agreed with this.
Why do we even have to say this?
He says but the gospel is notthe diving board, the gospel is
the pool in which we swim andlive.
I'm like that's exactly right.
It's all immersed in grace.
This is, this is a love, thisis a Christian freedom.
This is the joy that comes fromJesus.
This is the now invitation OurGod is very invitation, the
(11:45):
invitation to go and love ourneighbor, as we've received his
radical love Right.
So it's the entire pool.
And I don't know, maybe even inLutheranism we can have a
tendency to move towardPharisaism or legalism around a
number of different topics andwe miss the freedom.
This is what it appears likeLuther is getting after.
We miss the freedom.
This is what it appears likeLuther is getting after.
We miss the freedom that Christhas come.
(12:06):
It is for freedom that you havebeen set free.
We don't use it to justifyourselves or to prove ourselves.
We've died to ourselves.
We no longer live.
Christ lives in us, and so it'sjust an outgrowth.
Our sanctified life is just anoutgrowth of the love that's
been showered upon us in ourbaptism, mobilizing us for the
mission of God to bring love andlight into a dark world.
(12:26):
So any response to that divingboard and pool analogy there, dr
.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Lockwood, well, I agree with what you're saying.
It's not the diving board, itis the pool.
It's what we as Christians swimin and all too often we sort of
take the gospel for granted andfail to appreciate the full
scope and dimension of it.
(12:51):
In my doctoral thesis, one ofmy chapters was about
self-justification and all thedifferent strategies we use to
justify ourselves.
And after exploring that for awhile, you can't unsee it, and I
see it in myself, always havingto fight this tendency to
(13:13):
justify myself instead ofactually coming clean about what
a sinner I am and trusting inthe grace of my God.
But I see it in the peoplearound me all the time, and
Lutherans are great at it.
We are masters ofself-justification.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Say more about that.
Yeah, what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I think one of the tendencies for us as Lutherans
is that we think we're justifiedby being right.
We have this wonderful, puredoctrine.
Now don't get me wrong I loveLutheran theology, I think it's
fabulous.
But I'm not justified simplybecause I've got the Book of
(13:55):
Concord on my shelf or I've gotpaper sitting on my shelf, as
wonderful as these treasures are, I'm justified by the Lord,
jesus Christ, and so it's easyfor us, as Lutherans say.
(14:16):
Well, thank God, we're not likeother people.
You know, we've got ourtheology all sorted out, and
aren't we great?
That's not actually the samething as living by the gospel.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Actually getting the log out of my eye.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Amen, amen, yes, and we got a little bit of a lag for
those that are listening.
He's crossed the world and it'sclose to midnight where he's at
right now, so thank you forbeing here.
It's bright and early in themorning for us here in Phoenix,
arizona.
So you wrote a book on Luther.
Would you tell the story ofwriting?
There's been so much literaturewritten on Luther.
(14:54):
What was the nature and I havenot read your book, I'd love to
what was the nature of yourLutheran exploration there into
Luther's life?
Was it a biography of sorts?
Or yeah, just tell that story abit, dr Lockwood.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well, it started as my doctoral thesis.
So I did my doctorate atConcordia, st Louis, and
eventually, after I completedthe doctorate, I thought I made
so many wonderful discoverieswriting this.
A wider audience needs to hearthis, and so I ended up taking
that and rewriting it to make itmore accessible and then
(15:27):
published it as a book throughCPH.
So I was writing on Luther'stheology of idolatry, but I mean
that's a huge topic in and ofitself.
In many ways the book ended upbeing an introduction to all of
Luther's thought, because theway that Luther approaches the
(15:48):
question of idolatry is, he saysfirst you need to know the real
thing, you need to know thetrue and living God and what it
is that he does in human life,and once you know that, then
it's easy to spot all the thingsthat we put in his place Right.
So first you've got tounderstand Luther's theology of
the true and living God and whathe does in human life, and then
(16:09):
you can move on to what he saysabout idolatry.
But on the basis of Luther andthe scriptures I argue two main
things in that book.
One is that the self is alwaysthe greatest idol.
Who do I really love?
It's me, not necessarily in thesense that I always like myself
, but in the sense that I want.
(16:31):
I want the world to revolvearound me and my desires.
Yes, you know, I want what Iwant and I want God to give it
to me.
I want the world to give it tome, I want the people around me
to give it to me, so it's allabout me.
And then, secondly, who do Iwant to be able to trust in?
I want to be able to trust in,I want to be able to trust in me
, because if I can say, well, Idid it, then the glory goes to
(16:52):
me.
But if I have to say that Goddid it, the glory goes to him,
and the sinful nature doesn'tlike that so much, which is why
we're so intent on justifyingourselves.
If I'm simply a sinner, savedtotally by grace, all the glory
goes to Christ, whereas if I canjustify myself, then the glory
(17:12):
goes to Christ, whereas if I canjustify myself, then the glory
goes to me.
And so that's whyself-justification dies so hard.
But then the second thing Iargue is that if you're not
going to worship the true andliving God, idolatry is not
optional.
It's compulsory, because Godsimply plays too big a role in
human life to just leave him outof the picture and not put
something in his place.
But what you're trying toreplace is the triune God and
(17:37):
therefore you effectively haveto find substitutes for Father,
son and Holy Spirit, and youridolatry will look very
different depending on whichmember of the Trinity you're
trying to compensate for.
So something like money is afunctional substitute for the
Father and his work ofprovidence.
(17:58):
If my wallet is fat, it willprovide.
I don't need the Lord toprovide, but that doesn't help
you in other areas of life.
So in relation to the Son areasof life.
So in relation to the Son, if Iwill not allow Christ to
justify me with a righteousnessthat is not my own but is given
to me as a gift, I will beforever compelled to try and
(18:19):
justify myself, and then I'llturn my own righteousness into
an idol that I put in the placeof Christ.
And then, thirdly, if I willnot allow the Holy Spirit to
enlighten me through His Word,then I will be forever compelled
to enlighten myself and I willturn my own wisdom, or human
wisdom, whatever it is that Ithink is wise, into an idol that
(18:41):
I put in the place of Christ,put in the place of God's Spirit
and His Word.
I should have said so.
It's a nutshell what I argue.
I go into a lot more detail inthe book.
Oh, obviously, obviously.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
That's so cool.
I'm right in the process rightnow hopefully in 2025, middle of
, I have a sabbatical coming uptaking my thesis and put it in
book form, making it a littlebit more readable, as you did
with CPH.
So wonderful, wonderful.
We could go deeper into Lutherand I'm sure we will talk more
(19:15):
about Luther.
But I'd love.
You're learning Mandarin rightnow, like you're spending a
whole year learning a languageof which you were unfamiliar.
Now you're conversant, butyou're preparing to teach
Lutheran theology in Mandarin.
That is.
That is.
That's amazing and I applaudyou for it and the call of
(19:38):
Christ upon your life.
Not many folks would take upanother language at this.
And you're not old by anystretch, but at this season of
life, the older we get, a lot oftimes we say it's harder,
harder to learn something newlike this.
But you are pressing theboundaries of the human mind,
human potential.
Praise God all for theexpansion of the gospel.
So what is that journey like?
Just learning Mandarin, michael?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
where I can teach in it.
I've been learning it for twoyears, about half time, but from
now on.
I'm going to be acceleratingthat and I'm basically doing it
(20:20):
full time.
The US State Departmentestimates that it takes three
and a half times as long tolearn Mandarin as it does to
learn something like German orSpanish or French.
So it's like learning German,spanish, french and then
throwing into Italian as well.
This is one of the mostdifficult languages in the world
(20:40):
for an English speaker to learn, so it's a challenge, but it's
a joyful challenge becauselanguage it opens up a culture,
it opens up a big piece of theworld, and there are one billion
people in the world who speakMandarin as their first language
, their heart language, and justas we find Mandarin difficult,
(21:04):
they find English very difficult, and that really is like this
huge firewall that keeps theEnglish speaking world and the
Mandarin speaking world separate, and so you learn a language
like Mandarin.
It just opens up this whole newworld and it is an enormous
world.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Well, say more about the enormity of that world,
because I think most of us herein the West like we.
While there's so much politicalyou know jargon that goes on
about China and economics andall of that, what are you
learning about that culture,especially in learning Mandarin?
That should shape our view ofChina and Asia in general.
(21:47):
And I mean, let me just bringit here.
I mean we know that theunderground church in China is
exploding.
I don't exactly know in theWest here what that looks like,
but maybe use this as you'reopening up that brand new world,
learning Mandarin.
Use it as a bridge to talkabout mission, what the Lord is
doing to elevate his namethrough the local church in a
different form than we're oftenaware of here in the US.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Well, I think one of the Luther was a great
translator.
He translated the Scripturesinto German and he was a very
good translator and that'salways been a feature of
Lutheran mission that one of thefirst things we do is we
translate the ScripturesWhenever we're going to a new
unreached people group and workvery hard at learning their
(22:36):
language.
Whenever you try andcommunicate the gospel, it's
very important that if at allpossible, you use people's heart
language.
So even if they know two orthree languages and you could
speak to them in a differentlanguage and they'd still
understand what you were saying,it doesn't tend to have the
(22:57):
same impact on them as if youuse their heart language.
So Mandarin is the heartlanguage of one billion people.
So if we want to reach those 1billion people, we need to be
working in Mandarin and ChinaLutheran Seminary, where I teach
in Taiwan until very recently Ithought it was the only
(23:18):
Lutheran seminary in the worldthat was working in Mandarin.
I very recently discovered thatthere's a very small Wisconsin
Lutheran seminary in Hong Kongthat's also working in Mandarin.
But China Lutheran Seminaryhere in Taiwan is much bigger.
So it's certainly, in terms ofits size, the most significant
(23:38):
Lutheran institution in theworld that's working in Mandarin
, and so that means it's kind ofgot this.
It's got an enormous mission,not only to the people of Taiwan
but also to the widerMandarin-speaking world.
Now, when you talk about thewider Mandarin-speaking world,
most obviously you're talkingabout China.
(24:00):
So Mandarin is the officiallanguage of China, also the
official language of Taiwan.
But you go to any major city inthe world today, what do you
find?
You find Chinatown, right.
So there's a hugeMandarin-speaking diaspora
scattered around the world.
You know Southern California ismore than 10% Mandarin-speaking
(24:25):
.
You know quite a few regions ofthe US have large Mandarin
speaking minorities.
Same is true of Australia, andso you find these Mandarin
speaking communities rightaround the world.
Now, zeroing in on China alittle bit, china's quite
complicated.
I mean, this is a country of1.3, 1.4 billion people, so it's
(24:50):
hard to generalize about it.
But you've got to remember thisis one of the world's great
civilizations.
I mean Chinese culture andhistory and civilization goes
back thousands of years, muchlonger than Western civilisation
(25:12):
, and they've brought many greattreasures to the world.
So it's a culture that needs tobe respected.
Now, it's true that you know atthe moment they have a communist
government and in many wayscommunist thinking is a
(25:34):
challenge to the western worldand a challenge to christianity.
I mean, communism is anavowedly atheistic system and it
tends to be a totalitariansystem.
So if people understand thedistinction between dictatorship
and totalitarianism, a dictatordoesn't hold elections.
(25:56):
A dictator wants to stay inpower, but a dictator doesn't
necessarily try to control everyaspect of your life, whereas a
totalitarian system does try andcontrol, or at least most
aspects, many aspects ofpeople's lives.
So you think of a place likeChina where until recently, they
(26:18):
had a one-child policy.
Just think about what thatmeans.
You don't get to choose howmany kids you have, the
government gets to choose howmany kids you can have, and that
spills over into all sorts ofother areas of life, and so that
tends to be a challenge forchristians, um, to be under a
(26:39):
regime like that.
But again, you can't reallygeneralize.
So christianity is not illegalin china.
Um, you have two kinds ofchurches in China.
You have the registered churches, so they can operate openly and
legally.
(27:01):
So the Catholic Church isregistered, and then there's
sort of a general Protestantchurch called the Three-Self
Church, which is legallyregistered.
But being legally registeredmeans that you have to play a
bit of a dance with the ChineseCommunist Party.
You have to keep the partyhappy in order to be able to
(27:24):
continue to operate, and in someplaces that might be relatively
easy.
You might have your localcommunist party leaders might be
fairly lenient.
In other places they might bemuch stricter, and so you've got
to really watch your step.
(27:45):
But many Christians don't wantto play that dance.
They don't want to berestricted by the Communist
Party in terms of what they cansay and what they can do, and so
they go underground.
And so you have an enormousunderground church in China, and
(28:07):
it's impossible to get accuratefigures in terms of how many
underground Christians there arein China, but it is an enormous
number and it's growing rapidlyby all reports, and that
includes underground Lutheranchurches that you just don't
hear about except by word ofmouth, that you just don't hear
(28:31):
about except by word of mouth.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, could you I love this Could you go deeper in
terms of like, what does thatchurch expression look like?
And I don't think and I'masking it because I care about
our brothers and sisters acrossthe world, and not necessarily
that this sort of an experiencecould come in short order to the
(28:53):
United States, though if it did, the gospel would go forward.
That's the way it always worksthrough persecuted seasons.
And to go back to what you'retalking about before, we lean
less on the self and more onChrist and His provision and
more on community care andsupport.
So could you paint a picture?
I know it's kind of hard whenit's underground and it's kind
of secret, but can you paint apicture about how the gospel
word and sacrament, specificallyLutheran ministry, how that
(29:16):
multiplies in China?
Speaker 2 (29:22):
When you're in a persecuted situation, you really
can't operate as a largeinstitution.
It has to be much more organicand you know small groups of
christians gathering together,sharing the gospel by word of
(29:43):
mouth, um studying thescriptures for themselves,
because a because a lot of otheryou know, the sort of big
projects of an institutionalisedchurch are just not possible.
But look, here you're going alittle bit outside my expertise
(30:03):
because I live in Taiwan.
I don't live in China, right?
In fact, I've never actuallybeen to China.
I've been to Hong Kong.
I show a great interest in allthings China and I've never
actually been to China.
I've been to Hong Kong, I showa great interest in all things
China and I hope to get thereone day, but a lot of my
information is secondhand.
I have, however, taughtfirsthand in many countries in
Asia where Christians arepersecuted, so I have firsthand
(30:23):
knowledge of many othercountries.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
One of those places is Nepal.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
One of those places is Nepal, and the church in
Nepal is growing by an averagerate of 13% per year.
Whoa, it's gone from basicallyzero, just a handful of
underground Christians in 1990,to a million or more today, and
doesn't show any signs ofslowing down.
(30:51):
Generally in Nepal at present,it's not illegal to be a
Christian, it's not illegal togather together and worship, but
there is an anti-conversion lawso you can be thrown in jail if
you are found guilty ofconverting a Hindu.
Wow, and often there are Hindumilitant groups that make life
(31:17):
very, very difficult for theChristians.
There are two.
It's also a very poor country.
So how does the church spread?
It tends to spread largely byword of mouth.
The average pastor in Nepal hasno formal training at all.
(31:39):
It's basically just handed aBible and told go for it, and so
they've got very littleresources in terms of what we
come to expect in the west, butthey got the word of god and
they got prayer.
So that's what they use becausethey don't have much else, but
(31:59):
they've got bibles, they studytheir bibles, they know their
bibles and because they are poorand they are persecuted, they
pray, pray, they have to pray.
Their prayer.
Life puts ours to shame, andthe Lord is choosing to bless
(32:19):
them.
One of my good friends in Nepalhe says you know, we don't know
what we're doing.
We're just living in thisseason of God's grace where he's
doing something wonderful inour country and we are running
to keep up.
However, there is one thingthat they do very deliberately,
and that is that they are very,very active in charitable work.
(32:44):
Now, this is partly because it'sa Hindu context.
So you know, hindus teach thedoctrine of karma.
According to the doctrine ofkarma, if you do good things,
good things will happen to you.
If you do bad things, badthings will happen to you.
What this means is that if theysee someone who's poor and down
and out, they assume that thisperson must have done something
(33:07):
wrong either earlier on in thislife or in a previous life, and
that's why they're suffering,and therefore there's no reason
to feel sorry for them, becausethey deserve it.
Furthermore, if you try to dosomething to help them, karma is
going to get them anyway, so itwon't actually help.
So that's the Hindu mentality.
The Christians, on the otherhand, they go out of their way
(33:28):
to help everybody who's down andout, regardless of caste or
creed, and this is justabsolutely revolutionary, and it
always leads to the question ofwhy are you doing this to help
us?
And that then gives them theopportunity, one-on-one, to
share the gospel.
Also, what that tends to do isit gives them protection,
(33:51):
because if there are othergroups of people in Nepal that
try and go after the Christians,often the local Hindus will say
no, no, no.
These people are doing suchgood things among us, we want
them to stay, so please leavethem alone.
And so I can.
You know I don't have the samefirsthand experience of China,
(34:12):
but I imagine the same would be.
The case is that you can winover a lot of people by simply
living a Christ-like life andserving them, going out of your
way to serve them, and a lot ofpeople even if they don't become
Christian.
That generates a lot ofgoodwill and helps to protect
(34:34):
the persecuted church.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Hey, dr Lockwood, that's so powerful what I hear
in summary.
Christian in the West and inthe US in particular, lutheran,
follower of Jesus.
Let's focus more on the word.
And that seems to be a veryLuther a robust prayer life,
radical dependence rather thanour intellect, our reason, and
(35:08):
this is very Lutheran too.
It's scripture over reason,right, it doesn't mean reason is
downplayed, but it's scripturefirst and a radical dependence
upon and trust in God to show upand show off, and we take none
of the credit.
Lord, you must move, holySpirit, you must speak, and as
you move, as you speak, we willfollow Christ.
You are our head, you are ourleader, you're our Lord.
(35:28):
Radical prayer dependence andthen robust mercy work, and in
the US that looks like hey, whatare the felt needs of our
community?
They'll know we're followers ofJesus by the way we not just
love one another, but by the waywe love our neighbor who are
far from Jesus.
So for us it's mental healthconcerns.
The church has to be speakingthere.
(35:49):
We got to care for the family,make sure the family is strong,
that marriages are strong,parents are strong and caring
for the next generation.
We have a lot to say there.
Are we known for partnershipwith and this is a very open
place freedom of speech, etcetera here in the United States
, but are we known for ourpartnership with local officials
who are trying to solve issuesof poverty and addiction and
(36:13):
mental health crisis?
Are we there in that space?
And a lot of times in ourLutheran world we can be
separate from suspicious ofthose sort of relationships with
the other Could be another typeof Lutheran or it could be one
of another type of faith.
One cool story that I got toshare is our La Mesa ministry.
This is a working, poor andhomeless ministry that we've
(36:33):
been running now for about adecade and there's two different
sites meal and worship onTuesday and Thursday night
respectively.
We're looking to meet a lot offelt needs and give people that
hand up right to restore dignityto the individual who has lost
their family and resources, etc.
So the church can comealongside them to provide those
(36:53):
resources, care on that longjourney toward Jesus sufficiency
or self-sufficiency, right.
And guess who's been one of ourmain partners in meeting that
need?
The Latter-day Saints, ourMormon neighbors.
Yeah, so Mormon neighbors.
They've stepped up thousands ofdollars, a whole bunch of
drives in partnering to meetthose felt needs.
(37:14):
So we've kind of establishedgoodwill with our Mormon
neighbors on mercy work and theyhave a different motivation,
justification for it.
Right For us we're swimming inthe pool of the gospel but
nonetheless are we known forthat sort of work today and I
think in our Lutheran circlesspecifically for those who are
(37:34):
in the Lutheran Church MissouriSynod we have a ways to go
specifically on a robust prayerand then intentionally meeting
felt needs in our localcommunity.
So thank you for highlightingthat Our strategy is hopefully
going to go deeper in light ofthat work.
I want a last question here.
Would you talk about theMission of Christ Network, mcn,
(37:55):
what the Lord is doing?
You're a missionary now thereat the China Lutheran Seminary
of Mission of Christ Network.
Tell how it was founded and howcan people support it, dr
Lockwood.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Well, mission of Christ Network was founded in
2013.
The historical origin is thatat that time, or at least for a
few years, a lot of LCMSmissionaries had been pulled off
the field.
I think for two main reasons.
One was, initially, there was alot of budget cuts and due to
(38:33):
budget cuts, a whole lot ofmissionaries who had been doing
good work suddenly didn't have ajob anymore and were pulled off
the field.
Been doing good work suddenlydidn't have a job anymore and
were pulled off the field.
I think another reason was justthis sort of happened later was
a change in policy or directionfrom LCMS International Mission
.
(38:56):
So, under the Harrisonadministration, lcms OIM have
said that they will focus onthree things One is theological
education, the second is mercywork and the third is planting
Lutheran churches.
Now, all of those are threegood things.
I'm not being critical of it.
Those are wonderful things tobe focusing on, but it did mean
(39:19):
that other things that maybedidn't fit in those three
categories got cut, and thatincluded a lot of lay people who
were just functioning as layevangelists.
Things like theologicaleducation and planting Lutheran
churches tend to require pastors, whereas lay people can often
(39:42):
just be very effectiveevangelists without necessarily
doing one of those two things.
And so the LCMS lay evangeliststend to all get pulled off the
field at that time.
And so there are a whole lot offormer LCMS international
(40:03):
missionaries who got pulled offthe field, who felt like they
weren't done with mission, andso they joined together and said
well, look, why don't we dothis in a grassroots way,
instead of doing this directlythrough the synod?
And let's go to the people ofthe church, let's go to the
(40:23):
congregations, let's go to thepeople sitting on the pews and
see if they will support us?
And so MCN look, it functionswithin the LCMS.
It has the same confessionalstance as the LCMS, but it's a
much more grassrootsorganization, and it began sort
(40:44):
of with supporting, recruitingand training lay evangelists and
then partnering with churchesand church groups overseas and
sending these evangelists towork with them.
Since then they've branched out.
Now they also employ pastorslike me and do engage in things
(41:06):
like theological education.
But it tends to be, rather thantrying to compete with LCMS,
oim it's let's find gaps thatare not being filled by OIM and
let's see if we can fill thosegaps.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Amen, I love it.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And I think one thing I enjoy about MCN apart from
the fact that they've beenextremely supportive of me is, I
guess, their priority.
So John Mayle, who's theexecutive director of MCN, once
said to me.
He said we really only have onerule, and that is that you take
every opportunity to proclaimthe gospel.
And I'm like, yeah, I can workwith that.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
That's amazing.
You're a gift brother.
I'm so glad that you're a partof, you're connected.
I mean, I'm a part of theLutheran Church of Missouri.
We have a number of listenersto this podcast that are outside
of the LCMS but that you'restill using your, your gifts in
the in the church we you were,and we're not going to talk
(42:13):
about this right now, but folksmay not know you serve for a
while in the office ofinternational ministry there
Before transitioning.
Could you just tell what yourwork was there in OIM?
Speaker 2 (42:27):
So I worked for LCMS OIM for three years.
Initially I was called to teachat the Lutheran Theological
Seminary in Baguio City in thePhilippines.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And we were all ready to go as a family.
We had our bags packed, weshipped all our possessions to
the Philippines, we had ourplane tickets in hand, and then
we couldn't get there because ofCOVID.
So we waited for two yearstrying to get into the
Philippines, and during thattime I taught for this seminary
via Zoom, and during that time Itaught for this seminary via
(43:05):
Zoom.
But after two years of waitingwe sort of gave up and we were
persuaded to accept a call toTaiwan instead.
So Taiwan opened up before thePhilippines did.
We were able to get into Taiwanand we were told that there was
a great need here in Taiwan.
Look, we would think that thiswas the Lord's hand at work.
If he wanted me to work in theChinese-speaking world, he had
(43:32):
to throw COVID at the world toget me here.
So I then worked for a year anda half here in Taiwan with LCMS
OIM as a theological educator.
There were plans to eventuallyuse me to teach in Taiwan with
LCMS OIM as a theologicaleducator.
There were plans to eventuallyuse me to teach in Taiwan.
So I was learning Mandarin, butin the meantime they were also
sending me to many othercountries to teach, and so I was
(43:54):
supporting the training ofpastors and church workers in
many different countries, whichwas a continuation of work that
I'd actually been doing while Iwas still a parish pastor in
Australia.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
That's wonderful, wonderful, hey, dr Lockwood,
praying for you and yourministry, your journey learning
Mandarin.
You are a gift to the widerchurch, brother, and if people
want to connect with you, howcan they do so?
What's email?
Best way to get in touch withyou and support you?
Speaker 2 (44:24):
So my best email address for me is
michaellockwood atmissionofchristorg, and if you
send me an email I will happilysign you up for my newsletter,
so I'll be able to give you alot more information on what
we're doing.
If anyone would like also tojust find out more information
(44:48):
online or to support usfinancially, they can go to
missionofchristorg forward slashLockwood and they'll find my
page and that includes adonation portal.
So I don't actually draw asalary from teaching at China
Lutheran Seminary.
We do have to raise our ownsupport, and so we very much
(45:09):
depend on the good-heartedpeople of God who want to
partner with us in Christ'smission.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Amen.
I pray many come forward.
Dr Lockwood, you're a gift.
This is the AmericanReformation podcast.
Sharing is caring to get wordsabout Jesus, to multiply
disciples, to release the church, to go after those that are far
from Jesus.
I pray this conversation todaygave you a lot of joy, that the
wheels are turning and maybethere's less logic, linear
(45:41):
planning.
What I'm taking from theconversation is hey, tim, at
your staff meetings we spendabout 15, 20 minutes in prayer.
Maybe we mix it up at one ofour upcoming executive meetings
and we spend the entire hour anda half in prayer and in the
word we're going to do it.
It's going to be amazing.
It's such a counterculturalthing to even kind of consider.
(46:03):
Dr Lockwood, you know butdefinitely worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Go ahead.
In Nepal they'll pray all night, so but baby steps for you guys
.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Baby steps for us, that's what it's about Baby
steps in the Jesus direction.
It's a good day.
Go and make it a great day.
We'll be back next week withanother episode of American
Reformation.
Thank you, dr Lockwood.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
You're welcome, thank you.
Welcome to the American Reformation podcast,
tim Allman.
Here I pray.
The joy of Jesus is with you,the promises of your baptism.
You are called a child of God,you are a part of the royal
priesthood and Jesus haswonderful things in store for
you today.
As you take the humble postureof a learner, I get to learn
today with Reverend Dr MichaelLockwood.
(00:34):
Let me tell you just a littlebit about him.
He and I talked a few monthsago and wanted to have him on to
tell the story of what he'sdoing right now learning
Mandarin.
After a multi-decade career asa pastor in the Lutheran Church
of Australia, he now has beencalled to the China Lutheran
(00:54):
Seminary there in Taiwan andhe's in partnership with the
Mission of Christ Network andwe're going to explore his call
there, the history of thepersecuted church in China and
the need for raising up morefaithful confessional Lutheran
leaders to share the gospel wordand sacrament in China and
(01:17):
beyond.
How are you doing, dr Lockwood?
Thank you for spending timewith me today.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm doing very well.
Thank you for welcoming me.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, it's a joy.
Yeah, it's a privilege, it's anhonor.
So, as you look, you've spentmost of your career in Australia
, Papua New Guinea and now inChina.
I'm going to ask this questiona little bit different as you
look at Asia, Southeast Asia, etcetera how are you praying for
reformation?
We're the church of thereformation, right?
How are you praying forreformation as you look at the
(01:46):
Christian church in yourcommunities?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
If I look at the Western world, I'm praying that
we would get back to being achurch of the Word of God and
prayer.
So the Western world, the basicidol of the western world is
the human self.
Right, we don't worship gods ofwood and stone, we just worship
ourselves, we trust inourselves, we live for ourselves
(02:15):
, etc.
And that's true of the westernchurches.
In the western world as well,we share the idolatry of the
surrounding culture and um.
We often say that we are peopleof the word and say that we're
people of prayer, but ourbehavior shows something else.
For example, in the Westernworld, if we have a problem,
(02:35):
what do we do?
We have a meeting, of course,and we'll pray for maybe two
minutes and then we'll plan andstrategize for three hours, and
that tells us where our faith is.
It's actually in the planningand strategizing, not in the God
, who hears and answers prayer.
When I go and teach in a placelike Nepal, if they face a
problem, they'll pray all night.
(02:56):
Now, at the end of that, theymight come together and say,
okay, did God reveal anything tous about what we should do?
But the focus is on the prayer,not on the planning and the
strategizing.
And it's the same with the Word.
I think in the Lutheran Churchwe're proud of being a church of
the Word because we have thisgreat doctrinal inheritance.
(03:17):
But what that actually says isthat our forebears were people
of the Word and we're kind ofliving off the capital that
they've built up for us.
And you know, I've been aLutheran pastor pretty much my
whole adult life, spent most ofthat in the Western world, and I
have several times asked fromthe pulpit, you know, put up
(03:38):
your hand if you can honestlysay that you've read the Bible
from cover to cover at leastonce in your life.
And it's scary how few hands goup right, so there's only one
book that's ever come directlyfrom God.
It's the Bible.
And most people on church pewshave not read it, at least not
(03:59):
all the way through.
They've read snippets of it, ofcourse.
And I found the same withseminary students.
You know, guys going out onvicarage, guys even going out
into the ministry, never readthe whole Bible.
So we often we blame theculture for the problems of the
church and say, oh, theculture's against us or whatever
(04:19):
.
Well, the culture's alwaysagainst the church.
I think the biggest problem isthat we rely on ourselves
instead of actually relying onthe.
It's always against the church,right?
I think the biggest problem isthat we rely on ourselves
instead of actually relying onthe word you know, the word of
the Lord to change us, to changeour hearts, to shape us, to
form us, and then relying on himthrough prayer.
So that's the Western worldGoing to the church in Asia.
(04:45):
It depends so much from countryto country.
You really can't generalizeabout Asia.
You know, you've got highlydeveloped countries, you've got
very poor, underdevelopedcountries.
You've got places whereChristians can worship freely
and operate freely.
You've got places where thechurch is very much persecuted.
(05:07):
So it's very hard to generalize.
Except for this Christianity inAsia is almost always extremely
legalistic, very heavy emphasison the law and not enough
(05:31):
emphasis on the gospel, one ofthe reasons, again, it's hard to
generalize.
But I could talk about Taiwan.
So Taiwan is very much shapedby this kind of Chinese cultural
(05:55):
heritage and the ancientculture of China is very much
shaped by Confucianism.
And so Confucius, I would sayhe was a very wise philosopher,
teacher, ethicist etc.
And many of the things that hetaught were very good.
In fact, one of my colleagueshere at China Lutheran Seminary,
(06:20):
stephen Oliver did his doctoralthesis comparing the ethical
teachings of the New Testament,particularly in the book of
James, with the ethicalteachings of Confucius and found
that they're very similar.
So Confucius taught people towork hard to support their
families and serve theirfamilies, to work hard to serve
(06:42):
their communities, to be honest,to honor heaven.
It's a bit vague about what'sin heaven, but nevertheless
taught people to honor heavenand so on.
These are all good things, andyou see this in Taiwan.
So, for example, in Taiwan, Ialmost never drive a car because
(07:03):
it's too hard to find a placeto park that car.
So I almost always drive alittle motorbike or a pushbike
and I'll usually have my phoneon a phone holder so I can
navigate.
And I've lost track of thenumber of times that I've
forgotten my phone and just leftit on the bike while I've gone
into a short shop or something,and it's always still there when
(07:25):
I come back.
So they are very honest people,but what's missing?
What's missing is the gospel.
So Confucius taught them tohonor heaven, but he did not
know the one who came fromheaven.
So there's no forgiveness ofsins and when they fail they
experience deep shame andthere's nothing to take that
(07:47):
shame away.
And if you look at theirreligion, they worship many
different gods of wood and stone.
It's very transactional.
So if you want a particularblessing, there's something you
need to do to get that blessing.
If you want to pass your exams,you go and pray at the temple
to Confucius right and offerburnt incense before him, et
(08:13):
cetera, hoping that he will thenhelp you on your exam.
If you want to get rich, you goto the Taoist temple of
Khaishan and you pray to him andoffer sacrifices to him, hoping
that he'll make you rich inreturn.
So it's very transactional.
What tends to happen is thatwhen people become Christian,
they swap out their old gods ofwood and stone for a new God,
but they bring the same thinkingwith them, thinking that it's
all about what we do to makeourselves into virtuous people
(08:35):
and to earn the blessing of God.
And they struggle to understandthat in the Christian faith,
that in the Christian faith, godgives us every good thing by
grace and anything that we do issimply a response to what he's
first done for us.
That's probably the biggestproblem.
I think the other big problemis that Christianity in Asia
(09:01):
tends to be shaped by thechurches that have worked in
Asia, tends to be shaped by thechurches that have worked in
Asia.
So it tends to be shaped by theRoman Catholics who've worked
in many countries such as thePhilippines and Vietnam, but
also by sort of reformedProtestants.
And although reformedProtestants teach justification
(09:23):
by faith so they definitelyteach the gospel they don't tend
to emphasize it the way thatLutherans do, and so what tends
to happen is that they willpreach the gospel to new
converts.
So when you first become aChristian, you'll have the
gospel proclaimed to you, butthen, once you're already in the
church, now it's about all thethings you need to do, and so
(09:45):
you sort of graduate from Christto Moses, right.
And so I've found that whenI've taught about how you know
the gospel is the driving forcein the whole Christian life,
it's not just about ourjustification, it's also about
our sanctification, because it'sthe gospel that actually
(10:08):
changes the heart, so that welove our Lord from the heart.
Christians here find that quiterevolutionary.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well sure, there's nothing like it, dr Lockwood.
The gospel is the most radicalteaching of grace and love
that's ever been dispelled uponall of humanity, all of the
cosmos for that matter.
It's very unusual.
I heard recently and this isexciting, I think, in our
(10:36):
American context Lutheranism andwhen I say Lutheranism I mean
word and sacrament,gospel-saturated conversation is
having a ripple effect in thewider evangelical church here in
America.
And I read a book recently fromJD Greer.
He's a megachurch, multiplecongregation, southern Baptist,
(10:59):
but he's reading a lot of Lutherand in his book it's a
missiological book, it's calledWinning by Losing, and it's a
sending book.
It's about how many leadersthey're sending to start new
ministry.
It's wonderful.
Start new churches, it's great.
But one of their mantras I'dlove to get your take on this is
the gospel is not the divingboard.
And this didn't make sense forme until I understood right
(11:24):
their context, because I wouldhave agreed with this.
Why do we even have to say this?
He says but the gospel is notthe diving board, the gospel is
the pool in which we swim andlive.
I'm like that's exactly right.
It's all immersed in grace.
This is, this is a love, thisis a Christian freedom.
This is the joy that comes fromJesus.
This is the now invitation OurGod is very invitation, the
(11:45):
invitation to go and love ourneighbor, as we've received his
radical love Right.
So it's the entire pool.
And I don't know, maybe even inLutheranism we can have a
tendency to move towardPharisaism or legalism around a
number of different topics andwe miss the freedom.
This is what it appears likeLuther is getting after.
We miss the freedom.
This is what it appears likeLuther is getting after.
We miss the freedom that Christhas come.
(12:06):
It is for freedom that you havebeen set free.
We don't use it to justifyourselves or to prove ourselves.
We've died to ourselves.
We no longer live.
Christ lives in us, and so it'sjust an outgrowth.
Our sanctified life is just anoutgrowth of the love that's
been showered upon us in ourbaptism, mobilizing us for the
mission of God to bring love andlight into a dark world.
(12:26):
So any response to that divingboard and pool analogy there, dr
.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Lockwood, well, I agree with what you're saying.
It's not the diving board, itis the pool.
It's what we as Christians swimin and all too often we sort of
take the gospel for granted andfail to appreciate the full
scope and dimension of it.
(12:51):
In my doctoral thesis, one ofmy chapters was about
self-justification and all thedifferent strategies we use to
justify ourselves.
And after exploring that for awhile, you can't unsee it, and I
see it in myself, always havingto fight this tendency to
(13:13):
justify myself instead ofactually coming clean about what
a sinner I am and trusting inthe grace of my God.
But I see it in the peoplearound me all the time, and
Lutherans are great at it.
We are masters ofself-justification.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Say more about that.
Yeah, what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I think one of the tendencies for us as Lutherans
is that we think we're justifiedby being right.
We have this wonderful, puredoctrine.
Now don't get me wrong I loveLutheran theology, I think it's
fabulous.
But I'm not justified simplybecause I've got the Book of
(13:55):
Concord on my shelf or I've gotpaper sitting on my shelf, as
wonderful as these treasures are, I'm justified by the Lord,
jesus Christ, and so it's easyfor us, as Lutherans say.
(14:16):
Well, thank God, we're not likeother people.
You know, we've got ourtheology all sorted out, and
aren't we great?
That's not actually the samething as living by the gospel.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Actually getting the log out of my eye.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Amen, amen, yes, and we got a little bit of a lag for
those that are listening.
He's crossed the world and it'sclose to midnight where he's at
right now, so thank you forbeing here.
It's bright and early in themorning for us here in Phoenix,
arizona.
So you wrote a book on Luther.
Would you tell the story ofwriting?
There's been so much literaturewritten on Luther.
(14:54):
What was the nature and I havenot read your book, I'd love to
what was the nature of yourLutheran exploration there into
Luther's life?
Was it a biography of sorts?
Or yeah, just tell that story abit, dr Lockwood.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Well, it started as my doctoral thesis.
So I did my doctorate atConcordia, st Louis, and
eventually, after I completedthe doctorate, I thought I made
so many wonderful discoverieswriting this.
A wider audience needs to hearthis, and so I ended up taking
that and rewriting it to make itmore accessible and then
(15:27):
published it as a book throughCPH.
So I was writing on Luther'stheology of idolatry, but I mean
that's a huge topic in and ofitself.
In many ways the book ended upbeing an introduction to all of
Luther's thought, because theway that Luther approaches the
(15:48):
question of idolatry is, he saysfirst you need to know the real
thing, you need to know thetrue and living God and what it
is that he does in human life,and once you know that, then
it's easy to spot all the thingsthat we put in his place Right.
So first you've got tounderstand Luther's theology of
the true and living God and whathe does in human life, and then
(16:09):
you can move on to what he saysabout idolatry.
But on the basis of Luther andthe scriptures I argue two main
things in that book.
One is that the self is alwaysthe greatest idol.
Who do I really love?
It's me, not necessarily in thesense that I always like myself
, but in the sense that I want.
(16:31):
I want the world to revolvearound me and my desires.
Yes, you know, I want what Iwant and I want God to give it
to me.
I want the world to give it tome, I want the people around me
to give it to me, so it's allabout me.
And then, secondly, who do Iwant to be able to trust in?
I want to be able to trust in,I want to be able to trust in me
, because if I can say, well, Idid it, then the glory goes to
(16:52):
me.
But if I have to say that Goddid it, the glory goes to him,
and the sinful nature doesn'tlike that so much, which is why
we're so intent on justifyingourselves.
If I'm simply a sinner, savedtotally by grace, all the glory
goes to Christ, whereas if I canjustify myself, then the glory
(17:12):
goes to Christ, whereas if I canjustify myself, then the glory
goes to me.
And so that's whyself-justification dies so hard.
But then the second thing Iargue is that if you're not
going to worship the true andliving God, idolatry is not
optional.
It's compulsory, because Godsimply plays too big a role in
human life to just leave him outof the picture and not put
something in his place.
But what you're trying toreplace is the triune God and
(17:37):
therefore you effectively haveto find substitutes for Father,
son and Holy Spirit, and youridolatry will look very
different depending on whichmember of the Trinity you're
trying to compensate for.
So something like money is afunctional substitute for the
Father and his work ofprovidence.
(17:58):
If my wallet is fat, it willprovide.
I don't need the Lord toprovide, but that doesn't help
you in other areas of life.
So in relation to the Son areasof life.
So in relation to the Son, if Iwill not allow Christ to
justify me with a righteousnessthat is not my own but is given
to me as a gift, I will beforever compelled to try and
(18:19):
justify myself, and then I'llturn my own righteousness into
an idol that I put in the placeof Christ.
And then, thirdly, if I willnot allow the Holy Spirit to
enlighten me through His Word,then I will be forever compelled
to enlighten myself and I willturn my own wisdom, or human
wisdom, whatever it is that Ithink is wise, into an idol that
(18:41):
I put in the place of Christ,put in the place of God's Spirit
and His Word.
I should have said so.
It's a nutshell what I argue.
I go into a lot more detail inthe book.
Oh, obviously, obviously.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
That's so cool.
I'm right in the process rightnow hopefully in 2025, middle of
, I have a sabbatical coming uptaking my thesis and put it in
book form, making it a littlebit more readable, as you did
with CPH.
So wonderful, wonderful.
We could go deeper into Lutherand I'm sure we will talk more
(19:15):
about Luther.
But I'd love.
You're learning Mandarin rightnow, like you're spending a
whole year learning a languageof which you were unfamiliar.
Now you're conversant, butyou're preparing to teach
Lutheran theology in Mandarin.
That is.
That is.
That's amazing and I applaudyou for it and the call of
(19:38):
Christ upon your life.
Not many folks would take upanother language at this.
And you're not old by anystretch, but at this season of
life, the older we get, a lot oftimes we say it's harder,
harder to learn something newlike this.
But you are pressing theboundaries of the human mind,
human potential.
Praise God all for theexpansion of the gospel.
So what is that journey like?
Just learning Mandarin, michael?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
where I can teach in it.
I've been learning it for twoyears, about half time, but from
now on.
I'm going to be acceleratingthat and I'm basically doing it
(20:20):
full time.
The US State Departmentestimates that it takes three
and a half times as long tolearn Mandarin as it does to
learn something like German orSpanish or French.
So it's like learning German,spanish, french and then
throwing into Italian as well.
This is one of the mostdifficult languages in the world
(20:40):
for an English speaker to learn, so it's a challenge, but it's
a joyful challenge becauselanguage it opens up a culture,
it opens up a big piece of theworld, and there are one billion
people in the world who speakMandarin as their first language
, their heart language, and justas we find Mandarin difficult,
(21:04):
they find English very difficult, and that really is like this
huge firewall that keeps theEnglish speaking world and the
Mandarin speaking world separate, and so you learn a language
like Mandarin.
It just opens up this whole newworld and it is an enormous
world.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Well, say more about the enormity of that world,
because I think most of us herein the West like we.
While there's so much politicalyou know jargon that goes on
about China and economics andall of that, what are you
learning about that culture,especially in learning Mandarin?
That should shape our view ofChina and Asia in general.
(21:47):
And I mean, let me just bringit here.
I mean we know that theunderground church in China is
exploding.
I don't exactly know in theWest here what that looks like,
but maybe use this as you'reopening up that brand new world,
learning Mandarin.
Use it as a bridge to talkabout mission, what the Lord is
doing to elevate his namethrough the local church in a
different form than we're oftenaware of here in the US.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Well, I think one of the Luther was a great
translator.
He translated the Scripturesinto German and he was a very
good translator and that'salways been a feature of
Lutheran mission that one of thefirst things we do is we
translate the ScripturesWhenever we're going to a new
unreached people group and workvery hard at learning their
(22:36):
language.
Whenever you try andcommunicate the gospel, it's
very important that if at allpossible, you use people's heart
language.
So even if they know two orthree languages and you could
speak to them in a differentlanguage and they'd still
understand what you were saying,it doesn't tend to have the
(22:57):
same impact on them as if youuse their heart language.
So Mandarin is the heartlanguage of one billion people.
So if we want to reach those 1billion people, we need to be
working in Mandarin and ChinaLutheran Seminary, where I teach
in Taiwan until very recently Ithought it was the only
(23:18):
Lutheran seminary in the worldthat was working in Mandarin.
I very recently discovered thatthere's a very small Wisconsin
Lutheran seminary in Hong Kongthat's also working in Mandarin.
But China Lutheran Seminaryhere in Taiwan is much bigger.
So it's certainly, in terms ofits size, the most significant
(23:38):
Lutheran institution in theworld that's working in Mandarin
, and so that means it's kind ofgot this.
It's got an enormous mission,not only to the people of Taiwan
but also to the widerMandarin-speaking world.
Now, when you talk about thewider Mandarin-speaking world,
most obviously you're talkingabout China.
(24:00):
So Mandarin is the officiallanguage of China, also the
official language of Taiwan.
But you go to any major city inthe world today, what do you
find?
You find Chinatown, right.
So there's a hugeMandarin-speaking diaspora
scattered around the world.
You know Southern California ismore than 10% Mandarin-speaking
(24:25):
.
You know quite a few regions ofthe US have large Mandarin
speaking minorities.
Same is true of Australia, andso you find these Mandarin
speaking communities rightaround the world.
Now, zeroing in on China alittle bit, china's quite
complicated.
I mean, this is a country of1.3, 1.4 billion people, so it's
(24:50):
hard to generalize about it.
But you've got to remember thisis one of the world's great
civilizations.
I mean Chinese culture andhistory and civilization goes
back thousands of years, muchlonger than Western civilisation
(25:12):
, and they've brought many greattreasures to the world.
So it's a culture that needs tobe respected.
Now, it's true that you know atthe moment they have a communist
government and in many wayscommunist thinking is a
(25:34):
challenge to the western worldand a challenge to christianity.
I mean, communism is anavowedly atheistic system and it
tends to be a totalitariansystem.
So if people understand thedistinction between dictatorship
and totalitarianism, a dictatordoesn't hold elections.
(25:56):
A dictator wants to stay inpower, but a dictator doesn't
necessarily try to control everyaspect of your life, whereas a
totalitarian system does try andcontrol, or at least most
aspects, many aspects ofpeople's lives.
So you think of a place likeChina where until recently, they
(26:18):
had a one-child policy.
Just think about what thatmeans.
You don't get to choose howmany kids you have, the
government gets to choose howmany kids you can have, and that
spills over into all sorts ofother areas of life, and so that
tends to be a challenge forchristians, um, to be under a
(26:39):
regime like that.
But again, you can't reallygeneralize.
So christianity is not illegalin china.
Um, you have two kinds ofchurches in China.
You have the registered churches, so they can operate openly and
legally.
(27:01):
So the Catholic Church isregistered, and then there's
sort of a general Protestantchurch called the Three-Self
Church, which is legallyregistered.
But being legally registeredmeans that you have to play a
bit of a dance with the ChineseCommunist Party.
You have to keep the partyhappy in order to be able to
(27:24):
continue to operate, and in someplaces that might be relatively
easy.
You might have your localcommunist party leaders might be
fairly lenient.
In other places they might bemuch stricter, and so you've got
to really watch your step.
(27:45):
But many Christians don't wantto play that dance.
They don't want to berestricted by the Communist
Party in terms of what they cansay and what they can do, and so
they go underground.
And so you have an enormousunderground church in China, and
(28:07):
it's impossible to get accuratefigures in terms of how many
underground Christians there arein China, but it is an enormous
number and it's growing rapidlyby all reports, and that
includes underground Lutheranchurches that you just don't
hear about except by word ofmouth, that you just don't hear
(28:31):
about except by word of mouth.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, could you I love this Could you go deeper in
terms of like, what does thatchurch expression look like?
And I don't think and I'masking it because I care about
our brothers and sisters acrossthe world, and not necessarily
that this sort of an experiencecould come in short order to the
(28:53):
United States, though if it did, the gospel would go forward.
That's the way it always worksthrough persecuted seasons.
And to go back to what you'retalking about before, we lean
less on the self and more onChrist and His provision and
more on community care andsupport.
So could you paint a picture?
I know it's kind of hard whenit's underground and it's kind
of secret, but can you paint apicture about how the gospel
word and sacrament, specificallyLutheran ministry, how that
(29:16):
multiplies in China?
Speaker 2 (29:22):
When you're in a persecuted situation, you really
can't operate as a largeinstitution.
It has to be much more organicand you know small groups of
christians gathering together,sharing the gospel by word of
(29:43):
mouth, um studying thescriptures for themselves,
because a because a lot of otheryou know, the sort of big
projects of an institutionalisedchurch are just not possible.
But look, here you're going alittle bit outside my expertise
(30:03):
because I live in Taiwan.
I don't live in China, right?
In fact, I've never actuallybeen to China.
I've been to Hong Kong.
I show a great interest in allthings China and I've never
actually been to China.
I've been to Hong Kong, I showa great interest in all things
China and I hope to get thereone day, but a lot of my
information is secondhand.
I have, however, taughtfirsthand in many countries in
Asia where Christians arepersecuted, so I have firsthand
(30:23):
knowledge of many othercountries.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
One of those places is Nepal.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
One of those places is Nepal, and the church in
Nepal is growing by an averagerate of 13% per year.
Whoa, it's gone from basicallyzero, just a handful of
underground Christians in 1990,to a million or more today, and
doesn't show any signs ofslowing down.
(30:51):
Generally in Nepal at present,it's not illegal to be a
Christian, it's not illegal togather together and worship, but
there is an anti-conversion lawso you can be thrown in jail if
you are found guilty ofconverting a Hindu.
Wow, and often there are Hindumilitant groups that make life
(31:17):
very, very difficult for theChristians.
There are two.
It's also a very poor country.
So how does the church spread?
It tends to spread largely byword of mouth.
The average pastor in Nepal hasno formal training at all.
(31:39):
It's basically just handed aBible and told go for it, and so
they've got very littleresources in terms of what we
come to expect in the west, butthey got the word of god and
they got prayer.
So that's what they use becausethey don't have much else, but
(31:59):
they've got bibles, they studytheir bibles, they know their
bibles and because they are poorand they are persecuted, they
pray, pray, they have to pray.
Their prayer.
Life puts ours to shame, andthe Lord is choosing to bless
(32:19):
them.
One of my good friends in Nepalhe says you know, we don't know
what we're doing.
We're just living in thisseason of God's grace where he's
doing something wonderful inour country and we are running
to keep up.
However, there is one thingthat they do very deliberately,
and that is that they are very,very active in charitable work.
(32:44):
Now, this is partly because it'sa Hindu context.
So you know, hindus teach thedoctrine of karma.
According to the doctrine ofkarma, if you do good things,
good things will happen to you.
If you do bad things, badthings will happen to you.
What this means is that if theysee someone who's poor and down
and out, they assume that thisperson must have done something
(33:07):
wrong either earlier on in thislife or in a previous life, and
that's why they're suffering,and therefore there's no reason
to feel sorry for them, becausethey deserve it.
Furthermore, if you try to dosomething to help them, karma is
going to get them anyway, so itwon't actually help.
So that's the Hindu mentality.
The Christians, on the otherhand, they go out of their way
(33:28):
to help everybody who's down andout, regardless of caste or
creed, and this is justabsolutely revolutionary, and it
always leads to the question ofwhy are you doing this to help
us?
And that then gives them theopportunity, one-on-one, to
share the gospel.
Also, what that tends to do isit gives them protection,
(33:51):
because if there are othergroups of people in Nepal that
try and go after the Christians,often the local Hindus will say
no, no, no.
These people are doing suchgood things among us, we want
them to stay, so please leavethem alone.
And so I can.
You know I don't have the samefirsthand experience of China,
(34:12):
but I imagine the same would be.
The case is that you can winover a lot of people by simply
living a Christ-like life andserving them, going out of your
way to serve them, and a lot ofpeople even if they don't become
Christian.
That generates a lot ofgoodwill and helps to protect
(34:34):
the persecuted church.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Hey, dr Lockwood, that's so powerful what I hear
in summary.
Christian in the West and inthe US in particular, lutheran,
follower of Jesus.
Let's focus more on the word.
And that seems to be a veryLuther a robust prayer life,
radical dependence rather thanour intellect, our reason, and
(35:08):
this is very Lutheran too.
It's scripture over reason,right, it doesn't mean reason is
downplayed, but it's scripturefirst and a radical dependence
upon and trust in God to show upand show off, and we take none
of the credit.
Lord, you must move, holySpirit, you must speak, and as
you move, as you speak, we willfollow Christ.
You are our head, you are ourleader, you're our Lord.
(35:28):
Radical prayer dependence andthen robust mercy work, and in
the US that looks like hey, whatare the felt needs of our
community?
They'll know we're followers ofJesus by the way we not just
love one another, but by the waywe love our neighbor who are
far from Jesus.
So for us it's mental healthconcerns.
The church has to be speakingthere.
(35:49):
We got to care for the family,make sure the family is strong,
that marriages are strong,parents are strong and caring
for the next generation.
We have a lot to say there.
Are we known for partnershipwith and this is a very open
place freedom of speech, etcetera here in the United States
, but are we known for ourpartnership with local officials
who are trying to solve issuesof poverty and addiction and
(36:13):
mental health crisis?
Are we there in that space?
And a lot of times in ourLutheran world we can be
separate from suspicious ofthose sort of relationships with
the other Could be another typeof Lutheran or it could be one
of another type of faith.
One cool story that I got toshare is our La Mesa ministry.
This is a working, poor andhomeless ministry that we've
(36:33):
been running now for about adecade and there's two different
sites meal and worship onTuesday and Thursday night
respectively.
We're looking to meet a lot offelt needs and give people that
hand up right to restore dignityto the individual who has lost
their family and resources, etc.
So the church can comealongside them to provide those
(36:53):
resources, care on that longjourney toward Jesus sufficiency
or self-sufficiency, right.
And guess who's been one of ourmain partners in meeting that
need?
The Latter-day Saints, ourMormon neighbors.
Yeah, so Mormon neighbors.
They've stepped up thousands ofdollars, a whole bunch of
drives in partnering to meetthose felt needs.
(37:14):
So we've kind of establishedgoodwill with our Mormon
neighbors on mercy work and theyhave a different motivation,
justification for it.
Right For us we're swimming inthe pool of the gospel but
nonetheless are we known forthat sort of work today and I
think in our Lutheran circlesspecifically for those who are
(37:34):
in the Lutheran Church MissouriSynod we have a ways to go
specifically on a robust prayerand then intentionally meeting
felt needs in our localcommunity.
So thank you for highlightingthat Our strategy is hopefully
going to go deeper in light ofthat work.
I want a last question here.
Would you talk about theMission of Christ Network, mcn,
(37:55):
what the Lord is doing?
You're a missionary now thereat the China Lutheran Seminary
of Mission of Christ Network.
Tell how it was founded and howcan people support it, dr
Lockwood.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Well, mission of Christ Network was founded in
2013.
The historical origin is thatat that time, or at least for a
few years, a lot of LCMSmissionaries had been pulled off
the field.
I think for two main reasons.
One was, initially, there was alot of budget cuts and due to
(38:33):
budget cuts, a whole lot ofmissionaries who had been doing
good work suddenly didn't have ajob anymore and were pulled off
the field.
Been doing good work suddenlydidn't have a job anymore and
were pulled off the field.
I think another reason was justthis sort of happened later was
a change in policy or directionfrom LCMS International Mission
.
(38:56):
So, under the Harrisonadministration, lcms OIM have
said that they will focus onthree things One is theological
education, the second is mercywork and the third is planting
Lutheran churches.
Now, all of those are threegood things.
I'm not being critical of it.
Those are wonderful things tobe focusing on, but it did mean
(39:19):
that other things that maybedidn't fit in those three
categories got cut, and thatincluded a lot of lay people who
were just functioning as layevangelists.
Things like theologicaleducation and planting Lutheran
churches tend to require pastors, whereas lay people can often
(39:42):
just be very effectiveevangelists without necessarily
doing one of those two things.
And so the LCMS lay evangeliststend to all get pulled off the
field at that time.
And so there are a whole lot offormer LCMS international
(40:03):
missionaries who got pulled offthe field, who felt like they
weren't done with mission, andso they joined together and said
well, look, why don't we dothis in a grassroots way,
instead of doing this directlythrough the synod?
And let's go to the people ofthe church, let's go to the
(40:23):
congregations, let's go to thepeople sitting on the pews and
see if they will support us?
And so MCN look, it functionswithin the LCMS.
It has the same confessionalstance as the LCMS, but it's a
much more grassrootsorganization, and it began sort
(40:44):
of with supporting, recruitingand training lay evangelists and
then partnering with churchesand church groups overseas and
sending these evangelists towork with them.
Since then they've branched out.
Now they also employ pastorslike me and do engage in things
(41:06):
like theological education.
But it tends to be, rather thantrying to compete with LCMS,
oim it's let's find gaps thatare not being filled by OIM and
let's see if we can fill thosegaps.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Amen, I love it.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And I think one thing I enjoy about MCN apart from
the fact that they've beenextremely supportive of me is, I
guess, their priority.
So John Mayle, who's theexecutive director of MCN, once
said to me.
He said we really only have onerule, and that is that you take
every opportunity to proclaimthe gospel.
And I'm like, yeah, I can workwith that.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
That's amazing.
You're a gift brother.
I'm so glad that you're a partof, you're connected.
I mean, I'm a part of theLutheran Church of Missouri.
We have a number of listenersto this podcast that are outside
of the LCMS but that you'restill using your, your gifts in
the in the church we you were,and we're not going to talk
(42:13):
about this right now, but folksmay not know you serve for a
while in the office ofinternational ministry there
Before transitioning.
Could you just tell what yourwork was there in OIM?
Speaker 2 (42:27):
So I worked for LCMS OIM for three years.
Initially I was called to teachat the Lutheran Theological
Seminary in Baguio City in thePhilippines.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
And we were all ready to go as a family.
We had our bags packed, weshipped all our possessions to
the Philippines, we had ourplane tickets in hand, and then
we couldn't get there because ofCOVID.
So we waited for two yearstrying to get into the
Philippines, and during thattime I taught for this seminary
via Zoom, and during that time Itaught for this seminary via
(43:05):
Zoom.
But after two years of waitingwe sort of gave up and we were
persuaded to accept a call toTaiwan instead.
So Taiwan opened up before thePhilippines did.
We were able to get into Taiwanand we were told that there was
a great need here in Taiwan.
Look, we would think that thiswas the Lord's hand at work.
If he wanted me to work in theChinese-speaking world, he had
(43:32):
to throw COVID at the world toget me here.
So I then worked for a year anda half here in Taiwan with LCMS
OIM as a theological educator.
There were plans to eventuallyuse me to teach in Taiwan with
LCMS OIM as a theologicaleducator.
There were plans to eventuallyuse me to teach in Taiwan.
So I was learning Mandarin, butin the meantime they were also
sending me to many othercountries to teach, and so I was
(43:54):
supporting the training ofpastors and church workers in
many different countries, whichwas a continuation of work that
I'd actually been doing while Iwas still a parish pastor in
Australia.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
That's wonderful, wonderful, hey, dr Lockwood,
praying for you and yourministry, your journey learning
Mandarin.
You are a gift to the widerchurch, brother, and if people
want to connect with you, howcan they do so?
What's email?
Best way to get in touch withyou and support you?
Speaker 2 (44:24):
So my best email address for me is
michaellockwood atmissionofchristorg, and if you
send me an email I will happilysign you up for my newsletter,
so I'll be able to give you alot more information on what
we're doing.
If anyone would like also tojust find out more information
(44:48):
online or to support usfinancially, they can go to
missionofchristorg forward slashLockwood and they'll find my
page and that includes adonation portal.
So I don't actually draw asalary from teaching at China
Lutheran Seminary.
We do have to raise our ownsupport, and so we very much
(45:09):
depend on the good-heartedpeople of God who want to
partner with us in Christ'smission.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Amen.
I pray many come forward.
Dr Lockwood, you're a gift.
This is the AmericanReformation podcast.
Sharing is caring to get wordsabout Jesus, to multiply
disciples, to release the church, to go after those that are far
from Jesus.
I pray this conversation todaygave you a lot of joy, that the
wheels are turning and maybethere's less logic, linear
(45:41):
planning.
What I'm taking from theconversation is hey, tim, at
your staff meetings we spendabout 15, 20 minutes in prayer.
Maybe we mix it up at one ofour upcoming executive meetings
and we spend the entire hour anda half in prayer and in the
word we're going to do it.
It's going to be amazing.
It's such a counterculturalthing to even kind of consider.
(46:03):
Dr Lockwood, you know butdefinitely worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Go ahead.
In Nepal they'll pray all night, so but baby steps for you guys
.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Baby steps for us, that's what it's about Baby
steps in the Jesus direction.
It's a good day.
Go and make it a great day.
We'll be back next week withanother episode of American
Reformation.
Thank you, dr Lockwood.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
You're welcome, thank you.
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