Deep in the word

I have been working alongside men and women of God in 222 Ministries for over three years now and I’ve been a witness to God’s great work among the Farsi-speaking people, particularly amongst Iranians. I am involved in 222’s Internet ministry, helping them with the design and development their web services, but I’ve also had the honour of translating valuable lessons taught by teachers who are invited to our conferences throughout the year.

I was fortunate enough to be a part of 222’s latest conference in Turkey in mid April. This was the second time I’ve had the privilege of working with Dr. Lee Heyward. He is a great teacher of God’s word and he has a blessed international ministry, equipping, empowering and releasing leaders all over the world, and his teaching has been a great blessing to me personally.

‘The response we had from the leaders and other guests at the conference was phenomenal. They found a new thirst and eagerness to study the Bible starting at Genesis all the way up to Revelation’

On this occasion, Dr. Heyward taught us what it means to get deep into God’s word and how to understand the Bible holistically. We learned that God’s word is not 66 individual books, but one united and continuous book. We learned about the big story of God’s word and five main themes that help shape it from Genesis through to Revelation. As Christian leaders, these teachings really helped us to gain a deeper understanding of God’s word, and the tools Dr. Heyward equipped us with gave us the ability to see how integrated and united all parts of the Bible are.

I don’t know about other communities, but among Iranians most new believers, and sometimes even leaders, have a fear of the Old Testament, thinking it’s too complicated to understand and just better left unread. But what Dr. Heyward taught us during this conference was the exact opposite of what many of us had believed and it helped us, not only to understand the bigger picture of Bible, but also to see how related the Old Testament is to the New Testament, and how it can help deepen our understanding of the New Testament when it is studied deeply and correctly. The response we had from the leaders and other guests at the conference was phenomenal. They found a new thirst and eagerness to study the Bible starting at Genesis all the way up to Revelation, bearing in mind the big picture and the themes they had just learned.

In addition to all of these teachings, Dr. Heyward and Rev. Lazarus Yeghnazar taught the leaders a lot of points to help them enhance their leadership, and to strengthen their relationship with God and with other believers in Christ. These lessons were so valuable for me personally and I know many others will have been greatly impacted by them.

‘Our God is a transformer of hearts, and he transformed these people who had lived with Islam for years, right in front of our eyes!’

Perhaps the most outstanding thing I saw was on the last day of the conference, where God did a mighty work in an evangelistic meeting led by Rev. Lazarus Yeghnazar. After the worship session, around 150 Iranian converts joined in holy communion, remembering their covenant with the Lord. Afterwards, we heard a beautiful message from Rev. Yeghnazar about who Jesus really was, and after his message he asked if there were people who wanted to give their hearts to Christ. Around 15 people came forward to be prayed for and to give their hearts to Jesus. That’s almost 10% of the whole congregation! But what awed me more than the number of people, was seeing elderly ladies among the people who were giving their hearts to Christ. You know, when people live with certain beliefs and mindsets for years and years, it’s hard and sometimes almost impossible for them to let go of them to embrace something new, but our God is a transformer of hearts, and he transformed these people who had lived with Islam for years, right in front of our eyes! People were cheering, weeping and thanking the Lord for his great work and we all prayed for more and more.

All in all, I have to say that the week we had was a week I’ll always remember and remind myself of. God worked mightily among his people day by day and our great teachers equipped us to get deeper into God’s word and to share it with everyone else so that others too can be a part of this family. To Him and His name is all the glory, forever, Amen.

Arash Emadi