A ship named Diversity, law or gospel?

2 June 1999

Earlier that day I had toured the former NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) ship then known as the Surveyor. The ship had impressed me a great deal with its overall conformity to this ideal I have been carrying in my mind for many years. I will not now bore you with these details, for I was now traveling home late that evening from what we call Missions Fellowship at my church. Missions Fellowship is were between five and twenty people come together to hear about missions and to pray for missionaries.

During that meeting, as I had throughout the day, I had been thinking about a new name for the ship. Now, alone in the car, after hearing again about areas of the world openly hostile to the Christian message, I was convinced that any type of religious name would be unsuitable, but it still had to speak to the nature of man and his position in creation. Diversity is the word that came to mind. Diversity is a concept that each person, no matter their ethnic background, interprets through their own eyes. Most of the time, in this worldly system, its definition is diametrically in opposition to a God centered world view. Diversity can be law or gospel, depending on who you talk too. More about that later, now about the ship itself.

Diversity (Surveyor) is currently docked on the North side of the ship canal in Seattle, just before you enter the locks to enter Puget Sound. She is 292 ft. long, 46 ft. wide and has a draft of 16 ft. She was built in 1960 in San Diego and is steam powered. Steam is slightly less efficient than straight diesel power, but it does allow you to burn less expensive fuels and is considerably more quite than conventionally powered ships, a plus for traveling with non-nautical types. There are currently berths for 127 persons, in very nice accommodations, for a working vessel. These could be modified to bring total sleeping space to about 200 without a whole lot of effort. Perhaps most suitable as temporary accommodations for guests while in port.

One of the neat things about Diversity is that she has a helicopter deck aft, and what is called and aft thruster. This means a platform for teaching, preaching and concerts on the rear deck and the ability to back the ship close to shore.

There are to the best of my knowledge, three other similar NOAA ships available at this time, one ready to go in Virginia offered at $3 million and two in Seattle. All the other ships, including Diversity, require some major rewiring, painting, duct work and the like. One needs other parts. Asking price is between $750,000 and $950,000, Diversity is offered at $750,000. Modifications depending upon the ship and volunteer labor could run another few hundred thousand. So Diversity could be completed for the St. Paul's Mission, Y2K, Charity World Tour for around a million dollars. The surveys for these ships put the replacement cost in the neighborhood of $25-30 million, but the market value is more likely less than the Virginia vessel.

In the State of Washington, nonprofit organizations have the ability to issue a non taxable bond, through the state, to pay for certain types of capital projects. As long as Diversity's prime uses are for charity purposes and teaching what could be construed as non religious teaching, it qualifies. As an example that was given to me by the state, CRISTA can use these bonds to build retirement housing, but they can't use it to build their radio tower. The whole project could be funded in that way, provided we can find someone willing to buy the bond.

Sailing around the world in Y2K, could be the trip of an eternal lifetime, whether you actually were part of the whole trip, visited just one of the ports of call, or provided financially or prayerfully to some one who could. If that is the only reason for going however, or even a high priority, it is not the message of the Jesus Christ of the Bible. It may be part of the message, of the church in America, as last time we had a good laugh with and at Pastor Bill. But it in itself is not a true classic Christain gospel

Our job is not to tell others that Jesus loves them and has a plan for there life, then remake them into a bankrupt American consumer of worldly trash. Our job is to tell them about the Jesus Christ, the only son of God, who entered time and space two thousand years ago, and through his propitiatory sacrifice, saved them from eternal judgement for their sins. Through his resurrection he demonstrated, to all those who believe, that they not only have had their sins washed forever away, but they have been adopted as a child of the eternal living God and that they will forever enjoy his communion.

The great commission, calls Christians to make disciples, that is to teach the Word of God in context to all believers, to preach the good news found only in Jesus Christ, as just stated, to believers and non believers alike, for believers all to easily forget and non believers have never heard, and to perform works of Christian charity, agape self sacrificing service, to all mankind. One should seriously question anyone who claims to be a Christian and is not involved or committed into specific aspects of this work. This Y2K cruise is to be an example of that commitment or it should not take place.

I can see from where I am sitting a book titled, "Why Poor People Stay Poor". While I haven't completely finished reading it yet, I have learned as true, its maxims, through the financial poverty that the Lord has graced me with. The truth is that poor people remain poor because they do not have access to capital . They do not have enough money, not to make them rich, or to buy bread or beans. They need capital to buy some, something, which they can use to make a living, so that they can buy bread or beans. The world economic system is strongly biased toward urban areas and toward those who already have capital, if you don't need it you can have all you want.

The church in the name of stewardship invests its funds in these worldly endeavors, and then wonders why the wheels of church growth either only continue to move forward through increasing involvement in this world system, or they too no longer can access capital, for their financial ratios are out of whack. Its funny, or sad how many individuals within organized Christianity, haven't got a clue that they are more the spokes persons for economic Babylon than Amazon.com ever will be.

One goal I have for this trip is to be able to raise monies, for a revolving loan fund, for each port of call. If we should stop at thirty ports, and if we could raise $50,000 per port or country, that would be $1.5 million. That money is lent out to persons, with a plan, to buy equipment for them to make a living. The world calls this appropriate technology, the world system understands that this type of investment is required if the global economy is ever going to become reality. They have no expertise to reach these people and they never will have, because that is the mission that God gave St. Paul and his gentile church. Along with that we are to make disciples and preach the good news. Through most of the church's history, she has gone arm and arm with the worldly as they rape the people and rape the land, and hidden in, and under the pilferage, God has redeemed his people from many tribes, nations and tongues.

God chose Israel and created a culture, in which God was the center of all life. That culture now exists in the descendants of Abraham, from Isaac and Ishmael. It also exists in Abraham's spiritual descendants, gathered from every tribe, nation and tongue. If you ask me the purpose of this trip, I would have to say to the church, "For this one year, for this one trip, let us try to redirect as God provides, the church back toward the goal he gave to two Jewish rabbis almost two millennia ago. One said, "Upon this rock (gospel) I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." The other said, "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Paul reflects God's grace and peace with God's judgement (eternal peace) through the work of Jesus Christ (Yeshua ha Mashiach) giving God all the glory. A fact demonstrated briefly in the early church and the early Reformation, but known to true believers throughout all generations.

This brings us back again to the subject of Diversity. When God created man he made him in his own image and gave him an eternal soul. Adam and Eve lived as eternal personalities in perfect fellowship with God, until the Fall. With the Fall, both Adam and Eve became individuals. Just look briefly in the dialogue in Genesis 3. This continues until this day. The real source of individual and cultural diversity doesn't take place however, until the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11. Notice carefully, that it is God, that instituted confusion, so that we, sinful mankind, cannot build our city and our tower unto heaven. Do we see any parallels in contemporary society today?

Martin Luther is credited with not only dividing the Bible up into Old and New Testaments, but also into Law and Gospel. Think about it this way when you see that bumper sticker that says "Celebrate Diversity". The world uses diversity as a gospel message, if we all work together we can live in harmony and make a name for ourselves. In actuality however, the Bible says to paraphrase, And God said, "Not on my green earth!" By celebrating our diversity we really are invoking God's judgement on our man praising activities. In this case man's gospel is really God's law. Take a quick look at any news today and see the carnage taking place, while we celebrate our diversity.

The true gospel message however, is that man has been reconciled to God, through his grace alone, by his gift of faith alone, and the work of Jesus Christ alone and not by anything that man brings to redemption. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to me through the cross and by no other means, loving diversity included. Through Jesus Christ we are no longer isolated individuals, but personalties living in a diverse community of eternal personalties, still operating in a material world of matter and other stuff, not some spiritual heaven . Only in this context. I say again, only in this context, can diversity truly be celebrated as a gospel message. To celebrate it in the spirit only, is to celebrate it as gnosticism, a major heresy confronting the church of all times.

Come with me now as we prepare for a Y2K trip around the world, bringing St. Paul's Mission to a small blue planet, orbiting a solar system on the fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy, somewhere in the vastness of a God created universe. Does it make sense, yes it does, for many reasons, for stuff, is truly what dreams are made of, stuff that makes really no sense outside of God being the center of your universe and your culture. The path is narrow, the journey difficult, but the path has been traveled before by many pilgrims, how soon we forget . But it can only be accomplished through keeping our eyes on Jesus Christ the author and perfecter of our faith.

Amen.

Jerry