The Aletheia Project | Students Touching the World with the Word

What Is a Watchman?

Lloyd William Hamann — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:48:07 +0000

The Aletheia Project exists to help local churches and individuals fulfill the Great Commission. We desire that our websites be a tool in their hands to that end. This encouraging article will challenge and motivate you to be a more diligent soul winner. Please read this article that explains how every Christian has been called to be a watchman over the souls of men.

What is a Watchman?

By Pastor Jonathan Stockton, assistant pastor at Community Baptist Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

Text: Ezekiel 3:17

In Ezekiel 3:17, the Lord said to His servant, the prophet Ezekiel, “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel.” There are many comparisons between the prophet Ezekiel and us today. Keep in mind that the Church does not replace Israel; nonetheless, we can draw many comparisons. As we attempt to apply this Scripture to the situation and time in which we live, it is important to look at a few things.

First, we need to examine the circumstances which prompted this title to be given to Ezekiel. Israel, because of its sin, has been conquered by Babylon. Many Israelites (including Ezekiel) have been exiled to Babylon, and it is from this location that Ezekiel prophesies. Ezekiel is now charged by Jehovah with a daunting task: being a watchman to the house of Israel.

A watchman is one who is stationed as a guard: a lookout. He is the one who is given the responsibility of warning the ones behind him concerning danger that is near. This is Ezekiel’s duty: he is to observe the situation of the people, to watch closely for danger, and to warn the house of Israel. One man has been charged with the safety of an entire nation. What a responsibility! What a great weight to lay upon the shoulders of one man!

What about you? Could you be considered a watchman? I think so. I did a study of all the comparisons between Ezekiel and the Christian today: there are many. God has given us this great responsibility. I’m thankful that it does not rest upon me alone, but that it is shared by all believers. What have you done to warn others lately? Here’s the bottom line: all believers are watchman. The question is, “What kind of watchman are you?”

As a boy, I loved to read war stories. I especially enjoyed anything about the American Civil War. (I learned not to call it that while in the South; they’ve come to call it “the War between the States”!) I remember reading one story about a certain soldier who was given the order to stand watch through the night. The general in command decided to walk the lines of his men late that evening. As the general came to the place where a sentry was to be standing watch, he found the soldier asleep. The story goes that the general picked up the soldier’s rifle and stood watch, until the sleeping guard awoke in shame. I’m afraid that if our Commanding Officer were to come upon us, He would find us sleeping. The Bible tells us in I Corinthians 15:34, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.”

I read a quotation from Pastor Smith [the senior pastor of Community Baptist Church] in an email he forwarded to me recently: “Wake up, rise up, reach out.” What is a watchman? YOU are.

Image: A sentry of the Scots Guards at Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom

Materials Needed for French Site

Lloyd William Hamann — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:22:01 +0000

We are thankful that almost all of the materials we have in French have been posted on www.labiblefrancaise.com. We appreciate the hard work on the part of the missionaries and pastors who prepared this material. It is our desire that we have even more content that would evangelize the lost and edify believers in their faith. Would you help us gather materials from likeminded independent Baptist missionaries and pastors? We need materials such as the following:

* Bible Basics lessons for new believers

* Christ-honoring music

* Sermons (audio, text, or video)

* Gospel tracts

* General Bible studies

* And more!

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Image credit: vichie81

New Sranantongo Website

Lloyd William Hamann — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:18:17 +0000

Dr. Robert Patton, missionary to Suriname, South America, since 1986, is a very talented and Godly minister of the Gospel. A medical doctor for many years, he surrendered to the mission field when he was in his forties.

Flag of Suriname

He has planted several churches, has radio broadcasts streaming through Suriname on 4 stations weekly, has 2 TV broadcasts weekly, has had a Bible institute for 21 years, has an advanced Bible Institute in its fourth year, and is preparing national pastors to whom to commit churches he has started. Since 2008, the Pattons spend three months yearly ministering in churches and teaching in Bible colleges in the area of missions.

From 1991 to 1997, Dr. Patton translated the entire Bible, with the aid of 7 language helpers who are native Surinamese (most of whom were pastors or pastors in training). Currently, this Bible translation is the most loved and widely-used Bible translation in Sranantongo, outpacing the Critical Text Bible version. In its fourth printing, multiplied thousands of Bibles have reached the hands of the Surinamese people. An estimated 90% of the 491,000 Surinamese people (approximately 450,000) speak Sranantongo.

The Champlin family (minus Seth and Caleb, away at college)

During a visit to Ambassador Baptist College, where two of his grandsons, Seth and Caleb Champlin, are studying for the ministry, he graciously entrusted us with the entire Sranantongo Bible in Word Perfect documents. The text from these documents was transferred to a spreadsheet and inputted into our Bible search engine.

Furthermore, he gave us many resources which we plan to upload to the site www.dasranantongobijbel.com this summer. (Currently, only the searchable Bible text is on www.dasranantongobijbel.com.)

We are thankful to God for bringing Dr. Patton across our path. It is exciting to know that, for the first time, this Bible translation is available for all to read on the Internet.

New Portuguese Website

Lloyd William Hamann — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:16:27 +0000

According to a recent statistic, Portuguese is number 5 of the top 10 languages used on the Internet, with an estimated 82.5 million Portuguese-speaking users in 2010. (English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese are the top four languages.)

Along with this high number of Internet users, currently, four children of missionaries in Brazil are students at Ambassador Baptist College. Furthermore, a number of Ambassador alumni are from Brazil or are missionaries to Brazil. We knew that these servants of God would be more than willing to help us obtain the resources and information needed for a Portuguese site.

Flag of Brazil

After researching the available Portuguese Bible translations and consulting with some Portuguese-speaking missionaries, we concluded that the Almeida Corrigida Fiel (ACF) version, offered by the Trinitarian Bible Society of Brazil, is the Portuguese version most faithful to the Textus Receptus and Masoretic Text. Furthermore, it is a formal equivalence translation (word for word, not thought for thought).

We are thankful to God for enabling Bro. Cesar Rodriguez and his programmer to successfully input the text of the Portuguese Almeida Corrigida Fiel Bible version into our Bible search engine. We are privileged to offer it on AletheiaProject.com and through the Portuguese domain names abibliaportugues.com and bibliaemportugues.net. Click on these links to read and search the Portuguese Bible.

The next step for us is to have our doctrinal statement, text for web pages, and other documents and articles translated to build a complete site in Portuguese (just as we have for French). We also are in need of Portuguese materials for the site (read more about this at http://aletheiaproject.com/how-you-can-help/partner/collect-materials/).

Soon, we will start building templates for this site and other sites. Once we have these templates built, we will be able to more easily build more sites that will have a uniform appearance and uniform features.

Flag of Portugal

We are excited about these developments. Please pray that the Lord would use His Word in Portuguese to impact multitudes of lives worldwide for the cause of Christ. Also, help us spread the word about the site to Portuguese-speaking laypeople, pastors, and missionaries whom you know.

Image credit: Sailom <http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=4011>

Progress toward New Romanian Site

Lloyd William Hamann — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:39:07 +0000

In September 2011, Dr. John O’Malley met Brian J. Nibbe, Jr., at West Coast Baptist College, where Brian is studying to earn his Master of Education degree. Brian shared with Dr. O’Malley about the Fidela translation of the Bible in Romanian, in which his father, Dr. Brian J. Nibbe, has been significantly involved. A team of over a dozen Romanians translated the Bible into Romanian, aided by Dr. Nibbe and some other Baptist missionaries from the U.S. After investing more than 55,000 man hours over the course of several years, these servants of the Lord produced a translation of the Bible that is faithful to the Textus Receptus and the Masoretic Text.

Dr. Brian J. Nibbe, Sr.

We are privileged to further their efforts by making the Fidela translation available on the Internet in a searchable form. (Currently, the Fidela may be downloaded from Dr. Nibbe’s website here in PDF form.) Not only has Dr. Nibbe given us permission to post the Fidela on our site, but he has also committed to secure for us the other resources we need to build a site, some of which he already has on hand.

With the help of over a dozen Ambassador students outside the Aletheia Project, we have been making significant progress on the task of copying the Fidela from the PDF to a master Bible text spreadsheet and double-checking our copying for errors. Once this is complete, the text will be inputted into our Bible search engine, forming the core for a new site. We have started the process of registering a domain name for the site. It will have the special domain .ro, just as the majority of Romanian websites do, since .ro is the Internet country code top-level domain for Romania.

Romanian Flag

Roughly 25 million people worldwide speak Romanian. We praise God for giving us this opportunity to impact their lives through the Word of God in their native language.

Please pray that this project would run smoothly and time-efficiently. Our goal is to have the Bible text up by mid-May and a full site live by June or July.

Russian Bible Website

Lloyd William Hamann — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:58:10 +0000

In December 2011, we launched our newest website, www.therussianbible.com. At present, this website has only the complete searchable Russian Bible text. Prayerfully, during 2012, we hope to be able to add more Russian materials to it, as well as to purchase a Russian domain name for it.

Commitment or Complacency?

Lloyd William Hamann — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:36:07 +0000

Christianity in America is suffering from the plague of complacency. Pastor David Smith, the pastor of Community Baptist Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania (one hour north of Philadelphia) has written this insightful, challenging devotional addressing this plague:

We are fast living in a day of comfortable, carnal, and complacent Christianity! Being a Christian has seemed to have gotten easier as the years have come and gone. Nowadays, we do not have to do much to claim to be a Christian. Anyone can be one.

In America, being a Christian has become easy. There is no persecution, violent hatred, or signing of your death warrant to step across the line and be identified with Christ.

If we were to step across the border lines of America into countries that do not allow Christianity, our faith would be put to the test. In these countries, Christians are hunted down and killed. We live a life of luxury and ease even when it comes to our faith.

How many Christians are so non-committal that they don’t even bother coming to church or giving their money to the Savior? There is no time for earnest prayer and service, but much time for sports and hobbies. How vastly different are the lives of the Christians in Afghanistan or Africa! They come together for every opportunity they can. They listen to hours of preaching, because their life is centralized upon their Christianity!

I had the opportunity to visit a monastery a few years ago. While there, I witnessed something moving. I stood in one end of a long hallway and watched as an old man who was visibly bent over by age walked down the hallway of the monastery. I could tell that he had walked this way before. He moved so slowly because that is all his tired frame could let him do. He was pushing his walker down the hallway and praying with each slow step that he took. I stared in deep contemplation as he slowly passed by me!

Thoughts came rushing to my heart! How dedicated this old man was! He had spent years in this monastery, literally praying the days away, non-stop except to eat! He did not know Christ. He had given his life towards this false religion, and he had whole-hearted commitment! How was I committed? Was I fully given to prayer all day? When was the last time I spent an hour upon my knees? When did I commit the rest of my life to serve my God all day long, every day? How much commitment other people have for their false religions, and how little commitment do we see from the “Christians” that can’t even make it back to the evening service and don’t give a thought about the Wednesday service! Where is our faithfulness? Where is our discipleship mentality? Where is the taking up of our cross? Where is the picking up of Christ’s yoke? Where is the denying of ourselves? [Matthew 16:24]

Christianity should cost us something! It is not something that we can claim in complacency, for those that do will never attain to the pleasing of their Savior! Christianity will cost us our commitment! Committed or Complacent???

Image credit: John Kasawa

Updates to LaBibleFrancaise.com

Lloyd William Hamann — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:44:49 +0000

Recently, we have been making several updates to www.labiblefrancaise.com. Please check out the following aspects of our site:

1) Salvation gospel tracts and articles— http://labiblefrancaise.com/salut/

2) Bible lessons on a variety of subjects, such as questions about Christianity, Bible doctrines, how to study the Bible, and Christian virtues: http://labiblefrancaise.com/litterature/

3) An international listing of French-speaking churches, pastors, and missionaries that may be contacted for further help. http://labiblefrancaise.com/contacts/

4) Christ-honoring music: http://labiblefrancaise.com/musique/

5) A short article explaining why we use the Ostervald translation of the Bible: http://labiblefrancaise.com/pourquoi-lostervald/

As we continue to receive materials from doctrinally sound French-speaking missionaries and pastors, we will continue to add resources to the site. Thank the Lord that our WordPress CMS allows us to easily do so. If you are a French-speaking missionary or pastor or know of someone who would be interested in sharing resources such as these on our site, please email us at resources@aletheiaproject.com.

Image credit: Paris 16 at www.en.wikipedia.org

Image credit: Bernard Gagnon at www.en.wikipedia.org

Meet Some More Members

Lloyd William Hamann — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:48:04 +0000

In a previous post, we introduced our secretary and the head of the materials collection team. Now, we would like you to meet two more of our members.

Drew Pelletier

Drew Pelletier is the son of Evangelist Mike Pelletier and the grandson of Dr. Ron Comfort, founder and chancellor of Ambassador Baptist College. He has been involved with the Aletheia Project since September 2011. He is the head of the media and graphics team.

“Hello, my name is Drew Pelletier. I am a junior Missions major from Lattimore, North Carolina, a small town about an hour west of Charlotte. Immediately after college, my goal is to start church planting in Hawaii, followed by the Micronesian Islands. As Christ moves, I may be in state-side evangelist work or foreign missions elsewhere. My goal, as a part of this student organization, is to give Christ to the unreached world.”

Carol Perdomo

Carol Perdomo has been involved with the Aletheia Project since September 2011. She is a member of the web team.

“My name is Carol Jissel Perdomo. I am from San Pedro Sula, Cortes, in Honduras, Central America. However, I was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am a freshman, majoring in Elementary Education. Lord willing, I will be able to serve in the ministry full-time. I do not know exactly where that will be, but the Lord does; I believe He will put me there in His time. I have had a burden for missions for quite a while now. Aletheia is a portal to the rest of the world. I’m happy to be part of the team; I know there is much He’s going to show me through my peers.”

Meet Some of Our Members

Lloyd William Hamann — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:41:42 +0000

In a previous post, we have introduced the President and Vice President of the Aletheia Project. Now, we’d like you to meet some more of our members.

Lisa Lufkin, Secretary of the Aletheia Project

“I am Lisa Lufkin from Warren, Maine. I am a non-graduating senior triple majoring in Bible, Missions, and Music. Right now, my plans are to serve the Lord where He has me now and wherever He leads me in the future. I am a member of the Aletheia Project to seek to give the Gospel to people of other languages and cultures, and to give them tools for Christian growth.”

Lisa joined the Aletheia Project in the fall of 2008 as a freshman. Since the fall of 2009, she has served as the secretary/treasurer of the Aletheia Project. Lord willing, she will travel to Japan this summer to complete a summer internship for her missions degree.

Emily Pike

“My name is Emily Pike, and I’m from McLaughlin, South Dakota. I am a junior Church Ministries major. I’m not sure what God has for me in the future, Lord willing I will be doing my internship this summer as a secretary. I am part of Aletheia because I have always been fascinated with languages and like the opportunity to be able reach people with the gospel in their own language.”

Emily, the daughter of Gerald and Louise Pike, missionaries to the Sioux Native Americans, has been part of the Aletheia Project since the fall of 2010. She diligently serves as head of the materials collection team. This summer, she will be serving at Camp Chetek in Chetek, Wisconsin for her Church Ministries major internship.

Check back regularly to be introduced to more members of the Aletheia Project. We thank the Lord for these students!