The Asuza Street Revival began in Los Angeles in 1906 and continued through to 2015. There were miracles of healing and deliverance, speaking in tongues and testimonies of dramatic conversions. It was the birth of the modern Pentecostal movement which led in turn to the…
God likes mountains! In the NIV the Bible mentions mountains 308 times and hills 237 times and that doesn’t include specific mountains such as 22 mentions of Mount Zion or 21 of Mount Sinai. God likes mountains. We really miss out in Essex because we…
“What must I do to be saved?” “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” The story so far. In our morning sermons before the holidays we were following the apostle Paul as he travelled preaching the gospel and planting churches around the…
From the earliest days of the church the Book of the prophet Isaiah was known as “the Fifth Gospel” or “the Gospel in the Old Testament.” In the 4th Century Jerome wrote that Isaiah “should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet because he…
Read the whole story of Jesus: the entire New Testament in thirteen weeks in an order which builds up your understanding week by week. Here is a pattern of readings covering the whole of the New Testament in thirteen weeks, reading on 6 days each…
Making Disciples One-to-One “Spiritual friendships” “Soul friends” “Prayer buddies” “Spiritual direction” “Spiritual formation” “Mentoring” Most Christians would agree that meeting One-to-One for prayer and encouragement is a great idea. But very few actually do it. Here are practical resources to help believers at every stage…
My new book on helping Christians to be ready to take every opportunity to talk about Jesus. Order your copy from me for just £5 plus £2 P&P. Email peter@pbthomas.com PART 1 – QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK What is salvation? What is the point of life?…
Last time you talked to somebody about Jesus, what response did you get? We have seen from the missionary journeys of the apostle Paul that the good news of Jesus Christ is like Marmite. Some people love it and some people hate it! Sometimes people…
What was it really like to be a Christian in the first half of the first century AD? We read how the apostles preached the gospel and people were being saved all over the place and it can seem so thrilling and exciting but very…
A few weeks ago at our weekly prayer meeting Draw Near to God we looked at Paul’s wonderful hymn to love in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. I asked which verse struck you most, and different people chose different verses. I then shared with you that…
The Council of Jerusalem in around 48 AD was a watershed in the Early Church. It was the turning point which guaranteed unity between Christians who had previously been Jews and Christians who had not been Jews but Gentiles – non-Jews. The Council made it…
The Lord is my Light Psalm 27 Of David. GOD’S LOVE AND PROTECTION 1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When the wicked advance…
Two weeks ago we saw how Barnabas and Saul were sent out as missionaries and evangelists by the church at Antioch which they led and built up. Acts 13 1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger,…
In recent years the church has been rediscovering a neglected truth. God loves everybody. God welcomes everybody. Not just Christians or even religious people. Jesus went out of his way to welcome people with problems. Tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus. Unsavoury characters like the…
A simulation or role-play helps us enter into very different situations in ways that we cannot do simply by reading about them. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews…
Out of all the churches we read about in the New Testament, which would you say had the greatest impact on the growth of the Early Church? Would you think of the church in Jerusalem, the birthplace of the church, the home of the apostles?…
descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from slavery in Egypt. Throughout the Old Testament that wonderful liberation was the dominant picture of salvation for the Israelites. And time and again God promises freedom for the captives when His Messiah would come. Isaiah 42: 6 “I,…
You won’t be surprised to hear that the word “praise” appears more than 210 times in the Book of Psalms. Sometimes it is praising God for who He is and sometimes it is praising God for his mighty acts of Creation. But very often it…
These two psalms make up just one psalm in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. Together they are an acrostic, with verses beginning with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Why do bad things happen to good people? These psalms together offer…
In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Saul of Tarsus, who became known as the apostle Paul, is named a staggering 170 times! The apostle Peter, the rock on whom Jesus was building his church, is mentioned a respectable 60 times. But who…
What is mankind? In the cosmic scheme of things, just where do human beings fit in? Astronomers estimate that there are between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies in the universe. They estimate there may be as many as one million million million million stars…
