Come to the 21st century and hear the story of one woman whose name was not Mary. Under the worst of circumstances, she also made the better choice. If you are looking for relevance, her story is relevant, one meant for our times, difficult times, recession times. She was then a sixteen year old, working to make ends meet to support family. By that, I mean she and her mother, who was invalid. Her father, a member of the Lord’s church too, just died, apparently a suicide. She was the only child of a marriage that never lasted long, an unschooled teenager taught by a great schooled preacher. Because her father had thought of himself as a hopeless case, she chose to hope that things for her and her mother would be better. The Lord was their hope.

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Three brothers and two sisters in Christ, the mission team from the Saturn Road church, came on September 24, got their first taste of what it means to lose one American day and gain a Philippine day, messing up their body clocks in the process, and got themselves involved in the teaching at the facilities of Philippine Institute of Biblical Studies in Pit-os, at the church facilities in Talamban, at Jollibee-Banilad, at Helen Uytengsu’s place in Banilad and at Krua Thai restaurant, Banilad Town Centre. Let me introduce them to you.

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The preacher eagerly doing the job of preaching has certain challenges, opportunities and responsibilities. These I describe as peculiar; others call these extraordinary.  They are a part and parcel of a preacher’s private life that makes him tick— his study life.

The preacher must be a well that doesn’t run dry. It is an axiom that dry wells cannot give forth water. Brethren will long to come to free-flowing springs to have a drink. The fruit of much study comes out of preacher’s mouth; but the seed of scholarly efforts must first be planted in his brain. We cannot teach what we have not imbibed. In other words, a preacher must needs to have mental industry, or he would amount to any of the following

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An old man, age 93, passed away this week.  Fifty years ago he was the owner of a hundred hectares of mountain land planted to corn–literally fields of green beside a flowing mountain brook. He also owned the largest house in this community of small people living in small houses. His things were the envy of the village underachievers and the talk of the village gossips. No one above the age of fifty today could not say he or she had not worked in this old man’s farm, had not experienced his tongue-lashing when he complained of backjobs, had not felt being exploited because of being poor.  The old man used to ride sky-high on the glory of being lord of a small manor. Now he’s dead.

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I type this post today and I still cannot believe what had happened to me last night as I was on my way home from preaching in the mountains.  I type this post slowly because I still could feel the pain in my left arm and the pain in my left leg.

However, those pains in my extremities are nothing compared to the pain that I had felt in my heart– the pain of fear. Because for one more time in my life—last night— I had felt so afraid. I thought it would be my last day in the land of the living.

Last night, on the highway going home, I fell from my motorcycle. Flat on the pavement.

The road was wet and slippery and that portion on the entry point at Nasipit going to Talamban was flooding, which was probably one reason the vehicles on this stretch of the road did not seem to be moving, and I too was wet because I had been traveling three hours under the rain. It had been raining hard the whole morning yesterday.

I fell from my motorcycle not because of my carelessness, for I have always been careful.

I fell because an AUV, colored white, whose driver was in a hurry to go home–like me who was also in a hurry to go home, like every driver of every one of those vehicles on that stretch of the highway who was in a hurry to go home– forgot good manners and road courtesy, and bumped me on my right side, and I fell.

I fell flat on the hard concrete—and imagined death under those rushing wheels.

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During this week, we had a surprise visit from brother Labroso, who is connected with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Brother Labroso has married a daughter of brother Santiago Binaluga, one of the pillars of the church in the mountainous  village of Pagang, Himamaylan, Negros Occidental.

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Eighteen preacher delegates from the churches of Ormoc (Leyte), Tayasan (Negros Oriental), Guindulman (Bohol), Tayud, Consolacion (Cebu), Toledo City (Cebu), Mandaue City (Cebu), Kabankalan (Negros Occidental) and others from Negros Oriental came for the weeklong Bible classes at the Philippine Institute of Biblical Studies in Pit-os.

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Yesterday, August 18 (Philippine time), preacher delegates from the churches of Ormoc (Leyte), Guindulman (Bohol), Tayud, Consolacion (Cebu), Toledo City (Cebu), and Mandaue City (Cebu) started arriving for the weeklong Bible classes at the Philippine Institute of Biblical Studies in Pit-os. More preachers are expected to arrive today.

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One of the many terms that generally describe God’s worker is the word “preacher.” This word is not only descriptive of the worker, but of the work that God expects of him. Our study here concerns about the etymology of the word, its classical use in the secular world, and in the Bible. Consider these words:

KERUSSO, “to announce, to make known, to proclaim (aloud)”

KERUGMA, “proclamation, announcement, preaching”

KERUX, “herald, announcer, preacher, messenger, proclaimer”

The words in the above group are derived from the noun kerux, frequent in the writings of Homer. Compare this also with the Old Indian karuh, singer; Old Persian xraus, herald; Aramaic karoz, herald, Daniel 3:4 (Colin Brown, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3:48).

Kerux was the man commissioned by his ruler or by the state to call out with a clear voice some item of news and to make that known to the public (Colin Brown, 3:48).

Later, the verb kerusso was coined from the noun to describe the activity of the herald (Colin Brown, 3:48).

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By David Sargent, Via BulletinGold

Rose O’Neal Greenhow (1817-1864) was born in Port Tobacco, Maryland. Orphaned as a child, Greenhow was invited to live with her aunt in Washington, D.C. as a teenager. While living in the nation’s capital, she was introduced to important figures in the Washington area. One of those figures was John C. Calhoun, a man of pro-Southern politics, who apparently convinced Rose to also be of pro-Southern interests during the time of the American Civil War.

Greenhow’s sympathy for the Confederate cause grew after the death of her husband, Dr. Robert Greenhow.  Her loyalty to the Confederacy was noted by those with similar sympathies in Washington, and she was soon recruited as a spy…

In July of 1861, Greenhow passed secret messages to Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard containing critical information resulting in the Union rout at the First Battle of Bull Run. Suspected of espionage and imprisoned in August 1861, she continued gathering and forwarding information vital to Confederate operations. News of her activities brought publicity and tremendous popularity among Southern sympathizers. After being brought to trial in spring 1862, Greenhow was deported to Richmond, where cheering crowds greeted her.

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