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It’s Not Your Job To Convert Anyone

On Sunday it was St Andrew’s Day and I was in church listening to a sermon about Andrew (and the namesake of our church), that often overlooked disciple, meeting Jesus for the first time. In John’s Gospel, it says: John 1:40–42One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’… He brought Simon to Jesus. As I sat there listening to our vicar speak about evangelism and how we should be more like Andrew in bringing people to meet Jesus, something from many, many years ago flickered to life in the back of my mind. A realisation I had lo...

How many apostles are there in the New Testament?

..., James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. Acts 1:26 Then they cast lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias. So he was numbered with the 11 apostles.   That's 12 so far. Romans 1:1 Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle and singled out for God’s good news   Now we have 13. Some contend that Paul was the true replacement for Judas, but even if he was (which I don’t believe) and there were no more than twelve apostles, then we wouldn’t see any others – but we do. So let's continue counting: James, the half brother of Jesus and l...

The Coming of Jesus: The Olivet Discourse – Part 2

...John and Andrew who came to speak with Jesus privately about these things (Mark 13:3), thus making the audience that Jesus was addressing quite specific! What follows is a long prophetic monologue from Jesus detailing what happens in the lead up to the temple being destroyed, what to expect and what to do they see it about to happen. Which is where we pick up this study. From verse 15 we start to see what happens after the initial signs and “birth pangs” are finished – now it’s no longer about looking towards an event; now it’s about the event itself! The main show, as it were: the “desolating sacrilege!” Matthew 24:15-18 So when you see the...

Man-Made Tradition vs Apostolic Tradition

...gs—what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice. Papias, fragments of.  Just in this short quote from Papias (a bishop of Hierapolis, c. 70-163 AD), it displays that there was a value in seeking after those who had had direct contact with the source, and that was the preferred method over reading what was in books, to make sure that what they learned wa...

Doubting Defying Jihad: Questioning the Popular Conversion Story

...This is a guest post by “KingsServant” In 2019 a book called Defying Jihad was published by Tyndale House, the reputable Christian publisher telling the story of “Esther Ahmad” a pseudonym used by the author alongside her co-author Craig Borlase, who has previously written alongside, well known Christian personalities such as Matt Redman the singer and Andrew Brunson, an American pastor imprisoned by the Turkish government. As I began to read this book over this past year I was expecting an encouraging account of how a former Jihadi found Christ and escaped her previous accomplices. Very quickly, however, I became uncomfortable, her descriptions of her...