Reading FrontLine
Don Johnson
As readers of our site are aware, one of the ministries of the FBFI is our bimonthly publication, FrontLine magazine. We regularly post from its archives here on Proclaim & Defend. We hope these articles are a blessing to you in your spiritual life.
In today’s post, I’d like to say a word on behalf of the magazine. I think you should subscribe. You will find the articles very helpful and thought provoking. I would hope that it would also be edifying for your spiritual life. I will expand on these benefits below, but first I’d like to share with you how I use the magazine.
We live in an era where the internet has changed everything. The impact is still being sorted out across many industries as varied as retail merchandising to music to publishing and probably many others I am not thinking of right now. I’ve heard it said that print magazines are dinosaurs of a bygone era (i.e. just five or ten years in the past!). Well, so be it. If we are a dinosaur, we hope to be an excellent dinosaur, and I think we are.
By that I mean that I make FrontLine a valuable part of my devotional life. I don’t have time these days to sit and read it from cover to cover as I once did. I found myself falling behind on the articles, often not discovering them until months afterword, sometimes only as I am searching for an appropriate post for P&D. For the last while I have hit on a solution and it has been a great blessing to me.
I keep my latest issue of FrontLine with my devotional materials. Each day after my Bible reading I pick up my FrontLine and read the next article. Usually I have time for an article a day. (Unless it is one of brother Minnick’s! Sometimes he takes two days!) In this way, I progressively make my way through the magazine and end up reading it cover to cover.
As I was reflecting on my reading the other day, I considered what it was that I got out of FrontLine. I came up with three words. I suggest them to you as the real benefits of subscribing and reading FrontLine on a regular basis: I read FrontLine for Information, Inspiration, and Edification.
Information
FrontLine often informs me about ministries going on around the world. We’ve had issues devoted to the work of God in China, Africa and lately the Philippines. This last subject, the Philippines, was the focus of one of our most recent issues, March/April 2015. As we have a number of Filippinas in our congregation, this one was of particular interest to me. It was a great blessing to read about the progress of the Gospel there, some of the history of missions, and to read the words of fine, faithful Christian men from the Philippines. We tend to become very “North American Centric” in our thinking about ministry. This particular issue gave me information that had hitherto escaped my notice, provoked my thinking about ministry and missions around the world, which leads to my next word, Inspiration.
Inspiration
I have rarely heard a missions presentation without some tug at the heart wishing I could be able to minister in the place my brother was ministering. I wish I could be multiple persons, or live long enough and strong enough to have multiple ministries. Alas, we must be content with the lot the Lord has given us, but still my heart thrills to hear of God’s work around the world. FrontLine issues that focus on missions provide this kind of inspiration for me.
But more than missions alone, I find myself regularly inspired about some aspect of ministry in the mission field God has given me. I think of opportunities for evangelism that I have in my “backyard,” so to speak, and I consider how I can use the information I have gleaned to get the gospel out in the vineyard in which I am laboring. I find myself challenged by the writing, and that brings me to the last word of my list, Edification.
Edification
Which one of us has arrived, entire and complete, in our Christian maturity? None of us has. As I read various articles in FrontLine, I am challenged in areas of my spiritual life. My self-centeredness is challenged by the need for compassion. My weak witness is challenged by exhortation to evangelism. My faintheartedness is challenged by forthright declarations of biblical truth.
I think if you make reading FrontLine a regular practice in your life, you will find that these blessings will be yours as well. I have the privilege of regularly plumbing the pages of historical editions of FrontLine. I find forgotten gems from years gone by. I also see how well the magazine has held up through the years and indeed how much better it is today than its ever been.
If you are not currently subscribing, I urge you to consider taking it again, or taking it for the first time. Make it a part of your devotional habits. You’ll find a blessing in it.
For your convenience, here is the link you need to get your subscription started.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.