Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center on John Stone Street. After 1,500 years of continuous Christian service, the world's oldest monastery is being forced to close its doors. According to several news sources, St. Catherine's Monastery will now be annexed by the Egyptian government and turned into a museum and a tourist attraction. Though the monks won't be kicked out yet, the ruling is the latest incident and the already precarious situation of Christians in the Middle East.
Founded as a respite for wandering worshipers under Emperor Justinian in 527, St. Catherine sits at the foot of Mount Sinai. It's been a center of Christian identity since, shortly after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. That's 70 years before the first Archbishop of Canterbury and nearly a full century before the founding of Islam. And of course, it sits at one of the most significant places in all the Old Testament.
Now, a claim at the heart of the case was whether or not Christianity is a Western intrusion into an indigenous Muslim area, and therefore, if foreign Christian monks are occupying Egyptian land.
Now, of course, it's true, after Christianity made the West what it is, missionaries were sent around the world.
However, Middle Eastern and African Christians were building churches when the ancestors of Western Christians were still worshipping pagan gods. The areas that now make up North Africa, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey were once the heartland of Christianity. and were only lost after centuries of conquest and persecution by Muslim overlords. Today, in almost all these nations, Christians are in real trouble. And yet, as Philip Jenkins noted in his book The Next Christendom, the church is a global phenomenon that spans cultures, languages, and history.
Last year on Pentecost Sunday, I asked our youth Sunday School class what the significance was of this day within both scripture and church history. A young man with autism, I'm not always sure how much he's taking in during the class, both a sweet kid and a faithful member of our church body. shouted out, it's the church's birthday. I could not have said it better. As Luke recorded in Acts chapter 2, it was at the first Pentecost where the proclamation of the good news first went out to all nations.
According to that account, Peter and the apostles preached Christ crucified to Parthians and Medes and Elamites in residence in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phargia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytites, Cretans and Arabians. Yes. All those areas. And yes, Egypt. At Pentecost, there is the first indication that the scattering of the nations at the Tower of Babel will ultimately be reversed in the body of Christ.
It's the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. and it is a foretaste of what is described in Revelation chapter 7. Of that great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.
See, as my young friend described it, Pentecost was indeed the birthday of the church, that redemptive instrument of God that proclaims that Christ is risen and is the true King of heaven and earth and acts as the tool of God's renewal. And the church was the focus of the Colson Center National Conference this year. I'd love to share those sessions with you from the conference that was entitled Be the Church. And for a gift of any amount before August 31st to the Colson Center, you will get free access to every main stage session. from the 2025 Colson Center National Conference.
Every session focuses on a different aspect of what it means to be the church today. To be confident, to be bold, to be distinct, to be virtuous. Your gift helps the Colson Center produce and provide resources to empower the church. To live boldly and faithfully for Christ in this cultural moment. If you've been equipped with more clarity, confidence, and courage thanks to Colson Center content or programs, please make your gift and get free access to the Colson Center National Conference 2025.
by visiting colsoncenter.org slash July. That's colsoncenter.org slash July. Remember, even as Christ's church is persecuted in so many places around the world, We live in the age of Pentecost. God is renewing his world. by his word and using his church to do it.
We're not just bystanders. We're part of that renewal. For the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr.
Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources to live like a Christian today, go to breakpoint.org.
