My name is Dane Johanson. I'm a pastor at Agros Reformed Baptist Church in Gilbert,
Virginia. We're a Reformed, confessional Baptist church. So are you a little nervous about
traveling with this international criminal, Pastor Anderson? It is what it is, and having
known you and gotten to know you over the past couple months, I have no issue with it
personally. My name is Steven Anderson. I'm the pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe,
Arizona, and I'm setting out with a couple of friends of mine, Brother Peter Tremolus,
Pastor Dane Johanson, and we are going to Cyprus, which is a Greek-speaking country in the
Mediterranean Sea right off the coast of Turkey. And our goal with this trip is to demonstrate
that the Greek language of the New Testament is a living language. It's a film about the
continuity of the Greek language. The biblical Greek and modern Greek are not separate languages,
but that the way the biblical Greek in seminary, the way it's taught, really needs to be revamped
and reformed. We're going to go out there on the mean streets of Cyprus, and we're going to preach
the gospel to the lost. And the only Bible we're going to use is the New Testament in its original
Greek. The oldest example of Greek literature that we have today is the poetry of Homer,
the Iliad, the Odyssey, and also other epic poetry of that era, poems by Hesiod,
the so-called Homeric hymns, etc. Well, that is the most difficult form of Greek,
being the most ancient. And the fact that it's poetry makes it a lot harder because poetry is
always going to be more complicated than prose. So then after Homeric Greek, you have what's known
as classical Greek or Attic Greek. This is the dialect of Athens. Athens is in Attica,
it's called Attic Greek. And this would be around the fifth century BC that classical
Greek had its heyday. So we've moved a few hundred years forward in time. By the time
we get to the Bible though, first century AD, it's no longer classical Greek. Now it's Koine
Greek or Kini Greek. And the word Kini in Greek simply means common because this was the common
language of a very large portion of the world. This was a universal second language or lingua
franca throughout the Roman empire. So because it was a universal second language, it became
simplified. And that's why biblical Greek is so much easier than classical Greek. So a lot of
people will mix up classical Greek and biblical Greek and they'll try to say, oh, biblical Greek
is so hard because ancient Greek is a different language. Wrong. Okay. This is all one language.
The reformation era scholars, translators, et cetera, they did not just only study biblical
Greek. They studied modern Greek, Homeric Greek, classical Greek, everything in between. They took
a holistic approach. They viewed it as one language and they learned the whole language.
The men who made these translations of the reformation era into the vulgar tongues and
the common tongues of the people, instead of being locked away in Latin anymore, they were
able to translate a fresh from Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic right into the languages of the people,
whether that's with English, with Tyndale and then leading on through the King James Bible
translators or, you know, all the other common languages, the Dutch Stockton Vitaling, the Luther
Bible. We have all of these amazing translations. Now, how did these men learn how to translate
these documents into the languages of their mother tongue? We're standing right here today
in Constantinople, also known as Istanbul. And when all of the Christians fled, the Greek speaking
Christians from Byzantium fled from this very place into Europe during the Muslim invasion,
they brought with them all of their Greek resources, all of their Greek knowledge,
that their own tongue that they had spoken from the time they were children.
And many of them went to Italy, so they started Renaissance in there, and they brought all the
knowledge, all the belief of like all the Greek belief to there. That's why Renaissance started
in the 15th century in Europe. When they learned Greek, they learned it from a Greek speaker who
had just fled from Byzantium, who had just fled from modern-day Istanbul, and now brought with
him all of his knowledge of the Greek language. That's the way they learned every language back
then. You simply met someone who spoke that language, you shared life with them and learned
their language from them, and then learned how to get the intricacies of the grammar and reading it
and speaking it and writing it after that. For instance, Erasmus gives an explanation of how
he learned Greek. He learned it from a Greek speaker, somebody who knew it and spoke it as
their own living mother tongue. And then from there, once he got a foundation of the language
of the modern tongue of his time, he then went into just extensive reading of the ancient authors.
This is the reason that we're advocating this very method. And that method is to take this
language as a holistic thing, not break it up into five or six or seven or eight different
languages, but realize that Greek is Greek is Greek. The important thing to understand is that
this is one language, okay? This is one language, Greek. We're not talking about five different
languages, you know, there's Homeric Greek and the Classical Greek, Biblical Greek, Byzantine
Greek and Modern Greek, five different languages. That's one language. And if you're really going
to be an expert on Biblical Greek, you would have to learn the whole language from Homer to Modern
Greek and everything in between. If you really want to have the full grasp of the language and
be on the level of the Reformation era scholars that gave us great Bibles like the King James
version, okay? Those guys didn't just only study K'ni Greek. They actually knew Homer, Modern,
and everything in between, okay? That is the level of scholarship that they had when approaching a
Bible translation. The guys who are translating the Bible today, most of them, if you handed them
the Iliad and the Odyssey, they wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it. And if you drop them
off in modern-day Greece, they wouldn't even be able to order souvlaki. One of the first things
we did upon arriving in Cyprus was to sit down the three of us and read the Bible together. Now,
Brother Peter is a fluent native Greek speaker, but he's never read the New Testament in Greek,
so we decided to start reading in the book of Revelation. He's going to start, then me,
then you.
So that was your first time reading an extended passage in K'ni Greek? Yes. And you understood
pretty much all of it or most of it? I would say most of it. Like I said, you know, maybe, you know,
there's a few words that you would look at and, you know, right off the bat, I couldn't tell you
what it meant, but if you read the whole sentence, you actually can understand the whole meaning and
you know what that word says. So what if someone told you, no, actually, that there's no way that,
you know, a modern Greek can understand this. This is a totally different language. What would you
say to that? I would scoff at that. I would laugh at them and tell them that that is completely,
utterly ridiculous. Because you can understand it, no problem. Yes. Any Greek can understand.
Without any specific study in biblical Greek, you as a modern, the motiki Greek speaking person can
just pick this up and read it, no problem. Yep. I would say we could pick anybody on this off the
street and show them that book and tell them to read it and they would be able to tell us what it
says. That's exactly what we're going to do.
It was late in the evening, so we headed into the downtown area to evangelize and we met up with a
local guy named Andreas who listens to my sermons online. And the first person who was willing to
listen to the gospel was actually a guy running a tattoo parlor. The Bible says right here,
So what's the Bible saying that we have to do to be saved according to that verse?
Just to believe on Jesus, right? Does that say that we have to go to church to be saved? No. No.
Does it say that we have to live a good life? No. Stop sinning? Just
a gift, right? So if God is giving us as a gift, if he's giving us eternal life as a gift,
it's free. We don't have to pay for it, right? God didn't get saved, but it was a good seed
planted. What did you think about that encounter right there? That was awesome. Not only was the
gospel preached and it was revealing of the state of Cyprus, but I think the biggest thing for me is
seeing that Pastor Stephen talked from this book the entire time. All the verses were shared from
the Koine Greek New Testament. There was never any mention of, what book is this? I don't understand
what's being said. Can you say it in modern Greek? Anything like that. It was just, you know, read it.
What does that mean? Oh, it means to believe. I'm supposed to believe in Jesus Christ. There was never
any talk about it being some different language. That's the most revealing thing to me. It didn't
even bat an eye. It was as if, you know, it was his language, because it is. So it's almost like
modern Greek speakers can understand the New Testament. Modern Greek speakers can understand
the Koine Greek New Testament. No problem. No problem. No doubt about it. I had a little bit
doubt. Now I don't. Completely, completely gone. Next, we talked to a group of eight teenagers and
three of them actually ended up getting saved.
So what do you have to do to be saved? Exactly. So did the Bible say you have to join a church to be saved?
He gave his son. He gave his son so that what?
Whoever believes has life forever. Yes, whoever believes has eternal life.
Did that kind of surprise you a little bit? Yeah, it did. I mean, I didn't expect, like,
you know, I didn't expect people to get saved so easily just by hearing the gospel once.
You asked me, like, should I go up to those people? I was like, I don't think they're
going to listen. But you did. And thank God you did. But yeah, you know, I was really thrown away
by that. And I just think that, you know, those people obviously were looking for something like
that. They were looking for, you know, they had some question in their mind, perhaps. And
when they heard the gospel that they understood that the gospel was the answer to those questions.
So yeah, it's just it really, you know, it's really significant that only three people out of
like a very big group came to hear just highlights the fact that you have to,
you know, preach to those who are interested and do not mind about other people.
Yeah, because we start with about 10 people. And then right away, when I started preaching
the gospel, two or three people bailed. And then a lot of other people stayed and heard the entire
gospel. But then when it came time to accept Christ as Savior, there were only three that
said, Yeah, we believe and there was a lot of peer pressure for them to leave. Their buddies
were kind of like, All right, let's go. And they're like, No, let's do this. Yeah. So that was cool,
right? Awesome. We also wanted to sit down with Andreas and see how well he is a Greek teenager
understood the Koine Greek of the New Testament.
Are he to evangel you? He is a su Christo you to do was Yegoraptor and his prophetess,
he do a go up a stellow, don't angle own move, but oh, pro so poo. So
us cut a scavasi tin. Oh, don't sue Ambrose then sue for me.
But on those, and the emo at the massa 10 Oh, don't get it. You have fears, Peter,
that's three bus up to have the Venice, the Venice panda in a, in a, in a, they are pretty key about
in a, but in a, but in a, but in a, but in a, but in a, but in a, but in a, but in a, but in a,
Absolutely. Okay. Evap, Tizondo pandas and your Danny,
but a mall up to XO molo woman. Yeah. I mean, I can understand it perfectly.
There's no shuttle for somebody to fix modern Greek fluently. There is no issue at all in
understanding this text. No issue. So, so what if, what if somebody told you, Oh yeah, you know,
biblical Greek is a completely different language. What would you say to that?
That's false. Well, this was a Bible college professor who teaches Greek for a living. Are
you saying that he's lying? Well, I'm saying that maybe he's not informed or maybe he's not
informed, but maybe he should get informed before teaching Greek for a living. Do you think that'd
be a good idea? All right, now I'm going to read it to you in the Erasmian pronunciation that they
teach in Bible college. Do you understand any of that?
No, not at all. If I was not reading this, like, so if you didn't look at it,
you would have no idea. What language would you think I was speaking?
I don't know. Just some kind of like English.
Some kind of weird English. I don't know. Or just something like Latin. I don't know.
So in, in seminary, I've taken multiple years of seminary Greek and I have a lot of
friends and pastors and everything that are still, and even teach seminary Greek and they can't,
they can't speak. They can't even understand or read
cornet Greek or modern Greek. They can't say, hello, my name is nothing. There's some
seminaries are moving that way, but I think a lot of it has to do with the pronunciation method
they've used, which you, you, you said you were familiar with some of the ways they do that.
Yeah. They use basically a pronunciation, which I think has been constructed in the West.
So it's not like the original Greek pronunciation. And it's used by no one in Greece or,
you know, anywhere by anyone who speaks Greek as their mother tongue.
Do you think that it ever was spoken that way? Pronounced that way?
No, because I mean, if it was then something profound happens, everything changed like radically,
but I don't think that this was the case. Yeah.
The next morning we went out soul winning door to door and a lot of people weren't interested,
but we finally found a young guy who was very interested, but he didn't speak any English
whatsoever. So I had to give him the gospel a hundred percent in Greek. One of my goals for
this trip was to be able to do that by the end of the trip, but I kind of got thrown into it
on the second day. We got somebody saved with no English, 100% Greek.
The guy had a lot of patience because I was, you know, I was stumbling and stammering and
everything. Yeah. He was like a young guy. We were like so excited though that we didn't,
he didn't know any English and he got saved. That was a miracle because I was like stumbling
through it, but I, you know, I went through the verses no problem, but explaining was hard.
Like showing that he understood everything. And then he said, it's a free gift. I can't lose it.
And he said, if it was based on how good we are, the whole world would be doing.
That's so he understood. Oh, he understood everything. Yeah. He explained it really
well. It took a half hour just to kind of like stammer through. And I, and I even had,
I didn't know I had to mime like, cause I was talking about like parents spanking their kids.
So I was like, what's it called? And then, you know, the parents, they do this with their kids
when they're bad. And it's like, Oh yeah. And then it's so then it was like, they're no, I guess
is the word. So we learned a new verb. They're no, I spank. All right.
That's awesome. We were like, you know, we were stumbling too.
So was it all in Greek? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.
What do you think? We have the critical text here.
You pray with her. Awesome. So you guys got, you guys got somebody saved a hundred percent Greek.
Of course you guys are Greek.
I was still stumbling, man. That's awesome. That's cool. Yeah. Praise the Lord. That was
a great morning. Hi, my name is Stefan. I'm from Geneva, Switzerland.
And I just arrived this morning and I'm very happy to be in Cyprus.
I've been a follower of a person on the sun for some years now on YouTube. And when I,
I saw that you were in Cyprus, I took the first flight. I was glad to see you because obviously
it's difficult to see you in Europe these days. So you ready to do some soul winning?
Yeah. Yeah. I hope to, uh, I like to learn some willing because I've never been really doing it.
And I'd like to start as a silent partner, not a drill and, uh, and start doing it because I
think it's the first works we need to do to win souls. It's the fruits that we can bear.
And it's very important for me. It's something that has been forgotten by the evangelical church,
especially in Europe. People don't do soul reading and it's a shame. It's a real shame.
All right. I'm brother Jack. I saw a video on pastor Anderson's channel
that he's in Cyprus. I live in Scotland. Obviously the pastor's band from the UK.
I've been listening to his preaching for about a year and a half. I actually ended up getting
saved through his ministry. Praise God. I've flown out here. So I'm going to learn how to do some,
some good soul winning for the Lord. And, uh, definitely not going to learn any Greek.
I don't think, but pastor Anderson is going to sharpen up on his Greek, but, uh, yeah. So
here we are. And, uh, I have some grub and very happy to be with, with, with my brothers in Christ.
Yeah.
You know, one of the things that I would notice here too, is that, you know, the priests,
um, you know, they tend to tell the youth and they tell the people, you know, their faith,
that they can't question, uh, the Orthodox faith and they can't question the beliefs that,
that have been instilled in them. And why do I have to go to confession? Why do I have to listen
to the priest? Why do I have to have, you know, these good works or why do I have to get baptized
as a baby? And they, it seems like, you know, the priest just tell them blindly that they have to
believe in that and they have to do those things in order to be saved. And when we tell them that
none of that is necessary, um, all you have to do is just believe on Jesus and you shall be saved.
And they hear that. And that's like such a profound message for them because they feel
like they've been lied to all this time. And, um, you know, I just really want to make sure that,
you know, when we bring the gospel to them, that they get to hear the truth, because I feel that
after so many years, you know, that they just grew up believing that everything that the priest
tells them is the truth. And they feel that the standards that the Orthodox religion sets for them
is so unattainable that they just give up. And so when they hear that, you know, God's salvation is
free, you know, as long as they believe that it's that gift for them to receive, you know, they're
just so happy to hear that. So how did you end up, uh, coming out of the Orthodox Church itself?
So there was a lot of things that, that I saw in the Bible that, you know, just didn't measure up.
Like, you know, for example, you know, the Bible tells us that, you know, a bishop has to be the,
you know, the husband to one wife and he has to be sober and temperament, and he has to be able to
rule his own house, but yet the priests, uh, can't be married. And, you know, once they've been
ordained. And so when I started asking my priest that question, I said, you know, why is it that
the Orthodox teach that you have to be celibate in order to be a bishop? They tell me, you know,
you can't question that, you know, that's something that you're not allowed to question.
You know, the other thing that, you know, we talk about how, you know, the Bible tells us that
you should call no one father, but your father in heaven. And when, when you ask them, you know,
why must I call you father? If the Bible tells us call no one, but our father in heaven father,
they say, that's the way it is. You don't question that. So, yes, that, you know,
especially the fact that they didn't want me to question the faith is what led me to believe
that, you know, this is not, you know, a faith that I should believe in because they don't
take the Bible at face value. They're teaching things that are contrary to what the Bible teaches.
And then when you start asking questions, they tell you that you're not allowed to have those
questions. They tell you that, you know, you have to believe whatever they tell you.
And if you don't believe that, then you're just being blasphemous against the Orthodox traditions.
So today I met a man from Ethiopia and he had a very similar story to share,
such as the one that I have my testimony. And, you know, we were talking and he had mentioned
that his father was in the Orthodox church in Ethiopia. And he went to the priest and
started asking him questions about their traditions. You know, why do we have to make
the sign of the cross? Why do we have to bow to icons? And the priest told him, you know, you do
not get to question any of those things. And so that gentleman decided that this was not the
religion for him because he felt that he was being deceived. And he felt that because the priests
were, you know, not allowing him to question the faith in any way whatsoever. And he saw that it
was contradicting the Bible. So he decided to pull completely out of the Orthodox faith. And
he took his whole family with him and they all ended up believing. They all ended up becoming
evangelicals. So that was, you know, very profound to me to hear that, you know, somebody else would
have that same testimony as I had, you know, and why he left the Orthodox faith similar to why I
did. So, yeah, like I was baptized as a baby when I, when I was young, I was baptized in the
Orthodox Church, but I was never really a part of it. But then as I grew older, I started searching,
I mean, and I started being interested in finding the truth and actually understanding who God was.
Then I think that, I mean, through that searching, the Lord led me to believe the gospel. He led me
to the gospel and he led me to believe in it. And he actually revealed to me how the Orthodox Church
is not preaching what the Bible preaches.
We just had a great time out soul winning here. And I believe that the soul winning here in Cyprus
is more receptive than the United States even. I mean, it's really easy to talk to people here.
They're really friendly. And we just got four more people saved out there. And we were using
the Greek New Testament for the Bible verses and everybody understood it, no problem. And what was
interesting is that even Romanians who are speaking Greek as a second language, but they're
fluent in modern Greek, they understood the verses, no problem. So what was interesting,
I was talking to three guys and when it came down to the end, I spent about 25 minutes explaining
the gospel to them. And when it came down to the very end, and I was asking them if they believed
it, one of the guys wasn't even sure if Jesus died on the cross. I said like, do you believe
that Jesus died on the cross for you? And he was like, eh, I don't know. The other two guys
were like, yes, they for sure believed it. They understood the gospel. Everything was crystal
clear to those two guys. So I prayed with those two guys. They got saved. But what was interesting
is that the guy who wasn't even sure if Jesus died on the cross, he started like defending
the Orthodox church at the end and saying, how can you not have icons in your church?
You're being disrespectful to the saints by not having the icons. And, and, you know,
it was just blew my mind how he's not even sure if Jesus died on the cross,
but he's a hundred percent sure that we better have those icons and we better,
you know, honor the church and this and that. He had more confidence in the Orthodox church than
in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And that's where a lot of people are at spiritually,
unfortunately. But they're all, they're all willing and ready to receive. You can have,
everyone here wants to talk. They're willing to talk. Yeah. Even if they don't get saved,
they're at least willing to listen, right? There's, there's open doors everywhere. Yeah.
There, the door is definitely open. And so, um, you know, we, we, we've demonstrated once again
that they have no trouble understanding the Greek new Testament. So far, we've had the most success
with the young men, you know, in their twenties, teenagers, that, that kind of youth demographic
has been the most receptive to the gospel of everyone that we've talked to. So,
so that's who we're focusing on because that's who wants to listen.
I thought it was awesome when you were sharing with those two Romanian guys
and the one of them that spoke fluent Greek and English and Romanian, obviously
when you were showing him the verses, even he, and we've seen that yesterday as well,
even he had no trouble understanding Koine Greek. Right. It was pretty cool. Cause you even asked
specifically if he had trouble understanding or if he understood all and he was like,
Oh yeah, I understand. Yeah. I said, are you having any trouble understanding this Greek?
Cause it sounded like he was saying something I don't understand. And that's when you were like,
well, what are you doing? Are you doing understand this? He's like, no, I understand that. He was
just struggling with the concept. He said, no, no, no. The language is great. I understand what
the Bible is saying. He didn't even mention like, well, I know it's old, but no one has mentioned
that. Has one person mentioned that on this whole trip? No, no one has said, well, that's a little
archaic buddy. Oh yeah. I think it's very receptive and I would love to see an army of
soul winners come to Cyprus and Greece and preach the gospel. You know, why don't all these Bible
college guys who are studying Greek in the seminary, why don't they get out here with
the Greek new Testament and win some souls to Christ? And you know what, if they really want
to go deeper in Greek, why don't they use it out in the field? Yeah. I mean the doctors,
the medical doctors, the lawyers, they all have their little sabia, the little
hidden language that they use to keep their power, to keep the, they need a special language to show
that they are different and to justify their honoraries and to, and I think for the theologian
is the same. They use big words. They use Greek, even though they don't speak Greek,
but they need the special plus compared to you. And it kind of gives them a one up. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a, yeah, yeah. They are, they are, they are a higher caste. They have a special knowledge
that you don't have. And, and actually it's a fake knowledge. It's just a, a varnish, just a coating,
nothing, nothing deep. And for Greek, I think it's the same.
If they were really speaking Greeks, I think they would be able to manage in Athens or on Cyprus or
in real life, but they don't, they can't. Cause I've even, since we've been on this trip,
like just now I forgot how to order some stuff and I forgot how to order some stuff in, in modern.
And I said it in coin a and I got, I got what I asked for. So yeah, you can speak in,
they did giggle. They did giggle. No. Yeah. But when they, when they're on the written page,
they never giggle at the words themselves because it's like, if you said to them,
wilt out, give me coffee. I beseech you that you would give me a little coffee in my vessel.
Oh, exactly. Yeah. May I receive a small vessel of coffee? They would still understand you.
Yeah. It'd just be weird. Yeah. And when these Bible college Greek scholars get together and
talk about Greek, it's like a Star Trek convention. Like they're speaking Klingon or something,
you know, like it's just this weird language. It's not a real language that people actually speak,
but it's just like this little secret knowledge that they have where they can talk to each other
and they geek out on it like they're a Star Trek fan. But in reality, this is a real human language
spoken by almost 14 million people. And that's how it needs to be learned. And then you can actually
use it in the real world. And then you can actually appreciate it on a visceral level.
You know, God created us as human beings with the ability to use language, to speak, to understand.
We have this innate ability that the animals don't have. Okay. So we need to feel language.
When we speak English, we're not diagramming sentences as we speak. We speak from the heart
and we speak by feeling. We know how to talk and we can't always explain why, but we understand
and speak our native tongue. And when you learn a foreign language, there's a watershed where you
reach that level in another language where you just start to do it by feeling and you don't have
to think about the verbs. You don't have to think about the gender. You're just doing it by feeling.
And that's true fluency is where you can just read and speak by feeling. You get to a point where
you're not translating anymore. You're just thinking in that language and you're able to
speak and read just by feeling, intuitively. And we've all done that with our first language.
And you get to a point when you study a second language where you cross that line. And man,
that's an exciting place to be when you can cross that threshold and you reach that tipping point.
And that's where learning a foreign language actually gets fun.
Praise the Lord.
So you can't understand any of that, huh?
It's just, it's all modern Greek. It's modern Greek with just slightly different words,
but it's the same structure of sentences, the same grammar, basically. So you can understand
all of it. You know, you have, if you have a couple of unknown words, you can look them up.
So you can read these without a problem. If you know modern Greek fluency.
We just talked to three young guys over here. They were from Bulgaria, but they're going to
high school in the Greek language. So they've learned Greek as a second language. They were
totally fluent in Greek. And so therefore they had no problem understanding the Greek New Testament.
Two of them got saved. One of them said he wasn't really sure if he believed in it,
but two of them got saved. So that was pretty cool. One of the points that we're trying to
get across in this film is that you can kill two birds with one stone. If you're interested
in learning New Testament Greek, you can actually read the Bible in its original language and you
can win Greek people to Christ, which is a huge need. And honestly, this is one of the most
receptive places I've ever gone soul winning when it comes to talking to the young people.
I mean, this is more receptive than soul winning in the United States. And usually when you go to
Europe, it's less receptive. But here in Cyprus, it's actually more receptive. And I'm sure it
would be the same way if we went to Greece, because the culture is pretty much identical.
You know, the people here consider themselves to be Greek people. And so I hope that people
who watch this film don't just have a negative attitude like, oh, I don't think it can be done,
or it's too hard, or why should I learn modern Greek if I just want to read the Bible, you know,
because of the fact that the modern Greeks are having a way easier time reading the Bible than
your Bible college professor. And the disciples not above his master, the servants not above his
Lord. If your Greek professor is struggling to read the New Testament in Greek, he obviously
isn't going to be able to get you to your goal. If that's your goal. If your goal is to actually
be able to read it fluently, he can't get you there because he's not there himself. In most
cases, obviously, there are exceptions to that. But here in Greece, every teenager,
you know, can understand it no problem.
So
it's nothing like the landscape down by the ocean. Up here, it is a proper forest. And we're
surrounded by all these beautiful trees. It smells great. There's a lot of fresh air.
And the weather up here is gorgeous. Now down by the sea, it has been very hot because we're here
in the summertime. And it has been scorching. That's part of the reason why we've been doing
a lot of our soul winning at night. And believe it or not, the best time to go soul winning here
is like 78910 o'clock at night, if you're in a public place, you know, obviously wouldn't knock
on people's doors at that time. But just going out into a public place, everybody wants to talk,
everybody's out at that time. In fact, if you go there in the afternoon or evening,
barely anybody's around, you know, when you're going down the boardwalk, or when you're going
through the downtown areas, where all the businesses are, it's pretty dead during the
daytime. And it just comes alive at night. And so we've been soul winning in the public streets
around like 910 11 o'clock at night, and everybody's out. Everybody's ready to talk.
And nobody's even close to calling it a night. And one thing that I've learned about the Greek
culture from being here is that Greek people love to talk. They are very social. And so
everywhere you go, you see them sitting around and talking. And so that really works well for
soul winning. Because when you walk up and strike up a conversation with people, people want to talk.
And even when we're sitting at restaurants by ourselves talking, a lot of times people from
other tables will come approach us and say, Hey, what are you guys talking about? That sounds
really interesting. What religion are you guys? And they'll jump into the conversation and then
we give them the gospel. So a lot of times the fish are jumping into the boat. People are coming
to us and striking up the conversation, just because people here love to talk. And virtually
everyone that we've won to Christ has been young, younger than myself, you know, 20s or teens.
That's the demographic that is really receptive to the gospel here, because I think that that
generation feels alienated from the Orthodox Church. The preaching of the Orthodox Church
does not resonate with them. They don't understand the traditions. And I don't blame them for feeling
disenfranchised in regard to the Orthodox Church, because the Orthodox Church is bogus.
And that's why we're here. If the Orthodox Church were doing its job, then we wouldn't even be here.
The reason we're here is to preach the gospel that the Orthodox Church is not teaching.
They teach a workspace salvation, total idolatry, total false doctrine. We're shining the light of
the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ here. And it's just wonderful to see young people responding.
So the biggest problem that I see with the younger generation is that they're just completely
disconnected from the church. The problem that the Orthodox Church has is that everything is
about tradition. So you have to go to confession. You have to attend church. And when you go to a
church, the service doesn't even give you anything biblical. The only thing that they do is they
follow what's called a liturgy, which is basically the same exact procession of steps, the same exact
repeating of same words and the same just whole entire process of just doing this liturgy
for the whole time. So like you could go to an Orthodox Church on any given Sunday and you would
see the same exact liturgy being done as they would do the next week and the week after that
and the week after that. They don't give you anything new. They don't give you any feeding
spiritually. And the youth here, the people who live this religion, they go to church and they
feel that just by being in that church and just hearing those words and receiving what the priest
tells them is what they need to do in order to get to heaven. And so they actually feel that if
they're not going to church that they're actually committing a sin. But the problem is is that all
of these vain repetitions that go on in church are just things that doesn't resonate with the
young people. And so they feel that it's just not something that they can even accomplish.
And because of that, they just go away from the church. They're so far away from the church,
they don't even bother to attend because they've just pretty much given up on that. In fact,
many of them even start to doubt. They don't even believe that what the church is teaching is true
and they start to lose their faith in God. So it just really is eye-opening for me to see just how
starving the young people especially are to the message that we're giving them. When we show them
the Bible, they actually feel that we're giving them something that the priest doesn't give them.
Somebody commented on me saying basically we need reform in the seminaries, how this is taught.
Should learn modern Greek first and then read like study Kini after that. Because here in Cyprus,
even, you know, 14 year olds at the skate park understand it perfectly fine. Tattoo
tattoo artists understand it perfectly fine, all this stuff. This guy says, I'm reading more about
the living language approach and the reconstructed Koine pronunciation and I'm being convinced that
it is the way forward. That said, we don't necessarily need to know how to ask for a
glass of water in order to understand the New Testament. Well, don't they want to understand
that scripture about giving a cup of cold water into one of these? I mean, yeah, it's literally
in the New Testament, so I okay. So they're literally saying, they're literally saying,
I can know Greek at such a low level that I can't even ask for a glass of water at a restaurant in
Greece. I can still be able to expound at Exegete, the Bible in Greek, even though I know so little
Greek that I can't even order a glass of water. Is that what they're actually saying? Unbelievable.
Well, you don't know Greek.
Let's keep going. So some other guy chimes in and says,
being able to use Koine conversationally isn't the point, which I never said it was.
I just made a point that even when I'm speaking Kine to these people, they understand it.
Nor is it necessary. I went through school with a girl from Cyprus and she said that
to speak Kine to her would be like someone speaking the King James English to me.
Mastering the grammatical functions of the language for exegesis is all you need.
Okay, but here's the thing. We never said to learn how to speak Koine Greek conversationally.
What we said is learn how to speak modern Greek conversationally, and then you'll understand the
Koine Greek because think about this. If someone wanted to read the King James Bible in English,
if that were their goal, we wouldn't tell them, hey, you need to actually learn how to speak in
King James English. We would tell them to get fluent in modern English and then read the King
James, right? Because all of the contemporary English speakers in the United States of America
can read the King James no problem. They can understand the King James. Obviously,
they have to look up the odd word. So we're basically saying learn how to speak modern Greek
and then you'll be able to pick up the Greek New Testament and read it and understand it.
What would you say, because some of these people are arguing that all we would need to know,
we don't need to be able to read the language fluently or speak the language fluently. All
we need to do is have the ability to understand the syntax and the grammar of the language.
Well, I would say that you can't understand the grammar and the syntax without learning the
language. I mean, that's ridiculous. Can you imagine this in any other language?
Well, all you really need to know is just Spanish grammar. You don't need to know how to speak
Spanish. You just need Spanish grammar and then you're the expert on what the Spanish Bible means
because you studied Spanish grammar. That's ludicrous. That would only work in the world
of Bible colleges and seminaries. In the real world, that level of language learning would
be scoffed at. The fruit of such a methodology has obviously come short anyway. All these guys
who are studying just the grammar and just the syntax and just looking up dictionary and lexical
definitions don't read the Greek New Testament. They can't. So if that's just the goal is to be
able to read the Greek New Testament and expound it and exegete it, yet their methodology has not
led them to be able to do that, is it working? Yeah, because they're saying, oh, all you need
to know is just the grammar and the syntax. Okay, so if you do their method, can we hand them a
Greek New Testament and just on the fly, can they flip to any chapter? Are we going here?
Can they flip to any chapter and just read it and tell us what it means on the fly? No. So,
therefore, their method falls short. What they actually want to be able to do is stand up in
front of their congregation and look smart and say, oh, well, this in the Greek actually means
X, Y, and Z. And they want to just be puffed up and look smart without actually having to put in
the work to learn the language. It's laziness. They want to get up and act like they know Greek
without doing the real work and the study. Because frankly, learning a foreign language is a lot of
work and takes a lot of study. So they don't want to do the work, but they want to just be
these smart guys that stand up and expound Greek. And here's the thing. We don't think that somebody
needs to learn Greek to understand the New Testament or expound the New Testament
because we have a wonderful translation in English and that's all we need. I mean,
you could live your whole Christian life and serve God and preach and read and study nothing but a
King James Bible and live a full Christian life and earn Boku rewards in heaven. You don't have
to learn Greek. Okay. But what we're saying is if you're going to talk about the Greek New Testament,
if you're going to read the Greek New Testament, you better learn Greek. Imagine that, right? I
mean, is that really such a radical concept? If you're going to expound to us the Greek New
Testament, you should have to actually understand Greek. You should actually have to be fluent in
the language. Makes sense. What a concept. Here's my goal. My goal is to be able to pick up a Greek
New Testament every morning and read five, six chapters and enjoy it. That's my goal.
Pray over it. Cry over it. It's like amazing. Yeah. I mean, isn't that the goal? Yeah. Amen.
Their goal is to stand up in front of people and look smart. And you know what? No matter how much
Greek I learn, I'm not going to get up in front of my church and explain to them what the Greek
actually says because the King James Bible is beyond any level of Greek that I will ever attain
because no matter how much Greek I learn, no matter how much Greek I study, no matter how
fluent I get, I'm never going to know more than 54 expert scholars who spent six years translating
it. So I'm just going to stick with the traditional King James text for preaching and teaching the
word of God, you know, because that's what people speak is English, right? We're not saying that
everybody needs to learn Greek. In fact, they're the ones that are saying that. But then when they
say learn Greek, they're saying, oh, just learn the grammar and syntax. What they're really saying is
be at the mercy of a few guys who have written the grammar books, who've written the lexicons,
who've written these Greek tools and just be at their mercy. And they're going to tell you what
it means and shut up and believe it because we said so. And what we're saying is, you know,
you can actually verify these things by learning Greek yourself and actually knowing it. The thing
is that seems very much like the papacy to me, to be completely honest.
Okay. How do you know Greek so well?
Just from reading the Bible.
Oh, because it's not easy.
No, it's not.
My friend, she lives here 75 years.
She didn't end up getting saved, but it was another good seed planet.
Thanks for having us, inviting us in. Nice to meet you. My name is Melanie.
So we're here in Paphos, and this is where a very important Bible story took place
in Acts chapter 13. Now, if you remember Acts chapter 13
is where Paul and Barnabas are first sent out as missionaries from that church in Antioch. And when
they're sent out as missionaries, the first thing they do, they head to Seleucia and then boom,
they sail to the Isle of Cyprus. And so the first Bible stories involving that missionary
journey of Paul and Barnabas take place right here on the Island of Cyprus.
In Acts chapter 13 is where Paul and Barnabas sail to Seleucia and then boom, they sail to the Isle of Cyprus.
In Acts chapter 13 is where Paul and Barnabas sail to Seleucia and then boom, they sail to Seleucia and then boom, they sail to the Isle of Cyprus.
In Acts chapter 13 is where Paul and Barnabas sail to Seleucia and then boom, they sail to the Isle of Cyprus.
So there's a man by the name of Sergius Paulus, and he's the deputy of the country, so he's a political
ruler here, and the Bible says he desired to hear the word of God. He wanted to hear the gospel,
and so he summons Paul and Barnabas to come and evangelize him, preach the gospel to him. But when
they go to give him the gospel, there's this other guy there named Elymas, and he was a false prophet,
a sorcerer, and a Jew. So this is three strikes. I mean, he's a very bad guy, and he's there opposing,
resisting, contradicting what the apostle Paul is preaching. And I've had this happen to me many
times out soul winning, where I'm giving the gospel to someone receptive, and then some bozo
comes along and just kind of creates a lot of confusion, contradicts you, speaks against the
word of God, and just ruins it. So that's what was happening. Well, the apostle Paul just lays into
this guy and calls him a child of the devil and says, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right
ways of the Lord? And then he strikes him with blindness. So this is a miracle that the apostle
Paul was able to do where he strikes the man with blindness. And when that happened, of course,
Sergius Paulus was amazed by that. The Bible says he believed, and then it says that he was
astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. And I've always loved that phrase because even though he'd
seen this amazing miracle, the thing that really astonished him was the doctrine. Because the gospel
of Jesus Christ is the greatest miracle that there is. I mean, the doctrine of the word of God
is what really changes lives. You know, the miracles are cool, but the doctrine of the Lord
is the thing that actually is the most life changing. So here we are this week on the island
of Cyprus, and we are picking up where Paul and Barnabas left off. As many others have done
throughout the centuries, today in 2019, we are continuing to preach the gospel on the island of Cyprus.
Yeah, so being a Bible-believing Christian in Europe is definitely a very lonely thing because
there are very little Christians here. You feel like you're alone many times. Like in Cyprus there
are no local churches which are right on the gospel and which are, you know, preaching the
word of God as they should. And there is practically no fellowship, unfortunately.
So it's definitely a hard thing to be a Christian in Europe, but I think that slowly, slowly with
the internet, I mean, things are starting to improve because people are listening to preaching
and many of them are converting to Christianity. That's how I converted to Christianity.
So I think that this is something definitely something to look forward to, and that, well, we
have a lot of blessings by God. I mean, there are Pastor Anderson is here and we have great fellowship
here. So I think that although things are hard right now in Europe for Christians that they will
improve in the future. We would love for people from America who are Bible-believing Christians
to come to Cyprus and Greece, and especially people who study Greek at the Bible school,
come here, preach the gospel and, you know, have fellowship with us. That would be amazing because,
you know, we need that very much here.
All right, so being a Bible-believing Christian in Europe is basically like being a needle in
a haystack. We need help. We need revival in Europe. We need an army of soul winners
to get together, band together as brethren and start evangelizing, start getting serious about
soul winning. I've come out from Scotland to meet Pastor Anderson with the intention of becoming
more adept at soul winning. My friends at home who are unsaved, when I give them the gospel,
they don't want to hear it. And what I tell them is, listen, if you believed in God,
okay, you believe in the Bible, you believe there is a hell and you will go there if you don't have
Jesus Christ. And if I was to not tell you that, how hateful would I be? What kind of friend would
I be? What kind of person would I be? So we need to have this mentality all together, band together
to create revival. People are not going to get saved if we're not out soul winning.
The reason that we've come here to Cyprus, the reason why I make this film and the reason I think
this film is so important is that it gets us out of our academic circles. It gets us out of just
thinking of the scriptures and especially in studying the Greek New Testament, that it's not
just a exercise in knowledge and theology and debate, but it's a practical weapon and a tool,
no matter what language it's translated into, that we're supposed to get out here and being here in
Cyprus has really taught me over the past week that people are still in need of the gospel
everywhere we go. We get stuck in our little groups, our little cliques, our theological
debates online and in person with people, with other believers when we could be out here winning
souls for Christ, whether it's in Cyprus or otherwise. But to all the guys out there that are
studying Greek, especially my reformed brethren, we need to bring this into the field, whether it's
in our preaching, our pastoring, but especially even out here in Cyprus and in Greece and other
Greek speaking places, they can understand this very book and as we study it and as we learn how
to speak the language, we can come here and win people to Christ. We can fulfill the Great
Commission simply with this book and it's no longer just a idea and so longer just a debate,
it's no longer a theory or a language to be parsed, but it's pointing us to the person of Christ
and it's pointing us to what we're supposed to be doing in fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ.
Now I know that there are going to be some people who watch this film and they will just refuse to
acknowledge what we've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that modern Greek and Koine Greek are
mutually intelligible, but to those people I would say you need to do some serious introspection
and ask yourself why are you even learning Greek? Why even study the Bible for that matter? The
Bible says knowledge puffeth up but charity edifieth and so if your desire is just to learn
Greek as a mental exercise or to be puffed up or to stand up behind your pulpit and look so smart
by going back to this Greek word and that word to try to impress people, you know, you can understand
all mysteries and all knowledge, but if you have not charity, you are nothing. This film is about
taking the Greek New Testament and using it, not just enshrining it, not just dissecting it
and looking at it with a microscope, but getting out there in the field and using it to win people
to Christ. There are precious people all over Europe that are dying and going to hell. Who's
going to reach them with the Gospel? And even just in Greece and Cyprus alone there are over 12
million people, many of which are very receptive to the Gospel if someone would just bring it to
them. If they would hear the Gospel, they would get saved. So it's time for you Bible college
students out there to take a field trip and get out there and use Greek because the Bible talks
about strong meat belonging to those who are of full age, even those who by reason of use have
their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. We learn the Word of God by using the Word
of God and you're still on the milk if you're not out doing the work. The one who understands the
Bible is the one who does the work of God. There are the forgetful hearers and there are the doers
of the work. So it's time to look in the mirror, look into that perfect law of liberty and
understand why we are even reading the Bible, whether in English or Greek, why are we even
learning the Bible in the first place? It's so that we can be equipped unto every good work.
Now I'm going to have to give you guys some Greek tonight and it's not because I want to show off
because I'm not that good anyways. Because the Greek word rendered temptation for osmosis I've
shared on many occasions is defined by strongs and you can look it up for yourself. Somebody
asked me where do you get these definitions? I looked it up and well just look up, look it up in
strongs. But you don't have to know Greek and Hebrew to make use of the numbering system.
So the numbers are very important for word studies, accurate word studies using Greek and Hebrew
without having to learn Greek and Hebrew.
The Bible says we're his workmanship. That word in Greek is the word poema. It means poem. We get
the word poem from it. You are God's masterpiece. You are God's poem. You are God's work of art.
There's nobody like you. Quit trying to be somebody else.
But I want you to know in the New Testament the word worship is defined in the Greek language as
this. Licking the hands of the master like a dog. A dog licking the master's hands. Dogs know how
to worship. The English word preaching in the New Testament translates almost always to Greek words.
Euangelizumai and keruso.
Euangelizumai is a speaking of one who's bringing good news of great joy, right?
The preacher is euangelizumai-ing all the time. Even if he's talking about hell.
He ran. See that? It's a Greek word that means sprint. Middle Eastern noblemen don't sprint.
Old men don't sprint. Middle Eastern noblemen don't run. They glide like a sort of Arabic moonwalk.
The word is drachmae. It means a precious silver. It wasn't just an iron or a base metal, but it was a valuable silver.
The word hell means Hades or Sheol. It doesn't necessarily mean fire. It simply means the unseen
state of the dead. Don't let anybody flim flam you. That's what it meant in the Old Testament.
It meant that's where the dead are, that's where they go, and we can't see them. So they go to Sheol.
In the Old Testament, they go to Hades in the New. Hades in the New Testament is far more pagan
in thought than Sheol of the Old Testament. Obviously, we saw on the last program that
Stephen Anderson claims to read the Greek New Testament like cover to cover and all
the rest of the stuff. I don't believe it for a moment.
You know, the Bible is really clear on salvation. It's not based on how good you are. A lot of people
think they're pretty good, you know, and yeah, they're going to get to heaven because they're
pretty good, but the Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The Bible says that it is written there is none righteous, no, not one. I'm not righteous,
you're not righteous, and if it were our goodness that would get us into heaven, none of us would be going.
Because the Bible even says in Revelation 21 8, it says, but the fearful and unbelieving
and the abominable and murderers and sorcerers and whoremongers and idolaters, and listen to this,
and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is
the second death. I've lied before. Everybody's lied before. So we've all sinned, and we've done
stuff worse than lying, let's face it. We all deserve help.
But the Bible says, but God commanded his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. And so Jesus Christ, because he loves us, came to this earth. The Bible says he was God
manifest in the flesh. God basically took on human form. He lived a sinless life. He did not commit
any sin, and of course they beat him and spit on him and nailed him to the cross. The Bible says
that when he was on that cross, he himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree. So every sin
you've ever done, every sin I've ever done, it was as if Jesus had done it. He was being punished for
our sins, and then of course they took his body when he died. They took his body and buried it
in the tomb, and his soul went down to hell for three days and three nights, Acts 2 31. Three days
later, he rose again from the dead. He showed unto the disciples the holes in his hands,
and the Bible's really clear that Jesus did die for everybody. It says that he died not for our
sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. But there's something that we must do to be
saved. The Bible says, it has that question in Acts 16, what must I do to be saved? And they said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. And that's it. He didn't
say join a church and you'll be saved, get baptized and you'll be saved, live a good life
and you'll be saved, repent of all your sins and you'll be saved. No, he said believe.
And even the most famous verse in the whole Bible that's written on the bottom, I mean the reference
is written on the bottom of the cup at In-N-Out Burger. I mean it's so famous, everybody's heard
of it, John 3 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And everlasting means everlasting,
means forever. And Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. The Bible says in John 6 47,
verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. So if you believe on
Jesus Christ, the Bible says you have everlasting life, you're gonna live forever. You can't lose
your salvation, it's eternal, it's everlasting. Once you're saved, once you believe on him,
you're saved forever and no matter what, you can never lose your salvation. Even if I were to go
out and commit some awful sin, God will punish me for it on this earth. If I went out and killed
somebody today, you know, God's gonna make sure I get punished. I'm going to prison or far worse
or the death penalty, whatever this earth punishes me and God's gonna make sure I get punished even
more. But I'm not going to hell. There's nothing I could do to go to hell because I'm saved.
And if I went to hell, God lied because he promised that whoever believeth in him
has everlasting life. And he said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
That's why there are a lot of examples of people in the Bible who did some really bad stuff,
yet they made it to heaven. How? Because they were so good? No, it's because they believed on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Their sins are forgiven. Other people who may have lived a better life
in the world's eyes, or maybe even really they lived a better life,
they don't believe in Christ. They're gonna have to go to hell to be punished for their sins.
And let me just close on this one thought. One thing that I wanted to be sure and bring up today
is that there was a question that was asked to Jesus by one of his disciples.
And that question was this, are there few that be saved? That's a good question, right? I mean,
are most people saved or is it few that are saved? Now, who here thinks that most people
are going to heaven? Most people in this world are going to heaven. Yeah, guess what the answer was.
He said in Matthew 7, for example, he said, enter ye in at the straight gate. He said, because
wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in
there at because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there
be that find it. And then he went on to say this. He said, not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord,
Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he that do with the will of my father, which is in
heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in
thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then while I profess
unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me that work in equity. And so you see, there are people
out there. First of all, the majority of this world doesn't even claim to believe in Jesus.
Thankfully, the majority of this classroom claims to believe in Jesus. Okay. But the majority of the
world does not claim to believe in Jesus. But God warned that even amongst those who claim to
believe in Jesus, even amongst those that call him Lord, many will be saying to him, we did all
these wonderful works. Why aren't we saved? He's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you.
That's why that's because salvation is not by works. And if you're trusting your own works to
save you, if you think you're going to heaven because you've been baptized, or if you think
you, well, I think you have to live a good life. I think you have to keep the commandments to be
saved. I think you have to go to church. I think you got to, you know, turn from your sins. You
know, if you're trusting in your works, Jesus is going to say to you one day, depart from me,
I never knew you. You have to have all your faith in what he did. You have to put your faith in what
Jesus did on the cross. When he died for you, he's buried and rose again. That's your ticket into
heaven. If you're trusting all the things, oh, I'm going to heaven because I'm such a good Christian
and I do all these wonderful things. He's going to say, depart from me. And notice what he said,
depart from me, I never knew you. Not I used to know you. Because once he knows you, remember,
I mentioned this earlier, it's everlasting. It's eternal. Once he knows you, you're saved forever.
But he's going to say, depart from me, I never knew you. Because if you go to hell,
it's because he never knew you. Because once he knows you, he knows you. It's just like my children
will always be my children. You know, when you're born again, when you're his child, you'll always
be his child. You may be the black sheep of the family. You know, you may be somebody who gets
disciplined by God heavily on this earth. You can screw up your life down here, but you can't screw
that up. You know, you're saved. It's a done deal. And so that's the main thing that I wanted to
present to you about the end times. And we do have just a few minutes for questions about either
salvation or about the end times.
Thank you.