Zayan* is a pastor and teacher in South Asia whose ministry has been transformed by Langham Preaching training. He shares, “Before Langham, I used to prepare sermons by just taking verses and taking words according to my thoughts and what I wanted to convey. After Langham, I started taking the text and wanting to go deeper into the context.”
Loving God through His Word
Zayan was introduced to Langham Partnership by the leader of his teaching institute in 2012. He knew nothing about Langham or their training, but simply went along with his fellow leaders as instructed.
He reflects, “It was an amazing experience for me. [After Level 1], I took a break, and then in 2017 went again to do [Level 2 training]. It was really fruitful.”
Through the training, Zayan’s approach to handling and teaching God’s Word was radically changed. He shares, “For the first time, I feel very relevant to the Word of God. Before, my style was taking verses and applying them to the people. But Langham gave me the proper process to communicate Christ to the people. They taught me that the text is not only to support your thoughts, but to go deeper and look at the circumstances and the context.”
This experience also had a personal impact on how Zayan saw the Bible and how he understood God through it. He says, “I started loving God because of how he uses people when circumstances are out of control. People are thinking something, but God’s will is something else.”
Helping others understand the Bible
It’s been several years since Zayan did the Langham training, but his love for the Word of God only grows. Now, he is doing his PhD with the aim of writing Christian literature in his heart language. Due to the circumstances of his country, there is little literature available in his language.
He says, “We do not have any systematic theology books in my language. We have many others [from other languages], and they are masterpieces, but they are written according to the context of their people and the problems they are facing. They are not writing their systematic theology according to what my people are facing.”
People understanding the Bible for themselves is a passion of Zayan’s. He feels a burden to see as many people as possible really, truly understand God’s Word. He explains, “I have this burden for people to know the Word of the Lord because they are lost – and I know because I was one of them. Now I know I am chosen by God. God has called me, and he has transformed me.”
Changed lives in the church
In his pastoral ministry, Zayan has seen that correctly preaching the Bible changes people’s lives. One story he shares is about Nala, a woman who is chronically ill. She was laden with guilt about not being able to serve and do good works for the Lord and felt she was not saved because of it. She thought God was angry with her and did not love her. Hearing preaching from the Word about the grace of Christ taught her God loves her and knows her, and she can hold fast to Jesus death for her.
Zayan says, “I’m so thankful to Langham that they have taught me how to interpret the Bible in the original context first, then how to apply it to our people. This had been a great weakness that I had been facing, and I didn’t know how to convey God’s message through the proper process. I would just take things and apply them. So now I know how to interpret the Bible…and people are being impacted and hearing God through His Word.”