Posted on 01/24/2007 5:24:55 AM PST by Quix
FAITH COMES BY HEARING--NT ON MP3 [SOLA SCRIPTURA PROVEN]
By Quix with appendixes from the FCBH website
Pastor Brent, of our church—DESERT HEIGHTS COMMUNITY CHURCH—has partnered with FAITH COMES BY HEARING (FCBH) to collect $25,000 to translate the NT into a South American language. The Seranon sp? people group have had written Scriptures since the late 1800’s as I recall. But the vast majority (90%?) of the population are illiterate.
The organization brings together the copyright holders of at least one major Bible translation with the means and resources of translating Scripture into language groups where there is no Scripture available or where the people are too illiterate to make use of what may be available.
Once the Scriptures have been translated, they are put on a windup MP3 player and given to A MAN OF PEACE in a village in the language group. The man agrees to host all who want to listen once a week—listening for 30 minutes and discussing for 30 minutes. More is an option.
About 6 out of 10 times A CHURCH SPONTANEOUSLY APPEARS—FUNCTIONING, HEALTHY, BIBLICAL. Many times, MULTIPLE CHURCHES ARISE spontaneously—from one MP3 player as it’s shared beyond the original agreement.
CLEARLY HOLY SPIRIT IS WELL ABLE TO INSURE THAT GOD’S WORD DOES NOT RETURN VOID. MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOLY SPIRIT HAS REPEATEDLY MADE CLEAR OVER 30 YEARS THAT HE IS WELL ABLE TO ESTABLISH HIS CHURCH AND MAINTAIN IT’S HEALTHY FUNCTIONING
WITHOUT
ANY BUREAUCRACY FROM THE WEST OR ANYWHERE ELSE. . . .
without any tradition bound, traditions of men infected magesterium;
without any pontifical seminaries;
without any arguments about the original artifacts;
without any trumped up line of political succession;
without any denominational pride, parochialness and haughtily held distinctives;
without any formal or informal inquisitions;
without any arrogant authoritarian doctrinal police;
WITHOUT any elaborate explanations and straight jackets about how GOD CAN’T/WOULDN’T DO IT THAT WAY; GOD WOULDN’T DO !THAT!
WITHOUT anything but GOD’S WORD. TRULY LITERAL SOLA SCRIPTURA.
AND FROM HIS WORD, GOD PERSISTENTLY SPRINGS, BIRTHS HEALTHY ENDURING CHURCHES WHICH GO ON TO MATURE THEIR BELIVERS IN THE FAITH AND TO PLANT NEW CHURCHES.
PRAISE GOD FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS ABILITY TO DO HIS WORK without our flesh driven organizations mucking it up.
PRAISE GOD FOR THE FREEDOM OF HIS SALVATION AND LIFE IN HIS SPIRIT!
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Below are some selected portions from the FCBH website with links. I strongly encourage all true believers to consider this organization in their prayers and however else God might lead. Those with translating and other helpful skills and resources might find a place of service that could be very rewarding.
We are a small congregation. Already we are more than 1/5 toward the $25,000 goal of translating the NT into the Seranon language orally—in less than 6-10 months (I don’t recall for sure). It may be something God would lead your church to consider.
BTW, churches who partner with the organization get MP3 format CD’s for their members to listen to Scripture in their homes and cars. FAITH COMES BY HEARING has proven over and over again to be a productive, fruitful blessing in the lives of those of us who have useful written Scriptures. There’s just something about repeatedly HEARING Scripture that is spiritually potent and life-giving.
IIRC, using such methods, it is projected that all the language groups still without Scripture can have it within the next 8-12 years. This should alert all who pay attention to Biblical prophecy . . . related to Scripture being spread to all language groups/people groups throughout the world before Christ’s return.
MAY GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS THE HEARING OF HIS WORD.
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APPENDIXES:
HOSANNA/Faith Comes By Hearing is a non-profit, religious organization founded in 1972. The purpose of the organization is wholly religious: to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord in all that we do.
Trusting Jesus Christ as our Savior, we believe in:
The Bible as the inspired Word of God. The deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son. The vicarious death of Jesus Christ for our sins, His bodily resurrection and His personal return. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration.
Vision Our Vision is to bring His Church together and make disciples.
Mission Statement To accomplish our vision, we are committed to putting every translation of the Bible in audio form, and to implementing Faith Comes By Hearing in every church or village in the world, so that all people, especially the 50% of the world who cannot read, can hear God's Word in the language they pray in.
Hosanna/Faith Comes By Hearing is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
More than half the world cannot read and in some countries as many as 80-90% are illiterate. And even people from an oral tradition who CAN read, often learn best by listening.
Faith Comes By Hearing® is dedicated to overcoming every barrier of illiteracy, poverty, or oral culture, so that people around the world can hear God's Word in the "heart languages," find salvation in Jesus Christ and become disciples. The Audio New Testament breaks the barriers, bringing poor and illiterate people to God's Word.
= = = =
How it works:
From:
http://www.hosanna.org/HowItWorks.pdf
Local pastors and village leaders commit with their people to listen through the New Testament for at least 30 minutes each week, followed by discussion.
Many sessions are held outdoors for lack of a room large enough to accommodate all who want to hear.
Attendance, testimonies and commitments are tracked and reported to FCBH.
A check is made 6 weeks after placing an MP3 player with the NT. If a church has not spontaneously arisen, the MP3 player is taken to a different village and MAN OF PEACE to host it.
Approximately 6 out of 10 times, a church appears spontaneously--LITERALLY SOLA SCRIPTURA by Holy Spirit’s work through the spoken Word and the hearts of the listeners.
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Pdf report of 30 years of Faith Comes By Hearing here:
http://www.hosanna.org/newsletter_30-yr.pdf
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LANGUAGES THAT MP3 PLAYERS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN AT THIS LINK:
http://www.hosanna.org/Products/Search_p.cfm?CFID=248914&CFTOKEN=75276606
= = = =
In four years, 6,375 people believed . . . from a Wycliffe article here:
http://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/wfl.pdf
= = = =
YWAM article on winning the ORAL MAJORITY from this link:
http://www.ywam.org/articles/article.asp?AID=346&bhcp=1
Winning the Oral Majority Mission agencies rethink outreach to the world's non-literate masses By Dawn Herzog Jewell
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus and his band of disciples proclaimed a revolutionary message through stories, parables, and proverbs. Although few members of the early church could read or write, the message of the gospel took root, owing partly to its method of proclamation. Today, a number of mission leaders are calling for a return to Jesus' oral method of communicating. The majority of the world's people, they say, won't be reached any other way.
"Seventy percent of the world's people today can't, don't, or won't read," says Avery Willis, executive director of the recently formed International Orality Network (ION), a partnership of 22 mission agencies including the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board (IMB), Youth With a Mission (YWAM), Trans World Radio, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Since the printing of the Gutenberg Bible, Willis says, Western Christianity "has walked on literate feet," indirectly requiring literacy for evangelism and discipleship. Yet more than 4 billion of the world's people are oral learners. According to the 2004 Lausanne paper "Making Disciples of Oral Learners," nearly 90 percent of the world's Christian workers serve among auditory learners and often use inappropriate, literacy-based communication styles.
ION seeks to equip mission agencies, churches, and individuals in effective oral strategies, and its mobilization of vastly different agencies has already been a feat in itself. "The amazing thing is we've all come with an attitude of what we can give, not what we can get," Willis says. "We've all agreed to leave our logos and egos at the door."
Powered by Partnership Reaching the oral majority for Christ requires communicating in forms familiar to oral cultures, such as stories, proverbs, drama, songs, chants, and poetry.
The Lausanne paper tells the testimony of an Indian Hindu, a pastor named Dinanath, who came to Christ in 1995 through the work of a cross-cultural missionary. When Pastor Dinanath returned to his village in 1998 following two years of Bible college, he began preaching in the way he'd been taught. But few villagers showed any interest, leaving him discouraged and confused.
The next year, Pastor Dinanath attended a seminar on storytelling methods. He realized that a lecture style and printed books couldn't reach his people, so he changed his preaching. He began telling Bible stories and singing gospel songs put to traditional music.
By 2004, his village church had multiplied into 75 churches with 1,350 baptized members. "This is the next wave in missions," Willis says, "like a Gutenberg II."
A former senior vice president for the IMB, Willis saw the door for cross-agency collaboration open in 1995 at the AD2000 and Beyond Movement's Korea gathering. It was there that he publicly repented for the Southern Baptists' pride in believing they could reach the world by themselves. Later, at the Amsterdam 2000 conference, a group of nine mission leaders including Willis formed an informal organization, Table 71, to begin talking about ways to work together. In February 2005, ION was formed.
Willis is quick to cite the gifts of agencies involved in ION: "Wycliffe brings the integrity of Bible translation, the IMB contributes church planting and Bible storying methodology, Campus Crusade brings its global media expertise in the Jesus film and its work on college campuses, YWAM brings its training and recruiting gifts, Trans World Radio has the ability to put stories on radio, and so on."
That's not to say that the agencies agree on everything. Although Wycliffe actively participates in ION, it remains committed to literacy training and Scripture translation for the world's minority language groups. Freddy Boswell, Wycliffe International's vice president for Scripture promotion, hesitates to throw his full support behind the orality movement. "There's an emotional rush to meet oral needs. It's something new and exciting to say, 'Hey, can we do something to reach 70 percent of the world's population?' " he says. "But let's not forget literacy and translation."
Wycliffe still promotes study of the printed Word as the key to evangelism and long-term discipleship.
Morgan Jackson, international director of Hosanna/Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH), affirms that, ideally, "orality never moves people away from literacy—it moves them to literacy."
Working with Wycliffe and national Bible societies, Jackson's ministry records and distributes Scripture readings around the world. After hearing the Scriptures, many listeners immediately want to read the Bible themselves, Jackson says.
Last year, FCBH joined the Jesus Film Project to test an outreach program in 28 languages. Following more than 4,000 showings of the Jesus film, local volunteers trained by FCBH led weekly Scripture-listening and discussion groups. The results surpassed all expectations. In Nigeria, 10,000 people made decisions for Christ, and 7,900 joined listening groups. Six months later, 42 of the groups had become churches. "Before, when you showed the Jesus film in some places," Jackson says, "people came to Christ, but you could come back six months later and nothing would exist."
It can take time to train cross-cultural workers in oral techniques, which require a greater appreciation for the concrete. Trans World Radio's training courses contrast how oral and literate learners think.
"When we're taught to read and write, one of our first lessons in literacy is categorizing shapes into circles, triangles, and squares," media services officer Tom Tatlow says. "But an oral person would say, 'That's a wheel, a pie, or a box.'"
Thanks to ION and others, oral strategies are beginning to seep into local church missions. At a Finishing the Task conference held in November at the Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, North Carolina, ION provided each church that selected an unreached people group with resources for oral strategies. Also, one of the five thrusts of the ambitious PEACE plan launched by Saddleback Church's Rick Warren targets literacy. Curtis Sergeant, Saddleback's director of church planting, stocks Saddleback's website with resources for training literacy tutors and employing oral strategies in a range of ministries.
LaNette Thompson, an orality consultant for IMB, has been receiving more requests than she can accept from mission agencies. She says that seminaries and church leaders in West Africa have been slow to accept oral strategies, because Western missionaries have instilled "the expectation that church leaders must be literate." However, Thompson believes gospel storying will catch on with African women, traditionally the storytellers in their families.
In early 2007, ION plans to hold a consultation in Delhi, India. "We really want to raise indigenous leaders on every continent who take this message and do what they need to do," Willis says.
While orality may make headlines in the West, its strategies aren't novel for majority-world Christians, says Scott Moreau, editor of Evangelical Missions Quarterly and chair of Wheaton Graduate School's intercultural studies department. Moreau points to the explosion of the church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the last 50 years.
"We might be reinventing a wheel that they've been using a long time," he says. "But it's exciting that we're discovering for ourselves what's going on and using it to the kingdom's advantage."
Dawn Herzog Jewell works for Media Associates International, a communications training ministry. Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. March 2006, Vol. 50, No. 3, Page 56
Ref: categorie(s): News, News Events, Partnership, Stories: News
= = = =
United Bible Societies article here:
http://www.biblesociety.org/wr_402/402_contents.htm
= = = =
So you agree then that the subtitle of the thread is inaccurate?
Not at all. A basic reading of the bible shows that implanting Christianity is not all that easy. The life of a missionary can be difficult. Even those who are accepting can be lead astray. So, therefore, simply because you say somebody says that they gave an mp3 player to some tribesman and the tribesman said they were not Christians, while a great thing, does not mean that the work is done.
If we can agree on nothing else, we certainly can agree on this. I'm not convinced at your argument, and you're not convinced of the flaws that I see in your argument, and I doubt either of us is near convincing the other. That said, I need to attend to other things.
I sometimes drive a hard argument, which combined with pure stubbornness can make for some rather harsh comments. I apologize if I was out of line... all too often for me, charity and patience are the first to go. I'll leave the discussing and arguing to everyone else on the thread.
I will pray for you tonight; not that you see things my way, but that we eventually see things the same way, even if that ends up being in Heaven instead of here on Earth.
Amen, it is Wonderful! Thank You, Loving Lord, for Your Merciful Grace!
I was doing a study on another subject and came across this interesting essay on Augustine's thoughts on the supremecy of the scriptures.
The Libri Carolini was drawn up by Theodulf of Orléans (c.760-821)—one of the key theologians of the Carolingian church and the author of the well-known hymn “All glory, laud, and honour”—in 790-793 and then later revised by him with the help of, among others, Alcuin of York (c.732-804)—the private tutor to Charlemagne and the head of the palace school at Aachen. It was a well-argued response by the Latin-speaking Carolingian Church to the iconodulist decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea (787). In essence, the Libri Carolini sought to refute this council’s advocacy of the use of icons as vehicles of worship and argument that such icons deserved the identical adoration as due to God. In light of recent discussions about worship and the so-called contemporary inability to primarily use words—notably the sermon—as a vehicle for worship, it has some interesting observations to add to these discussions.
Theodulf was a Visigothic churchman who was deeply influenced by the writings of Augustine, particularly the latter’s De doctrina christiana. This Augustinian work, which deals broadly with hermeneutics and was often treated as a manual for preachers in the early Middle Ages, provided Theodulf with the resources to argue that the Bible alone is “the material object to which the Christian can turn to gain knowledge of the spiritual realm, because it was granted by God for this purpose” [Celia Chazelle, “ ‘Not in Painting but in Writing’: Augustine and the Supremacy of the Word in the Libri Carolini” in Edward D. English, ed., Reading and Wisdom. The De Doctrina Christiana of Augustine in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 7]. Augustine was fairly severe on artistic representation. He argued that it was a “useless institution” that the serious student of Scripture needed to avoid. Relying on this Augustinian work, Theodulf was thus convinced that the Greek Orthodox advocacy of icons was due to their poor understanding of the beauty and riches of Scripture. The latter has all that a believer needs.
Celia Chazelle, in the above-cited article, notes that Theodulf’s critique is also tied up with “the concept that writing in general has greater merit as an instrument of communication than does artistic depiction” (“Not in Painting but in Writing” in English, ed., Reading and Wisdom, 7). A picture, since it is material, does not partake of the spiritual realm. By definition, it must resemble that to which it refers and thus it cannot really inform its viewers about the realm of the Spirit. Words, on the other hand, are not so limited, for words are signs that do not have to resemble their subjects. And going along with this powerful advocacy of the written word and the supremacy of Scripture was an attempt to make Caorlingian society an increasingly literate culture.
Summing up the thrust of the argument of the Libri Carolini and its similarity to Augustine’s De doctrina christiana, Chazelle states:
“Both treatises insist on the supremacy of words as signs over all other forms of communication accessible to humans; both stress the difficulty, subtlety, and richness of written language, especially Scripture, and both maintain that the Christian who does not investigate the Bible’s language carefully or with sufficient grasp of the rules governing written language runs the danger of misinterpreting Scripture’s message. Both treatises make it clear that interest in artistic representations is incompatible with study of the Bible…” (“Not in Painting but in Writing” in English, ed., Reading and Wisdom, 12).
Posted by Michael A G Haykin at 2:17 PM
For by One Offering He hath Perfected Forever them that are Sanctified. (Heb.10:14)
He that heareth my word
He doesn't say read, he says hear ;)
Trusting mortals is risky business.
Split the tribesmen into two groups.
Give group #1 an mp3 player with the Scriptures.
Give group #2 am mp3 player with some catchy Elvis songs.
Return at periodic intervals and monitor the number and behavior of the followers of each respective mp3 "Church" group.
If your hypothesis is correct, the Holy Spirit acting through the "proven" Sola Scriptura will be striking regularly at the quoted 60% success ratio (6 out of 10), leaving poor Elvis to pick up the crumbs among the 40% loser group who are apparently "Sola refractive".
IOW, you need to control for the "mp3 effect". That is, giving shiny "great-white-hunter" speaking widgets to isolated tribesman may have an effect independent of the contents of the mp3. I think a rigorous "proof" demands that you eliminate this possibility.
They would get both Scripture and Elvis.
Thus, we would get to quantitate the "Sola Scriptura" and "Elvis" effects in both isolation and in competition.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
30 YEARS demonstrating
that in SOME respects it CAN be that "easy" in terms of implanting The Word in tribal groups evidently is
not enough for some sensibilities and constructions on reality.
There used to be a group of ecclesiastical religious experts who Christ accused of erecting countless road blocks, burdens, walls between God and people . . .
They too thought a relationship with God should be difficult to impossible and procede ONLY with their imprimateur, sanction, blessing.
God thought otherwise.
Christ shed His Precious Blood for otherwise.
Praise God, Holy Spirit is still proving OTHERWISE.
I think I'll go on agreeing with God on that issue.
Am happy for prayers that God's Highest will be done, manifested in my life and the lives of all I care about--which would include you.
Thanks.
Blessings,
Thanks.
Impressive.
Indeed, the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. (John 14-17, Romans 8.)
Trusting mortals is risky business.
= = = =
Quite so. Has persistently been so in my experience.
PRAISE GOD.
Could not begin to do such a study with a clear conscience.
That would be like doing an experiment knowingly giving folks TB or syphilus.
The Word is Life. Nothing else comes close.
It has been my observation and experience, that
no matter how easy the introduction to Jesus . . . sooner or later all believers have to come to terms with learning about
COUNT IT ALL JOY when you fall into diverse temptations . . .
and
Romans 8:18
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
and
2 Corinthians 1:5
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
and
2 Corinthians 1:6
And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
and
2 Corinthians 1:7
And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.
and
Philippians 3:10
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
and
James 5:10
Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
and
1 Peter 4:13
But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
= = = =
This is boot camp.
Praise God for a joyous smooth easy intro. There are plenty of challenges ahead for every believer.
Deliberately placing such stumbling stones in anyone's way is not Christ-like.
Well, that's the point of this article, isn't it?
No, I think the subtitle is optimistic.
None of us knows if any of these people are among the elect, but it is a fact that all who are among the elect, eventually, whether it is by these MP3 players or by some other means of the Gospel being preached to them, will know their salvation by Jesus Christ and believe.
Scripture tells us to preach the Gospel and so we must.
KEEP them illiterate?
Who was KEEPING them illiterate? As if this poor peasant tilling the land for some feudal Lord had *all* this time and momey to learn to read, but those big bad ol' priests just kept 'em down. Holy cow..what a conspiracy LOL. Find me one historical source that backs up this truly absurd claim.
The printing press, doc, was an advancement in *technology*, not the end of a conspiracy.
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