Voice of the Martyrs Korea announced the release today of a major new book on the earliest Korean church history, Professor Choi Sung Il’s The First Korean Bible and its Relation to the Protestant Origins in Korea: John Ross and the Korean Protestant Church.

The release was announced at a press conference held at the Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s Jeongneung office Tuesday.  The author, Prof. Choi Sung Il, the Professor of Theology of Mission at Hanshin Seminary, as well as Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr Hyun Sook Foley and CEO Pastor Eric Foley addressed reporters.

“Before the first Western missionaries set foot in Korea, a network of untrained indigenous Koreans had already spread the gospel widely throughout the country and converted many Koreans to Protestant Christianity,” said Representative Foley. “Their successful strategy, unique in Christian history, relied on their covert personal distribution of thousands of copies the first vernacular translation of the Bible into Korean. That translation was created by the Koreans under the direction of a Scottish missionary who was himself an untrained Bible translator. This book recounts in detail the story of those Christians and that missionary, John Ross. Missionary Ross is widely honored as the father of the Korean church despite spending almost no time in Korea and despite his conception of the Christian life and faith being significantly different from that of the Western missionaries who would reject his translation, his missionary methods, and even his own offers to help them, despite the unparalleled success of Ross and his indigenous Korean partners.”

“Voice of the Martyrs Korea is proud to publish Prof. Choi’s groundbreaking work in both Korean and English,” said Voice of the Martyrs Korea CEO Pastor Eric Foley. “The book is more than just a well-written and fascinating history of the earliest Korean church. It is a reminder of the cutting-edge church planting and Bible translation strategies that characterized the Korean church’s birth—strategies that the church around the world and in Korea need to re-learn today. It is a book telling the true story of how God always uses the least of those among us to do his greatest work. It is the story of how God’s work is often overlooked, rejected, or set aside in favor of more impressive human methods—even by God’s own people. The story of John Ross and the earliest Korean Christians is still being lived out among underground North Korean Christians today. I pray John Ross’ fatherhood of the Korean church—the unique spiritual heritage he and his indigenous Korean partners imparted to it—will likewise be renewed and revitalized in the South Korean and Korean diaspora church through Professor Choi’s powerful book.”

The First Korean Bible and its Relation to the Protestant Origins in Korea: John Ross and the Korean Protestant Church is available through Voice of the Martyrs Korea for 15,000 KRW. Individuals interested in purchasing the book can call VOM at 02-2065-0703 or go to www.vomkorea.com/en/shop. Voice of the Martyrs Korea will also make it available (in English) on Amazon this summer.