May 18, 2026

Episode 18: Anthony Ferguson and the Yellow Card Initiative - World Cup Soccer Evangelism. + Guardian Angels and Do Churches Have Their Own Angels? Maybe!

Episode 18: Anthony Ferguson and the Yellow Card Initiative - World Cup Soccer Evangelism. + Guardian Angels and Do Churches Have Their Own Angels? Maybe!
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Season 1

Fun show today. We are going to talk about human evangelism - human messengers and heavenly messengers/angels. Our guest is Dr. Anthony Ferguson of 11th Street Baptist Church in Upland, California, which is a city of about 80,000 that borders Los Angeles. Dr. Ferguson is one of the founders of the Yellow Card initiative, bringing the Good News to World Cup attendees this Summer. We will also talk about guardian angels, and whether or not the Bible teaches that each church is assigned its very OWN angel.

WEBVTT

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Hey, fun show today. We're going to talk about human evangelism,

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like human messengers, and we're also going to talk about heavenly messengers or angels.

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Our guest is, I think, a human messenger, Dr.

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Anthony Ferguson of 11th Street Baptist Church in Upland, California,

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which is a city of about 80,000 that borders Los Angeles. Dr.

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Ferguson is one of the founders of the Yellow Card Initiative,

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bringing the good news to World Cup attendees this summer. Let's listen to a clip.

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And the point of the sermon was why God doesn't do the impossible.

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And the first point was because we don't ask him to. And so I listened to this

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whole sermon about God doing the impossible.

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He said, hey, Anthony, we should make a professionally designed website with

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a professionally designed video that can hold the traffic of hundreds of thousands of people.

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We should make a yellow car gospel track and we should hand out 100,000 at the World Cup.

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Now, 11th Street Baptist is a church of, we average 140. And I looked at this

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brother and I guess I didn't learn the lesson he wanted me to learn from the sermon, right?

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Because I said to him, I said, brother, that's so much beyond 11th Street.

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And this brother looked at his pastor in the face and said, yes, it is.

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Practical advice, soul care, and resources that work together to build up your

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local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God.

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Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole

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and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr.

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Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal

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of making every church flourish.

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Hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 18 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast,

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sponsored by the Great Commission Association, which is a group of Bible-minded

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Baptist churches in California. And we want to hear from you.

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We want to partner with you if you are in our area.

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Today's guest, Dr. Anthony Ferguson, actually reached out several months ago

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from a totally different association down near Los Angeles and was seeking partnership

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with the GCA and found a great partner with us, and you can too.

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So today we're going to talk with Dr. Ferguson about the Yellow Card Initiative,

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which is a fantastic approach to evangelism.

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And Dr. Ferguson and his team have already done most of the work for you.

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In the episode today, we're going to talk about evangelism with the yellow red

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soccer cards that have a QR code on them and lead to a website with the gospel.

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And one strategy that many churches in the West are using to reach people from

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around the world who are traveling to the United States this summer for the

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World Cup Soccer Tournament.

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We've got Dr. Ferguson for the next three episodes, and in addition to evangelism,

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we're going to talk to him about pastoring,

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church health, the Old Testament, and the Dead Sea Scrolls because he is a PhD

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high-level scholar of the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls. I cannot wait.

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He was a fascinating guest, and our interview went almost two hours with him

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which is why we have three episodes and I was never bored let's jump in

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It's totally cliche to talk about how excited you are to interview somebody

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on a podcast or whatever, but I will say I'm especially excited to interview Dr.

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Anthony Ferguson, not only because of the Yellow Card Initiative,

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which I think is a really creative, but potentially extremely fruitful approach to evangelism,

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but also ever since I found out that he was a textual criticism scholar in the

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realm of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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And pretty much every Bible nerd is really fascinated by the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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So as soon as I found that out, I hammered in a couple of Dead Sea Scrolls questions

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for the end of the interview.

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So if you're like me and you're interested in something like that,

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hang on. We're going to get to some pretty wild stuff there.

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Anthony, we are so glad that you are here with us today. And I'm excited.

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Years and years ago, back in ancient times when dinosaurs roamed the earth,

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One of my good seminary classmates pastored the 11th Street Baptist Church in Upland.

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Which is where you get to serve as the pastor today.

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So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, about your family and

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how you came to 11th Street?

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Yeah, well, first, thanks. Thanks, Chris and Chase for having me on the podcast.

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Happy to be here. Happy to talk about soccer, Jesus and textual criticism.

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Three things that are really important to me. So what a joy it is for me to

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talk. But yeah, about myself.

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I think the first thing I'm a Christian, saved by grace, got saved when I was

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a kid. My grandpa was really instrumental in that.

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And I'm really thankful for his testimony in my life and God's sovereignty and kindness to me.

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I do pastor 11th Street Baptist Church. I've been here for seven years.

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I'm married to my wife, Kristen Ferguson. We've been married for 17 years.

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We just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary and we have the extreme blessing.

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I have the extreme blessing of being the father to Asher and Lila Ferguson.

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Love them. My son is 10. My daughter is seven.

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My kids and my wife are just, outside of Christ, the greatest gift I can have.

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And love spending time with them, love camping with them, fishing with them,

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hanging out with them. Just really do love my family.

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Yeah, how did I come to 11th Street? I was finishing up a PhD dissertation and

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teaching as an adjunct online at Boyce College and Cal Baptist and a little bit at Gateway.

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And my dissertation was complete. I was just needing to defend it.

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And I started looking for pastoral positions, preferably near Gateway Seminary

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in Southern California.

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Definitely, we were open to going elsewhere. And in God's kindness,

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he planted me five miles from Gateway Seminary, which is where my wife works. I adjunct there as well.

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And it's been a really big blessing to invest into the Gateway community also.

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Yeah, we've been here for seven years.

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It's a church revitalization, and God has been so kind. In Ezekiel 37,

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can these dry bones live?

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One of my seminary professors, Kevin

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Smith, preached a sermon about church revitalization from that passage.

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Can these dry bones live? Only you know, God.

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11th Street, we weren't a dead church. We weren't a skeleton church,

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but there were definitely some difficult things, some financial things,

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some theological issues that we needed to work through.

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And God has just been so kind over the last seven years. And I think we're on

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the cusp of what I would define as a healthy church.

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And I do think this year, as we establish a deacon ministry and an elder ministry,

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we'll be there. And it's been a great journey.

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It's been a difficult journey, but one that I'm really, really thankful for.

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We're excited because we're actually recording this shortly after we've recorded

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another episode with the other Dr.

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Ferguson, and your wife has preceded you in a recording on Every Church Flourishing,

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and we get the privilege of having both Drs.

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Ferguson there, and we love your wife and her ministry there.

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We're grateful for her leadership at Gateway Seminary as well.

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So you were an Old Testament guy at Southern, so why Old Testament,

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and how How did you find yourself in ministry?

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Yeah, so I went to a good church growing up, for sure.

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So many strengths of that church. And I am who I am.

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And I would say the yellow card exists because of that church's influence in

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my life. So that church had so many strengths.

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But one of maybe the drawbacks of that ministry was I didn't understand how

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to put the Old and New Testament together.

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I think that's probably common in ministry. It's a very difficult topic.

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What does David and Goliath have to do with Peter and Paul?

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What does the conquest have to do with salvation in Christ?

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What does the near sacrifice of Isaac have to do about my sanctification?

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And so these questions are difficult. And I got to seminary and I was in a class

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by Peter Gentry, one of my favorite professors of all time.

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And he just began to unpack the totality of scripture and showing me the unity

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amid the diversity, by no means flattening out scripture,

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letting each story of scripture speak in its own individual way,

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but yet showing me unity and how scripture is pointing to Christ and the gospel.

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And honestly, I obviously began to know Jesus better.

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I began to learn more of God's sovereignty, his kindness, his providence, his intentionality.

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But more than that, I literally began to love God more. And being an Old Testament person,

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seeing the unity of scripture, I was just loving God. I felt compelled to be more devoted to God.

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And in my ministry, I don't want somebody to have to come to seminary to get what I just got.

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At that moment, I just dedicated myself, I'm going to do a PhD in Old Testament,

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because I'm going to know the Old Testament.

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And then a PhD in the Dead Sea Scrolls, that was really a roundabout way.

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That wasn't my intention.

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You know, John Piper has historically and famously made the comment,

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why are those who are best in Hebrew and Greek one step removed from the pulpit?

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So very convicted, thought that that's very right.

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Early on in seminary, I was like, I'm going to learn Hebrew and Greek as best as I can.

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And so I just did Hebrew and Greek. And in a Septuagint seminar,

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I was introduced to this concept of the Dead Sea Scrolls and concepts like textual

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plurality and fluidity.

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These are very technical conversations, but also extremely important in the

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realms of apologetics and faithfulness.

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And I didn't have an answer. I was being introduced to ideas.

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I didn't know how to respond.

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So I thought, hey, to answer this question, I have to know Hebrew and Greek really well.

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And it's really important because people are asking the question,

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Can I even, can I trust the Bible? And I'm going to put these things together

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and I'm going to do my best to answer the question.

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So I was in seminary. I wanted to be a pastor.

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I thought I would do a biblical theology PhD and I did not expect to do a Dead Sea Scrolls PhD.

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But that's what I did. And yeah, really glad I did.

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That's awesome. It really seems like you've taken a grammatical linguistic sort

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of approach to apologetics.

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Which I think is fantastic for a pastor, I kind of take a historical approach to the same topic.

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Switching to the Yellow Card Initiative itself, doing some research for the

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podcast, I noticed in August of 2025,

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you tweeted or exed or whatever we call it now, praying about how our church

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near LA can reach the nations at the World Cup next summer.

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Any churches, pastors, seminaries, or other organizations out there with a plan

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or ideas? Now I'm going to assume that some point after August 19th,

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the genesis of the yellow card initiative came around.

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So tell us what that is and tell us how it happened.

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Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I don't remember the timeline. So you're a history guy.

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I'm not a history guy. So I don't remember the historical timeline here.

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But it started in, let's see, 2024.

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I think the fall of 2024. Is that right?

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So 2025 was last year. Yes. I reached out to NAMM and IMB, the CSBC gateway.

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And I was like, hey, the World Cup's coming up.

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I love soccer. I am a big Everton fan.

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I played very competitively, played in college and love soccer.

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And so I was very aware the World Cup was coming to North America and loving

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Jesus and wanting to make much of him and my own theological understanding of the Great Commission.

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I saw these as a perfect blending together of soccer, mission,

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leveraging soccer for the mission, leveraging the World Cup,

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spread God's glory to all people.

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So I would say almost 18 months ago now, I reached out to some of our entities

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and just started asking questions.

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Hey, 11th Street wants to do something. What are we doing?

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And we just want to be on the team. And those were some good conversations.

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And I was really challenged to grassroots think through something to do.

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So 2025, I would imagine summer, I started passing out index cards to the people at the church.

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And I was like, hey, they had already heard me talking about this thing for

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months. Hey, we got to do something.

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We got to do something. So we're praying, we're thinking.

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I start passing out index cards. And I say, hey, for the next couple months,

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I want you to write down ideas about what we can do to leverage the World Cup

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to spread the glory of God to all people.

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Through that season, it was probably a three, maybe four-month season of dedicated

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prayer and just soliciting ideas.

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We generated now, I think it's eight assignments 11th Street is doing this summer.

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My plan, Chase, was just, hey, how do I equip 11th Street? How do I equip 11th

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Street to steward this moment well?

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In my mind, God is giving the churches of North America talents.

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Talents if we want to use you know jesus's parable the

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talents here he's giving us talents namely the

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world cup and i think he's looking to see what we

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will do with those talents and i was convicted that we have

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to steward the talent well and my mind was just 11th street we're going to do

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stuff and i had a brother in the church who wants to remain anonymous who came

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to me he bought me lunch came to my office and he said hey i want you to listen

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to this like 50 minute sermon and we're just going to listen to it.

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And then I'm, I'm going to ask you something.

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So we sat down and the sermon was all about how God can do the impossible.

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And it was a sermon. It wasn't super exegetical on, you know,

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Peter stepping out of the boat.

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And the point of the sermon was why God doesn't do the impossible.

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And the first point was because we don't ask him to. And so I listened to this

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whole sermon about God doing the impossible. He said, Hey, Anthony, we should,

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make a professionally designed website with a professionally designed video

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that can hold the traffic of hundreds of thousands of people.

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We should make a yellow card gospel track and we should hand out a hundred thousand at the World Cup.

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Now 11th Street Baptist is a church of, we average 140.

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If everybody showed up, we're probably 160 maybe. And I looked at this brother

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and I guess I didn't learn the lesson he wanted me to learn from the sermon,

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right? Because I said to him, I said, brother, that's so much beyond 11th Street.

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And this brother looked at his pastor in the face and said, yes,

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it is. And so, you know, Chase, at that moment, I have a decision to make.

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Do I just blow it off or do I at least try?

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And I did not have faith. I literally thought, well, I at least have to try.

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I did not expect much. I cannot design websites.

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I cannot design professionally designed videos. the request he made to me was

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completely beyond my skill base and way beyond my limitations.

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I couldn't accomplish it.

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So I just started cold calling people.

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We're talking the secretary of evangelism at NAMM, like cold calling people

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like, hey, this is what we want to do. Can you help us?

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And I finally got to Chris Cole and Michael Stewart at the Great Commission Association.

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And I told them what we wanted to do. And they said, hey, write me up a proposal.

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And I was like, you didn't just hang up the phone?

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And he said, give me a business proposal. So I wrote up a proposal and I sent it back to them.

00:15:39.654 --> 00:15:43.574
And just a few weeks later, they're coming down with a check for $7,500.

00:15:44.254 --> 00:15:49.154
Wow. To support this ministry. And I think the Great Commission Association

00:15:49.154 --> 00:15:54.954
believing in what we were doing was one of the first gifts of God to be like,

00:15:55.074 --> 00:15:59.154
I'm going to do something at this World Cup. and through the yellow card initiative.

00:15:59.434 --> 00:16:03.694
And God began to build my faith. Around the same time, we had a brother at Gateway

00:16:03.694 --> 00:16:07.734
Seminary, Caleb Stallings, who said, yes, I could design your website for free.

00:16:07.974 --> 00:16:12.014
We had a brother who said, yes, I can give you a professional video.

00:16:12.294 --> 00:16:17.754
He gave us the English version for free. And of course, we're using AI to translate things.

00:16:17.894 --> 00:16:21.494
He brought people in who can quality control, quality check this stuff.

00:16:21.634 --> 00:16:25.894
And then I just start cold calling more people, mobilization,

00:16:26.214 --> 00:16:27.934
churches, what churches want to be involved.

00:16:28.114 --> 00:16:31.474
I'm cold calling, emailing random people, convention leaders,

00:16:31.714 --> 00:16:34.034
directors of missions, association leaders.

00:16:34.474 --> 00:16:37.614
And through that, the Texas Baptists, the Pacific Northwest,

00:16:37.894 --> 00:16:39.934
and the Missouri Baptists have all gotten on board.

00:16:40.654 --> 00:16:44.554
And our goal is to hand out 100,000 cards in California.

00:16:44.874 --> 00:16:50.534
I have 5,000 cards right now that are not spoken for, maybe 7,000.

00:16:50.714 --> 00:16:56.774
But I have several churches that went to trainings, are the SoCal training who haven't responded yet.

00:16:56.954 --> 00:16:59.994
So I think we're going to be ordering that second batch.

00:17:00.194 --> 00:17:04.254
And I think hitting that 100,000 card mark is possible just in,

00:17:04.803 --> 00:17:08.963
just in California. So the Genesis was not flattering for me.

00:17:09.143 --> 00:17:12.703
It wasn't that I had this vision from on high. It wasn't that I had,

00:17:12.803 --> 00:17:17.903
you know, this big faith, you know, it wasn't that it was anonymous brother who came to me.

00:17:18.043 --> 00:17:20.363
He listened to his pastor. He presented an idea.

00:17:20.943 --> 00:17:24.043
I said, I have to try. And then God just took over.

00:17:24.183 --> 00:17:27.163
And, you know, Chase, what I love about the yellow card initiative is that nobody

00:17:27.163 --> 00:17:30.143
in their right mind can say, look what I did.

00:17:30.863 --> 00:17:34.343
Nobody can say that. I mean, I can't say that. I didn't even have the idea.

00:17:34.623 --> 00:17:38.263
Like the web designer can't say it. The video producer can't say it.

00:17:38.723 --> 00:17:40.543
Great Commission Association can't say it.

00:17:41.243 --> 00:17:45.943
CSBC can't say it. And why I think that's really special is because we all can

00:17:45.943 --> 00:17:47.343
only say, look what God has done.

00:17:47.643 --> 00:17:51.263
Yeah. And that makes me just really, I would, we use the word excited a lot.

00:17:51.343 --> 00:17:54.823
We've used it several times in this podcast so far, but it makes me really excited

00:17:54.823 --> 00:18:02.343
about what God is going to do. if he brought us this far, what's he going to do at the actual event?

00:18:02.803 --> 00:18:06.583
I'm really excited and I'm looking forward to seeing what God will do.

00:18:06.763 --> 00:18:09.223
And he's the only one who will get the glory. So that's kind of the background

00:18:09.223 --> 00:18:11.863
and the genesis of the Elkhart Initiative.

00:18:12.163 --> 00:18:18.023
I just want to say, brother, first off, thank you for your courageous obedience and your humility.

00:18:18.223 --> 00:18:23.803
So it takes a lot of humility to tell the story that you just did,

00:18:23.823 --> 00:18:30.563
to be honest about the genesis of this, because we don't know that story.

00:18:30.743 --> 00:18:34.423
And I want to thank you for that, because there is so much...

00:18:34.888 --> 00:18:39.748
Movement in the era in which we are engaging people, where we're moving towards

00:18:39.748 --> 00:18:45.708
influence as a commodity and my story and what I'm about.

00:18:45.848 --> 00:18:47.948
And one of the things I love about you, and one of the reasons,

00:18:48.188 --> 00:18:53.368
by the way, that GCA was engaged so early was because you didn't do that.

00:18:53.568 --> 00:18:59.128
We get a lot of approaches from people who are like, I've got the next best, greatest thing.

00:18:59.268 --> 00:19:03.648
It was actually your humility and your willingness to say, I've got some crazy

00:19:03.648 --> 00:19:06.028
idea. I don't even know that God's going to do it.

00:19:06.628 --> 00:19:12.448
Would you guys like to come and join us in some act of obedience here that I'm doing?

00:19:12.628 --> 00:19:17.108
And it's that very spirit that was such a powerful invitation.

00:19:17.388 --> 00:19:22.708
And I think it is a powerful invitation to so many people to say,

00:19:22.848 --> 00:19:29.748
and it's the willingness to not centralize this around 11th Street or one person's

00:19:29.748 --> 00:19:35.888
platform that makes it such an engaging invitation to your current partners.

00:19:36.048 --> 00:19:41.608
And we hope maybe even through this podcast to invite other partners into this work.

00:19:41.848 --> 00:19:45.968
So one question I have is we've sort of been talking about the Yellow Card Initiative

00:19:45.968 --> 00:19:49.388
like a lot of people might know what it is.

00:19:49.528 --> 00:19:52.368
And so how would you describe to

00:19:52.368 --> 00:19:55.308
someone who's never heard of yellow card initiative as it stands

00:19:55.308 --> 00:19:58.588
today what is it why should we be

00:19:58.588 --> 00:20:01.608
part of these these yellow cards right here if

00:20:01.608 --> 00:20:04.808
you're watching this on video these yellow red cards why

00:20:04.808 --> 00:20:10.268
what is this what how does it work yeah what's the basic idea and how can some

00:20:10.268 --> 00:20:15.468
churches be a part of it yeah yeah great so the yellow card i would first describe

00:20:15.468 --> 00:20:21.428
as an infrastructure or a toolbox a set tools which includes three main tools

00:20:21.428 --> 00:20:23.848
so the first is a a website.

00:20:24.428 --> 00:20:27.108
Now, the website is super, super simple. It does three things.

00:20:27.268 --> 00:20:28.408
First, it shares the gospel.

00:20:28.628 --> 00:20:33.628
It shares the gospel via video and via text. So we have two options to share the gospel.

00:20:33.748 --> 00:20:38.468
As people are navigating through the website, they'll come across both gospel presentations.

00:20:39.048 --> 00:20:44.068
Second, we offer people an opportunity to respond to us. So we're going to be using NAMS call center.

00:20:44.188 --> 00:20:48.648
And we also have a form that people can fill out to either become a Christian,

00:20:48.868 --> 00:20:52.268
learn more about Christianity, learn about a local church, so people to connect

00:20:52.268 --> 00:20:56.668
with us. And then the third aspect of the site is just a list of participating churches.

00:20:57.288 --> 00:21:02.028
So we hopefully in the near future, we'll have all the churches who are participating with us.

00:21:02.108 --> 00:21:06.188
That means churches who are engaged in handing out cards, whether or not it's

00:21:06.188 --> 00:21:10.188
through personal evangelism, or they have maybe a digital evangelism strategy,

00:21:10.408 --> 00:21:14.488
whether or not they're going to the sites or trying to get people to come to their campus.

00:21:14.488 --> 00:21:18.368
If they're engaged with us, we'll put their church name on our site.

00:21:18.508 --> 00:21:21.688
So that's the three components of the site, sharing the gospel,

00:21:21.848 --> 00:21:25.468
giving people an opportunity and you respond to us, and then having a list of

00:21:25.468 --> 00:21:27.428
churches for people to check out.

00:21:27.688 --> 00:21:31.248
The infrastructure also includes a suite of social media accounts.

00:21:31.448 --> 00:21:34.248
So if you're on social media, we'd love for you to follow us on X,

00:21:34.488 --> 00:21:39.588
Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, I am not super big on social media, so.

00:21:40.110 --> 00:21:42.750
I probably don't have the right lingua to describe these things.

00:21:42.910 --> 00:21:45.810
But yeah, you can follow us. I have a guy who's leading those efforts.

00:21:46.130 --> 00:21:49.690
And then finally, the infrastructure also has the card.

00:21:50.150 --> 00:21:54.470
So Chris and Chase, you both just held up the card. This is a yellow card gospel

00:21:54.470 --> 00:21:56.550
track, yellow on one side, that's right, red on the other.

00:21:57.250 --> 00:22:00.670
And super simple. It's vinyl. It's rounded edges.

00:22:01.550 --> 00:22:04.610
Official size, it's four by three. There's not actually an official size,

00:22:04.710 --> 00:22:06.390
but that's the general size of the yellow cards.

00:22:06.690 --> 00:22:11.310
General colors used, yellow and red. yellow card initiative is an infrastructure.

00:22:11.650 --> 00:22:16.870
The infrastructure includes social media accounts, website, and the actual card.

00:22:17.170 --> 00:22:21.470
Now, the yellow card initiative is more than just a set of tools. It's a strategy.

00:22:21.910 --> 00:22:26.410
So when most people hear me or somebody else talk about the yellow card initiative,

00:22:26.830 --> 00:22:32.770
they think mainly in terms of street evangelism, sharing the gospel with a stranger.

00:22:33.070 --> 00:22:38.250
And I would say that the Yellow Card Initiative is not just for those who have

00:22:38.250 --> 00:22:42.010
the gift or the ability or the maturity to share the gospel with a stranger.

00:22:42.230 --> 00:22:46.450
The Yellow Card is for anybody who wants to leverage the World Cup for the sake

00:22:46.450 --> 00:22:47.250
of the Great Commission.

00:22:47.490 --> 00:22:52.070
So when we're thinking about the strategy, we think in terms of four cores.

00:22:52.490 --> 00:22:57.350
So the four cores include personal evangelism, developing a strategy in your

00:22:57.350 --> 00:23:03.210
church or your ministry where the people under your influence can use the card

00:23:03.210 --> 00:23:06.290
to share the gospel with their family, friends, and neighbors.

00:23:06.630 --> 00:23:12.350
So at 11th Street, one of the things we are doing is we set out a couple hundred cards in our foyer.

00:23:12.730 --> 00:23:16.850
And the goal is that as people are engaging in normal life, when people talk

00:23:16.850 --> 00:23:21.470
about soccer, they can have something to give to a friend or a family member

00:23:21.470 --> 00:23:24.290
and be able to naturally get to the gospel.

00:23:24.650 --> 00:23:28.730
So we have personal evangelism. We also have digital evangelism.

00:23:28.890 --> 00:23:32.390
We're really encouraging churches to develop a digital strategy.

00:23:32.650 --> 00:23:34.390
So I don't know the statistic.

00:23:34.997 --> 00:23:38.937
But I'd imagine the average person on social media has a few hundred people

00:23:38.937 --> 00:23:40.877
in their social media ecosystem.

00:23:41.357 --> 00:23:44.437
Some people, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

00:23:44.697 --> 00:23:50.197
So if I can train the people at 11th Street to go on TikTok or Instagram or

00:23:50.197 --> 00:23:54.437
do a YouTube short or a Facebook Instagram reel and just say,

00:23:54.597 --> 00:23:58.037
hey, you've probably seen this yellow card in the World Cup.

00:23:58.417 --> 00:24:02.897
Yeah, a player breaks the rules. They get a warning. They do it again. Red card, they're out.

00:24:03.417 --> 00:24:06.477
But what's cool about this yellow card is this isn't just about breaking FIFA's

00:24:06.477 --> 00:24:08.037
rules, but breaking God's rules.

00:24:08.197 --> 00:24:12.657
And we made a video all about what God thinks of you when you break God's rules.

00:24:12.797 --> 00:24:15.217
And I bet you'll be surprised to learn what he thinks.

00:24:15.657 --> 00:24:19.817
Please check the video out in the description below. Like if I can train the

00:24:19.817 --> 00:24:24.837
150 people at 11th Street, 160 people to do that on their digital platforms,

00:24:25.037 --> 00:24:29.357
we've just 1,000, 10,000 X our influence, right?

00:24:29.497 --> 00:24:32.897
Our ability to spread the glory of God. So when we're thinking about the yellow

00:24:32.897 --> 00:24:37.017
card, it's a strategy that's personal evangelism, digital evangelism.

00:24:37.137 --> 00:24:42.757
But then third, we're really encouraging churches to creatively think through

00:24:42.757 --> 00:24:47.377
a category that we're calling church evangelism, community evangelism.

00:24:47.557 --> 00:24:52.997
That means how can we leverage the moment so that people in our own community come to you?

00:24:53.157 --> 00:24:56.777
So some of the things we're doing at 11th Street is we're doing a fantasy league.

00:24:57.215 --> 00:25:01.295
So we're like generating 10 questions and each question has a score.

00:25:01.715 --> 00:25:04.715
And we're going to have a bunch of people in our league. We're really inviting

00:25:04.715 --> 00:25:07.595
our church members to invite their non-Christian friends to join the league.

00:25:07.815 --> 00:25:11.615
And then the people, top three people at the end of the Fantasy League get prizes.

00:25:12.095 --> 00:25:16.135
We're going to do a FIFA video game tournament. We're specifically targeting

00:25:16.135 --> 00:25:19.955
our young men and trying to get them to come out and invite their friends to

00:25:19.955 --> 00:25:23.235
play out the World Cup bracket in EA Sports 2026.

00:25:23.615 --> 00:25:25.255
So video games for Jesus.

00:25:25.815 --> 00:25:30.775
Video games. This is awesome. Right. Yeah. Soccer for Jesus. Again, we love soccer.

00:25:31.035 --> 00:25:34.895
You know, some churches are kind of like, you know, tailoring their VBSs this

00:25:34.895 --> 00:25:36.275
year to have a soccer emphasis.

00:25:36.735 --> 00:25:40.515
We're going to do that at 11th Street in that we're going to do a watch party.

00:25:40.915 --> 00:25:45.815
Our Spanish and Korean churches are going to partner together to broadcast the

00:25:45.815 --> 00:25:48.575
Mexico-Korea game, South Korea game.

00:25:48.775 --> 00:25:51.895
And it's on the same day as our VBS. So as kids come to VBS,

00:25:52.255 --> 00:25:56.015
we're going to have street tacos and, you know, Korean appetizers,

00:25:56.775 --> 00:25:58.435
churros probably, good stuff.

00:25:58.695 --> 00:26:01.175
And we're going to encourage families to stick around, parents,

00:26:01.335 --> 00:26:03.435
and we're going to use the yellow card to share the gospel with them.

00:26:03.735 --> 00:26:07.875
You know, another idea is we're going to do a big final watch party where Sunday.

00:26:08.695 --> 00:26:12.635
July 19th at noon, we're inviting the entire community to come onto our campus

00:26:12.635 --> 00:26:17.475
to watch the World Cup, to play soccer, to eat good food and to hear the gospel.

00:26:17.715 --> 00:26:20.975
So, you know, there's a number of other things we're doing and a number of other

00:26:20.975 --> 00:26:24.295
things other churches are doing, but we are encouraging churches to think through

00:26:24.295 --> 00:26:28.615
a strategy about how they can leverage the moment to draw people to them.

00:26:28.875 --> 00:26:33.795
But then the fourth thing is we're really encouraging people to go into their commute.

00:26:33.995 --> 00:26:39.495
So this might mean going to local apartment complexes with Costco pizza, knocking on doors.

00:26:39.695 --> 00:26:41.435
Hey, we're outside playing soccer.

00:26:41.535 --> 00:26:44.095
We got some dinner. Would you like some dinner? We're the local church.

00:26:44.275 --> 00:26:49.955
If they say, yeah, you station two people at that door and one person goes back, gets the order.

00:26:50.115 --> 00:26:52.895
Well, when they're at the door, they're sharing the gospel with the yellow card.

00:26:52.895 --> 00:26:56.295
This is an idea that I got from a company in Oklahoma.

00:26:57.143 --> 00:26:58.283
I don't remember the name of

00:26:58.283 --> 00:27:01.543
the company, but they sell these grill attachments that are pretty cool.

00:27:01.643 --> 00:27:04.643
But we're kind of altering the idea a little bit to be Costco pizzas,

00:27:04.783 --> 00:27:06.183
a little more cost effective, I think.

00:27:06.483 --> 00:27:08.743
But that's an idea. Or, you know, even going to venue sites,

00:27:09.123 --> 00:27:11.643
Uber and Lyft drop-off stations, tourist hotspots.

00:27:12.063 --> 00:27:15.543
LA has like eight fan zones. So we're going to be sending out teams to those

00:27:15.543 --> 00:27:19.903
fan zones. There's a church one block away from SoFi Stadium in Englewood. They connected with me.

00:27:20.063 --> 00:27:23.683
And our hope is to send out teams to them to share the gospel on the streets

00:27:23.683 --> 00:27:27.963
around SoFi. So we're encouraging churches to also think through that street

00:27:27.963 --> 00:27:31.883
evangelism component. So what is the yellow card? That was the original question.

00:27:32.378 --> 00:27:37.838
Yellow card is an infrastructure. It's a set of tools to help us leverage the

00:27:37.838 --> 00:27:38.978
moment for the sake of God's glory.

00:27:39.078 --> 00:27:42.878
But it's also a strategy, helping churches think through how they can strategically

00:27:42.878 --> 00:27:48.318
position themselves in this big plan, right, to spread God's glory.

00:27:48.438 --> 00:27:50.758
So that's what it is. It's an infrastructure and a strategy.

00:27:50.758 --> 00:27:53.858
Fantastic. Okay, so we're driving down the road.

00:27:53.998 --> 00:27:57.458
We're talking about the Yellow Card Initiative and evangelism.

00:27:57.598 --> 00:28:02.558
I'm going to slam us off of a side road for just a few seconds and then right

00:28:02.558 --> 00:28:04.418
back onto the interstate in just a minute.

00:28:04.578 --> 00:28:09.618
But I got to ask, because we're talking around it, you're obviously a football

00:28:09.618 --> 00:28:11.498
soccer guy. You played in college.

00:28:11.798 --> 00:28:17.278
I'm just curious how in the world you got to be a blues fan. Are you a Liverpool guy?

00:28:17.498 --> 00:28:20.738
How did this relationship between you and Everton start?

00:28:20.758 --> 00:28:24.938
Well, yeah, I'm a big Everton fan. So if you don't like soccer,

00:28:25.098 --> 00:28:27.058
that would be a great team to start following.

00:28:27.278 --> 00:28:32.078
If you want a team with heart and legacy. But if you want a team with a winning

00:28:32.078 --> 00:28:34.298
record. We're not doing bad this year.

00:28:34.458 --> 00:28:36.258
No, I said no. No, not bad at all.

00:28:37.038 --> 00:28:41.838
We have a brand new stadium, a brand new owner from Texas, the great state of Texas.

00:28:42.158 --> 00:28:46.318
Great coach. We have a homecoming for David Moyes. Oh, I'm so happy he's back.

00:28:46.678 --> 00:28:49.538
Yes, so I'm a big Everton fan. So how did I become an Everton fan?

00:28:49.538 --> 00:28:56.058
Well my last name is ferguson and when i was a kid they had a striker named duncan ferguson,

00:28:56.878 --> 00:28:59.698
and they also you know manchester united at

00:28:59.698 --> 00:29:02.558
the time had a coach named sir alex ferguson but i couldn't like

00:29:02.558 --> 00:29:07.178
them because everybody liked the red doubles and so i couldn't like them i'm

00:29:07.178 --> 00:29:12.098
not a bandwagoner at all i'm the kind of loyal and true guy right so i chose

00:29:12.098 --> 00:29:16.078
everton and i've been a fan actually that year they made it to the champions

00:29:16.078 --> 00:29:20.298
league like qualification round they didn't qualify in 2004 for the Champions

00:29:20.298 --> 00:29:22.498
League, but been the fan ever since.

00:29:23.025 --> 00:29:26.045
There's been some good years. There's been some tough years.

00:29:26.205 --> 00:29:29.165
But I'm very optimistic about the future.

00:29:29.325 --> 00:29:32.025
They have some good players. They have a great, great coach.

00:29:32.165 --> 00:29:35.585
And I'm a big fan. But yeah, how did I become a fan? Duncan Ferguson. That's how it goes.

00:29:35.865 --> 00:29:40.305
Do you despise Liverpool FC?

00:29:41.105 --> 00:29:46.085
Oh, well, that's a hard question. Because they actually have several Christians on their team.

00:29:46.285 --> 00:29:47.125
Oh, that makes it tough.

00:29:47.265 --> 00:29:50.285
So, you know, they have a striker from Holland. Probably not going to say his

00:29:50.285 --> 00:29:53.925
name properly. Gokpo. their goalie from Brazil, Alisson.

00:29:54.605 --> 00:29:59.585
Firmino is a historical Liverpool fan. He's actually a pastor in Brazil now.

00:29:59.745 --> 00:30:02.065
So I used to hate Liverpool.

00:30:02.305 --> 00:30:05.025
And then I realized, I don't know if Everton has any believers.

00:30:05.625 --> 00:30:07.165
But Liverpool does.

00:30:07.805 --> 00:30:14.125
So no, I would not say I hate Liverpool anymore. I'm actually kind of fond of some of their players.

00:30:14.445 --> 00:30:19.305
No, I believe, I recall the other Dr.

00:30:19.445 --> 00:30:22.725
Ferguson, and your wife has a nickname for your team.

00:30:22.965 --> 00:30:27.205
We don't say that. We don't talk about Bruno. We don't talk about Bruno.

00:30:27.545 --> 00:30:30.525
We don't talk about Neverton.

00:30:31.105 --> 00:30:35.805
Is that it? Yes, my wife calls them Neverton. Oh.

00:30:36.145 --> 00:30:40.305
Because in her mind, they never win. Now, in her defense, there was a couple

00:30:40.305 --> 00:30:43.765
years that were very dark for Everton. They never got relegated.

00:30:44.085 --> 00:30:46.905
Praise Jesus, I'm praising you, Jesus, for that. Thank you, Jesus.

00:30:47.835 --> 00:30:52.875
But it's not appropriate anymore. They are not. So my nickname for them is Louverton

00:30:52.875 --> 00:30:55.735
because I Louve them. I love that. Louverton.

00:30:57.095 --> 00:30:59.375
Yes, I was in Neverton.

00:30:59.795 --> 00:31:03.475
Okay, well, hey, Jordan Pickford, at least, is Roman Catholic.

00:31:04.415 --> 00:31:07.675
So maybe on the way to believing the gospel,

00:31:07.935 --> 00:31:10.875
Lord willing. Yeah, I mean, Jordan Pickford is amazing. He is,

00:31:11.135 --> 00:31:12.915
I think, the best goalie in the world.

00:31:13.255 --> 00:31:18.035
I might be a little biased, but he's great. Seamus Coleman, he is an amazing coach. player.

00:31:18.135 --> 00:31:21.455
They have a new striker from Senegal named Njai. He's really good.

00:31:21.835 --> 00:31:26.655
I grew up in Alabama, as I already mentioned. I asked you about the rivals because

00:31:26.655 --> 00:31:30.315
if you're in Alabama, it's civil war between Alabama and Auburn.

00:31:31.095 --> 00:31:36.495
I call it football hate because everybody down there claims to be a Christian.

00:31:36.855 --> 00:31:40.555
It's not real hate, it's football hate. Okay, back on the interstate.

00:31:40.555 --> 00:31:48.395
So if somebody missed the training for how to utilize the yellow cards,

00:31:48.615 --> 00:31:51.695
where would you point them to if you're going to send out a few hundred,

00:31:51.835 --> 00:31:53.235
a church's request a few hundred?

00:31:53.555 --> 00:31:57.475
In fact, my church just signed up this week to request some cards.

00:31:57.675 --> 00:32:04.355
Where would you point people to get training now that the in-person seminars are over?

00:32:04.495 --> 00:32:08.675
We have probably two options. The first option is on our YouTube page.

00:32:08.675 --> 00:32:11.915
So if you go to Yellow Card Initiative on our YouTube page, we'd love to have

00:32:11.915 --> 00:32:14.835
you subscribe to the page. But we have training.

00:32:15.035 --> 00:32:20.175
I think there's 13 videos that take people from interested in World Cup Evangelism

00:32:20.175 --> 00:32:24.875
to being equipped to do World Cup Evangelism.

00:32:25.115 --> 00:32:28.735
And so we start with biblical foundations, then we move on to the theological

00:32:28.735 --> 00:32:32.815
foundations, and then we have a 10-step process of getting equipped.

00:32:33.477 --> 00:32:38.377
What does that mean? And then with the use of AI and a dear friend who has a

00:32:38.377 --> 00:32:43.017
company called Sermon Shots, he was able to translate for us the English videos

00:32:43.017 --> 00:32:44.217
into Spanish and Portuguese.

00:32:44.517 --> 00:32:48.097
So those are available for Spanish-speaking churches and Portuguese-speaking churches.

00:32:48.557 --> 00:32:51.357
So that would be probably the easiest way. Those are abbreviated videos.

00:32:51.537 --> 00:32:54.997
I think the videos are three minutes, five minutes, or maybe one or two, that's seven minutes.

00:32:55.177 --> 00:32:59.057
But they're really digestible on a commute home from the bay,

00:32:59.517 --> 00:33:01.737
from LA, from the port, from down here.

00:33:01.817 --> 00:33:06.377
If you have a long commute, you could probably digest the entire playlist in one sitting.

00:33:06.837 --> 00:33:11.657
Second, I'm teaching an evangelism course at Gateway Seminary this summer.

00:33:11.857 --> 00:33:16.477
And the course is basic evangelism. You can get a two-unit course.

00:33:17.117 --> 00:33:20.217
And I think there might be some more scholarship opportunities.

00:33:20.277 --> 00:33:23.657
So if there's anybody watching this who wants to take a seminary class for a

00:33:23.657 --> 00:33:28.297
reduced price or free, you can reach out to Gateway Seminary's registration office.

00:33:29.157 --> 00:33:34.997
And so that class is going to be a Friday and a Saturday. I think it's June 12th and 13th.

00:33:35.497 --> 00:33:39.677
A couple hours of training on campus. And then we're actually going to be doing

00:33:39.677 --> 00:33:44.797
field trips, excursion trips down into LA to utilize the yellow card.

00:33:45.077 --> 00:33:48.857
So you can do that. And the big part of the class is doing the evangelism.

00:33:48.997 --> 00:33:53.577
And then the students then will duplicate what we did as a class in their own

00:33:53.577 --> 00:33:55.457
church context two times.

00:33:55.897 --> 00:33:59.417
So if you miss the in-person training and you want to get trained you want to

00:33:59.417 --> 00:34:03.677
be involved either A go to YouTube check out the abbreviated training or B take

00:34:03.677 --> 00:34:05.677
a seminary class I think those are probably the two,

00:34:06.119 --> 00:34:07.759
two best ways to get trained at this point.

00:34:08.399 --> 00:34:12.419
Okay, awesome. So what we'll do is on our website, everychurchflourishing.com,

00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:16.119
we will have links to the YouTube channel and the other training.

00:34:16.279 --> 00:34:21.739
And if you just want to look it up on your own, it is at yellowcardinitiative on YouTube.

00:34:21.759 --> 00:34:24.739
I have gone through the training videos and looked at them.

00:34:24.859 --> 00:34:28.579
They are very well made, easy to follow, and worth checking out.

00:34:28.739 --> 00:34:34.119
And on next week's episode, we are going to talk more about the Yellow Card Initiative.

00:34:34.439 --> 00:34:37.819
And we're going to kind of find out some of the experiences Dr.

00:34:38.059 --> 00:34:43.059
Ferguson has had sharing the gospel, using the Yellow Card, and what he would

00:34:43.059 --> 00:34:51.799
say to people who are naturally kind of evangelism shy, very hesitant to approach a stranger.

00:34:51.979 --> 00:34:56.539
So next week, we're going to talk more practicalities on being equipped for

00:34:56.539 --> 00:34:58.319
evangelism, and we'll see you then.

00:34:58.739 --> 00:35:02.919
All right. I love that interview and Dr. Ferguson's zeal for evangelism.

00:35:02.919 --> 00:35:09.499
Remember to reach out yourself to yellowcardinitiative.com.

00:35:09.499 --> 00:35:16.099
That's yellowcardinitiative.com to get your church set up with some excellent

00:35:16.099 --> 00:35:18.619
soccer-related evangelism tools.

00:35:18.839 --> 00:35:24.159
They really are high quality and striking and a good conversation piece and

00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:26.519
a fantastic way to share the good news.

00:35:26.759 --> 00:35:32.039
So let's talk a little bit about angels, well, or not.

00:35:32.039 --> 00:35:36.239
Today, during our preaching time at Valley Baptist Church, I referred to Jesus'

00:35:36.479 --> 00:35:40.999
letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapter 2 and Revelation chapter

00:35:40.999 --> 00:35:44.919
3, which is a most fascinating portion of Scripture.

00:35:45.219 --> 00:35:51.199
The way those letters began is a bit clothed in mystery and a little bit of controversy.

00:35:51.959 --> 00:36:00.539
Was Jesus writing to heavenly angels or to human pastors or elders? Let's read.

00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:02.160
Revelation 1.20.

00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:08.280
Says, The mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and of the seven

00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:10.140
golden lampstands is this.

00:36:10.300 --> 00:36:18.180
The seven stars are the angels or messengers of the seven churches and the seven

00:36:18.180 --> 00:36:20.300
lampstands are the seven churches.

00:36:20.300 --> 00:36:26.400
So the big question, is Jesus dictating those seven letters in the book of Revelation

00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:33.860
to the supernatural heavenly angels of the churches or to the human messengers,

00:36:33.860 --> 00:36:35.300
the pastors, the bishops,

00:36:35.560 --> 00:36:38.660
the elders, the overseers, the leaders of the churches?

00:36:38.660 --> 00:36:44.620
Now, after this passage, Jesus is going to dictate a letter to each one of those

00:36:44.620 --> 00:36:49.380
seven churches, and all of the letters begin somewhat like the first letter,

00:36:49.520 --> 00:36:51.320
which is to the church at Ephesus.

00:36:51.440 --> 00:36:58.480
For instance, it says, Revelation 2.1, Jesus talking right to the angel of the church in Ephesus.

00:36:58.660 --> 00:37:04.560
Thus says the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks

00:37:04.560 --> 00:37:11.600
among the seven golden lampstands. So is John writing to an angel?

00:37:12.223 --> 00:37:13.823
Or a human messenger?

00:37:14.063 --> 00:37:19.443
Does every church have its own angel and did Jesus write letters to the angels

00:37:19.443 --> 00:37:20.823
of the church in Revelation?

00:37:21.143 --> 00:37:27.403
Does the church I go to, the church you go to, have an angel assigned by God to that church?

00:37:27.523 --> 00:37:31.943
It's a really great and interesting question to grapple with.

00:37:32.083 --> 00:37:36.843
I'm not sure we're going to solve it today, but I think we will be able to see

00:37:36.843 --> 00:37:41.503
that the preponderance of biblical evidence points to one conclusion.

00:37:41.523 --> 00:37:47.403
But on this issue, there are heavy hitters in the realms of preaching,

00:37:47.783 --> 00:37:51.263
Teaching, theology on both sides of this question.

00:37:51.403 --> 00:37:55.943
For instance, one of my heroes, Charles Spurgeon, preached on this passage in

00:37:55.943 --> 00:37:58.023
a message called The Star and the Sword.

00:37:58.183 --> 00:38:02.343
And he said, quote, when John looked at Christ's right hand,

00:38:02.523 --> 00:38:05.163
he tells us then in it he saw seven stars.

00:38:05.403 --> 00:38:10.323
These are generally understood to be the ministers of the seven churches of Asia.

00:38:10.503 --> 00:38:17.463
We are told in the 20th verse that the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.

00:38:17.703 --> 00:38:24.003
And I don't know who the angels of the churches can be unless they are the messengers

00:38:24.003 --> 00:38:30.623
of the churches, those ministers, human ministers of whom Paul wrote.

00:38:30.823 --> 00:38:36.863
John MacArthur takes a very similar view, stating the seven stars are the seven

00:38:36.863 --> 00:38:40.643
ministers of the churches, so the author here identifies himself, the Lord,

00:38:41.003 --> 00:38:45.763
As the one who possesses the fullness of the Spirit and who possesses as well

00:38:45.763 --> 00:38:48.883
the ministers, the pastors, the leaders of the church.

00:38:49.083 --> 00:38:54.683
The author is the one who gives the Holy Spirit to the church and sovereignly

00:38:54.683 --> 00:38:57.783
leads through pastors who are faithful.

00:38:58.043 --> 00:39:04.083
Simon And Kistemaker's commentary on the book of Revelation very confidently agrees.

00:39:04.303 --> 00:39:08.243
The word angel, says Dr. Kistemaker, basically means messenger.

00:39:08.463 --> 00:39:14.763
The messengers of these seven churches in the province of Asia are human beings.

00:39:15.104 --> 00:39:20.504
Because John addresses the letters to them, angels from heaven do not lead or

00:39:20.504 --> 00:39:22.704
govern earthly churches.

00:39:23.024 --> 00:39:28.484
John F. Walvoord out of Dallas Theological Seminary agrees with all of the others so far.

00:39:28.644 --> 00:39:32.944
He says the word angel, Greek word angelos, means messenger.

00:39:33.333 --> 00:39:38.773
It is used in the New Testament of both human and angelic messengers.

00:39:38.953 --> 00:39:43.473
In view of the fact that these messengers were meant to be read by the churches,

00:39:43.473 --> 00:39:47.273
it is more probable that the messengers were human.

00:39:47.513 --> 00:39:52.253
Well, in order to convincingly answer this question, we need to know something

00:39:52.253 --> 00:40:00.553
about the Greek word for angel, which is angelos, a G-G-E-L-O-S in regular English alphabet terms.

00:40:00.553 --> 00:40:08.093
Interestingly, this word can mean angel as in the heavenly being or it can mean messenger.

00:40:08.493 --> 00:40:12.793
Angels definitely serve in a messenger capacity, but there are a few times in

00:40:12.793 --> 00:40:19.013
scripture where Angelos seems to refer to a human rather than heavenly messenger.

00:40:19.213 --> 00:40:25.493
For instance, Luke 7.24, after John's messengers left, he began to speak to

00:40:25.493 --> 00:40:27.993
the crowds about John or James 2.25.

00:40:27.993 --> 00:40:34.213
In the same way, wasn't Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving

00:40:34.213 --> 00:40:40.093
the messengers and sending them out by a different route? Or Matthew 11 10.

00:40:40.393 --> 00:40:45.213
This is the one about whom it is written. See, I am sending my messenger,

00:40:45.513 --> 00:40:49.773
my angelos ahead of you. He will prepare your way before you.

00:40:49.953 --> 00:40:55.533
All three of those verses translate the Greek word angelos as messenger.

00:40:55.533 --> 00:40:58.933
And it's very clear they're talking about a human messenger.

00:40:59.173 --> 00:41:05.533
Of further interest, the word angel does not indicate alignment or allegiance with God.

00:41:05.593 --> 00:41:09.933
And what I mean by that can be demonstrated easily from a couple of passages of scripture.

00:41:10.073 --> 00:41:13.213
Revelation 12, 7, war broke out in heaven.

00:41:13.433 --> 00:41:17.573
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and

00:41:17.625 --> 00:41:24.305
the dragon and his angelos, or angels, also fought. Matthew 25, 41,

00:41:33.705 --> 00:41:39.605
Thus we see that there are evil angels, angelos, that serve Satan.

00:41:39.745 --> 00:41:43.565
Now, that doesn't quite answer our question. It actually complicates it a little

00:41:43.565 --> 00:41:47.905
bit, But I think right out of the gate, we can eliminate one possibility.

00:41:47.925 --> 00:41:54.645
It is certain that Jesus is not saying to John to send a letter to the church's angel of Satan.

00:41:54.825 --> 00:42:01.285
But is he saying to send a letter to the church's angel or to the church's human

00:42:01.285 --> 00:42:08.165
messenger, pastor, bishop, overseer, whatever, perhaps in a metaphorical sense, referring to,

00:42:08.505 --> 00:42:11.245
like I said, a human pastor or leader of the church.

00:42:11.245 --> 00:42:17.705
Many well-regarded and excellent biblical scholars make a compelling case that

00:42:17.705 --> 00:42:21.365
Jesus, through John, is actually sending messages

00:42:21.658 --> 00:42:24.558
to the heavenly angels of the church. For instance,

00:42:24.918 --> 00:42:30.618
Robert Mounts, who is like a biblical Greek guru, says, It seems best to understand

00:42:30.618 --> 00:42:36.478
the angel of the church as a heavenly being who serves as the heavenly counterpart

00:42:36.478 --> 00:42:38.498
to the earthly congregation.

00:42:39.258 --> 00:42:42.978
They are the heavenly representatives of the church.

00:42:43.198 --> 00:42:48.118
Thomas Schreiner, one of our top Baptist theologians, offers evidence for the

00:42:48.118 --> 00:42:54.858
use of the heavenly angel here, and he says, are the angels heavenly beings or human messengers?

00:42:55.038 --> 00:42:59.418
The word angelos can refer to human messengers, and some have argued that the

00:42:59.418 --> 00:43:02.458
reference is to the pastors or bishops of the churches.

00:43:02.658 --> 00:43:10.258
But the word angelos occurs over 60 times in Revelation, and in every single

00:43:10.258 --> 00:43:14.698
other instance, it refers to a heavenly being.

00:43:14.878 --> 00:43:21.738
It is highly likely then, says Dr. Schreiner, that heavenly angels are intended here as well.

00:43:21.878 --> 00:43:24.798
That's a pretty solid argument for math. G.K.

00:43:25.178 --> 00:43:32.638
Beale argues the same way, the angels of the seven churches are best understood as heavenly beings.

00:43:32.818 --> 00:43:38.198
It is unlikely that angels refers to human messengers since everywhere else

00:43:38.198 --> 00:43:41.218
in Revelation, the word refers to heavenly beings.

00:43:41.598 --> 00:43:46.578
Also, D.A. Carson, one of the church's best scholars overall,

00:43:46.838 --> 00:43:48.658
writes, who are the seven angels?

00:43:49.018 --> 00:43:51.278
What are the seven angels? And,

00:43:51.392 --> 00:43:54.872
He says the short answer is I'm not sure, but I have a longer answer.

00:43:55.052 --> 00:43:59.392
The two most common interpretations are these. The angel of each church is,

00:43:59.512 --> 00:44:02.032
on the one hand, senior pastor, elder, bishop.

00:44:02.332 --> 00:44:07.172
After all, the word angel is simply the word angelos in Greek, which means messenger.

00:44:07.592 --> 00:44:14.252
But Carson continues, in some sense, pastor teachers in the church are God's messengers, I suppose.

00:44:14.512 --> 00:44:19.812
The problem with that interpretation is there is no passage in the New Testament

00:44:19.812 --> 00:44:26.432
that refers to pastors or elders or bishops as angels.

00:44:27.652 --> 00:44:34.492
Moreover, in apocalyptic literature like the book of Revelation, angels are common.

00:44:34.712 --> 00:44:37.432
They're all over the place. In other words, you're looking at things from the

00:44:37.432 --> 00:44:41.532
point of view from heaven. It's not surprising a few angels crop up.

00:44:41.712 --> 00:44:46.572
That's why you have angels appearing in Daniel from chapter 6 on.

00:44:46.692 --> 00:44:51.152
You're looking at things from heaven's perspective, so if some of heaven's denizens

00:44:51.152 --> 00:44:53.632
show up, it's not surprising.

00:44:53.872 --> 00:44:58.712
In the context of apocalyptic literature, it is highly unlikely that

00:44:58.774 --> 00:45:03.714
that angels refers to pastors. What then are these angels?

00:45:03.994 --> 00:45:07.374
There are seven of them, one to correspond to each church.

00:45:07.574 --> 00:45:12.814
What I suspect, says Carson, is you have is some kind of analog to Daniel.

00:45:13.114 --> 00:45:19.134
Do you remember how in the book of Daniel, you have angels corresponding to the various countries?

00:45:19.514 --> 00:45:25.214
Clearly, it is impossible to construct out of the few things the Bible says

00:45:25.214 --> 00:45:30.654
about angels as a whole angelology, a whole hierarchy of angels,

00:45:30.714 --> 00:45:33.874
but you can say a few things here.

00:45:34.034 --> 00:45:39.374
While some view angel as a human messenger, the most straightforward reading

00:45:39.374 --> 00:45:44.734
of heavenly messengers seems congruent with other biblical depictions of stars

00:45:44.734 --> 00:45:46.874
symbolizing celestial beings.

00:45:46.874 --> 00:45:52.654
And I'll tell you, I hate to disagree with my guy Spurgeon, but mostly I concur

00:45:52.654 --> 00:46:00.014
with Schreiner, Carson, Beale, etc., but with kind of a both-and twist.

00:46:00.014 --> 00:46:03.274
The preponderance of the grammatical evidence,

00:46:03.854 --> 00:46:08.654
Which I think is very strong here, seems to favor angel in the heavenly being

00:46:08.654 --> 00:46:15.014
sense because the word angelos is used 186 times in the Bible.

00:46:16.434 --> 00:46:22.954
179, so a lot, of those times seems to be clearly referring to a heavenly being,

00:46:22.954 --> 00:46:29.954
And only seven of those times does it appear that Angelos is referring to a human messenger.

00:46:30.174 --> 00:46:33.454
Those are pretty strong odds. Further evidence in that direction,

00:46:33.454 --> 00:46:37.674
we can see that John never uses Angelos to refer to anything

00:46:38.132 --> 00:46:42.272
But a heavenly being in either the Gospel of John, the Epistles of John,

00:46:42.272 --> 00:46:43.472
or the Book of Revelation.

00:46:43.712 --> 00:46:47.852
Now, does that prove that every church has an angel? I don't suppose it does,

00:46:47.852 --> 00:46:53.432
but it does certainly seem to point in that direction as a possibility.

00:46:53.772 --> 00:46:59.292
Now, two qualifiers. Number one, each of these letters of Jesus to the church

00:46:59.292 --> 00:47:03.792
in a certain location is written to the church of a city.

00:47:03.912 --> 00:47:07.952
That's very important. I myself don't live in a huge city in Salinas,

00:47:08.072 --> 00:47:13.412
California, population a little over 160,000, but it is big enough that we have

00:47:13.412 --> 00:47:15.212
dozens and dozens of churches.

00:47:15.432 --> 00:47:22.952
Does each of those churches have its own angel, or is there an angel of the church in Salinas?

00:47:23.232 --> 00:47:27.232
That is, all of the body of Christ that lives in this city.

00:47:27.352 --> 00:47:31.712
I don't know the answer to this question. God knows, but I certainly don't.

00:47:31.712 --> 00:47:36.132
Now, qualifier number two, it could be that churches in the first century had

00:47:36.132 --> 00:47:37.612
angels and they don't now.

00:47:37.852 --> 00:47:43.052
I suspect that things have largely stayed the same as it was in the first century,

00:47:43.052 --> 00:47:49.132
but since this is observational theology rather than reading things in the Bible

00:47:49.132 --> 00:47:50.832
that are clearly stated,

00:47:51.172 --> 00:47:53.152
then we just don't know for sure.

00:47:53.412 --> 00:47:57.172
Now, one more tidbit, and this is my theory about the whole thing.

00:47:57.172 --> 00:48:03.332
I actually believe, but I can't prove it, obviously, that Jesus here used an

00:48:03.332 --> 00:48:07.652
ambiguous, that means it can mean two different things, term quite intentionally.

00:48:08.173 --> 00:48:13.633
Why would he do that? Because we know that these letters were actually sent

00:48:13.633 --> 00:48:16.493
and received by human messengers.

00:48:16.713 --> 00:48:20.893
How do we know this? Because we actually have a copy of the letters to this

00:48:20.893 --> 00:48:25.293
day, because they circulated around the churches of the time.

00:48:25.613 --> 00:48:29.873
Thus, I think it is likely that Jesus essentially sent these letters both to

00:48:29.873 --> 00:48:33.253
human envoys and to angelic ones.

00:48:33.393 --> 00:48:37.073
And thus, I think that Jesus at least wrote to heavenly messengers.

00:48:37.073 --> 00:48:44.133
May be human one too, and that indicates, if I'm right, and of course Carson, Beale, etc.

00:48:44.433 --> 00:48:48.773
Are correct, that churches do have some sort of angel assigned to them.

00:48:48.913 --> 00:48:51.753
Do humans have guardian angels?

00:48:52.033 --> 00:48:56.373
Well, we can't answer that question convincingly from Scripture either,

00:48:56.373 --> 00:49:03.293
but I will say, again, And there is a possibility based on Matthew 18,

00:49:03.633 --> 00:49:06.473
10 and not many other verses.

00:49:06.673 --> 00:49:12.313
But Jesus says in Matthew 18, 10, see to it that you don't despise one of these

00:49:12.313 --> 00:49:18.533
little ones because I tell you that in heaven, their angels, possessive,

00:49:18.793 --> 00:49:23.313
their angels continually view the face of my father in heaven.

00:49:23.453 --> 00:49:26.533
Okay, well, let's get our heads out of the clouds for now. check out the website,

00:49:26.693 --> 00:49:30.353
everychurchflourishing.com. There will be more of Dr.

00:49:30.853 --> 00:49:35.313
Anthony Ferguson next week, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

00:49:35.333 --> 00:49:36.813
That would be so nice of you.

00:49:37.033 --> 00:49:39.793
Good day to you, and Godspeed.