Looking To The New Year
As we make plans for 1964 there are two or three highly interesting developments in prospect which we believe will be of real interest to our readers. The first in point of time (if we can perfect plans now under way) will be doubling the size of our monthly publication "Truth In Love" from eight pages of first principle material to sixteen pages. Scores of congregations have used this excellent little journal for many, many years (nearly twenty, in fact), and have been highly pleased with the results obtained through it. Several congregations have sent it each month to as many as one thousand prospects; and one congregation, a few years ago, sent it to more than three thousand people for a full year. During which time they baptized over 100 people, forty of them coming right out of denominational backgrounds. And every single person of the number baptized was from a family receiving this monthly journal.
If our plans in this direction materialize, and we are able to double the size of the paper, we will drop the name "Truth In Love," and will make a "special issue" of the Gospel Guardian on the second week in each month, thus providing a full sixteen-page journal each month for several thousand "non-Christians" (who largely make up the readers of Truth In Love), and re-emphasizing and re-stating these old, old fundamentals of the gospel for the strengthening and building up of our regular readers of the Gospel Guardian. We believe this move will be welcomed and approved by the churches now using Truth In Love, as well as by all our regular family of subscribers to the Gospel Guardian. The change-over (if we can effect it) will take place in January.
A second happy advancement in prospect for the coming year is the new list of gospel tracts now in process of preparation — our "Tract-of-the-Month" series. These stimulating and interest-stirring new tracts are receiving enthusiastic praise from all quarters. Many of our Truth In Love readers will find in one or more of these tracts the Biblical answers to specific questions they have had in mind concerning the doctrine of Christ. These handy little booklets, 3 x 5 in. in size, and costing only ten cents each in quantity lots (otherwise eight for one dollar or fifteen cents per single copy), give clear, precise, and understandable explanation of the basic teachings of the gospel. Here is a list of the tracts already in print and available for mailing:
The Bible — Of Divine or Human Origin? — Yater Tant The Bible — A complete Guide From Earth to Heaven Roy E. Cogdill
You CAN Understand The Bible — Robert C. Welch Jesus, A Divine Being - Fact or Fiction? — Robert H. Farish
God Hath Spoken In His Son — H. Osby Weaver What Must I Do To Be Saved? — Robert H. Farish
The Holy Spirit In Conversion — James W. Adams The Baptisms of the Bible — Charles A. Holt
The Church of Christ vs. The Churches of Men — Yater Tant Mormonism - From God or From Men? — Robert H. West
Are Christians To Keep The Sabbath? — Gordon Wilson Music Divinely Appointed For Christian Worship — C. B. Douthitt
The Christian's Hope — Eugene Britnell The Lord's Supper — Miracle or Memorial? — Luther Blackmon
The Final Judgment - YOU Will Be There — James R. Cope Scheduled for publication in the early months of next year are such as the following:
What Does It Mean To Believe In Christ? — Jack L. Holt Christian Science - An Analysis — Harry W. Pickup, Jr.
What Is "The New Birth"? — Marshall E. Patton The Identity of the Lord's Church — Luther G. Roberts
The Problem of Human Suffering — Homer Hailey The Savior's Invitation — A. Hugh Clark
Will All Men Be Lost Who Are Not Members Of The Church of Christ? — Sewell Hall Bible Answers To Some Baptist Questions — Lloyd Moyer
The Bible Doctrine of "Grace" — Robert H. Farish These are only some of the good tracts now being prepared. Others will be produced as the months go by. These tracts are highly useful as a "follow-up" to the readers of Truth In Love, for they deal at length and in more detail with many of the same matters which are handled on a more limited basis in the pages of this magazine. One satisfying circumstance of doubling the size of the paper from eight to sixteen pages will be that we will be permitted in each such issue to give at least one comprehensive article on some Bible subject, dealing fully and even exhaustively (but not exhaustingly, we hope!) with whatever subject may be up for consideration. In our previous eight-page publication we have been hesitant to use up the amount of space needful for such a study, but have tended more to the presentation of several short articles.
There is only one answer to the terrifying problems men face today — the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel will not solve economic problems, nor will it have any appreciable effect on political and sociological problems until such time as it may be accepted by a considerable number of the race. But it will make all the difference in the world as to personal problems; it will enable the individual to live joyously, usefully, and triumphantly even in thy midst of economic chaos or political anarchy! And that is our interest. We have little hope of solving the world's political, economic, or social problems; but we do know that the gospel of Christ in the heart of the individual can solve HIS problems! Let the year 1964 be the rear in which you demonstrate that fact in your own heart and in your own life. May God grant it to each of us.
F. Y. T.