Teaching and Preaching in January

By Anthony:

I had a nice week of rest to celebrate Christmas, and then 2020 started with a bang! I've been very busy with organizing, planning, preaching, and teaching. I am not complaining. I am extremely blessed to have the job that I have. I find it incredibly stimulating and satisfying. I thank the Lord for giving me all these opportunities and for giving me such fun work. It's looking like it will be a very full year.

The photo below is of me preaching at a small Reformed church in Soroti:

I've been preaching in many places, not only on Sundays, but also at special events and also on the radio. I preached at the main PAG church in Soroti in January at their annual prayer cloud event which runs for about 10 days straight. The theme this year was all about family life. The topic I was assigned was about loving God as a family. I focused on the greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, and mind. I talked about how we can only truly love God if we have first experienced his grace and love for us.

I also talked about teaching children to love God. I emphasized the importance of making sure to read Scripture every day together as a family. I then urged parents to buy Bibles for their children. While poverty is a big problem, people do have money for Bibles, but spend their money instead on airtime, school fees, or other things that are not as important as the Word of God. I believe people were really convicted after my sermon and wanted to prioritize buying Bibles. One of my close friends here, Martin, was at the event with his children. His 8 year old son was apparently listening very closely to what I was saying. Martin says, "he has been on my neck every day to get him a Bible." Martin is now purchasing Bibles for both of his children who are old enough to read.

During January, I also had the opportunity to teach pastors from Amuria and Katakwi in the IBS (In-service Bible School Program). Robert translated for me. You may recognize him below as he has translated for me many times over the years. I was in charge of three subjects - Doctrine of God, Christology, and Church History. And when I say church history I mean 2000 years worth of church history that I had to cover in about a day and a half! It was a great joy to teach these pastors who want to learn so that they can serve their people better.

Justification by faith was the most important doctrine I taught about which came up in looking at the work of Christ for us, as well as in teaching about the Reformation. Based on our discussion, I presume that this was the first time any of them had ever heard of this doctrine. They had been operating with a mindset that people are saved by a combination of believing in Jesus and being good and holy enough. Such thinking leads to great fear and uncertainty about whether you will really end up in Heaven or not. They had been believing that you lose your salvation every time you sin until you confess and repent.

One of the things that helped them to finally understand the glorious nature of God's grace was a discussion on using the Lord's name in vain. They discovered that all of them were using the Lord's name in vain all the time and didn't even realize that they were doing so or that it was a sin. When we talked about justification by faith, they were able to realize that they were forgiven even for this sin that they didn't previously confess and didn't know about. They realized that sin is a more complex thing than simply to avoid sexual immorality and drunkenness. Once I convinced them that all of us sin every day, they were able to realize that we can only be saved by faith alone, that we are justified by the perfect righteousness of Christ that is given to us as a gift, not by our own works. Our good works, our repentance, and our love for God are evidence that we've been born again, the good fruit, but the good works are not what save us.

Because we spent so long on justification, I failed to get through all the topics that I had wanted to cover. But if nothing else, I wanted them to go home knowing the good news of the Gospel, the complete and wonderful salvation that we have in Christ, so that we can live without fear of death or God's judgment.

They really loved learning about church history. Many testified that they would love to go to Bible college to get a full semester of church history. They were amazed at the persecution the early church went through. And they appreciated learning that Christianity has been in Africa longer than in Europe or North America, and thus it is not a "white man's religion." We looked at the thousand year history of the Nubian church, and the close to 1700 year history of the Ethiopian church, and the church fathers in North Africa.

Bishop Emmanuel brought more students to be trained on the last day, so here is the full group with Emmanuel in the middle.