Bible stands unshaken today

Resolving Personal & Spiritual Conflicts

2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to win full approval in God’s sight, as a worker who is not ashamed of his work, one who correctly teaches the message of God’s truth (GNB).

The hatred of the Bible, God’s word, is ever increasing. Dr R.A. Torrey succinctly explained this hatred, “Man’s hatred of the Bible has been of the most persistent, determined, relentless, and bitter character. It has led to 18 centuries of repeated attempts to undermine faith in the Bible, and to consign the Bible itself to oblivion… Every engine of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force, and human brutality could bring to bear against the book has been brought to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible still stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet, it has stood.”

But we thank God that there are many institutions and individuals across the globe who are doing all they can to ensure the Bible will never be consigned to oblivion but will be studied, taught, believed and lived. Among them are African Evangelistic Enterprise (AE), a church organisation that holds mega crusades evangelising the cities of Africa through word and deed in partnership with churches, and Moore College of Australia (MC), a theological college headquartered in Sydney Australia. AE and MC have entered into a partnership of training church leaders in different nations on a block release pattern and at a paltry fee covering two weeks of intensive learning, course materials, food and accommodation. Here in Africa, this training of pastors and other spiritual leaders by MC in partnership with AE has been taking place in South Africa and Malawi. Commenting on the goal of this training one of the lecturers, a Zimbabwean professional based in Sydney, David Shekede said, “We started in 2008 to engage and send Zimbabwean church leaders for training in Malawi and South Africa where this programme was already running. But this year we have managed to do it in Zimbabwe for many to benefit from the program. And the major benefit of this program is the instilling of true and deep biblical knowledge in the minds of trainees so that they can preach and teach a Christ-centred gospel.”

Moore College representatives’ team leader and lecturer, Peter Stedman, shed more light on the programme’s objectives when he said, “We have been invited by AE to teach pastors, elders, deacons and other church leaders biblical theology in partnership with AE. This is our ground-breaking session in Zimbabwe. The main purpose of this training is to help church leaders know God’s word more deeply. The deeper we know God’s word the better we can know God, and the better we know God the better we know His Son Jesus Christ. We need Christ-centred and Christ-honouring biblical teachings that enable people to be captured by Christ. We hope this is the beginning of a very long relationship with the churches in Zimbabwe and we are very thankful to AE. If local churches have anyone who can benefit from knowing Jesus Christ better, we encourage them to send them through.”
This ground-breaking session in Zimbabwe has been running for two weeks at United Baptist Church conference centre in Hatfield and tomorrow marks its end. Some trainees came from different church denominations including mainline, evangelical and pentecostal churches.
Others came from church-related organisations like Focus Zimbabwe which runs Christian Union programs in colleges, Bible Society of Zimbabwe and Foxfire, a youth evangelistic church planting division from AE Zimbabwe. Both male and female students attended.

Giving his reason for attending, student Majaji Mutambirwa who already holds two theology diplomas said, “Theology is very broad. It is a new dimension of theology that I seek to gain from this programme as well as to build networks with other students.” A female student, Martha Mhizha who attended level one in Malawi and is now in level two of biblical theology said, “My purpose here is to increase my knowledge of God’s word.”
Finally, AE Zimbabwe chapter team leader and host of the Moore College representatives had this to say, “This training of church leaders is in line with AE’s mandate of evangelising the cities of the Africa in partnership with churches. Since the Bible says that labourers are few, this programme seeks to equip, coach, mentor and raise a crop of knowledgeable saints who will labour in the harvest field of God. I urge local churches to take advantage of this opportunity of accessible, affordable and beneficial training.

“We appreciate and complement what Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Council of Churches and Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference, other Christian denominations and Bible Colleges are doing in training a generation of church leaders who will pass on sound biblical knowledge to coming generations.”

– For feedback and more information call Reverend Guide Makore on +263 772 495029 or email: g.makore@aeint.org. You can also contact pastor Stedman on breeandpete@yahoo.com or pastor mairos on mairos78@yahoo.co.uk