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The Gospel to the Mongols – Part I

The Wrath of the Khans

As I grow older I grow increasingly interested with history. One fantastic story is the rise of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The military might of this people was astonishing. They were unmatched on the battlefield for their time. They took over most of Asia, the Middle East and large portions of Europe before they self-destructed.

One fascinating portion of their story is the interaction between the Khan’s and the Christian leader (Pope). And a similar interaction between the Khan’s and the Muslim leader (Caliph) in Baghdad.

In this two-part blog post I will share the interactions between these groups and the result of the interactions.  I will also dream about what could have been had the Pope wrote the same gospel to the Khans that the apostle Paul wrote in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians.

In part II of this series I will attempt to write my own version of this gospel letter to the Khan’s aligned with Ephesians 1-3. A great place to hear this entire story from a secular perspective is on the podcast called Hardcore History with Dan Carlin, Dan did an amazing podcast series on the Mongols called the Wrath of the Khan’s. Check it out in iTunes.

Carlins Khans

The background about this interaction is that the Khan’s are conquering wherever they go. They have already routed both Christian and Muslim armies with surprising ease. Amazingly no countries seem to be able or willing to join forces to defend themselves against these armies. The Mongols were ruthless in their conquering and there seemed to be destiny with them that no one could overcome.

The Khans and The Pope

In Rome Pope Innocent IV was in charge and you can find his entire 1400+ word letter here. If you don’t want to read all of this here is my quick summary:

The letter is very long and it seems to be written in a way that only another devout Catholic theologian could understand. Makes me wonder if Pope Innocent understood that he was speaking to mostly uneducated people from another language. There is lofty, wordy doctrine which was probably over the head of the Khan’s, assuming it was translated properly. Pope Innocent spells out the story of the fall of man, Jesus’ virgin birth and death for the sins of man. However it is difficult to pull that out of the letter. The letter’s tone seems to me conciliatory, it was an appeal, it was not aggressive and threatening. This fact is possibly what may have saved Rome so I give him a lot of credit for this letter.

The Khan’s response is what I would expect, he barely understood it. Find the text of the Khan’s ~400 word letter here.  It had many questions, he reasons if it weren’t God’s will for them to take over, why was it happening? There is a common quote from the Kahn letters to the Christian and Muslims. This quote is my favorite part of both letters they say “we shall see what the will of God is.” They were men of action not logic.

The Kahns and The Caliph

The interaction between the Mongols and the Muslim Caliph in Baghdad was quite different. The Caliph came off as derogatory, threatening and superior to the Mongol King. The Mongol seemed indifferent about Christ and Muslim religions, they were out to conquer the world. They cared not for the different Gods and religious disputes. They felt like it was their destiny from heaven to conquer.

When the Caliph threatened and insulted the younger Khan, the result was devastating. The Mongol armies came down to Baghdad and absolutely annihilated every man, woman and child in the city, including the Caliph himself. It was possibly the most brutal and horrible scenes of murder, rape and destruction in history. The damage done to the Muslims was great, the effects of this no doubt are still with us today, over 700 years later.

You can see the Mongol-Caliph interaction here.

Rome was not routed and destroyed but unfortunately Baghdad was.

In Part II of this post I will write (with the benefit of hindsight), what I think would have been a better gospel letter to the Mongols. This letter is based mostly on Paul’s gospel recorded in Ephesians 1-3.  I will also dream about all that would have changed in history had the Mongols responded to Jesus Christ in the late 1240’s.

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What is the Best Source for Understanding Paul’s Gospel?

Most bible scholars refer to either the book of Romans or the book of Ephesians to understand Pauls gospel message. Romans is the traditional go to to summarize Pauls gospel and how to become a Christian. Often referred to as the Romans Road to Salvation. However I believe that the book of Ephesians contains a better record than Romans of Paul’s full gospel because of the reason that he wrote these two letters. Romans was a letter written to the Roman church that was written to help them with specific problems. The book of Ephesians was a general circuit letter intended to be read by all of the churches that Paul had planted. It was not a specific letter written to the Ephesian to help them solve specific problems. Which is the best source for us today? To understand Paul’s gospel that he used to plant churches and disciple new Christians? Well of course we need them both but I believe Ephesians summarizes it better and I think more than a few biblical scholars agree.

This is part II of a 2 part article about the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the Romans Road to salvation. Read part I of this post here:

If we can accept it, here is my paragraph-long summary of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ as preached by Paul, greatly condensed and paraphrased, taken mostly from Ephesians 1-3.

There is something of great importance that I feel I must share about why we exist, about the very meaning of life. I feel compelled to reveal this to whoever will listen.  The Glory of God is now seen in the person, and presence of Jesus Christ. Humanity which had once fallen short of that irresistible glory of God no longer falls short of God thanks to Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God and is the glory of God condensed onto and within a person. Human beings…you and I, are God’s chief creation, his chief work of art. He made us in his own image in order to expand the love and fellowship that he had, into a people and into this universe, it pleased him to create a family to dwell with. God chose people based on his own pleasure to be his very own adopted children. It was then we who turned our back on him, the entire human race repudiating the glory of God to his face. We chose sin and in doing we chose death, we chose and inherited hostility and  rebellion against God and a snubbing of his greatness, his character, his love and his infinite wisdom. Then He decided to make peace with us which is now available freely through Jesus Christ.

He did this for several reasons: 1) in order to create a people who would be a display to all the earth as his redeemed children, believers become a display of his grace and mercy to the rest of mankind. 2) He also created a people in order to put on display his wisdom to all the authorities, men and spirits, both good and evil, and to all the people of the earth. 3) He also did this to make for himself a dwelling place on earth within the people he would create through belief in Jesus Christ. So that his kingdom would be on earth as it is in heaven, all things visible and invisible mesmerized, cooperating with and submitted to his glory.

When we believe in Jesus Christ we become set apart to God, we literally become God’s dwelling place, his new temple, his new home and his growing family on earth. When we believe in Jesus Christ we find new peace with God where there was no peace before, we are made members of God’s family, and we can now become near to God because of Jesus’ shed blood. Him taking our punishment and sentence, him killing off the old race of Adam & Eve, then creating a new race in himself.

Now we can fully know God and his thoughts and live by HIS life, and not our own life. We can approach him directly without a go-between. And we can know his great love, and be filled with the fullness of God; his great power is on display in us, the same power exerted when Jesus Christ was resurrected. When we believe in Jesus Christ we become a new kind of human being, not a Jew, not a gentile but a third race of human with God indwelling. When we believe in Jesus Christ our inheritance is great, beyond what we can even imagine, and we literally become seated with Jesus Christ in heaven.

We can see that the process to become saved as explained in the Romans Road is but a subset of this much-greater narrative. God planned all of this from the beginning. His plan was and continues to be a family, a dwelling place, a bride for Christ and a display of his glory… fortunately for us it also does include him bailing whoever will come to him out of the hell that was going to be our future.

Here is a link to the scholar NT Wright’s lecture about Paul’s explosive gospel.

Please reach out to me by commenting below or email me at collierak@me.com.

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What is the Romans Road? – Part I

What exactly is the gospel of Jesus Christ? I’ve been a Christian now for 22 years, and until recently I thought I understood the gospel thoroughly.  I’ve shared it and taught it to Christians and non Christians and I’ve even memorized it.  This gospel I’ve learned and taught is summarized within several scriptures in the book of Romans often referred to the Romans Road to salvation.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of that sin is death.  Jesus Christ died for that sin even while we were still sinners such that the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. So that if you believe in your heart in Jesus Christ and if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, you will be saved…anyone who calls on the Lord will not be ashamed.

These scriptural summary of salvation are all found in Paul’s epistle to Romans (Romans 3:23, 6:23a, b, 5:8 and 10:9-10).

But…I now realize that this is only part of ‘the gospel’, this is actually how a person becomes saved, this is step one in reuniting with our creator explained in a few sentences and is useful in helping others to reunite with God if they are ready and inclined to do so.  This however is only part of the story, one subset of a much grander narrative, a larger purpose, a greater reason which explains God’s purpose for his creation and this life we are moving through.

The full gospel of Jesus Christ does include what I summarized above. But there is a much more attractive, much more compelling, much more gripping story that is often neglected and rarely, if ever told to non-Christians.  A broader explanation of the gospel is referred to in Ephesians chapters 1-3 and some scholars believe this is a good summary of the gospel that Paul preached to the gentile world. And which was so effective at converting and building the many gentile churches that we read about in the New Testament.

Writings from people like Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet, T. Austin Sparks, Watchman Nee and the book of Ephesians have helped me to realize that the Apostle Paul had such success because of his gospel. His church planting and conversion of Godless gentiles to faithful Christ followers was a fruit of his gospel. His message however is not distinctly recorded in most of his epistles because most of his letters were to existing bodies of believers and were written to deal with specific church problems. His gospel preaching was not recorded readily, some bible scholars believe that the closest we have to a recording of his gospel is found in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians was a general circuit letter that was distributed to several churches and is thus considered the closest record we have of Paul’s general gospel.

I have broke down and analyzed Ephesians 1-3 and found that in this letter Paul first told what God did, then he shared at least three reasons that he did it, then he shared at least 8 different realities that God made possible within Jesus Christ.

This gospel is compelling to anyone because it causes our life, our very existence and it makes sense of the reality that we see around us. It connects us with God’s original purpose rather than the “you are headed for hell and here is how to get out of it.” Most are not ready to hear that. The gospel as preached by Paul, explains the universe that we live in and observe, while it reconciles God to man.

Gods story is mesmerizing, it is life-changing and it must be told! Everything makes sense and lines up once we understand who Jesus Christ is, why he made us and this universe and how we fit into everything.

Read part II of this article to see this gospel referred to in Ephesians.

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