Dear family, brethren, and friends,

Tuesday night I bid farewell to Nick and Justina Rowe and flew to Brunei.  After spending the night in the airport, I safely reached Manila Wednesday afternoon, where Mark had arrived from Tuguegarao, Cagayan ahead of me.  Thursday, Mark with James Paet joined me on a flight to Davao City in southern Mindanao. Salvador Parbo and a contingent of preachers from General Santos City met us about 2:00 P.M. to drive us about 3 hours to reach Kidapawan City, Cotabato to work with Danny Angeles.

We hit the ground running because we drove straight to the house of Danny’s doctor friend who is a 7^th Day Adventist for a first-time Bible study.  I presented an overview of God’s plan for our salvation entitled “The Gospel Makes Us Right with God (Rom. 1:16-17),” including changes in the plan made by false religions and denominations.  I let the doctor himself read most of the passages and he acknowledged that he understood what we studied.  Mark took a few minutes to explain Jeremiah 31:31-34 to clarify the distinction between the Old and New Testaments.  Dr. Edwin made a weak attempt to explain how his denominational baptism might be the same as Bible baptism, but he acknowledged that he needed to give this more study and thought.  He thanked us for providing the bread of life from God’s Word and invited us to his table to share a feast of physical food.

After we finally got to our hotel, I took a late-night walk, reviewed tomorrow’s lessons, and read a few emails, getting to bed at 1:15 A.M.  I have learned that Negros Occidental has suffered a volcanic eruption which has affected our brethren.  Brother Roy Matta is pleading for about $12,000 in emergency benevolence funds to help in providing clean water, food, and repairs.  He lives on the island of Cebu but travels often to this area of Negros and is in a good position to get the relief directly into the hands of the saints who are suffering.

The lectureship on “How to Study the Bible” began Friday in Kidapawan City thanks to the good work of Danny who was converted from The Christian And Missionary Alliance Churches of the Philippines (CAMACOP) when Jim McDonald was here some years ago.  We rented a function room on property owned by the Methodist Church in order to accommodate our expected audience.  Because he held a responsible position in the Alliance denomination before his conversion by the true gospel, he has many friends and contacts in the denominational world.  Our attendance today was 110, which included many denominational pastors (men) and pastoras (women preachers).

I taught 4 lessons:  the Bible as a book God expects us to study, approaching it with confidence we can understand it, wrong attitudes and methods of study, and the Law of Moses was nailed to the cross.  Mark’s lessons addressed reasons for Bible study, preparing the heart, and rightly dividing the truth.

Together we conducted an open forum for almost an hour.  Questions resulted in discussion of the Hebrew word Elohim (a plural form of a word for the one God including the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), whether the church is the church of God or the church of Christ (both, because God planned it and Christ died for it), instrumental music authorized under the Law of Moses but not authorized by Christ for our worship today, how people were saved before Christ came (they obeyed God by faith in the promise of the Savior and his sacrifice forgave their sins), was the church in Jerusalem the universal or the local church (people were baptized into the universal church [Acts 2:47] and the Apostles taught them to form a local church to worship [Acts 2:42]), and a woman’s role in worship (men should lead and women participate in appropriate ways without exercising authority over men).

Someone asked about the denominational practice of exchanging pulpits.  They do this based on their concept that members of the denominations constitute the universal church.  But, the Lord adds souls to the universal church when they are baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38, 41, 47), which is not the baptism performed by denominations who teach salvation by faith alone.  Also, none of the denominations existed in the first century when Christ built his church.  Therefore, churches of Christ do not participate in exchanging pulpits with denominational preachers.

None of the questions today were belligerent.  They simply sought more understanding and clarification.  This has been a very productive and profitable day!

The moon has been especially beautiful the last couple of nights.

Thank you for your prayers and support which make this work possible!

In Christian love,
Ron Halbrook

To see good Bible study material, go to:
https://www.hebronlanechurchofchrist.com
https://biblework.congregateclients.com
https://truthbooks.com
https://www.truthmagazine.com