Report from APMF Annual Conference – Philippines
Spring Semester Online Class
What's Happening at TorahResource?
A Few Thoughts About Faithfulness
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| The APMF Conference in Manila, Philippines | |
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The Asian Pacific Messianic Fellowship is a group of Messianic congregations that have banned together for mutual encouragement and fellowship. This year the conference hosted a Yeshiva class directed particularly toward leaders and teachers of Torah communities, and then finished with a five day conference open to everyone. I was invited to be the Instructor for the Yeshiva and the keynote speaker at the conference this year, which was held December 20–29. The course selected for the Yeshiva was "The Messiah: An Introduction to Christology," the class I previously taught in the online TorahResource Yeshiva. It was a lot to cover in one week, but we did so, and the students gave good evidence of grasping the materials. It was gratifying to hear students regularly remark that finally they had sufficient understanding of the important christological texts of the Scriptures in order to teach and defend the humanity and the deity of Yeshua. |
| There were approximately 40 students in the Yeshiva. I was impressed with the level of interest and the eagerness with which the students engaged in the topic under discussion. Besides the class lectures themselves, there was plenty of time for questions and answers, as well as informal discussions during breaks and after class sessions. It was evident to me that the Almighty is doing a vital work in this region of the world, drawing many who have come to faith in Yeshua to the beauty and value of the Torah. | |
| It was through the work of Roger and Naomi Walkwitz, who 50 years ago obeyed the burden HaShem had placed upon them to go to the Philippines as missionaries, that so many have come to understand the place of the Torah in the life of faith in Yeshua. The seeds they planted have begun to yield a great harvest. Students from Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Philippines, Israel, Germany, and even the USA attended. The conference, which followed the Yeshiva, hosted nearly 200 people. It was held in the |
 Some of the Yeshiva students who gathered for a picture during one of our breaks |
| same hotel in which the Yeshiva convened. Many of those who attended the conference ate meals together and stayed at the hotel itself. This afforded plenty of time for after-hours conversations and dialoging over the many issues that face Torah communities. At the conference, I taught the material contained in our DVD and CD presentations: "What's So New About the New Covenant?" and "My Big Fat Greek Mindset." During the conference, the mother of one of the young men who helps lead a congregation in Manila passed away. As I attended the funeral, I was greatly impressed with the maturity of this small congregation. It was a remarkable experience to listen to the people comfort each other from the Scriptures, affirming their faith in the goodness of HaShem. I was privileged to lead them in the Mourner's Kaddish, and as I did, I realized how remarkable it was that an ancient Hebrew prayer of the Jewish people had become so important to this group of believers in Yeshua. It demonstrated in stark reality the picture of one Olive Tree in which both natural and wild branches are nourished by the rich root of HaShem's grace and mercy. | |
 A Jeepney – Undisputed "King of the Road" |
We also had a little free time to explore the Filipino culture of Metro Manila. We experienced the traffic (OY! we were very fortunate to have Archie as our driver), gigantic shopping malls, the stark contrasts of poverty in the midst of modern effluence, cell phones (the Filipinos are masters of text-messaging), unbelieveable air polution, and "old-world" colliding with "new world." One of the most heart-wrenching scenes, however, was the number of "street kids" in Manila. Conservative estimates are that 100,000 kids live on the streets of Manila, many with their mothers, but many more fending for themselves. This deplorable situation is the result of the Roman Catholic control of the nation which forbids divorce. As a result, wives who are abused, rejected, or |
| abandoned often have no recourse but to live on the streets, taking their children with them. When the conference ended, and we boarded the airplane for the long trip back to the States, we were physically exhausted but our souls rejoiced to have been privileged to participate in what HaShem is doing in the lives of these people. Our heartfelt thanks goes out to all of you who have supported TorahResource and have therefore made a trip such as this possible. |
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| Understanding Differing Worldviews: An Introduction to Philosophy | |
For the Spring semester of our Online Yeshiva, I will be teaching an introduction to Philosophy course. Some of you may wonder if such a course has any value. Let me assure you that it does! Whether we realize it or not, beginning with ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, and continuing on through modern history to philosophers such as Locke, Hume, Kant, and Darwin, their worldviews have effected us all in one way or another. Becoming aware of what these worldviews are can help us understand a great deal more about our own societies and the world in which we live. |
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| What's Happening at TorahResource? | |
We want you to know about some of the projects that are on our agenda for 2008.
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| A Few Thoughts About Faithfulness | |
Recently I’ve been re-reading The Letter Writer, a book about Paul’s background and Torah perspective I wrote in 2002. In the Prologue, I sought to express the importance of understanding “faith” and “faithfulness” from the vantage point of the biblical text itself rather than through the lenses of Greek or even Gnostic philosophy that so quickly engulfed the early emerging Church. The unfortunate result of the Greek dualism that became so pervasive in the theology of the early Church is that it viewed faith as an inward, mental exercise and divorced it from the outward expression of faithfulness. Once this concept was well entrenched in the theology and teaching of Christianity, statements of Paul such as “For by grace we have been saved through faith…” (Eph 2:8) were understood to mean that one’s salvation resulted from one’s mental or intellectual agreement with the truth. Acceptance of “the creed” became the litmus test of who was “saved” and who was not. In the Prologue to The Letter Writer, I sought to show that for the biblical authors, and for Yeshua Himself, faith and faithfulness were two sides of a single coin that could never be separated. The fact that both the Tanach as well as the Apostolic Scriptures represent the concepts of “to believe, have faith, or be faithful” all by the same word groups makes this fact eminently clear. The consistent message of the Scriptures is that genuine faith always results in faithfulness, and faithfulness is the fruit of genuine faith. Faithfulness in the Tanach As I have been contemplating this relationship between faith and faithfulness, I asked myself a simple question: how is faithfulness to be measured? Or to put it another way, by what criteria does God measure faithfulness? (to read the remainder of this article, click here to download the article as a pdf file) |
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