Life Bible-Presbyterian Church (Abbreviation: LBPC; ) is a reformed, fundamental, and separatist Bible-Presbyterian church located at Gilstead Road, under the Novena Planning Area, within the Central Region of Singapore. It is the first and oldest Bible-Presbyterian church in Singapore and Southeast Asia, and the mother church of Bible-Presbyterian churches in the region. Church members are referred to as "Lifers." The pastor is the Rev Charles Seet.
The church motto is "Holding Forth the Word of Life" (Philippians 2:16).
History
Life Bible-Presbyterian Church ("LBPC") was established by Timothy Tow, who in 1950 became pastor of the Life Church English Service at Say Mia Tng a Chinese Presbyterian Church at Prinsep Street (not to be confused with Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church). In 1955 Tow and others left the Chinese Presbyterian Synod to form the Bible-Presbyterian Church and LBPC was established. In 1963, LBPC moved into new premises in 9 & 9A Gilstead Road. The acquisition of 10 Gilstead Road was completed on 30 April 1990.
In 1988, the Synod of the Bible-Presbyterian Church was dissolved, but LBPC and other Bible-Presbyterian churches continue to exist under their respective names.
Doctrine
Article 4.1 of LBPC's constitution states that the church's doctrine shall be in accordance with that system commonly called "the Reformed Faith" as expressed in the Confession of Faith” as set forth by the historic Westminster Assembly together with the Larger Catechism and the Shorter Catechism.
Controversy
The Far Eastern Bible College ("FEBC") shares premises with LBPC, but it had a falling out with LBPC over Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP). FEBC teaches that God has supernaturally preserved each and every one of His inspired Hebrew/Aramaic OT words and Greek NT words to the last jot and tittle so that God's people will always have in their possession His infallible and inerrant Word kept intact without the loss of any word, and that the infallible and inerrant words of Scripture are found in the faithfully preserved Traditional/Byzantine/Majority manuscripts and fully represented in the Printed and Received Text (or Textus Receptus) that underlie the Reformation Bibles best represented by the KJV, and not in the corrupted and rejected texts of Westcott and Hort that underlie the many modern versions of the English Bible like the NIV, NASV, ESV, RSV, TEV, CEV, TLB, etc., but the Board of Elders of LBPC disagrees.
Lawsuits
LBPC wrote in its weekly of 13 July 2008 regarding “1 Corinthians 6 which teaches us not to take fellow Christians to court.” However, LBPC commenced two lawsuits against FEBC: (i) Suit 648 in the High Court of Singapore on 15 September 2008; and (ii) DC1956/2013R in the Subordinate Courts of Singapore (later renamed the State Courts of Singapore) on 27 June 2013.
Brutus Balan in a letter dated 30 January 2008, addressed to Seet and the Board of Elders of LBPC with a plea to them to avoid carrying out their legal threat to evict the College from the Gilstead Road premises, had concluded: “You [LBPC leaders] have the most inconsistent and contradictory position over this matter and yet the charge of heresy is thrown at FEBC. It has ceased to be a theological debate and has become personal. Now the legal threat to evict the college over your own inconsistent stand is heartless … The fiery darts of evil have struck deep the armor-less leadership. Isn't there any one in the Life BP church session with wisdom and understanding? Will not the silent church rise to wake the dead? God have mercy!” However, this did not stop LBPC from commencing Suit 648 in the High Court less than eight months later.
Seet and the Elders of LBPC had in January 2008 written to their church members in “Mark Them Which Cause Divisions” that “the mouths of heretics must be stopped” within the Gilstead Road premises from teaching VPP, which Seet and the Elders viewed to be heresy, “for the sake of protecting the flock of God from being influenced and infiltrated by their teaching.”
Suit 648 in the High Court
In Suit 648, LBPC sued the college directors, including Timothy Tow, over allegedly “deviant Bible teachings” in an attempt to force FEBC to leave the Gilstead Road premises. Bearing the burden of proof, LBPC however failed to adduce the requisite expert evidence to show that FEBC's adoption of the VPP doctrine is inconsistent with the fundamental doctrines of the College, viz. the Westminster Confession of Faith (“WCF”). The Court of Appeal of Singapore, the apex court in the Singapore legal system, looked at Article VIII Ch 1 in the WCF and – in overturning the High Court decision – ruled on 26 April 2011 that: