PneumaReview.com: Please tell our readers briefly about your conversion experience.

Carol Kaminski: I grew up in Australia in a Christian family, but my parents got divorced when I was young, and they stopped going to church. I continued to attend youth group at the local Baptist church and God provided wonderful “spiritual parents” who invited me to events and youth group camps. I received great Bible teaching, and when I was in my late teens, I responded to a gospel message and met Jesus. My life changed that day, and I have been walking with the Lord for over four decades.

PneumaReview.com: What ministries have you participated in since you became a Christian?

Carol Kaminski: Shortly after becoming a Christian, I got involved in youth ministry in my local church and helped to lead worship. I also led Bible studies and lived in a Youth for Christ home for homeless young women. When I was in my mid-twenties, I felt God calling me to go to Bible college. I studied at the Bible College of Victoria (now called Melbourne School of Theology) for several years, and then God called me to study overseas, which is what led me to study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. After completing two master’s programs at the seminary, the Lord opened up an opportunity for me to do further study at Cambridge University in England. After completing my doctorate, I began teaching at the seminary, which is what I’ve done for the past two decades.

PneumaReview.com: A major focus of your work now is CASKET EMPTY. Please tell us the significance of the name as well as a bit about the ministry.

PneumaReview.com: Casket Empty is being used around the world. What languages have portions, or in some cases the complete CASKET EMPTY timelines been translated into?

Carol Kaminski: The Casket Empty material has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, Thai, and more recently, Spanish. God has been blessing this material and it has been a wonderful way to contribute to the global church. I was in Thailand at the beginning of this year and had the opportunity to train pastors and church leaders using the Casket Empty curriculum. What a blessing!

PneumaReview.com: You recently had a major commentary on 1 & 2 Chronicles published. Please tell us about some of the features of that commentary.

Carol Kaminski: Sometimes people are surprised to learn that I have written a commentary on Chronicles because it is one of the more neglected books in the Old Testament. I’ve always loved the stories of Israel’s kings like Asa and Jehoshaphat. They are such great kings who trusted in God amid insurmountable circumstances. It was great blessing to write a commentary on this theologically rich book. My commentary has been published in Zondervan’s Story of God Bible Commentary. What I love about this series is that each book is interpreted within the redemptive story of the Bible, so this means that books are not interpreted in isolation, but each one is interpreted in the context of Scripture. Another distinctive feature of the series is that each volume has forty percent devoted to application. This is unusual for a commentary on the Old Testament, but it is one of the great benefits of the series. This means that every chapter in Chronicles has a section on application!

PneumaReview.com: In addition, you have also written an eight-week Bible study based on these books. What is the format of the study, and how can it best be used?

Carol Kaminski: I wrote a Bible study on Chronicles because I wanted to make sure that the material would be accessible in the local church. My Bible study is called Cultivating Godliness because this title highlights so many of the important themes in Chronicles, like prayer, seeking the face of God, crying out to God for help, and singing joyfully to God. Through this book, God is calling his people to focus on his kingdom, and to cultivate prayer, seeking God, and trust in him. The Bible study is eight weeks, and each week one of these key topics is explored, so it’s a great opportunity for people to dive deeper into Chronicles in a small group setting.

PneumaReview.com: Do you think most Christians read 1 & 2 Chronicles in the course of a year? If you don’t think they do, why are these books neglected?

Carol Kaminski: I think Chronicles has been neglected for two reasons. First, since some of the stories are already in Samuel and Kings, people assume that there is nothing new in Chronicles or that it simply repeats material from these other books. But there are many additional stories in Chronicles that are not found in Samuel or Kings. Most importantly, the familiar stories have been applied to Israel’s new context, and we find may sermons and sermonettes in Chronicles that are rich in theology and applicable for our lives

The second reason why Chronicles has been neglected is that it begins with nine chapters of genealogies, and that tends to put off most people! But in the commentary, I explain how to understand the opening genealogies because they really do have a theological purpose. I think once people start to understand why they are included, the genealogies make more sense.

PneumaReview.com: What advice would you give to believers to help them see the value of these two biblical books?

Carol Kaminski: I would encourage someone to start to read through Chronicles, perhaps initially skipping over the genealogies to begin with, but to focus on the lives of Israel’s kings and the themes that are highlighted. People will find that these topics are highly relevant for our lives, and they provide wonderful examples for us, showing us what it means to walk with the Lord and trust in him.

PneumaReview.com: Please identify some of the major themes in 1 & 2 Chronicles for us.

Carol Kaminski: I’ve already mentioned some of the themes like prayer, seeking the face of God, crying out to God for help, but there are also other themes like generosity, listening to wise counsel, and unity. The book also presents a vision for God’s people, who are called to be a worshipping and witnessing people among the nations. So, there’s also a global vision in Chronicles, this is why it begins with all those genealogies!

PneumaReview.com: What do these books have to say to the church today?

Carol Kaminski: The book of Chronicles was written during the final period of the Old Testament. God’s people had been in exile in Babylon for seventy years and now they have returned and rebuilt the temple. But life has not been easy back in Jerusalem. God’s people are living under the Persian Empire. They must rebuild their homes and start all over again. And there is no king ruling on the throne in Jerusalem. But it is during this time of transition and upheaval that God calls his people to focus on his heavenly kingdom and to cultivate godly habits in the covenant community. In our context, we haven’t been into exile, but we are facing a major transition because our Christian values that used to be so much part of our culture have become increasingly secular. The question for us is: How do we live in this new context? The book of Chronicles can help us. The Chronicler, inspired by God’s Spirit, is presenting a vision of God’s everlasting kingdom with worship at the center. This is surely a much-needed vision for us today!

PneumaReview.com: Where can people learn more about Casket Empty and your books on 1 & 2 Chronicles?

Carol Kaminski: People can find out more about Casket Empty by going to our website casketempty.com. My commentary on 1-2 Chronicles is available on Amazon simply by Googling “Chronicles” with my last name “Kaminski.”

In this excerpt from Leaving Buddha, Eugene Bach introduces us to the amazing story of Tenzin Lahkpa, a Buddhist monk who had a powerful encounter with Jesus the Messiah.

Tenzin Lahkpa and Eugene Bach, Leaving Buddha: A Tibetan Monk’s Encounter with the Living God (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2019), 206 pages, ISBN 9781641231022.
Read the review by John Lathrop.

When I began to write this book, my relationship with Tenzin Lahkpa (a pseudonym) was completely new. I met him at a lunch meeting in August 2017 in western China, where our Back to Jerusalem missionary team was discussing a project to reach out to the Tibetan people. One of the pastors brought along Tenzin, a former Buddhist monk, who shared his personal testimony at the table.

When I heard Tenzin’s story, I was speechless. I was so moved and inspired by his experiences that I knew right away this was a story that needed to be shared with others.

Tenzin is not the first Buddhist monk I have met who has come to Christ (although I believe the number is relatively few), but he is the first to allow me to share his amazing story. Every time I sat down at my computer to write his personal account, I trembled with fear, knowing that it was a special project—one I did not feel qualified for due to the challenges and intricacies involved.

The first challenge was to obtain a full version of his story. I had asked Tenzin to write down his experiences so that I could translate them and make his life story available to others—but what I received was a very humble, two-page biography! Additional information came during subse­quent interviews where Tenzin felt embarrassed and extremely reluctant to talk about himself. As a Buddhist monk, he had been instructed for years to remove any sign of self-identity in an effort to obtain enlightenment. Talking about his own story and focusing on himself was the exact oppo­site of what he had been taught to do. Furthermore, like many Christians living in Tibet today, Tenzin does not see himself as anything special. He is simple and unassuming. If you were to meet him on the street, you would most likely not think twice about him.

The second challenge was that I was convinced my level of facility in the Chinese and Tibetan languages was not high enough to adequately translate Tenzin’s experiences. Thus, this book was written from a series of interviews conducted in 2017 and 2018 by five of my close colleagues and translated from Amdo Tibetan to Mandarin Chinese and eventually to English.

Third, in October 2017, a political development greatly hindered the interview process and the challenge of verifying an accurate translation of Tenzin’s story. The Chinese Communist Party came together in Beijing and passed new oppressive religious laws that came into effect on February 1, 2018. Thus, the interviews with Tenzin were carried out illegally and in secret during some of the most intense crackdowns on Christianity in China in more than a decade.

Fourth, even after scouring the material and running it by Tenzin and the translators, I still felt certain there were things I had missed or did not understand that were important. I also thought there are things I might have misunderstood or translated incorrectly. However, I have checked and double-checked the facts and events in this story to the best of my ability.

Church historian William De Arteaga introduces an important but often forgotten figure that God used to prepare many for the Charismatic Renewal.

J. Rufus Moseley

If there was no Rufus Moseley, there might not have been a Charismatic Renewal. Born in 1870 and died in 1954, J. Rufus Moseley was one of the most important, but largely forgotten evangelists for Pentecostalism. Without his ministry and influence, perhaps the Charismatic Renewal would not have occurred, or at least not in the 1960s-1970s.

Moseley brought Pentecost to the mainline churches indirectly, but decisively, by his work through several para-church organizations. Birthed in the 1930s, these organizations formed in reaction to the stultifying anti-supernaturalism and cessationism of mainline Protestantism. During the 1920s and 1930s, theological liberalism was at its height. The shift was so strong, so unrelenting that many Christians were even doubting the effectiveness of prayer.[1] That was the natural outcome of living and being taught in cessationist churches where no one saw a miraculous healing or supernatural event because no one prayed in faith for those things.

During this era of spiritual drought, four para-church organizations were paramount in upholding the Biblical understanding of prayer, the veracity of the Bible, and the present manifestations of the miraculous and healing prayer. They were, the Christian Ashram Movement of Eli Stanley Jones (1884–1973), Dr. Albert Day’s Disciplined Order of Christ (Methodist), the Rev. John Gaynor Bank’s Order of St. Luke (originally Episcopalian), and especially, the Camps Furthest Out (CFO), an interdenominational group founded by Professor Glenn Clark.[2]

Moseley added a Pentecostal dimension to these groups. His Pentecostalism was not based primarily on a study of classical Pentecostal writings that came out of the Azusa Street Revival, but on his own dramatic experience with the resurrected and glorified Jesus in 1910. It was a “mystical” encounter. Some Evangelicals are suspicious of the word, but all it means is a direct and intimately personal spiritual experience.[3] Moseley’s experience was very similar to that of the great 19^th Century evangelist Charles Finney – it was a sudden, unexpected immersion and union with the Risen Lord. After Moseley’s encounter with Jesus he manifested the gifts and fruits of the Spirit to an unusual degree. He lived a life of anointed teaching, sacrificial love and generosity that impressed all who met him.

A life of preparation

J. Rufus Moseley was born on August 29, 1870 into a devoutly Christian farming family in the mountain town of Elkin, North Carolina. His father, a veteran of the Civil War, had a reputation for absolute integrity and kindness in all his dealings. Rufus recounted:

When he offered for sale, or in trade, a horse or a mule, he first told its faults to the full. When he took a load of watermelons to sell, he sought to have the larger ones at the bottom instead of the top.[4]

This documentary, produced for the Public Broadcasting System, is a very fine introduction to the life, writings and influence of Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the most prominent and influential American theologian of the 20^th Century. His theology of social justice, peace and the sometimes tragic necessity for war, helped guide the leadership of World War II and the Cold War.

This documentary by Martin Doblmeier includes a wonderful series of photos of Niebuhr’s life and teaching career at Union Theological Seminary. It has multiple commentaries from a wide range of Niebuhr’s admirers such as David Brooks (conservative commentator for the New York Times) Andy Young (Civil Rights leader of the 1970s) various contemporary theologians and two presidents, Obama and Carter.

It is a balanced and fair presentation, and I heartily recommend it for both those who have never heard of Niebuhr and for those who already are familiar with some of his works. It is available as a free download for viewing at your leisure. It is also a great teaching tool for those doing, for instance, a survey class of modern theology, or an adult Sunday school class.

The link is:  http://www.pbs.org/video/2365984011/

Reviewed by William De Arteaga

The power of personal faith in Christ changing people and society around them. A study in Luke 19:1-10 by James D. Hernando.

Zacchaeus by Niels Larsen Stevns / Wikimedia Commons.

The story of Zacchaeus is one of the most intriguing in Luke’s gospel—a literary masterpiece filled with vivid imagery, drama, and biting irony. It is the story of the conversion of an arch villain in Jewish society who has a transforming encounter with the Lord. But it also offers marvelous insight into how the church transforms society one converted sinner at a time.

Enter the Villain

Luke quickly opens his story by introducing the main character in the briefest fashion. However, English readers seldom catch the innuendo of the Greek syntax. “There was a man called by name Zacchaeus.” Luke is undoubtedly calling attention to the man’s name, which is derived from the Hebrew root¹ meaning “pure” or “acquitted one.” The irony leaps out from Luke’s pen with the ensuing words, “and he was a chief tax collector.” Tax collectors (Gk. telonai) were locals hired by cities and towns to collect taxes for the Romans. Zacchaeus was a “chief” tax collector (Gk. architelones), which meant he probably had supervision over a region and number of tax collectors. Luke’s words “and he was rich” would certainly not go unnoticed by Jews in Jesus’ day. The privilege of collecting taxes was offered at a steep price and those who held that job set tax rates that often exceeded by far any quotas demanded by Rome. While tax-collectors had no authority to confiscate funds or property, they held great leverage over the people as they could exact severe penalties by reporting tax delinquency to the Romans. This they often did whether the charge were true or not.² And so here Luke presents an arch villain who is ironically named. He was anything but someone of pure or blameless character; he was, in fact, the exact opposite of his name. Keep in mind also that “tax-collectors” were notorious for their corruption and the mere mention of their profession aligned them with “sinners.” (See Matt. 9:11; Mark 2:15f; Luke 5:30).

The Action of Zacchaeus

“Oh stories!” exclaims Ramesh Sapkota, leader from Nepal. “I eat stories, sleep stories, drink stories, tell stories. Not only me—it is like a communicable disease. Everyone can tell stories. Blessed be God!”

Sapkota has caught the virus, and his new-found passion for Bible stories, from Genesis through Revelation, is characteristic of an emerging harvest work force. It’s a force that is energized and motivated by its love for the story of God in all its color, drama and depth. Along with this is the realization that in all kinds and cultures of people, this powerful story speaks for itself with the wisdom of the ages.

The thread, that runs through testimony after testimony from this cadre of workers using narrative portions of the Bible as its mainstay, is a thrilling sense of discovery. Non-literate believers who never imagined they could be teachers, leaders or trainers, are seeing that the story of God empowers them. Literate leaders are finding that when they tell pure stories of the Bible, without extra commentary, but with questions and discussion instead, their disciples are hearing and learning as never before.

“I want to translate this”

Sapkota was already a church planter and leader in his country when he made a fresh discovery of the scriptures. He’d been a believer in Jesus since age 13, but had only read one or two stories in the Old Testament for himself. “Most of the preaching I heard was from the New Testament,” he explains. That left him confused about a lot of things. “Questions that people would ask, I wouldn’t know how to answer.”

Then he heard about the Amsterdam 2000 conference for evangelists. He didn’t go, but he did request the materials from the event. By the time the package arrived at his door, he had forgotten about his order. “Who is sending me a Christmas gift?” he thought as he opened up a box of videos and materials.

Inserting the God’s Story video, produced by Dorothy Miller, into his player, he watched the whole story of the Bible in 80 minutes, starting from creation and beautifully illustrated with still-life drawings. “I felt like I was watching a movie,” said Sapkota. “The story was told in a way I could track it, in order chronologically. It talked to me in the cultural way that I think—I loved it.”

After seeing the video in English he said, “I want to translate this.” Getting it into his own language of Nepali became his first project. Since then, he has overseen the translation of the God’s Story video into 16 languages including all the languages of Tibet and Bhutan, and most of Nepal. “We have several languages to be done in a queue,” he says.

Normally I send out my own prayer requests once a year (and some of them DO still need prayer) but this one is kind of urgent.

Most of you know I spent five months over three summers ministering in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. For years, Christians have been periodically slaughtered there in planned terrorist attacks; I have talked with survivors.

If you saw in international media that Christians attacked Muslims in a “Muslim town” called Yelwa a month or so ago, you should know the context of that so you can pray for our brothers and sisters there.

First of all, Yelwa was never a “Muslim town”—the media simply bought Muslim propaganda—an outright lie. I TAUGHT 60 PASTORS IN YELWA IN JUNE 2000, IN A DENOMINATIONAL HEADQUARTERS THERE; there were thousands of Christians in that area. If it is a “Muslim town” now, it is because militant Muslims systematically killed and drove off Christians and burned their churches; thousands of people lost their homes and centuries–old farmlands and became refugees.

Militant Muslim immigrants burned churches and declared it a Muslim town. (In one recent incident, Christians meeting for early morning prayer were surrounded and burned alive.) When some Christians retaliated (most are simply peaceful refugees), suddenly Muslims garnered international media attention.

In response to the media attention, the governor of a predominantly Muslim, “sharia” state in northern Nigeria invited Muslim youth to “defend their faith”; they rioted and over the next few days all the morgues, refrigeration units, etc., were filled. When Muslims seized a baby and hurled it into flames, the mother began screaming—so they told her that since she liked the child so much, she could join it—and killed her. Local Christians claim as many as 3000 died; a mission compound there had over 1000 refugees.

Meanwhile, the media reported that 40–50 people (not specifying Christians) died in a riot; I think even most of the people in the rest of Nigeria don’t know what’s going on unless they have contacts there.

(Several years ago I witnessed violence that was also suppressed in the Nigerian media. There are moderates on both sides but blood could drown out their voices…)

I love my brothers and sisters there, and as a believer would have wanted to die in their place.

Please pray for the gentle and loving Christians of northern Nigeria.

They are our brothers and sisters, and when they die part of our heart dies with them.

Your brother, Craig

Upheaval in Nigeria (April 20, 2006)