It's almost impossible to restrain oneself from superlatives when describing Rev Stephen Thong of Gereja Reformed Injili, Indonesia. Evangelistic preacher, nicknamed "Billy Graham of the East" or "The successor of John Sung".
Architect. Composer. Orchestra Conductor. Musician. Author. Theologian. Philosopher. Lecturer. Pastor. Family man.
(Is there anything he can't do?)
Imagine someone with the theology of John Calvin, homiletics of George Whitefield, musical acumen of Charles Wesley and artistry of a Renaissance man?
In the late 1990's, Rev Stephen Thong organised a series of seminars on important challenges facing the Christian faith in the 21st century. It's the best gathering of Chinese-speaking scholars on such diverse topics coming from a Christian worldview that I know of.
Nothing even comes to close to this in the English-speaking Malaysian community.
For the benefit of our brethren who don't know what they are missing, John Chung, some friends and myself got to together to undertake the formidable task of transcribing/translating these sermons. None of us are scholars... and it's always hard to capture the dynamism of a spoken speech in text.
That was how I met the legendary Stephen Thong at the VIP room and shook his hands (didn't wash my hands sfor 12 hours!) He said I look VERY young, quite surprised by my real age. And I took the chance to ask him about his apologetic approach. He said, "I'm a Van Tilian" without hesitation. A memorable experience for a wanna-be in the presence of greatness! haha...
Although these manuscripts didn't see the light of day, I've taken up the responsibility to do some minor editting and *unofficially* publish them anyway.
So if there's any fault or misinformation in these messages, the fault is all mine for failing to edit them. Any credit properly belongs to the speakers who prepared the sermons.
If they help anyone in anyway to think after God's thoughts, I'd be deeply gratified
http://hedonese.blogspot.com
Forum:
http://stephentong.org/multiboard/index.htm
Elder Yong - saltlite@pacific.net.sg
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