You might be interested in these articles covering areas of Christian Teaching where we feel the Lord has revealed something important to us. These are available in .pdf format to download here. To read them, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader
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Outreach
1 Peter, Paul and Engel - evangelism as a process not an event
Very few people become Christians the first time they hear the Gospel. For most it is a process that requires a number of encounters with the risen Christ. The Engel scale is a useful model of this process and in this article we see how the stories of Peter and Paul give a scriptural basis for the model. Seeing how this process works helps us understand the usefulness of different forms and styles of evangelism and how God can use them to reach people at different stages of the journey to faith. More...
2 Praying the prayer
When we are involved in evangelism we rightly encourage people to respond to the Gospel. Often this takes the form of suggesting that they pray a prayer of repentance and faith. However, our experience is that many who "pray the prayer" don't go on as Christians and don't get added to the church. Again, using the Engel scale as a useful model of what is going on, this article examines what "praying the prayer" might actually mean for people at different stages of the journey. The conclusion is that, unless the person is ready to make a commitment to Christ, "praying the prayer" might actually not mean what the evangelist thinks it means. It might mean next to nothing. More...
3 Revelation of Jesus - The work of the Spirit
Peter's response to the miraculous catch of fish was not gratitude but a deep sense of sin. Who Jesus was was suddenly revealed and he was undone! This article looks at the necessity of this sort of revelation in people coming to faith, reviewing several incidents in both the OT and the NT where such a revelation led to life-changing faith. More...
4 Healing in the New Testament
This article reviews every incident of healing in the NT to examine the relationship between healing and faith. Several points emerge: no one who came to Jesus for healing was sent away unhealed; no one who was brought to Jesus by friend or family member went away unhealed and no one to whom Jesus was brought by a friend went unhealed. Coming to Jesus was faith enough for healing to occur. Jesus often commented on it. However, it is quite clear that no one, not even Jesus himself had a healing ministry that allowed them to decide for themselves to heal someone. More...
Help to the strong
5 It's OK to be weak (In fact it's more than OK...)
There are so many cases of God chosing people who, from a human point of view, are entirly wrong for the job in hand that one might be tempted to think that he might be doing it on purpose! However, there is still the sneaking suspicion that God would prefer it if we were stronger. Not so! God does not choose us despite our weakness - he choses us precisely because we are weak. More...
6 Exraordinary things - Revival comes from Unity
A king did an extraordinary thing - he invited his enemies to a religious festival that he was organising. Some of the enemies did an extraordinary thing - they humbled themselves and came. As a result, God did an extraordinary thing - he sent revival. More...
Other stuff
7 Money and Finance
Probably more problems arise in churches because of money than almost anything else. This article reviews what the NT says about giving and about the management of money generally. There is more to the principle of giving than just giving 10% of one's income - we need to decide before God what to give and be consistent. More...
8 Biblical Concepts of Priesthood
We are a people chosen to be priests, but what sort? Priests after the order of Aaron? Melchizedek? What sort of priesthood has as its primary role the declaration of "the wonders of him who brought us from darkness to light", whose duty is the proclamation of the Gospel? Enter Jethro.... More...
9 The Last Things
The last things - the end times, the second coming of Jesus, judgement, heaven and hell - are the subject of many parts of the Bible, particularly the New Testament and, within that, of Jesus' teaching. They are also the subject of some of the most confusing parts of the Bible. Much has been written over the centuries and in modern times many speculative (often unhelpful) books have been written. Many Christians have been side-tracked from the gospel and from the pursuit of godliness by such 'idle speculation'... More...