The adventures of a modern-day Indiana Jones

After a 40-year career – first as a Christian radio host and musician, and then as a pastor and Christian magazine editor – Dr. Jim Rankin left pastoring a local church to begin leading a network of churches in Ethiopia as part of Adventures in Truth (AIT) – a ministry that follows archeological discoveries proving the truth and accuracy of the Bible. AIT uses that work as an avenue to bring God’s Word on-site to unreached people.

Life-changing discovery

With a lifelong interest in archeology and a doctorate in theology, Rankin unexpectedly stumbled into what became the beginning of AIT, while still pastoring in Ohio.

“I was asked to be part of an expedition, just a historical following of the trail of the Ark of the Covenant, and [I] actually made a discovery involving the Ark of the Covenant during that expedition,” he told The Stand. “So that changed my guiding in life. And that was 16 years ago.”

Rankin described that while on the Ark of the Covenant expedition, his team traced the Ark from its last reference in the Bible in 2 Chronicles 35:3. In 622 B.C., King Josiah of the Kingdom of Judah ordered the Ark be returned to the temple in Jerusalem. Forty years later, in 586 B.C., the Babylonians invaded and destroyed Jerusalem, and the Ark is not mentioned again, leaving it a mystery as to whether it was destroyed, captured, or hidden. This expedition set the trend for the rest of Rankin’s adventures and also became the subject of his first book, Expedition Ark of the Covenant.

“We followed the direction of where we thought the Ark might have gone, to Egypt and then into Ethiopia,” he explained. “The Ethiopians have a legend they talk about where a son of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon took the Ark of the Covenant to Ethiopia to the source of the Nile River, which is Lake Tana, Ethiopia. They have a treasury building on what is known as the holy island of Lake Tana that contains elements that were used in a ceremony with the Ark of the Covenant.

“Sixty-five feet high up on this island is a rock platform, which is where they claim the Ark had been kept,” Rankin continued. “On it, I found seven engravings, which are foothold engravings that held something in place, and happened to be the exact measurements of the Ark of the Covenant, exactly where they claimed it had been, but no one had cleaned that area or excavated it in 1,700 years.”

In the 16 years since that dramatic discovery, Rankin has pursued other biblical adventures: discovering the village in Ethiopia where the apostle Matthew ministered and was martyred; the identity and origin of the king who brought frankincense to Jesus at His birth; and the path of the journey of Jesus from Israel to Egypt. All these discoveries are written about in Rankin’s other books: The Apostle Project, Frankincense King, and Footprints of Jesus, among other titles.

People-changing mission

Rankin’s journeys and research in Ethiopia have led to long-term involvement with missions in Ethiopia, where AIT works with a full-time Ethiopian national team and sends teams to work alongside them several times a year.

“The Jews of northern Ethiopia are extremely persecuted, so we use archeology in locating and proving biblical sites as an in-door to minister in that region,” Rankin said. “We pastor churches all over Ethiopia, and our ministry has a base for missions in northern Ethiopia.”

One of the main ways Rankin and his team reach the people in this remote region is with “solar Bibles.”

Solar Bibles are small, cell-phone sized devices that are loaded with audio recordings of the entire Old and New Testaments and a four-year discipleship course – all in the native tongue of the region. The devices are left with select leaders in the community with Scripture assignments and discipleship segments to listen to when they gather.

“They can’t read, so they’ll take a paper Bible and rip the pages out to stuff a hole in the hut or help start a fire,” Rankin explained. “The solar Bible is our best bet to reach them, and we’ve seen mass numbers of them come to Christ through that. The solar Bible gives them hope of the gospel by hearing the Word of God.”

Other mission projects include prison ministry, widow ministry, street children ministry, bringing in water filtration systems, and providing a gospel training center to equip locals to begin churches in their communities.

AIT’s excursions to Ethiopia are limited in size due to the sensitive nature of the mission work. However, AIT’s work is not restricted to Ethiopia.

“My book Footprints of Jesus has been taken as a historical text into the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which has opened a door for us to host regular tours once a year to Egypt,” Rankin said. “We take folks on a journey where the Bible comes alive, which has never been done before in the country of Egypt. So, those trips always happen in April and May.”

Egypt tours include biblical scenes such as the granaries where Joseph stored his grain, the path Jesus and His family took to Egypt, and the sites where Peter and Mark preached. The tours also visit world-renowned landmarks, such as the pyramids and the Sphinx, and include a Nile River cruise.

Church-changing presentation

Another way people can get involved with both the missions and biblical archeology aspect of AIT is through church presentations.

“We usually have a prop of some sort, whether it’s a replica of the Ark of the Covenant or something like that, and we also have a mini artifacts display,” Rankin said. “We take people through the truth of the Bible through archaeology. Then, we share how God led us to find that location or artifact or whatever it might be. With that understanding, we share how the Lord has led us to go in and share the gospel with the persecuted Ethiopian Jews. One basis behind all our presentations at churches across the country is to raise funds to reach the lost tribes of the Jews.”

The popularity of AIT presentations keeps Rankin busy traveling to churches all over the country whenever he is stateside. A full list of scheduled appearances, locations, and available dates can be found at
adventuresintruth.org/events.

Rankin says pastors often expect their congregations to become bored after about 30 minutes of the presentation.

His response: “They won’t be with this. … People sit with their mouths open, and by the end, they’re in tears – because the Bible becomes alive to them like they’ve never seen before.”