Tag: faith
Amanda Benson
Serving at Faith Academy in Manila, Philippines.
The following article comes from the May 2025 newsletter of Amanda Benson, a SEND missionary to the Philippines. Amanda has been a teacher at Faith Academy near Metro Manila. She is now being asked to transition into a leadership role as principal of the middle school. The article is used with permission of the author.
The Doubt Creeps In
A couple of weeks ago, I met with my principal from Faith Academy for a transition meeting. We’ve been meeting regularly for a little while now, but this meeting was specifically to plan for a six-hour leadership team planning meeting that we were going to lead. We ended up talking for over four hours, and as time went by, I started asking myself this question: Can I really do this?
A few days later, we had our planning meeting. The principal and I both led different parts of the meeting. It… Read the whole post
This is the third post in my series on what we can learn about church planting follow-up from Paul’s letters. In a previous post on Paul’s follow-up with churches he planted, we looked at the letter to Galatians. There the key issue was making sure they got the gospel right. Turning to Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, the key issue is making sure they continue to grow in faith, love, and hope. Getting the gospel right is essential but making sure these new believers fully understand the gospel is a dynamic process. The biblical gospel produces in believers continuing growth in faith, love, and hope.
Thankful for their faith, love, and hope
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy were in Thessalonica less than a month (Acts 17:2) before they were run out of town. But nevertheless, some Jews and “a great many devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women” (Acts 17:4) accepted the gospel. In that short time, Paul and his companions developed a close bond with these new converts (1 Thess 2:7-11) and he had observed a remarkable transformation in their lives. He noted that this young church was characterized by faith, love, and hope, and he comments on these in the opening thanksgiving of each letter (in the second letter he does not use the word hope but the concept is implied by the word steadfastness).
There is a lot of emphasis on obedience in discipleship today and rightly so. Obedience-oriented discipleship has its roots in the Great Commission. Jesus said part of making disciples is, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20a ESV). However, some advocates of obedience-oriented discipleship seem to minimize knowledge and belief. The dominant question in many discovery Bible study approaches is “What do we need to obey?”. I suggest that we add the question: “What do we need to believe (trust)?” I believe it is reductionistic to separate these questions. It can lead to misunderstanding, specifically leading to merit-based religion. It is a false dichotomy to center discipleship either in trust (faith) or in obedience. Both doctrinal knowledge and practice are part of healthy discipleship.
The Bible keeps faith (trust) and obedience together. In Romans 1:5, Paul says the aim of his apostleship was to bring about “the obedience of faith.” Douglas Moo, commenting on this verse, writes,
Over the years, I have often found myself struggling with the “what ifs”, primarily in regards to my relationships with people I work with (yes, with fellow missionaries). What if the person responds in a negative way to my email? What if that person decides to go in that direction, contrary to what I have recommended? What if they refuse to do anything at all in response to my request? What would I do or say then?
I have far too often found myself absorbed and distracted by ongoing dialogues in my mind, imagining different responses from people to particular situations and what I would then do or say in response to their response. In these situations, I find myself falling into the trap of imagining various ways that I could retaliate, rather than responding in grace. These internal dialogues prove to be very unproductive, both because they tend to portray other people in a very unflattering and distorted light, and because my fantasized response to the imaginary situation would only make things worse.