Hello, brothers and sisters! We want to share with you that we had a great time with the visit of Douglas Jacoby to Panama, where the brothers had the opportunity to meet him and to pose questions on subjects about which they were concerned.
For example, to a brother who is a vegetarian and insisted to Douglas that one must be vegetarian, based on the book of Genesis, Douglas gave a very good explanation -- and then, as he was enjoying Panamian cuisine, he invited the brother to have a piece of chicarron de puerco!
Douglas came on a Thursday, and spent a while dining with us brothers who received him. There was only time to eat and be together, but he returned Sunday for church with La Iglesia de Caracas, and gave us a great biblical study on Marriage and the Plan of God, based on the book of Ruth. It was good because it helped strengthen the doctrinal conviction of the church, e.g. how those couples who live together without being married, and aren't under the conviction of the scriptures (even though our permissive culture is very strong on this point), cannot be disciples and ought not to call themselves Christians. It was very good that he publicly affirmed God's high expectations for denominations and churches which claim to be under the scriptures, yet are wrongly motivated by large memberships and money, changing the truth of God and confusing people...
It was also a great help to firm up the conviction of the church for engaged couples, who ought to live in holiness and not be impatient, but to consider the example of biblical characters, like Jacob, who was patient about marriage, and Shechem, who was impatient (and met a terrible end), in the book of Genesis [29 and 34].
Then Sunday afternoon he gave a class to us leaders, including a group of qualified [biblically trained] brothers, on "Biblical Interpretation," and it helped us a lot. It gave me personally a lot of helpful tips on how to teach better: by projecting my voice, instructing other, preparing classes, doing translation work, and pushing the church to go deeper in its biblical study. It helped a good many brothers, reminding us that though we have everything we need to be able to serve Christ [2 Peter 1:3-4], we shouldn't think that we have arrived and know it all. We can grow and know Jesus better, and that's the purpose of Bible study -- not to get all academic. It was a very profound and refreshing class on 2 Peter, which he called the letter of knowledge in the N.T., besides many other points on which we brothers left the session very fired up.
We left to drop off Douglas at the airport and met up afterwards; many recognized we'd only been doing what was convenient, and had even become proud in thinking that we knew what we were doing. We realized this because he showed us things in own life, in areas in which we greatly lacked... He said, "I haven't arrived, but I keep pushing myself to learn," and "A church which isn't [biblically] trained is in great peril." This really helped us to be able to follow up on the needs of family leaders and sector leaders, and personally to always see our the need as leaders to keep growing.
As we left Douglas he expressed that he was very excited to present these themes, and the day he said good-bye he departed for our sister church in Cali. We are very fired up that those present included several married couples who are already studying, others being restored, and others who are just beginning to study, whose needs were met. May you receive many greetings and a big hug.
We love you in Christ,
Horacio Del Castillo
posted by Jery Maday