50 Years Building His Kingdom - Far Eastern Bible College

PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
A Brief History of Life B-P
Church and the B-P Movement
Our Roots
French
THE B-P SINGAPORE TREE has
seven-plus-one strong and deep
roots. Our Protestant Bible-Presbyterian
heritage comes from British Presbyterianism
and the European Reformed
Faith, an offshoot of the 16 th Century Reformation
from the bondage of Rome to the
grace of God. John Calvin, a French
theologian, led this Reformed
Faith, thus our French Root.
English
William
We trace our English Burns
root to our southern Chinese
ancestors, who inherited their
Presbyterianism from the English
Presbyterian Mission,
which separated from
Anglicanism.
Scottish
In 1847, the English Presbyterians
sent a Scotsman, Rev. William Chalmers
Burns to China, hence our Scottish Root.
In 1859, the first Swatow convert, Tan Khai
Lin, a Manchu officer and the maternal
great-grandfather of Rev. Timothy Tow,
became the first ordained minister in 1882.
Among the earliest converts emigrating to
Singapore for a better livelihood was Elder
Heng Chiang Mong (1856-1931), the
grandfather of Dr Andrew Heng and Rev.
Philip Heng. Rev. John A.B. Cook was sent
to Singapore in 1881 to organise them into
four churches, including Life Church in
Prinsep Street, from whence sprang our B-
P Movement.
German
In 1849, a German evangelist, Dr
Rudolph Lechler of the Basel Missionary
Society planted a church in Iam Tsau, 25
miles from Swatow, the ancestral village
of Rev. Tow, giving us a German Root.
Chinese
Our Chinese Root stems from Dr
John Sung, whose true Pentecostal evangelism
soundly converted the founding fathers
of the B-P Church in Singapore.
American
Rev. Tow studied under Dr Carl
McIntire of Faith Theological Seminary,
where he felt God’s call to imbibe the spirit
of the 20 th Century Reformation advocated
by the International Council
of Christian Churches (ICCC).
We acknowledge our American
Root to Dr McIntire, the
progenitor of the B-P Church
and the President of the
ICCC as opposed to the World
Council of Churches (WCC),
which is not Christian at all.
Singaporean
Though the founding fathers of Life
B-P Church were all born in China, they
are now full-fledged true-blue
Singaporeans, who must be considered our
firm Singaporean Root.
Tap Root
Central to and emanating from the
preceding seven roots is the tap root in our
beloved pastor, Rev. Dr Timothy Tow.
From this root has sprouted the Life B-P
Church and the B-P Movement, first in
Singapore and Malaysia, and now throughout
the world. The root in the founding
pastor of B-Pism is deep and widespread,
sinking itself firmly in three continents,
namely Asia (Singapore and Nanking),
North America (Faith Theological Seminary)
and Europe (Geneva).
This root of roots in the founding
pastor of B-Pism has a long history, going
back to 1920 when he became the son of a
mother’s vow. His devout mother offered
her first-born son to the Lord to be a pastor.
The future pastor’s pedigree was im-
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