Proof The Bible Is True

“Every home, without exaggeration, has a struggling wife, a drug addicted child, an unemployed, alcoholic son or father or someone with disease,” A lecturer from ALIVE Bible College explains, “While dealing with the realities of life as a Christian who is denied basic rights because of poverty and their faith, there is little time to revel in the truths of being a Christian.”   One 2013 ALIVE graduate, Rehana, knows these harsh realities all too well. She has grown up in a predominantly Muslim country where her family has long experienced persecution.   As part of the religious minority, living [More]

3 Christians Tell Their Stories You may have heard that persecution in Egypt is on the rise. 4 major incidents landed in the news when extremists carried out attacks on 3 churches and a bus of Christians, killing over a hundred believers. But media coverage of these tragedies often focuses on the basics–the who, what, where, when, and why–without taking the time to tell the stories of how these events impact other Christians in Egypt. Below are 3 such stories. Read More: 3 Lessons from the Persecuted Church in Egypt – Open Doors USA

When Culture and Marriage Clash When 23 year-old Sameda decided to accept a local man’s proposal, she was sure it was a good decision. “I married Rashid because he seemed to me a good man. Initially we were very happy until he became more interested about my faith. I did not hide the fact that I am a Christian and told him that God touched my life one day.” After this conversation where Sameda shared her faith, she says things changed. Although Sameda’s faith had not bothered Rashid previously, her husband’s parents began to influence his ideas about her over [More]

“Lord, Lord, please help!” When Hannah Cho was a child growing up in North Korea, she had no idea how important this phrase–often repeated in her mother’s prayers–would become to her. Nor did she have any idea how many times future hardship would prompt her to utter the words herself. The one thing she did know is that her mom was devoted to Jesus even amidst hardship. A Heritage of Faith in Hardship Read More: The Only Prayer They Knew: Lord, Lord, Please Help! – Open Doors USA

The large congregation of Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, Canada was ecstatic on Sunday (13 August) in welcoming home their Senior Pastor, Hyeon Soo Lim, held for more than two years of a life sentence in a North Korean labor camp. The church was also crowded with media personnel recording the significant and almost unexpected return.   Sam Shim, operations manager at Lim’s church said, “Everyone was excited when we heard the news that he was freed… There was crying, joyful crying.”   Looking happy and healthy, Lim told his congregation about his experiences in the labor camp. Overwhelming [More]

Several years ago, my husband and I began attending a local Evangelical, non-denominational church, and we loved it. We cherished the sense of community we found among the loving and authentic people we met there, and the intelligent, “outside the box” pastor who led our flock with thought-provoking and insightful sermons. Sadly, the church started going off the rails theologically, and after about a year and a half, we made the difficult decision to leave. Today that church is a self-titled “Progressive Christian Community.” Back then I had never heard of “Progressive Christianity,” and even now it is difficult to [More]

n December 11, 2016, a suicide bomber linked to an Islamic extremist organization entered Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s church in Cairo and killed 25 people. The father of 15-year-old Marian was one of the victims. He died in her arms. But even through this tragic loss, she hasn’t doubted God’s love.   We meet Marian in the family house they share with her uncle’s family on the church premises. It’s located in a busy district near the city center of Cairo. Her uncle is a guard in the church, just as her father used to be. The house is [More]

There was a day when not long ago when Christian farming communities in northeastern Nigeria were self-reliant. But the violent rise of Boko Haram has changed all that.   One local family’s farm was big and productive enough to provide for all their needs and even give work to others. When Boko Haram attacked the village, militants set the property and family home on fire. Sadly, the father was still inside and he eventually died from the injuries he suffered.   As the oldest of seven, responsibility for providing for the family fell to their daughter, Rhoda. “Life has not [More]

If the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has its way, India will soon be unified under one religion, one culture, and one language. Non-Hindu People Are Being Targeted. Of course, in order for this to happen, all other religious communities–including Christians–would have to be eliminated. According to the RSS organization’s founder, M.S. Golwalker, that is exactly the plan. “The non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and revere Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but the glorification of the Hindu religion, that is they must not only give up their attitude of [More]

Azamat became a Christian in the early days of Uzbekistan’s independence, soon after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, when, he says, the country “was a much freer place than it is now”.   He embraced his new faith, setting up a network of house churches, and finding teachers for Sunday schools. But the state soon noticed, and its interest led to an abduction that he describes as “the longest seven minutes of my life”.   Azamat, now in his 40s with a wife and two children, talks about how the heady days of his new-found faith turned into [More]

Christians in Iraq. Automatically we tend to think of those tens of thousands of Christians who were living in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain and are now living as displaced persons somewhere in the Kurdish area of Iraq. But how are the Christians doing elsewhere in Iraq? For example, those living in the capital Baghdad? Until 2003, this place was where most of Iraq’s Christians were living. We visited the city and were surprised by the dedication of the small flock that remained:   How is the situation now in Baghdad for Christians?   All of the pastors and priests [More]

There are very few countries left in the world that truly capture the concept of “kingdom”—where one person’s rule extends over every aspect of his subject’s lives. Especially in the Western world, kingdoms feel like a relic of a bygone era.   For the people of North Korea though, the concept is far too real. They have lived under the brutal totalitarian kingdom of the Kim Dynasty for nearly 70 years, and in that time the Kim family has stretched their power over every aspect of life they can touch. Currently, under the rule of Kim Jong-un, North Korea has [More]

Results from a nationwide study in the United Kingdom unleashed on Sunday revealed that a whopping 93 percent of British Christians believe that their faith is marginalized. Premier Christian Communications (PCC) surveyed some 12,000 Christians in the U.K. to discover what it is like for believers to live in a post-Christian society – in an island nation where militant Islam is tolerated and Christianity is rejected. Stand up After discovering that more than nine out of 10 Christians feel marginalized, the Christian media group insisted that believers in Christ must boldly stand up for their faith – and not be [More]

While many would consider their twenties an adventurous stage of life, Viktor’s story takes that theme to new extremes. Like many this age, he moved away from home and began exploring a new trade. Unfortunately, however, Viktor’s trade of choice was smuggling illegal drugs in Central Asia.   At first, Viktor’s early adult years were filled with adrenaline and adventure. Viktor led an operation that ran drugs from Tajikstan to the state where he lives in Central Asia. He seemed to have natural abilities to covertly network across communities. Viktor’s success rate, in fact, was so high that he was [More]

There’s one thing I often forget when it comes to Christian persecution. One thing that can easily slip my mind when I read about the senseless violence on Palm Sunday in Egypt, the calculated murder of Christians in Nigeria by Boko Haram, the kidnapping of Pastor Koh in Malaysia, or the plan of radical Hindus in India to wipe out Christianity by 2021. What is it that I forget? Sometimes in the midst of the news and world events related to the violence or the marginalization against Christians, I forget that ….. Read More: The One Thing All Christian Persecution [More]

Ting made a living summoning the darkness.   As the local Shaman, villagers in her surrounding area of northwest China would seek her out for the wisdom of the spirits.  And their requests were many—   Who should I marry? What must I do to be successful? What does my future hold? Why am I sick? Have I offended the spirits?   Ting delighted in her success. Word of her abilities drove thousands of the curious and desperate to seek her divine counsel, which she was eager to give. But only for a price.   And then the spirits demanded [More]

She Reads Truth has grown to become a popular online Christian community, drawing hundreds of thousands of social media followers and bringing women together to read the Bible daily. “Honestly, we don’t feel like we ‘launched’ She Reads Truth. The Holy Spirit did. We’re still just trying to keep up!” Amanda Bible Williams, chief content officer of She Reads Truth whose maiden name really is Bible, told The Christian Post. The online devotional community began in 2012 by a small group of women connected primarily through the internet who sought to create a network to promote regular Bible reading. Williams [More]

A Bomb Confirms the Calling of a Pastor in Baghdad    The man has just left his home, hopping into his car, turning the keys in the ignition, and pushing the accelerator as he had so many times before. Only this time, as he began the familiar journey toward the church where he worked as a pastor, he immediately sensed something was different.   Almost right away, an explosion ripped through the car, violently shaking the vehicle and—at the same time—engulfing it in the flames.   “I was totally confused, and I couldn’t see anymore.” The young pastor, named Joseph, [More]

American Bible Society has released its fifth annual study of America’s most Bible-minded cities. Once again, the Southeast dominates the list of cities that show strong engagement with God’s Word and strong belief in the accuracy of the Bible. For the second year in a row and fourth out of the last five, Chattanooga, Tennessee, is the most Bible-minded city, followed by Birmingham, Alabama, and Roanoke/Lynchburg, Virginia. The only top-ten city outside the Southeast was Springfield, Missouri (#7). ABS spokesman Arthur Satterwhite says, “For us as American Bible Society, this survey helps to inform our work in the U.S. as [More]

The latest census in Australia has shown a dramatic fall in those who identify as Christian, and a significant rise in those with ‘no religion’. For the first time in its history, the proportion of Australians who say they have ‘no religion’ (29.6 per cent) overtook the number who identify as Catholic (22.6 per cent), according to analysis of Australia’s 2016 census by The Guardian. In 1996, just 0.6 per cent of the population marked ‘no religion’ on their census, but has seen a dramatic shift in the following decades. In 2001 the figure was 16 per cent, which nearly [More]

  This year marks the 500th anniversary of one of the most important events in history, the Protestant Reformation.   The world is converging on Wittenberg in eastern Germany this summer, where 500 years ago a local professor of moral theology is said to have nailed 95 theses to a church door, and by that single act, changed the world.   Germany is now in the middle of a yearlong national celebration. But Luther’s time was rarely this colorful and tidy as re-enactments today. The 1500s in Germany were cold, muddy, dreary and rude. Luther’s Time: Back to the Future [More]

Splintered into small congregations meeting secretively in the homes of fellow church attendees, the members of a house church in China’s southern Guizhou province penned a letter describing how government persecution obliterated their finances, imprisoned and tortured their leaders, and fractured their thriving church body. Beginning with the church’s founding, the members of Huoshi Church traced its entire history with the government, insisting that the Communist Party abused them despite their attempts to comply with the law, which included reporting on all of their activities to the local religious affairs and public security bureaus. As the church quickly swelled into [More]

Disputes over government surveillance devices in house churches continue in China’s coastal Zhejiang as officials cut power and water supplies to several area churches and the homes of church leadership at the beginning of June. Members of Tuanqian Village Church in Rui’an, a county-level city in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, spoke with reporters on June 4, saying that after their church refused to install government surveillance equipment, they lost power and water to several buildings associated with the church. Read More: Further denials of water, electricity for house churches in Wenzhou – China Aid

“Brother Matthew” is a pastor and church planter in South Asia, working among Muslims to share the gospel. After threats against his life and an attack on his brother, he was encouraged by family members to leave his country. He fled to a safe place, but God clearly called him to go back to his home country, in spite of the danger. Matthew obeyed, and since his return he’s seen explosive growth in his church planting work. Matthew says persecution is something God uses to purify and unify the church, and further it’s something that every Christian should be ready [More]

Got an extra Bible in the house? Jason Woolford of Mission Cry said there’s a way to put it to work. Mission Cry distributes Bibles and Christian literature all over the world, and you can help too.   “When you think about sending a total used book value of $300 million to 171 nations, those were Bibles and Christian books that were either going to be recycled, thrown out, or sitting on somebody’s shelf,” said Woolford. “Instead it has truly changed the landscape of this entire world.”   (Photo courtesy of Mission Cry) Take the Kenya distribution center. Woolford said [More]

It’s a thrilling time to be involved in Bible translation, as workers are helping millions of people who speak unwritten languages have access to the Bible in their own languages. According to Wycliffe Associates President and CEO Bruce Smith, unwritten languages are “the last and the least” of the languages that have yet to receive Scripture. But the advancement of technology has helped to address this problem; national translators are now being provided with Bible Translation Recording Kits, which consist of a computer tablet with pre-loaded software and a microphone. Smith explains that the translators can use this digital tool to translate [More]

If you ask a woman what she’s looking for in a man, she may tell you wants him ‘tall, dark and handsome’. If you ask a woman what she’s looking for in a Christian man, she may still want him ‘tall dark and handsome’, but will start to list specific traits he must have to make him the whole package.   There are many characteristics men hold that women love. However, for Christian men, there’s an extra spark that captures a woman’s heart. A nice looking man who is in good shape, dresses well and possesses all the characteristics below [More]