Jackie Pullinger

When Paul says somehow, he's not doubting this hope, but acknowledging that this is a wonderful mystery.

Jackie Pullinger says that God gave her resurrection eyes.

She says only Jesus opens eyes.

For all who believe in the resurrection of the dead know their destination is a place of comfort, a better country, a heavenly city.

I'm pretty set on it.

And I'm alone in a holding cell and a Salvation Army officer lady named Joyce, who was part of my tradition, you know, my family, a family friend and part of the church came to see me, which I mean, you know how she got in, except I call sometimes I call the Salvation Army uniform a super suit.

It just gets them access.

Yeah.

And so I think a lot of times the, and also I think any movement when it's in its baby form is sometimes hasn't done its theological rigorous work.

So some of the theology was weird and the way it could go was, you know, weird and dismissive of what is really, really happy.

So I remember, you know, one of my good friends, I think yours too, is Bob Ekblad.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, it's one of Sarah and my jokes when we've been to visit Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong.

There's a kind of unofficial list of words you're not really allowed to say.

And one of them is ministry.

I'm going to tell you a story and then I'm going to finish.

I've been rereading Jackie Pullinger's books this week and listening to her the last couple of weeks, just trying to lean into some of the amazing things that she did.

And if you don't know her, she's, well, I don't know her.

You don't know of her.

We covered this as part of a larger story reporting on the meeting of the church's governing body.

Also, after a lifetime given to prayer, reflection, and hope, missionary Jackie Pullinger says that she has no plans to retire.

If you want to read more about any of these stories, you can find links to the articles in the show notes.

This show's headlines were presented by me, Emma Shanofsky.

And so, so from, from his story in, you know, Hollywood Hills or whatever to, you know, where I live in Maddenburg in Cape town and, and, you know, across the road, we've, we, we, we run a home for guys, you know, who've, uh, coming out of crystal meth or heroin or Mandrax addiction or any number of that, you know, and then hearing your story, it's like, yeah, this, this adds up.

And actually chatting to, for example, Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong, who said, you know, Satan's not, he's not creative.

Yeah.

Of course, it kind of looks the same whether you're in Hollywood, Manenberg, Hong Kong, or London.

It's crazy 'cause I've always followed her, her ministry and, and there's one quote that I would encourage everyone, especially men, to just take note because it really blessed my life.

Jackie says this quote.

She says, "The opposite of faith," sorry, "The opposite of patience isn't impatience.

It's unbelief." The opposite of patience isn't impatience.

The kingdom of heaven is like a seed, mustard seed, smallest of all seeds, Jesus says, that now will s- plant up.

It becomes a tree, and watch this, even birds now plant on this tree.

So someone like Jackie Pullinger, who's doing evangelism, doing kingdom things, I didn't know, pal, that she was actually from Croydon.

She's from Croydon.

It will continue and it will go further and it will form their beliefs and not just their beliefs about, about themselves, but their more fundamental beliefs about who God is calling them to be.

I have to say, I'm very glad that Gladys Aylward and Jackie Pullinger and Queen Esther and Mary, the mother of Jesus, didn't fall for the trad wife.

I'm glad they just live lives as obedient, reckless, fearless, awesome women.

I love that.

And actually we also then need to come back to, as well as knowing, yes, we've all fallen short of the glory of God.

So even the most holy people that might come to mind, I don't know who, I was thinking like Nicky Gumbel and Jackie Pullinger and...

They're bad Christians, though, is what Dan Haynes is saying.

But actually, then there is something about who does God say that we are? coming back to truth and and there's probably some verses that we could turn to you know like the the verse in in Corinthians where it says that we are we are a new creation in Christ because of because of who Jesus is I was I was I was reminded and given that we're in John's Gospel I've been reading John fair bit over the last few weeks I was just reminded of Jesus encounter with Nicodemus and then the woman the Samaritan woman at the well and just contrasting those two characters for me just just came to mind because if you think about who Nicodemus was He was a Bible teacher.