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Matthew 5:14 “You are the Light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid”

This Bible verse is found within the famous words of Jesus “Sermon on the Mount” that begins in the book of Gospel of Mathew chapter 5. This particular verse is set in the context of the beautiful yet hard teachings of Jesus “the Beatitudes”. When Jesus saw the multitude, who faithfully trusted him and followed him wherever he went and who were unmindful of their long and dusty journeys across the length and breadth, up and down of the Galilee, Samaria and other places. When I imagine the simple and many an unassuming people, who with their simple faith trying to understand the Kingdom’s value of love, hospitality, social ethical values and ethos that are embedded in Jesus’ teaching, I could see in them a group of people, children, youth, women and men of different calibers. I could connect the crowd who were following Jesus, especially with the tribal communities, who live on forest hills and mountains, with whom I interact in the course of the ministry I am engaging with as I travel the length and breadth of India.

When the eager followers of Jesus keenly listened to when he was using a simple metaphor of “light” to tell who they were, saying “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” I could see the enthusiastic tribal communities, young and old, whose sparkling eyes could connect themselves with that light of the world, the light that sparks on the hill top, illuminated by the gospel of Jesus. In one of the Missiological Study courses of Master of Theology under the Senate of Serampore College (University), India, there is one question that asks “Why are Jharkhand and North East India receptive to Christianity? The one important answer I could probably give is, for the tribal people especially who dwell on hills and mountain regions the gospel of Jesus makes meaning to them, literally connecting themselves with their geographical location. I imagine Jesus would have said a longer statement within our Indian context, saying “My people, who dwell on mountains and hills, who do not practice the evil of castecism, who believe in me and in my words, to lighten the world who are in darkness, to transform the world where darkness of ignorance and slaveries of castecism holds its fort, no one can ignore you, as you are the light, children of Zion that shine on the hill top.” This is how it would ring in the ears of the tribal Christian community when they read the Gospel of Matthew 5:14. The call is loud and clear, they are the light that shine on the hill to enlighten and dispel the darkness of social evils clouded by discriminations due to caste system, gender bias due to patriarchal structure, female foeticide, child marriage, dowry and its related evils, shrinking place of tribal women and men in their participation and their roles in the society. The call to the people on the hills is not to always remain on the hills and mountains, but to be the light of this world including the valleys and the plains. One of the gospel songs beautifully sings “God on the Mountain is also the God of the valleys” in its literal sense.

Prayer: God of Light, you have enlightened us to be the light of the world. Though the darkness of social evils engulf us, yet as you have set us as the light on a hill, give us the courage to hold our light shine, strengthen us so that we may be the agent of your love and peace in this troubled world. We submit our lives into your hand as we choose your words as a lamp for our path and a light for our feet. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.

Dr. Hrangthan Chhungi,

Associate Director,

Church, Public Relations and Resource Mobilisation.

A brief report of the Trauma Healing Initial Equipping Sessions held at Praggoloy, Pastoral and Development Center, Kolkata (5 th -9 th  July, 2022) and YMCA International House, Mumbai (11 th – 15 th  July, 2022).

We begin this report by thanking God Almighty for His blessings on  the Initial Equipping Sessions  held in Kolkata and Mumbai. By God’s grace the programmes went on very well and all the participants were so grateful to BSI for organizing such a programme which according to them was unique.  We were blessed to lead the Trauma Healing Programme in India through our 17 Auxiliaries. After organizing four such programmes in different parts of the country for different groups of people, we realized how important this BSI ministry is as the Trauma Healing touches lives through the Word of God. 

The Initial Equipping Sessions in Kolkata began on the 5 th  of July 2022 at Proggoloy, a Catholic Centre. We are thankful to Rev. Philip Bhari, Auxiliary Secretary, BSI Calcutta Auxiliary and Rev. Gershombhai Kristi, Pro tem, BSI Bombay Auxiliary and their team had done their best in arranging suitable places for the programme. We had participants from Andaman Nicobar Islands, Kolkata, Ranchi, Odisha, Bombay, Gujarat and Karnataka along with the respective Auxiliary Secretaries. There were 48 participants from all these states. Mrs. Amber Bernard, Rev. Shashikala Alva and Rev. Sudhakara Raju facilitated the Sessions.  Most of the participants including the Auxiliary Secretaries testified that they were personally blessed by the programme and assured us that the same would be taken back to their families and Churches that are in need of healing from their wounded hearts. Since the programme is Bibleis based, it helped the participants to engage themselves more with the Word of God and to know about the God of the Bible in the process of finding healing for their wounded hearts.

The department of Church, Public Relations and Resource Mobilisation  organised a virtual meeting with all the Auxiliary Secretaries on July 28, 2022 from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. Rev. Dr. M. Mani Chacko, General Secretary, BSI extended a warm welcome to the Auxiliary Secretaries and encouraged them from God’s Word from the book of 1 Kings 20:28. He reiterated that our experiences on mountain top and valley are unique. Emphazising that the God on the mountain is also the God of valleys, God of the Bible is our God in our good times and difficult times, God who is journeying with us in all times and places. Therefore, we shall not be moved. GS also had emphatically affirmed that with a beautiful statement saying “Bible is a Public Document”, therefore the mandate of the Bible Society of India is to take the Bible in the Public Square with its truth and integral ethics and ethos for the pursuance of peace, justice and reconciliation of the world, while respecting traditions of any context we need to approach traditions with critical examination for the transformation of our lives to make the world a better place to live in.

At Post-lunch, Marketing and Accounts staff from all the Auxiliaries had joined our conversation with special invitees from the Financefrom Department. Mr. Tinku George, Director Finance and Mr. G. R. Samal. Assistant Director, Finance. It was a blessed time of listening to our Auxiliary Secretaries their challenges and prospects in and through their activities, strategies on Church, Public Relations, administrative skills and responsibilities, and their activities on fundraising methods and various strategies. We are grateful to our General Secretary and the Auxiliary Secretaries for a very meaningful time we all spent together through the Zoom platform.

Like any other years, the Bible Society of India observed the ‘Tribal and Adivasi Day’ virtually on August 9, 2022. Ms. Elina K. Horo, Founder of Adivasi Women’s Network (AWN) and Inter State Adivasi Women’s Network (ISAWN) and Chief Functionary of Women and Gender Resource Centre (WGRC) was the speaker for the day. The Bible Society of India, being a member of the National Council of Churches in India (hereafter NCCI) adapted the order of worship prepared by the NCCI in our observance of the “Tribal and Adivasi Day/International Indigenous Day”. The theme for this year was “The Role of Tribal and Adivasi Women in the Preservation and Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge”. The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was first pronounced by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1994. By resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People shall be observed on 9th August every year. By following this UN day, on 17 September 2010, during the Annual General Body Meeting of National Council of Churches in India in Bangalore, for the first time the NCCI announced observance of the NCCI-Tribal and Adivasi Sunday. NCCI, therefore, urges and requests constituent members to annually observe every Sunday closest to 9th August as NCCI -Tribal and Adivasi Sunday and the date to be marked in the Church calendar and dairy. In order to have a better understanding of the life situation of the Tribal and Adivasi communities in India and to have a common form of worship for this special Sunday, NCCI therefore brings out this Liturgy. Nevertheless, NCCI acknowledges that many churches do not follow a liturgical form of worship; still NCCI requests those churches to adopt liturgy suitable to their own tradition. At the same time, NCCI is also aware of the absence of Tribal and Adivasi communities in a few churches, yet NCCI requests all those churches to observe this special NCCI Tribal and Adivasi Sunday to show their solidarity with our fellow tribal and adivasi friends who are oppressed and marginalised in various ways. NCCI hopes that the observance of this special NCCI Tribal and Adivasi Sunday will be an enriching one in our faith affirmation and for widening the horizon of our ecumenical Journey. Since 2011, Tribal and Adivasi Sunday have been celebrated in many parts of our country in sensitizing the local congregation on Tribal and Adivasi Concerns. We would like to thank all the churches, dioceses, parishes and institutions for the enormous support we have received in celebrating this special Sunday.

Rev. Dr. M. Mani Chacko, General Secretary, BSI welcomed the august body and the guest speaker. Staff from the Auxiliaries took active part in the order of service to make it meaningful and blessed.

Ms. Elina K. Horo in her speech reiterated the importance of listening to the wisdom of tribal women, especially elderly women, whose experiences speaks volumes of wisdom and life-skills; she also urged her audience to be mindful of the rights and dignity of the Tribal and Adivasis in our Indian constitutions in order to protect them from all kinds of atrocities meted out to them. Calling the Church and Christian Institutions to work together for increasing awareness of the Tribal and Adivasi issues and be an agent of justice in upholding and respecting their Rights, Preservation and Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge in our Indian society.

BSI Staff nation-wide affirmed their faith with these words:

We believe in God, the source of all life, who invites us to be partners of the creative processes that enhance life; who entrusts us with the responsibility of caring for the earth and everything in it; who delights in justice and righteousness, and detests all kinds of injustices, oppressions and exploitations.

We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born as a human to reveal God’s love by sharing in the life of the suffering communities, protesting against the structures and powers that oppress people, powers and structures that exploit the earth’s resources, and powers and structures that destroy life and breed death.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, who leads us to truth, who inspires us for every good work, and who challenges us to work for the cause of just peace.

We believe in the Church, which is called out to be a community that stands with all who are oppressed, following the way of Christ.

We believe in the interdependence of all God’s creation; humans are not above other creatures but stewards with a responsibility to care and nurture for creation, resisting practices that are life- negating.

Intercessory prayers were offered for the Tribal and Adivasi community of our country.

We had a very meaningful interactions and fruitful engagement with all the participants for Four Days programme of Training the Auxiliary Staff, Auxiliary Committee Members and BSI volunteers such as Branch Leaders, Collectors and Donors in the surrounding cities of Ahmedabad and Anand in Gujarat State towards Church, Public Relations and Resource Mobilization strategies.

We greatly appreciate the Gujarat Auxiliary Secretary Rev. David Desai and all the staff of the Gujarat Auxiliary for their commitment and hospitality for hosting many programmes. The commitment of the Auxiliary Committee members, branch leaders and all the donors for the Bible cause is a great encouragement for the ministry of the Bible Society in the state of Gujarat. For the first time in their history a Meeting at the Church of North India, Anand City with the 250 BSI branch leaders and donors was great encouragement for the BSI activities in the Anand city.

Scripture Engagement programmes with special group of people with the Slum Dwellers in Ahmedabad city, with the Poor children at the Irish Presbyterian Mission Girls Hostel, Anand City, and the Widows at the CNI Church Ranipur, Irish Presbyterian Mission near Ahmedabad were all a heart-rending moment yet a joyful time. Sharing the Word of God in the midst of their suffering and challenging life situation, with the word of God’s comforts and sustaining love is what we could offer to encourage them to take life positively. The most beautiful faces are seen when each of the participants in these programmes received a copy of the Holy Bible in their hands. May God’s sustaining love keep them safe always.

Relations between the Bible Society of India and the Catholic Church is growing stronger with the release of the trial version of the four Gospels in Kannada (CL), which is a joint venture project on Re-editing Interconfessional Kannada Bible (CL) on July 6, 2022 at 3:00 pm at the Ascention Church Hall at Da Costa Square, St. Thomas Town, Bangalore – 560084.

The Bible Society of India and the Karnataka Regional Catholic Bishops’ Council had signed a Memorundum of Understanding for this partnership project on July 19, 2021 after several rounds of  meetings of the Steering Committee representing both the BSI and the Catholic Church under the leadership of His Grace Archbishop Peter Machado, Metropolitan Archbishop of Bangalore and Rev. Dr. M. Mani Chacko, the General Secretary and the CEO of the Bible Society of India. We truly are thankful  to their leadership for being the driving force for this partnership project. The reediting work has been taken up by the Translation Core Team with good knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and Kannada languages from both the insitutions. Their commitment and expertise of the needed languages and the software technological application has helped the translator core team to work within a stipulated time frame for the trial version of the four Gospels for the release.

In the presence of His Excellency Bishop K. William K.A., Chairman of the KRCBC Bible Commission, Rev. Dr. M. Mani Chacko, General Secretary, BSI, Members of the KRCBC Bishops’ Council, the Steering Committee Members, Translation Core team, Senior Management Team of the Bible Society of India, a few special invitees, the Four Gospels Trial Version was released by His Grace Archbishop Peter Machado, Metropolitan Archbishop of Bangalore. This Trial Version will be sent out to Theologians, Pastors, Professors of Kannada Language, Lay committed readers from both the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church for their review.

We are thankful to God for the partnership engagement of the Catholic Church and the Bible Society of India for this noble and important project. We seek your prayer support for the completion of the Re-edited Interconfessional Kannada Bible (CL) for the Church and the Kannada speaking community world wide as per scheduled.

The Bible Society of India celebrated Indian Christian Day on July 4, 2022, as part of the BSI staff online morning worship across India through the Zoom platform. Indian Christian Day was celebrated across India by the churches and Christian Organizations on July 3, 2022, to commemorate the date of the martyrdom of St. Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus Christ in Chennai in India way back in 72 AD. 

We are privileged to have Mr. John B. Samuel, President/Principal Researcher of Talent Research Foundation, USA and Singapore as our Guest Speaker, to bring the message of God’s Word through emphatic calling for a faithful disciple of Christ on the theme “Is Your job a Career or a Calling? with Bible references from Romans 11:29, 12: 6-8; and 1 Peter 4:10. Mr. John, through his conviction and commitment to God’s ministry, encouraged the family of the BSI to examine ourselves for a greater commitment to God that we render our services not just to build our carreer but to commit ourselves to greater responsibilities in serving God and people who are in need of God’s love and peace. Mr. John continued to encourage us by saying in our commitment to God’s ministry, that our true talents will come out that will leave a legacy for building God’s kingdom here on earth. Citing the example of William Carey, Father of the Modern Missionaries, saying, “William Carey came to India to convert thousands of people for Christ with a methodology of what we now called as ‘direct evangelism’, but through his commitment and surrendering himself for God’s mission, God had multiplied his talent and skill of language translation and William Carey came to accept that translation of the Bible into the heart languages of the people is what he was called to doing God’s Mission, which had left an everlasting, irreversible legacy in the History of the World, not only within Christianity but for the world at large”. 

The celebration of Indian Christian Day ended well with a great notion of God calling us into God’s mission with a commitment to serve the people/s of God while accepting God’s given talent in us. 

I confess that reading The Parable of The Good Samaritan from a human dignity perspective has really widened my horizons of thinking. I wish to concentrate exclusively on the parable rather than the dialogue before that.

Firstly, the Priest and the Levite. Here we have to consider social dignity, which converts a person to a distinguished dignitary (DD) in society. Several layers cover up our human dignity to make us a DD. We change from a human being to a social being. We are more social- status conscious than being self-/human conscious. I think this is what hindered the Priest and Levite from reaching out to the victim.

Secondly, The Samaritan (made to be “Good”). The Samaritan’s act of restoration of dignity to the victim is also an act of restoration of the Samaritan’s own identity. It is an attempt to counter the people who are obsessed with their dignitary status and never reach to the restoration of humans who are totally ripped off of their dignity. 

Restoration of human dignity is a process; it just does not stop with recognizing and helping the victim. The Samaritan cleaned him, took him to the inn, stayed with him, paid for him and promised to repay the extras. Many times, we stop by recognizing or reaching but never dare to enter the process of Restoration because it demands a lot from us. This process sometimes even hinders us from reaching out to the victims.

Thirdly, the donkey- the silent actor, for me, is the most dignified of all the characters in the parable. It carried the Samaritan and it also carried the victim, the Samaritan reached the victim on it and the victim reached the inn on it. Did the donkey complain anywhere in any form? I feel that Jesus consciously made it a part of the restoration process of human dignity. He himself chooses a donkey for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

In the busy world, we struggle to define our dignity with our dignitary status just as we struggle for our own identity as a person. In this strife to reach our own targets and positions /dignitaries, we miss seeing the people who are ripped off of their basic human dignity. Sometimes we may not be a good Samaritans but we can be a carrier of the Samaritan and also the victim. We can be a silent contributor to complete the human dignity restoration process knowingly or unknowingly but still being part of it. As we celebrate the Yeshu Bakthi Divas this month lets us retrospect on our role as Christians in this country. God called us to lead the human restoration process as silent contributors.

I remember this slogan of an airlines, which says- “Official Carrier of Common sense”. Here I see the donkey as an official carrier of God’s sense- love, a carrier, which does its job without complaints irrespective of religion, gender, caste, creed and colour. Sometimes, we need to be a dignified donkey because our dignity has been redefined when the saviour made us His choice and rode on us to reach the unreached. In order to restore someone’s dignity sometimes we need to lose our ‘dignitaries’ status’ and become a dignified donkey. Are we willing to be a dignified donkey?

Rev. John Basy Paul,

Auxiliary Secretary,

Telangana Auxiliary.

On June 2, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. the Bible Society of India Central Office, The Book Room and the Karnataka Auxiliary had a Thanksgiving and Farewell function for one of our staff Mrs. Roselyn Joyce on her retirement day after serving the Bible Society of India for 30 long years. Mr. Tinku George and Mr. G. R. Samal from the Finance Department had given remarkable farewell speeches. Two of them talked about their fond acquaintances with Mrs. Roselyn Joyce as a woman of caring, quiet nature, yet open for conversation.

She served the BSI with thankful heart, diligence and sincerity. Her concerns for other colleagues’ welfare and family well-being are something worth to learn from her. In her response to the farewell speeches, she expressed her sincere thanks to the General Secretary, all the directors of BSI for their guidance and support throughout her service and thanks all her colleagues in BSI. The progamme was beautifully anchored by Mr. Dot Rajan. The BSI Choir rendered special pre-recorded song for Mrs. Roselyn Joyce and she was presented cheques, shawls, memento and citation as a mark of gratitude from the Bible Society of India.