The Parthians are coming... to Matthew’s Gospel
Ray Porter
Date posted: 24 Dec 2024
The visit of the Magi recounted in the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is one of the more curious parts of the Christmas story.
First, that we find it in this Gospel which is written primarily for a Jewish audience, and secondly, that such pagan astrologers should be lauded as those who come from a distant land to worship the infant Jesus. And then we have the matter of the star, which has excited the imagination of astronomers down the centuries; and that is before we get the accretions of legends and the perversions of countless nativity plays. The symbolism that we attach to the gifts they brought and the echoes that we find of Old Testament prophecies take us away from a consideration of what we might be able to reconstruct from their contemporary historical setting and why their coming so alarmed not just Herod but the whole of Jerusalem.
Dorothy Marx 1923 – 2017
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Feb 2018
Few people in England will have heard her name, but it is very likely that any Indonesian Christian you meet will ask whether you know her.
Born into a Jewish family in Germany, the descendant of many rabbis, Dorothy came to school in England in 1938. Arriving without a word of English, she discovered that she had better Latin and Greek than her teachers. She had one last visit back to Germany before war broke out, but after that never saw her parents again. Her mother died in Auschwitz, but her father’s fate was unknown. With funds cut off she had to abandon thoughts of university, but when she was 17 her life was completely re-orientated, as she had a dream of Jesus that brought her to faith. She became a member of Cheam Baptist Church and, after study at Ridgelands Bible College, was accepted as a member of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1953. In 1957 she landed in Indonesia.
Ailish Ferguson Eves 1938 –2017
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Oct 2017
Her Irish Christian name reflected her ancestry, but she died with a traditional Batak scarf (ulos) around her neck, signifying her adoption into the Hasibuan clan during her time working in North Sumatra, Indonesia.
Converted at the age of 15 through the ministry of Humphrey Newman at St John’s Church Welling, she went to university in Leeds, then taught RE in Yorkshire. After further study at London Bible College she was sent to Asia with OMF in March 1969 by Sidcup Baptist Church. She served in Bandung, West Java, as a lay Elder in the Gereja Kristen Indonesia, whose members were mainly Chinese. She preached, taught and counselled regularly in the congregations, but her greatest ministry was to students and other young people.
Bridging strategy
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Oct 2017
Book Review
CHANGING LANES, CROSSING CULTURES:
Equipping Christians and Churches for Ministry
in a Culturally Diverse Society
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Denis J. Lane 1929 –2017
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
In the 1960s and 1970s two remarkable men led OMF International. The General Director was Michael Griffiths, the public face of the mission. The other was the Overseas Director, Denis Lane, who was responsible for its daily running. He was the man who turned vision into reality.
Born in Worthing, in 1949 he graduated from London University with a Law degree. The next year he started training for CofE ministry at Oak Hill. The Vice-Principal at the time was Alan Stibbs, who had served with OMF’s predecessor, China Inland Mission. Denis then went to a curacy in Deptford while completing the London University BD. A second curacy followed in Cambridge before, in 1960, with his wife June, he joined CIM/OMF to serve in Malaya. Isabel Kuhn’s book Ascent to the Tribes was instrumental in leading them to this ministry. They went with their young son and spent six years in the South Perak district.
Adèle Ellis 1936 –2016
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jan 2017
Adèle MacBeath was set on an academic
career in the early 1960s. An MA graduate
from Glasgow University with a double
first, she then completed an MLitt on the
Italian
author
Lampedusa
and
had
embarked on doctoral studies in Rome
when God intervened to redirect her life
into missionary service.
She had fallen in love with David Ellis, a
student at the Bible Training Institute, where
her father, Andrew MacBeath, was Principal.
Persecution class
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Nov 2015
Book Review
JARS OF CLAY
What the West Needs to Learn From the
Persecuted Church
Read review
Field work
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jun 2015
Book Review
MISSION MATTERS
Essays on the Theory, Practice and Contexts
of Mission
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Mission: no new crisis
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jan 2013
Where is mission going? This is the question that Thorsten Prill asked in his three articles in the August to October 2012 issues of EN.
And it’s a vital question. The big trends in global mission are exciting and challenging. Global South churches are fast becoming key players in mission sending. Western Europe is once more being seen as a vital mission field. Numbers of churches in the UK are engaging directly in mission, sometimes by-passing the traditional mission agency route.
Guy Longley 1924 – 2013 Barbara Longley 1924 – 2013
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jan 2014
‘In life they were loved and gracious and in death they were not parted’ (2 Samuel 1.23) could be applied to Guy and Barbara Longley, who died within 24 hours of each other on November 7 and 8.
They met as members of the last group of CIM missionaries to go into China in 1949. Guy was from Broadstairs in Kent and his three brothers also served as missionaries. Barbara (née Beck) was a nurse from Ontario, Canada. They married in Hong Kong in 1951.
Snapshots of China
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Aug 2013
Book Review
AFTER IMPERIALISM
Christian identity in China and The Global
Evangelical Movement
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Dr. William Lees, 1924 - 2013
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jun 2013
Bill Lees died on March 14 in Reading where he had lived since 1966.
His earlier ministry in Malaysia had continued to be a major part of his life so that it was appropriate that the main address at his Thanksgiving Service was by Dr. Philip Lyn from Skyline Church, Kota Kinabalu, East Malaysia.
Andrew Butler, 1949-2013
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 May 2013
Andrew Butler, who died from cancer in Taiwan on March 2, had served for 40 years with OMF International.
All over the world
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jan 2010
Book Review
GLOBALIZING THEOLOGY
Belief and practice in an era of World Christianity
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Missionary funding
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Nov 2009
The most exciting thing about teaching at a theological college is seeing students go out into ministry.
Some have obtained a curacy and can look forward to a further three or four years of training on the job. Others have obtained similar posts as assistants in Free churches. All of them can now look forward to an assured salary and housing. Their future financing will be the responsibility of their church.
Top drawer
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Oct 2009
Book Review
PAUL THE MISSIONARY
Realities, Strategies and Methods
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James Hudson Taylor III, 1929-2009
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 May 2009
James Hudson Taylor III died on March 20 at his home in Hong Kong. Like his great-grandfather he loved Christ and the Chinese and served them to the end. Some of his last words were, ‘God is good’. He was a great example of a godly man and a warm friend and colleague.
James was born in China to missionary parents who resolved to stay in the country to serve the Christian believers as the war with Japan developed. He was interned with other children and staff of the CIM Chefoo school. His grandfather, Herbert, was in the same camp and he got to know him well and thus had a direct personal link with Hudson Taylor himself!
Alice Compain, 1934-2008
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Oct 2008
Alice Compain, the veteran OMF missionary to Cambodia and Laos, died at a nursing home in Pembury, Kent on September 4 2008 at the age of 74.
Alice was prepared by God to be a missionary to Laos and Cambodia. Born into a multilingual Christian family in London. English, French and German were the languages of the home. At the age of six she began to play the violin and that would prove the key to much of her subsequent service.
