Interesting Questions-95

Why from the Philippines?

Letter to the Editor:
PASUGO, August 2002, p.2

I READ IN your magazine, God's Message, that you claim to be the true Church in these last days. As I continued reading your articles, I was surprised to learn that your Church started in the Philippines. How can your Church be the true Church if it started in a small and poor country like the Philippines? Why would God choose the Philippines out of all the nations in the world to be the place from where the true Church would emerge?

Robert Lewis
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Editor's reply:

We should not be surprised if the true Church in these last days would emerge in what you call a "small and poor country like the Philippines." God does not take a country's size or economic status as His basis in choosing the place from, where His chosen people would emerge. In fact, God chose the nation of Israel not because of its size or its power:

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; (Dt. 7:6-7, NKJV)

Even the Savior Himself, the Lord Jesus  Christ, was born in the small town of Bethlehem. Prophet Micah recorded:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.” (Mic. 5:2, Ibid.)

Christ was "born in Bethlehem (Mt. 2:1) in fulfillment of biblical prophecies:

The scripture says that the Messiah will be a descendant of King David and will be born in Bethlehem, the town where David lived. (Jn 7:42, Today's English Version)

Likewise, the emergence of God's chosen people in these last days from a small and poor country in the Far East (Is.  43:5-6, Moffatt), "in the islands of the sea" (Is. 24:15, NIV) is the  fulfillment of biblical prophecies.  As was prophesied, the Iglesia ni Cristo or Church of Christ emerged in the Philippines composed of islands which almost at the geographical center of the Far East (Asia and the Philippines, p. 169)

When God chooses things considered  insignificant by men, it is because He would want to put to shame those considered wise and mighty.:

²⁶ For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. ²⁷ But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, ²⁹ that no flesh should glory in His presence. (I Cor. 1:26-29, NKJV) (emphasis ours)

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Bible Study Suggestion: If you have further questions, please feel free to visit the Iglesia ni Cristo congregation nearest you. A minister or an evangelical worker would be happy to answer any biblical question you have in mind. For the latest Worship Service Directory of Iglesia ni Cristo Locales and Congregations outside the Philippines, please visit www.iglesianicristoworshipservice.com or just click link at home page.