This article was adapted from Training Leaders International’s new Journal of Global Christianity. It is available in five languages (English, Farsi, Spanish, French, Chinese). You can read a brief introduction here.
As the call to prayer blares from the centrally located mosque on campus, 20 university students are gradually filling a large study room in the library for a weekly Bible discussion. It’s one of three on this campus each week. But what’s particularly striking about this group is that the majority of those in attendance are Muslims. The third weekly meeting was added because of a request from the president of the Muslim Student Association. There are a few with Hindu and nominal Christian backgrounds mixed in. Eight different nationalities are represented.
For the next hour, first-year Egyptian student Maged leads the group in discussing Luke 7:36-50, which recounts Jesus in the home of Simon the Pharisee. The participants all read from the biblical passage printed on plain sheets of paper passed around the table. Each is allowed to make comments and draw his own conclusions about Jesus and only pressed to be consistent and reasonable in his conclusions based on what the text actually says. The discussion is rousing and electric. Most of those in attendance have never read the Bible, and only one or two have ever owned one. As the discussion draws to a close, the leader asks about the implied identity of Jesus based on the parable he tells.
“He’s clearly claiming to be God,” pipes up one of the Gulf Arab students. Heads nod in agreement around the room.
God at Work on the Arabian Peninsula
An evangelical student ministry has been steadily growing for more than a decade on the Arabian Peninsula. Bible discussions like the one described above are happening weekly on 16 campuses in the country where the work is based. A similar work has arisen in a neighboring country, while pioneering contact with Christian students has been made in three other bordering countries.
Students from nearly every Gulf country, North Africa, Iran, India, Pakistan, and other parts of Asia are involved in the Bible discussions and activities. Many students have become Christians, and several believers with a Muslim background have joined the fellowship and are being discipled.
Three Critical Factors
The leaders of the movement point to at least three factors in the growth and spiritual vitality of the work.
1. The centrality of a clearly defined gospel message.
At the heart of this work is an ongoing focus on the gospel message with Jesus’s perfect life, atoning death, and bodily resurrection at its core (1 Cor. 1:17, Rom. 1:16, 1 Cor. 15:3-8). Adult leaders in the ministry regularly study different aspects of the gospel message with student leaders. Everyone is encouraged to be crystal clear in answering “What is the gospel?” and to articulate it boldly and with ease in common everyday language. Important topics in Scripture like sanctification, the dignity of women as image-bearers of God, and the Trinity are understood to be connected to or flow from the message of redemption in the Bible. Every activity is designed in light of the gospel.
Discipleship in the group emphasizes grace-driven growth in holiness and doing “the good works he has prepared in advance” (Eph. 2:10). A key theme is that without hearing the verbally proclaimed message of Jesus’s atoning work on the cross. no one will repent of sin, believe in Christ, and enter the kingdom of God (Rom. 10:14).
One anecdote illustrates this focus. Freddy, a zealous African student, began attending Bible discussions on campus and church services with fellow students in the ministry during his first few weeks on campus. He insisted he was a Christian, yet his understanding of the gospel was fundamentally flawed, and his life was not consistent with the gospel (Gal. 3:14). Through friendly persistence and repeated explanation and clarification of the good news, Freddy repented and acknowledged his sin and distortion of the true gospel of grace. Radical character transformation began, and he now has led many to Christ and is gathering many more to church and Bible discussions. He plans to join the ministry team as a full-time student worker once he graduates next year.
2. A biblical view of conversion.
Students in the ministry are taught discernment regarding true biblical conversion (Matt. 7:17-20). Mere interest in the Bible, a desire to imitate Jesus, or even emotional renouncements of sin, are not sure-fire indications of conversion. Students who exhibit these characteristics are encouraged to continue their involvement, but the group is slow to affirm that someone has become a Christian just because a fellow student says he or she now follows Christ. Leaders learn to look for heartfelt repentance (2 Cor. 7:10), ongoing trust in Christ’s work on the cross rather than their own works (Heb. 6:1), and grace-produced fruit (Gal. 5:22,23; Luke 3:8) in the form of character change and good works (Eph. 2:8-10).
One example of teaching genuine conversion occured late one afternoon, when Mohammed, an Arabian Peninsula citizen, stopped by the local gathering spot for the Christian group on campus. He had been coming to the Bible discussions and had confessed admiration of Jesus. Now he was feeling depressed and despondent. A group member engaged him in conversation about the hope of Christ and the promises of the good news. He sighed and said, “I sure wish I could get that ‘born-again feeling.’” A long conversation followed in which the Christian student explained true conversion and the sense of joy that he sees in his Christian friends. Mohammed has not come to faith, but the group is continuing in friendship and gospel conversation with him.
3. Partnership with and service in the local church.
At one of the student ministry’s weekend conferences the topic of the “importance of the local church” was chosen. Some Christian leaders questioned whether the topic would be well attended or “excite” students enough to merit consideration. That conference alone has spurred more conversions and spiritual growth in the movement than perhaps any other in the last 10 years. Students flooded into local churches in the weeks following, and many are now attending membership classes.
Early in the formation of the ministry, leaders realized that partnership with healthy local churches is crucial. The church is God’s plan for displaying his glory to the watching world (Eph. 3:10). When the ministry was launched, they were seeing students come to Christ, yet they knew that if students were not going to be integrated into the life of the local church, then their spiritual growth would be stunted or undermined by poor teaching in weak churches, or perhaps they would not attend church at all (Heb. 10:24,25).
The leadership began to serve in a few local churches, and this partnership has been of immense benefit to the student ministry. In addition to fruitful discipleship through the campus ministry, students sit under solid expositional preaching each weekend. Truths they learn during the week in campus Bible studies are reinforced at church and vice versa. They invite students to both on-campus Bible discussions and church services. Many Muslim and Hindu students have been exposed to their first-ever church services in healthy, gospel-centered congregations. The pastors of these churches are supportive of the student ministry, and the local church is strengthened through the participation of the students.
Producing Healthy Fruit
On one campus, Lisa, Carlos, Steve, and Emily were led to Christ through the student ministry during their freshman year. Later, as they stepped into leadership of the group, one of the requirements for them was to be a member and active participant in a gospel-preaching local church. Each gives strong testimony that their first years of sitting under sound teaching in the church has been invaluable in their spiritual growth. Some have even turned down attractive opportunities to study abroad or refused job offers where there is no healthy church.
These three factors have perhaps played the most important role in growing a healthy and fruitful student ministry on the Peninsula. May God be glorified through this work, and may it spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula despite the twin obstacles of deeply rooted Islamic culture and rampant materialism.
Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?
In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
