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Biblical understanding about Israel
C4I Greece - report on visit to Thessaloniki and Athens
“The Lord was in Thessaloniki before us, and opened hearts and doors”
Report on visit by Panos Karagounis and Willem Glashouwer to Greece, 7 – 14 March 2010
Praise to the Lord because His ways are miraculous beyond explanation and understanding.
By Panos Karagounis.This trip to Greece was planned with Willem in order to contact the pastors and Churches in the area of Thessaloniki. God blessed beyond any measure all of us and many brothers and sisters in Christ received a clear biblical message about the “God of Israel” and His people “Israel”.
The Lord was in Thessaloniki before us and opened hearts and doors out of the blue in an amazing way. Thanks to Lord for our brother Willem, he was always ready to take the extra effort in order to cover all these meetings and to respond to any last moment appointment or meetings request. His teaching and presence were a special blessing for our city Thessaloniki and our country Greece.
All our meetings have been prepared by the Holy Spirit. Especially the unexpected meetings with the Jewish community and the Jewish Synagogue were something that the Lord shows us that He is doing this work and He is in control. We simply follow His spirit as servants.
Out of the many things that I have treasure in my heart during this week is what Willem said to me; “The Lord is in a hurry, and we have to be in hurry too – but not in stress”.
Many came to say openly that they understand and support this ministry in a clear biblical way and truly want to serve the “God of Israel” and bless His people.
I am confident that the Lord has opened a door and He will bless Thessaloniki - Macedonia in Greece. As modern Thessalonians from Macedonia-Greece we pray and ask the “Adonai” to show mercy on us and send His spirit and servants to help us. Because we desire to go back to our roots of our faith and the “God of Israel” to be revealed to us and rediscover who is He. We ask Him to put in our hearts exactly what he has in His Heart for Israel. To go back to our basic root and truth of His everlasting and living Word in order to be revived by the Spirit.
Blessed be His name “Adonai” - the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” - and his people “Israel”.
Maranatha - “The Lord is coming soon”.
Panos Karagounis,
Chairman, Christians for Israel – Greece
Some highlights
- Meetings with pastors and Church leaders. Panos and Willem had intensive meetings with several pastors and leaders of Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, in Thessaloniki and Athens.
- Contact with the Jewish community. Panos and Willem had several unexpected and very moving meetings with the Jewish communities in Thessaloniki. Once one of the largest and most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, out of the 80,000 in 1900’s, there are now only about 1500 Jews left in Thessaloniki.
- Greek language teaching resources. The Greek edition of the book Why Israel? Is being distributed, and several hundred copies have now been sold or given to key persons. Work has been completed on the Greek translation of DVD teachings by Willem Glashouwer, and is available for sale. Soon some of the DVDs produced by Christians for Israel Canada will also be translated into Greek.
- Replacement theology. It became clear during the trip that in the Greek protestant Evangelical churches the replacement theology is strong. This is because the new generation of pastors that are younger than 50 years old received the teachings of replacement theology through their Studies in Theological Seminars in US and Canada. Some of them are strongly supporting this. Remarkable though is the fact that the majority of churches and pastors of Thessaloniki and in the wide area of Macedonia – Greece are accepting and adopting the simple and clear biblical view but the opposite replacement theology has a stronghold in Athens, South-Greece. In the case for the Greek Pentecostal churches and the Free Evangelical churches and the majority of their pastors and churches have received and support the biblical view regarding the Jews and the people of Israel.
- The Greek Orthodox Church. The Greek Orthodox Church can trace its roots all the way back to the early history of the 2-3rd century AD and claim authority based on the fact that almost all the Fathers of the church came out of her. The early years the church in Greece was having a difficult relationship with the synagogue and some very anti Jewish early church Fathers teachings paved the way to deny and cut any relation to her Judaic root that formed the new Christian Church. Nevertheless this root is obvious at any moment through the worship and the ceremonies, traditions and practices of the Greek Orthodox Church.
- Anti-Semitism in Greece. As all over the world, the anti-Semitism in Greece is in a rising mode. In January 2010 the synagogue of Chania in the island of Creta was set on fire. Police investigate this as an action of extremism by tracing its routes inside and outside of Greece. Greece is a country with a population of 11 million, of this number about 2.5 million are legal and illegal refugees primarily from Arab nations or other countries of Islam. Many thousands of Christian and Muslim Palestinians have come to live in Greece over the last 35 years. The anti-Semitism is reflected as well by the media that by default support the Arab and Palestinian view since this brings a big number of viewers/audience/readers through sales. Sometimes this constant exposure to the media’s one-sided view results in an unconscious and covert anti-Semitic feeling that is expressed in forms and action in the name of “human rights”. We witnessed one of these called “Human Right” actions at the Thessaloniki archeological museum. Among the artifacts displayed, there were here and there monitors playing a recurring short 5 minute movie. One movie was about the security wall in Israel. A David and Goliath story was propagated in a form of some Palestinian children with a gun (probably a toy) in front of the security wall camera cursing and swearing as they are watched by the security camera and later threatened by an Israel army patrol car driving towards them. The film ended with the terrifying faces of the children.
- Registration of C4I in Greece. This process has almost been completed. Please pray for the finalization of formalities, so that C4I can operate fully in Greece.