Related articles and links |  1 of 2

If the name Spiros Zodhiates does not roll trippingly off the evangelical tongue, neither does the man nor his ministry fit the classic evangelical mold. This year the Greek immigrant marks his fiftieth year at the helm of amg International, but Zodhiates has yet to become a household name.

Even evangelical insiders who know him well are at a loss to characterize him. "The American Wild West gone missions," one missiologist observes finally.

It is an apt description for this 74-year-old Cyprus-born missions maverick who across five decades built the fledgling American Mission to the Greeks into AMG International, which today undertakes publishing (Pulpit Helps and The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible), health services (with hospitals in Greece and India), "newspaper evangelism" (in 20 countries), and church planting (200 congregations in Muslim Indonesia alone).

A study in contrasts
Moments after inviting me into his modestly furnished home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Zodhiates the scholar delves into the significance of an important Greek word in the New Testament, then, in the same breath, Zodhiates the evangelist declares a desire "to raise enough money to place a gospel message in Playboy."

With an earned doctor of theology degree, Zodhiates has devoted his life to studying the Greek language and the Greek New Testament, authoring about 50 books and reference works. Working off his kitchen table, Zodhiates is focusing on his latest project, a word-by-word commentary on the Greek New Testament. He expects to labor on it for the next ten years. "This will be my biggest contribution to the Christian world," he says, "if the Lord allows me to live that long."

Another of Zodhiates's proud achievements is his collection of 50,000 religious volumes. Each page of each book has been subject indexed, a project that a lone worker took 25 years to accomplish. He hands me a tome with yellowed leaves and proclaims, "Of all those books, I have reduced the two most important down to the Greek New Testament and this one." It is a Greek concordance originally published in 1897 and last reprinted in 1957.

From these two works—and from his native Greek tongue—he is writing his word commentary, using paper and pencil.

Worldwide outreach
AMG's ministry is as varied as Zodhiates's interests. What started as a soul-winning mission to Greeks is now a multifaceted relief and evangelistic organization that beams Christian radio broadcasts into China, runs 18 child-care centers in the Philippines, mails 6,000 Gospel of John booklets a month in Russia, sponsors and educates 7,000 children in Guatemala, and works in five leper colonies in India. It operates orphanages in Bangladesh and Albania, Christian bookstores in Australia and Spain. In addition to its churches in Indonesia, amg runs a Bible school and a newly opened seminary there.

The list of ministries runs through 50 countries and into nearly two dozen distinct ministry areas, including the mission's trademark outreach, in which ads presenting the gospel are placed in national newspapers.

Vision-driven, rather than results-oriented, Zodhiates has never catered to the American preoccupation with meticulously credited successes, cleanly defined lines of responsibility, or, above all, measurable results.

"Why try to measure the immeasurable?" he says. "We can never know the effect of our work. The results are for God."

Instead, this Mediterranean transplant, who after 50 years still speaks with a discernible accent, employed free-ranging methods, which, if sometimes untidy, are reminiscent of early Christian missions.

next page... |  1 of 2

December 9 1996, Vol. 40, No. 14