Bakht Singh demonstrated Biblical Missions

by Dr. Bob Finley
Chairman of Christian Aid

Bakht Singh visits with foreign missionaries in what is now Pakistan soon after his return from Canada. They looked upon him as a curiosity, having never seen a native missionary before.

In the Book of Acts our Lord revealed a pattern by which His kingdom would eventually spread to every people, tongue, tribe and nation. Clear examples were demonstrated in the lives of Barnabas of Cyprus and Saul of Tarsus. In the Twentieth Century the pattern was duplicated in the life and ministry of Bakht Singh of India, who went home to glory on September 17, 2000.

In fact, I have never seen or read of a clearer example of God's pattern throughout the centuries since the kingdom of God was first launched on this planet almost two thousand years ago.

Now before I go any further let me define "the kingdom of God," also called "the kingdom of the heavens" (the original text is almost always plural) in Matthew. Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and to avoid casual use of the sacred term "God" it was preferable to say "the heavens." Our translation of Matthew's original Hebrew text begins with John the baptizer preaching, "the kingdom of the heavens is at hand" (Matthew 3:2). It continues in 4:17 with our Lord also preaching that the kingdom of the heavens is at hand. In Mark and Luke, written later in Greek, "kingdom of God" is used instead.

Bakht Singh often preached to huge crowds. This gathering took place in 1959.
In recent times some have erroneously taught that we no longer preach the gospel of the kingdom. Rather, they say our message is the church, which God revealed through the Apostle Paul. I say, such teachers don't really know their Bibles. In Acts 20:25-31 Paul is quoted as saying he had been preaching the kingdom of God in Asia for three years. Acts 28:23 finds him in Rome, still preaching the kingdom of God. And the book closes with him still doing it in the very last verse.

The kingdom of God is this: our citizenship is in the heavens; we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth, serving as ambassadors for our risen Saviour among all nations. Our God is visiting the nations to take out of them "a people for His name" (Acts 15:14) and the Greek word for those who are called out of the world and into God's kingdom is translated "church" in English. As a planter of churches among many nations, Bakht Singh exemplified God's purpose for His kingdom as clearly as any man in church history.

Like Saul of Tarsus, Bakht Singh was called of God while away from home as a foreign student. He left his Sikh family in Punjab state to study abroad in Canada. While living in the home of John and Edith Hayward of Winnipeg, he strongly resisted their attempts to teach him the Bible. Then one night while alone in his room he could resist no longer, and yielded his heart to Christ. From that moment forward he became a flaming witness for the Saviour.

Here are some features that characterized his life and ministry.

Though highly educated in secular universities of England and Canada, Bakht Singh had no Bible school or theological training.

Thus he did not have to unlearn the many medieval and colonial traditions which hinder the spiritual growth of European and American Christians. As he read the Scriptures, he could comprehend God's revelation much more readily than those who are blinded by tradition.

Bakht Singh with his father, whom he baptized 12 years after his return to India.
He was a forceful, gifted evangelist.

While still in Canada in 1932 Bakht Singh was driven by the Holy Spirit to share Christ with everyone he met. And upon his return to India he pressed on from person to person, village to village, city to city preaching Christ.

I have original early photos of him passionately sharing the gospel in leper colonies, schools, and open air market places. He traveled continually, beginning at Bombay in the south where he arrived upon his return and pressing onward to the far northwest through his native Punjab into what is now Pakistan. Everywhere he went he distributed the Word of God and proclaimed salvation through Christ alone.

His life was saturated with prayer: both worship and intercession.

When we sponsored Bakht Singh for visits to the USA in 1959 and 1968 he insisted on having at least one full hour free in the middle of the day when he could give himself to intercessory prayer, on his knees. That was in addition to his worship time in the early morning.

When David Burder, now our field rep in Delhi, once asked him, "Brother Singh, how much time do you spend in prayer every day?" the man of God replied, "Until I am satisfied."

When Billy Graham conducted his first India crusade, Bakht Singh gathered 5000 believers outside Billy's hotel in Madras to pray all night. Once when our dear brother was praying for a sick friend the believers reported that the entire building seemed to vibrate, so powerful were his prayers. And the terminally ill patient arose from his bed and walked out of the hospital.

Bakht Singh received grace for apostleship.

Bakht Singh greets foreign students at the University of California in 1959. At right is Allen Finley, who was working with his older brother, Bob, at the time.
Of the various graces which God gives to individual believers, apostleship heads the list according to Paul's epistles. The apostle is the pioneer who plants churches among those people and in those places where no witness for our Lord has previously existed. God used His servant to plant at least 2000 new assemblies of believers throughout the subcontinent of South Asia.

Some were among his fellow Sikhs in Punjab and Pakistan. Also among the Tamil, Telegu, Bengali and other nations of India. The first churches in Nepal were a direct extension of Bakht Singh's ministry among Nepali immigrants in northeastern India. Believers from at least a hundred tribes and nations were among the 25,000 who annually attended Bakht Singh's "holy convocations."

He did not perpetuate institutional colonialism.

The manner in which God used Bakht Singh to plant churches among so many tribes and nations was in sharp contrast to the colonial practices of traditional mission boards in the U.S. and Canada. Primarily he reached people from many nations while they were away from home, and then sent them back to plant assemblies of believers among their own people.

A notable example was Prem Pradhan of Nepal who was won to Christ in 1951 by Bakht Singh's disciples while he was serving in the army of India. After three years of discipleship he resigned his military commission and returned to his native land to plant the first churches in that closed land.

In 1975 I visited Bakht Singh at his home base in Hyderabad and found about 100 new disciples in training there. Among them were men from Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Tibet, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and all the then 16 states of India. After a few months all would be going back to spearhead Christian witness among their respective peoples.

Bakht Singh arrives in 1969 for meetings in the USA.
He understood that the local church is the body of Christ in that locality.

As Bakht Singh read the New Testament he discerned that a local church should be like one's home. And a meeting of believers should be like a family gathering. This understanding guided him in planting hundreds of new assemblies without an "ordained minister" to run the show in any of them.

He read in Paul's epistles how God gives grace by measure to every believer, and the measure of grace each one receives determines his place in a local body of Christ. First is the apostle, followed by the teachers, prophets, evangelists, deacons, donors, and others within a given assembly. There is no way they could work in a "pastor" like those advocated by traditional missions. Had he followed colonial tradition he probably wouldn't have established even ten churches in his lifetime.

Like the Apostle Paul, Bakht Singh was bitterly opposed by the traditional religious establishment.

In 1959 when I announced in our mission's newsletter that we were sponsoring Bakht Singh for meetings in U.S. churches, the head of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association telephoned me. For about 30 minutes he nearly chewed my ear off, telling me what a bad person Bakht Singh was and warning me about all the harm he would do among evangelical churches in America.

I asked him if he had ever met Bakht Singh, and he said he hadn't but he had heard all kinds of negative things about him from EFMA missionaries.

Why did they hate him so? For the same reasons the chief priests and Pharisees hated Paul: his new teachings were a threat to their privilege and power. Colonial missionaries resented Bakht Singh because he had the courage to tell them that it would be better for the cause of Christ if they would all pack up and go back where they came from. Of course he did it in a kind and gracious manner, but there was no mistaking his meaning.

Bakht Singh lived a life of utmost simplicity. He owned no property and never spent one rupee for anything that wasn't an absolute necessity. Foreign missionaries living in six-room houses and driving around in expensive cars (while Indian missionaries didn't even have bicycles) hurt the cause of Christ in Asia, and Bakht Singh didn't hesitate to call attention to it. He was also outspoken about the un-Biblical aspects of institutional "churchianity" and the need for renewal. Rather than respond to his preaching, the traditionalists continually tried to discredit him.

Bob Finley fellowships with Bakht Singh at a congress in Lausanne in 1974.
Bakht Singh lived by faith, trusting God to supply his needs through the gifts of His people at home and abroad.

I never heard my dear Indian brother make an appeal for funds, yet he taught his disciples to give sacrificially as an act of worship. At local assembly meetings, which usually lasted several hours, a high point came when a large basket was placed on a table in their midst and one by one each would go forward to drop in an offering. Even the unemployed and those who earned only a dollar a day responded.

After Bakht Singh returned to India in the 1930s he sent regular reports to Mrs. Hayward in Canada. She copied them and sent them to all his Canadian friends. Many would send a dollar or two to Edith, which she sent on to India. That's how his ministry was financed for the first few years.

When I returned from overseas and started Christian Aid in 1953, one of the first indigenous ministries which we began to help was the work of Bakht Singh. By that time he had hundreds of missionaries on the fields, and even though we sent tens of thousands of dollars over the ensuing years it was still only a small portion of their total needs.

Colonial mission leaders tended to be critical of even that amount, saying it would cause dependency. But our dear apostolic brother had an answer for them: "Our dependence is upon the Lord alone," he would say. "We are on our knees daily praying that God will supply our needs, and He does. Some comes from Bombay, some from Madras, some from Delhi, a portion from Britain, other gifts from Canada and some from the USA, but it's all from the Lord. He alone is our provision."

Note: This article reprinted from Christian Mission magazine, Winter 2000-2001.

Source : http://www.tcfnj.com/Bakhtsingh2.htm