Check out the great things you can win with the newsletter! Sign up at the bottom of this post if you haven’t yet signed up for access to exclusive content, free chapters (some months) and the chance to win great resources.  The newsletter will go out later today so it is not too late to sign up and possibly win.  Remember, once the mail goes out, it is a case of first come first served!

Finally Alive by John Piper – 10 copies available to win! Available to those in the USA and UK only.

Why is the church so ineffectual and characterised by the ‘mosaic’ generation as ‘unchristian’? The term ‘born again’ has been devalued both in society and in the church. Recent social studies surveys have shown that those who regard themselves as ‘born again’ Christians have the same tendency to divorce as people who aren’t Christians at all! In these surveys, being ‘born again’ is defined by what people say they believe. The New Testament defines Christians very differently. Piper defines new birth biblically and helps us to embrace the reality of it.

“I hope that showing that the new birth is not in our control helps make pastors and other Christians desperate for the supernatural in their ministries.” John Piper

God is the Gospel by John Piper - 10 copies available to win! Available to those in the USA and UK only.

This book is a plea that God himself, as revealed most clearly and fully in Jesus’s death and resurrection, be seen and enjoyed as the final and greatest gift of the gospel.

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We are already gathering a great bunch of giveaways for next month. If you know a Christian marketer who wants to get involved, please ask them to email adrian@adrianwarnock.com. We are open to give away other free stuff too!

While it is not a requirement, it would be greatly appreciated by our publisher friends if you could review your free book on your blog, Amazon or another site. Please let us know on adrian@adrianwarnock.com if you do review the book, with the URL and we will post a link to your review on adrianwarnock.com.

If you’ve not yet signed up to the newsletter, it’s not too late! You can sign up here:

Check out the great things you can win with October’s newsletter! Sign up at the bottom of this post if you haven’t yet signed up for access to exclusive content, free chapters and the chance to win great resources.

But God by Chris Haines – 5 copies available to win! Available to those in the USA only.

www.butgod.co.uk

Review of “But God” by Lex Loizides…

“The best worship album I’ve heard in years!! Seriously! At last! At last there’s some fresh inspiration out there! Someone pressed this CD into my hands at a conference a couple of weeks ago and I expected the ordinary. But what I got has completely taken me by surprise. This is, without doubt, the freshest, most beautifully crafted, musically as well as theologically, satisfying worship CD that I’ve heard in years. There are no CD reviews on my blog (Church History Blog) but I may break the pattern for this one.

So far I’ve had to play it at least once every day. There is some superb delicate guitar work, great lyrics and brilliant melodies. And just a word of advice: don’t buy it first and foremost to find new songs for your worship team to play in church, buy it to enrich your own soul and then take it from there.

Five stars from me.”

Defiant Grace by Dane Ortlund - 3 copies available to win! Available to those in the USA and UK.

www.epbooks.org

When God-in-the-flesh showed up twenty centuries ago in Palestine, the religious PhDs rejected him and the prostitutes and social outcasts flocked to him.  Why?  Because the open welcome of divine grace that Jesus offered, open to anyone who would simply leave their moral resume at home, is not predictable. It is not safe. It is defiant.

In this book, Dane Ortlund reflects on this defiant grace as it uniquely emerges in each of the four Gospel accounts.

‘Dane Ortlund can flat-out write. He’s is a craftsman of prose, and more: he writes with theological discernment and an eye for heart application. To read this book is to have a surprising encounter with the Savior. Dane walks us through the four gospels, highlighting Christ’s astonishing words and actions-actions never more astonishing than at Calvary. More than anything, as I read these pages I was reminded of the Savior’s stunning love for me and of his defiant grace-grace that is shockingly unmeasured, vast, and free.’  – C. J. Mahaney, President, Sovereign Grace Ministries

Zeal for Godliness – Devotional mediations from Calvins Institutes – 3 copies available to win! Available to those in the USA and UK.

www.epbooks.org

With contributions from Sinclair Ferguson, Ligon Duncan, Carl Trueman, Phil Ryken, Guy Waters, Richard Philips, Derek Thomas and other noteable Christian leaders, this book of modern devotions based on Calvin’s timeless Institutes again gives ordinary people access to the faith building truths of a timeless masterpiece.  Challenging yet easy to understand, they come in a day by day format that will build your faith brick by brick.

‘John Calvin’s Institutes easily stands as the greatest work by the greatest theologian of the Church. Outside of the Bible itself, this magnum opus remains to this day the finest masterpiece of Christian literature ever written. Zeal for Godliness is a collection of some of the finest minds in the Reformed world who write to make Calvin’s work, the tour de force of the Reformation, more accessible to the modern reader with eye-opening explanations and life-changing applications.’  – Steven J. Lawson, Senior Pastor, Christ Fellowship Baptist Church, Mobile, Alabama

Higher by Phatfish – 4 copies available to win! Available to those in the USA and UK.

http://www.phatfish.net/

Phatfish have made an impressive impact on the UK Christian music scene for the last decade. Live they have led thousands in worship at all of the major UK festivals including Newday, Soul Survivor and Spring Harvest, sharing stages with artists that range from Matt Redman to Delirious. They have also toured in the US, Canada and Europe.

In the studio they have clocked up 10 widely acclaimed albums and are responsible for the worldwide hit ‘Holy Holy, Lift Up His Name’ and more recently the anthems ‘There Is A Day’ and ‘Amazing God’. They feature on numerous compilation albums, often in partnership with premier publishers, Kingsway Music.

Since their formation in 1994, Phatfish have held firmly to their original aim: to write, play and record songs that glorify our amazing God and communicate His love and His purpose for us.

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We are already gathering a great bunch of giveaways for next month. If you know a Christian marketer who wants to get involved, please ask them to email adrian@adrianwarnock.com. We are open to give away other free stuff too!

While it is not a requirement, it would be greatly appreciated by our publisher friends if you could review your free book on your blog, Amazon or another site. Please let us know on adrian@adrianwarnock.com if you do review the book, with the URL and we will post a link to your review on adrianwarnock.com.

If you’ve not yet signed up to the newsletter, it’s not too late! You can sign up here:

This is a great video which speaks about Terry’s new book which is now available on both sides of the Atlantic. If you haven’t got this book yet, BUY IT TODAY! Why not buy a copy for every pastor you know? You can get it on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

From the Crossway blog (ironically!)

If we fill our lives with fragments of information, our brains will adapt and our concentration will weaken. We will begin to find articles, chapters, and books increasingly demanding as our attention spans shrivel. Eventually we will find it difficult to stroll through long stretches of prose. Book readers must work to sharpen their attention. Like marathon runners who train daily to stretch their endurance, book readers must discipline themselves to read one book for thirty to sixty or ninety minutes at a time, struggling to increase their mental concentration.

Reacting vs. Thinking
Traditionally, a reader selected one book and sat alone in a reading chair. When great ideas were encountered, the reader internalized those ideas and reflected on them. If the reader encountered points of disagreement, the reader also stopped to reflect on what made the point disagreeable. Traditional readers engaged with a book and engaged their thinking.

This has changed with online social interaction. Now, when we come across an idea that we like, we are tempted to quickly react, to share the idea with friends in an e-mail, on Facebook, or on a blog. When we disagree, our initial response is to ask for the input of others. With online access to so many friends, the temptation is to react, not to ponder. Acting upon what we’ve just read, rather than stopping to meditate and think, is an impulse that we bring to reading books. I am quick to Tweet and slow to think. I am quick to Google and slow to ponder.

So ask yourself the next time you read: When you come across a provoking or perplexing portion of a book, what are you more likely to do: react or think? When you are tempted to react, stop, and simply think and meditate about what you are reading.
Four Temptations: How Internet Habits Can Cripple Book Reading | Crossway.

When The Deity of Christ, a book sent by Crossway for me to review, was delivered to my house I was in the backyard roasting coffee. I was in process of creating a blend to commemorate a friend’s wedding. A blend in the world of coffee is a mixture of coffees from multiple origins and is typically blended to produce a balanced cup. As I perused the volume that had just arrived I was intrigued by the concept behind the book and the similarities between that and the coffee blend I was working on. The Theology in Community series “assembles teams of scholars to explore key theological themes and apply them to contemporary themes.” It seems this series of books is a blend of authors, from various origins, that would result in a balanced book on a particular topic. I generally enjoy these types of books as they expose one to multiple authors with multiple perspectives. With coffee beans cracking in the heat of the roaster, I cracked open The Deity of Christ.

The deity of Christ, in the eyes of the editors, is a topic of paramount import; “The deity of Christ is vital to Christian faith and practice. In fact, nothing is more important than whether or not Jesus Christ is God. If Jesus is not God incarnate, then Christianity is not true; if he is, then it is true. The critical importance of Christ’s deity is sufficient reason for this book.” (20) Though no further defence for a book of this sort is needed, the editors share several other reasons this volume is important; an increase in popularity of ‘gospels’ denying the divinity of Christ, the worldwide expansion of Islam which denies Christ is God, religious pluralism which undermines the exclusivity of Christ’s salvation, and the proliferation of cults whose status as cults is a result of their denial of the central doctrine of Christ’s deity.

With so much at stake, a book of this sort is more than a nicety; it is a necessity. And though there have been many written works on this topic, a fresh, contemporary look at this integral doctrine should not be overlooked.

A Standard

It occurred to me that the editors and others of this volume, in producing this book, are raising a standard. A quick glimpse in a dictionary for the definition of standard resulted in over 30 definitions. Nevertheless, several of them pertain directly to this book. The deity of Christ, and hence this book, is a doctrine that embodies several of the definitions I came across. The editors and authors of The Deity of Christ employ this doctrine as a standard for the Christian church. How is this doctrine a ‘standard’? The doctrine of Christ being divine is a standard in the sense that is something to conform to and a basis for comparison. A Christian church, to be truly Christian, must conform to this doctrine and if an individual Christian’s beliefs are found lacking when compared to this doctrine, the designation of Christian is speculative at best. A standard is also a flag representing a sovereign which one can rally to, and the writers call the church to rally to Christ, the second person of the trinity, our sovereign Redeemer. Finally, the truth of Christ’s divinity is a standard as in a support; Christ as God provides an unfaltering practical support to the believer and to the church. Practically speaking, Christ’s divinity is a necessity for our daily walk of faith.

The Deity of Christ as a book raises a standard in the multifaceted ways described above and presents a myriad of applications. The various authors serve their purpose well in providing a collection of chapters that rally Christians around their King and Saviour, explain and elucidate the doctrine which historic Christianity has used as a means of comparison and conformity, and strategically support the saints in their safeguarding of this tenet of their faith. This book, and the others in this series, attempt this this by approaching the topic through biblical, historical, systematic and practical perspectives.

A Biblical Viewpoint

The deity of Christ as it is revealed to us in Scripture is deftly handled by Ray C. Ortlund Jr., Stephen J. Welllum, and Andreas J. Kostenberger. Of the three, I had only read work by Ortlund, but recognized Kostenberger and Wellum by name and looked forward to their contributions. If this book is to be considered a significant contribution on the subject at hand, then a solid and insightful dealing with the doctrine as it is presented in the Bible is essential. Ortlund, pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville, provided the chapter on the deity of Christ in the Old Testament.

Ortlund develops this topic by considering eight significant passages from the Old Testament. Ortlund’s careful handling of the topic is evident as he provides three categories to distribute the passages under consideration to: passages inaccurately construed to reveal the deity of Christ, passages accurately construed to reveal his deity, and passages that are unclear concerning Christ’s deity. Ortlund’s cautious approach sets a serious tone for the biblical perspectives and he leads us into consideration of the New Testament declaring “the deity of the Christ is unmistakably, if mysteriously, revealed in the Old Testament texts.” (58)

Wellum grabs the reigns with his look at the Synoptic Gospels and further on in the book deals with Apostolic witness. Having never read Welllum before, I was unsure of what to expect. I must admit, I was quite pleased. He has organized his chapters in a manner that aids in understanding and his easy-to-read style adds to their readability. I would not hesitate to read more of him in the future. Wellum examines the divinity of Christ in the Synoptics by discussing the implicit and explicit clams to deity. Wellum shows how these gospels implicitly present Jesus as the incarnate God in his fulfilment of the Old Testament, his baptism, his life and ministry, and his own understanding of his death and resurrection. Wellum continues by showing how the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke explicitly portray Jesus as understanding himself to be God through his use of Abba, his self-identity as the Son and the Son of Man, and his statements that declare he does the to works of God.

Wellum also provides an analysis of the evidence of the deity of Christ in the Apostolic witness. This is accomplished by looking at four crucial texts; Romans 1:3-4, Philippians 2:5-11, Colossians 1:15-20, and Hebrews 1:1-4. The thorough explanations of the passages are both enlightening and enjoyable. Again, Wellum’s organizational choice of focusing on significant passages, as opposed to categories he used in the earlier chapter, was a welcome change that I found encouraged me to keep reading.

The writings of John are left in the capable hands of Kostenberger. Though I had not read any of his materials, his expertise on Johanine writings is well-known and I anticipated his chapters more than any of the other writers. He did not disappoint. With chapters entitled The Deity of Christ in John’s Gospel and The Deity of Christ in John’s Letters and the Book of Revelation, Kostenberger completes this book’s biblical perspective on the deity of Christ. Kostenberger writes in an engaging manner and I read both of his chapters without putting the book down. Richard Baxter has said, “It is, at best, a sign that a man hath not well digested the matter himself, if he is not able to deliver it plainly to others.” Contrary to the quote, it is clear Kostenberger has digested this material and his command of it results in a clear and comfortable read. Topics covered in the investigation into the gospel of John include Jesus as the Word, the One and Only Son, Son of God, Son of Man, the I Am, Lord and God, the resurrection, and Jesus’ foreknowledge. The other chapter by this Johanine scholar looked at relevant passages and concepts from the letters of John and in Revelation he considers depictions of Christ-trinitarian, the first and last, the eschatalogical king/judge/warrior, returning judge and saviour-which are thoroughly convincing. I will definitely be reading more books from this author.

As people of the Book, Christians should expect the biblical evidence for the deity of Christ to be the backbone of any inquiry into the doctrine of the incarnate God. The Deity of Christ definitely emphasizes the Word as it pertains to this topic. It is full of biblical passages and their explanations. These chapters alone would suffice for a book on this topic. Their handling of the deity of Jesus in the Bible is not exhaustive, as that would require many volumes, but it is convincing.

A Historical Viewpoint

The Deity of Christ in Church History is the chapter dedicated to a historical look into the deity of Christ. This was a fascinating look at some of the pivotal issues in church history pertaining to the Son of God. Gerald Bray takes the reader through various eras and errors. The eras include those around the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds. The errors the church confronted include Arianism, Apollinarianism, and kenoticism. Bray reminds us that despite the fact that “ none of the fathers of the church ever believed that, in confessing the deity of Christ, he was adding anything to the teachings of Jesus himself” (176), the fight for Christ’s divinity is an ongoing battle, with a long history, that resurfaces regularly. This chapter was an interesting perusal of the issue in the annals of the church’s history.

A Systematic Viewpoint

In an effort to synthesize and systematize the earlier investigations concerning the deity of Christ, Robert A. Peterson arrays five arguments: 1) Jesus is identified with God, 2) Jesus receives devotion due to God alone, 3) Jesus brings the age to come, 4) Jesus saves us when we are spiritually united to him, and 5) Jesus performs the works of God. I found Peterson’s categories interesting and in particular his explanation of how Jesus’ inauguration of the age to come proves he is God was unexpected and stimulating. This chapter does an efficient job of providing the reader a summary of issues discussed in the book. It also provides the reader a framework with which to harmonize the various strands of argument and evidence promoted.

A Practical Viewpoint

The practical perspective that the affirmation of the divinity of Jesus Christ brings us to as presented by The Deity of Christ is twofold. The first issue of application pertains to the relation between the deity of Christ and cults. This chapter, written by Talbot School of Theology professor Alan W. Gomes, presents a repository of information on Christian Cults and their deficient stance on Christ as God. His method is inviting. He considers the different historical christologies and then classifies modern cults in relation to the cristologies advanced. By explaining polytheism, dynamic monarchianism, gnosticism, Arianism, and modalistic monarchianism, Gomes exposes Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarianism, Oneness Pentecostalism, Christian Science and other belief systems as cults for it becomes evident that all these belief systems undermine a central doctrine of the Christian faith; the deity of Christ. This chapter is an excellent initial resource for further study on the cults.

The second practical perspective concerns itself with missions, world religions, and pluralism. I found this chapter by J. Nelson Jennings the most difficult to read. I think this was because the author brings some unexpected, yet provocative, outlooks and insights into these topics. This is a chapter which I need to re-read, but it was intriguing enough that I will re-read it. Of particular interest to me was the paradigm through which to consider other religions. Jennings suggests that a healthy approach when considering other religions is threefold; consider how sin is involved, consider how Satan is involved, and consider how searching for truth is involved. That concept alone will be very helpful.

‘Bonus’ Material

One of the positives that I have yet to mention is that many of the chapters have “bonus” material. Whether it is Wellum explaining the Promise-Fulfilment Motif, Kostenberger’s overview of First-Century Jewish Monotheism, or Gomes’ defining of cults, this book contains plenty of helpful material beyond what might be expected. I have also failed to touch upon Stephen J. Nichols chapter which the book essentially begins with. This is an honest look at the contemporary condition of the church’s view of the deity of Christ. Like a good doctor, Nichols observes some symptoms of what ails us, diagnoses the problem, and then prescribes a remedy. I suggest you read this chapter before you decide to buy the book. You’ll buy the book if you do.

Some books are classics that you will read many times over your lifetime. This is not that book. Some books are barely worth reading, and having read them, you’ll never crack them open again. This is not that type of book either. But, some books are valuable in that they provide you with a resource for future reference that you will consult at different times for different reasons at many times. That is this book. Though I do not foresee myself reading this book from cover to cover again, I am quite certain I will revisit this book for numerous reasons on various occasions. Like a good cup of your favourite blend of coffee, this book will always leave you wanting another sip.

Thanks to Jude St. John for this guest post. You can visit the original post here: Roasting Coffee and Reviewing Books and Jude’s blog here: www.quercuscalliprinos.blogspot.com

It’s hard to believe a month has gone by since the last Newsletter. (Truth be told it hasn’t as I wrote and scheduled this post a month ago so I could go on my blog break!) Tomorrow, the second newsletter will be posted and the first few of you to follow the link included in the newsletter will be able to claim your free book! (Limited to one per person)

Please note that the books are only available for people who live in the USA or UK (and in some cases either). Check out which books are going to be available.

It is still not too late to join this month, sign up below and watch your email tomorrow!

We are already gathering a great bunch of giveaways for next month. If you know a Christian marketeer who wants to get involved, please ask them to email adrian@adrianwarnock.com. We are open to give away other free stuff too!

During Adrian’s month away from the blog, he has hand-picked a selection of the most popular posts of the year so far to re-run. 

Today we feature, “The Spirit-Filled Church.” Adrian’s posts on Terry Virgo’s book the Spirit-Filled Church have been quite popular this year.  This book describes a biblical model for the church, and whether you agree with all of it or not you will benefit from reading.  Video interviews, a chapter extract and Adrian’s forward are all availalbe.

The Spirit-Filled Church

Terry Virgo is a leader I have been looking up to spiritually for more than three decades. The founding leader of a family of over eight hundred churches in sixty nations, he is a godly, humble man whose preaching has shaped many thousands of lives, including my own. Newfrontiers, is a unique movement, being reformed in doctrine, charismatic in experience, missional in outlook, and strongly rooted in relationships.

Terry’s book The Spirit-Filled Church forms an excellent introduction to the principles that have shaped his ministry.

The rest of this article is available through the following link:

The Spirit-Filled Church by Terry Virgo

As of today, I will be going on a blog break, though there will be some popular posts re-running and some guest blog posts from you! It is important to rest. Following last weeks bumper book giveaway where we gave away 28 free books in less than an hour, we have another great crop of free resources to give away this month below:

Take Words With You by Tim Kerr

(Please contact takewordswithyou@gmail.com to purchase this book.)

“Many years ago I discovered a precious truth regarding prayer: God loves to hear his own words prayed back to him! When a small child crawls up on the lap of their father and says, “Daddy when are you going to take us to the zoo like you promised?” the father smiles and assures his child he has not forgotten and is very much looking forward to doing what he promised (when the time is right). In the same way, our heavenly Father delights to hear us remind him of his promises to us. The Bible is in fact a great big prayer manual that should fill and guide our prayers each and every day.

It is hoped that the many promises of God written here will be prayed back to God in prayer as we seek to enter into God’s purposes accomplished for us through Christ’s cross. Sometimes we remember the gist of a promise but cannot remember what was said or where it is found in Scripture. This manual has been written to make that process easier by organizing the promises of God by categories and themes.”

Unseen Realities: Heaven and Hell, Angels and Demons by R.C. Sproul

www.christianfocus.com

The concept of the invisible spiritual realm is so often something which is difficult for us to grasp. If we can see, hear, and feel it we can take it on face value that it is a reality. But what about things that are unseen? Scripture speaks about Heaven, hell, angels and Satan which are a part of the invisible spiritual realm. Bible teacher R. C. Sproul helps us glean a better understanding on these and come to a realisation that in fact all four are realities.
“I believe that if we are to be consistent Christians, believing all of the Bible rather than portions of it, we must recognize that the supernatural places and beings described on its pages are real. There is an uncompromised supernaturalism at the heart of the Christian worldview, and we must not let the world’s skepticism with regard to these things affect our belief systems. We must trust and affirm that there is much more to reality than meets the eye.” R. C. Sproul

HCSB Translation

hcsb.org

100 scholars and English stylists from 17 denominations, prayerfully, translated what is one of the most significant Bible translations available, the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB).

Taking into account the significant advancements in scholarship, translation theory, and contemporary English usage, the HCSB will satisfy both those new to the faith and seasoned scholars.

“The Holman Christian Standard Bible is one of the most textually sophisticated English bibles available anywhere.” - Dr. Peter Flint, Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies, Trinity Western University

In Light of Eternity: The Life of Leonard Ravenhill

http://www.ravenhillbiography.com/

“My father lived daily in light of eternity, always seeking to please the one who enlisted him as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Before he ever stood in the pulpit, he stood before God. He was a man of prayer. Prayer was his life and his preaching reflected the fact that he had been alone with God.”  – David Ravenhill

“The truth is, even though I am known now as an apologist for the Christian faith, dealing with the intellectual issues of Christianity, I really owe any passion for God, for prayer and for true revival that initially began in me, to Leonard Ravenhill. He, by God’s grace, was the catalyst that has caused the passion to know God to continue to this day.” – Ravi Zacharias
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While it is not a requirement, it would be greatly appreciated by our publisher friends if you could review your free book on your blog, Amazon or another site. Please let us know on adrian@adrianwarnock.com if you do review the book, with the URL and we will post a link to your review on adrianwarnock.com.

If you’ve not yet signed up to the newsletter, it’s not too late! You can sign up here:

In this interview I ask David about his new book, Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission.

Hundreds of you have already subscribed to the free adrianwarnock.com newsletter. Tomorrow, the first newsletter will be posted and the first 28 of you to follow the link included in the newsletter will be able to claim your free book! (Limited to one per person)

Please note that the books are only available for people who live in the USA or UK (and in some cases either). Check out which books are going to be available.

It is still not too late to join this month, sign up below and watch your email tomorrow!

We are already gathering a great bunch of giveaways for next month. If you know a Christian marketeer who wants to get involved, please ask them to email adrian@adrianwarnock.com. We are open to give away other free stuff too!

Today I can share with you by kind permission of Monarch the second chapter of my friend Phil Moore’s new book Straight to the heart of Moses.. The third will be made available to those who subscribe to my email newsletter.

GOD’S PRISON BREAK (1:1-2:10)

“But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.” (Exodus 1:12)

When God wants to be seen through his People, there is simply no obstacle strong enough to stop him. If you were impressed by Michael Schofield’s elaborate plans to escape from Fox River State Penitentiary in the TV series “Prison Break”, then you will love what happens in Exodus 1 and 2. The Greek word Exodus means literally exit or way out, and these chapters form the prelude to the Old Testament’s great escape story.

Make no doubt about it, Egypt in the fifteenth century BC was the world’s largest prison. The seventy Hebrews had gone there in obedience to the Lord’s promise in Genesis 46 that he would turn them into a mighty nation in Egypt and bring them back to Canaan as conquerors of the land. Almost four centuries later, such promises looked like pipe dreams, and the Devil’s agenda to keep the Lord invisible looked more successful than the plotting of a clever prison guard on any television show.

First, the Hebrews lost their privileged status in the nation. Joseph had saved Egypt from disaster under the Twelfth Dynasty of pharaohs and his family had been rewarded with possession of Goshen, the most fertile fields in the land. Pharaoh appointed Joseph as his royal vizier and mummified his body when he died as if he were one of his own. But shortly after Joseph’s death, the Twelfth Dynasty fell and five new dynasties came and went during two turbulent centuries known as the Second Intermediate Period. Pharaoh Ahmose I of the Eighteenth Dynasty founded the New Kingdom by expelling the Canaanite Hyksos, but this made him naturally suspicious of the Hebrews who remained.[1] Hadn’t these foreigners originally come from Canaan? Were they not natural allies to the Hyksos if they reappeared with a new army? So he enslaved them and forced them to build great monuments which shouted to the world that Egypt’s new regime was here to stay.[2] Pharaoh turned their Goshen into his Gulag.

But the plan backfired. Spectacularly. Moses tells us in 1:12 that “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.” He uses five separate Hebrew verbs in 1:7 alone to describe the ensuing Hebrew baby boom.[3] Alarmed by the Egyptians’ open hatred towards them, Jacob’s family tried to multiply and soon became a seven-figure nation.[4] God had promised Abraham this would happen in Egypt in Genesis 15, and he was at work behind the Devil’s clumsy scheming. “The Lord made his people very fruitful; he made them too numerous for their foes, whose hearts he turned to hate his people.”[5]

The Devil tried a second strategy. He incited Pharaoh’s heart to order the Hebrew midwives to murder every baby boy at birth. Future Hebrew slave-girls were useful to Egypt, but boys were potential insurrectionists and must not be allowed to live. Again this fresh attempt to thwart God’s plan backfired, as it galvanised the flagging faith of the dispirited Hebrews to put their hope in him. Spurred on by Pharaoh’s threats of murder and the Hebrew midwives’ brave defiance, Moses tells us in 1:20 that “the people increased and became even more numerous.”

Satan’s third strategy was increasingly desperate, provoking Pharaoh to order that every Hebrew baby boy be drowned in the River Nile. This time the Lord’s response outshines the very best of Michael Schofield, as he turns Satan’s worst into the centrepiece of his plan. “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty,” worries Pharaoh in the animated movie “The Prince of Egypt”.[6] He had no idea that the Lord was smarter by far and could even use infanticide as a way to smuggle his deliverer into Pharaoh’s palace.

Pharaoh’s decree forces two Hebrew parents to take their baby boy down to the river and hide him in a basket among the reeds. They pray to the Lord for a miracle, and he reveals himself as God-the-Saviour when Pharaoh’s very own daughter finds the baby and adopts him as her son. By God’s power, he had not been overheard crying during his three months in hiding, but now he cries at the right moment to move Pharaoh’s daughter to compassion. His sister Miriam is hiding and appears in time for the Lord to use her to make Pharaoh pay Moses’ mother to look after his enemy![7] The Lord runs rings around his would-be opponent Satan. He is smarter by far and will let nothing foil his plan.

Even now, God hasn’t finished. He has another trump card left to play. The baby grows up with a dual nationality which is epitomised by his name. Moses means Drawn-Out in Hebrew, but it also means Born in Egyptian and sounds like the names of Pharaohs Ahmoses and Thutmoses.[8] Moses is therefore given a royal education in Egypt’s wisdom, and gains unparalleled know-how of the inner workings of Pharaoh’s court, yet his primary spiritual influence remains his mother so that “when he had grown up, he refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.”[9]

The Devil’s three strategies to thwart God’s great prison break had failed, because God wants to be seen through his People. All those strategies did was create a larger, more unified, more devout Hebrew nation, which cried out to God for a deliverer and found one forged in the furnace which the Devil had stoked against them.

The story of God’s great escape is even cleverer than Michael Schofield’s “Prison Break” at its most fanciful. This baby in the basket grew up and went on to write Exodus as his personal account of the Lord as God-the-Saviour. He smiles at us through these opening verses and assures us that nothing can stop the Lord from succeeding in his plan. He is going to be seen through his People.

Today I can share with you by kind permission of Monarch the first chapter of my friend Phil Moore’s new book Straight to the heart of Moses.. Tomorrow I will share another, and the third will be made available to those who subscribe to my email newsletter.

INTRODUCTION: GOD WANTS TO BE SEEN THROUGH HIS PEOPLE

“Then the Lord said: ‘I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you.” (Exodus 34:10)

God is invisible. That’s a problem. It was a problem in ancient Egypt and it’s still a problem today. In a world where people tend to worship what they can see and feel and taste and touch, an invisible God is all too easy to ignore.

Take, for example, John Lennon’s boast to a reporter in March 1966 that “We’re more popular than Jesus now”. Although many Christians found his tactless comment quite offensive, it was difficult for them to deny the raw facts behind his claim. The Beatles had just held the largest music concert in human history, filling a New York City stadium with 55,000 screaming fans. In the nine days since the release of their new album they had sold 1.2 million copies in America alone. In contrast five weeks later, ‘Time Magazine’ ran a cover story which asked the provocative question “Is God Dead?” Quoting from a spoof obituary, it speculated from the shrinking congregations of most Western churches that: “God, creator of the universe, principal deity of the world’s Jews, ultimate reality of Christians and most eminent of all divinities, died late yesterday during major surgery undertaken to correct a massive diminishing influence.”[1] That’s the basic problem: Even a visible human can draw more worship than an invisible God.

Got that? Then you are ready for the books which Moses wrote in the desert.[2] The Pentateuch (the word is simply Greek for five-volumed story[3]) recounts the invisible God’s master plan to make himself seen. More glorious than the gods of Egypt; more powerful than the gods of Canaan; more satisfying than the gods of the twenty-first-century Western world – the invisible God would be seen through his People.

Another book in this series covers volume one of the Pentateuch, Genesis, in which the Lord began to make himself visible. Paul reflects on those early chapters in Romans 1: “What may be known about God is plain to [all people], because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Yet because humans sin and close their eyes to this revelation, the Lord executes a plan which makes him impossible to ignore. He chooses Abraham and his family to make the rulers of the nations exclaim that “God is with you in everything you do”, and “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the Spirit of God?”[4] The great finale of Genesis sees him moving the seventy members of Abraham’s family to Egypt with a missionary calling to make him visible to greatest superpower nation of their day.[5] Sure enough, many Egyptians are saved through Israel’s God, and the curtain falls for a three-hundred-year-long interval before the start of volume two.[6]

Exodus chapter one therefore comes as a colossal disappointment. The Egyptians are still worshipping their idols as before, and have so oppressed Abraham’s family that their faith in Yahweh starts to fail. The distant promises of Israel’s patriarchal past are so at odds with the painful realities of the present that the Hebrews are either worshipping their invisible God in private or else giving up on him entirely to serve the bold, brash and visible gods of the Egyptians they were sent to save.[7] By the time Moses challenges Pharaoh to let God’s People go, the Lord has become so invisible that Pharaoh sneers, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”[8] The scene is set for the greatest showdown of the Old Testament. The invisible God is about to be seen through his People.

In Exodus 1 to 18 the Lord displays that he is God the Saviour, laughing at the overwhelming odds to free his down-and-out Hebrews from the stranglehold of slavery. In Exodus 19 to 40 he reveals that he did this because he is God the Indweller, who brought them to Mount Sinai in order to camp among them in his Tabernacle home. This leads into the message of Leviticus that he is God the Holy One who wants to be seen through his Holy People and, when they refuse to live up to this calling in Numbers, into the revelation that he is God the Faithful One as he leads and protects them for forty years in the hostile desert. In Deuteronomy he displays that he is God the Covenant-Keeper, who remains true to the promises he made to their fathers even when they fail him and provoke him to anger. The Lord wants to be seen through his People, and Moses tells us that nothing can thwart him in his plan.

I have written this book because God still pursues the same strategy with us as he did in the pages of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In a world where ‘The Beatles’ are still Googled more often than ‘Jesus’, God wants to be seen through his People.[9] In a world which still echoes with the cry of Psalm 42 – “My foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’” – God wants to be seen through his People. In a world which largely ignores the true yet invisible God, we must not skim read these books as if they were written for somebody other than ourselves.

I want to bring the pages of the Pentateuch to life for you, so that you can be like the Hebrews who “saw the great power the Lord displayed … and put their trust in him.”[10] I want to help you reveal the invisible God to those around you, so that they exclaim like the foreigners in the Pentateuch that “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods”.[11]

So let’s journey through the pages of the Pentateuch together, learning how the Lord wants to use us to capture the attention of the world. The same invisible God who was seen through the Israelites has not changed his strategy today. It is three and a half thousand years since Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but God still wants to be seen through his People.

In case you have missed it, Amazon.co.uk have worked out that there are three books released this year on the church that go well together. If you read all three of them you will get a clear picture of life within Newfrontiers. You could do a lot worse than taking advantage of their special offer.

Today I can share with you by kind permission of Monarch the second chapter of my friend Phil Moore’s new book Straight to the heart of Romans. The third will be made available to those who subscribe to my email newsletter.

IT’S PERSONAL (1:1-7)

“… the gospel of God … regarding his Son.” (Romans 1:1&3)

Romans may be brilliant, but it isn’t easy reading. It is the sixth of Paul’s thirteen New Testament letters and the only one he wrote to a church which he had neither planted nor visited,[1] which often makes it feel more like a lecture than a letter. Paul livens up his monologue by heckling himself with questions, and tries to build bridges by naming lots of mutual friends in chapter 16, but none of this can stop Romans from feeling like a theological essay. It lacks the intimacy of 1 Thessalonians or the tailor-made teaching of 1 Corinthians. But don’t let that fool you that this letter isn’t personal.

Romans isn’t primarily about sin or righteousness or justification or the role of Israel. It is about “the gospel of God … regarding his Son”. In case we miss that Paul’s message is primarily about a person, he also urges Timothy in another letter to “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.”[2]

We need to note this as we start Romans, because so many people read the letter as a Gospel formula that sin plus the cross plus repentance equals justification. Unless we grasp that the Gospel is about a Jewish man, descended from King David, who was revealed as God’s Son when he raised him from the dead, then we will misunderstand Paul’s teaching in 10:9.[3] We will treat it as a call to respond to the Gospel by following a formula, when in fact it is a call to respond to the Lord Jesus as a person.

Paul was not saying anything new to the Romans. This was, after all, how the Roman church began. Its earliest members had been there on the Day of Pentecost to hear the first Gospel sermon in Acts 2. After eight verses which responded to the crowd’s immediate question, Peter launched into a message which began with “Jesus of Nazareth…” and which ended fifteen verses later with “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Other church members had been there when Peter preached a Gospel sermon to a crowded room of Romans in Acts 10. Cornelius gave him carte blanche to preach anything he wanted – “We are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us” – and Peter chose to give a ten-verse biography of Jesus which recounted his baptism, his experience of the Holy Spirit, his healing ministry, his death and resurrection, and his post-resurrection appearances. He told them Jesus was Lord and that unless they received his forgiveness they would face his judgment.

So when Paul tells the Roman Christians that the Gospel is personal, he is not telling them anything particularly new. What is new is that he clarifies for them why conversion means more than assenting to certain Christian doctrines. When the Gospel is presented as a series of propositions by which listeners can escape God’s judgment and go to heaven when they die, it creates stillborn, self-centred ‘converts’ who are very different from the ones which Paul describes in these first seven verses.

The Gospel we share affects how converts see themselves. The essence of sin is to act as if the world revolves around us, so an impersonal gospel fails to deal with the root of the problem. It tells us that we are so precious that God sacrificed his Son because he couldn’t bear to see people like us die. It pleads with us to accept God’s salvation with a promise that he will improve our lives if we ask him to come into our lives. Those who respond to this ‘gospel’ rise from their knees thinking that God just made a transaction with them, so they can sit back to see whether he makes good on his promise to make their lives better. In contrast, those who respond to Paul’s Gospel that Jesus is Lord rise from their knees understanding that they just made a transaction with God. They repent of acting as if the world revolves around themselves, and accept nothing short of a Copernican Revolution in their thinking: they confess that they are mere planets and that they must now revolve around God’s Son.

To stress this, Paul begins his letter with a Greek phrase which was very offensive in Roman culture: “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus”. When Tacitus, the great historian of Nero’s reign, insults people he tells his readers they had “the mind of a slave”,[4] but Paul says that this is the essence of what it means to follow Christ. Praying a prayer cannot help us unless we accept that we now “belong to Jesus Christ” and authenticate our prayer with “the obedience that comes from faith”.[5] Responding to the Gospel means surrendering to King Jesus.

The Gospel we share also affects how converts see their mission. If they respond to a message that God wants to meet their needs, they become Christian consumers. They share testimonies which focus on what caused them to cry out to God and on what their decision has saved them from. They do not echo Paul’s humility when he says three times in these seven verses that it is God who calls us, or his excitement over what this means he has been set apart for.[6]

The Gospel we share also affects how converts expect God to use them to fulfil his purposes. If they are told that the Gospel is a message all about them, their involvement in mission will lead to either pride or despair because they will assume that success depends on their own hard work. They don’t grasp that it is “the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets” countless centuries before they were even born, or that Jesus makes us successful “through him and for his name’s sake”. They cannot understand Paul’s confidence in verse 13 that he will always be fruitful wherever he goes. They forget that when Paul finally made it to Rome he simply “taught about the Lord Jesus Christ”.[7] They think the Gospel is a set of propositions, but Paul insists it is a person.

John Piper puts it this way: “When we ask about God’s design we are too prone to describe it with ourselves at the centre of God’s affections. We may say, for example, his design is to redeem the world. Or to save sinners. Or to restore creation. Or the like. But God’s saving designs are penultimate, not ultimate. Redemption, salvation, and restoration are not God’s ultimate goal. These he performs for the sake of something greater.”[8] He does it for his own glory through King Jesus, our Lord, as Paul tells us in this deeply personal letter about God’s Gospel regarding his Son.

Today I can share with you by kind permission of Monarch the first chapter of my friend Phil Moore’s new book Straight to the heart of Romans. The second will be posted here tomorrow, and the third will be made available to those who subscribe to my email newsletter.

INTRODUCTION: THERE’S A NEW KING IN TOWN

“Paul, a servant of … Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 1:1&4)

Paul’s letter to the Romans is not just the longest surviving letter from the ancient world. It was also the most dangerous. It was written to a city where a murderer built his reign on the corpses of his rivals. Ten years later, because of the message of Romans, Paul’s own corpse would be added to his ever-growing pile.

The Emperor Nero had come to the throne in October 54AD when his mother assassinated his step-father, the Emperor Claudius. She had heard rumours that Claudius was about to disinherit Nero in favour of his son from a previous marriage, so she persuaded court officials to poison him before he could. Nothing must stand in the way of her sixteen-year-old son’s aspirations to the throne.

Nero quickly followed his mother’s example and made murder the hallmark of his insecure reign. Only weeks after becoming the most powerful ruler in the world, he consolidated his position by poisoning his step-brother. In the years which followed, he murdered his mother, two of his wives, and any nobleman who posed a threat. The Roman historian Suetonius tells us that Nero “showed neither discrimination nor moderation in putting to death whoever he pleased on any pretext whatever.”[1] That’s why when Paul wrote from Corinth to the Christians at Rome in the spring of 57AD, his letter was as dangerous as throwing a flaming torch into a room filled with gunpowder.[2]

Paul claimed that there was one true King and that it wasn’t Nero. Many of us miss this because we skim over Paul’s choice of words in his opening verses, but three key words cannot have failed to capture the attention of his original Roman readers.

First, he used the Greek word euangelion, which means gospel. This was a technical word used by the Caesars themselves to proclaim the news that they had fathered an heir or had won a great victory on the battlefield. An inscription in the ruins of the Greek city Priene which dates back to 9BC declares that “When Caesar appeared he exceeded the hopes of all who received the gospel … The birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the gospel regarding him for the world.” Paul therefore uses the word euangelion as a deliberate challenge to Caesar’s vain boast. The real Gospel was not the good news of Rome regarding Nero, but “the gospel of God … regarding his Son.”

Second, Paul used the word kurios, or Lord. This was the word used by the translators of the Old Testament into Greek to translate God’s name Yahweh, but it was also a title which the Roman Emperors used of themselves. One of Nero’s officials illustrates this by referring to him as the Kurios in Acts 25:26, so Paul’s letter told the Romans a dangerously different story. He announced the reign of “Jesus Christ our Lord” and promised in Romans 10:9 that “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Kurios,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Third, Paul used the word christos, meaning Christ or Messiah. This was the word used in the Greek Old Testament to refer to King David’s heir who would one day take his throne and establish God’s Kingdom which would last forever. Daniel 7 had even prophesied that this Messiah would face up to the iron-toothed Roman Empire and destroy it along with its boastful ruler.[3] Now Paul claimed that this Messiah had come: Jesus of Nazareth. He was telling the Romans there was a new King in town.[4]

Stop for a moment and think how risky that was. Jesus had been dragged before a Roman judge under the charge that “he opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.” When the Roman judge hesitated, Jesus’ enemies reminded him that “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” The judge had therefore ordered that Jesus be crucified by a team of Roman soldiers, wearing a mocking crown of thorns and under a sign which told everyone what Rome thought of his claim to be “the King of the Jews”.[5] Now Paul was claiming that God had raised this same Jesus to life, and in doing so had revealed him as the true Lord and King of the universe.[6]

Nero was Emperor because the Praetorian Guard had supported him when he stood over the dead body of his adoptive father. Paul responded that Jesus was the true King because God had supported him when he raised his dead body back to life. Nero’s first act as Emperor had been to deify Claudius and claim to be divi filius, Latin for the son of a god. Paul responded that it was actually Jesus who “through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God.”[7] This threat was not lost on Paul’s enemies, who accused him of “defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”[8]

Paul begins his letter to the Romans by telling them that the new King saves, both objectively and in day-to-day experience (chapters 1 to 5 and 6 to 8). He then settles the conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians by explaining to both groups that the new King has a plan (chapters 9 to 11). Next, in light of this, he gets specific about what it means for both groups to accept that the new King is Lord (12:1 to 15:13). Finally, he outlines his plans to preach the Gospel across the Western Mediterranean and warns his Roman readers that the new King is advancing (15:14 to 16:27).[9]

That’s why we mustn’t view Romans as a theological treatise which calls people to make a private response to an offer of personal salvation. Nero’s ambassadors did not cross the Empire to encourage his subjects to experience the benefits of choosing him as their Lord. They simply announced that Nero was Emperor, whether their hearers liked it or not, and that they needed to submit to his rule or face the deadly consequences. In the same way, Paul wrote this letter and sent it into Nero’s backyard to proclaim that Jesus Christ was Lord, and they needed to surrender. Nero could execute Paul ten years later in Rome as one of the last desperate acts of his disintegrating reign,[10] but he couldn’t resist his all-conquering message. Even today, when people read Romans, they discover that King Jesus really is Lord and that his plan to save all nations is nearing its grand finale.

So let’s get ready to experience the message of Romans for ourselves. Whatever the world may have told us and whatever false gospels we may have believed, it is time for us to experience God’s Gospel concerning his Son. It is time for us to wake up to what it means when Paul tells us that there is a new King in town.

Two new Newfrontiers books on the poor will be released at the TOAM Conference this coming week!

Embracing the Poor
This has been been written by an international Task Team of theologians and practitioners from Newfrontiers churches who worked together for two years to combine an understanding of the theology of the poor with ‘good practice’ in ministry.

Here is what I had to say about this book:
“Those who want to follow the apostollic mandate to ‘remember the poor’ will find in this book a series of helpful articles and testimonies from people who have been at the forefront of Newfrontiers efforts to demonstrate the love of God with the gospel in one hand and practical care in the other”.

The Poor deserve the Best
“I have written this book from my passion to see ministry with the poor carried out to a high standard. It is a manual of Good Practice with three sections on 1) the Key Characteristics which should be included in a ministry, 2) Planning and 3) a Ministry Health Check. In this last section I have provided all the necessary tools to carry out such a check on your own ministries with the poor.

The final section provides examples from ministries around the world and across a range of sectors (education, health etc) which exhibit what I consider to be ‘good practice’.”

Nigel Ring

These two books complement one another and, during the conference, will be available together at a special combined price of £12.00!

Both books may be purchased here

Every month publishers give away many free books.  Their goal is to create a buzz around their book leading to people talking to their friends about it, writing Amazon reviews, and blog posts.  As an example of how well it can sometimes work, think of the recent Rob Bell controversy which helped propel his book to the top of best seller lists.

The problem is that it is hard for publishers to get their free books into the hands of the right sort of people – enthusiastic and preferably influential people with the time to read them!  Each book will of course appeal to different sorts of people.  I have a high regard for many of my readers, and as a result I have found it very easy to persuade some publishers to give free books to YOU!

There is no absolute requirement to review any of these free books.  But, it will make it easier for me to get more free books for you next month if at least some of you write reviews on Amazon or elsewhere.  If you win a book here and write a review, I will publish excerpts and a link to the full review here.  Remember, as Bell showed us, reviews do not have to be positive to sell books, so tell us what you really think!

How am I going to get free books into the hands of my most enthusiastic readers? Well, I have decided to launch an adrianwarnock.com email newsletter! Initially this will be published around once a month, though the frequency may increase a little in the future.  It will include extra exclusive content, including highlights from the previous month (we know that few of you manage to read everything Adrian posts!), early previews of future articles, free chapters from Christian books, special offers, and lots of opportunities to win free books. Sign up today and you will be able to get a 20% discount code for the Evangelical Press online bookstore as well as the chance to win a free book! (NB the code is not currently working, but should be fixed soon!)

It will be easy for you to unsubscribe when the newsletter is launched if you change your mind.

Here is a list of the free books available this month! Supplies are limited and copies will be given away on a first come first served basis when the first email newsletter is sent out.

The way this is going to work is that when each newsletter is sent out it will be a straight race to order your free book, so make sure you sign up and keep your eye on your email! And if you work for another publisher or Christian organization and want to get free stuff or money-off coupons into the hands of my readers let me know!

Sign up here, then below are the books that you could win this month! Some of these are being launched at this weeks Together On a Mission Conference.

ESV Student Study Bible

http://www.crossway.org/

The ESV Student Study Bible is ideally suited for students who are serious about God’s Word—who want to learn more about what the Bible teaches and how the Bible applies to all of life.

With 12,000 clear, concise study notes, the ESV Student Study Bible provides numerous new features—including nearly 900 “Did You Know?” facts, 120 new Bible character profiles, and 15 new topical articles. It also features a new glossary of key terms, more than 80 full-color maps and illustrations, an extensive concordance, and 80,000 cross-references.

Note to Self by Joe Thorn

http://www.crossway.org/

We need good preaching—preaching that challenges us by God’s Word and brings the comfort that comes from God’s promises. Yet many of us rely solely on others to preach to us and are not benefitting from the kind of preaching that should be most consistent and personal—preaching to ourselves.

http://www.evangelicalpress.org/

“A detailed description of key persons and comprehensive coverage on Chinese events, movements and leaders, with a concise summary from the author’s painstaking work.”
Yang Ye – Chinese lay leader

“This book traces the history of the enormous advance of the gospel in China. In this way it inspires us to glorify God!”
Tom Wells – Author of A Vision for Missions

Good to Grow by Steve Tibbert
http://www.authenticmedia.co.uk/

How one south London church grew to over 1,000 in 15 years and the lessons learned along the way.

Leading a church brings lots of challenges but when the church is growing, the challenges grow too. Leadership strategies and decisions can make or break the healthy ministry wisdom and grace are in big demand!

Here is an endorsement I have written for this book: Good to Grow by Steve Tibbert

While it is not a requirement, it would be greatly appreciated by our publisher friends if you could review your free book on your blog, Amazon or another site. Please let us know on adrian@adrianwarnock.com if you do review the book, with the URL and we will post a link to your review on adrianwarnock.com.

Here is the video and transcript of the second part of my recent interview with Terry Virgo.

Adrian: We’ve spoken so far about the first 300 session that was painting the big picture of what the Church should be like. I have to admit I got to the end of that session and I thought ‘What could he possibly speak on in the second?’ It was almost like you had covered everything in one hour! But I loved the way you opened the second. You just stood up and said something like this: “To have a Spirit-filled Church, you need Spirit-filled people.” Maybe lets talk a bit about that. Tope what was your take-home message from that second session?

Tope: You know… I thought the second session was extremely helpful, even if you are a Spirit-filled believer and a Spirit-filled church. If you’re a leader, you need somebody to almost help you step by step explain why it is you believe this thing that you believe. Where they are in the Scriptures, with personal experience massaged into the sermon so that you could identify, and I tell you this, to help you explain to your people… and the importance of it in your own life – that’s how this thing works. So it was very practical. It was not wishy-washy. It was based in the Scriptures – I just loved it so much.

I loved the way you started it: Spirit-filled church, you need this. Because I think sometimes we ask the wrong question first. So it was a great session. I tell you something, I said to Terry “Do you need your notes, are they in the car?” And he said “No, I’m fine.” These are not just doctrines memorised as sermons being brought out – it’s a life being lived. And so it was easy to just talk about it and we were all just enraptured by the whole thing.

Terry: I certainly love to speak about how I can see Biblically the place of the coming upon of the Spirit. And I think when Jesus said it to his follower they were from a Jewish background – they knew Old Testament characters who had known the Spirit coming up them and transforming their lives. I’m sad when people say ‘at conversion the whole thing is done’, because what about that ‘coming upon’? How come Gideon got so transformed? How come Elisha said ‘if I don’t have that power, how can I do what you did?’ That to me is such a real tangible thing. How could these scared fishermen turn the world upside down if they didn’t have the same power that rested on Jesus? So just to interpret a few New Testament verses ‘I’ve got it all’, it manifestly doesn’t work.

And I think we’ve got to see the difference between what I would call a ‘contemporary’ church and a ‘charismatic’ church. So I think some people would say ‘Oh, we’re a charismatic’. But what do you mean? ‘We have modern songs, we have guitars, we have overhead – we are charismatic’. No, no no! We are talking about people filled with the presence of God, which yes, does affect the way we worship, but we’re not simply talking about a charismatic style of meeting, we’re talking about a meeting deeply rooted in the word. And so we would preach the word for an hour and so we really go through the truth all the time. But we are also looking for the presence of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we need to teach people. In the main I find Christians are shy, they’re not always pushing themselves so they need to be encouraged into engagement with the Spirit – but how do I do that? How does this gift work? We need to lovingly shepherd people into life in the Spirit and understanding that all of this comes under the Word of God. We’re not going to run away, we test all things by Scripture. But we’re gathering to the presence of God. So we anticipate He will make His presence known.

Adrian: I tell you what I love most is this whole thing of the corporate and the individual coming together. I think often those are so separate. And so I know one thing you mentioned that you would like to have had a bit longer to talk about if you had was about the prayer life – and particularly the prayer life of the leader. I know this is something that people have often asked you about and I know you sometimes don’t like to say too much. But can you just talk a little bit about what you, over the years, what personally it’s been like for you? How have you walked with God faithfully all these years? I think it was Driscoll who said about you that you still like God. When not everybody does, apparently, according to him.

Terry: I’m glad, really, that you combined reference to corporate prayer and personal prayer. I think there is a strong inter-link. And I’ve been encouraged that although the book has only been out a little while I’ve had letters from people saying ‘you’re chapter on leading a church in prayer has been so impacting’. So I’m encouraged.

I thank God I was saved from a non-Christian background but I joined a Baptist church where the pastor was a man of prayer. He was a man of the word and he was a man of prayer and he was a man for missions. Now probably we do church almost exactly different to the way he did church. So at our meetings and so on he wanted me to wear a clerical collar – I mean a very different world, but prayer – that man taught me to pray. Loving the Bible – that man taught me ‘Love the Bible, that’s the authority’. Mission – world mission. I learnt so much kind of subliminally although the outward way I’ve done it completely different. But those values – so I learnt to pray. I feel that over the years I’ve had that influence from godly men and from the early years. So it was fundamental to me right from the beginning that prayer was the key. I read a lot of missionary biographies – Hudson Taylor is a huge hero of mine. J. O. Fraser, and George Muller, the man from Bristol – I love reading stories of men who prayed and just seeing the power of it. And really, J.O. Fraser was just pragmatic – he said, like a business, ‘I’ve found a line that works so I’m going to give my best energies to it.’ I mean that’s just pragmatism – it works!

And then you read about Praying Hyde and Jim Simbala in Brooklyn and you just feel like ‘I want to pray and I want to get a church that prays’ – gather people to pray together. So it’s been a motivation for me, it would be a motivation for me to pray each morning. Tope and I had just a wonderful time this morning, just praying, I don’t know, for an hour or two just enjoying the presence of God. Just wonderful! And with a Bible there, I’ve just been nourished by some truths in the word and just began to share and ‘woah let’s pray’. And the sense of God being there – some people say ‘Oh, only two or three turned up… let me just pray for a little while’. I think ‘Two or three – it’s wonderful!’ God’s here. So to pray is just really heart and soul of everything for me.

This is the first in a multi-part series of interview clips that I filmed with Terry Virgo when he was in London with us. You will enjoy, and for those without broadband, a transcript of the video will also be shared.

Edited Transcript:

Adrian: Hi I’m Adrian Warnock and I’m here with Terry Virgo and Tope Koleoso. It’s a pleasure to have you both here. Terry, I came under your ministry back in 1978 or something ridiculous like that, and I’ve known Tope since 1995. So I’ve known you both a long time and it’s wonderful to have you both in the same room.

Terry, you’ve been with us for ‘300’ and also today at Jubilee so I thought I would just ask both of you how that came about? How do you decide what to do? You must have a lot of calls on your time, how do you prioritize things and what you felt coming amongst us, really?

Terry: Thanks Adrian, it’s great to be here. I’ve enjoyed my weekend enormously. We work relationally. Most of the time we work with people we know. I know Tope well, I know what he’s doing and I’m delighted that he’s gathering leaders. I count it always a huge privilege to speak to leaders. I’m grateful that they are willing to spend time on a busy Saturday and take out time. So it was good, thrilling to be with them. I know you’ve already been having these meetings with some excellent speakers – John Piper, Jack Hayford, so it’s a privilege to be invited. I was glad to be here. I’ve enjoyed and I felt I was able to serve. I was happy to speak about the Spirit-filled church, which I have just written a book on. So it was great to be on that theme, which I know has stirred me and I feel strongly about that.

Then it was great to be with the church today. I’ve especially enjoyed the church – terrific family, multinational, very friendly and warm. It’s hard to move away because people are so responsive. So it’s been a wonderful weekend.

Adrian: When Jack Hayford was with us he said “You look out on Jubilee, you see the world.”

Terry: Yes.

Adrian: Tope, how’s it been for you as a Pastor of this church, having Terry here?

Tope: Terry is a father to me its been good to have him amongst us. The church by God’s grace has been growing pretty well, so it is always good that new people can come and get caught up in this. Having Terry here is just wonderful, it’s a joy. It really is a joy and we get lots of time together. As people travel around so much everybody’s in their world and when you have those moments together, it’s just great. Yesterday to just have him speak…and the talk, a lot of it was hung on this question – it was like God asking “What house will you build for me?” And just the way when he started, the way it came at me, it was like actually… it was like God asking this! And our tendency as leaders is to ask “what kind of church do I want?” Wrong question! What house does HE want? And then we begin to find out what are the components that He says these things must be there. And to have that spelt out – it was just a challenge actually.

Adrian: I’ve been around a long time and I’ve heard you talk a lot. But I think I’ve never heard a vision for the Church portrayed as clearly as it was in that first session yesterday. I obviously was going “Yes, yes, yes!” and in a sense it was stuff that I’ve heard before but that is encouraging – when someone comes in you think “Well, that is kind of what we are trying to build.” At the same time it was fresh, it was compelling. And I think since we relate obviously with others from elsewhere, and that’s a good thing, sometimes you can almost begin to back-peddle about your own values and think ‘well, this is perhaps not a gospel issue’ I mean ‘These guys are doing it differently but they’re going to Heaven’ and so we almost back away. But I felt for me personally, yesterday, just a renewed sense of ‘Hey! Actually, what we do, we don’t do just because it’s the way we’ve always done it or because it’s New Frontiers – it’s Bible stuff!’ And that was where I was coming from. How did that vision come about for you?

Terry: I guess over a period of time, to be perfectly honest. I think when I was introduced to an experience of the Holy Spirit, which revolutionized my Christianity it was like knocking over the first domino. In view of that, well, then that must be reviewed, and that must be reviewed. So it took me back to the Scriptures again to investigate. I thought ‘Why do we do that then, because the Scripture says this?’ So yesterday we looked at Acts 13, at the Antioch church, which surely must be some kind of a model. And Stephen as he is preaching, comes up with that statement in his long apology and says “Solomon says, ‘What kind of house will you build for me?’” And then you find that the people associated with Stephen flee through persecution, they come to Antioch and they build a house and you get a revelation there in Acts 13 what that house was like. And so we’re asked what were the ingredients? And so we looked at those various ingredients of the prophetic, the teaching role, the involvement of Barnabas, the multinational, and the mission. There’s so many aspects just in a few verses, really.

So over the years, these values have been more and more impressed on us and we’ve started, what I would call really, a new wine skin to embrace the fresh touch of God’s presence with us, but loving the truths that we’ve always believed.

Adrian: Yes, it’s a funny thing isn’t it? Sometimes people say ‘hang on a minute, you talk about Biblical truth!’ You’ve been reformed since the 70’s, 60’s and beyond, it isn’t a new thing being a reformed Charismatic, of course it isn’t. And there’s a lot of people that would share that sort of love of the Scriptures, and yet my perception has always been that some people don’t really want to look at what the Bible says the church should be like. They just say ‘We believe the Bible, we love the Gospel, we love the doctrines’ and yet they kind of leave the church as it was, the way they inherited it. Do you think that’s a fair assessment? You’re friends with some of these guys aren’t you?

Terry: Yes, I do. I have great friends right across the body of Christ. I think that great men, in all kinds of worlds, will preach for personal obedience. And preach stunning sermons about ‘Let’s obey God’ but the application is so often just to the individual. You know… ‘are you obeying God in the workplace, in your home?’ etc. I think we also need to obey God corporately about how we do church. And I think often that application is left aside. So I feel that no, we need corporate obedience about how you do church. And so I feel that results in reformation of church. So it’s not just charismatic life – it’s what does the New Testament church look like? And I think it is very relevant to our generation that has come out of, kind of, Christendom background. We’re more like living in a day like Pauls day where people have all kinds of gods. They don’t have Christian background. So we need to be relevant, we need to be vibrant to touch our generation with the gospel and a church life that is impacting. It’s not good endorsing simply ‘Oh we’ve always done it this way.’ Because this generation is not interested in ‘how you always did it’. They need to hear a gospel that is relevant to them today in a setting that they can identify with and the presence of God is fundamental to that.