ALL GREEK TO YOU?
It is Greek!
· “DIOKO”, as it is spelled in Latin characters, is a Greek verb, which occurs 45 times in the New Testament.
· It is also the name, though in English, of our bulletin/magazine (or “bullezine” if you like), first published in September, 1905. The name then was “Our Flag and Field”, which later changed to: “South America’s Indians”, then: ”Inland South America”, and in 1927: “Field News”, which is the name it kept longest. With each change a certain adjustment of the policy course was reflected. Scroll down and find out why we chose the present name.
· Paul and Luke use DIOKO thirteen times to describe the quest of Saul of Tarsus to hunt down Jesus of Nazareth and his Church. In all these instances it is usually translated as “persecuting”. Saul’s idea was to arrest the believers, throw them into prison, make them suffer and kill them. A pretty negative business. The verb describes him as trailing them, dogging their every footstep, pursuing them, so that he might exterminate them.
· However, “DIOKO” also translates as “pursuing”, simply going after something, or somebody. And Saul, the relentless persecutor, found himself ‘pursued’, ‘the hunter hunted’, by … the persevering love of Jesus of Nazareth.
· Then, almost as soon as he is ‘caught’, and drastically turned into a disciple, the fury of the DIOKO-persecutors turns on him. Five times (i.e. in Romans 12:14; 1 Corinthians 4:12; 2 Corinthians 4:9; Galatians 5:11; 2 Timothy 3:12) Saul, now Paul, mentions this ‘DIOKO’. He could never shake it off and eventually, in Rome, it would cost him his head. But in a further seven passages he also tells the believers to always pursue, or be in ‘hot pursuit’, not of human beings, but rather of the virtues of Christ.
· However, we want to specifically call your attention to the only other two instances when Paul uses DIOKO. Just like our Lord, Paul too loved to use every day pictures when he spoke and wrote. He seemed to be particularly taken with athletics. In Philippians 3 he first describes his former zeal in the DIOKO-persecution of the Church (verse 6), then, just a little further on, in verses 12-14, he gives an account of his present DIOKO. But now it is the ‘footrace’ in which he is going “all out” for the one goal beckoning him: the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Paul was “pressing on”, and that is where we have our present title.
· Our “DIOKO” bullezine, PRESSING ON!, (normally with six pages) goes out all over the world from Spain, three times a year. It is not the classical “missionary magazine”. It is not used to appeal for money. Its aims are to:
Ø Inform for prayer and reflection, both from our own work with news and photographs, and from the Lord’s work all over the world generally.
Ø Encourage the Christian, as he ‘runs the race”, to press on, as Paul puts it there in Philippians 3:12-14, regardless of the circumstances. Regularly servants of God like Andrew Murray, Jessie Penn-Lewis and others, are featured.
Ø Emphasize the absolute need for God’s people to recognize and receive the “Message of the Cross”, and to return to the simplicity of the NT blueprint for the functioning of local churches.
Ø Challenge the reader to take hold of God’s abundant grace that will see him through to the ‘finish’, leaving behind all that might hinder.
· PRESSING ON! is designed to help you with your spiritual DIOKO, and subscribing to it is real easy.
“Just go to “Contact Us”, fill out your particulars, mention the subscription (which is free), and indicate whether you prefer the email version in pdf, or the hardcopy sent by ‘snailmail’. If there are others who read and understand English well, and who are truly interested in the bullezine, you may let us have their names and addresses.
Once you want to unsubscribe, drop us another email.
· Furthermore, next on the main menu you will find our E-Booklets, a growing list of “PRESSING ISSUES”. Some of them are printed as hard copy also.