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The Pocket Testament League is a Christian nonprofit organization which distributes printed copies of the Gospels from the New Testament.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2013) |
The Pocket Testament League is a Christian nonprofit organization which distributes printed copies of the Gospels from the New Testament.
The Pocket Testament League was founded in 1893 by a 12-year-old named Helen Cadbury, daughter of the president of the confectioner Cadbury, who wished to introduce her classmates to Christianity. [1] She formed a group with her Christian schoolfriends, “The Pocket Testament League.”
In 1904, Helen married American evangelist Charles McCallon Alexander, who officially organized the league with Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman in Philadelphia in March of 1908. [2] Alexander had been associated with the prominent evangelist Dwight L. Moody, and his experience in worldwide evangelism gave a huge impetus to the League. In 1914, The Pocket Testament League opened an office in London and began sharing gospels as part of its First World War outreach. In October, one of their campaigns gave out 400,000 New Testaments to soldiers on Salisbury Plain.
During the Great Depression, members of the League shared Gospels through the Civilian Conservation Corps in the South and throughout New England. Billy Graham encouraged the League, commenting that "I am completely sold on the work of The Pocket Testament League, and continue to pray for those associated with it." [3]
Many people heard the story of a pocket sized Bible in a soldier’s pocket that saved his life. It was Private Jennison of the 5th Yorkshire Regiment who, during WWI, was carrying his New Testament supplied by The Pocket Testament League which stopped the bullet that would have pierced his chest.
After WWII, General MacArthur asked the league for Pocket Testaments. Members of league contributed 11 million Gospels for the nation of Japan. As a result of these Gospels being shared in Japan, Captain Fuchida Mitsuo, who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor, later became a Christian and worked for The League.
After WWII, the league started missionary work in foreign countries. With the support of Generals George Marshall and Chiang Kai-shek, Bibles were distributed among Chinese soldiers fighting in the Chinese Civil War. [4]
The League has over 450,000 members and a staff of 5 full-time people that work from virtual offices. A small team runs the ministry and it is managed by a 15-person board of trustees. The League has members from all 50 U.S. states and from 140 countries.
The League is based in Lititz, Pennsylvania, US. It is also known as Bridge Builders in the UK. [5]
Today, the league still prints small, pocket-sized Gospel of John in languages including English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Russian, German, Spanish and Portuguese, with wide range of cover designs. In 2019 about 16,000 individuals shared 1,150,000 gospels. It also partners with local Bible Societies for accurate Bible translations and ships from several locations around the world and in 2019, 300 partners distributed 6 million gospels.
Luke the Evangelist is one of the Four Evangelists—the four traditionally ascribed authors of the canonical gospels. The Early Church Fathers ascribed to him authorship of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Prominent figures in early Christianity such as Jerome and Eusebius later reaffirmed his authorship, although a lack of conclusive evidence as to the identity of the author of the works has led to discussion in scholarly circles, both secular and religious.
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as sacred scripture by Christians.
Historically, many rulers have assumed titles such as the son of God, the son of a god or the son of heaven.
Mark the Evangelist also known as John Mark or Saint Mark, is the person who is traditionally ascribed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark. Modern Bible scholars have concluded that the Gospel of Mark was written by an anonymous author rather than by Mark. According to Church tradition, Mark founded the episcopal see of Alexandria, which was one of the five most important sees of early Christianity. His feast day is celebrated on April 25, and his symbol is the winged lion.
In Christianity, evangelism or witnessing is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is sometimes associated with Christian missions.
Gideons International is an Evangelical Christian association for men founded in 1899 in Janesville, Wisconsin. The Gideons' primary activity, along with their wives in the Auxiliary, is "encouraging each other to do the work of the Lord, focusing on who they are before God, and strengthening the power of their personal testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ". They are most recognized for distributing copies of scripture free of charge, paid for by freewill offerings from local churches and from members themselves. This Bible distribution is a worldwide enterprise taking place in around 200 countries, territories and possessions. The association's members focus on distributing complete Bibles, New Testaments, or portions thereof. These copies are printed in over 108 languages. The association is most widely known for its Bibles placed in lodging rooms. The Gideons also distribute to hospitals and other medical offices, schools and colleges, military bases, as well as jails and prisons. The association was named after the Biblical figure Gideon depicted in the Book of Judges.
In Christian tradition, the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four canonical Gospel accounts. In the New Testament, they bear the following titles: the Gospel of Matthew; the Gospel of Mark; the Gospel of Luke; and the Gospel of John. These names were assigned to the works by the early church fathers in the 2nd century AD; none of the writers signed their work.
Charles McCallon Alexander a native of East Tennessee, was a popular nineteenth-century gospel singer who worked the evangelistic circuit for many years. Over the course of his ministry, he toured with R. A. Torrey and John Wilbur Chapman, most notably. In 1904, Alexander married Helen Cadbury, daughter of the Cadbury Chocolate Company president. She toured with him on the evangelistic circuit as a women's worker. Together they spread The Pocket Testament League around the world.
Scottish Bible Society (SBS), founded in 1809 as the Edinburgh Bible Society, amalgamated in 1861 with the Glasgow Bible Society to form the National Bible Society of Scotland, is a Scottish Christian charity that exists to make the Bible available throughout the world.
Since the arrival of Christianity in China, the Bible has been translated into many varieties of the Chinese language, both in fragments and in its totality. The first translations may have been undertaken as early as the 7th century AD, but the first printed translations appeared only in the nineteenth century. Progress on a modern translation was encumbered by denominational rivalries, theological clashes, linguistic disputes, and practical challenges at least until the publication of the Protestant Chinese Union Version in 1919, which became the basis of standard versions in use today.
Christianity was first introduced to Thailand by European missionaries. In 2021, it represented 1.2% of the national population, which is predominantly Buddhist. Christians are numerically and organizationally concentrated more heavily in the north, where they make up an estimated 16% of some lowland districts and up to very high percents in tribal districts.
The Gospel Halls are a group of independent Christian assemblies throughout the world that fellowship with each other through a set of shared Biblical doctrines and practices. Theologically, they are evangelical and dispensational. They are a conservative strand of the Open Brethren movement and tend to only collaborate with other assemblies when there is doctrinal agreement.
There are two main translations of the Bible into Japanese widely in use today — the Japanese New Interconfessional Translation Bible (新共同訳聖書) and the New Revised Bible (新改訳聖書). The New Japanese Bible, published by the Organization for the New Japanese Bible Translation (新日本聖書刊行会) and distributed by Inochinokotoba-sha, aims to be a literal translation using modern Japanese, while the New Interconfessional Version, published by the Japan Bible Society, aims to be ecumenically used by all Christian denominations and must therefore conform to various theologies. Protestant Evangelicals most often use the New Japanese Bible, but the New Interconfessional Version is the most widely distributed and the one used by the Catholic Church, the United Church of Christ, Lutheran Church factions and many Anglicans in Japan.
The Good Book Company (TGBC) is an evangelical Christian publisher, located in Epsom, Surrey, England. They are structured as a large unquoted, private company, limited by share capital. Their practices include publishing, mission outreach and training. The Publisher was declared runner up in the Christian Publisher of the Year Award by the Trade Body for Christian Publishing and Retailing in the UK.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Christianity:
Ernest Albert Kilbourne was a missionary evangelist to Japan. He is best known for being a cofounder of the Oriental Missionary Society.
The Bible has been translated into many of the languages of China besides Chinese. These include major minority languages with their own literary history, including Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Russian and Uyghur. The other languages of China are mainly tribal languages, mainly spoken in Yunnan in Southwest China.
Frederick Clifton Grant was an American New Testament scholar. Grant was born on February 2, 1891, in Beloit, Wisconsin. He received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from General Theological Seminary in 1912 and Master of Sacred Theology and Doctor of Theology degrees from Western Theological Seminary in 1916 and 1922 respectively. Grant was Edward Robertson Professor of Biblical Theology at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1951, a Festschrift was published in his honor. The Joy of Study: Papers on New Testament and Related Subjects Presented to Honor Frederick Clifton Grant included contributions from Henry Cadbury, Philip Carrington, and Robert M. Grant.
In missions history, a Bible woman was a local woman who supported foreign female missionaries in their Christian evangelistic and social work.
The Bible Society of Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei was a nondenominational Christian organisation committed to translating and distributing the Bible in Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei. It was the successor organisation to the Bible Society of Malaya, a branch of the National Bible Society of Scotland (NBSS). The Bible Society of Malaya prior to 1948 was a branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS).
Helen Cadbury And Charles M. Alexander Copyright 1989 Simon Fox A Love That Embraced the World by Simon Fox