February 10, 2017 Show with Chuck Vuolo & Ephraim Stoltzfus on “Understanding & Reaching Out to the Amish People with the Gospel of Grace”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania it's iron sharpens iron a radio platform on which pastors

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Christian scholars and theologians Address the burning issues facing the church and the world today

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron.

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So one man sharpens another Matthew Henry said that in this passage quote we are cautioned to take heed when we converse with and Directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour

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And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions

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Now, here's our host Chris Arnton Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County Pennsylvania Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live -streaming This is Chris Arntz and your host of iron sharpens iron wishing you all a happy Friday on this 10th day of February 2017 we're gonna have a fascinating interview today.

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I'm sure with Chuck Volo and Ephraim Stoltzfus Chuck Volo is pastor of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and he's an evangelist to the

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Amish people We also have in studio Ephraim Stoltzfus who himself is an

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Amish Amish convert to biblical Christianity and we are addressing the theme understanding and reaching out to the

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Amish people with the gospel of free grace and It's my honor and privilege to welcome you both to iron sharpens iron

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Chuck Volo and Ephraim Stoltzfus Thank you, Chris. It's great to be with you and Chuck Volo has been on the program before but unfortunately the last time he was

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On we had technical difficulties which prevented the recording of the interview So I'm so delighted that he is back in studio today again to do this interview and Ephraim Stoltzfus He is one of the key figures in a

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BBC documentary that some of you may have seen and if you haven't seen it I'm urging you to see it called trouble in Amish paradise.

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It involves Ephraim and one other Amish individuals journey into The biblical

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Christian faith and some I know are scratching their heads wondering What on earth could be different from the

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Amish and true Christianity because some people think the Amish are just super Christians They're even more

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Christian than the average person in a Protestant Congregation, but we're going to be finding out that there's actually a stark contrast between the

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Amish Understanding of salvation and the biblical gospel, but before we even go into those details

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Pastor Chuck Volo tell our listeners something about New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland New Life Community Church is

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We're coming up on six and a half years old a church plant and we meet at Beachmont Christian Camp and we are

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Reformed and baptistic and God has blessed us with some very healthy growth in recent years

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We have a full -time pastor Paul Hamilton Who's been with us two years and then

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I've been roughly halftime because my other half of ministry is in Lancaster County and then we have a third bivocational elder a very healthy church,

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I think with diverse in age and demographic and we're just grateful to serve the

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Lord in that part of Maryland and We will be giving what is your website for that church?

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Oh, you don't know Well, I'll look it up and I'll find it in life Maryland org new life

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Maryland org Yeah, and is it the full word Maryland or MD MD? New life

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MD org and you Started at some point in your ministry reaching out with the gospel of Jesus Christ to the

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Amish What led you to begin this activity Bible studies, etc Well, it was an amazing providence of God I had pastored in Downingtown for 19 years and in God's providence that was coming to an end and Just about that time a man who had been

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Amish in his youth Came looking for me. He had heard some of my sermons on sermon audio and we found each other and He wanted to start in a

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Bible study at his business, which is still going on nearly 12 years later every other Wednesday He pulls workers off of his machines

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It's a laser cutting business and pays them to come to an hour -long Bible study But he was Amish in his youth and in meeting him

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He told me that he had heard that God was working in the Amish community that some 12 families had been

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Converted and a little while later. It was 15 families and I expressed an interest in getting to know them

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And so I think it was August 5th 2005 we made a visit to a family in the southern part of the county and They were having a late -night prayer meeting and here was an

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Amish convert with several others Amish Mennonite and they were praying well into the night

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They had been converted and they were just looking for truth and I began attending those late -night prayer meetings and That's where it began.

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They They realized that here was a man who knew something of the Bible They were hungry for Bible truth and that opened up a door to minister among the

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Amish which has lasted these last 11 years and that's where you met our guest today in the studio

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Ephraim Stolzfus and Ephraim how did Ephraim Stolzfus?

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How did you hear about this Bible study? One of my friends who was also

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Amish at the time we were discussing one day about how can people decide what sin is by saying that if you

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Break one of our rules and you're sinning and I said well surely God is more holy than That surely

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God has a standard of what is sin and what is not sin So I was sharing with my friend about you know,

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I really liked some answers to life and he says well He met this man. Who's who? Says that the

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Bible was his rule book his standard book. Whatever the Bible says, that's his rules And I said

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I'd love to meet him. So I was introduced to this Bible study through that conversation and you were born

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And raised in the Amish community, correct? Correct. I was and was that in Lancaster, Pennsylvania?

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Yep, Lancaster County and How much awareness did you even have of the outside world outside of the community of the

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Amish as far as? Normal life in Pennsylvania. I would have been aware of Outside life.

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Yes my community was much more open to the outside world in some communities are and I Wouldn't have known much about Across other other part of the world like Europe and other countries.

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I didn't know But I would have known about Pennsylvania and a lot of people as I said in the beginning of the program

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Are not educated about what the Amish really believe about salvation about what sin actually is and They don't know a lot of things about The scriptures because as I learned from the documentary that you were featured in The Bible that the

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Amish must use is written in classic German and the majority of Amish Do not even speak or read classic

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German But a dialect of that called Deutsch Pennsylvania Deutsch. Is that what it is?

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Pennsylvania Deutsch? Yeah. Yeah and So I'd like our listeners to be educated today about some of the primary things about Amish life and thought and in fact pastor

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Chuck you can also feel free to either Assist in answering a question or even asking one of your own and you don't have to wait for me to signal you just chime in at any time

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Because you'll find that throughout this interview I might be looking at the computer screen a lot and not even looking at you.

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So well The growing up as an Amish person you obviously heard something about Jesus Christ You heard something about?

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The Christian faith and so on what were the basic things you grew up understanding about who Jesus Christ is.

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Mm -hmm. I Believe that Jesus died for the sin of the world. I believe he rose again,

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I Believe that You know as far as the biblical facts,

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I believe I believe them you believe that he was God and man I don't know if I would have thought that far

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But I knew that he died and he rose again But I didn't know how to be forgiven

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Hmm. I was taught that Jesus died and God's grace will be extended to me if I'm a good person so basically you live your life the best you can and When you die, you'll find out whether or not you'll go to heaven

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Hmm, so you can even you can't even have any confidence prior to when you wake up when you open your eyes in eternity

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That's when you know where you're gonna wind up. Yep. That's when you find out Yeah, that's a very oppressive way of living.

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Where can you have the peace that surpasses all understanding? if you don't have that confidence and So I'm assuming though that And you could correct me if I'm wrong

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I'm assuming that even though you didn't have a clear understanding of the deity of Christ or the

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Trinity in your mind I'm assuming those are things that are believed and taught to some extent, correct?

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Yeah, I remember one of the preachers saying one time that when you're traveling people might ask you questions about what do you believe about?

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God and about spiritual things and He said the answer to tell them is that you believe in the

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Father the Son and the Holy Spirit And he said that'll satisfy most people hmm and So you are living this life, what was your your your day -to -day life like I'm sure it involved a lot of hard work and Waking up early going to sleep early and that kind of thing.

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Just tell us about your everyday day -to -day activities as an Amish person Mm -hmm For my life growing up Amish.

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It was a great life Very secure knowing you have a schedule a routine

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You didn't you just did what you were taught and you did it you did it with all your heart and you had fun

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You worked hard and but my typical day would have been Probably at the age of 10

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I would have been standing up in the morning around Five o 'clock. I remember one of my brothers telling me that if I'll do part of his chores for the whole summer when school was out because he was working for the carpenter crew and He had a hard time getting his his farm work done before he left for the carpentry crew

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So he told me for the whole summer if I would do a certain two chores for him so he can leave earlier

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He would buy me a baseball glove. Hmm. So I did that all summer long I got up I think maybe 430 or 15 minutes earlier so I can get all the work done

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But yeah, you work did all the barn chores then 615 ish. We ate breakfast and 30 minutes later.

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We're back out in the barn and Lunchtime for us was 11 o 'clock not 12 o 'clock

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We usually had off about an hour for lunch and then we worked until 4 and we ate supper or dinner as the

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English people would call it anyone who's not Amish is English in an Amish person's mind

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Four o 'clock we ate supper and went back to the chores did the milking and all the animals and then by Mmm 730 you're getting ready to go to bed and You wanted a baseball glove so obviously the

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Amish boys perhaps even the girls I don't know but used to play baseball Yep, yep baseball volleyball

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Softball instead of baseball, but yeah softball softball volleyball Pitching quaits.

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I don't even know what that means Okay Swimming What is pitching quaits?

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So it's like almost like horseshoes, but it's it's a round Piece of metal that's like a big washer, but it's very heavy and you try to get on the peg

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Okay, ping -pong in the wintertime Playing board games a lot of family time gathered together as a family.

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It's now playing baseball and so far that was the only sport that I can think of that the

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Average American kid would be watching on TV or listening on the radio, but primarily TV You since you didn't have television.

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I'm assuming. Mm -hmm Did you have any idea of Major League Baseball and you have any heroes that were, you know, professional athletes and so on?

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Mm -hmm. I knew of Yes, I'd read the paper. And so you'd I'd hear the news and I'd watch

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Who's gonna be in the World Series and things like that? How would you get to watch the World Series? You wouldn't know Just the news

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Did you ever attend a live baseball game? Never? Okay, where would you be able to would they permit you to do that?

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No, hmm, but they permit you to play though. Yeah, because you're you're playing as a family or you and your friends, you know so it's

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And from what I Understood from listening to or viewing

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I should say the documentary trouble in Amish paradise The Amish religious system is very works oriented

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There's not a real understanding of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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It's really What you can offer God that would be worthy enough to Enable you to enter into heaven.

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Is that basically the way that you were living your everyday life? Yeah, it would it would be more of you helping

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God. Mm -hmm. So God did his part. He died for you now You need to become good. So he'll accept you.

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Mm -hmm If I might say sure at that point If if there's a chasm separating man and God as I've heard

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Amish explained it to me You do the best you can to cross the chasm with your good works and your

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Obedience to the Ordnung or adening as they say and then the grace of God will take you the rest of the way so it's it's definitely a copay system where where your works are combined with with God's grace and You know very much a works righteous system

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Similar to the Catholic Church, which is my background in very much like the first century Pharisees that Jesus wrangled with Amish are very much modern -day

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Pharisees and What was your relationship if any

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With Jesus Christ prior to your rebirth when you were an Amish person. Did you? Other than perhaps

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Corporate prayer where you're expected to pray where people are looking at you Listening to you

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Were you did you have any kind of private? Devotional life did you believe truly that Christ existed and did you truly want to please him was there any kind of a private prayer life

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Private devotional life that that had some kind of a connection between you and Christ at least in your mind

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Very minimum My religious life would have consisted of as a family my father would lead us in a

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Verbal prayer, but it would have been a written prayer that he would have read So I would have never heard my father pray an audible prayer from his heart

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So they would when it was time for prayer for meal times we would be a silent prayer

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In the morning it would be after breakfast we would all kneel together and my father would read the morning prayer for the day and Then in the evening he would read the evening prayer at the close of the day

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Reading from some pre prescribed prayer. Mm -hmm. Yeah, and the prayers were they're good prayers.

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They were written by men of God, but Yeah to us it was just something you did you'd read this prayer

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There was a few times where I would When I was discouraged or really depressed or needed friends or you know that I would pray

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To God quietly from my heart longing for friendship longing for something I read the

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Gideon's when we were I think in third grade the Gideon's came to our school who and They do this to all the

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Amish schools and they'll pass out New Testaments to the third graders and and up They come every other year.

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So you're always looking forward to when you're in third grade you get your own little New Testament So I kept it in my room, maybe

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I read it a few times in my life not a lot I would just read it when

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I was discouraged or needed I wanted something but basically And I went my life went through phases there was times that I would have more or I would pray more

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Try to pray more try to read more and then

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The church services were every other week so The Sunday we didn't have church meetings

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We would in our as a family gather together and we would read the scriptures that were predestined for the next

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Sunday At the beginning of the year, we would know every Sunday which scriptures are going to be read and taught on so we would try to prepare ourselves for those scriptures and we would read them as a family in German and My father would try to explain what they mean and then we'd sing some hymns in German and after that you'd on a

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Sunday morning you'd do that and then after that you just go read a book or relax the rest of the day and play some games and so Just Sundays.

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Basically we were taught that The things of God are to be discussed on Sunday you don't talk about God and The rest of the week

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When you say you don't talk about God the rest of the week Is that by your individual choice or is that something that they're prohibiting you to do?

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It's just accepted practice. If someone starts talking about God, he's considered to be a little strange or Yeah Huh?

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That is interesting. There might be some comments that you hear like that. I would hear is like, you know you know

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God sent the rain or But There was nothing talked about personal you and God, how are you and God doing what's

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God doing in your life? Or is the Lord teaching anything because it didn't exist Now Chuck The the passion that started to well up in you to want to evangelize these people as It did that really become

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A zeal and a passion after you started to meet these folks and befriend them.

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Is that when this Deeper interest came into you to want to reach them with the gospel and you are actually discovering that these are lost people

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Yeah, I believe so Chris. It's not as though I had this this long -standing burden to reach the

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Amish. We had lived in the community for Oh 19 years and you

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You know not far from the Amish and we would see the horses and buggies in the schoolhouses I didn't know a lot about them and didn't have a particular burden for them

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But when I began attending these prayer meetings and I saw the earnestness in their hearts these men knew the

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Lord and they were hungry for truth and I think

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I'm a pastor at heart and my heart goes out to people to shepherd them and when

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I realized the men were meeting but then I realized they've got wives and the average Amish family is seven children and I thought

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Well, you don't want to leave your wives in the dust. You guys are growing and learning praying together What about the wives and I suggested that we begin having

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Bible study? With the wives and of course then you get the children and that's when it really burgeoned and we began having

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Bible studies With 30 40 50 60 people sometimes a good number of those being children so that the wives could be incorporated and learn and grow along with The husbands but yeah,

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I hear where people that were coming to the Lord Others were searching and I think my shepherds heart just went out to them as hopefully something like Jesus We all need to be far more like Jesus, but when

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Jesus looked at the multitude as sheep without a shepherd He was moved with compassion and he taught them and he prayed the

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Lord of the harvest to send forth labors And I think something of a reflection of the Great Shepherd in me saw these people as unshepherded sheep

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In fact abused sheep in many ways They had been abused by a system which was Legalistic and oppressive and was laying upon them the burden of rules without teaching them the gospel of the grace of God And I think the truth of justification

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Really became precious to me. I mean I'd always valued it, but I think in my pastorate previously

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Sanctification was a big emphasis. Okay, we assume justification. We know where we stand in Christ.

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Now, let's get on with living a holy life and Probably my appreciation for justification and adoption was was a little weak

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But when I began to meet the Amish, I realized they don't need more moral duties laid upon them

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They need to understand that salvation is a free gift of God's grace They need to understand that it's the righteousness of Christ credited to them that gets them to heaven and through Christ they can become adopted sons and daughters of God and you know

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God was working in me a deeper appreciation for those those precious truths as I was seeking to impart them to others realizing that's

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Those are the truths that these folks need to set them free You know, Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free

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They needed in particular the truth of justification by faith to set them free

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And it is interesting that Ephraim Said that he loved being

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Amish had a great life. It's interesting that it wasn't until the

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Holy Spirit started to draw him and Bother his conscience about sin and things like that that I'm assuming that's when you really became

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Felt oppressed in some way because you seem to enjoy your Amish Youth and upbring but when you started to realize that they didn't have answers about eternity

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That's when you were starting to be troubled. I'm assuming you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth But it seemed what you could be what you were saying.

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Yeah, so the Amish life was a great life for me Just because it was structured you knew what you're doing you knew that when you get, you know certain age you're gonna probably get married and then you'll buy a farm and you'll have children and You'll pay the farm off and you'll buy them a farm and that was life

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But there was the other side and that was you know, wanting to know what happens when I die So that question was in my mind since I was probably nine years old

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Hoping that I was assuming that when I'm 12, I would become accountable before God I didn't know if it would be when

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I'm 12 or it's when I'm 20 because the children of Israel When they were in the wilderness God told the ones that were 20 and above because they disobeyed him

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They're gonna die in the wilderness if they were under 20 They would be good and they would not die. And so we kind of thought maybe when you're 20, you're accountable and you're

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So you have to get baptized before you're 20 so that you for sure Make it to heaven.

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Hmm So there was a teaching of some kind that baptism was a necessity to be saved or to go to heaven

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Yes. Yes very much. So so it was it Did they use phrases like baptismal regeneration or is it much more of a simple?

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No, it's just more simple. Just he that believes in his baptized shall be saved in Mark 16 So they would use that and so they would say if you're not baptized

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God's grace will be given to you But you know, you need to get baptized because at baptism your sins are washed away that's what they would teach and the terminology of even salvation obviously that Scripture Uses the phrase saved that you just quoted but as was that a part of the common vocabulary of the

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Amish Saved salvation born again were those kinds of no. No the word saved

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Was a word that didn't use much They didn't know they didn't know what it means and they would say you can't know that you're saved because you might sin again you might

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I guess the only time you can know you're saved is when you're standing up wet from the waters of baptism and you're and right after communion

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They'll teach that communion is just like baptism when you take communion. You can again kind of refresh the vows that you made with God and You're gonna be wiped clean again

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You know, it's it's interesting that Although if on the surface visually people would never think that there was any commonality between the ornate and pomp and ceremony of Rome and the simplicity of the

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Amish life who do not even have pictures of Christ let alone statues and all these things.

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There's no fancy Garb investments for the clergy and all these kinds of things, but there is so much commonality between Rome and the

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Amish In fact, I think Chuck you were a former Roman Catholic just as I am And if you if fact if you could touch on that when we return from the break

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If anybody would like to join us on the air, by the way with a question for either Chuck Volo or Ephraim Stolzfus Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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Chris arnzen at gmail .com Please give us your first name your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages with trouble in Amish paradise

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30:37

Hi, I'm Christopher Stolzfus and you're listening to my dad on the radio Great job.

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Great job. That was as you heard him say himself That was Christopher Stolzfus the ten -year -old son of one of our guests today

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Ephraim Stolzfus former member of the Amish community who? Was born from above received eternal life through the gospel of Jesus Christ and his redemptive death on Calvary and His coming to understand that that was the sole

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Reason he is now entering heaven that Christ paid the penalty for his sins.

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He did not earn in any way through his meritorious works

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An entrance into the kingdom of heaven He has now come to believe that this is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and in studio

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Also is the man who was very instrumental instrumental? By God's sovereign hand to lead him to Christ through Bible studies that he was conducting with The Amish and those who had just recently left the

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Amish community Chuck Volo who is the pastor of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland and Just so you folks can look up that church

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After the station after the program's over you can go to new life, Maryland org

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That's new life MD org new life MD the abbreviation for Maryland org and Before the break

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Chuck Volo. We were talking about the remarkable similarities between the old -school

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Roman Catholicism the Roman Catholicism that is The Catholicism of the

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Council of Trent and even the Catholicism that was prevalent in varying degrees up into the mid 20th century even when my

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Oldest brothers were in Catholic school and so on They were told that they if they even set foot in a

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Protestant Church They were going to hell that kind of thing It was a totally different Catholic Church than we see today and that's actually an overstatement

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It appears as if it's a totally different Catholic Church, but the dogma is still the same the dogma that Anathematizes all of us who believe in the gospel of free and sovereign grace that is still on the books as the main true unchangeable dogma of Rome even though we may have the most liberal

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Pope that ever has Professed to see sit in the seat of Peter but if you could tell us something about in your own experience being a former

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Catholic the Remarkable similarities between what you've heard from the Amish and your own experience.

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Yeah I think what you just said Chris about on the one hand the disparity between the very ornate elaborate

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Roman Catholic system with its Ornate cathedrals and the simplicity and plainness of the

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Amish who don't even believe in church buildings You know, they meet in homes but I think it points to the reality that the default religion of the human heart because of our pride is self salvation self -righteousness because both systems are

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Fatally flawed in that they believe that there's something of our own righteousness that gets mixed in with the grace of God to save us and As my wife and myself would share our testimonies with our

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Amish friends in earlier years She having gone to 12 years of Catholic school They would resonate with our stories and they would say well that sounds a lot like the

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Amish and of course We were aware that it is and we were trying to point to the fact that I'll point them away from that Self -salvation that is characteristic of both

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Systems it is man's default Religion to trust at least partially in himself rather than totally in the grace of God as you said faith the grace of God through faith in Christ alone

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So, yeah Our testimonies have definitely resonated with with the Amish because of the the similarities in the system

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Even though the Amish are far removed. It's interesting how it's come full circle We had the

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Reformation, you know led by Luther we're in the 500th anniversary of that now and then you had the radical

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Reformation with the Anabaptists and the Amish being a subdivision of of the

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Anabaptists and yet their religion is Basically the same in terms of its essential trust as the

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Roman Catholics that we're trusting in our own works No growing up Amish you from did you ever hear any of the stories about the

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Reformation or even Menno Simmons who seems to be hero amongst Anabaptist. Did you know anything about him?

35:36

Mm -hmm. Yeah, we did. We would have heard a lot about Especially we would heard about men of Simmons a little but we would have heard a lot about the the martyrs

35:48

There's a book called the martyrs mirror and that's a book that's in every Amish home and it has stories of all the martyrs from Apostles and through the ages

35:58

Ending probably around the 1800s. Someone took an instant instance intensive amount of time and put together an amazing volume of Martyrs, and so we would have heard a lot about that and would have held high regards

36:12

To our forefathers that have been martyred for their faith Well, these primarily

36:17

Mars that were Anabaptist or no, okay, these are like Protestants who were martyred by Rome you mean

36:24

It includes a lot of Anabaptist. Yeah, it includes a lot of Baptists. I'm like Fox's Book of Martyrs It would include it would be pretty heavy on Anabaptist Martin, right, but I'm assuming though the the true message of what the

36:37

Reformation stood before the pillars of the Reformation of salvation by grace alone

36:42

Through faith alone in Christ alone according to the scriptures alone for the glory of God alone

36:49

That was not something that was Conveyed obviously as a part of your religious life. Hmm.

36:54

Well, I never heard about that Okay, and you said something earlier that that did puzzle me when you were a child the

37:03

Gideons would What was it once a year every other year every other year? Give you the the

37:09

New Testament it puzzled me because I thought from watching the documentary that you were featured in a

37:15

Trouble in Amish paradise that the English Bible was forbidden in the Amish community and it had to be in classic

37:21

German And there are some varied opinions on that. So somehow the

37:27

Gideons got their foot in the door And gave out their Bibles In our home, my father was not against having an

37:36

English Bible He his own New Testament is German and English side -by -side and he thought it was a good idea in My wife's family.

37:48

They would have not allowed them to read the English Bible Or very very limited

37:53

English Bible reading so it goes a lot by family or community And It would have to do with some misunderstanding that Or it would have to do with the understanding that when people start reading the

38:07

Bible in English. They typically leave the Amish and if you're

38:12

Amish and you've been baptized, that's when you supposedly become a member of the

38:17

Amish Church and After that, you can't leave the Amish Church ever If you do they consider you a heretic of the faith

38:27

You would be shunned and excommunicated and you would die if you were to die in that state you would go to hell

38:33

That's what they would typically would believe not all of them. It varies, but that's that that is what they believe and so therefore anything that Will bring a person to leave the

38:46

Amish is frowned upon and in the past when revival has come people would start reading the

38:51

Bible in English because it's a language they could understand and they God would open their eyes and They would get saved and eventually they would leave the

39:01

Amish and so people associate reading the Bible If you start reading the Bible a lot and you're reading it in English You're gonna it probably leave the

39:09

Amish and so they don't want to do that because they don't want you to go to hell And it's interesting that you say that they don't want you to read the

39:17

Bible because you'll actually discover what's in it Yeah, because most people do not speak authentic German.

39:22

It's a dialect that you speak correct Our first language is Pennsylvania Dutch. The second language is English and the third language is

39:28

German and Is there a word I kept using the phrase classic

39:34

German what is there a better term to describe that? It's actually the German that we speak that we read in and some people can speak a little bit would be

39:43

Lutheran German It's sometimes called high German or hulk Deutsch And then the

39:49

Bible that is used would be the the translation of Luther Luther Luther's translation Yeah, which is interesting because Luther wrote it to put the

39:57

Bible in the hands of the common German people Yes, and now it's used to shield the

40:03

Amish people from the Bible They best understand the English it isn't that ironic and it goes all the way even back to the parallel with Rome insisting on Latin mass for for so many years until Fairly recent history,

40:18

I think in Vatican to the 1960s was when the English mass became the acceptable common form of Their public worship.

40:29

In fact, my my older brothers who were altar boys they had to know a little bit of Latin when they were doing when they were participating in the

40:39

Celebration of the mass when I by the time I was a young Catholic Man a young boy in the

40:45

Catholic Church Vatican to had already come about and so we were hearing it in English and and I remember we were all given at some point or either we were given or our parents had to buy them

40:59

I can't remember what we were given Good news for modern man Bible English Bibles that sat in our desks and very rarely to the nuns who are our teachers ever

41:09

Have a study them or read them or break them open for anything but so the

41:18

That you said that you are you were troubled by really understanding what sin was because you were being told a lot of things would have you condemned things that Your average

41:30

Christian outside of the Amish community would be doing in a normal As a part of their normal way of life that would that would not be considered any way an offense to God because it's not

41:40

Prohibited in the Scriptures just name some of those things that for example things that I would have struggled with would have been

41:49

Some of the rules would have been you can't have cows that have registered that are Have a certain bloodline because they don't

41:59

Their list of rules is is is almost endless But so a better example might be

42:08

Listening to having a radio When I was a young man with the youth group some of my friends had radios and so I wanted to have a radio and They had a rule that said you cannot have a radio.

42:23

So that would have been one example Wearing certain clothes like we were some shoes.

42:29

We had dress codes. Our shoes are supposed to be brown or black You weren't allowed to have white on your shoes

42:37

Depends how lenient your family was you'd be okay to have a shoe that would have a white maybe strip on the side but you would never wear white shoes, or if you would everyone would frown upon you and Many numerous things and in the documentary

42:55

There was even a comment. I don't know if you made it or one of the other primary

43:00

Amish Folks who left the community who were being featured in the documentary

43:05

But one of you said that even wearing the wrong kind of suspenders Would have a condemnation from God over you

43:13

And the reason that you would be condemned for wearing those suspenders is not because God necessarily says it's right or wrong

43:20

But because the church said that in order to be in this church you have to wear your suspenders the way that we say you will have to wear them and If you don't then you're rebellious in their eyes and Therefore you're a rebel and if you're rebellious against the church

43:36

Then you're rebellious against God as well because they believe the church has the right to make rules they would take Matthew 18 where it says that two or three agree, then

43:45

God will honor it, but I Believe the Bible says that what we have what we bind on earth what we bind on earth

43:52

Has to be already been bound in heaven We can't make rules that God hasn't enforced and So it is not as much as Yeah, that that's right

44:05

So if you it's if you break one of the rules then your rebellious toward the church and God won't honor you

44:11

God won't bless you And the other one would be we were discussing over lunch

44:18

The Amish man is supposed to have a beard but not a mustache And now you do you have a both a beard and a mustache

44:25

But but if you had a mustache you would be under some kind of discipline, wouldn't you? Yeah, because they would first say you should take the mustache off like my uncle.

44:34

I met with him He left the Lancaster County Amish and he told me he wanted to have him

44:40

He didn't want to shave his beard his mustache The reason he didn't want to save his mustache was because he saw when he bought his razor blade

44:48

This would have been back in the 40s probably or 50s He saw they were charging sales tax or luxury tax or something on the razor blade

44:55

He was like, I don't want to pay that tax. So I'm not gonna buy a razor blade. So he just used a scissors and And cut off his mustache instead of the blade and he was like, well, this is so silly and and so he just decided to move out of Lancaster County and he moved to another area that they didn't have to they could

45:14

Have a short mustache So There you go folks the the strictest fundamentalist that you know the most judgmental of fundamentalists that you could have possibly met or heard of now sounds like a hippie in comparison a rebellious

45:34

Kami hippie but anyway speaking of Kami The Amish live in a very communal fashion

45:43

What is that Communal life about I mean

45:52

Are you living in the same function as the world around you where the blacksmith gets paid for everything he does the the carpenter gets paid for everything he does the grocer gets paid or is there any kind of Barter system going on there.

46:14

Mm -hmm in our community. Most everything is paid for There would be under the farming community

46:20

You would perhaps keep track of the hours that you worked because you would help each other like when it was time to harvest the crops

46:27

The neighbors that live closest together would all help each other So one day you'd be at my farm the next day we'd be at your farm

46:33

And we just help each other get the crops in so we might keep track of the hours Maybe I work 10 hours. Maybe you work 20 and at the end of the harvest season

46:40

We sit together and maybe do some kind of money exchange to even that out or some kind of rent on the equipment

46:47

But for the most part, it's I have my some of my property. You have some of yours. We'll share it as needed

46:53

But there's expect that you would pay for it. And if it broke when you had it, you'd fix it and perhaps we could clear up some of the

47:02

False assumptions that many of us outside of the Amish community have had what is the

47:10

Deal with the Amish and electricity. Why don't you straighten that issue out?

47:16

So electricity is just one of the many rules that they have chosen to For whatever the reason may be to say we don't want to have this and for electric

47:25

I don't know what the rule was, but the Amish tried to stay away from They'll say well we don't want to be like the world they say

47:32

Romans the Bible says Romans 12 2 says that we shouldn't be conformed to this world and So they say we don't want to be like the world.

47:38

We want to we have to be different We have to be separate from the world. And so I'm not sure how they made this rule that you shouldn't have electricity

47:47

My assumption would be that first the English people the people that weren't Amish had electricity but back in the early 1900s

47:54

Everyone drove horse and buggy So somewhere somebody came in with this we don't want to have electricity and they established a rule and so to this day

48:03

In my home growing up my father's house. We didn't have any electricity. There was we had

48:09

Our refrigerator and our cookstove would have ran off of propane gas so The laundry machine ran off of air and pneumatic air pressure

48:19

The well pump was off of air pneumatic air So we had a lot of the modern conveniences that you would have enjoyed growing up as well we just didn't have a microwave and That's probably about the only thing that we didn't have as far as technology goes other than TV and radio and things like that The Amish have started using solar and they'll charge a big battery pack and then off the battery pack

48:44

They'll use an inverter that takes it from 12 volt DC into 110 and then they'll run some stuff

48:50

They might have electric sewing machines now Fans, they might have some electric fans Not many lights yet So it's starting to change a little bit

49:01

There's if you would have power coming off the main line into your house You'd probably be get a visit from the somewhere from the church and saying this shouldn't be

49:10

So the rules the rules will change as people Hmm as people start like let's say there's a rule that says you shouldn't have electricity

49:19

So they've figured now a way out to make their own electricity and so it's not

49:25

Frowned upon as much because it's not reliance upon the city or government or well not about the city or government

49:32

It's just it's not no one ever done it like that and so if you can make it your your own way and you're not becoming like the world you can kind of do it because No one else has it.

49:41

And so you're not really like of this world. I think part of part of the rationale too is

49:48

I've often well over the last 10 years come to see the Amish as a cult of culture

49:54

They want to propagate the culture which means they want to keep the culture Cloistered from the world so to be connected to the main power grid opens them up to the society

50:05

Opens them up to telephones, for example, you know, and it seems like a lot of the rationale is to promote

50:14

Community and promote cloistered community, for example they in the early days and perhaps even today they would allow a phone if it's a

50:25

In a phone shanty so that it's a shared phone so that it promotes community but if everybody has their own phone and of course cell phones, you know, or We're Bolton because it very much individualizes you and cuts you off from the community.

50:40

So there is kind of an underlying Philosophical rationale behind a lot of the rules and it is what promotes community and Protects the

50:51

Amish from too much exposure to the outside world to guard against what Eve is saying the worldliness so there is kind of a method to their madness in some of those rules and It's what promotes community and what undermines community?

51:06

and as you were Relating over the over lunch there are differences of Laws rules

51:16

From community to community you have different levels of strictness and so on if you could comment on that Unity will have their own set of rules in some communities

51:30

They'll be written some communities it's just a verbal rules that have been memorized from generations

51:37

Each community has the freedom to make their own rules Unless they would be like a like a daughter or as a daughter church from established settlement like Lancaster County as The county fills up with people the farms get expensive.

51:52

They look to other states and they move there and then they'll be considered a daughter Settlement from Lancaster County and that settlement will stay under the leadership of Lancaster County So most settlements around have some

52:08

Relationship to some other settlement somewhere and they'll go by those rules from that that they grew up with or that that settlement had be passed over to that new settlement and they could vary as much as The Amish have a lot of standards that are the same all across America and Canada that you'll find if it's an

52:27

Amish community you're going to find these certain things they'll all be dressed with usually black or gray pants some might have a

52:35

Bluish, but that's very different They'll they'll make their own clothes they'll have certain dress patterns that have been passed down from generation to generation that they'll follow

52:48

So there's a lot of similarities when you move around to different communities but there's also a lot of variations as far as the typical life as do you ride a bike or do you ride a scooter do you drive a bogey with all

53:02

With a steel wheel or does it have a little bit of rubber on it is your bogey The certain shape or does it have a little different style?

53:11

It all varies by what their father had or their grandfather had and what the elders decide No, I've noticed that some of the the buggies since I live in Pennsylvania now and I've been in areas where there are

53:21

Amish In fact, there are some Amish who come right here down the road on North Hanover Street or right at the intersection of South and North Hanover Street Hanover Street and High Street There's a farmer's market and you have

53:38

Amish there But I've noticed that some of the Amish buggies have the battery -operated lights over the

53:47

License plate, but we're gonna get back to that in a moment. We have to go to a station break right now If you'd like to join us our email address is

53:54

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Chris Arns And before I return to my interview with Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland And Ephraim Stolzfus, a former member of the

01:03:28

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Well, we are back now with our discussion With Chuck Volo, pastor of New Life Community Church In Kingsville, Maryland And by the way,

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I'll repeat that URL For those of you who want to investigate this church Learn more about it and perhaps even visit it

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If you live in Maryland or happen to be visiting there NewLifeMD .org

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NewLifeMD, the abbreviation for Maryland .org And we have also

01:06:25

Ephraim Stolzfus The former Amish individual

01:06:31

Who has come to Christ, saving faith in Christ Who has left the works righteous treadmill of Pelagianism And has discovered the true gospel of free grace

01:06:45

And has embraced it And we praise God for that And our guest

01:06:50

Chuck Volo was instrumental Through Bible studies he was conducting In leading

01:06:55

Ephraim to Christ As well as some other Amish folks And you can learn more about Ephraim's story

01:07:03

In a documentary called Trouble in Amish Paradise Which you can Google and find it somewhere on the internet

01:07:09

But you can also find it on YouTube in its entirety That's Trouble in Amish Paradise And Ephraim, before the break we were talking about Some of the strict regulations about the

01:07:25

Amish That they vary from community to community They may be more severe in some communities

01:07:31

More lenient in others And they may even have One community may have a more strict view on one thing

01:07:38

But have a more lenient view on another Where the other community has a reverse attitude Towards those two different issues

01:07:46

If you could also let our listeners know About the differences between Mennonites and the

01:07:51

Amish And also some of the other splinter groups Like the German Baptists, the

01:07:56

Dunkards The ones that believe in triune immersion and so on Do you know anything about those other groups?

01:08:06

Some Primarily the Mennonite and Amish Doctrinally they're basically the same

01:08:14

I do believe that in the Mennonite community There are horse and buggy Mennonites They're called

01:08:20

Old Order Mennonites They would believe similar to what the Amish do doctrinally

01:08:26

Then you would have other Mennonites that drive cars And some of them might even have more saving faith

01:08:32

In their congregations than what the Old Orders do Or they do a lot more There's the big difference between the

01:08:40

Old Order Mennonites And the Old Order Amish They both drive horse and buggy

01:08:46

So that's similar But the Mennonites have electricity The Amish don't The Mennonites use tractors in their fields

01:08:52

The Amish don't And the list goes on and on And it was just, again, a matter of preference

01:08:58

Or a matter of culture Or a matter of something that was established years ago And so there's still that distinction Even the ones that drive cars

01:09:04

Don't they have certain colors that they're restricted to? Black? Certain groups There are certain groups that They want to stay away from the world as well

01:09:12

And then as you move up the ladder in progression As far as culture goes Somebody all of a sudden got the idea that Wait, what this verse means is

01:09:21

Well, they got the true understanding of what the world is In 1 John we read that the world

01:09:26

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye And the pride of life That those things are what we're supposed to stay away from And not so much a different culture

01:09:36

C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York Wants to know If you're married and if so, how did you meet your wife?

01:09:44

Good question, C .J. Yes, I'm married I have seven children And we met by When you turn around the age of 16

01:09:53

You're expected to join the youth group In your church Or the different districts And our youth group

01:09:58

I joined Had a large Usually like 100, 150 youth in that youth group

01:10:05

And my wife was part of that youth group As same as I was And so we would meet The youth group would meet on a

01:10:11

Sunday And you would play some games together Play volleyball, play softball And in the evening you would sing hymns

01:10:17

And always there was a big meal And that was kind of the extent of the youth group Other than some work bees

01:10:23

When you had to do some work to help people out And so when I was 18 I first kind of really took an interest in Amanda Who's my wife now

01:10:29

And we started a courtship And we were married when we were 20 And was this something that was coerced

01:10:36

Or did you really love this young woman When you met her? No, yeah, it's

01:10:42

I chose to ask her to start a courtship Unlike some cultures where The parents are more involved

01:10:50

In making that decision In some Amish cultures? No, not in Amish cultures

01:10:57

Other cultures of the world, yeah Chuck, you wanted to say something? Yeah, it's an interesting irony That as controlling as the

01:11:04

Amish are In their system about Every detail of life As Eve was saying I mean the width of the brim on your hat

01:11:11

And your suspenders They're very loose When it comes to the relationship

01:11:16

Between young man and young woman They're very hands off In an area where They could use to have more oversight

01:11:25

And control and guidance Isn't it fairly loose, Eve? It's kind of an irony

01:11:30

Real strict over here But real loose over here Maybe you could speak a little bit about The Amish courtship system

01:11:35

It might surprise people That with all the control in other areas There's very little control You would almost think,

01:11:41

Chris That it would be an arranged marriage They're arranging everything else in your life Why wouldn't they arrange your marriage?

01:11:47

Maybe you could speak to that Well, I just thought of it now So they're very concerned

01:11:54

About the things that really don't matter Don't matter in God's eyes But the things that do matter in God's eyes

01:12:01

There's less concern And that's alarming Maybe you could even explain What you mean by that The detail, actually

01:12:08

Okay, so Colossians says that Okay, so if we're dead

01:12:13

To the rudiment of this world Why then are we subject To the things like Touch not, taste not, handle not

01:12:18

Well, an Amish person Doesn't know that that verse is in the Bible And so they are subject to these things

01:12:24

They're subject to most things But when it comes to courtship It's, um Yeah, there's no teaching on courtship

01:12:32

What is a biblical courtship I remember when my older brothers Were in their courtship

01:12:39

We wouldn't even meet Their girlfriend They would come in like the back door

01:12:45

And go into the living room And there they would visit That's changed now To where Like my nephews and nieces

01:12:52

When their girlfriends Or boyfriends are around They're actually maybe part of the family

01:12:57

But prior to 20 years ago 25 years ago You might not even meet

01:13:03

That girl that's going to become Your son -in -law or your daughter -in -law Until maybe just a couple months Before the wedding And so there's very little direction

01:13:10

Given to courtship You know, how to have a pure courtship Those things Arnie in Perry County wants to know

01:13:20

About What is your guest's opinion On the reality programs

01:13:26

That involve Amish families Including one about a so -called Amish Mafia I have never watched

01:13:33

Amish Mafia It's so radical And so off the wall It's pathetic Do you think it's even real? I know some of the actors

01:13:39

And it was all a show All put on Really? Yeah So you know personally You call them actors

01:13:46

Are they actually Amish people? Some of them were Some of them were not Really? Yeah See there goes reality for you folks

01:13:54

I have told some of my friends Who are addicted to reality shows That they should really second guess

01:14:01

What they think is reality On a lot of these programs But you would think that That actually brings me

01:14:11

To another question Perhaps you could clarify The whole concept of photography

01:14:17

And not only taking Still photographs of people But filming them

01:14:22

Is that truly something That's forbidden? That is, that is true And they would take it from The second commandment

01:14:29

Where you're not supposed to Have any graven images of God Or have any graven images

01:14:34

And so they would say If you take a picture That could become A graven image

01:14:39

And so that's The reason they don't have pictures So if you want to take a picture Of an Amish person

01:14:45

He doesn't mind As long as he doesn't see it Hmm Oh okay As long as he doesn't see it

01:14:51

As long as he doesn't see it It's okay But if he's looking at you You shouldn't take his photo But if he's out in the field

01:14:56

Working and he doesn't notice it Or he can't do anything about it That's different But he would view you

01:15:02

As an idolater for doing that No he wouldn't No No he would just say That's the way you want to do it

01:15:08

And the Amish are very generous Very They allow you to do

01:15:13

What you think is right But they want to do What they think is right So yeah

01:15:19

There has been like superstition About the reasoning That I've heard over the years

01:15:25

Like they think that you're capturing Their soul or some nonsense No no That has nothing to do with it Never crosses your mind

01:15:30

No So the commandment About graven images Would not be solely involving

01:15:38

Attempts at making images Of God or deities To be adored and worshipped And bowed down to It's any kind of an image

01:15:46

Yes On an Amish person's mind I don't know why Pictures That's just what they stand on And say that's why

01:15:51

We shouldn't do pictures And there is a rule I don't know if it's universal

01:15:57

Amongst the Amish But little girls can have dolls Up to a certain age

01:16:02

But the dolls can never have faces on them Is that Maybe in some communities Years ago it might have been so It was not so in our community

01:16:09

Okay So they could have dolls At any age Yeah as long as they wanted to Yeah Then why wasn't that Considered an image

01:16:17

You know Probably never crossed her mind Or if it did They would have said

01:16:22

Well our forefathers Saw it to be okay So it must be okay Well Was your wife

01:16:31

Following right along with you When you were being drawn to the Lord Was she also having the same

01:16:37

Curiosity Or even hunger for truth And a burden As to how

01:16:44

She could be made right with God Knowing that every day There was sin in her life I mean was she going through The same kinds of things as you were

01:16:51

Yes she was I think most people Are at that place Most Amish people are at that place

01:16:57

Where they long to know That they can be right with God There is a high rate of antidepressants

01:17:04

Used by Amish people In Lancaster County I don't know what the rate would be Maybe 15 -20 % of Amish people

01:17:10

Would be on antidepressants They view that as acceptable Yeah they do

01:17:16

And They've been on it for years and years And So a lot of depression

01:17:23

Comes in my opinion Comes from not knowing Whether or not you Where you stand with God Most Amish people

01:17:30

Would long to have that question answered And so my wife of course was seeking Just as I was seeking

01:17:36

And So she was very supportive Of me going to Bible study

01:17:42

I told her I'm going to go to Bible study It was on a Saturday morning I was invited by Amos Kaufman To go to Bible study

01:17:49

And So I told her I'm going to go to Bible study So I was getting ready to go Because the driver was coming

01:17:55

To pick us up And driver meaning Like someone who had a car Because I didn't have a car So we'd have to ride with someone

01:18:01

So we could get there In decent time And And She said Are you going to take your

01:18:06

Bible? And I was like Well I guess I should It's a Bible study But which Bible What Bible do I take along? So she went and got her

01:18:12

Gideon's She had a Gideon's Bible in English Because she was a school teacher And the

01:18:17

Gideon's Would give the teacher The Bible in English And the students The New Testament And then the teacher Would read every morning

01:18:22

A chapter from the English Bible At school So she gave me her Gideon's Bible to take along To the Bible study

01:18:27

Otherwise I would have just had My German Bible And Going back to Specific views

01:18:36

Religiously of the Amish Were you taught to view All other

01:18:41

Even Christian denominations Or professedly Christian All other Protestants even

01:18:47

As people who were damned Who were going to hell? No Again the Amish are very generous And so they would say

01:18:53

As long as you As long as you stay in Whatever your parents taught you

01:18:58

You're fine And you'll make it You'll go to heaven A lot of it is Whether you're obeying

01:19:03

What your parents did Yeah Exactly Because you would wonder Then why wouldn't it be Acceptable for you to leave

01:19:09

That community And become a Baptist Or something But that is because You are violating

01:19:16

The tradition of your parents Yep And you know honoring Your father and mother They would take the word Honor as obey So they hold a lot

01:19:25

A lot of respect To that commandment Bebe in Cumberland County Pennsylvania Wants to know about The time of the season

01:19:36

When young people Are expected to sow Their wild oats Again it's a misconcept

01:19:43

When you turn 16 That's when you're expected To join the youth group And everyone looks forward

01:19:49

To that time And what happens is You get together On a Sunday usually And you play some games

01:19:54

You do some hymn singing And that's when you get introduced To other young people And eventually meet

01:20:00

Your spouse It is at that time That it depends

01:20:05

Which youth group you join That they might be A wild youth group Where they might have Alcohol and drugs and cars

01:20:12

And so most young people Choose to go with A more conservative youth group Unless they really want

01:20:17

That kind of life But most of them don't want They know They understand the fear of God They are afraid of God And they don't want to go to hell

01:20:24

And so they want to try To live a good life But what happens Is they join this Maybe I join a youth group

01:20:30

That was kind of conservative But our youth group

01:20:36

Because we all have large families You all have older brothers

01:20:42

And they might have started At a conservative group But their group progressed Within four or five years

01:20:47

They can become pretty wild And because there is just Lots of peer pressure And unconverted people together

01:20:54

Without supervision And things go crazy And so now you have Older brothers in your house

01:20:59

Who they might have radios And they might be drinking But you don't want to do that So you go join a group That doesn't do that But because you all have

01:21:06

Older brothers And there is peer pressure And you are not converted In a couple of years You are doing what you Didn't want to do And then your group

01:21:12

Is no longer conservative But it is liberal And so it is that time When you are turned sixteen You say okay

01:21:18

They don't expect you to go And sow your wild oats But it does happen

01:21:24

And then you say Well wait a minute This is not what I want to do I don't want this For the rest of my life And so you say

01:21:29

Well how do I change Well I guess I'll get baptized And so they hope That that fixes the problem And a lot of people

01:21:35

Who are wild in their youth When they choose to settle down They usually become very religious

01:21:41

And very strict And orthodox Now where is this concept I've heard of I am probably going to Mispronounce it

01:21:48

But Rumspringa Rumspringa That is the period That they are talking about So is it a totally false idea

01:21:54

That I have been led to believe Where the adults

01:21:59

And the church leaders Turn a blind eye To drunkenness And experimentation To let them actually make

01:22:05

A conscious decision To remain in the Amish Or to follow the world Again it is a misconception

01:22:11

There is an Amish boy Who doesn't grow up thinking Am I going to stay Amish Or am I not going to stay

01:22:16

Amish Amish is his life It is his community It is all he ever knew And he doesn't want anything else

01:22:23

Normally Because they have a good life For the most part And so You do have to make a conscious choice

01:22:33

To join the Amish church You have to make that choice

01:22:39

And if you choose not to No one is angry at you You can choose not to be

01:22:45

Joining the Amish church And you can get a car And be happy with your family There is no problems there

01:22:53

If you don't I shouldn't say there is no problems Some people might say Why isn't your son joining the church

01:22:58

Why is he still driving his car But it is not like There is going to be discipline Or anything like that If he is living a wild life

01:23:07

Drinking and things like that They will frown upon that Because they do have regard for the Bible And they know that drinking is wrong

01:23:12

But they know that driving a car isn't wrong They know it is not wrong to drive a car But if you join the church

01:23:18

And then you go against the rules of the church Then it becomes wrong in their eyes So If I would have decided to get a car

01:23:28

My parents wouldn't have rejected me And threw me out They would have been sad Because they wanted me to be

01:23:34

Amish But it wouldn't have been as bad as it is today Chuck, you had something you wanted to say? Yeah, we were talking earlier

01:23:40

About how the Amish are very strict and controlling In areas that aren't really that spiritually consequential

01:23:46

But with areas that matter Where parental oversight, advice, counsel

01:23:53

Would be helpful They are kind of hands off And isn't it true with the

01:23:58

Roma Springa That even though When the children do things that are wild The parents don't endorse it

01:24:06

But their hands are kind of tied Because of the system So they do have to endure it Rather than stepping in There is a lot of stepping in that happens though If my father would have found my radio

01:24:18

He would have destroyed it I remember one night I wanted to go away

01:24:23

And I wanted to wear my white shoes So I had to hide my shoes in the barn Or in the shop So that they wouldn't destroy them

01:24:31

He saw me getting ready to leave With my white shoes And he was disappointed My heart hurt that I disappointed my father

01:24:38

And yet I wanted to be cool So I wore my white shoes So there will be some discipline done

01:24:45

Does that vary from family to family? Yes, it varies from family to family RJ in White Plains, New York Wants to know if it's

01:24:56

In any way An existing thing Among the

01:25:01

Amish In regard to Fornication amongst the young people

01:25:08

And drug use Heavier drug use Such as heroin and crack And things like that Obviously You're talking about lost people

01:25:17

So lost people When exposed to any kind of temptation May yield to it

01:25:24

And even Christians can yield to it Unfortunately Because we are not yet perfect on this earth

01:25:30

But The sheltering from these things

01:25:38

Has that made it nearly non -existent Or perhaps even non -existent

01:25:43

Those kinds of extreme levels of Of openly wicked behavior Or are they things that you are aware of Happening there?

01:25:52

I never was introduced to drugs at all My youth group was conservative

01:25:58

So it wasn't until maybe a few years After we got married That our youth group would have got into drugs

01:26:04

So I was spared from that, praise God As far as fornication That's really rare There Again, it would be because it would be unacceptable

01:26:17

And so Only someone who's really discouraged Or really depressed

01:26:22

And is longing for some other form of love Would he go to that means

01:26:28

Because it would not be accepted If somebody would find out That they had a relationship It would be very frowned upon And the person would be ashamed of himself

01:26:39

Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York Wants to know Are the rumors true that child abuse

01:26:45

Is rampant among the Amish community Because they are sheltered from the outside world? Well, the rumors are definitely true

01:26:53

Sexual abuse is very rampant That's Yeah, that's one of the great sins

01:26:59

Of the Amish community Sexual abuse And this would be primarily Just your typical older man

01:27:07

Or would it be in the clergy? No, it would be anyone Siblings Siblings, yeah

01:27:13

Fathers Siblings Fathers molesting their own children Yeah Wow Wow Yeah, it's something that's not taught against And it's hidden When it happens

01:27:24

People don't acknowledge it If they do acknowledge it You know, it's very shameful But it happens all the time

01:27:30

How about Are women known to do these things as well? No I would have never heard that, yeah

01:27:36

Wow We're going to our final break right now If you'd like to join us on the air With a question of your own

01:27:42

Over the remaining half hour Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

01:27:48

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com Don't go away

01:27:54

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01:32:35

Of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Welcome back If you just tuned us in For the last 90 minutes

01:32:41

We have been interviewing Ephraim Stolzfus Who is a former member Of the Amish community

01:32:46

Who is now a born -again believer In Christ Jesus And with him in studio Is my friend

01:32:52

Pastor Chuck Volo Of New Life Community Church In Kingsville, Maryland And their website is

01:32:59

NewLifeMD Short for Maryland NewLifeMD .org If you'd like to join us on the air

01:33:05

Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

01:33:11

We have Joe from Slovenia Who says Brother Chris, sorry that I didn't hear

01:33:17

The first half of the broadcast Please ask about Amish who convert to Christianity Who stay in the community

01:33:24

Are there Amish Who come to true faith in Christ Who stay in the Amish community

01:33:29

As evangelists What is it like For a genuine Christian To share the true gospel

01:33:34

Among and within The Amish community Excellent questions I'd be glad to answer that one

01:33:42

It's a very good question We have to separate Amish The community

01:33:50

And It is possible to It's a hard question because In Lancaster County where I grew up There's probably about 25 % of the people are

01:34:02

Amish The rest of the people are Non -Amish people Which you call English English Or yeah

01:34:08

English or Mennonite Or other groups And so when I became a Christian My burden was

01:34:14

And still is today To reach the Amish people And I tried to stay Within the church

01:34:19

The Amish church So that I could reach the people But it's impossible To stay within the church Because twice a year

01:34:25

You have to verbally agree To their list of rules Which as a Christian I didn't I never agreed to their rules

01:34:31

And so I just would lie Every time council church would come Before I was a Christian I would lie

01:34:36

Say that I do agree Because if you don't agree Then you're considered a rebel And you'll be excommunicated

01:34:41

And it's very, very seldom That an unconverted person Will stand up And go against the flow

01:34:48

Because the pressure is tremendous And separation from family Is almost impossible without Christ There are exceptions

01:34:56

But it's very few And so when I became a Christian I said well I can't lie

01:35:01

I'm not in agreement with these rules And I can't be in agreement I mean they're just impossible

01:35:08

And I wanted to be Amish So I just made an open confession Said I'm sorry I lied

01:35:13

For all these years I have never been in agreement With these rules I want to do my best to follow them

01:35:20

But I want to be honest I want to be open And so that And then other things My evangelistic zeal

01:35:26

And I evangelize greatly Among the Amish people I took their confession of faith

01:35:32

And I took their doctrinal statements And I taught on them And especially on faith

01:35:37

On the new birth And what it means to be enlightened To be born again And I took their articles

01:35:43

And I taught on them And I published these articles Via voicemail Postcards People would be able to receive a postcard

01:35:52

And then call in And listen to a message That had been preached and taught on And that was great trouble for me

01:35:59

Because that brought a lot of persecution So we did evangelize in those areas

01:36:05

And we evangelize in many other areas Like we would go to Where there's maybe a large gathering

01:36:12

And we would try to put Some gospel literature into their bogeys You don't want to go up to an

01:36:17

Amish person And give him a gospel tract Most times he won't accept it Unless he's all by himself

01:36:23

And you kind of know him It would be okay But if he's among other Amish people He'll reject it

01:36:28

Because he doesn't want to be considered Different or strange by his peers And so we would have to do everything secret

01:36:35

Everything where no one would see us And so we have done Lots of evangelistic efforts

01:36:41

And it is paying off in Lancaster County There are more and more people getting saved In Lancaster County Because of people having a burden

01:36:49

To reach the Amish However, I am not Amish today When I was born again I became a

01:36:55

Christian And my culture I stayed in the culture For about a year and a half And when I knew that it's impossible

01:37:01

For the Amish church to reform I knew I'm not changing I'm not going to believe what the Amish believe

01:37:06

Because it's wrong And I will never recant of my faith And when I realized that the church

01:37:12

Isn't going to be reformed I knew that I can't continue I have to raise my family In some kind of church community

01:37:18

And so we had no other option But choose an American church

01:37:23

A good church to choose from But then that brings that separation

01:37:30

That cultural separation Between you and the people Because now you have a car And they have a horse And so when they're at the horse auction

01:37:37

You're at the car dealership Trying to buy a car So you don't interact like you used to And so if it's possible

01:37:43

To keep the culture Yes, I think it would be A good way to reach them And there are people that try it

01:37:49

And it's just It takes a lot of effort to do it But there are other ways

01:37:54

To reach the Amish people You can be an English person A non -Amish person

01:37:59

And be very effective In reaching the Amish Maybe Chuck, do you want to share on that?

01:38:05

Well, I was going to ask you Because most of the work I've done Was with Bible studies Where there were either converted

01:38:11

Amish Or the Amish themselves Were bringing their seeking friends Like Nicodemus, I'm assuming

01:38:17

Yeah, coming at night Because this would have been viewed As something wrong, sinful, right? Secretive, yeah

01:38:22

At night, secretive Kind of underground Bible studies So I've done very little Of cold turkey

01:38:28

And that's where I thought You could answer that better Sure, I could do some of that We did some evangelistic efforts

01:38:35

In our local community Our fire companies have a fundraiser In the springtime And it's a very large event

01:38:43

Maybe 5 ,000 to 10 ,000 Amish people Will be at this event And so we did for a number of years

01:38:50

In the public restrooms At these events We would go in And we'd put gospel literature

01:38:56

Inside the restroom And then we would have teams That would go around And keep filling up These little gospel literatures

01:39:03

And they were targeted To the Amish very much You could see that This was written for Amish people And that was effective

01:39:10

We also did a lot of Just trying to meet people Sharing with them one on one And that has been effective as well

01:39:17

And a thing Oh, I'm sorry, Chuck, go ahead Yeah, I was just going to ask Sometimes it's harder

01:39:22

For an excommunicated Amish To minister Because he's marked He's shunned

01:39:28

But that's where there's An open door for outsiders Correct And I would ask you, Eve For somebody who's in An Amish community

01:39:35

Maybe they're driving Amish But more likely They're just going to An Amish market

01:39:41

Where they've got some Social interaction with Amish What would you advise As the way to begin

01:39:47

What are some do's and don'ts To broach the, you know Begin a friendship with an

01:39:54

Amish To reach them So we're talking about Do's and don'ts To try to reach An Amish person to Christ Some of the do's

01:40:01

Would be become friends with them Learn about their life Learn who they are

01:40:07

Learn what they like Be available as a taxi driver If they need to go somewhere

01:40:12

In an emergency Maybe even offer Say, look, I hear You know, sometimes I know that, you know You don't drive cars

01:40:18

So if there's an emergency And you need to get to the hospital You call me I'll come right away Or you have a sick child I'll take you to the doctor

01:40:24

I won't charge you You say that You'll get a lot of Amish people To be your friends Because Too many

01:40:29

Too many They like free rides So become their friend

01:40:34

Be available As a, you know Driving them around If necessary And And then look for opportunities

01:40:41

To share Talk about your personal Relationship with the Lord How God speaks to you When you're reading the Bible And ask good questions

01:40:49

Like, you know What do they believe I would stay away from words

01:40:54

Like saved I'd stay away from words Eternal security Because they're taught very strongly You can never know

01:40:59

That you're saved You can't even know If you're born again The question I would ask I would say

01:41:04

Are your sins forgiven And most of them Will say Well, they hope They don't really know

01:41:11

And so then You might say the story About the man That had He was sick And they let His four friends

01:41:16

Let him down through the roof And Jesus looked at him And said Your sins are forgiven And say

01:41:22

How do you think it felt For that man To hear those words of Jesus And they would say Oh, wow, that was great I wish

01:41:27

I could hear those words And then you use You know, you just start sharing So, I would

01:41:32

I would target those things I was surprised When I was watching The documentary

01:41:37

Trouble in Amish Paradise That you were featured in That they really

01:41:42

Looked down upon With great disdain Any kind of Public evangelism

01:41:49

The passing out of tracts And things like that And even open air Preaching gatherings

01:41:56

And so on That surprised me It would It would just They would never know

01:42:01

Of their forefathers Ever doing that And so why would we Have to do that That was for the apostles You know

01:42:07

They would say It's also They have this idea Of pride Chokhmut And you know

01:42:13

For some We understand That salvation is by grace And when we say I know I'm saved

01:42:19

I know I'm going to heaven That's not a boastful Pride That's a confidence

01:42:24

In God But because of The works righteous system When they hear Somebody say that They say That's chokhmut

01:42:29

That's pride And if you're going around Telling other people And I've heard people

01:42:34

Accuse Eve of that Eve has been a very Zealous evangelist And I know he's doing it Because he He loves their souls

01:42:40

But Amish will interpret That as Well who does he think He is And it's rooted

01:42:45

In the works Righteous system And that actually Goes back again To the commonality With Rome That we were talking about The church of Rome They call it

01:42:54

The sin of presumption If you have a Confidence that you Are certainly Born again

01:43:00

And you are Going to heaven If you have that Kind of confidence You are viewed As being sinful

01:43:06

And being guilty Of the sin of presumption And what about the

01:43:11

Going back to some of the Unique elements Of what it means To be Amish The passivism aspect

01:43:17

I don't know how much Hollywood has distorted There's a very famous movie With Harrison Ford I think it's called

01:43:23

Witness Where he goes in hiding In the Amish community And pretends to be Amish But there's a scene where One of the local

01:43:33

Hoodlums in the community One of the local rednecks Or whatever he was Started slapping an

01:43:38

Amish man And he wasn't retaliating Because he is taught That he is not to Return violence with violence

01:43:45

Is that even real Is that That would be a real concept That's reality One of my favorite stories

01:43:51

Is an Amish Leader in my community He had a big hardware store And people

01:43:58

Sometimes people would Stop by and they would Steal from him And so one night He hears them And he goes out

01:44:03

And they're loading up Tools Brand new tools Onto their truck And he just kind of Grabbed the ladder

01:44:10

And he helped them And he put the ladder On the pickup truck And they looked at him And they left

01:44:15

And they never came back And as far as things That believe it or not

01:44:21

We who are Born -again believers We who are Evangelical Protestants Or whatever way

01:44:27

You want to describe it That we could learn From the Amish Like there was something Moving about the way

01:44:32

The community The Amish community Even though you were shunned When your daughter

01:44:38

Had been diagnosed with cancer There was a great Outpouring of love From the community Yes That's another great blessing

01:44:45

Of being raised Amish It's just part of you This is what you know to do

01:44:51

If somebody is in need It doesn't matter who they are It doesn't matter what they've done You go and help them

01:44:58

We had a little tornado That went through our community Years ago And I remember as a young boy We went out

01:45:04

And you know The next couple days That's all you did You'd go help people Clean up And you would go fix their roofs For them

01:45:09

And I remember one house In a development And we're like We'd like to fix that guy's roof But we couldn't

01:45:16

Because the insurance company Hadn't yet assessed the damage And given their approval to it And so there it sat

01:45:21

For a long time Untouched Whereas if They would have allowed us to It would have been fixed

01:45:27

In maybe a day Day and a half What about this thing That you hear about The barn raising

01:45:32

Like the whole community Building somebody's barn I mean are these people Being paid for this?

01:45:38

So for example Last week Down in York County There was an Amish man That has a very large business And he had a fire

01:45:44

And basically burnt This very large building 500 feet down to the ground And within hours

01:45:51

They've got maybe Hundreds of Amish people there And non -Amish people Cleaning up this mess

01:45:57

And this barn was 500 feet long And probably 60 feet wide

01:46:02

And very tall And different sections Different buildings And I suspect that building

01:46:08

Was back up within a week Wow And were these folks paid?

01:46:13

No no It was all volunteer That's amazing Go ahead Chuck Yeah I had a question for Eve Interested in his perspective

01:46:20

Many have heard about The tragedy of Nickel Mines When the 10 Amish girls were shot

01:46:26

And at least 5 or 6 died And much was made nationally

01:46:31

About Amish forgiveness In fact there was even a book Come out An Amish bishop wrote it

01:46:37

Amish Grace Now we know as Christians That we can only truly forgive

01:46:43

If we've been forgiven One man, Jay Adams Wrote a helpful book From Forgiven to Forgiving We cannot really forgive

01:46:51

In the biblical sense Imitating God Unless we've been forgiven And yet There is a lot of grace

01:46:58

That is shown To the offender To the man's wife And what would be

01:47:03

Your perspective on that Eve? What is the extent of And reality of Amish forgiveness

01:47:09

In a situation like that? Well When I think of forgiveness

01:47:15

Now as a Christian It's something that has happened And you forgot about it When I think of things

01:47:21

That happened in my past Before I was a Christian I would have said I forgive But I didn't forget

01:47:27

And to me That's the dividing line If you still remember And you have hard feelings

01:47:33

It's not forgiven I would Yeah I would echo that Only as Christians Can we truly forgive

01:47:42

In the way God forgives And yet The people are trained culturally Yes very much

01:47:47

Away from vindictiveness And by common grace I would say there's a lot more Common grace in the community

01:47:53

Than in society in general Because they're trained Not to be vengeful Not to be vindictive Even though it may not be

01:48:00

Special grace There is a lot of What we call common grace That they display in those situations

01:48:05

Does that make sense to you? Yes I agree with that 100 % Christian in Cumberland County asked

01:48:11

What is your relationship like With your Amish relatives today? Depends on their personality

01:48:17

So I have some That would think That I'm going to deceive them

01:48:23

And they want nothing to do with me Others are We can visit with them And talk about How's their life

01:48:29

How's their horses How are their cows What's going on with their business We can talk about those things And then I have a few

01:48:34

That I can actually talk Spiritual conversations with And how about your nephew Merv? Yes I just had a nephew

01:48:40

Who just got converted About almost a year ago Praise God Yeah And he's an evangelist

01:48:45

Yeah his wife as well Wow Yeah I even If I'm remembering correctly

01:48:50

Because it has been a while Since I saw Trouble in Amish Paradise The documentary But aren't there

01:48:56

Some groups Of former Amish Who were specifically Having gatherings Like open air preaching

01:49:04

In certain areas out there In the Lancaster area And other Amish areas Well I think

01:49:09

What happens a lot is You have Amish people That get converted And while they're still Amish They really have a heart

01:49:17

To reach out And so they'll reach out And they'll try to Teach others as well And then they'll have

01:49:22

Their own Christian meeting And then the time will come Where they get excommunicated And then they'll usually Just join another

01:49:28

Established church somewhere And you are currently Worshiping in a house church Correct And we like it

01:49:34

Because it's what the Amish did You meet in a house You don't have the expensive Building to maintain You don't have a

01:49:39

Large staff to pay So we meet in a house church And we do support One of the leaders there

01:49:48

But we like it How would it be different In regard to the ordinances

01:49:55

Like do you have Believer only baptism Or credo baptism Where you're immersed in water

01:50:00

Or are you still doing a fusion I think the Amish do a fusion Where they pour Right No, baptism

01:50:06

The Greek word would be Baptizo Which means to immerse So that is not the practice

01:50:12

Of the Amish No Yeah, well, effusion is Yeah That's what I meant But as a biblical

01:50:18

Christian Eve is now convinced That immersion is Immersion is baptism Right, right And he was immersed

01:50:24

And his wife was immersed Yeah A true Anabaptist Now those The ones that I mentioned earlier

01:50:30

The Dunkards Who do the triple immersion Are they not Amish Or are they Some kind of offshoot I don't know

01:50:36

Where their origin came from No, I don't know much about them Okay There are many different groups

01:50:41

In our communities And they all have Different sets of rules And understandings

01:50:47

Their basic principles Are the same As far as God and Jesus And some have more

01:50:53

Saving faith than others Well, I want to make sure That before we run out of time

01:50:58

That you give our listeners All of the contact information You want to give And Chuck I also want you to Just for at least

01:51:05

A minute or so Tell our listeners About your wife's Wonderful organization That I interviewed her on Perhaps two years ago

01:51:13

The SWAN group But anyway First you, Ephraim If you could let our listeners know

01:51:19

How they can contact you Sure If you're living in an Amish community Or you really have a heart

01:51:25

To reach out to the Amish I want you to just To contact me personally You're welcome to do that My email address is

01:51:33

Eph It's E -P -H Then the word and And my wife's name

01:51:39

Amanda At gmail .com So again it's E -P -H The word and And then

01:51:45

Amanda at gmail .com If you can't find the email address You can google

01:51:50

One of the business I'm part of It's called Kingdom Biofuel If you just google

01:51:55

Kingdom Biofuel It'll come up B -I -O -F -U -E -L Correct Kingdom Biofuel Correct Also if you're

01:52:06

Another contact to remember Is called Mission to Amish People It's a ministry called

01:52:11

MAP They focus on Reaching out to Amish people And so I would encourage you To reach out to them as well

01:52:17

And they do seminars To teach you Which also I would be glad To help with that I want to encourage you

01:52:24

To reach out You can make a difference To your Amish neighbors They are reachable

01:52:29

And God gives grace To preach the gospel

01:52:34

Jesus says Before he went to heaven He says Go and preach the gospel To every creature

01:52:39

He says All power in heaven And in earth Has been given unto me Go ye therefore

01:52:45

Because Jesus received all the power We are supposed to go And make disciples

01:52:50

And teach them And he says I'll be with you To the end of the world And I have that website

01:52:56

Right in front of me It's kingdombiofuel .com Correct Your business Kingdombiofuel .com

01:53:02

And Chuck Volo Your wife Spent a wonderful time

01:53:08

With her In the studio here And you were also present And we were talking about Swan Tell us about Swan And how our listeners

01:53:15

Can get in touch with your wife About that Okay My wife is a professionally trained violinist

01:53:21

And six years ago The Lord put on her heart To start a non -profit organization To teach free music lessons

01:53:29

And to give mentoring To children whose parents Have a history of incarceration

01:53:35

They are 70 % more likely To end up in prison themselves And the ministry

01:53:41

Or the work began In Lancaster County But it's something that she hopes Would be replicated

01:53:46

Throughout the nation And the organization is Swan S -W -A -N

01:53:52

Scaling walls A note at a time And the website is www .swan4kids

01:54:01

.org www .swan4kids .org

01:54:07

And she utilizes college students As well as professionals To teach the children Of the incarcerated music

01:54:13

Which is a wonderful means Of helping children Get free from their bondages

01:54:20

But of course Although it's not A Christian organization per se She's a

01:54:26

Christian The board is Christian And she exerts As much gospel influence As possible

01:54:31

Because we know that Ultimately it's Christ Who sets people free That's Swan S -W -A -N

01:54:39

The number for kids www .kids .org And of course Don't forget about www .newlifemd

01:54:47

.org The website for the church Where Pastor Chuck Volo Is the pastor

01:54:53

New Life Community Church In Kingsville, Maryland www .newlifemd .org

01:54:59

I'd like you each To close out the program With a couple of minutes each

01:55:05

With what you most want to leave Upon the hearts and minds Of our listeners Before they leave this program

01:55:10

We'll start with you Chuck And we'll finish with Ephraim Well The Lord Jesus Christ Gave us the great commission

01:55:19

As Ephraim said All authority has been given to me In heaven and on earth Going therefore Make disciples of all the nations

01:55:26

It is a privilege To bring the gospel To any culture Any people

01:55:31

Because God has purpose To save from every tribe, tongue

01:55:37

People and nation Of people purchased By the blood of his son The Amish community

01:55:42

Is a fairly closed community And fairly unreachable Because of their own

01:55:50

Cloistered community And the way they've cut Themselves off from society But it is a community

01:55:56

That has been penetrated By the gospel And we're grateful That God has taken

01:56:01

And will continue to take A people from among the Amish For his own possession So as Ephraim said

01:56:07

We urge you to If you have Amish contacts To pray for them Build a relationship with them

01:56:14

And ask the Lord To open up doors For you to share The saving gospel with them Ephraim and many others

01:56:21

Are evidence that God is saving Amish people It's been my privilege To work with them for 11 years And we have seen

01:56:29

Scores of Amish Not merely through my efforts Come to Christ Come to the saving gospel

01:56:35

Of Jesus Christ So don't hesitate To bring the good news to them Yes, it should not be assumed

01:56:41

That these are saved individuals They should be viewed As a mission field Yeah, absolutely They need the gospel

01:56:47

And Ephraim If you could also close now The program with your final thoughts So if you're listening today

01:56:54

And you are wondering How you can have a relationship with God Just start praying to God Ask Him to give you faith

01:57:03

Ask Him to teach you What it means to become His child If you're listening today And you're a Christian I'd like to just share a couple verses

01:57:10

From Ephesians chapter 5 Verse 10 and following Well 9

01:57:18

For the fruit of the Spirit Is in all goodness And righteousness and truth Proving what is acceptable Unto the Lord And have no fellowship

01:57:24

With the unfruitful works of darkness But rather reprove them For it is a shame Even to speak of those things

01:57:30

Which are done of them in secret But all things that are reproved Are made manifest by the light For whatsoever does make manifest

01:57:35

Is light And the Bible says That if we see a brother Go in error And we help him back

01:57:41

We save a soul from death And so I just want to encourage you If you're a Christian today To be diligent Do the work of the

01:57:47

Lord And let's live and prepare For the coming of our

01:57:53

Lord Amen Well thank you so much I also want to direct you to a website

01:57:58

The website of Chuck Volo's son Jeremy Volo Who some of you may have heard

01:58:04

An interview with On Iron Sharpens Iron Jeremy is a former Professional soccer player

01:58:10

With the San Antonio Scorpions And he is currently a pastor in Texas What's the name of that church?

01:58:16

Grace Community Church of Laredo, Texas That's right Grace Community Church of Laredo, Texas Which is a

01:58:23

Reformed Baptist congregation He recently got married To one of the Duggar girls

01:58:29

And her name is Ginger Spelt with a J Very unusual spelling of Ginger If you go to gingerandjeremy .com

01:58:40

Gingerandjeremy .com That's J -I -N -G -E -R -A -N -D J -E -R -E -M -Y .com

01:58:47

You will learn more about Chuck's son His ministry And of course his wife

01:58:53

Ginger And I look forward to Getting Jeremy And perhaps even

01:59:00

Ginger With him on the program In the very near future So you can let him know that And I'm looking forward to having him back

01:59:07

I want to thank everybody Who listened to the program today I want to thank all of you

01:59:13

Who are praying for Iron Sharpens Iron That it remains on the air I want to thank all of you

01:59:19

Who are praying about giving To Iron Sharpens Iron Or becoming an advertiser But I hope that you all have a safe And blessed and joyful weekend

01:59:27

And especially a Lord's Day That truly honors our Savior and King Christ Jesus And I hope you all always remember

01:59:37

For the rest of your lives That Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior Than you are a sinner