Warmest New Yr’s greetings!
By the point this reaches you, I’ll, God keen, be in Katoomba, Australia. Over a 12 months in the past, I used to be invited to have an element within the annual Summer season College convention of the Church Mission Society. The CMS is a fellowship of Christian folks and church buildings dedicated to international missions. Their mission is to see a world that is aware of Jesus as they work with church buildings to set aside godly folks as long-term cross-cultural Gospel staff.
I’ve been requested to exposit 1 Peter in seven sermons. My preparation has been drastically enhanced by benefitting from a commentary by the late Alan Stibbs (1901–1971). After his commencement from Cambridge, he went to China with the China Inland Mission. He was a part of the missionary motion that included Isobel Kuhn, Gladys Aylward, and Eric Liddell, the Scottish Olympian sprinter portrayed within the movie Chariots of Hearth. When in poor health well being necessitated his return to the UK, Stibbs joined the employees of Oak Hill Theological School in North London. Promoted to vice principal, he served at Oak Hill for the remainder of his life.
Stibbs was an in depth buddy of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and, like him, was temperamentally shy. J. I. Packer, commenting on him, noticed, “All through the Bible what makes a trainer of God’s folks just isn’t some magic of character or temperament, however the Phrase which God provides him, first to obey himself after which to talk to others.”
In coaching younger males for Gospel ministry, Stibbs was looking for, he stated, to redress “the widespread deficiency of the preaching ministry within the pulpit and congregation of Nice Britain. For a lot of who seem in pulpits to minister the Phrase not converse to those that are persuaded that God is the writer of Holy Scripture.”
The affect of Stibbs’s life and work continues to today. I used to be nineteen when he died, and right here I’m, greater than half a century later, impressed by his reminiscence, helped by his scholarship, and stirred by his imaginative and prescient to achieve the world with the claims of Christ.
His convictions about Gospel ministry I share with many, and your partnership and assist for Reality For Life is taking part in an enormous half in seeing youthful males in church ministry being strengthened and inspired.
A brand new 12 months gives the chance to ascertain godly habits by way of our non-public each day studying and prayer and our public dedication to our native church buildings. This month’s assets will probably be useful on each counts. So, though we have no idea the longer term, we all know the One who holds it, and our instances are in His palms. Wanting ahead with you to all that God has in retailer for us all!
With my love within the Lord Jesus,
Alistair
