FIRST LIGHT

A NEWSLETTER OF FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
110 SYDENHAM STREET KINGSTON , ON K7L 3H5

(613) 548-7116
fbckgstn@kingston.net
May 2004

One of the things I appreciate about this church is that many of you have brought me lots of questions. One of the frustrations is that I don't have but a small fraction of the answers. Our society has witnessed a knowledge explosion that has been compounded by the computer and the internet. If I even attempted to know all the answers I would explode. This is a bit of a frustration because in bygone days the clergy used to be considered among the brightest and best educated in the church. At best we are experts in small niches of areas of knowledge. Seldom do we attain that.

Let me point you to two volumes which may be of help to you. Gleason Archer just died on April 27, 2004 less than a month before his 88 th birthday. He was a long-time professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School . He also served at Fuller Theological Seminary as professor and acting dean and at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands as a visiting professor of Old Testament. A brilliant linguist, he knew at least 20 languages, including Chinese. In fact, some have said that he knew more than 30 languages.

Dr. Archer was one of the great men of God raised up in the past century to train biblically grounded leaders for the evangelical church. Having an active and fertile mind, Dr. Archer was an apologist for the truthfulness of the Bible, a researcher and author, and a faithful teacher and mentor for thousands of ministers of the Gospel all over the world. He wrote several books, including Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties and Survey of Old Testament Literature. Many of you will recall his contributed articles to such periodicals as Christianity Today and Decision.

It is the Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties which I would mention at this time. You can still pick up copies over the internet. For many years he wrote a column in Decision magazine. People would write in questions and he would attempt to answer them. This Encyclopedia is a collection of all his articles. It will go a long way to help you in answering some of your questions. Rev. Bill Duffy's successors at his former church in Ottawa used Archer's book as the basis of an adult Sunday School class for some time.

The other volume is still in print. This is Hard Sayings of the Bible by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce, and Manfred T. Brauch (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996). This is also an excellent resource.

One of things you will observe if you compare these volumes is that sometimes you will find different answers to the same question in each of these books. Often that is where learning starts for us.

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I would like to draw your attention to three events coming up. First, the weekend of May 14 - 16 is a special Missions weekend for us. Rev. David and Cathie Phillips will be with us. On Friday evening, we hope to have them as part of the Spanish Bible study. During Saturday morning they will be resource people for a leaders retreat for our church. On Saturday evening, they will be speaking at a potluck supper on “The Emerging Church.” On Sunday morning, one of them will be preaching out of their experiences in the Middle East .

The Phillips have served in Latin America and now in the Middle East . Sandwiched in between this was a term by David as the General Secretary of Canadian Baptist Ministries. While David served in this latter role, Cathie developed a ministry to Third Culture Kids, children of missionaries who are adapting to life back in North America . Perhaps it says something of the humility of the Phillips that they moved to a pioneering ministry in the Middle East after years in administration here in Canada . I encourage you to come and be a part of this special weekend. You won't want to miss it.

On Fathers' Day, June 20 th Rev. Jim and Diane McBeth will be with us. Jim was a year behind me in seminary. They had a long and effective ministry at Inniswood Baptist Church in Barrie . More recently, they have served for 5 years at Harmony Baptist Church in Hamilton . They have recently been appointed as missionaries by Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) to Angola . This will be the first time in at least 40 years that CBM has had missionaries in Angola . A wonderful team went out in 1957. However, they all had to leave a few years later because of civil war there.

I invite you to come and find out how God calls a middle-aged couple to leave the comforts of Canada to go to a country strewn with land mines to do mission work there. At a recent PMT meeting it was recommended that the McBeths join the Bannisters as our Partners in Mission (often churches have more than one couple or individual).

Finally, on Sunday June 27 th in the afternoon, we are invited to Elsie Grace's cottage for a special time. Amanda Rodriguez would like to follow the Lord into the waters of baptism at that time.

Respectfully submitted,

(Rev.) Kevin Smith
Pastoral Team Leader