[x] Crossway+ members can shop select books and Bibles at 50% off in our 2024 Christmas Gift Guide. To receive your order by Christmas, choose UPS Next Day Air.

It’s Still True: Everyone Who Calls upon the Name of the Lord Will Be Saved (Season 2, Episode 10)

September 04, 2024 by: Nancy Guthrie

This article is part of the Conversations on the Bible with Nancy Guthrie series.

Proclaiming the Good News That Jesus Saves

Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with a number of good friends about how they are experiencing the promise of the book of Acts and hears about how the enthroned Lord Jesus is at work through their various ministries around the world.

Saved

Saved

Nancy Guthrie

Saved, by bestselling author Nancy Guthrie, gives individuals and small groups a friendly, theologically reliable, and robust guide to understanding the book of Acts.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:51 - Jenny Manley, RAK Evangelical Church, United Arab Emirates

Nancy Guthrie
Welcome to season two of Conversations on the Bible with Nancy Guthrie. I’m Nancy Guthrie, author of Saved: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts. In the book of Acts, we see the enthroned Lord Jesus at work by his Spirit through his apostles. They are taking the message that salvation is available to all who will call upon the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And it is accomplishing its intended purpose—people are being saved. On this podcast I’m having conversations with people who can help us to see more clearly the ways in which we see God working out his salvation purposes in the world, particularly in the pages of the book of Acts. And usually I say "my guest today," but this time I have to say my guests because I have a number of good friends on this podcast recording with me today. And the reason I’ve chosen these friends is that, actually, these are the friends to whom I have dedicated my new book Saved. So here is the dedication for my book Saved. "With respect and gratitude, I dedicate this book to some of my female friends who are boldly moving out of their comfort zones to cross significant boundaries with the good news that Jesus saves." And that is Emanuela Artioli with Coram Deo, Italy; Shamsia Borhani who serves Afghan refugees around the world; Carol deRossi who works with TGC Español; my friend Robin Dillard who works with Servant Group International; Keri Folmar with United Christian Church of Dubai; Jenny Manley with RAK Evangelical Church in the United Arab Emirates; and Mary Trapnell, Nashville Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition. It was a joy to me to dedicate this book to these good friends, and I’m really going to ask each of them the same question, and I think you’ll enjoy hearing their answers and hearing how the enthroned Lord Jesus is at work through their various ministries and to the various people that they are pursuing with the good news that Jesus saves. And the question I’m going to ask each of them is, How are you, in your context and your ministry, actually experiencing the promise of the book of Acts, which is that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved? And I’m going to start with my friend Jenny Manley. Jenny is joining me from RAK Evangelical Church in Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), United Arab Emirates. Hey, Jenny! Thank you for being with us.

Jenny Manley
Thanks for letting me be a part of this group of women that I’m in awe of.

Nancy Guthrie
I know. Isn’t that the truth?

Jenny Manley
Absolutely.

Nancy Guthrie
When I tell people I just went to RAK United Arab Emirates, most people look at me a little bit funny. They kind of don’t what that is. You probably hear that a lot. So give us a sense of where you are in the context in which you’re doing ministry.

Jenny Manley
The very tip of the Arabian Peninsula, just maybe fifty miles south of Iran, east of Saudi Arabia, about an hour north of Dubai is where we’re located, right on the Arabian Gulf. You might hear it called the Persian Gulf, but that’s where we’re located, right in the very middle of the 10/40 window.

Nancy Guthrie
And what is your day to day ministry like there?

Jenny Manley
My husband and I moved here almost twelve years ago now to plant a church here. So we’re busy with planting a church. I guess now the church is planted, so now he’s pastoring the church. I’m teaching women the Bible, and I have five children, so I stay home with them. I spend the rest of my time, my spare time, helping Afghan refugees and the underground persecuted church in Afghanistan, supporting the believers there through various ways.

Nancy Guthrie
That’s been a huge part of your life, especially over the last two or three years.

Jenny Manley
Over the last two or three years, since the Taliban took over Afghanistan. We knew so many believers that were there who were facing serious persecution and looking at death at the hands of the Taliban. A number of them were dear friends of ours, and so Josh and I jumped in and just tried to help the best we could. Nancy, you were part of that, and lots of people were part of that, of helping people get to safety, and many did. And we praise God that many did. Remarkably, even though the church has faced some hardship because so many of the leaders left, the Lord is raising up a new generation of leaders in Afghanistan for the underground church there. And so we got to support them now too. So training, getting good resources in their hands, making sure that they have what they need as they’re now rebuilding the underground church in Afghanistan. That’s now taking up a lot of my time—gloriously. I love doing it. It’s a privilege. I love to get to work with these people.

Nancy Guthrie
I bet when you were working on the hill in D. C. you never dreamed that the Lord would use some of the skills and contacts you gained in that world for the world you’re in now.

Jenny Manley
That’s so true. I wondered after we moved here, because I worked in politics for ten years almost and wondered when we moved here, What was that all about, Lord? I can’t imagine how I’ll ever use that skill set and those relationships that I’d worked so hard to gain. What am I doing with those here now? And it all came to a head when I had the privilege of getting to help so many vulnerable and persecuted believers find safety.

Nancy Guthrie
Jenny, my question: In what way are you seeing the promise of the book of Acts, which is that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, in what way are you seeing that, so long after those words were recorded in the book of Acts, becoming a reality?

Jenny Manley
First, I would say that it’s this promise that the Lord saves all who call on him that fifteen years ago lured my husband and me away from our jobs in politics at the height of our careers to go into ministry. And it was this promise that the Lord can be known and that he offers his salvation freely to all that eventually led us here to the Middle East, into the heart of Islam, where we planted a church in a city where there was no gospel witness, but where people from all of the world were moving to for work. And it was definitely this promise that kept us here in the face of opposition and when things got really hard. We really had to count the costs and the sacrifices that we were making to be here. So God’s promise of salvation to all who believe is what we have seen fulfilled again and again and again in the twelve years that we’ve been here, as the Lord has so graciously shown mercy to sinners from all over the world. I think of some stories that just come to mind, if I can share those with you. I think about two Syrian refugees who showed up in our city years ago, exhausted and hardened as they were fleeing the horrors of war. And they met some of our church members who showed hospitality to them, invited them in, and invited them to church. And the wife came to faith first while the husband remained somewhat skeptical. Then, during a sermon—Nancy, you’ll appreciate this—ironically on Acts, he heard and understood the message of the gospel as Josh was preaching, and he believed. And it was obvious that the Lord had dramatically saved him right then and there. And I think about a Filipino nanny who moved to our city to help financially support her family back home. She was totally uninterested in church or reading the Bible, but the witness of a Christian family who kept pursuing her led her eventually to hear and understand the message that they were telling her, that God can meet her needs in this life. But more importantly, he can meet her needs eternally in Christ. So she believed and she was so excited about the good news that she excitedly told her daughter, who also believed and who also called on the name of the Lord and who also was saved. And just this week we heard testimony of a woman who is from India who heard the gospel on her college campus here in our city. She repented of her sins and asked the Lord to save her, and she’ll be baptized in the next week. We also heard from a man who’s from a Hindu background who heard and believed, a sister from Nigeria who came out of the prosperity gospel and came to believe the truth, Koreans who grew up in non-Christian homes who heard the gospel and believed, a South African woman who grew up nominally Catholic but who first heard the gospel in the Middle East from a woman who faithfully shared the truth that God saves sinners not by our works but by Jesus’s work finished on the cross. And an American who grew up also here in the Middle East who wrestled with the exclusive claims of the gospel. He wondered, What if I call on the name of another religion’s god? How do I know that the God of the Bible is the exclusive truth? But graciously, God made himself known to this young man, and he too found salvation in the Lord as he trusted in God and God alone for salvation. And Nancy, those are just the stories that came into our church this week.

Nancy Guthrie
Seriously?

Jenny Manley
Yes. So praise God for that! But that’s not all. I think about these Afghan brothers and sisters, who we have gotten to know personally, who have suffered and been persecuted for their faith. If they were looking for an easy life, being a Christian in Afghanistan is not the way to do it. Yet they continue to tell the message that Jesus saves, even at great risk. They wanted people to know there’s a God who saves through the work of Jesus Christ. And I also think about the churches we’ve had a part in helping to plant in other parts of the world. Our church here has helped build up and train up pastors from the region. Nancy, you got to meet some of them when you were here in Ras al Khaimah. And they are taking this message of God’s salvation to all the places that we can’t get to very easily. Some of the places they’re going to are Ethiopia and Egypt and India and Pakistan and Zambia. This is an encouraging story. One of the brothers in our church is from Nepal, and he was born into the highest caste that there is. He would have had a very privileged life if he had grown up in his home, but from a very early age, he heard about the Lord and he wanted to know this God. And because he did, he was totally rejected by his parents. He had to leave his home. So he grew up in a hostel. His earliest memories are growing up in a hostel away from his parents. And very soon, though, he will go back to the country of his birth and plant a church there so others will hear and call on the name of the Lord and be saved. So we rejoice! We rejoice with him and with this multiplication of the message of the gospel that is happening all over the world to people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. This promise that we read first to the prophet Joel thousands of years ago is still reverberating around the world as people hear the message of the gospel. They call on the name of the Lord, they find salvation, and then they’re making sacrifices in their own lives to continue the spread of this gospel.

13:16 - Keri Folmar, United Christian Church of Dubai

Nancy Guthrie
Thanks so much Jenny. Keri is somewhat close to Jenny; you’re in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. One thing that you share, Keri, is that you’re interacting with people from all over the world in your city. So I would imagine some of what you’re seeing would be similar to Jenny. Tell us how you’re seeing that everyone can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved there in Dubai.

Keri Folmar
It’s beautiful. We have a church with people from over sixty different nationalities, and so it’s just a little picture of heaven every time we worship together. I just thought of a few examples of the people who we’ve seen come to know the Lord. One was a Pashtun woman. She’s Pakistani and Afghan. She was fleeing from her family because she wanted to marry a Christian-background man. He was Pakistani, wanted to marry him, and he wasn’t born again, but her family rejected her and she fled from them. So she came into contact with someone who knew us and came and stayed with us. So we were reading the Bible with her over a couple of weeks, and she saw that this is very different from her family. The things that she was reading about the Lord really resonated with her. She left and she married this man, and then they came back to Dubai and started attending the church and she came to know the Lord. And then a few years later, her husband came to truly know the Lord. So he is not just Christian-background; he is born again now. And the exciting thing is that they have security guards in their building who speak her heart language. And so she shares the gospel now with these security guards in her language. So we love seeing these people get saved and then spreading the gospel themselves and proclaiming him. Another person that I think about is I’ll call him Stephen. He’s from Zanzibar, and this man—

Nancy Guthrie
I don’t even know where that is.

Keri Folmar
Zanzibar is a small Islamic island off the coast of Tanzania. It’s very Islamic. So he is flying someplace and sits next to a Christian, and this man shares the gospel with him. So he gets his hand on a Bible, and he calls on the name of the Lord. He gets saved, and he comes to Dubai and does our pastoral internship program. So he learns a lot. He figures out that he had met some people who called themselves Christians in Zanzibar, but he figured out that was prosperity gospel. That is not the same gospel that I’m hearing here. He wanted to get some more training in Dubai, but he went back to Zanzibar for the summer and started a firestorm on that island because he invited about twenty of his college friends to come and study the Gospel of Mark with him. So he’s studying the Gospel of Mark with these men and a few women, and some of them get saved. He gets taken into the police, beaten up, told "Don’t do that anymore," goes back home. Our pastors tell him, "Look, lay low until you fly out of there. Just lay low. Don’t do anything anymore. You need some more training and everything. The police are watching you." Well, his friends come over to apologize to him for his arrest, and he starts studying the Gospel of Mark with them again, because he just said, "I couldn’t help it. They wanted to know more, so I shared the gospel with them again, and we studied the Bible more." He gets taken into the police again. One of his friends, sadly, who had become a Christian, was found dead on a beach. He had been beaten to death. Finally, Stephen got out of this country. He was no longer able to come to Dubai. He was not able to come to any Muslim country anymore. So he is still somewhat on the run. We think that he’s in a relatively safe place right now, but he had to leave Zanzibar. They were rioting in the streets, calling for his death. They also sent out a fatwa, which means a death sentence, on my husband. And they actually got Josh’s name, Jenny’s husband’s, and another pastor in the U. S. and sent out a fatwa against these men in addition to Stephen. But as he traveled around on the run, he couldn’t help but share the gospel with people. So at one point he was being guarded by some men. We’re talking machine guns and everything. He was at a church in another country, and he had guards around him. Someone came who had been in kind of a country town, and he went into this city to be housed at this church. A man came and asked for him at the church, and these three guards with machine guns were on him with their machine guns pointed at him. And he was like, "Wait! Wait! He told me to come to the church!" And Stephen told the guards, "Wait. This is a man I was sharing the gospel with. I invited him to church." Now, I don’t know if that man ever went to church again after that, but that’s the kind of—really, I should name him Paul instead of Stephen. And then I also think of a woman who I’ll call Penny. She is from a Hindu background. She’s a doctor here from India, and she was working in a clinic, and there was a doctor there who was very different than the other people she worked with. He would carry around a Bible. So she went to him and she said, "Will you tell me about your God?" And through reading the Bible with him, she came to know Christ. Her husband was very, very hostile, so she didn’t go to a church right away. He would study the Bible with her, and then she changed clinics and she came into contact with a doctor from our church. And this doctor started studying the Bible with her and said, "Christians are not meant to be lone rangers. They’re meant to be part of the body of Christ, the local body of Christ. So come to church with me and let’s talk this through with your husband. Here’s what you can say to him." So her husband started allowing her to come to church. So she came to ECCD. And now her husband, who was very, very hostile, is willing to have some of our members in their home for dinners. He’s finding that he really does like us. He likes Christians, and he is more open to talking about the gospel. And the wonderful thing about Penny is she shares the gospel with everybody. She’s right now bringing an Italian woman to church who is very interested, and she’s gotten her a Bible. And we’ve seen other women come to know Christ because Penny’s been involved in their lives. So that’s the joy for us.

Nancy Guthrie
What incredible stories!

Keri Folmar
The joy for us is seeing these people come to know Christ and then they can’t but proclaim him to others. So that’s been the exciting thing for us living here.

Nancy Guthrie
It sets an example for me to be so excited about what Christ is doing in your life that you can’t help but share it.

Keri Folmar
Oh, it does for me. I just met with Penny the other day at her clinic and prayed with her and talked to her about this Italian woman who she’s bringing along, and it spurs me on to want to do more to talk to my neighbors and talk to my friends.

22:51 - Mary Trapnell, Nashville Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition

Nancy Guthrie
Thank you so much, Keri. I want to go to my friend, Mary Trapnell next. Mary actually lives pretty close to me here in Nashville. Mary, will you just talk a little bit first just about how you came into the ministry you currently have and what you’re doing?

Mary Trapnell
Well, Nancy, thank you for having me on today. I traveled with you some, and everybody would ask me when I was with Nancy, "What is it that you do, Mary?" I had raised three boys and I was at a season of my life when I was wondering if God had just wrung me out and I was ready to be retired and put away. One night at a Bible study, I just cried out to the Lord, "If you would please put me on the frontline of the advancement of your kingdom so that I could see your power at work in people’s lives doing things I know I can’t do, I would be forever grateful." And it wasn’t in short order that I ended up hearing that there were children living in a field near one of the interstates in Nashville that were being bought and sold to truck drivers at a local truck stop. God took that information and that knowledge and put it deep in my heart, and it was something that kept me up at night. It did not leave, and it was clear that I really was being called to do something. And so I began volunteering with some local agencies, and someone approached me and said, "Mary, I would love for you to write a book." And I said, "That’s great. What would the book be about? Maybe how to stay married to the man you met in college or how to feed a whole house full of boys in short order?" And they said, "No, about human trafficking." And it was a question that I remember thinking, I am absolutely the last person that needs to write that book. What do I know about human trafficking? But God used that question to send me out into the streets. We traveled the state of Tennessee, and we did a tremendous amount of outreach work in Nashville, actually, where survivors of trafficking hubs for arms and for drugs and women and children were living. God just opened door after door after door for us to go in, in his name, to care for people. And Nancy, one Easter we had a group of seventy-five women who were being actively trafficked that showed up at an Easter event in a rat-infested motel on Murfreesboro Road. And in the middle of the event, one of the women came up to me and said, "Miss Mary, is there any way at all I could ask you a question?" I said, "Well, sure, honey, ask me anything you want." And she said, "Mary, there’s a foot-washing station over here, and I just wondered if there’s any way at all I could wash your feet?" And I don’t know. There are moments in life where your heart just melts, and that was one of them. And my eyes filled with tears, and I went and sat down as this beautiful victim who had been abused at the age of thirteen by her Pentecostal father and all of the elders in his church, got down on her knees to wash my feet. And a month later, a lady in the community who is the CEO of the Sarah Cannon Center approached me and said, "Mary, I’ve heard about the work you’re doing. How much money do you need?" And I said, "You know, we’re just a volunteer group out of a church, and we really don’t need any money." And she said, "No, I really feel like you need to put some infrastructure together. $50,000 is going to be at one of the local churches. It’s got your name on it. I want you to run over and take that money and form an organization to continue doing the work you’re doing." So three months later, after much prayer and fasting and counsel, we took that money and formed it as a nonprofit. We do intervention work with women who are actively being trafficked and typically have a drug addiction story. We provide intervention work, and then we provide a restorative program with a full wraparound suite of services. We have a new social enterprise where we’re employing the women who are working in a bakery called Sweet Daisy, and we make little bitty cakes called petit fours, and they’re yummy and wonderful. The women are having a lot of healing in the bakery together by learning what it’s like to really do something maybe risk-failing, but having the support system to realize that God really can give them a whole new life. And then last but not least, we do a lot of prevention work with students who are in middle school and high school, and their parents and their teachers, around the issue of human trafficking that’s happening domestically in the United States. But Nancy, most importantly, we decided early on that we were not going to be the agency that was "sneaky Jesus." We were going to lead and be up front and say that we believe all roads of justice and healing lead to Jesus. He is our hope, and we hope that we love you well and we care for you well enough that we earn the right to introduce you to the real Jesus. Because in the United States, and I’m sure across the globe, we have lots of people who wear the name of Jesus but are buying services and exploiting women and children, even young boys now, at an alarming rate and still going to church and sitting in the pews on Sunday. And so a lot of the women that we serve, Nancy, have a real confusion around who this man, Jesus, really is. So we enjoy getting to say, "We know you’re angry. We know you’re mad at this God. That makes a lot of sense. But I also need you to know that our Jesus actually has the same feelings about those men who were deceiving you. In fact, he calls them "wolves in sheep’s clothing." He talks very directly about the deceiver who will creep into the church and who will exploit women sexually and for money. And so we would love to earn the right to introduce you to him." And so over the course of almost five years now, we have earned that reputation. We have women coming with all sorts of baggage related to God, but they know where we’re coming from and we get to daily share our hope that we have in Jesus. We’re watching him scandalously pour his Spirit out on the work of women who think that they are too dirty, that they would never be able to walk out of their guilt and their shame and actually have any kind of life. And we’re seeing God, who loves nothing more than to set the stage where he gets all the glory, and so out of the darkness of human trafficking, we’re seeing the light of Christ break through and just absolutely redeem life after life after life. And it is my joy and my privilege at this season of my life to watch him do all that he’s doing. You wanted me to give you a couple of stories, and I’ve just got three real quick ones. Our youngest survivor, a victim that we rescued, was a little girl who was two and a half years old. She was living in a trap house, which is where lots of the women are kept. She ended up getting triple pneumonia and RSV, and she ended up at the local children’s hospital. We got the phone call, we got there before the traffickers who had false illegal power of attorney did and were trying to get the little girl to come back with them. We did an intervention, and that little girl and her mother both now, after five years, are doing incredibly well. God opened a door for this little girl to go to a classical Christian school, and she is raising her hands toward Jesus, is on the front row of every play, and she is yet another one that should be a statistic, but God had a different story. And her mom is doing really well and has worked for us for several years and is now employed in the very hospital where we rescued them. I have a donor who approached us the other day who came into my office, and we were sitting there talking and he said, "Mary, I’m a victim of human trafficking. I was trafficked out of a ring in Northern California. My whole family was involved. My earliest memory of being trafficked was at the age of two. When I was in college, I realized I was different from everyone else. I have what is very common among people who’ve experienced extreme trauma—DID." It’s a dissociative disorder where the body, to protect itself from the evil and the trauma, steps back. And often a lot of the people we serve have multiple parts and personalities. And this man had sixty different parts. And he said, "Mary, here’s the deal. When I went to that revival and I heard the name of Jesus and God born me again and I could understand this man named Jesus and that he had the power to heal me, I realized that all sixty of my parts had to encounter Jesus and experience a healing." And he said, "I stand before you today as a man who can testify to the fact that all sixty parts of me have met Jesus and have been healed by him. I am wholly and completely Jesus’s." Again, it felt like such a holy moment, sitting in his presence. And he is one who is partnering with us and is going to be talking to a lot of the young men that we serve. And then last but not least, there was a girl that God sent to me. She was one of Tennessee’s most violent women. She had spent a tremendous amount of time on the streets. At some point, she went from being a victim to being very angry. And all of that anger became very destructive in our community. When she was in prison, she got in trouble and went to a prison inside of a prison in solitary confinement on death row. And while she was there, someone handed her a New Living Translation of a Bible and said, ’That’s all that you can have in your jail cell." It just so happened to coincide with the same time that I was hearing that trafficking was going on in my community. And this woman who had barrier after barrier after barrier that should have been, if you will, something that would have kept Jesus from being able to reach her, actually did not. In fact, it was the stage that God set for his power to move through all of those barriers and meet that woman—precious, precious dear Christina—in that solitary confinement jail cell. And she said, "Mary, all I can tell you is every time I opened a page of the Bible, I could just see Jesus. I could see him on every page of the Bible." And then I began telling everybody in the jail cell all about this man named Jesus. And then the guards were so moved by her testimony about who Jesus was that they put her in a cage in the middle of solitary and said, "Christina, just don’t stop." And she began to preach the gospel in solitary confinement while the women listened to every word. She is now my adopted daughter. She runs my operations. She is dynamic and, man, she is flipping the world upside down. We roll in and door after door after door God is opening for her to tell her story about what this man named Jesus has done in her life. I’m turning sixty this month, and I realize my time is running out. If the Lord tarries or he doesn’t call me home, I’m all about Jesus. And I’m loving, loving, loving the fact that I’m on the frontline watching his power at work, doing things I know I cannot do. So thank you, Nancy, for letting me get on today and join these other women. I’m humbled and honored to be here.

Nancy Guthrie
Well, I hardly know what to say. It’s been such a beautiful thing to see how God is using you in our city in such a powerful way. To have met some of these survivors and see what God is doing not only in them but through them, it’s just a beautiful thing. I’m so grateful for it.

Mary Trapnell
And Nancy, you partnered with us, and the women love you. They love your Bible studies.

34:38 - Emanuela Artioli, Coram Deo, Italy

Nancy Guthrie
It’s a privilege. A privilege. I want to introduce you now to my friend Emanuela, who lives in Mantua, Italy. I first met Emanuela when she translated for me on a ministry trip in Italy in 2017. I’ve been there a couple of times since and seen her and her husband’s ministry up close with the church that they have in Montua, but mostly through publishing sound Christian books to infiltrate a country that doesn’t know Christ. So Emanuela, will you tell us a little bit about your ministry?

Emanuela Artioli
Thank you, Nancy. As you said, we live in northern Italy, and we planted from scratch at church fifteen years ago, so now my husband is pastoring it. But we started a publishing house more than twenty-eight years ago. So we have been translating many books from English mainly into Italian. Sound books. I know you know many of the authors. Our heart was mainly for pastors and preachers and teachers and also for women teaching to other women and children. You know all those things, but in Italy everything had to be built really from almost from the beginning. We are still working in the church and for the publishing house. And it has been a joy for us to have Nancy as a teacher, and to spur this love for the Bible among women and also among the churches here.

Nancy Guthrie
Emanuela, we think of Italy being, of course, very dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. Is that still the case? Are the people you interact with daily, are they very committed to the Roman Catholic Church, or not so much? What is that context like?

Emanuela Artioli
Thank you for the question. In fact, the Roman Catholic context is very dominant. So almost everybody would say, "I’m Italian, so I am Catholic." And thinking about the promise of Acts, for us it is really a promise to be perseverant. To call upon the Lord to be saved, it means that Italian people need to realize, as everybody of course, that we are under the condemnation of God, that we are sinners, and to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and as the only name that brings salvation, as Acts says. We need to clarify the name of Jesus. Which name are you pronouncing? Are we talking about the same Jesus? Because people here, Roman Catholic people, have a language that is similar to evangelical, biblical language, but it’s not the same meaning. First, people do not perceive to be sinners before God, although they would generally acknowledge to be imperfect towards other people. Do they seek to be saved from anything? Yes. They seek to be saved from mainly pollution nowadays, climate changes, illness, life’s problems, old age. But the name of the Lord they would invoke, that would be a kind of a postmodern God of ecology, wellness, money, and so on. So salvation concerns the material, the contingent. There is seldom a quest for eternal salvation. What is it? So when I speak of spiritual salvation according to the Bible to my friends, they might consider themselves maybe agnostic or atheist if they are not devout Roman Catholic. So if they are agnostic or atheist, they would react with disbelief, indifference, or skepticism. But those, the majority of them, who are Roman Catholic, they would have a sense of uncertainty due to the fear that their religious performance may not be sufficient for their salvation. Or in the case that they do many, many good things and they say they are acting well, they hope to earn their salvation through their own efforts. So the name of Jesus Christ is invoked in times of need, but as a problem solver. So, intercessors—Jesus hangs on every crucifix that hangs in every house or school. It’s like a talisman that protects homes and bodies. But his name is a shell emptied of the power of his person and of his work. So solus Christus, one of the five solas of the Reformation, Christ alone is not contemplated in the mindset of a Roman Catholic. Christ is always combined with someone or something else determined by the Roman church tradition. So I strive and I long daily for this promise of Acts 2:21 to be realized because when I talk to anyone, the first thing I must do is to explain clearly and thoroughly who Jesus is according to the Bible, and it often takes a lot of time—many conversations with the Bible open up. So in my current conversations with friends, I want to show who Jesus really is—his grace, his truth, his beauty—and why we need to be saved in him alone. So we do all this work, all this prayer, all this attention we have is through Bible studies, is through articles that we translate or we write, or different initiatives through the publishing ministry. And we pray, asking God’s Spirit to persuade and save more people in Italy as well. But it’s a very slow process. We know God is working, and we want to follow what he’s doing, but yes, sometimes I admit it’s very discouraging because it’s slow. And so I don’t have many stories to tell. Of course, we have trophies of grace in the church as well, and we see God is saving, so we are very happy and we praise the Lord for this. Thank you.

Nancy Guthrie
But your ministry requires perseverance as you walk with people over the long haul and persevere in presenting Christ to them. Well, I have seen how you and Andrea do that so faithfully, and I’m honored to know you. I really appreciate you being a part of this, Emanuela.

Emanuela Artioli
Thank you, Nancy.

42:28 - Carol deRossi, Coalición por el Evangelio

Nancy Guthrie
My friend Carol deRossi is with us. Carol, why don’t you tell people a little bit about where you are and what you do?

Carol deRossi
Hi, I’m Carol. I am a Guatemalan. I used to live there until last year when the Lord moved my husband and I along with our children to the Dominican Republic. This is where we’re living right now. The Lord made a way for us here to work in a local church and just to have my husband transition from a previous church in Guatemala. So I get to keep working with the Gospel Coalition Español, since that’s a job that I can do from home, and that’s a huge blessing. I get to keep doing what God has called me to do, and that is to manage and plan and make some events around Latin America. Nancy has been to several of them with her biblical theology workshop. We have done many in different countries in Latin America, and we also do trainings. We have a training network to equip the church and different conferences in different countries in Latin America.

Nancy Guthrie
And so as you are taking the gospel into Latin America, I suppose somewhat similar to Emanuela, it’s very infused with Roman Catholicism. But I think as I have traveled around with you, I just have the sense that God is at work. His gospel is going out and people are responding to it. Is that what you’re seeing? What are you seeing?

Carol deRossi
Definitely. I would say that we have a very similar context as Emanuela related to the Roman Catholic church in Latin America, but we also have a very good influence from the prosperity gospel. I would say it has made a really big damage to what God has intended to do through the gospel. But definitely during the last years, I would say that I have seen a revival and awakening in the church. We have had the privilege of watching pastors, leaders, and churches getting to a point where they open their eyes to what the true gospel is. Some of the stories that we have heard have come after very long suffering periods that they have gone through where they get to see that the prosperity gospel is exposed as a big lie. Nothing changes, they are being promised different things like, "If you keep doing this, if you keep giving your money, if you keep proclaiming these words, your life will change, you will see how God will provide what you need, and you will have a better life." But people just continue to live under poverty, under suffering, and under sickness, so that’s where they get to really wonder why God is not doing anything. And that’s where the church—the sound doctrine church gets—the opportunity to bring people to open their Bibles and get to know who the Lord is and what God does through suffering. The main idea that gets to be confronted is that suffering is not a curse. Suffering is not something that comes from not being willing to do certain things. It’s just something that every Christian will go through, and no matter what, God will still be there and God will meet their needs through suffering and through pain and through things that are not happening in the way that they expected things to work out during their lives. So as we get to share the gospel—the Bible—we get to see people opening their eyes to the big truth, to the big story that the Bible tells us. Not just getting to know versus over here and there and just trying to make the Bible be a story about me or how does the Bible affirm my things, my dreams, my beliefs, but instead getting to the Bible with this attitude of humility, with submission, and to just realize that the whole word of God tells the story of this gospel, of this true King, of this Jesus that is Christ and that is currently reigning. And it is very encouraging to listen to all these stories about all these women in different parts of the world and just realize that indeed God is reigning. God is working. God is doing what he knows how to do best. I would say that, yes, I see the Holy Spirit awakening the church, and I see people coming to the point where they want to know the Lord. Not only love the Lord, not only have all their emotions involved, but coming to the point where their minds are looking for answers and for understanding, and that’s where they are willing to say, "Okay, let’s take a look at what the Bible says and what the story of the Bible tells me." And I would say that’s where people are getting saved. That’s where the gospel is completed—that understanding and comprehension of the word of God.

48:20 - Shamsia Borhani, Afghan Refugees around the World

Nancy Guthrie
Thank you, Carol. Finally, I am thrilled to introduce you to my friend Shamsia Borhani. I don’t know how long ago that was that I met you, Shamsia. It was probably six or seven years ago when I was in Dubai, and Shamsia came to a Simeon Trust Women’s Workshop because she wanted to learn how to teach the Bible to women in Afghanistan, which is where she is from. Her husband is a pastor and he couldn’t sit down with women to teach them, but she wanted to be able to do that. And since then, so much has happened in Shamsia’s life. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan a couple of years ago, it presented a real crisis for Shamsia and her husband and other believers who had identified themselves officially as Christians. And if you’ve never listened to the Recorded Podcast "Escape from Kabul" episode, you should listen to that to get more of a sense of Shamsi’s story. But at this point, Shamsi and her husband, Ramazan, and a number of other Afghan evacuees have settled in Louisville, Kentucky. So Shamsia, tell us a little bit about what your ministry is like and what you’re doing now.

Shamsia Borhani
Thank you so much for having me here. It’s a huge blessing. So basically for now we are serving among Afghan refugees, and also we are working on producing healthy resources for Afghan church leaders, Afghan Bible teachers, and Afghan pastors.

Nancy Guthrie
I remember you called me a while ago, or we texted, and you had this idea. You wanted this particular book that you felt would really introduce Christ to Farsi-speaking children, and you wanted to get the rights for it. Honestly, my thought was, Well, that’s just crazy town because that’s never going to happen. That’s just too hard. And sure enough, we pursued it, and they said yes. I don’t know how that’s progressing, but it’s just a little glimpse into your heart and your desire and your confidence that you can expect God to work in significant ways. And he does and he has.

Shamsia Borhani
We haven’t started to officially work on the children’s book, but we finished our first book for adults.

Nancy Guthrie
Way to go!

Shamsia Borhani
We are still working on some more. Hopefully we can bring some more on the table. So right now in Louisville, we have Afghan refugees we are helping to get resettled here. Some of them don’t speak English and they are not used to doing online banking and stuff. They need to go to the doctor’s appointment and stuff like that. We are helping to get them around. Every need that comes up we go and help them with rides especially, with driving classes, and all sorts of stuff—day to day life.

Nancy Guthrie
And I assume you’re not just talking about Afghan refugees who are in Christ, but Muslim Afghan refugees, correct?

Shamsia Borhani
Yes. The first year we moved here, the Muslims, even if we walked on the same sidewalk, they would turn their face away and they would leave to go another way. And in the parks, if they saw us, they wouldn’t talk and they would leave the park.

Nancy Guthrie
How did they know? How did they identify you as non-Muslim?

Shamsia Borhani
The resettlement agency that we came through, we were all there and we introduced ourselves as Christians. Women usually don’t shake hands, but men wouldn’t shake hands with my husband, even if they see each other. And we thought it’s going to be very sad that we live like this. And then Ramazan came up with the idea of bringing the Afghans together, especially men. He said, "Come on, let’s play soccer." The first week, nobody showed up. But last week we heard that seventy people were there.

Nancy Guthrie
Seventy?

Shamsia Borhani
Yes. And they come and play soccer. So through that, it kind of opened the opportunity that we get to know the families, the children. So far we are having very good relationships with some of the families, and it has been really encouraging. We shared the gospel with three of the families, and we are still good friends, and they want to know more. Some of them want to come to church, and that’s encouraging.

Nancy Guthrie
Very encouraging. Let me ask you this question. We’re talking about the book of Acts and its central promise that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And when I think of you and Ramazan, I think the two of you are an incredible example of that, of your lives in Afghanistan and how Christ made himself known to you in an amazing way and drew you to himself. You have lived that yourself. So you’re working with evacuees there. I know that Ramazan is also teaching online, teaching that I think is going back into Afghanistan. So how are you seeing that promise of the book of Acts become a reality in what you and Ramazan are doing?

Shamsia Borhani
The promise of Acts gives me a very significant great hope for the Afghans. When I look at Afghanistan, everybody sees only the dark side and we feel like everything is ending—that life is ending, especially for women. There is no school for women, no university, no work. You go buy a SIM card, you should have a male with you to prove that you are in, according to the Sharia, you are in a good relationship with him. So it gives us the hope that even in Afghanistan—a country with at least fourteen ethnic groups with different language, culture, different religious beliefs—there is one God that loves you so much that he tells you, "If you call upon my name, you will be saved." And that gives me encouragement every day and hope every day, that even in Afghanistan, even if you think that the world is ending, you still have God that tells you, "Come and call upon my name, and you will be saved." And on the other hand, we have been taught and we grew up with the idea that we are perfect. There’s nothing wrong with you. Everything wrong that’s happening is outside of you. And when we see that God humbles himself and says, "I will take your guilt on me, and if you just call upon my name, you will be saved," we will be coming to understand that I am sinful too. I am wrong too. And I know that around me it has nothing to do with me. I need to work on myself. So it gives me another hope that I can repent. I can bow down before this God that humbled himself for me. I can repent and say that, yes, I am a sinner too. And for Afghanistan, with every tribe and every nation, they have been in a fight for years just to claim who is better than another one, whose religion is more accurate, whose ethnic group is more accurate or belongs to this land. And yet we see the promise of God in 1 Timothy 2. It says that it’s universal. It’s for everyone. Not just for Hazara, not just for Pashtun. It’s for everyone with every language. It brings us all in one room. We are all united in him. And it’s just so encouraging and inspiring for us.

Nancy Guthrie
That is so beautiful, Shamsia. What a great way to close this conversation I’ve had with these good friends. It’s been a joy to be deeply encouraged by your stories and to discover it’s really true that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Thank you all of you. I am so grateful to count all of you friends and to get a front row seat to how God is using you in his world to spread his gospel. It’s a privilege to know you, and I just pray that God will continue to use you in so many of these powerful ways.

Nancy Guthrie

Nancy Guthrie teaches the Bible at her home church, Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as at conferences around the country and internationally, including her Biblical Theology Workshop for Women. She is the author of numerous books and the host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast with the Gospel Coalition. She and her husband founded Respite Retreats for couples who have faced the death of a child, and they are cohosts of the GriefShare video series. 

Popular Articles in This Series

View All

Introducing the ‘Blessed’ Podcast with Nancy Guthrie

May 04, 2022

In this new podcast, Nancy Guthrie—author, Bible teacher, and podcast host—leads listeners to a deeper understanding of the book of Revelation through conversations with respected Bible scholars, pastors, and other Bible teachers.

Crossway is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the gospel through publishing gospel-centered, Bible-centered content. Learn more or donate today at crossway.org/about.