From Darkness to Light: Kidnapped to Gangs to Bible Rebinding

Ministry Introduction and the Guest’s Background

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Conditions apply. See website for details. Welcome to the Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community.

For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org. All right. Well, welcome back to another Wrap.

Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport, and I am with a very special guest. You may not have known of him unless you, of course, love fine Bibles. Then you will have known of him. But my guest today is Jeffrey Rice, and he is the owner of Tex Post.

Tex, I can't do the Latin. You're just going to have to do it. I can do the Post and the Lux. Post Tenebrous Lux, something like that. He likes Latin words. We're going to have him explain what that is, because that actually the meaning of his business is actually a lot of his testimony.

So, Jeff, welcome to the Wrap Report. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate your friendship and all that you're doing for the kingdom of God. But it is Post Tenebrous Lux. I say it again, Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding after darkness light.

See, I have enough trouble with English, bro. You got to throw the Latin there.

I know, man. I know. I have a lot of trouble with English. I speak street English. I mean, when I'm up in a pulpit preaching, there's no telling what's going to come out. Like, when I listen to John MacArthur, I have to Google what he says sometimes.

But if somebody listens to me and they Google it, Google don't even know what I'm saying. Oh, no, no. If they.

Would Google it in the, what's the internet? There's an internet lingo dictionary now. I used to have to do it with my kids. They would do all these, you know, BRB. And I'm like, what is BRB? I still get it.

I get text messages from them. And I'm like, what was this? And they have to explain it to me. So, folks may not know who you are. Now, you and I set this up at, we're right across from each other at G3, which was really painful for me to sit there with all of your Bibles out there.

Childhood Kidnapping and Manipulation

And we'll get to that later. But oh, they were so soft. So nice. I wanted to buy them all. But my wife was with me. That was a real problem. But let's start with, you know, introducing yourself to the audience.

And you and I first met back at the Super Bowl. And so maybe you could go into your, a little bit of your background of who you are, not all your testimony yet, but then how you and I first met.

Yeah. So, like you said, my name is Jeffrey Rice. I grew up in South Nashville. I started street preaching probably in 2013. And I had an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl when it was in Phoenix. And on my way, like, I don't follow football at all.

And on my way there, we got pulled over. And because I didn't know, like, I told the cops that we was going to the Super Bowl to preach, but he asked me who was playing. I didn't know who was playing.

Yeah. So all of us street preachers were put in the back of a police car. And my buddy, Jamie Terry looks at me, he's like, you look pretty comfortable over there. And because I grew up, you know, every time I got pulled over, I was put in a police car.

You know, all good, I guess. But yes, it was unrelated. We went to Phoenix. And that's where I met you. You were a straight up extrovert. I was, you know, just kind of standoffish to myself introvert.

But we had you and I myself have a mixed martial arts background. So I heard you talking about it. And then, you know, like, if we can talk about something I know about, I'm pretty good with talking. But other than that, like, it is literally easier for me to stand on a box and proclaim the magnificent works of God than to walk over and introduce myself to somebody.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But once I saw that we had some kind of connection, I walked over and started talking to you. And yeah.

So, so, yeah, we had gotten together there. Then we met up again, I guess, the next time we met up was Truth Matters. Yeah, Truth Matters. Yeah, you got kind of.

Getting a little interview there, showing my Bibles. I think you were picking fun at somebody.

Me, never, never. I might have been picking a little bit of fun of Chris Honholz, who was not there to see all the wonderful books and the Bibles. And so, yeah, we, we might have, maybe, I don't know.

I mean, it would be unusual for me to pick fun at someone. I mean, I wouldn't think that that would happen. Never, never. So we ended up being at G3 together, right across from each other, and you were able to have your Bibles there.

But as you were, you know, as we got to talking and wanted to do this, you have a very interesting background that I think could really encourage some folks. I think there's a lot of people who, they think of their past, and for a lot of people, it's like, well, what, you know, for some people, it's what could God, you know, could God really use my past?

For others, they think, you know, that they're still dwelling in just rough upbringings. And, you know, your testimony is one that has a lot of different components to it, and it's really, I think, like you're naming your business, right, From Darkness to Light, it reveals what God can do in someone's life.

Let's start at your earlier age. You were kidnapped at, I think, 11 years old, was it?

Yeah. You know, we grew up very poor, and so when I was 11, I was in what's called Claude's Trailer Park, and this guy next door, and I come out one morning, and he was wrapping his dog up, and I just kind of looked over at him, and he told me, he asked me if I would bury his dog, that he'd give me five dollars, and I was always a hustler trying to make some money, and so I was like, yeah, and so I picked the dog up, took it to the woods, and started burying it, and then, you know, he just come in behind me, took me into his house, or whatever, another trailer, and just ganked me up, man, and he, like a lot of people talk about the devil, you know, and at that moment, I felt like that I was there, like I was in the presence of the devil, you know, this guy would, I mean, just evil, man, he, a master of manipulation, brainwashing, he, I mean, like, so whenever I went to tell what took place at 11, you know, the police can only get out of you what a frightened 11-year-old boy is able to tell, and so now, I'm almost 40, and I ain't afraid of anything, and so, I mean, you know, telling my story now, it's, I mean, there's still some, you know, but I'm not afraid, you know, the guy opened the Bible, you know, professing to be a prophet, and, you know, I'm not even sure who I'll tell this part to, but professing to be a prophet, but then he start, like, as I'm starting to try to escape, he starts praying, but he's praying to Satan, and I can remember, you know, how he would start it up or whatever, but he told me, he said, if I finish praying this prayer, Satan is going to appear, and he's going to take the life of whoever I tell him to, and he's not taking mine, and he's not going to take yours, but I'm going to tell him to take your parents, and so, I stopped fighting.

I didn't know what to do. Eventually, I was able to go free, like, by him, but under a brainwash manipulation, I had to return, or he was going to kill my family.

So, you stayed with him for the sake of your family?

Yeah, well, there was a two-week period where it was as if, I guess, like, if he was to go back, it would look as if I had ran away, and that's how I had to make it look, because he took me, but whenever he let me go, I had to come back, or he was going to kill my parents.

Well, he was going to have Satan to kill my parents. Now, how long were you, did he hold you? Two weeks. It was about two weeks, but the whole thing lasted for about three months. So, there was others involved that actually was able to escape and tell.

I mean, the guy, I think he got 90 years for it, but still, I mean, there's only, at 11 years old, so much that I articulate and express, and it's still out of fear, because the whole time I'm thinking, he's about to have Satan come and take my family, even though he was in jail.

Like, I was 11, you know, not knowing what was going on.

And this is the thing that I try to explain to folks when it comes to criminals like this, that they will use techniques that are called grooming. They use family as those you love to get you to comply with them, to control you.

That's why when my kids were little, when they're growing up, I always told them, anybody who tells you not to tell me something, they plan you harm, and they know that I'm the only one that's going to protect you.

I said, so anyone that tells you don't tell your parents, you must tell me. And I've always told the kids, there's no one that's going to hurt me if you're in trouble. I'll go after them with every ounce of energy I have left.

But, you know, if someone tells you that they're going to harm me if you don't listen to what, if you don't do what they say, I always told the kids, they're looking to do harm to you, and they know I'm your protector.

And so I would always tell them that, because that's exactly what people who are doing grooming are going to do. They use the ones you love to get you to comply. I think of the Elizabeth Smart, the guy who kidnapped her.

It was a situation where she had really complied with the kidnappers, or the kidnapper, because he said he was going to harm her family. And so for her sister's sake, she was like, okay, I'm not going to do anything.

I'll go with him. That's the worst thing. You never want to go. Once you go, you're in trouble. And at 11 years old, I mean, that's, you know, for folks who are listening, think about what life is like at 11 year old.

You believe the adults, but it's got to be scary when someone's telling you that they're Satan, or they have access to Satan, you know, and they're.

Telling you that. Yep. I mean, like I said, now that I look back, like, I feel like I was in the presence of Satan. I mean, he was, it was pure evil. I don't know how else to explain it. I mean, it was just madness for a human being.

I mean, so there were, they were many, like, like, like when it came out in the open, many, many kids fell under the abuse of this guy.

Wow. And you were, you were able to escape from there. Life just turned out great, didn't it? Oh yeah. Wonderful. That was the end of all your trials in life, right?

Gangs, Violence, and a Misplaced Sense of Control

Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, but this is what I try to tell people, because I know a lot of people use stuff like this as an excuse. And you know, but if I was to get in my vehicle and start driving, and instead of looking out my front glass, I look at my rear view mirror driving forward, I'm eventually going to hit something and crash.

And in life, you cannot, like when, when, when, when you're trying to go somewhere and be somebody and, and live and raise your family, you cannot look at your past. You can't let that stuff define you.

You have to be focused and look into, hopefully they're looking to Christ. But even if you're not a Christian, if you look backwards, you are going to crash and burn. You have to look forward. You can't let your.

Past define who you are. You just can't. And that's the thing that I really want folks to get to by the end of this is to realize, because you and I talked briefly before we started recording, but it's something that really burdens my heart is seeing so many people who really, their spiritual growth is stymied because of something they think is in the past that's preventing them.

And it's really a self, kind of a self-inflicted wound. It's a, it's a, it's a self-limitation. They're not letting God do what God can do in a life. And that's why I think your testimony is, it really is one that I want people to hear because life didn't get easy.

I mean, being kidnapped at 11, very few people know that experience. Very few people can talk about what that's like, but you went from there. Life didn't get easier. It continued to get harder. You, you ended up, well, what, what did, after you, you escaped, what happened?

Did you, were you able to reunite with your family? Yeah. I mean, but it wasn't a real good, like,.

Again, it was very poor. So at 12, my mom had to be in a hospital for, I think for about a half of a year. And so my dad struggling for work, had to go to Florida when, back when the hurricane injury hit.

And so he went up to Florida to try to work. And my older brother was with him and my, I don't know where my sister was, but at 12, I had a stay in my house that was in by myself. And so I was dependent on the park.

We lived, we lived about five blocks from a park and every day during the summertime, they would bring sandwiches. People would bring sandwiches and feed the kids around the neighborhood. So I would go there and eat.

But other than that, you know, like I was just having to defend for myself at 12. And then like my brother at that time didn't really like me and they would beat me up all the time. But whenever I was 14, I got robbed and beat up pretty bad at gunpoint.

And so the next day I got in a gang because there was a gang in the neighborhood. And I just, I just felt like I needed somebody to have my back. You know, I got tired of all this stuff taking place. We got involved with a gang and, and then like, the trajectory of that really gave me like a God complex because like it wasn't long afterwards, you know, because we moved a lot that I had.

So I was leaving this neighborhood to go to another. And so the gang had me to, to raise up people in another neighborhood. So I was like, basically they were sending me out just like you would plan a church.

They were sending me out to plan a gang. And so I moved to a neighborhood and, uh, you know, uh, and by this time I done got enough galls in me to where I would just fight and anybody I'd walk around with a steel pipe in my pocket, hit folks with it.

Like I was just, I didn't lost my mind. And, uh, so I raised up a, a gang and I was 15 and I had people from, from 16 to 25 that would do whatever I told them to do. And so he gave me this God complex and then, um, uh, you know, I had two, two drive-bys pulled on me.

People were trying to kill me. I mean, it was just, just a crazy life, man. And, uh,.

But you can see how someone who had been kidnapped at a young age, been beaten by his, his own family, that gang attitude and mentality could be very appealing. It could, it, I could see where you could get a God complex because you feel I'm in control, which is really the issue.

There's you, you feel that there's people who are going to do your bidding. There's people who you have say over their lives and it gives you that sense that you're in control.

Were you really in control? It felt like it, because like, if I was like, I had this thing, like if I was to say that somebody wasn't my boy and if I was to turn around, by the time I turned back around, if that guy wasn't drooling, like beat up, the person that was with me would be violated.

So, so I had it to where people had to do what I said. So I felt like I was in control, but ultimately I wasn't, I was totally out of control. I was out of, I was, you know, I was out of the will of God.

I was, you know, uh, but, but, but, but even through this, like even through this, you know, I, I say this and tell you how terrible I was, even through this, there was not one night I didn't find myself praying to a God I didn't know because I could not sleep.

All the crap that I've done that day would keep me up. I lay in bed and I think about it and I contemplate it and I find myself praying to a God. I did not know asking for forgiveness for, uh, somehow to change my situation, uh, get me out of, uh, uh, of the, of the stuff that I was in.

I didn't even know how to pray or what to pray for. Like I see people do the cross over their head and their, and uh, you know, I was doing that. I thought maybe that was how you do it. Like, I know I could not sleep and I always knew that there was a God, like, like you can't look at creation and think that this stuff just came into existence.

So, so it wasn't the fact that I didn't know that I just didn't know who he was. Creation declared his glory. Yeah. I was.

Going to say you were praying to a God you didn't know. You just didn't know about him. I mean,.

Everyone knows God exists. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely knew this. I just didn't know him.

Conversion Through 9/11, Reading the Bible, and Hearing the Gospel

Yeah. So 11 years old, you're kidnapped. You're, you're not having a good family upbringing. You end up being robbed at gunpoint at 14. You're running a gang at 15. Uh, that's a.

Rough background. How did Christ get a hold of you? It was nine 11. I'd say it was the starting point. I was, uh, I was at a trailer park. Like if you know anything about Nashville, that they have a fairgrounds.

And so across the street from the fairgrounds was the trailer park. It's no there, but, um, I was in and out of that trailer park most of my life. And, uh, I was there playing hacky sack with my homeboy and was drinking beers and stuff like that.

And, um, and the next thing I know, people start running out, uh, talking about, uh, you know, so, so, so this was nine 11 when the tower sale, people start running out and saying, man, the, we're being attacked.

We're, we're under attack. Terrorists have hit, you know, the, uh, uh, New York, they're, they're coming through buildings are falling. And I'm like, what are y 'all talking about? And so me and my boy, we stopped playing hacky sack.

We're going there. We start watching the news and stuff like that. And then this one guy was like, man, this is in the Bible. The Bible talks about this. And, uh, and I just kind of made a sly remark.

And I was like, man, every time something happens, it's in the Bible. Everybody says it's in the Bible. And so I asked my boy, I said, Hey, do you have a Bible? He says, I think so. And so I asked, you know, my mom, I was like, do we have a Bible?

And I thought I found the Bible that day. And I, and I try and from that day, I just, I just, I tried to read it, but, uh, turns out I couldn't read that. Well, uh, you know, I'm dyslexic, but, um, from, from moving a lot.

Cause I can remember we moved like six times in one year. Like, like we just moved a lot. Like I just stopped trying. And, um, I really couldn't read well. And because of my dyslexia and stuff like that, I just stopped trying, but, uh, I began to read the Bible.

I would read three words, skip 10 and, uh, over, uh, six months I'd read, you know, I could read a little more and skip less, but over about a period of five years, I taught myself how to read just from reading the Bible.

Um, I, I still wasn't able to spell that well, but I could, I could read really good. Um, but I, so I started reading the Bible at nine 11 and, uh, 2003, I started going to church. We moved across the street from a little Southern Baptist church.

I had been reading the Bible. So I thought I'd go, I'd walked in there. Uh, the preacher gave an altar call. I walked up, signed the card, shook a hand. They asked where I was coming from. Um, I told them where I was coming from.

Like, I didn't even understand what that's about. And, uh, he, he stood me up and he said, this person was coming from such and such. Do we receive him? Whole congregation said, yes. And that was it. They didn't have me to pray a prayer.

They didn't ask me to repent. I didn't hear the gospel. Any of that. Um, they told me I was a Christian six weeks later. I'm teaching Bible. I'm teaching, uh, uh, uh, Sunday school. I'm teaching vacation Bible school and I'm unconverted.

Like I I've been reading the Bible, you know, I'm, I'm seeking this stuff out. But then in 2005, I heard Ray comfort preach the gospel on the open air on a TBN. Yeah. On TVN. And, and I, you know, I saw myself just naked before God, knowing that I've committed treason against the key.

And, um, like everything just started making sense when he presented that, the, the gospel message. And I've been, I've been at this time, I've been in church for two years, but never heard a clear articulation of the gospel.

Church Without the Gospel and the Need for Discipleship

So you're in church two years teaching Sunday school unconverted.

Yep. Yep. At this time, I'm also a leader of a youth thing.

Well, I mean, what that first off, what that tells me is that people recognize that a natural leadership ability you must have that they, I mean, I would not call that a solid church if they just, you're, you're come visiting and they're going to declare you saved.

And now they're going to put you in charge of teaching Sunday school when you're not even converted. That speaks volumes of them. But it also says that they must have recognized some leadership ability that you have to put you in charge like that.

I mean, the only leadership ability that I had at that time was running a gang. I mean, you know, which I could see how God would use that, I guess. I mean, and I do have a, you know, cause in, in, in working like I've, I've roofed houses for 25 years.

And so it wasn't long after I start on a roofing crew, I would, I would be the, the foreman or the leader of that crew. I just, you know, I knew what I was doing, but, but, but when it came to Christianity at that time, I mean, I knew, like I read the Bible and I knew how to teach certain stories in the Bible, but I didn't know the gospel.

No one ever asked me what the gospel was. I didn't, you know, I wouldn't be able to expositionally walk you through a text. You know, I didn't know how to study. No one took me under their wing to like an older man to take a younger man under his wing and to raise him up.

Like, like none of that happened. And this is, this is the importance of discipleship.

For folks who listened to last week's episode, when I had Dr. Phil Atterbury on, you know, we talked about discipleship and the importance of it. And this is, I mean, Jeff, your story just plays right into that.

What we had talked about was the need for churches to disciple, to be pouring into another person's life, because for, you and I can understand something I think a lot of people that grew up in church don't understand.

People who grow up in church, they're used to the Christian lingo, they're used to all the things that, the trappings of church, and they don't know what it's like for those of us who have no idea because we didn't grow up in the church, and we walk in and everything's new for us.

And we just, we want someone to basically tell us, give us the information, tell us what the rules are, to, you know, explain all this stuff that everybody else seems to know, but you don't. I mean, it always used to bother me when I started going to church, everybody knew the hymns that were being sung.

They didn't need to look in the hymnal, and I'm the only one trying to look it up. You know, I'd be the one in church trying to flip, like, going to the beginning of the table of contents to figure out where the books are, because I didn't know.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this is why discipleship is so important, because there's people who may know the lingo, but they don't know Christ, and they can fool people. I mean, they could have you teaching a Sunday school when you're not even converted, but the thing is, they'll have all those people that, like you said, you didn't know what was going on when they're like, do we receive him?

And you're going, what's happening?

Yeah, I didn't know what was going on. I'll tell you a story. I had a friend of mine call me and tell me that they're about to start, that their church is sending them around their apartment to teach Bible school or Bible study.

And I asked, I said, so what will you be teaching? And the person said, well, I'm not sure. I said, well, how about the gospel? She said, huh, I didn't think about that. And I said, do you know the gospel?

She said, yeah, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not the gospels, you know, the books of the Bible, but the gospel, the power of God and the salvation. Do you know that?

And they befriended me for asking them, do you know the gospel? Totally unfriended me, had nothing else to do.

With me for asking that question. Yeah, well, because you got a little bit too close, a little bit, you know, someone had, someone from my old church had posted this and I shared it on my Facebook. It says accountability feels like an attack when you're not ready to acknowledge how your behavior harms others.

Read it again. So I'll read it again. Accountability feels like an attack when you're not ready to acknowledge how your behavior harms others. And I mean, I think that that's what they were experiencing.

They were, they felt you were attacking them because they're not ready to admit that they.

Don't know Christ. It's crazy, man. Like when I witness to somebody, because I'm real big, you know, I'm witnessing, especially to the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and stuff like that. I have no problem with asking them three questions.

Who is God? Who is Christ? And what's the gospel? All right. I have no problem with asking them that. And let me tell you something else. I have no problem with asking someone that in my church. Also, you know, if I meet someone and they're a Christian, I have no problem saying, hey, so what's the gospel?

It's okay if they don't know because I'd like to, you know, I'd like to teach them, you know, and stuff like that.

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, is that when I have people over and they say they're a Christian, I'll ask, so how do you come to Christ? And I remember at a church I attended years ago, there was a guy, he wasn't a member of the church, his wife was saved, but we came to discover he wasn't.

I mean, we sat there and, you know, have a Bible study, and so I just asked everyone, so how did everyone come to know Christ? And we listened to his testimony and it was like, you're not saved. You know, I had in a church, which is sad, but I had in a church where we were visiting, we ended up getting to know folks there and invited all the leadership at different times over our house, and I determined that half the leadership didn't know Christ.

I mean, one of the guys, I asked him, so how did you come to know Christ? He goes, well, you know, my wife was born a Christian, and I just always liked football. They used to have a football, you know, team, and so I played with them, so I just started coming to church.

And I don't always know the best way to word things. I'm a little bit blunt, and I just looked at him and said, what does that have to do with Christ? That has nothing to do with Christ.

Yeah, but we need that, man. We need people that are going to hold people, speak to the fire, hold them accountable. Like, my previous church, in order to become a member, you had to ask their questions, you know, like, what is the gospel?

You know, when did you get saved? How do you know you're saved? You know, like, they're prying in, and it's good. Like, this is good. It's not a bad thing to ask these questions. You don't want, you know, I mean, you at least want to know that the people that are members of your church can clearly articulate to you the gospel.

I mean, if you tell me that you know something, you don't have to believe it. But if you tell me you believe.

Something, you better know it. You better be able to defend it. Yeah, and the thing is, we also have to be cautious, because there are some people who don't know all the lingo, and sometimes we're looking for specific wordings, and you have people who may not have the education or ability to express things as clearly as you might want it to be expressed.

Maybe you've studied the scriptures well, and therefore, you really know what you want to hear. You want to hear about repentance. You want to hear about them turning from sin to Christ, about the resurrection.

You may want to hear about that stuff. But not everyone knows how to explain that language, and so you've got to be careful to dig in. I'm thinking with my mother-in-law, who didn't speak English, so my wife was talking with her and really concerned about her soul when she was living with us, and we knew she was dying, so my wife was quite concerned.

And my wife determined she thinks that my mother-in-law was a believer, but she really didn't know how to express it in language. She didn't have much of an education. Even though it seems she may have turned to Christ, she really wasn't in good churches.

The Chinese churches don't teach doctrine. So my wife had to dig in and ask her a lot of questions to see what was really happening. What was her view of sin? And that really helped to identify whether she really was a believer.

She hated sin, not the consequence of sin, but the sin itself. And the reason why is because that's what Christ died for. Well, that's what you want to hear, something like that. But she didn't know how to express that.

So hey, listen, after this commercial, what I want to do is I'd like to talk a little bit about your Bible rebinding with the Latin company that you created, because I'm so great at pronouncing things.

So a guy that's dyslexic says, oh yeah, let me create a company and we'll use Latin. Hello? What were you thinking, man? Biblical? Biblical. All right, so I want to talk about your rebinding company after this break.

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This ministry is one that tries to reach out to some of those smaller churches that most people, most speakers, want to avoid. But by our monthly donors, it allows us to get into smaller churches and provide for them the seminars and conferences that usually only larger churches can do.

We can do that because we have monthly supporters who on a regular basis support us so we could support others. Would you consider being one of our monthly supporters today? You can go to strivingforeternity .org and set up for a monthly donation today.

Your donation helps us to be able to spread the gospel around the world, to be able to disciple others, and to provide resources for churches and people who are struggling to grow deeper in God's Word.

Consider donating today at strivingforeternity .org and we thank you very much for your consideration. All right. And so we do appreciate every one of our donors that help us out. So with that, I want to get into really this ministry, how you got into Bible rebinding.

And folks, if you go to ptl, that stands for post, whatever that word is in the middle, it starts with T, and Lux. Okay, I have to get it down. What is it? Post... Tenderbrush. Tenderbrush. Tenderbrush.

Post Tenderbrush Lux. So it's ptlbiblerebinding .com. The neat thing is when you get there, first thing, we get to see you in action there on that website. You have a video background, which is kind of neat, of you actually going through the process of cutting down the calf skin and binding a Bible, which is really kind of neat.