The Burning Bush

The Burning Bush is a theological journal published by the Far Eastern Bible College. It is published bi-annually in January and July, and contains theological papers, sermons, testimonies, book reviews, college news, and alumni reports. Articles are indexed in the Christian Periodical Index.^[1] The journal is distributed gratis to the Far Eastern Bible College family worldwide and Bible-Presbyterian churches, and also available online [albeit without a digital object identifier (DOI)].^[2] The editor is Jeffrey Khoo.

History

The Burning Bush was first published in January 1971 as a newsletter of the college.^[3]

In January 1995, it was replaced with the present journal format to allow for longer articles such as term papers, graduate theses, and faculty write-ups as well as easy shelving after perusal.^[4] The papers published reflect the reformed, premillennial, and separatist stance of the college.^[4]

Contents

The publication has a wealth of historically and ecclesiastically valuable articles, debates and information on verbal plenary preservation (VPP), reformed and Calvinist theology, contemporary and practical issues, festchrifts, chronological milestones, legal exchanges and litigation between the college and the Life Bible-Presbyterian Church ("Life BPC") in the Singapore courts, Singapore churches (especially Bible-Presbyterian) and the college, as well as annotated critiques of academic works in universities and seminaries.^[5]

Criticism and Credibility

The publication contains a primer on the doctrine of VPP entitled "A Plea for a Perfect Bible".^[6] Since 2003, several articles on the subject matter have appeared frequently in the journal.

Consequently, the Rev Tan Eng Boo, pastor of Grace Bible-Presbyterian Church and a vocal VPP critic^{[7][8][9][10]}who had signed a statement disparaging VPP as a theory^[11] and who misrepresented VPP^[12][13] and last wrote an article in The Burning Bush in July 2003,^[14] criticized the publication as "targetted to combat non-VPPs" and claimed it “was once an edifying magazine, but today … is used to put down B-P pastors and elders who are not supportive of their cause [and] [t]here is nothing edifying in this magazine which publishes only about VPP.”^[15]

The criticism is without basis as The Burning Bush continues to have news, reports, books reviews and articles not related to VPP (although some of these also made brief mention of the preserved words of God).^[16] The articles, which are on VPP, were published primarily in response to attacks on VPP by American fundamentalists and fundamentalist institutions (BJU, Central Baptist, Detroit Baptist, etc) and their publications^[17][18] and to defend FEBC against misrepresentations of VPP by certain B-P pastors/parties, including the Rev Tan Eng Boo (see above) and the Rev Dr Jack Sin who had written in “A Grave Matter: Verity, Sagacity and Clarity in the Textual Debate” that Psalm 12:6-7, Matthew 5:18, Matthew 24:35, etc “do not support the teaching of a perfect TR of 1611.”^[19]

The Rev Dr Jack Sin, a member of FEBC’s faculty until 2007 (he is so listed until the January 2007 issue of The Burning Bush), should know that the above verses cited by him were never used in the articles in The Burning Bush by proponents of VPP in the way he had portrayed but only used as a foundation or initial argument against VPP opponents who do not believe that God’s words have been fully preserved before the next argument is made, based on the logic of faith, that these perfectly preserved words are found in the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Received Text underlying the English King James Version Bible – see Verbal Plenary Preservation.

Biak Lawm Thang, in “A Review of Jack Sin’s Article, “A Grave Matter: Verity, Sagacity and Clarity in the Textual Debate”” in the July 2008 issue of The Burning Bush, concluded that “[n]either was [Jack Sin] fair in his quotation of the works of others nor unbiased in his presentation of the opposing view” and “[h]is appraisal which is destitute of biblical proof, citing only human authorities with partial quotations, cannot be considered “biblical,” or “objective” or “honest”.”^[20][21]

The Burning Bush at the outset in fact sought to defend the Bible-Presbyterian Church, founded by the late Rev Dr Timothy Tow who upheld the VPP doctrine, by giving the theological reasons why the Bible is perfect today, and why it is correct for the Bible-Presbyterian Church to continue to use the King James Version which is a most faithful and accurate translation of the divinely inspired and preserved Hebrew and Greek Scriptures (see chart in “A Plea for a Perfect Bible” where the Bible-Presbyterian Church (BPC in the chart) is categorised under those who believe in the past and present infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures.^[22]) While the past infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures in the autographs (i.e., the doctrine of Verbal Plenary Inspiration (VPI)) is acceptable to certain Bible-Presbyterian leaders like the Rev Tan Eng Boo, the present infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures in the apographs (i.e., the VPP doctrine) is considered by these leaders to be strange, deviant or heretical even though they claim they have in their hands the perfect Word of God,^[23] or they hold to an inerrant and infallible Bible and the English King James Version they use is the "very Word of God, and is fully reliable" but the underlying original languages texts in Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek from which the English King James Version has been translated are not perfect.^[24]

If VPP is regarded as “up”, then The Burning Bush cannot be regarded as putting down B-P ministers and elders as they themselves were the ones who had disparaged VPP and tried to put it down. Credibility was thrown to the wind when the Rev Tan Eng Boo in his article entitled “A Very Sad State of the BP Church today”^[25] failed to condemn Life BPC for contravening 1 Cor 6 in commencing legal action in 2008 against the FEBC or its directors in Suit 648 in the High Court of Singapore. Instead Grace Bible-Presbyterian Church, headed by the Rev Tan Eng Boo, was one of the churches which had lent its support in evidence adduced by Life BPC to put down the college^[26][27] in the church's attempt to evict the college, the publisher of the journal, from the premises at Gilstead Road shared by the church and the college. However, the attempt failed as the Court of Appeal of Singapore disagreed with their view of VPP being strange, deviant or heretical.^[28][29]

See also

• List of theology journals

References

External links

• Official website