Reflections on India 3

I am just returned from a 12 day trip to India where I partnered with John Marley, a teacher from my church, to hold two 3-day Bible conferences.  The first was in Madurai, or more specifically, Light of Hope Gospel Mission just outside of Madurai.  The second was in Kovilpatti, a 3 hour trip south of Madurai.  All this is in the southern tip of India.  Our host was S. J. P. Vijayakumar, or Vijay.  He has been a missionary sponsored by Central Church since the mid 90′s.  His father-in-law, the founder of Light of Hope, has been supported by Central for many more years.  They are faithful servants of the kingdom.

I found myself drawn to several of the participants and their stories and would like to share some of those with the world (or at least whoever reads this blog).

Jesus Was More Powerful Than the Occult

Her father was a Hindu priest of the Brahman caste and she was assigned, among all his children, to be his assistant.  He created many potions and participated in sorcerer’s arts and she helped mix the potions.  I don’t recall how she became acquainted with the gospel, but she came to question whether her father’s magic arts were really his power or not.  So she devised a test.

I am not sure exactly how this test makes sense, but it made sense to her.  If in the alcohol her father used in many of his potions she were to mix some salt and the potion did not work, this meant that Jesus was lord and her father’s powers were not his own.  So she secretly added salt to the alcohol and the potions ceased to be effective.  As a result, she gave her life to Christ and had been serving him some time when she came to our conference.

In the newspaper today in Memphis is an article on science and religion and the evidentiary nature of scientific knowledge versus the more subjective nature of religious knowledge.  But on several occasions the people I encountered had clear power encounters with Christianity and Jesus and He demonstrated His superior power over their wrong views of life and persuaded them that Jesus was the truth.

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• Reflections on India 1 (thimblefulloftheology.wordpress.com)