Christian Heritage News

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” -Revelation 12:11 On the morning of January 31, 1968, during the Tet offensive, Viet Cong (VC) troops invaded more than 100 towns and villages in South Vietnam. A platoon of VC overran the missionary station at Ban Met Huot, a small town in the highlands, 150 miles northeast of Saigon, which was operated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) Church. The CMA had a leprosarium, church, and school at the mission station and when the shooting between the VC and US soldiers began CMA missionaries Bob and Marie Ziemer, Ed and Ruth Thompson, Leon and Carolyn Griswold, and Ruth Wilting took cover in a shallow bunker they had dug earlier. After an hour or so of shooting, Bob Ziemer, age 49, decided to exit the bunker and try to persuade the VC to leave their village. He was

By Tim Challies - Posted at Challies.com : Suddenly the whole world is talking about Christian missions. In his own way, John Allen Chau has sparked a conversation that now rages within the church and outside of it. I’ve spent the past week gathering my thoughts about his situation, and would like to offer a few points I hope you find helpful. First, we don’t need to rush to judgment. One of the consequences of this digital world is that it demands immediate responses. News spreads quickly and we are expected to have strong opinions long before we have access to more than the barest facts. Sometimes it seems that the less we know, the stronger we feel and the bolder speak. With a situation like this, we can reserve judgment until the facts become clear. In fact, we should reserve judgment until the facts become clear. We’ve had 150 years to consider John Paton and his perilous mission to the cannibals of the New Hebrides. We’ve had 60 years to consider Jim Elliott and his dea

By Jordan Standridge - Posted at The Cripplegate : Would you be willing to die for the Gospel? That’s a question every Christian needs to ask themselves. And really, it should be a part of our discussions in Sunday school with our kids and everyone we evangelize. We aren’t just calling people to new life, we are calling people to die to self and be willing to die for the sake of others. I think that’s an appropriate take away from the news of John Chau’s death. I’ve been thinking about John Chau almost non-stop since I heard about his death. Read more here.

By Jim Denison - Posted at Christian Headlines : John Allen Chau was twenty-six years old. A native of Vancouver, Washington, he led missionary trips around the world for Christ. This month, he traveled to the North Sentinel Island in India’s Bay of Bengal to share Christ with the Sentinelese tribe . Its members have been isolated for centuries, rejecting all contact with the larger world and reacting with violence when outsiders have attempted to interact with them. Their island is off-limits to visitors under Indian law. Chau hired local fishermen to transport him within half a mile of the island. He then used a canoe to reach the island’s shore, returning later in the day. On his second trip, the tribespeople broke his canoe, forcing him to swim back to the boat. On his third trip, he did not come back. The fishermen said they later saw tribespeople dragging his body around. Indian authorities have now begun the arduous work of trying to retrieve Chau’s body without

Martyr Martha Myers - IMB Photo - Source: Baptist Press By Michael Logan - Posted at Baptist Press: JIBLA, Yemen (BP) -- It's been 15 years since I walked the dry, stony grounds of Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen, where a lone gunman murdered three International Mission Board medical missionaries on a December morning in 2002. Southern Baptists had invested their lives in this medical center for more than 35 years as they cared for thousands of people in this struggling Middle Eastern nation. I arrived shortly after the Dec. 30 attack to cover the tragedy. Just days after the killing, I stood in hospital director Bill Koehn's office, where Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, an Islamic militant, had appeared at the doorway and gunned down Bill, physician Martha Myers, and purchasing agent Kathy Gariety that terrifying morning. I remember feeling as though a weight had fallen on my chest as a hospital worker showed me how the killer left Bill's office and briskly walked through t

By Wes Bredenhof - Posted at  YINKAHDINAY :  Today I’m starting a new series on famous quotes from church history. Most of the quotes will be familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention — but who knows? Perhaps you’ll learn something new. We’ll look at who said it, in what context, and whether it’s biblical. You may have heard it said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” It’s often said to point out that persecution, rather than diminishing the church, often has the opposite effect. It’s counter-intuitive. Where do we get this saying from? The original source is the early church father Tertullian (~155-~240 AD). He was an African church father based out of Carthage. He lived in the days of the Roman Empire and so was familiar with persecution and martyrdom. Tertullian’s most important writing is entitled The Apology, a work in which he provided a defense of the Christian faith to the provincial governors of the Roman Empire. Towards the end of the

Martyrs Meng Li Si (Meng Lisi) and Lee Zing Yang (Li Xinheng ). (iFeng.com photo) Posted at Morning Star News : While Islam is the state religion of Pakistan, its constitution states that all citizens have the right to profess, practice, and propagate their religion, as well as the right to freedom of speech subject to “reasonable restrictions in the interest of the glory of Islam.” Interior ministry’s statement sends chilling message to foreign Christians. (Morning Star News) – Islamabad’s claim that “violations” of business visas contributed to the murder of two Chinese evangelists last month served key government purposes. Lee Zing Yang (Li Xinheng is said to be the more accurate rendering), 24, and Meng Li Si (Meng Lisi), 26, were teaching Chinese to people in Pakistan, and, like any Christian, they also intended to share the gospel with people they met. Pakistani media dutifully broadcast the Interior Ministry spin on their apparent deaths, which accused the couple o

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : Earls, barons, lords and marquis — these titles are foreign to countless Americans. Yet to those in Scotland and England, they are the stuff of ancient times, with some left over to the modern age. We are interested in the last title, but only as it referred to the Marquis of Argyle, Archibald Campbell. From an early period in Scottish history, his ancestors played a prominent part. Vast domains were under their rule, with great power exhibited by this house. It was said, for example, that today’s subject, Archibald Campbell, could have fielded an army of twenty thousand soldiers. Well, you could imagine the gratitude of God’s people when Archibald Campbell joined the Covenanting Presbyterians at a General Assembly in 1638. At the first and last coronation ceremony in which King Charles II was crowned in Scotland, which we developed for our readers on January 1 , it was this Marquis himself who placed the crown on the head of Cha

Posted at Christians Voice: A group of Maoist rebels have kidnapped, tortured and Killed a Pastor in Andhra Pradesh, India. Pastor Yohan Maraiah was dragged from his home and taken into the forest. His body was dumped near the village, with his hands tied behind his back. The 45-years old pastor was tortured, beat and was killed by slitting his throat. They dumped his body three hours later, with a note beside.The Rebels claim that he was killed because of having “accumulated wealth”, whereas the pastor served the poorest of the village. The note from the Maoists said that they killed pastor Yohan and also have a plan of killing his brother for being friendly with the police. They also accused pastor Yohan’s elder brother, who is also a pastor for “changing people with his tricky talks that changes their heart and mind and converts them.” The note extends and adds that the two deceived “our innocent people” to accumulate wealth for themselves through criminal activities. And yet

Wycliffe Associates Posted at Christian Headlines : Four Bible translators have been murdered by militants in the Middle East, Bible translating ministry Wycliffe Associates, reports. According to Wycliffe, a raid took place on the translators’ office. Two of the translators were shot and killed, while another two died of wounds from being beaten. These last two managed to protect and save the lead translator by lying on top of him while the militants beat them with their now-empty weapons. The militants also destroyed translating equipment, including Print on Demand equipment, books, and translation materials. Read more... HT: SermonAudio.com See also: Prayer Watch Emergency!Translators Martyred in Middle East ( Wycliffe Associates ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3.23.2016 - Editor's Note: There seems to be confusion about which group these martyred translators were part of and Wycliffe Global Alliance has posted this disclaimer: "Murdere