The covenant of God. Our mission to the world. How often have we thought about these highly sig­nificant biblical concepts together? How often, when discussing one, have we been led to discuss the other? How deeply has our thinking penetrated into the glo­rious realities and urgent callings that lie at the inter­section of these truths? It is the humble opinion of this writer that there is room for growth in our understand­ing of the relation between these marvelous truths of Scripture. The burden of this and subsequent articles will be an attempt to develop the relation between them as it...

March 21, 2020 Dear beloved congregation of Provident PRC, In times like this, the Lord might give opportunities to let our light shine before men by our good works. I pray that your neighbors will notice that you do not fear COVID-19, but you have hope, and that they ask a reason for your hope (I Pet. 3:15). Be ready to give an answer! We are going through a strange and uncertain mo­ment in our lives! We did not expect the pandemic of COVID-19. Just a few weeks ago, we observed the hand of God in the eruption of Taal...

Previous article in this series: November 15, 2019, p. 93. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob…for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the...

Previous article in this series: May 15, 2019, p. 382. The zealous Christian witness who would reprove the man of this world, with the desire that he might be gained to Christ, must learn about that man and his religion before reproving him. “It is clear,” writes the Reformed missiologist J. H. Bavinck, “that elenctics must first of all begin with the precise and calm knowledge of the nature of the religion with which it is concerned.”1 The Presbyterian mission­ary John Young writes, “Such a refutation [of a false religion] will of course entail a knowledge of the native religion, not...

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2019, p. 189. In the wilderness of Judea, John the Baptist began to preach, saying, Repent (Matt. 3:2). In the towns of Galilee, Jesus began to preach, say­ing, Repent (Matt. 4:17). In some of His last words to the disciples, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit who would reprove the world of sin,[1] righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). In the Great Commission, Jesus sent us into the world, saying, “Repentance and remission of sins must be preached in my name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). O man of this...

Elenctics, an aspect of the mission and witness of the church of Jesus Christ in the world, asks a vital question. “In all elenctics,” wrote the Dutch Reformed missiologist J. H. Bavinck, “the concern is always with the all-important question: ‘What have you done with God?’”[1] You, man of this world, have done something with God. What have you done with Him? The answer to that question of elenctics points us to one of the important elements of our task in missions and witnessing. In missions and witnessing, there is an encounter be­tween the believer and the unbeliever somewhere in...

As far as I knew, the only connection we had to the young man we were about to visit was that he had done some work on our church building just down the road in Provident Village. Yet for my evangelistically zealous Filipino brethren that was enough reason to visit and bring the gospel to him. I was delighted to do so. When a man does work on your church building, behold, an opportunity to witness! Hence, I found myself walking under the moonlit sky above Metro Manila through a front yard with probably a dozen roosters. The cocks were...

Gathered in the fellowship hall of Provident Christian Church, in an area of Metro Manila called Marikina, our weekly Bible study was about to begin. After singing a psalm together and opening with prayer, we read Scripture, each person taking a verse. We are studying the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, and that night we were up to verse 14. I started our discussion with the remark that the principal sign of the coming of Christ is the preaching of the gospel in all the world for a witness to all nations. When that is finished, says Jesus, the end...

Having turned off the Isuzu Crosswind, I stepped out and walked up the stairs to the front door of the house, Bible in hand. Darkness had settled over the Orient, and thankfully the tropical heat had relented. This particular neighborhood in Metro Manila was peaceful and quiet. I had just driven about half an hour from our house in Antipolo City, in the low mountains east of Manila. I drove down the mountain, past multitudes of colorful jeepneys, noisy trikes, and crossing pedestrians, and arrived at the house. But I forgot that Filipinos usually eat supper around 7:00 p.m. or...

We miss in the Reformers not only missionary action, but even the idea of missions, in the sense in which we understand them today.—Gustav Warneck1 Instead of saying ‘We ought to have missions, and we will have them, as soon as the Lord opens the door,’ the Protestants tended to say ‘Missions are neither obligatory nor desirable, and our lack of them cannot be held against us as blindness or unfaithfulness.—Stephen Neill2 One would naturally expect that the spiritual forces released by the Reformation would have prompted the Protestant churches of Europe to take the gospel to the ends of...