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PRACTICAL TRAINING of GOSPEL PREACHERS Last Month I Wrote To

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PRACTICAL TRAINING of GOSPEL PREACHERS Last Month I Wrote To PRACTICAL TRAINING OF GOSPEL PREACHERS Last month I wrote to you about three new schools being opened in Tamil Nadu, South India due to the tremendous growth of the church in that state. Whenever another congregation asks for a school in their area I explain to them that the church must recognize that the school will be theirs and that we will assist them. Here is a letter written to that end March 3, 1996 from the church in Salem, Tamil Nadu. which is about 110 miles from Dindigul. "Dear Bro. Jim E. Waldron, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ from the church of Christ members at 11, Anthonypuram, Salem-636 005. We the undersigned ... humbly and kindly request you to help us to start a Bible Institute in our place. With one accord we will look after the Salem bible Institute business. Also we the graduates from Dindigul, J. David, A. Ruban, G. Priyasami, Kaliyanasundaram, Sivalingam and V. Palanis promise that we will share the Bible Institute teaching with Bro. V.S. Lawrance praying for you and for your ministry. Please pray for us. Hope to hear from you a favorable reply. Thanking you, Your brothers in Christ." (Signed by 41 brothers, authenticated with thumbprints.) Brother V.S. Lawrence preaches for the Anthonypuram church and during the week of May 5-10, I was with him teaching the selection class for this new school. Thirty-four attended the class and 31 qualified. Each of these has been a Christian for over three years and their average education is 11 years and 7 months. This is amazing in a country where the literacy rate is 55 percent and the average about grade five. Two of the men have their bachelors degree and one has his master's degree. The cost per month for this school will be $775.00, that is $25 per man per month. The school is scheduled to start regular classes this month. Is it not amazing that for cost four people eating out here in America we can train a man to preach Jesus in a third world nation. Since it is most difficult to find one congregation to support all the men, we urgently need is 31 Christians who will commit to the support of these students. Please help - our God will bless you for it. SIX GRADUATE IN PAKISTAN I was in Pakistan the week of April 15-21. Graduation for the Lahore Bible Institute was held on the 19th. Two native brothers, Asghar Ali and Hadayat Din, were the guest speakers. There were six men to graduate after their three years in the work study program of the school. Twenty-five have now completed the course and received their Bible diplomas since the school began in 1990. Anwar Masih is the director. FALSE TEACHING COMES TO MISSION FIELD As many of you are know there is a very strong effort on the part of some preachers across America to restructure the churches of Christ in order that they will be more palatable to denominational people. This is not the first time this has happened in North America. In the latter part on the last century churches by the hundreds were swept into apostasy through the lust for instruments of music in the worship and through the effort to control local congregations through a super church organization known as the missionary society. The code word of the modern digressives is "change." Many of them have been to sectarian divinity schools and are now saying the church will die if it does not change to attract "baby boomers." Yet, those who support these false teachers are not content to simply corrupt North American churches. For example while I was in South India on my most recent trip brother E.A. Arumugam, who is one of three elders in the church in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, and the director of the school of preaching (163 currently enrolled) showed me a copy of a book which had been mailed to him anonymously: The Second Incarnation, by "Dr." Randall J. Harris and "Dr." Rubel Shelly. This book which was published in 1992 is very bold in its efforts to equate the church of our Lord with denominations and even denies that the church of Christ is the kingdom of God and repeatedly proclaims that we should today keep on praying "thy kingdom come." Who knows to how many other mission fields this book has been mailed free of charge? Brother Curtis Cates, (5512 Cottonwood Road, Memphis, Tn. 38115) director of the Memphis School of preaching, has written review of the Shelly - Harris book and fully exposed their error. A major part of the digression in the last century came about because preachers from the churches of Christ, who had graduated from "our schools" like Bethany College in West Virginia and the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky went for graduate studies in such seminaries as those of Harvard and Yale, then came back promoting evolution and denying the word of God. Brothers J. E. Choate, who for more than thirty years was a professor at David Lipscomb University and Adron Doran, 1930 graduate of Freed Hardeman College and former president of Morehead State University in Kentucky, have documented much of this digression in their book, The Christian Scholar (Gospel Advocate, 1985). Now brother Choate is publishing several articles in which he shows how the College of the Bible was taken over by modernists at the beginning of this century and how that false teachers among us in this generation are doing the same thing in some our present schools. Also the Firm Foundation, P.O. Box 690192, Houston, Tx. 77269-0192, has over the last five years documented much of this current digressive movement in connection with Abilene Christian University. Brother Goebel Music in 1991 published Behold The Pattern, in which he meticulously documented the uncertain sounds of ten preachers and/or college professors. These men are Max Lucado, San Antonio, Tx.; Stephen Taylor, Former professor of Abilene Christian University, who is now in England; Larry James, Plano, Tx.; Rick Atchley, Fort Worth, Tx.; Randy Fenter, San Antonio, Tx.; Jim Hackney, Fort Worth, Tx.; Jeff Walling, Mission Viejo, Ca.; Randy Mayeux, Dallas, Tx.; Rubel Shelly, Nashville, Tn.; and Denny Boultinghouse, West Monroe, La.. Now I know that men can print false reports about a brother, for it happened I my case 13 years ago when a Diotrephes type elder in Ohio through the control of the church trustees took over the building and drove out the faithful elders and two thirds of the congregation. This man, whom I opposed because of his gross error on marriage, divorce and remarriage and abortion; and who had been marked for such teaching. This man with the faction left with him proceeded to write a letter against me and circulate it to the brotherhood. Thus it is right and imperative that charges be true and well documented. In the case of the material in brother Music's book I was recently contacted by an elder, who said he needed evidence that the things written in brother Music's book about those ten men was true, because he was dealing with a brother who was saying it was lies. I put him in touch with the Alkire Road church in Grove City, Ohio, which wrote to all ten of these men after the book was published asking them among other things, did Goebel Music misrepresent their teaching in anyway. Eight of them responded by mail and one by phone, and not one of them said they were misquoted or misrepresented. More than 55,000 copies of brother Music's book have been printed. The retail price is $21.95, but he only sells it for $5.00 plus $2.50 for postage. His address is 5114 Montclair, Colleyville, Tx. 76034. May God bless you for your zeal for His Son and His Kingdom. In Christian love, Jim E. Waldron .
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