[Music] hi this is Jonathan Leman this is Mark de welcome to this episode of n marks Pastor Talk N marks exist to help churches build healthy churches learn more at 9marks. org or if you want to help support the ministry go to 9marks. org talk where you can help us continue to help you uh by uh giving to Ministry financially and certainly pray for us we we need that more than anything keep praying for us excuse me DrLeeman yeah we have one of my favorite pastors on the podcast today pretty exciting right yeah do you want to introduce him sure so Thiago Olivera am I pronouncing that near correctly kind of it's an American way to do it how would you do it in Portuguese I got used to it how would you do it in Portuguese Oliva Oliva yeah kind of that's I'm so sorry hi Mark hiago hey brother how long have you two known each other five years something like that yeah you were here at Capitol Hill for how long two years two years two years like half a year as an intern yeah and then your family stuck around yeah for an additional amount of time just as a member and you were working on it were you working on a PhD I forget what were you doing I was working uh doing a PhD at Pur turn reformed but living here okay let me let me finish my just quick intro Drolera is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lisbon Portugal uh where into which church he his family had belonged before he was born and he grew up there and he came across to America with his wife Marta in order to do an MD at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson Mississippi and he stayed on in Jackson with his church that he was deeply involved with there in leadership and he did a PhD distance at Puritan reformed well I didn't finish it yet but yeah who's doing a PhD and the topic of the PHD is theme of rest in uh particularly the place and contribution of the Book of Joshua in the development of the biblical theme of rest and it's used in Hebrews 48 wow and is that because you are or are not a sabari well that was not the reason everybody asks me that I Aman I am a sarian but that was not the reason and you're studying God's word better has not put you off that uh no on the contrary okay so if I go buy a hamburger at 300 p.
m. on Sunday afternoon I am breaking the fourth Commandment I think you shouldn't I'm breaking the fourth Commandment I would say so I'm breaking the fourth Commandment I would say so you're not going to go more than that no you think it's possible you're wrong you think it's possible you're wrong on that differently than to say it's possible you're wrong on you shall not murder oh sure of course okay so you understand that serious Christians who not trying to avoid ethical implications of their faith in God and His word are disagreeing with you some disagree with you on that point way you in in the way that you and I both as Baptists would understand about our ped Baptist Brethren yeah you know we think it's clear it's for believers but we understand sincere Believers that we respect but even less because I was a member here so I could not at my conscience concerning that and chbc has a high view of the Lord's day yeah it certainly doesn't require sarian ISM yeah it would exclude somebody who just had an every view every day is the same view sure the New Hampshire convention don't you think Jonathan not entirely well I think so well every day is the same yes yeah that's all I'm saying it needs uh your statement says it needs to be kind of given over to Holy Pursuit this is what happens when you're around Thiago there just too many interesting things to talk about we're not here to talk about this conversation is not about is a Godly brother and he is constructive wherever he is God has put him in a very interesting situation have you been to his church I preached at a conference there but not at the church okay he gave me a tour of the church building okay so we' both seen this 1922 23 30s 1930s church building uh surprisingly impressive building for a purpose-built Baptist Church in Portugal uh I can't can't imagine there's another building like it in the country there is but but not many in in PTO more to the more to the north yes okay well well the goal of the conversation is to think about sabari if we want but frankly anything else we want to think about too and we think about Christianity in Portugal because my ignorant you know I don't really know what's going on in different countries of the world with Christianity but man I really want to find out impression is there's not much going on for Christian and Portugal and maybe you can help educate me and anybody listening with that to so Portuguese is one of the 20 largest language groups in the world a lot of people don't realize that and there are a lot of Evangelical Christians who speak Portuguese around the world yep but they are in Brazil but they're not in Portugal or Angola right or mosambique probably the the the least number of them in a major country that speaks Portuguese would be Portugal yeah you have cap Verde also but yes I'm not calling that a major country yeah no agreed to the keans listing and is it as Roman Catholic as Spain is or Italy is yeah yeah pretty much and you would and maybe more so in that the Protestant Reformation touched it even less than it did Italy and Spain talk about that because we are so we are the westernmost country in in in Europe the Spanish Inquisition was really really strong mhm so basically you could not get to Portugal without passing through Spain so basically we did not receive any drops of Protestant Reformation till uh late 1800s so that's the basic reason so your F but you grew up in a Baptist Family I did yeah so where did your family first encounter the Protestant gospel both of my parents are our first generation Believers um that profess to be Believers my dad abandoned the faith but my mom is a Godly woman but both of them encountered the gospel how uh through witnessing of of other people just individuals yes so your grandparents aren't Christians your parents are the first generation well uh my uh grandparents on on on Marta's side not on my not on my side they are were yeah but but they still were converted even much much later okay all right so still also on Mara's side my wife's side they are also first generation Believers so just quickly for The Listener population of Portugal 10 million yeah uh number of evangelicals statistically 200,000 yes it's 2% of those who claim to be evangelicals 2% of the population yeah and is that including what we would call Prosperity Gospel Church Pentecostal church incl so everyone who calls thems evangelicals or would find themselves in that Protestant SL Evangelical would be in that category Mormons wouldn't put themselves in that category uh maybe oh wow okay so we really don't know what the statistics are in Portugal but but it's whatever is it's tiny yeah uh back to you for just a second you became a Christian through the testimony of your parents is that right yeah and testimony of the church that I grew up grew up in and you became a Christian when as far as I can remember six seven years old okay MH been walking with the Lord for quite a while um how many healthy churches in the city of Lisbon where your church is located Lisbon population of what 2 million uh uh it has almost 3 million the metro area two 2. 8 I think okay and in in those 3 million people there would be how many Evangelical churches churches let's define that a little bit more churches preaching the gospel oh the same gospel that you would preach oh I would I would say I would say at least 20 I would be comfortable in saying that yeah well know chur number church is preaching the whole Council of God church has given over to what Paul said to Titus and Timothy about sound sound Doctrine sound teaching so if I would put in more like-minded churches I would reduce them perhaps to three or four yeah there I would feel comfortable in in which I would feel comfortable to tell someone to become members of so Jonathan just to for comparison sake if DC has let's say roughly six million metro area uh how many churches would you guess there are preaching the gospel 60 100 50 50 to 100 I'd guess like 400 oh really okay it's just guessing but I mean just lots of small churches the United would have heard of that you know they don't they don't have enough property to have gone liberal I mean they're just yeah preaching the gospel um that's a complete guess but like but like you're saying churches that we know that we would be in good fellowship with less than 100 you know when I go to different countries go to India you know you know the Christians are a lot of them are down in the South or uh you know sometimes are a portion differently and geographically anything like that in Portugal are they more or less in Lisbon concentrated elsewhere you would find more in urban areas uh especially Lisbon portugalia the second major concentration always be the way with non-ethnic minorities yes conc it would have to do also with a lot of immigration so you would find more immigrants in urban areas so therefore Brazilian evangelicals yeah mostly yes how easy is it to be an angelical Christian who follows the Bible in Portugal relative to what you experienced we get we can get up what's helpful about speaking to you is you can give us American points of comparison you can say well in Jackson it was this way and in DC it was this way okay how easy relative that to that spectrum is is being a Evangelical in Lisbon so number one people need to uh understand and this is to be fair we are not persecuted directly in in any way so I usually tell brother Brothers uh we have our doors open I preach what I want I say what I want I do what I want uh we organize as we want according to the new um to the new law and so I'm we are not persecuted in any way shape or forming to the new law because it's a it's a recent law because we had we had a dictatorship till 74 MH and so still for like 20 years 30 years after the laws that that were in place before continued okay we had freedom to associate but we were not even considered churches we were associations with religious purposes because the only churches were the Roman Catholic churches yes yes and so until the new law came to pass I think was late 80s or early 90s I think we were not even considered churches whereas you are now we are now would you afford you what status what opportunity what do you have now that you didn't have term organizing in the past we need to organize an as an association we needed to have a president a vice president uh and so on everything that an association has we needed to have and organized in that particular way now even legally we can organize as we want we can just say we have uh Elders we have deacons we have the church and we can say and we can do whatever we want within certain certain rules so we're not stuck to that uh associative type of uh of of government that was imposed that that had huge implications by the way in the way that even churches perceive themselves explain because then what was forced upon the church it started to be the practice of many of the churches they started to organize yeah president vice pres they became especially in Baptist Churches just uh just pure democracy just pure vote and then voting on this and voting on that having the right to decide this and to decide that Association freedom to be a quote unquote Church means we can follow the Bible yes more easily yes is there something like tax exempt status that we have in American churches yes so you don't pay property tax we do not pay property tax we we are not taxed on the on on the giving on the offerings not at all we just pay taxes as other people do so uh if if I'm an employee of the church the church pays the normal taxes that an that that an uh that someone who is employed needs to pay but it's not different than any other institution we do have some uh privileges be because uh we don't uh we are not a company because you're not for profit yes yeah how common is tax exemption do you guys know in country for Christians around the world in Argentina and Brazil and Spain and I have no the UK do do you have any idea I don't know I've never thought to ask anybody that question I'm curious now but still it makes listen can write it and tell you if you'd like to tell us the tax exemp status of Evangelical churches in your country just write to Jonathan Leman care of n marks.
org 525 Street Northeast Washington DC 202 if you send us cereal box tops of your favorite cereal Jonathan will send you a handwritten thank you note that's not true I will not might for other reasons but not because of the serial box top he might okay members of your church are sharing the gospel what kind of resistance do they encounter I assume apathy yeah it's the main it's the fact that people simply do not do not care it's not part of a normal conversation it would be very weird for a person on the street or someone that you met even even with friends is an uncomfortable conversation people don't don't usually talk about religion they can talk about everything but religion okay gut level feelings about Jesus in the church among the non-Christian in your neighborhood in Jackson versus Washington DC versus Lisbon so Jackson compare and contrast Jackson no matter where I go people love Jesus okay quote unquote love I don't I'm not defining that I'm just saying what people will say right so if I say that I am a pastor I feel that people respect me and you did Pastor there I was one of the elders yes yeah okay so people respect me if I go to the bank people respect me unless I I want a loan and pastors are not good right okay but but you see what I mean is is the fact that religious is still uh religion is still a good thing to do going to church is still respectable being a pastor is still a recognized status yeah Washington DC Washington DC uh you do kind of whatever you want uh we will respect of course more or less respect for those who are more conservative um the political issue here is is very strong so you feel that tension you might not receive the same respect uh but still people are religious a lot of people go to church okay you go there you go there it's fine um so it's still it's still something part of of the it's not Terri Society no it's not yeah Lisbon it's not necessarily that most of the people will respect you a lot by being a conservative but they make a space for it yeah it's and it's part of the part of the culture it's part of Washington yeah Lisbon uh Lisbon if you are an Evangelical you're a foreigner because a non- foreigner is Roman Catholic because the Portuguese will be Catholic uh so in terms in terms of beliefs in terms of how you see the world uh how you shape your own life is a foreign thing and then connections so if you say if I if I go to the bank and I say I'm an Evangelical Pastor uh ding-ding uh Brazilian Prosperity Gospel that's how they will perceive you in terms and what what would be their impression of a Brazilian Prosperity Gospel Pastor a bad one they care about th they they want people's money Char grifter okay once people start to know you they say oh okay that guy is is not that you would be establishing a new category for probably a lot of them yes yeah for the vast majority of the Portuguese population they still don't know what evangelicals are and then now with the political milu also that we're facing in which some parties are starting to use the word and appeal to evangelicals and think like that that's not a good thing at all in Portugal yeah I don't I don't know why what votes do they get that way uh I don't know two 2% okay wow uh but it um it becomes worse because then people connect the United States Trump evangelicals with then one or two political parties in Portugal and then evangelicals and and that's not good also uh true or false on the whole and Portugal you have two kinds of Roman Catholics nominal Roman Catholics and ex- Roman Catholics on the whole on the whole can you repeat that the category we basically have nominals and ex Roman Catholics uh false false okay uhuh you have a number of robust act devout robust in terms of devout so don't don't read robust in the ways that we would uh speak about evangelicals uhhuh in terms of participating in mass in terms of doing the things that they are required to okay they're they're at least going through the motions and and sincerely mean it and because remember that for them it has it has to do with with belonging does not do with belief I feel like I remember talking to you though in the movement from the dictatorship and and into post dictatorship there was a deep degree of skepticism towards all governing authorities political and church see yeah the anti-clerical movement in in Portugal is also significant this trust in the people that are in Authority which applies to government and church applies yeah which does not apply necessarily to the church as a whole I can still believe that the church I can still belong to the church and still distrust the pope or the priest how do you teach the members of your church to share the gospel with Roman Catholics o that's a that's a difficult that's a difficult question you need to take them to the point in which your conversation is not just about externals so don't you cannot let them just asking the questions because they will focused in uh in things that are important but are not the Central Point practices all of the practices for them is that oh the difference between you and me is that you don't have Saints or because H fasting yes uh and so it's because you don't baptise your babies or thing and they will focus on all of that concluded then okay that it's not it's not you get married as a priest yeah yeah so yes that's a that's a big issue yeah yeah so all all of the externals because once again for them it's all about how you relate it's not what you believe is it useful for you to wear a collar a clerical collar I've seen some baptist ministers in Europe do that but I would say the opposite you I don't know exactly the reasons is not my special but I think that one of the reasons why Presbyterians are weak in Portugal one of the reasons that I suspect is that that they seem too much Catholic Oh So if you're going to abandon the Catholic Church you're going to embrace something something else you're not going to embrace something that is similar so I would say I would actually encourage people that that would not be the helpful way of communicating I was just an Argentina last week and speaking in a couple of events and and in a church as well and and I also had the opportunity to speak at the the Congress it was on my itinerary like the Congress on the Bible or something that that's what I thought because it was the argen anniversary of the AR 200th anniversary of the Bible society and they asked me hey would you give a a faith in politics talk at at at the Congress and Congress meaning like Parliament what clicked in my head in the invitation was the Congress of the na Argentine Bible Society then the day before I'm sitting there at lunch with Sam Masters and Sam's like oh yeah Jonathan's speaking at Congress tomorrow and somebody's like well what Congress and he's like we the Argentine Congress and then I'm like wait what excuse me tomorrow glad I brought my tie don't always bring a tie yeah so it wasn't it wasn't like you know like some sort of State of the Union Address addressing all the CER it was it was in that it was okay so you have you have the the the the Congressional building right and you know you know how the US capital you have the office bu like durksen and Russell all along it was in one of those side buildings okay in a in a big room with you know and and a lot of people came and you know what's interesting about it what what type of people came well some congressmen were sitting there in the front row and their staffers and other politically tied in Connected people there because there's a lot of excitement right now over M uh right and what he's doing as the president this kind of libertarian Austrian economics guy as opposed to years and years of the fascist socialism isness of the the peronists and so forth and so a lot of Evangelical are saying hey this is exciting and so the Argentine Bible Society has said hey Jonathan help us to think about faith in politics because a lot of people are putting their hope right now in in these new changes and I think they wanted me to let the air out of the balloon a little bit was their goal for me the kingom of God is not coming in on Air Force One or in m yeah and so I preached Psalm 2 is what I did I didn't tell him I was going to preach but I preached Psalm 2 and anyway so that anyway I was in and here's the cool thing about Argentino kind of like in Brazil there's some exciting stuff going on you know little churches are popping up the Argentine Bible society is is is trying to do good things and they seem to be good for us Sam Masters and his churches and his network of churches are doing good things and more and more like-minded pastors are finding each other and saying hey let's conference together and help one another and internships and so forth It's all very encouraging anything like that going on in Portugal not that I am aware of I went to a conference there yeah FL but you will not speak in the Portuguese Parliament no no that's not what I mean I mean among pastors is the pastors like-minded pastors finding each other likeed cooperating together sorry for the distraction that was Mark's fault it was my fault yeah uh I would the listeners liked it and listener if you liked that or or viewer I should say these days in these modern Technologies please write in to Jonathan Leman care of 9marks. org 525a Street Northeast with your pledge and your favorite Cals box top let him know that you appreciated learning about his opportunities for Ministry in places like the Argentinian Congress back to our regularly scheduled broadcast yeah this is like YouTube that you have those advertisements in the he just he just thr spontaneously so gifted we skip we can skip after 2 seconds or 3 seconds that's true yeah are movements of churches and pastors starting to appear in inent form so tell the point Jonathan was making is that they are because he and I have both spoken in a field conference and we were encouraged I was surprised with all the pastors and Layman who were there and this is something that we are seeing uh increasing for for several reasons for sure of course a lot of the internet and YouTube and so on uh makes communication uh wide widespread and pastors from different sensitivities they have access to things that they did not have before and so we start to see um pastors that 20 years ago would be impossible that they would even be aware of us uh start to be connected and start even if they are not yet like-minded they want to hear and they are interested in hearing so it is impressive that for for example this year we had a little bit more than 200 people but 50 of those were pastors that's great and so uh we also do on on purpose a workshop that is only for them that the others cannot come in order to bring them together and so on that has been very encouraging cuz this will not be possible 3 40 years ago how much time do you give to caring not just for your church but other churches in these ways not much I would like to do more but I can't at this point because you're still very much in the process of reforming and growing and encouraging your church yes church and also Seminary are the two things that occupy most of my time do you spend any time on the revision of the Portuguese translation of the Bible time out most just well the background on that is am I right remembering you saying most Portuguese are Christians are reading a bible translated in the 19th century no no no no the that that Bible translation is by the end of the uh 1600s that's what most people are still using yes but revised although the last revision was in 1898 okay that's what I was thinking when I said in the and it had a little bit of Revision in the 60s as far as I know but was not significant so the Portuguese Bible Society started to make a major revision okay then the mar question so you have a part in that duly needed process I have a part in that so I I was invited to first uh Translate the case studies that would be kind of the standard for the remaining so I did Jonah and relations okay um and so on the basis of that uh the other revisers should uh follow that type of pattern type that type of changes uh we Define the type of rules we we are not doing a new translation and so we need to follow certain certain rules in order that the text in the translation still follows the same pattern um which you think is a good translation it's a very good translation I would even say a very good great um and then if everything goes goes well by by the end I'll be the final reviser in going through the whole text wow brother that's quite an opportunity that really is it is I don't know how am I going to do that when the time comes but let's see and you're still finishing a PhD yeah and you're helping to lead a seminary yeah and pastor church yeah and two boys at home one across across the pond here in the US yeah yeah that's right well grateful for all your work last last question in general how do you feel like the church is doing how do you feel like the ministry is going you mean First Baptist yes First Baptist sorry is doing well um it's a it's a slow process so when I arrived there uh we had on Sunday morning 3540 people we have an average of 8590 praise the Lord um we have 57 members MH uh some of them almost 10 are in assisted living or at home they cannot gather uh which means that on a regular Sunday half of the people will be visitors so it's a weird situation at this who visits an Evangelical Church in Lisbon these days uh well mostly either other people that just got converted uh this has been my my experience other people that just got converted people that were in false churches that through RC Sproul John Piper Paul waser and so on they came to Faith and now they need to find a true church praise the Lord uh people that are moving to Lisbon and are looking for a church they type on Google and and they find us um we're the First Baptist Church of lisabon so uh it's easy to get to us in a in many ways fortunately fortunately and I I pray about about this we do not want to grow with people from other churches mhm it's not our main way we did receive a couple from another church in the area but uh we pray that that's not the main way that that we grow we don't want to be stealing from other churches yeah you want the other churches to grow and prosper of course yeah brother thank you for your work thank you I look forward to checking in again with you in 40 years oh yes I hope see what the Lord Has Done amen you know what I mean much less 10,000 years thanks thank you thank you for more articles books and podcasts please visit 9marks.
