Truth Magazine

By Mike Willis

The passing of 1995 has claimed the lives of several faithful servants of Christ. We mourn their passing and honor their memory. Among those who have gone to their reward this past year the following immediately come to one’s mind: Paul Keller, Leslie Diestelkamp, and Jody Copeland.

I have had limited contact with each of these men but have highly esteemed them for their work’s sake. They were conscientious men who lived the gospel they preached and sacrificed to serve their Lord. We think of them just as John wrote, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13). While we miss them and their contribution to the Lord’s work, we are confident that they are among the blessed dead because they died in Christ. We pay our tribute to them for a well run race and a hard fought battle. These men endured the battle over institutionalism without being embittered and continued to serve as builders in the Lord’s service. We commend their good example.

A greater question hangs over us, “Who will rise up to take their place?”

We are confident that the providence of the Lord will continue to watch over his people. Every time there has been a need for a great leader, he has raised up the man for the job. He raised up Moses to deliver his people from Egyptian bondage, Joshua to lead them in the conquest of Canaan, fifteen judges to deliver his people from encroaching enemies, the kings, and the prophets.

In the church, he raised up twelve men to serve as apostles through whom the word of God was revealed. We admire the faith of Peter, John, Paul, and the others. We read in our New Testaments of outstanding men of faith in addition, such as Barnabas, Timothy, Epaphroditus, Luke, and many others.

As we leave the pages of inspiration and turn to our memories of men who have served in our country, we think of several spiritual leaders: Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone, Jacob Creath, Benjamin Franklin, David Lipscomb, J.W. McGarvey, T.W. Brents, and many other early leaders. As we weathered the storm of institutionalism, we admired the contributions of men such as Roy E. Cogdill, Luther Blackmon, Franklin T. Puckett, and others who have gone on to their reward. We think of several who still living who have made an outstanding contributions: H.E. Phillips, Cecil Willis, Connie W. Adams, James Cope, and many others whose names I have not mentioned, although their contribution are not insignificant. We have witnessed in our lives how God has raised up men for the occasion needed who are willing and able to do his service.

We have complete confidence that the Lord will raise up leaders for his people today, just as he has in past times. Mordecai expressed such confidence when he exhorted Esther to step forward and do her part to deliver the Lord’s people from Persian destruction. He said, “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esth. 4:13-14). Just as God raised up leaders in the past, so will he today. The more relevant question is this, “Am I willing to make myself available to his service?”

Here are some things that a person needs to do to make himself available:

1. Prepare himself. The preparation that needs to be made begins with absolute conversion to Christ. There can-not be any recesses of one’s heart in which he holds onto some pet sins that he conceals from others. Rather, he must cleanse his heart of every defilement of sin. Without complete and genuine repentance, there can be no true service.

There are skills to be learned. A person must study to know the will of God, be able to speak in order to pro-claim, grow in wisdom to use his knowledge most efficiently, and such like things. We need men who are willing to make the sacrifices of their time, money, and lives to prepare themselves to the Lord’s work.

2. Make oneself available. Isaiah manifested that spirit. The Lord asked, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then Isaiah said, “Here am I; send me” (Isa. 6:8). There are sacrifices that must be made and things that must be endured as a soldier in the Lord’s service. We need men who are willing to make those sacrifices.

3. Accept whatever job he gives you. Where one is called to serve may not be the place he wishes to be. One may think that his place in the Lord’s kingdom is to preach for a congregation of 300-400 people, to teach in a college Bible class, or to publish some great book. He may feel disappointed to begin his work preaching to 20 people in an isolated corner of the world. Accept wherever the Lord sends you and do the best work you can possibly do for him at that place.

I have only moved to one church that was larger than 100 people when I got there. The largest congregation I have ever worked with was less than 200. I know of other men who have worked in harder places than I have ever had and I have truly admired their dedication, zeal, and perseverance. I honor them because I know the difficulty of working in small places. I also know the thrill of seeing small congregations grow into larger ones through the blessings of God.

Remember the words of Jesus as he told of the lord blessing his five talent servant in the Parable of the Talents, “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matt. 25:21).

4. Depend on the Lord. The Lord’s servant will need to rely upon his Lord. There are days when the battle’s victory cannot be seen, when hope seems futile. David said, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed” (Psa. 37:3). “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psa. 27:13). Trusting and relying on the Lord, the servant of God will persevere in his work. Even when he is suffering, as Paul was in the Roman prison, he could say, “Rejoice in the Lord and again I say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4:4).

Conclusion

There are many other things that one could say about pre-paring to do the Lord’s service. The question is that asked by E.E. Hewitt in the song, “Who Will Follow Jesus?”

Who will follow Jesus, Standing for the right, Holding up His banner In the thickest fight? Listening for His orders, Ready to obey,

Who will follow Jesus, Serving Him today?

Who will follow Jesus? Who will make reply,

“I am on the Lord’s side; Master, here am I?”

I cannot fill the shoes of any one of these men who have departed. But I can put on my own shoes and make them available to my Lord. There is a place to serve in the kingdom, a place left empty by those who have gone be-fore us. Are you ready to step forward to make yourself available to his service?

Guardian of Truth XL: 2 p. 2
January 18, 1996

By Larry Ray Hafley

As our readers may know, we have been in controversy with those who declare that they see a danger among us. The danger, they say, is this; we have put our faith in the Bible, in the word, and not in him who is “the Word.” While they agree that we must believe the Bible, they argue that we are trusting in the plan of Scripture more than in “the man” of Scripture. On the liberal fringe of the faith, men like Bill Love and C. Leonard Allen, have made this charge out loud, in print. At least, they have couched their concerns and concepts in an academic robe. Others, like Rubel Shelly, spout out and spit up these charges wherever they go.

Affected and infected by this concept, some among us have picked up the charge, saying that first century disciples did not submit or surrender to a pattern, but to a person. Our judgment is that some who have made similar statements are well meaning. They think they have a thought that will indeed draw us back, closer, to Christ. Of course, everyone is for that. Our fear is that even some good men do not recognize or perceive the dangers inherent in echoing this view (that trust in Christ can be separated from trust in his word). As it is twisted and tortured by liberals, this theme is used as a weapon by those who are bent on making havoc of the church by privily bringing in damnable heresies under the guise of “Christ, not commands; the Savior, not the system; the Person, not the pattern.”

As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Accordingly, I recently found this article from the pen of Benjamin Franklin. This myth, this so called crisis, this imaginary bogey-man (that we are emphasizing the Bible rather than the Lord), was explored, exposed, and exploded by brother Franklin nearly 140 years ago. Hear him.

Franklin: The Spirit, The Word, The Christ It appears more difficult at the present time to induce men to be content with simple Christianity, in spirit and practice, without any mixture of humanisms, than at any former period. The people have become so accustomed to leaning upon the human that they can scarcely conceive of the possibility of trusting wholly in the Divine. We, as a body of people, have made wonderful strides in showing our neighbors of the sects the schismatical tendency of all their creeds, the necessity of abandoning the whole of them and of committing ourselves wholly to Christ as our leader and instructor. But some of the controversies now going on show a wandering disposition, dissatisfied with the simple belief and practice of Christianity, as inconsistent with the unity of the Spirit and bond of peace as the adoption and maintenance of a human creed.

After preaching the plain gospel of Christ, as the Disciples have done for more than thirty years, gathering some three hundred thousand souls to the fold of Christ, many of them from the contending parties around us, and uniting them in the bond of peace and union, thus making ourselves felt as no other people have done in this century, a brother perceives where a slight mistake may have occurred. He becomes alarmed, looks upon all that has been done as nothing, and declares that nothing great and good will be accomplished till the evil is corrected. He just now perceives that there is danger of men resting their faith in the word, and not in the Divine and glorious per-son revealed through the word. He thinks many are deceived in relying simply upon the word in the place of relying upon Him who gave the word. He now perceives the secret of there not being devotion, piety and zeal. It is found in the stupid mistake of believing the truth, in the place of believing in Him who is revealed through the truth.

This pretty little distinction is elaborated in many sermons, upon many pages, and upon a thousand tongues. The whole phalanx of word-alone men are now called to an account, and shown at great length, with profound learning and philosophy, that their stupid mistake has been that they have believed the word, trusted in the word, relied upon the word, and preached the word, but lost sight of the glorious person of Christ revealed through the word. . . But no change follows all this wonderful discovery and very profound distinction. No increase of piety, zeal, love or good works follow. No conversion of sinners follow any more than before, nor anything different, except contention, strife and confusion.

On the other hand, here come the word-alone men, accusing the former class with infidelity, or at least teaching doctrines tending to a rejection of the word, looking for something beyond and above the word, thus ignoring the word. These, too, now stand in defense of the faith, and suffer for the truth, and sound the warning voice of dangerous doctrine! Some of the Disciples are on one side and some on the other, but the greater portion do not know what the controversy is about, but think there are good brethren on both sides. The only wonder with them is that the parties should manifest so much irritability, use such severe and harsh language and appear so much alarmed. They can perceive no occasion for all this.

Questions To Consider

Where is the necessity of all this? When did an attorney ever find it necessary to inform the jury that the testimony was not the thing to be believed, but that that which was revealed through the testimony was what was to be believed. In what, except in religion, did any man ever think it necessary to caution the people that the truth itself is not what is to be believed, but that which is made known through the truth? . . . Did any man ever believe the truth of the gospel and not believe in him whom the truth of the gospel sets forth? Can any man believe the word and not believe him who uttered it? Can any man have confidence in the word and not have confidence in him who spoke the word? Is there such a thing as trusting in the word and not trusting in the author of the word? Can any man believe the word and not believe that which is revealed in the word? If you believe the testimony of a witness, do you not at the same time believe the witness and that which is communicated through the testimony of the witness?

Can any man receive the word the Father gave Jesus, the word Jesus gave to the apostles, and the word which the apostles by the Holy Spirit preached to us, and not believe the Father who gave the word to the Son? not believe the Son, who gave the word to the apostles? not believe the apostles who gave the word to us? Can a man confide in the word the Father gave the Son, which the Son gave the apostles and which the apostles have given to us, and not confide in the Father, the Son and the apostles?

Can a man confide in Jesus and not confide in his word? or confide in his word and not confide in him? Can a man confide in the Holy Spirit and not confide in his word? or confide in his word and not confide in him? Can a man receive the word of Jesus and not receive Jesus? Can any person believe the word of the Holy Spirit and not receive the Holy Spirit? Can anyone obey the word and not obey him who uttered the word? Can a man follow the word spoken by the Spirit and not follow the Spirit? Can a man be led by the word spoken by the Spirit and not be led by the Spirit? Are not all those led by the teachings of the Spirit inscribed upon the pages of the Bible, led by the Spirit?

We put it to all those brethren engaged in this controversy, to produce an instance of one human being led by the teachings of the Spirit in the Bible, and not led by the Spirit; or, one led by the Spirit not led by his teachings in the Bible. “These things,” says the Spirit . . . “are written that you might believe.” Believe what? “That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” They are not written that you may have a peculiar view of spiritual influence, but that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, we Son of God. What are we to believe for? “That you might have life through his name.” Here is t h e straight-forward work  no … speculations, but the plain truth to be believed and the object of believing it  that the believer might have life.

The Holy Spirit comes not asking you to believe on himself, or some peculiar mode of his operation; but as a witness bearing testimony of Jesus. Hence Paul says, “The Holy Spirit also is a witness,” and that no man can “call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.” At the Jordan, when the Lord was baptized and introduced to Israel, the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form and rested upon him, thus indicating that all attention should be directed to him. When the Lord ascended to heaven, he sent the Spirit to the apostles, to bring all things to their remembrance, guide them into all truth, . . . and thus through them spread out his entire testimonies upon the sacred pages as left us from the hands of the four evangelists, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through his name. All this the Holy Spirit has done that we might believe, or to enable us to believe.

Can we receive his testimony and not receive the glorious person of whom he testifies? or can we reject his testimony without rejecting the glorious person of whom he testifies? Certainly not.

Shall we, then, confide in these Divine testimonies of the Spirit, spread upon the sacred pages of the New Testament, that we might believe, and set them before the world as sufficient to enable all men to believe, or shall we declare these testimonies of the Spirit insufficient, too weak and imperfect to enable the sinner to believe, and maintain that the Spirit must come to the sinner and give him further evidence that his testimony, . . . is true, and thus enable him to believe?

Let any man who wishes to fall, question the all-sufficiency of the testimonies of the Spirit set forth in the New Testament  testimony which we affirm to be complete and perfect  to which the Spirit himself forbids any-thing added or taken from. He who undertakes to depreciate this testimony, whether ignorantly or in unbelief  we care not what his design  weakens the gospel argument precisely to the amount of his influence, apologizes for the unbeliever, excuses him in his infidelity and strength-ens his hands in sin. In the place of his being himself a believer in the testimony of the Spirit, he is trifling with it, creating distrust in the minds of others, and subverting that which all admit to be the testimony of the Spirit of God.

The One Safe Course

There is but one safe course, and that is to follow the apostles, preach the same truth preached by them, relying upon the same testimony upon which they rested as all-sufficient, and maintaining the self-evident truth, that all men can believe it, when it is preached, and that they will be lost if they do not believe it. This we are authorized to do, and this is all we can do. Even this can only be done by believers. Skeptics cannot do it effectually. But men who believe in Jesus with the heart can preach Jesus to others, with full confidence that they can believe in him also. They can bring all the testimony furnished by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament before the mind of the unbeliever. But if these are not sufficient to enable a man to believe, they can do no more.

The preacher may turn and preach to the sinner that these testimonies are not sufficient, and (that) he must have assistance from some other source; but he cannot give that assistance, and preaching does not make it come. If it does not come, who is to blame? Not the sinner; for he could not bring it. Not the preacher; for he could not bring it. Where lies the blame, then? The testimony the Spirit has given is not sufficient to enable the sinner to believe. He cannot obtain power to believe. The preacher has preached Christ and presented the testimonies of the Spirit as found in the Scripture. But the sinner cannot believe till the Spirit comes and gives his testimony efficiency. The Spirit does not come. The man not only does not believe, but he can-not believe. Who is to blame? The Spirit, according to this very pious and spiritual theory, is to blame, because he did not come and do what he left undone when he gave his testimony, what neither the preacher nor the sinner could do was give his testimony efficiency.

The difficulty in these times is not that the testimony of the Spirit, inscribed upon the pages of the New Testament, lacks efficiency, nor does the Spirit himself lack efficiency, nor does the Lord lack efficiency. The Lord, the Spirit and the testimony are efficient, and do their work.

The lack of efficiency is on the part of weak-minded and unbelieving, or skeptical preachers and church members. Let them become efficient, strong in faith, giving glory to God, and preach Jesus with great power, present the Divine testimonies with full assurance of faith, and the work will go on. The Lord will do his work. The Spirit will do his work, and do it right. The testimony will do its work, and sinners will be saved. The trouble is to get the preachers to do their work, do it right, and thus operate rightly upon the world. Let us turn our attention more especially to men, and try and induce them to operate right, and all the balance will operate infallibly right. (Paragraphs, subheadings inserted. Biographical Sketch And Writings of Elder Benjamin Franklin, 338-343.)

Guardian of Truth XL: 2 p. 11-12
January 18, 1996

By Steve Willis

Limits for Some Kinds of Abortions

There has been a legislative effort going on in the States to limit certain types of abortions, even though the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. Notice the efforts by the House and the Senate to limit “partial-birth” abortions:

“The U.S. House of Representatives last week [week of Nov. 6spw] passed a bill banning the practice of ‘partial-birth’ abortions. The technique, used in late-term pregnancy abortions to collect brains for scientific experiments, involves pulling the baby partly out of the uterus so that its skull is exposed. The abortionist then punctures the skull, inserts a catheter and sucks out the baby’s brain tissue. The bill passed by a margin of 288 to 139. Pro-life groups in the United States hailed the vote as the first step to rolling back the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which legalized abortions in America.” (Alberta Report, Nov. 13, 1995, “One less stomach-turning option,” p. 44).

Further, on December 7, 1995, Sue Kirchhoff reported for Reuter’s new service: “The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved landmark legislation to outlaw a rarely-used, late-term abortion technique after narrowly defeating an amendment allowing its continued use to protect a woman’s health.” The same article went on to say, “The abortion technique in question, medically known as intact dilation and extraction, is used in second and third trimester abortions. Under the procedure, a fetus is partially delivered feet first until just the head remains in the womb. Scissors are then inserted and the brains suctioned out…. The National Abortion Federation estimates about 450 abortions are performed each year using the contested technique. About 90 percent of the 1.5 million abortions performed annually occur in the first trimester of pregnancy and fewer than 600 in the third trimester ….The legislation would impose up to two years in jail and a possible fine for doctors who perform the contested abortions. The grandparents or father of the child, if married to the mother, could sue the doctor if the abortion were per-formed.”

The question now is whether President Clinton will sign the bill into law. On December 14, according to PR Newswire, Focus on the Family president, James Dobson, has issued a press release indicating that the White House is not interested in hearing from the public. It said, in part, “Today Dr. James Dobson charged the White House with `flagrantly abandoning its responsibility to serve the American people’ in its mistreatment of concerned Americans who have made phone calls to the White House this week.” Dobson had requested people call the White House encouraging them to sign the bill in to law, but “Focus on the Family has received numerous complaints from people who have tried to call the White House on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, but were either rudely treated by White House phone operators or could not even get past White House phone recordings.”

“Gary Bauer, president of Family Research Council, gave numerous examples of telephone mistreatment of White House callers on the December 13 Focus on the Family broadcast.” Mr. Bauer then said, “This kind of White House mistreatment is unprecedented,” said Bauer. “On all the occasions when controversial issues occurred in the past  whether during the Carter, Reagan, or Bush Ad-ministrations  this is the first time the White House has taken steps to distance itself from the American people.” “Unbelievably, the White House has cut itself off from the people it was elected to serve,” said Dr. Dobson.

We should remember to pray for all in authority as they consider such laws that “we may lead a quiet and peace-able life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. 2:2).

Are Abortions Medically Necessary?

Canadian Province Alberta, which is trying to limit its health care expenses, has stopped funding a few procedures. So far abortion is still funded by the health care system, but the argument has been made that if they can’t cover adult eye-examinations, why can Health Care still fund abortions? This has brought the debate down to whether abortions are “medically necessary.” Premier Klein would like to drop abortion-funding decisions into the doctor’s lap by having them determine which are medically necessary. They don’t want to define it. In fact, some wish to keep it federally and provincially funded; see this quote by the Canadian doctor who has led the fight to make abortions legal, Dr. Henry Morgentaler: homosexual, “speculated that biological factors . . . cause the brains of homosexuals to become `feminized.’

“All abortions are medically necessary in the sense that they have to be done by a doctor.”

I guess I wonder if cosmetic surgery is “medically necessary” using the same logic?

Listen to the Public When They Are Right

Daniel Yankelovich, of the “think-tank” Yankelovich, Skelly and White, has written a “four-step strategy to re-gain liberalism’s moral authority.” I’ll not go into all four steps, but there is one that addressed moral positions: “Internalizing the Public’s Point of View” listening to the concerns of the voting public.

Yankelovich said, “From the point of view of moral leadership, the worst thing liberal leaders can do is promote government policies that the public sees as encouraging immoral behavior, giving the opposition the opportunity to attack liberal doctrine.” As applied to dealing with the present welfare system, he said, “In making reforms, voters have two concerns: cost and moral rightness. Of the two, research shows the public is turning away from the moral relativism that took hold in the 1960s toward more strict, absolute forms of social morality. The public increasingly supports a moral principle of reciprocity rather than entitlement  that is, when people receive a public benefit they should give something back unless they are too aged or infirm to do so.”

Yankelovich also said that if liberals wanted “the nation to bear the costs of a strong safety net for those in need, they can persuade the public to support it financially only if they are willing to change its moral underpinnings. This includes obliging fathers to be more responsible, discouraging teenage out-of-wedlock births,” among other things.

What are some of the indirect costs of current welfare legislation? “A culture of drugs, crime, violence, and dependency.” As it stands now, he said that the system “frustrates the majority of Americans: People feel they are being obliged, through their taxes, to pay for the very violence that threatens their security (Mother Jones, December 1995, “Restoring Public Trust”).

“Facts” on Homosexuality Called Into Question

The November 1995 Scientific American reported that recent claims of a biological basis for homosexuality are flawed and perhaps even fraudulent. John Horgan writes that Simon Le Vay of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego “asserted that a minute region of the hypothalamus called the interstitial nucleus was smaller in male homosexuals than in straight men and similar in size to the nucleus of females.” Dr. Le Vay, who is himself John Hogan, writing in “Gay Genes, Revisited” said, recent attempts to replicate Dr. Le Vay’s research have failed, perhaps because the brains he studied may have been damaged by storage.

In 1993, “a group led by Dean H. Hamer of the National Cancer Institute linked male homosexuality to a gene on the X chromosome, which is inherited exclusively from the mother.” But, Mr. Horgan revealed, “one study has contradicted his results [and] more disturbingly, he has been charged with research improprieties and is now under investigation by the Federal Office of Research Integrity.”

Guardian of Truth XL: 2 p. 14-15
January 18, 1996

By Jim McDonald

The Filipino child with his large brown eyes and usually small stature is a lovely child. He is reticent and shy, often afraid of foreigners and strangers. But he quickly “warms up” to Americans who come to preach in his village. One of my most unforgettable pictures (etched forever into my mind) is that of a long line of these beautiful children frantically waving goodbye to us after we had spent two to three hours in their midst. In that particularly poverty stricken area where even the children are aware of how hard life is, our hearts were wrenched within us when several of these begged us to carry them home with us to America.

Still there are happier, cheerier thoughts. On one of our journeys Ken Marrs brought large bags of candy, and in these remote villages with all the children gathered around him, he threw the contents of the bag into the air and all those present laughed with delight to see the children (and sometimes their mothers!) scrambling to snatch the coveted candy. From personal experience I learned that dozens of children can materialize from nowhere. Once when I paused to purchase a soft drink from a “side-store,” I also bought a few pieces of candy to give to the two or three children standing there. Almost instantly, two or three dozen other children were ready for their piece of candy too!

The wise man wrote: “Lo, children are an inheritance from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” He also said, “Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart there from.” Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” As parents we are commanded to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Children are our heritage; the future of the church lies in their hands and in ours who either teach or fail to about the unsearchable riches of Christ.

The teaching of children is neglected in some of the places we visited in the Philippines. The children could be seen playing about, even when we were in the period called “class.” Still, most Filipino churches do have classes although few buildings have separate rooms for these classes. I can remember only two different buildings where separate rooms were provided for children’s classes. The usual “classroom” will be under a nearby shade tree or perhaps a porch of a dwelling close at hand.

Classes are not as “sophisticated” as are ours. Besides the adult class, there will likely be two others, one for the young people; the other for the children. This means that the teacher will have to cope with several different ages in either of these latter two classes. When we preached at Escoda, Marcos, Ilocos Norte (one of the largest of the Filipino churches we saw upwards to 175 worship there each Lord’s Day), we arrived late and classes were in progress. We could hear the happy voices of children in a nearby building, and out of curiosity walked over to survey the class in progress. There were nearly 100 children in that class room that day!

We were impressed with the knowledge and effectiveness of the women who teach these classes. Nieves Sibayan (wife of Materno Sibayan, Sr.) is a very quiet woman who is excellently trained in music and her students sing with enthusiasm and gusto. These children learn far more than “songs,” however. This past September about twelve of sister Sibayan’s students were baptized into Christ.

Another effective teacher is Magdalena (?) who was a Pentecostal preacher before her conversion to Christ some years ago. Her desire to teach the word was not frustrated, however. She simply changed her role in teaching and began training children. Today there are a dozen or more young preachers in Ilocos Norte whose faith in God and in the Bible was planted and nourished by Magdalena. An-other teacher worthy of mention is Conchita Yoro. Her love for the word and for children make her a very effective teacher. The list could be expanded to include dozens of worthy Filipino women.

These women need help in their efforts to instill faith in God and respect for the Scriptures in the hearts of these children. Since class procedures and methods are unlike those in the States, the most practical help to be rendered is providing good Bible story books. Flannel graph material also is helpful. And, since these women frequently travel along with the men that they might teach the children, financial help for transportation is in order. How good it would be for American sisters to write Filipino counterparts, for these women long to hear from American sisters with whom they may share not only ideas of their mutual interest in teaching children, but forge friendships and become a living link across the sea. Benefit from such correspondence would not be one sided: sisters here would gain an invaluable insight of our Lord’s people in the Philippines they did not previously possess. They also would be enriched by the unashamed declaration of faith and hope these sisters express. Names and addresses of some of these women will be supplied upon request to interested sisters here who wish such.

Guardian of Truth XL: 2 p. 8-9
January 18, 1996