Back to 2017 Church Weekly List

TRUE LIFE BIBLE-PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
RELC Auditorium, 10.30 am

30 Orange Grove Road, down Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore 258352
Mailing Address: 1 Goldhill Plaza, #03-35, Singapore 308899
Email: admin@truelifebpc.org.sg; Website: http://www.truelifebpc.org.sg
(Ring Pastor Jeffrey Khoo 62561189 Anytime)

Vol. XIV No. 48
27 August 2017
“The LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep SILENCE before him.”
Call WorshipElder JT Joseph
Opening HymnJesus Is Dearer Than All
Invocation/Gloria Patri
Responsive ReadingPsalm 112
HymnIt Is Well with My Soul
Announcements
Ministry of MusicFamily Bible Fellowship
Offerings/HymnA Living Sacrifice
Doxology/PrayerElder JT Joseph
Scripture TextMark 14:1–11
Pastoral PrayerPastor Jeffrey Khoo
SermonLove Him or Hate Him
(Pastor Jeffrey Khoo)
Lord’s Supper/HymnI Have Decided to Follow Jesus
BenedictionPastor Jeffrey Khoo
FAR EASTERN BIBLE COLLEGE

“When the Bible College flourish, the Church is secure; let us make more Masters and doctors. God has preserved the church through colleges. They are the preservers of the church.”

–Martin Luther

This semester (Jul–Nov 2017) FEBC has a total enrolment of 578 students: 95 day students (fulltime: 52, part-time: 43), 304 students in the Basic Theology for Everyone (BTFE) night classes, and 179 distance learning students. The students come from 13 countries: Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

The lecturers/tutors and courses offered this semester are: Rev Dr Jeffrey Khoo: Systematic Theology I (Theism), Greek Exegesis I, Life of Christ; Rev Dr Quek Suan Yew: Old Testament History I, Contemporary Theology III, Hebrew Reading I; Rev Dr Prabhudas Koshy: Homiletics, Isaiah II, Romans; Rev Stephen Khoo: Church History II; Rev Dr Koa Keng Woo: Bible Geography II and Cults II; Rev Tan Kian Sing: Biblical Counselling, 2 Timothy; Mrs Ivy Tow: Greek Elementary I; Mrs Jemima Khoo: Introduction to Christian Education, Beginner Pianoforte; Miss Carol Lee: Sunday School Curriculum Development, Jesus the Master Teacher; Dr Jose Lagapa: Book of James; Mr Clement Chew: Hebrew Elementary I; Mr Dennis Kabingue: Greek Reading I; Miss Joycelyn Chng: Hymnology II; Mrs Anne Lim: English Intensive I; Mrs Irene Lim: English Intermediate I; and Eld Han Soon Juan: English Advanced I.

Dr John Whitcomb’s Bible lectures at FEBC’s Daily Vacation Bible College a couple of decades ago are being digitised. Our IT specialist Sam Goh is now converting the audio cassettes into MP3. These lectures will be offered in FEBC’s distance learning programme. IT staff—Murray Ong and Sam Goh—are working towards enhancing our online offerings. The DipTh graduates of the Bible College of East Africa (BCEA) with high GPAs and recommended by their Principal Rev Dr Mark Kim may pursue their in-ministry BMin online. Matriculation is yearly in January. Apply early.

The Burning Bush—the theological journal of FEBC—has gotten the attention of a couple of publishers. The editor has been asked to review a couple of monographs: Paul and Death (Routledge) and Preaching and Predestination (Summum Academic Publications).

After five decades, FEBC Bookroom is still open. Nowadays, bookstores are struggling for survival. Singapore Bible College closed down its bookstore last year. We will try to maintain ours. To make the Bookroom more manageable, old surplus stocks have been written off. These will go to BCEA, Bomet Bible Institute, Faith College of the Bible, Gethsemane Bible Institute, BEST Seminars etc. The Bookroom continues to stock a wide range of KJV Bibles and gift items from Project En Courage. Drop by the Bookroom at Beulah House, 10 Gilstead Road, to pick up a Bible or gifts for family and friends. “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35). We have a coffee corner for you to enjoy a free cuppa as you browse. Wella is there to serve you.

COLLAPSE OF SEMINARIES IN USA

Theological seminaries in the USA are in trouble. They are closing down one by one. This was reported in the Wall Street Journal, “Seminaries Reflect Struggles of Mainline Churches”, 10 August 2017. In the article, Gary Hall, chairman of the 150-year old Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) which just closed its doors, said, “We’re going to see a bunch of seminaries close in the next 50 years … The church is shrinking. The need for clergy is shrinking. And the institutional support is shrinking.”

Many of the mainline denominations in America have been bleeding financially for years. Church membership has been declining, and fewer and fewer students are enrolling in theological seminaries. According to the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), enrolment has fallen by as much as 25% in the past decade. Reporter Ian Lovett said, “some of the oldest and most celebrated seminaries in the country—institutions that helped shape both Christianity and higher education in the U.S.—are on the brink of financial collapse.”

Lovett observed, “Until recent years, seminaries largely focused on training young college graduates to become full-time church pastors. Schools like EDS and Andover-Newton helped establish a template for what being a church pastor in the U.S. meant. Students spent three years on a seminary campus studying for a master’s of divinity, the degree many denominations have long required for pastors. They studied Greek and Hebrew so they could read some of the earliest Bible texts. Such academic rigor gave rise to a class of clergy who were often among the most educated and respected people in their communities. But as the nation has grown more secular, the role of clergy, and seminaries, has shifted.”

According to Skye Jethani, an evangelical pastor and author, “falling seminary attendance is a symptom of a growing ‘consumerism’ in American Christianity. Fewer churches have the expectation that pastors have gone to seminary. In popular evangelicalism, they don’t really care about your theology. What they care about is, are you an entertaining speaker, or can you run a complicated business like a megachurch?”

It is well known that the mainline Protestant denominations have by and large become apostate, denying the gospel of Jesus Christ, the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Faith. Many are returning to the Papacy, calling the 16th Century Protestant Reformation a mistake. Is it then surprising that their seminaries are collapsing one by one? God is not blessing, He is judging. It is good all these die out and cease from propagating heresies.

In the midst of rampant apostasy, FEBC, by God’s grace, continues to stand strong on the good old Reformed Faith, and the good old Bible which is verbally and plenarily inspired (VPI) and verbally and plenarily preserved (VPP). Although we were sorely persecuted for our faith in recent years, God has protected FEBC because our faith has pleased Him. For “without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Heb 11:6). May the Lord continue to preserve FEBC in these last days, and may FEBC remain faithful and true to His forever infallible and inerrant Words for the good of His Church.

JOHN BUNYAN AND THE ENGLISH BIBLE

Here’s a little anecdote on how John Bunyan once responded to a Cambridge critic about his use of the English Bible:

“To these years before the Restoration belongs also the story of Bunyan’s encounter on the road near Cambridge with the university man, who asked him how he, not having the original Scriptures, dared to preach. To this he gave answer by asking this scholar, in turn, if he himself had the originals, the actual copies written by prophets and apostles. No, but he had what he knew to be true copies of the originals. ‘And I,’ said Bunyan, ‘believe the English Bible to be a true copy also,’ upon which the university man went his way. Source: John Brown, John Bunyan: His Life, Times, and Work (1885), p117.

Dr Don Boys rightly comments,

“If a man tells me he sincerely wants to know about eternal things, I will send him to the King James Bible for the truth. I tell him that it is God’s instruction manual for mankind which was accurately translated into English from the reliable and preserved Hebrew and Greek texts and preserved by God therefore, is totally reliable.

“All the modern versions are based on corrupt Vaticanus and Sinaiticus and the work of evolutionists Westcott and Hort, radical unbelievers. They were Anglican scholars who never missed a chance to denounce, deny, and denigrate the Bible; but they did not disprove it. According to Dr. Jack Moorman’s book on Bible manuscripts, Westcott and Hort’s Vatican and Sinai manuscripts of the New Testament contain more than 8,000 differences with the traditional text underlying the King James Bible!”

WATKINS’ AUSTRALETTER

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

Dear Dr Jeffrey, Session, Camp Committee, brethren and sisters of True Life BP Church.

We greet you in the blessed name of our Risen Redeemer and Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to our Almighty Triune God for His Grace and Mercy to us and to all who are saved by FAITH, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8–10.

It is with thankful hearts and mixed emotions that we write this letter to you all.

As you gather for camp this week, we would long to be there with you as we have been each year for so many years, reaching back to as early as 1995 for many of you.

Now is not the time to share God’s Grace and Mercy to us over those years since He called us to walk beside our now, pastor, Rev Errol Stone and his family as they answered His call to study at Far Eastern Bible College and subsequently brought us to Singapore, to have His infallible and inerrant Word of Truth opened in an amazing blaze of enlightenment we had not experienced before.

Each year since our first visit in 1995, we have been privileged to join you in worship and at camps and for other special occasions, the graduation of our dear Pastor, his ordination, weddings, baptisms and I was privileged to attend, along with Rev Stone, the home-going of your beloved Pastor Rev Timothy Tow who had been such a wonderful encouragement, guide and friend to us as he was to you and still is through his godly writings.

We thank God for the generosity and hospitality extended to us over the years and especially so in recent years, making our camp experience possible.

Our travelling days have been curtailed by failing heart and other constraints but we know God is sovereign and we marvel at the places He has taken us to, the lessons we have learnt and are still learning, the friendships and fellowships we enjoy and look forward to what He has in store for us, knowing He will be with us as He has been in the past. Whilst we would want to be with you all we must do His will and not our own.

We thank God for each and every one of you and will continue to uphold you in prayer.

May this camp be a special blessing as you study the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and we look forward to sharing it with you when our dear Pastor returns to us.

We leave you with these words from God’s Holy Book: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23, 24.

“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

In the Love of the Lord,

Elder Harold & Georgina
Faith Presbyterian Church, Perth

1 Goldhill Plaza, #03-35, S(308899)
admin@truelifebpc.org.sg
6254 1287

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