Category: Podcast

Talk 4 The Right Use of Prophecy

Hello again and welcome to Talk 4 in our series on NT Guidelines for Small Group Meetings.

In our last two talks we were looking at Paul’s teaching on tongues and interpretation. Today our subject is the gift of prophecy. We will consider what it is, its value and purpose, its limitations, and how it should be used in our meetings.

What is prophecy?

People sometimes confuse prophecy with foretelling the future, but its basic meaning is speaking on behalf of someone else. In the Bible it’s usually used to refer to speaking on behalf of God. And obviously, if you’re going to speak on behalf of God you need to hear from him first. This happens by the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

In Old Testament times and right up to Acts 2 in the New Testament, the Spirit was given to relatively few people, but from Pentecost onwards the gift of the Spirit was made available to all God’s people. So prophecy in the New Testament worked rather differently from how it worked before Pentecost. There are now three different ways in which we may be said to prophesying:

1.     When we tell others about Jesus we are speaking on God’s behalf and so there’s a sense in which we’re ‘prophesying’. This is something all Christians can, and should, do.

2.     If we have received the spiritual gift of prophecy, when we use it we are prophesying. But this gift is not given to everyone. See 1 Corinthians 12:8-11, Romans 12:6).

3.     If we have the ministry of a prophet, our prophecies may well contain supernatural revelation about the future. See, for example Agabus (Acts 11:27-28, 21:10). Not all Christians, and not even all who have the gift of prophecy, have this ministry.

There isn’t time to go into all these three ways in these talks, but if you want more on this you’ll find it in WYCT Ch. 7, and Body Builders Chapters 9 and 12. In this series we’ll be limiting our attention to the spiritual gift of prophecy, because that’s mainly what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 14, where he describes it like this:

… everyone who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort (v3).

It’s listed among the supernatural gifts Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. So, perhaps we could best define it as:

The supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit which enables us to speak to others on behalf of God by the direct  inspiration of the Holy Spirit  for their strengthening, encouragement  and comfort .

So, it’s not the same as when we bring a brief encouraging word during an open time of prayer or worship. It’s only when there’s a distinctly supernatural element that such ‘words’ are really the gift of prophecy.

The value and purpose of prophecy

Paul valued prophecy very highly indeed. He begins 1 Corinthians 14:1 by saying:

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

This is the main theme of the chapter. And he ends the chapter as he has started it:

Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy… (39).

And we’ve seen in previous talks why he values it so highly. It’s because it edifies the church (1 Corinthians 14:4-5). That’s why he wants to us be passionate about it! Because …everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort (v.3).

This, in the context of church worship, is the practical outworking of Paul’s teaching about love in chapter 13. We are to love our fellow Christians, and if we love them we will want to be a blessing to them, to strengthen, encourage, and comfort them. And that’s what prophecy does.

But that’s not all. Prophecy can also have a powerful effect on unbelievers who may come into the church.

24 …if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, 25 and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

So, prophecy is to be valued very highly, not only because it strengthens, encourages, and comforts believers, but also because of the powerful effect it can have on people who do not yet believe.

But having said that, prophecy is not without its limitations. In 13:9-10 Paul says:

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

This is because at present our knowledge is incomplete. We see but a poor reflection as in a mirror (12). Our prophecies are imperfect because they are our prophecies, and we are not perfect yet.

That’s why in 14:12 Paul tells us to try to excel in it. If our use of God’s precious gifts were perfect, we would not need to try to excel in them – in fact all Paul’s instructions about their use would have been unnecessary!

And that’s why we’re told in 14:29 that we should weigh carefully what is said.

But that brings us to how prophecy should be used in our meetings.

The use of prophecy in our meetings

Perhaps the first thing to say about the use of prophecy in our meetings is that we should always bear in mind its purpose, which is to strengthen, encourage, comfort, and edify God’s people (3-4).

There is no suggestion that it should be used to rebuke them, or even to give them guidance.

Paul tells us in Romans 8:14 that it’s our privilege as God’s children to be personally led by the Spirit . Guidance received through prophecy should simply serve as confirmation of something that God has already spoken to us about in our hearts.

A good example of this is found in Acts 13:1-3 where the prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch were told by the Holy Spirit to set Barnabas and Paul apart for the work to which he had already called them. Similarly, in Acts 21:1-15, Agabus predicts what will happen to Paul, but he does not tell him what to do.

Paul’s specific teaching (29-32)

29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.

Two or three prophets should speak (29)

Paul may be using the word prophet here to refer to people like Agabus, or he could be meaning  those who exercise the simple gift of prophecy. Either way, the principles he is teaching apply to both. The first of these is that, although prophecy is to be encouraged, its use is to be limited, and it needs to be judged or weighed carefully.

The others should weigh carefully what is said (29)

The verb translated weigh carefully is the same as is used for distinguishing between spirits in 12:10. The clear implication is that every prophecy needs to be evaluated. It’s not infallible.

However, despite its limitations, Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20 that it’s not to be despised. But even that may indicate the possibility of human weakness in the operation of the gift. This could be why the Thessalonians had been despising it!

So prophecy needs to be judged or weighed carefully. But this raises two questions. The first is: Who is responsible for judging it?  

Looking at the immediate context, Paul seems to mean the other prophets. The things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned (2:14), and those with a prophetic gift are more likely to weigh a prophetic revelation accurately.

But surely the others may be applied more widely than that? Certainly, pastors or teachers have a special responsibility here, and in the context of a small group perhaps the group leader has too. We need to be alert for anything that might mislead God’s people.

But it’s not just leaders who have this responsibility. We all have! We all have the capacity, and the responsibility, to weigh prophetic words. But that leads us to the second question:

How is prophecy to be judged?

There are two areas of importance here, its authenticity and its application.

By authenticity I mean, first of all, its conformity to Scripture. Paul is very clear in verse 37 that what he is writing… is the Lord’s command. All prophecy must be judged in the light of what the Spirit has already said in the Bible. But judging is more than an intellectual exercise based on our Bible knowledge. There is a spiritual dimension to it too. A ‘word’ may be in line with Scripture, but it may not be what the Spirit is emphasising to us right now.

By application I mean that we need to consider to whom the prophecy may apply. Is it for me? Is it for the whole church? How do we apply it in practice?

These are decisions that we all must make after hearing a prophecy. Clearly, we cannot judge it until we have heard it! However, in some churches people who feel they have a prophetic word to bring are expected to share it with the church leadership before bringing it publicly. The church leaders evaluate it before it is given. The advantages of this are twofold:

·      It prevents any unauthentic or inappropriate prophecy being given in public.

·      Those who are inexperienced, but eager to prophesy, feel more secure in having their prophecy confirmed by the leaders before bringing it.

We sometimes encourage this in our church, but at the same time we don’t want those who have a proven track record in prophecy to feel they have to consult the church leaders before they prophesy. Their prophecies should be judged after they have delivered them, which is clearly what Paul had in mind in the verse we’re looking at.

What’s more, to insist that leaders must be consulted before prophecies are given seems out of keeping with the encouragement Paul gives in verse 26 for all to participate, and with the spontaneity implicit in his teaching on the matter in verse 30.

And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop (30)

This shows:

·      the spontaneity that Paul envisages in Christian meetings – there was no set liturgy

·      prophecy may also contain an element of revelation

·      the importance of making room for others.

 

For you can all prophesy in turn (31)

This doesn’t mean that everyone in the meeting can prophesy, because not everyone has the gift. And I think it’s unlikely that he means that everyone with the gift can prophesy in every meeting! Like tongues and interpretation, he limits prophetic words to two or three (v29). There’s good sense in this, because if we get too many people bringing too many ‘words’ we can’t possibly take it all in!

The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets (32)

All the gifts God gives us are under our control. This is clear from the fact that specific instructions are given for their use.  If the use of the gifts were only dependent upon the Holy Spirit  himself, such instructions would be both inappropriate and unnecessary. 

That’s why Paul  teaches that we are able to:

·      regulate the number of prophetic utterances in any one meeting (14:29).

·      cease prophesying if something is revealed to someone else (14:30).

·      prophesy  rather than speak in tongues  if unbelievers are present (14:23-25). 

Our ability to control the gift  of prophecy also implies that we are responsible for the way we express the message God has given us.  I may believe that God has given me something to say, but I am not God, and I should not talk as if I were! And neither should you!

So please, prophesy, but don’t say ‘I’.

For example, it would be better to say

 The Lord loves you… than to say, I love you.

Avoid giving the impression that you are God!

But that now brings us to the final verses of 1 Corinthians 14. Note that verses 34-35 relate to women asking their husbands at home. It does not relate to women praying or prophesying in meetings, which Paul clearly allowed subject to the social conditions prevailing at the time (11:5).

In verse 37 he insists that what he is writing is the Lord’s command.  Paul was a church leader and he was writing Scripture. Anyone who is truly spiritual will submit to the authority of Scripture and respect their church leaders.

Finally, prophecy is to be encouraged, and tongues should not be forbidden (39). And whatever happens, everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way (40).

That’s it. That’s all from me for now. Thanks for listening. Now, over to group leaders for questions for discussion. The Lord bless you.

 

Questions for discussion

1.     From what you’ve heard, how do you think we can distinguish between a brief encouraging ‘word’ and the gift of prophecy?

2.     Why do you think Paul wants us to be eager to prophecy?

3.     How can we encourage the use of this important gift in church and in our home groups?

4.     Might a group discussion be a good way to evaluate a prophetic word?

5.     You feel that a prophecy might be specifically for you, but you’re not quite sure. What should you do?

 

Talk 3 The Right Use of Interpretation of Tongues

Hello again. Welcome to Talk 3 in our series on NT Guidelines for Small Group Meetings.

Last time, our subject was speaking in tongues and its right use in our meetings. We saw that we should not speak in tongues loudly unless it’s for interpretation and that it must only be spoken loudly if someone is there to interpret it.

So today we’ll be looking in more detail at the important gift of interpretation of tongues. Apart from two references in chapter 12 (v10 and v30), our main source of material for understanding this gift is found in 1 Corinthians 14, so it would be good to have your Bible open there. In this talk I will:

·      Examine the references to interpretation of tongues

·      Discuss certain practical issues that arise from this

·      Finish with a brief summary.

A.     References to interpretation of tongues

1 Corinthians 12:10-11, 30

10 …and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

These verses make clear that not everybody has this gift. Each gift is given as the Holy Spirit determines. (By the way, speaking in tongues in verse 30 refers to its use in church, not to its private use as prayer with one’s spirit).

1 Corinthians 14:5

The person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in tongues, unless they interpret so that the church may be edified.

This verse reveals the purpose of the gift – the edification of the church. As we saw in our last talk, prophesying is preferable to speaking in tongues because prophecy edifies the church whereas speaking in tongues does not, because no one can understand it (2).

However, if speaking in tongues is interpreted, it can edify the church, in which case it is as valuable as prophecy. But this need not mean that it’s necessarily the same as prophecy. We will discuss this in more detail in a moment.

1 Corinthians 14:13

In verse 12 Paul tells the Corinthians to try to excel in gifts that build up the church. This gives the reason for what he says in verse 13.

Anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret…

Why? Because the only way that speaking in tongues will edify others is if it is interpreted.

Notice too that the verse does not mean that all interpretations should be given by the person who has spoken in tongues. The interpretation may very well be given by someone else. To allow someone other than the speaker in tongues to interpret means that more people are participating in the meeting, something Paul is keen to encourage, as the next passage makes clear.

Verses 26-28

26 What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.

27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two – or at the most three – should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.

28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.

Verse 26 is the key verse upon which this series is based. It gives clear guidance on the sort of things we should expect in our meetings. Notice that tongues and interpretation are included in what Paul is recommending. But note the use of the word if in verse 27:

If anyone speaks in a tongue…

This shows us that Paul does not automatically assume that there will be speaking in tongues in the meeting. The things mentioned in verse 26 are not obligatory ingredients for every meeting. They are the kind of things to expect, but not necessarily in every meeting.

The manifestation of spiritual gifts will vary from meeting to meeting as the Spirit leads. The main point is that whatever is taking place, everything must be done for the strengthening of the church.

So, if anyone speaks in tongues, what should happen next? Paul is quite clear on this:

If anyone speaks in a tongue, let it be by two or at the most three people. And let one person interpret (my translation).

This doesn’t refer to private use of tongues in church, which is allowed, provided it’s done quietly, speaking to yourself and to God (28). It refers to the use of tongues for the purpose of interpretation, because Paul says, Let one person interpret.  So, during the course of a meeting, no more than three people should speak in tongues with a view to interpretation.

Another practical issue that we will need to consider in due course is how to understand and apply the final part of verse 27, which NIV translates as, Someone must interpret, but which KJV translates this as,

Let one interpret (my emphasis),

which is the literal translation of the Greek word that Paul uses here. That’s why, in the translation I offered earlier, I translated it as

Let one person interpret.

But this doesn’t mean that Paul is saying that if there are two or three utterances in tongues, the same person should give the interpretation for all of them. But more on this in a moment.

Finally, Paul’s use of the word interpreter in verse 28 is interesting. He says:

If there is no interpreter, the speaker (in tongues) should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.

The term interpreter clearly indicates that those who exercised the gift of interpretation were seen as permanently possessing the gift. If that were not so, how could the speaker in tongues know whether there was an interpreter present or not? A person who has interpreted once can be expected to do so again.

So, if we want to speak in tongues publicly, we need to check that there’s an interpreter present. And if there is, we are free to go ahead. Obviously that places a serious responsibility on the interpreter to be ready to interpret at any time, because we do not know when someone is going to speak in tongues. To know more about receiving spiritual gifts, you might like to visit my website (http://www.davidpetts.org) and listen to two short podcasts I gave in February 2019 (podcasts 018 and 019).

B.     Practical issues arising from Paul’s teaching

        i.            The form the gift should take – prophecy or praise?

There’s no time to go into much detail about this now, but I have said a bit more in WYCT pp77-79 and more still in Body Builders pp141-144.

However, the short answer is this. As we saw last time, tongues can take the form of prayer or praise or giving thanks. So, if the gift of interpretation enables us to understand what is being said when someone speaks in tongues, it follows that the interpretation should take the same form as the tongue, whether prayer, or praise, or thanksgiving etc.

But what about ‘messages’ in tongues where the interpretation sounds like a prophecy? Those who take the view that interpretation should take the form of a prophecy base their argument on 14:5 where Paul says:

The person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in tongues, unless they interpret so that the church may be edified.

The argument goes like this. Prophecy edifies the church. Interpretation edifies the church. Therefore, the interpretation of tongues equals prophecy. But there is a logical flaw in this argument.

It’s like saying, Tea is a drink. Coffee is a drink. Therefore, tea equals coffee!

Paul says that both prophecy and interpretation edify the church, but that does not necessarily mean that they do so in the same way. If, for example, interpretation were to take the form of praise, rather than prophecy, wouldn’t it edify the church? And who is not edified by the psalms of praise? I have personally been greatly edified by both forms of interpretation.

However, other people insist on praise interpretations and base their argument on the NIV translation of 14:2, which reads:

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him…

So, it is argued, if the tongue is to God, the interpretation must be to God, in the form of either praise or prayer. However, a more literal translation would be:

For the person speaking in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him… (my translation).

This makes clear that the reason for saying that speaking in tongues is to God is that no one can understand it. When the disciples spoke in tongues at Pentecost, did it not speak to men? And why was this? Because they understood what was being said.

It follows, therefore, that if tongues in church can be understood through the use of the gift of interpretation, it can most certainly speak to us. So in my view both praise and prophecy style interpretations are legitimate manifestations of the gift, and we should accept and encourage both.

     ii.            Two or at the most three…

The meaning is clear, but what should we do if someone brings a fourth utterance in tongues? Should it be interpreted?

Of course, this is unlikely to happen if the church has been taught how spiritual gifts should be operated in our meetings.

However, if it does happen, what should we do? My view is that it should be interpreted because this would be more edifying for the church which is the basic principle behind Paul’s teaching in this passage.

For more detail on this, please see WYCT pp79-80.

 

 

   iii.            ‘Let one person interpret’ (v27)

I said earlier that the Greek in verse 27 is best translated as, Let one person interpret. This in fact reflects how the Authorised Version translates it and, as a result, some churches have taught that, if there are two or three utterances in tongues, the same person should give the interpretation for all of them.

This is a valid application of what Paul is saying, but I think it more likely that his intention is to say that each utterance in tongues needs only one person to interpret it. The unruly members of the Corinthian church needed to hear this.

C.     Summary

1.     Everything we do in church should be edifying to others.

2.     Tongues edifies you, but it doesn’t edify others, unless it’s interpreted.

3.     So, the purpose of the gift of interpretation is to edify the church.

4.     Tongues may take the form of prayer or praise or prophecy, so interpretations may take any of these forms.

5.     We should not speak loudly in tongues unless there is an interpreter there. So we need to be sure there’s an interpreter there before we speak out loudly in tongues.

6.     If we speak in tongues aloud in church, we should pray for the gift of interpretation, bearing in mind that it’s not given to everyone.

7.     If you have the gift of interpretation, you have a responsibility to interpret.

8.     Tongues and interpretation should occur no more than two or three times in each meeting.

9.     Only one person should interpret each message, but it doesn’t have to be the same person each time.

10. Since it’s so important for tongues in church to be interpreted, we should all wait for the interpretation to be given before doing anything else (like leading in prayer etc.).

D.    Questions for discussion

1.     Why do you think we should all wait for the interpretation to be given before doing anything else?

2.     Someone speaks out loud in tongues, but no one else interprets it. You have interpreted tongues in the past, but you don’t feel you have the interpretation of this time. What should you do? Hint: See my personal testimony about this, in WYCT pp.81-83 or Body Builders, Ch. 8.

3.     Do we need to alter our group’s way of doing things to make way for the operation of gifts like tongues and interpretation (and indeed other gifts of the Spirit)?

Talk 2 The Right Use of Speaking in Tongues

Welcome to Talk2 in our series on NT Guidelines for Small Group Meetings.

We started last time by suggesting that 1 Corinthians 14:26 should be taken as a serious indication of the sort of thing God wants to happen when we meet. Let me remind you what it says:

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.

We then did a quick survey of chapters 12 and 13 to see how they might influence our understanding of this verse.

Today we’re going to talk about speaking in tongues which was very important in the life of the early church and is still a very valuable gift today. So we’ll be talking about why it’s so important both in our personal prayers at home and in our gatherings. And we’ll finish by looking at 1 Corinthians 14 and seeing what Paul has to say about exactly how it should be used when we meet together.

A. The importance of tongues

1. Its importance in the early church

a. As we all know, speaking in tongues was the first spiritual gift that the disciples were given when they were filled the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). empowering them for service (Acts 1:8). [For more on this, please see A New Dimension – how to be filled with the Holy Spirit (details on my website – http://www.davidpetts.org].

b. After Pentecost, when others received the Spirit, it was the first manifestation recorded after the Spirit came upon them (Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:1-6).

c. This was almost certainly because speaking in tongues was to become an important part of a Christian’s prayer life, enabling them to pray with their spirit (1 Corinthians 14:14), but more of that in a moment.

2. The value of the gift today

Speaking in tongues was a valuable gift in New Testament times and it’s just as valuable today:

a. It can be used as a powerful sign to unbelievers as happened in Acts 2 and led to some 3000 people becoming Christians.

b. It is an important aspect in our private prayer times

c. It can be a blessing in church when it is accompanied by the gift of interpretation, which will be the subject of out next talk.

So let’s now turn to 1 Corinthians 14 and see what Paul has to say about the use of tongues in our private prayer times, before we turn to its use in our meetings.

B. The use of tongues in private

Consider the following:

2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.

4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.

16 If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying?

17 You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified.

So when we speak in tongues:

· we don’t know what we’re saying (14),

· but we’re speaking to God (2)

· which may be prayer (14-15), or praise (16), or giving thanks (16-17) to God,

· and in doing so we’re edifying ourselves (building ourselves up spiritually) (4).

This is probably why in 2 Timothy 1:6-7 Paul says:

6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline

Every time we speak in tongues in our prayer time we are fanning into flame the gift of God that we received when God gave us the Holy Spirit.

So speaking in tongues is a great thing to do in private, but what about in our meetings?

C. The right use of tongues in our meetings

1. Edification – the underlying principle

It’s clear that Paul valued very highly his ability to speak in tongues. In verse 18 he says:

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

This was because it enabled him to pray with his spirit rather than just praying with his mind.

But please note what he says in verse 19:

But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

So, although he spoke in tongues a great deal when he was not in church – that is, when he was in private – he did not do so in public. He is much more guarded about the use of tongues in church. Look at verses 3-5 again:

3 But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5 I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.

He wants everyone to be able to speak in tongues, but it has no value in church if it’s not interpreted (v5).

Tongues are unintelligible unless they are interpreted and without interpretation the speaker is just speaking into the air (9).

But when interpreted they can fulfil a similar function to prophecy, which also edifies the church (4) bringing strengthening, encouragement and comfort (3).

We’ll come back to that in our next talk when we consider Paul’s teaching on the gift of interpretation of tongues, but for now it’s enough to note that what’s important is:

whatever we do in our meetings should be for the edification, strengthening, encouragement and comfort of those present.

For example, Paul is concerned about what happens if unbelievers come into our meetings.. He deals with this in verses 21-25 where it’s clear that, despite the miracle that happened at Pentecost where speaking in tongues led to the conversion of some 3000 people, far from expecting unbelievers to come to faith when hearing speaking in tongues, Paul thinks it more likely that they will conclude that the Corinthians are out of their mind!

Why did he think this? Perhaps because situations like the day of Pentecost are very rare. On the vast majority of occasions, it’s not likely that any foreigner will recognise their language when we are speaking in tongues. So Paul advises caution. On the basis of all this, it’s better, in my view, to consider the use of tongues as a sign to unbelievers as something exceptional.

Having said that, verses 21-25 are extremely difficult because they contain an apparent contradiction and have long been a source of debate among scholars. We don’t have time to go into them in now, but if you want to see a possible solution, please read WYCT pp. 66-68.

The main point is this:

Whatever we do in our meetings we should always be sensitive to the needs of others, especially if there are newcomers present.

You may be worshipping well, but if others are not helped by it, you are not acting in love! (My paraphrase of verse 17).

In the context Paul is talking about tongues, but the principle surely applies to everything we do in our meetings!

2. Paul’s teaching on how to apply this principle

Despite Paul’s clear teaching that prophecy is preferable to tongues (1-5), he by no means discourages the use of tongues in church. He expects speaking in tongues to be a regular part of the worship of the church (26) and it is certainly not to be forbidden (39).

However, the key to its use in church is that it needs to be interpreted so that everyone may be edified. In fact, in verse 28 he tells us that

If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.

This suggests that the personal use of tongues in church is not prohibited, but it must be done quietly as it will edify no one except the speaker (cf. 4). Speaking out loud in tongues, therefore, is to be strongly discouraged unless it is intended that it be interpreted, and that of course will require someone with the gift of interpretation to be present.

This may, of course, be the person who has spoken in tongues, as in verses 12-13 Paul encourages those who speak in tongues to pray for the gift of interpretation:

So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church. 13 For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says.

So, if you want to speak out loud in tongues and don’t have the gift of interpretation, you must first make sure that someone is present who does, and, if you’re not sure, you must speak quietly to yourself and to God (28). There’s just as much blessing in speaking in tongues quietly as in speaking loudly!

However, if an interpreter is present, you may speak out loud in tongues with a view to its being interpreted for the edification of the church. But this is subject to the following conditions:

If anyone speaks in a tongue, two, or at the most three, should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret (27).

So please, if someone speaks out loud in tongues in a meeting, wait until it’s interpreted before you say anything.

D. Summary

Speaking in tongues is the ability to speak a language we have never learned.

It may be expressed in a variety of ways, including, prayer, praise, thanksgiving etc.

When we speak in tongues it’s our spirit that is praying, not our mind.

God gives us this gift to help us edify ourselves – to build ourselves up spiritually.

It is also given so that when it’s interpreted it will edify the church.

It can also be used as a sign to unbelievers when, as at Pentecost, they understand the language that is being spoken.

We should expect this gift to be in operation in our meetings, but it should be used quietly if it is not for interpretation.

It must only be spoken aloud if an interpreter is present, and it must be used only two, or at the most three, times in a meeting.

We will consider this further in the next talk when we examine Paul’s teaching on the gift of interpretation.

For more on this, please see WYCT Ch. 5.

But there’s much more that could be said, and, if you have a copy, you might like to read Chapter Eight of my book Body Builders – Gifts to make God’s people grow.

E. Questions for discussion

1. If you do not yet speak in tongues, bearing in mind its value in prayer, do you feel you would like to? Have you ever prayed for this gift?

2. If you do speak in tongues, how much use do you make of it in your personal prayer life?

3. In church or in your small group, do you always consider the edification of others before you take part?

4. How best could we make use of this wonderful gift (tongues) in our small group meetings?

NT Guidelines for Small Group Meetings       Talk 1 An Overview of 1 Corinthians 12-13

Welcome to our new series. I’m calling it New Testament Guidelines for Small Group Meetings.

We’ll be looking at what the New Testament has to say about what we should expect and how we should behave in our meetings. This includes what we do on Sunday mornings and in our home groups.

 

Our thoughts will centre on what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:26 where he makes the following recommendation:

What then shall we say brothers and sisters? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.

 

The churches in the New Testament would often have gathered in homes and that was almost certainly the case in Corinth. So, Paul’s instructions are particularly relevant to smaller churches or home groups.

 

Small group meetings can take many different forms. Some meetings can be a real blessing and a source of edification to all, but sadly this is not always the case. The apostle Paul had to tell the Corinthians that their meetings were not for the better, but for the worse (1 Corinthians 11:17) because of their inconsiderate behaviour towards one another.

 

And that was when they were celebrating the Lord’s Supper! Some were getting drunk while others were going hungry! And this selfish behaviour was not limited to food and drink. Some of them were ‘hogging it’ when it came to how they expressed themselves in worship – and that, as we will see, was perhaps their major problem.

 

Paul’s teaching in the rest of chapter 11 and in those that follow was an attempt to put things right and to show what Christian gatherings should be like. And that will be the basis for our consideration of how we may make our small group meetings as beneficial as possible. We’ll begin in this talk by giving a brief overview of Paul’s teaching in chapters 12 and 13. This will help us to understand our key verse in the wider context.

 

As many of you will know, I have already written a short book on this subject entitled, When you come together – God’s plans for when his people meet (WYCT). This contains much more than I have time to include in these notes, so please see me if you’d like a copy.

 

Before the meeting it would be really helpful if you read 1 Corinthians, chapters 12-14. And if you have a copy you might like to read WYCT chapters 1-3 if you have time.

 

So, as I was saying, our key verse is 1 Corinthians 14:26 and we need to begin by looking at the context in which it’s set.

 

 

Setting the context – an overview of 1 Corinthians 12 to 14

There were plenty of problems with the church in Corinth. Chapters 1-10 make it clear that there were divisions, they were immature, they tolerated immorality, they were taking each other to court, and some of them lacked a basic understanding of the basic truths of the Christian faith. And on top of all that, their behaviour when they met together was at times appalling! They were thoughtless and inconsiderate.

 

No wonder Paul said that their meetings did more harm than good. We need to remember this as we look at what he says in chapters 12-14. The main problem he is addressing throughout is their thoughtless behaviour and attitude towards each other. It’s clear from chapter 12 that some of them thought that they were superior to the others because of the spiritual gifts they possessed. And this was particularly true of speaking in tongues which was being used excessively in their meetings. So in chapter 12 he begins by giving some basic teaching on spiritual gifts.

 

Teaching on spiritual gifts (12:1-11)

I’m hoping you’ve read these verses before coming to the meeting. What’s clear is that the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit were a regular part of their meetings, but the Corinthians were exercising them in ignorance. Paul had to teach them that:

 

1.     The supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit must be distinguished from demonic manifestations by the acknowledgment that Jesus is Lord (vv1-3)

2.     Though the gifts are different they are all given by the same Spirit (vv4-10)

3.     They are given as the Holy Spirit determines (v11)

 

What can we learn from this?

1.     If you acknowledge Jesus as you Lord and Saviour, you need not fear that you will receive a demonic gift. Our heavenly Father doesn’t give ‘snakes’ to his children (Luke 11:11-13).

2.     In Spiritualism, where counterfeit gifts are given by demons, different gifts are given by different spirits.

3.     Though they’re different, all the gifts are important because it’s the Holy Spirit who gives all of them.

4.     As the Holy Spirit is the giver, He decides who gets what.

 

NOTE: Paul will say much more about spiritual gifts in the next two chapters.

 

Every member of the body is needed (12:12-30)

In this passage we learn that:

 

1.     The church is one body which has many different members (v14)

2.     Every member of the body is important and needed because God has put it there (vv14-27)

3.     There should be no division in the body, but all the members should have equal concern for each part of it (v25)

These are all important principles to bear in mind in our group meetings. There isn’t time to go into them now, but we’ll pick up on some of them when we come to chapter 14.

 

1 Corinthians 13 We’re Nothing without Love

Paul’s teaching on love in this chapter is valuable in every situation, but in its context Paul is still talking about what should go on in our meetings. Chapter 14 is a practical application of what he’s teaching about love here in 13.

 

Let’s divide the chapter into three sections:

 

1.     It’s all meaningless without love (1-3)

2.     The nature of love (4-7)

3.     Recognising our limitations (8-12)

 

It’s all meaningless without love (1-3)

 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

 

What can we learn from these verses?

1.     Nothing is more important than love. Whatever gifts we may have and whatever we may do, if our motive is not love, it counts for nothing. Without love I am nothing (2) and I gain nothing (3).

2.     This principle applies to every function of the body of Christ, not just to the things mentioned in these verses, which are just illustrations of it.

3.     What he’s taught about the body in chapter 12 will only be possible when we love one another. So the things he refers to in verses 1-3 are just illustrations of the great principle of the paramount importance of love.

 

But why does he choose these particular illustrations to make his point?

Because these were the particular problems facing the church in Corinth at the time.

It’s evident from chapter 14 that there were problems in Corinth with their use of gifts like speaking in tongues and prophecy which are the two gifts he mentions first here.

 

So as we later consider Paul’s encouragement in 14:26 for all to participate by bringing a contribution to our meetings, we need to remember that whatever we may bring must be brought in love.

 

 

 

The nature of love (4-8)

 

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 

These verses have a far wider application than our understanding of chapter 14. But in the context, chapter 13 is set right in the middle of Paul’s teaching in chapters 12 and 14. Notice the development of thought in these chapters:

 

12: The importance of the role of every Christian within the church as the body of Christ

13: The importance of LOVE

14: Specific direction on how this should work in our meetings.

 

Maybe we could summarise verses 4-7 as putting other people first.

As we will see when we come to look at chapter 14 in more detail, this is the underlying principle of all he says which is surely the main way in which we express our love for them. Prophecy, for example, is to be desired more than tongues because it edifies others, not just ourselves (14:1-5).

 

Think about how we can apply putting other people first to what we say and do in our meetings.

 

Recognising our limitations (8-12)

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

What can we learn from this?

1.     Although there will ultimately be no need for supernatural gifts, love will remain for ever. It never fails (8). It remains (13).

 

2.     Wonderful though gifts like tongues and prophecy are, their operation is not infallible. We know in part and we prophesy in part. What Paul is encouraging in 14:26 must be understood in this light. God’s gifts are perfect, but we are not. We do not yet see face to face. The gifts come from God, but they come through us, and we are fallible.

 

This must affect our understanding of all that Paul says in chapter 14, not just verse 26. As we eagerly desire spiritual gifts we are to try to excel in our use of them (12). This clearly implies that it’s possible to exercise them without excelling in them.

 

That’s why words of prophecy need to be weighed carefully (29) and why Paul found it necessary to give instruction as to how the gifts should be used. Had the operation of the gifts been infallible, such instruction would have been unnecessary.

 

But that’s something we will consider in more detail later in the series.

 

Next time we’ll start on Chapter 14 and will be looking at The Right Use of Speaking in Tongues.

 

So, that’s it from me for today. Thanks for listening.

 

Now, some questions for discussion. Group leaders, over to you.

 

Questions for discussion

 

1.     How important are the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit in the context of our small group? Do we make room for them? Have we all received the baptism in the Spirit?

 

2.     What practical application does Paul’s teaching that every part of the body is needed and to be valued equally make to what happens in our group and in church?

 

3.     How might Paul’s teaching on love (especially 13:4-7) affect our attitude as individuals in our group meetings and in church?

Hint: Key phrases could be: Love is patient…Love is kind… it is not rude…Love does not boast…It is not proud… It does not envy …Love is not self-seeking… Love rejoices with the truth… It always protects.

 

NT GUIDELINES FOR SMALL GROUP MEETINGS – INTRODUCTION

 

Welcome back to Great Bible Truths with Dr David Petts. If you’ve been a regular listener to my podcasts, you may have been wondering what’s been happening since January, when I finished my series where I was reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life.

 

Well, for first few months of the year I was working on turning the contents of those podcasts into a new book and preparing it for publication. The good news is that it’s now available from my website and I’ve given it the title:

 

All the Days of My Life – a Story of God’s Unfailing Love.

 

I’m already receiving many encouraging reports from those who have read it, and if you’d like a copy, full details are on my website.

 

Since then, I’ve been working on six podcasts for use in our church home-groups and have now decided to make them more widely available as a new series. You may remember a series I did in 2023 under the heading When You Come Together. I later turned that into a book with the same title. The podcasts I have now produced are based on some of the teaching in that book, which is itself based on Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 14 – especially verse 26.

 

This new series of talks is specially designed for use in small groups such as home groups. It contains six talks of less than 20 minutes each. We look particularly at 1 Corinthians 14 to see what God had to say about how Christians back then should ‘do church’, and seeing how this might affect what we do today, particularly in small groups.

 

As usual, the full text of each talk will appear on my website along with the recording. This should be helpful particularly to group leaders, who would also benefit from my book When you Come Together – God’s Plans for when His People Meet  (WYCT), which could be useful background reading, as also could Body Builders – gifts to make God’s people grow (on the subject of spiritual gifts).

 

The first talk in the series will be posted at the same time as this, and the rest will follow shortly. To help you prepare for that, I’m making a few suggestions. But first let me say that it’s not my intention that the notes and podcasts should be slavishly followed. They’re just there to help you and your group to discuss and pray about what God’s word might be saying about what should be happening in your meetings.

 

Things to do ahead of the group meeting – seven suggestions

 

1.     Make space in your diary to prepare for the meeting.

2.     Read the relevant scripture passages. See the list below.  

3.     Listen to the podcast and study the notes.

4.     Encourage group members to listen ahead of time too.

5.     Plan the format of your meeting and ensure that the podcast is played towards the beginning of the meeting to leave time for discussion and prayer afterwards.

6.     Think about the discussion questions I have included at the end of the talk. (N.B. You’ll find these in the notes. They’re NOT in the recording).

Consider if you will have time to discuss all of them. If not, which are the most relevant to your group?

7.     Pray for the leading of the Spirit when the group gathers.

 

Finally, here’s a list of relevant background reading for each talk. You might like to keep a copy of this for future reference. Obviously, the Bible passages are the most important. For your guidance, WYCT contains a bit more than the notes, and Body Builders even more. But how much background reading you do is up to you.

RELEVANT EXTRA READING

 

1 CORINTHIANS                  WYCT             BODY BUILDERS

 

Talk 1             12-13                                     Chs. 1, 3, 4

Talk 2             14                                           Ch. 5               Pages 131-140        

Talk 3             14                                           Ch. 6               Pages 141-151

Talk 4             14                                           Ch. 7               Chapters 3 and 9

Talk 5            12-14                                      Ch. 8              

Talk 6             14                                           Ch. 9              

 

God bless you and grant you much blessing in your group meetings.

My Story  Talk 35 Hope for the Future

Throughout this series I have tried to show how, in the words of another David, God’s goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life (Psalm 23:6). Of course, to give an account of every single day would be completely impossible, not least because my life is not over yet!

So this, the fiinal talk in this series, will not be the end of my story. That’s in the hands of the One who has loved and pardoned me, protected and provided for me, and who will guide my steps until his purpose for my life is finally accomplished. So I’ll conclude my story with:

a reminder of God’s past blessings

a record of my most recent activities, and

my reason for hope for the future.

 

A reminder of God’s past blessings

First, I’m so grateful for Christian parents who prayed for me before I was born, brought me up to believe in Jesus, taught me the way of salvation, encouraged me to believe that God answers prayer and that nothing is impossible with him. They showed me how much they loved me and taught me that God loves me too. So even through the terrible years of World War 2, I always felt loved and protected.

 

I’m thankful, too, for the good teaching I received at Sunday School and Church and that I was educated at a time when the truths of the Christian faith were still widely accepted in our society, so that there was little conflict between what I learnt at school and what I was taught at home and at church. And that, when there was a difference of emphasis, my father was always able to give me an intelligent answer and show me why the Christian message made sense.

 

As I have already mentioned, it was clear from my earliest years that I was academically gifted, and I’m grateful for the good education I received at Brentwood School which led by God’s grace to my gaining admission to Oxford University. A hymn we often used to sing at Elm Pak Baptist was Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee… and I remember feeling strongly about the verse where it says, Take my intellect and use every power as though shalt choose. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to use whatever abilities God has given me to spread the good news about Jesus.

 

But I was soon to learn that intellectual ability is not enough. Our battle is not primarily intellectual but spiritual, and when I first heard about the baptism in the Holy Spirit I was eager to receive. I’m so grateful for Laurie Dixon who shared his testimony with me, for Harold Young who laid hands on me when I first spoke in tongues, and for Pentecostal pastors like Alfred Webb and Richard Bolt who taught me so much about the things of the Spirit.

 

In those early years I was also greatly influenced by the writings of some of the pioneers of the Pentecostal Movement, notably Harold Horton, Donald Gee, and Willie Burton. Much of my thinking on the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit has been founded on their teaching and I thank God for such men of God who were willing to break free from the cessationist traditions of their forebears to pursue the all the fulness of life in the Spirit.

My experience at Oxford is a source of many happy memories. Coming only four weeks after I was baptised in the Spirit, my studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics were, I confess, of relatively little importance to me. I was more interested in telling others about my Christian experience, witnessing about Christ to unbelievers and about the Holy Spirit to those who were already Christians. Of particular importance were the prayer meetings we held which led to the formation of the Students’ Pentecostal Fellowship and which were, by the grace of God, part of the beginnings of the Charismatic Renewal.

 

The years we spent in pastoral work, both at Colchester and Basingstoke led not only to the considerable growth of both those churches with souls being saved, bodies healed, and believers filled with the Holy Spirit, but also to a deeper understanding of the Word, a wider ministry beyond the local church, and a growing recognition within the Pentecostal Movement of the teaching gift the Lord had given me. For this I am truly thankful.

 

Despite the rocky road to Mattersey which I described in an earlier talk, the 27 years we spent there were possibly the most productive period of my life. Life was not without its problems, but I thank God for every minute of it. The privilege of training hundreds of future church leaders and the joy of seeing the fruits of their ministry more than made up for the difficulties we faced.

 

And the founding of EPTA led to an international ministry of Bible College teaching was an unexpected privilege which I could never have dreamed of when I felt God’s call to ministry at the age of sixteen. The opportunity to share with so many students the importance of the baptism in the Spirit and spiritual gifts, illustrated by personal experience that was firmly rooted in biblical truth, and to present a balanced understanding of God’s promises of healing were and still are sources of great joy and personal satisfaction.

 

I’m even grateful today for the difficulties we faced only some of which I have outlined in this book. Of course, at the time we would have preferred not to have them, but as I look back I have no doubt that the Lord had a purpose in it all. That does not mean that I know precisely what that purpose was, but because I believe in an all-powerful God who loves me and gave himself for me, I have learnt that problems produce patience and ultimately deepen our faith. And it is by faith and patience that we inherit his promises.

 

Which brings me to Eileen, my faithful wife, who devoted her life, first to serving Jesus, and then to serving his purpose for me as we journeyed through life together. The concluding words of the tribute to her that I wrote for her farewell service express well how I still feel:

Although I am missing her already, I am full of joy, knowing that she is now where she wanted to be. Until we meet again in Heaven, I will remember her for her love, her faithfulness, her devotion, her patience, her sense of humour, her impact on our children’s lives, her smile, her perseverance in suffering, her courage in face of adversity, and above all, her childlike trust in Jesus and her total commitment to him. I thank God for the precious gift of Eileen and the privilege of being her husband for sixty-two years. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

 

Eileen went to be with the Lord on 28^th February 2024 and, although I still miss her every day, her departure to Heaven has meant that I am now free to resume some of the activities that were curtailed by the severe stroke she had in 2016. Which brings me to a brief statement of my most recent activities taken from my Christmas newsletter 2025.

 

A record of my most recent activities

 

A year ago, I was brought back onto the Leadership Team of our church and have been preaching and leading regularly every month. I have also been able to accept invitations to minister and attend at churches and conferences further afield. Here’s a quick summary:

o   January – 2 days’ teaching at Light and Life conference

o   March – was privileged to pay a tribute at Keith Monument’s funeral in Nottingham

o   June – a weekend preaching at Walthamstow (when I also took the opportunity to visit Eileen’s sister, Joan, and her husband, David)

o   July – participated in the EPTA conference held in Malvern at Regent’s Theological College

o   September – attended the wedding of Jotham (grandson) and Chesca in Brighton

o   October – a weekend’s preaching in Leyland followed by the Ocean Wings Conference in Llandudno where I was one of the speakers

o   November – attended Sarah’s Graduation (MA in Applied Theology with Distinction) at Moorlands College and Christchurch Priory. So proud of all my wonderful children!

o   December – participated in the Charismatic and Pentecostal Leaders’ Gathering in Northamptonshire

As most of these activities involved long journeys, I was grateful for the comfort of my E-Class Mercedes, acquired earlier this year. I’m also grateful for the health and strength God gives me to do all this, although I confess I do get more tired than I used to! However, I do manage to swim 500 metres about twice a week. This has helped me lose a couple of stones in weight.

Finally, I’m still writing and doing regular podcasts. All this year I’ve been writing my memoirs and am almost finished. Let me know if you’d like a copy.

So, have a wonderful Christmas and may the Lord bless you and use you in the coming year.

So thankful for Jesus – for all he has done and continues to do for us.

With much love

David

 

My reason for hope for the future

At the time of recording  this I will be 87 years old in a few days’ time. When she was in her eighties, referring to some of her aches and pains my mother used to say, Oh David, don’t get old, to which I would reply, Why? You don’t want me to die young, do you?! She knew of course that I was joking, and I, of course, fully understand what she was saying. Humanly speaking there isn’t much to look forward to when you’re old. So, what reasons do we have for hope for the future?

 

As I conclude the story of my life so far, let me give you three reasons:

My past experience of God’s goodness

My present observation of what he is doing

My understanding of what the Bible says about our future.

 

I shall say little about the first of these as all that have written so far has been a record of how God’s goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. Now it’s enough to summarise all this by saying that God’s goodness to me in the past informs my belief for the future.

The God who has loved me, saved me, protected me, and provided for me throughout my life will not fail me now.

My second reason for hope is my observation of what God is doing right now. I see this particularly in the lives of my children and grandchildren. Debbie, Sarah, and Jonathan are all faithfully serving the Lord and using the many gifts and talents God has given them. And the same is true of most of my grandchildren, four of whom are either recently, or soon about to be, married to wonderful Christian partners. I see in them the same passion to serve the Lord Jesus as Eileen and I have carried down through the years and know that this will continue when I am gone.

 

But of course, what God is doing is far wider than just our family. There is a fresh expectation in the hearts of God’s people as we see an increasing openness to the gospel among those we meet. The tide is beginning to turn. The apathy and antagonism that have for so long been prevalent in our society are being replaced, particularly among young people, by a genuine interest and desire to know more. Yes, we have every reason to hope.

 

And finally, and most important of all, I have hope because of what the Bible says. One of my favourite verses is Romans 15:13, where Paul says:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Paul’s prayer is that we should overflow with hope. Not just have hope, or even be filled with hope, but overflow. God wants us to have so much hope that it overflows to others!

But how can we overflow with hope? The surrounding verses show us four main things. Two of these are found in verse 4:

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

 

The first secret to having hope is endurance. However difficult our situation we must press on. One thing’s for sure – if we give up, there is no hope. As Pastor Stan Hyde used to encourage us, we must keep on keeping on.

 

But God has not left us to ourselves on this. He enables us to keep on hoping through the encouragement of the Scriptures. This happens in two ways. First, the Bible is full of examples of men and women who, like the heroes mentioned in Hebrews 11, endured despite great difficulty. And secondly, it gives us great promises and assurance of God’s love – see the last few verses of Romans 8 for example.

 

But it’s not just the examples and promises in the Bible that give us hope. As we have already seen, we can overflow with the hope through the power of the Holy Spirit (v 13). A few verses later Paul goes on to connect the power of the Spirit with the power of signs and wonders (v19). Miracles give us hope. Nothing is impossible with God. Whatever our situation, God has the answer, and it may well be miraculous. But the power of the Spirit is not limited to miracles. It’s manifested in fruit as well as gifts (Galatians 5:22-23). Sometimes God does not deliver us from our troubles, he delivers us in them.

He fills us with joy and peace as we trust in him (v13 again). And in doing so he gives us hope.

So the final key to overflowing with hope is trusting in the God of hope. We simply have to trust him. That his promises will be fulfilled. That he will bring us through. That he will perfect that which concerns us. And we can do that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures and having confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

But what are we hoping for? Our ultimate hope is found in verse 12 where Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah:

The Root of Jesse will spring up, One who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him

 

We are waiting for the One who is to rule over the nations! We are waiting for that blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). Why do I have hope? Because Jesus is coming again! Every eye shall see him. Every knee shall bow before him. Every tongue will confess that he is Lord. He is coming to reign. He is coming to judge. He is coming to make all things new. He is coming to take us to be with him forever. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. We will be like him because we shall see him! Glorious hope! All other hopes pale into insignificance.

 

I’m so grateful that God’s goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life and

            I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

Will you?

My Story   Talk 34   Overcoming New Challenges

Welcome to Talk 34 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was mentioning some of the health challenges I faced in India and today I will be describing how these continued for some time once we were back in England. I will also be talking about the serious health challenges Eileen faced during the last ten years of her life. I take no pleasure in recording all this, but an honest account of my life must include the hard times as well as the good, and, of course, the Lord has brought me through.

Challenges following India

Fortunately, there was little in my diary for the first few weeks after our return from India and I soon began to feel better. I thought I was back to normal and in April we set off for two weekends of ministry in Essex. We would stay with Eileen’s sister Joan in Billericay and the first weekend I would preach in Witham and a week later in our old church in Colchester.

On the first Saturday we drove from our home in Paignton straight to Witham, a journey of about 250 miles, and I preached in the afternoon and evening meetings. We then made our way to Billericay, returning to Witham for the Sunday morning service. I had felt fine on the Saturday, but on Sunday I suddenly started to feel unwell again shortly before I was due to preach.

The symptoms were like those I had had in India, and I went outside to get some fresh air. However, I managed to get through the preaching but was grateful to get back to Billericay. The next day Joan arranged an appointment for me with her GP who, hearing that I had been bitten by a mosquito in India and suspecting that I might have malaria, sent me for tests at the hospital in Basildon.

Although these tested negative, I was still worried that there was something seriously wrong with me and just wanted to get back home to Paignton. Apologising profusely, I asked our friends at Colchester to release me from my commitment to preach the following weekend and we drove home later that week, unsure of what the future might hold.

The next two years proved to be extremely difficult. I continued to experience similar problems every time I preached. In May 2010 I drove up to Huddersfield for the AoG conference but was so stressed that I returned home without attending a meeting. I immediately arranged an appointment with my GP, Mark Thompson, a good Christian man, and told him my whole story. He reminded me that as Christians we are not immune to such things and recommended some books that might help explain my condition.

It appears that my experience in India, caused by extreme heat, dehydration, and overwork, triggered a rush of adrenalin which produced the symptoms I was struggling with. I learnt that worrying about the symptoms only made matters worse because that causes a further rush of adrenalin. I was caught in a vicious circle, and the only way out was to embrace the symptoms, tell myself that they would not harm me, and gradually I would get better.

And that’s what happened, although it did take a long time. Following my visit to the doctor I cancelled my two-week trip to teach at the Bible College in Finland in May. We did go to Madeira for a three week holiday in June, but this turned out to be disappointing because of my recurring symptoms. However, in September I did manage to teach for two weeks at Mattersey, preach for a weekend in Pocklington, and assisted by Bob Hyde, teach a course at CTS in Brussels for a week. I was still experiencing the symptoms but managing to cope with them – at least most of the time. But there were still occasions when I felt unable to preach. In October I cancelled a weekend in Poynton and in November I was unable to complete a weekend’s ministry in Aston. I began to wonder if the time had come for me to give up.

But less than two weeks later the Lord suddenly intervened. Eileen and I were in Exeter at a meeting for Assemblies of God ministers and their wives. The guest preacher was John Glass, the General Superintendent of the Elim Churches. He was preaching on Jeremiah 1 when he came to verses 11-12:

The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied. The LORD said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.”

He explained the play on words that we find in these verses – the Hebrew word for almond is very similar to the word for watch. The almond tree is among the first to blossom in spring. It’s something you watch for as a sign that spring has come. Winter will be followed by spring because God watches over his word to see that it is fulfilled.

Now in England most of us don’t see an almond tree too often, so John likened it to crocuses. In his garden they’re the first flowers to bloom in spring. They’re the sign or guarantee that winter won’t be forever. Then John broke away from his notes and said something like this:

There are some of you here who are feeling that your ministry has come to an end. You have been experiencing a bleak winter, but the Lord wants you to know that it will not be forever. You will experience a new springtime.

Eileen and I looked at each other. Was this for us? Surely it must be. But there were a lot of other people in that meeting. Could it be that John’s prophetic word was for them and not for us? We drove home after the meeting hoping, rather than believing, that this really was a word from the Lord for us.

And then, that evening, Jill Cooper, one of our friends from church, arrived on our doorstep and said,

I’ve brought you a little present. To be honest, I had bought it for someone else, but then I felt the Lord tell me to give it to you instead.

 What was the present? A bowl of crocuses! How good God is! He gave us the assurance that I would emerge from this dark period of winter into a new springtime of ministry. We sometimes have to go through a valley of shadow, but he is with us in it all the way.

So in 2011, whenever the symptoms reoccurred, I pressed through them, knowing that this condition wouldn’t last forever. In March I flew to Scotland to speak to the AoG ministers, in May we went back to Finland to teach at Iso Kirja for two weeks, in September I taught for two weeks at Mattersey, and in October I was back at CTS again. None of these occasions was easy. In fact, I often felt really unwell, but everyone always said that, if I hadn’t told them, they would not have known anything was wrong with me!

I’m not quite sure how much longer it took to get back to normal. In fact, I’m not really sure what ‘normal’ is! We all deteriorate physically as we get older and our energy levels are not what they were. When I look back at what I was doing in the years before Mattersey and throughout my time there, I wonder now how I possibly managed it all. What was normal for me then is far beyond my capabilities now, but I have moved into a new springtime in my ministry and people tell me that at 87 I’m not doing badly for my age, for which I am grateful.

Challenges to Eileen’s health

But my health challenges were nothing compared with those faced by Eileen in the last ten years of her life. On Sunday 21st December 2014 quite unexpectedly at about 9am Eileen started to experience severe pain in her stomach as she was getting ready for church. As the pain was unrelenting, causing Eileen to pass out a couple of times, by 3pm I decided I needed to call 999. I accompanied Eileen in the ambulance while Jonathan followed by car. After waiting with her a few hours, Jon and I were advised to go home and await the results of an MRI scan. 

At about 10.30 that evening the surgeon phoned to ask us to go in to discuss options for Eileen. It was clear that the situation was very serious. On arrival at the hospital, we were told that the scan had revealed that the blood supply had been cut off from Eileen’s bowel and that her smaller bowel had died. Without an immediate operation she would die.

There was even the possibility that the condition was already too far advanced for them to be able to save her. Furthermore, even if they were able to save her, there was a strong possibility that she would need to have a permanent colostomy. Eileen agreed with us that we should agree to the operation and trust God for the best possible outcome.

We prayed with her, of course, but as you can imagine, for the next few hours we were on an emotional roller-coaster, experiencing all the ups and downs from fear to faith, but with a determination to trust God, come what may. We simply could not believe that it was God’s time for Eileen to go to Heaven and kept praying that he would spare her.

Imagine our relief when at one o’clock on Monday morning the surgeon phoned to say that she had the best possible news for us. Eileen’s bowel was alive! What had been causing the pain was an internal hernia which they had been able to fix. None of her bowel had needed to be removed and the blood supply had been restored.

 

Now bearing in mind the certainty with which the surgeon told us that Eileen’s bowel had died we were convinced that this was not just a case of faulty diagnosis, but that God had worked an amazing miracle in restoring Eileen’s bowel to life. God had allowed man to do what he could but intervened to do what man could not do – restore a dead bowel to life!

We were so grateful for the prayers of the many people who interceded for Eileen throughout this difficult time and to God for his miraculous intervention. I never cease to be amazed at his wonderful grace and goodness to us. But the operation had been very invasive and left Eileen severely weakened for months. And she never fully regained the strength and energy she had lost, but that, of course, may have been partly caused by the fact that she was not getting any younger.

And neither was I! In April 2015 we had a few days’ break in the Lake District and neither of us felt like walking very far. It was much the same in September when we went to the Isle of Wight, but on both these holidays we contented ourselves with driving around in the car, visiting old haunts, marvelling at the beauty of God’s creation, and, of course, enjoying the food.

We planned two short holidays for 2016, the first in Longtown, a village in Herefordshire close to the Welsh border in May. After preaching in Rugby on the Sunday morning, we drove there in the afternoon and spent a few delightful days in a charming cottage on the banks of the River Monnow, returning to Brixham the following weekend. The second holiday, planned for a week in September at the southern end of Coniston Water, never happened.

In June I flew to Ireland to preach for a weekend in Sligo where Daniel Caldwell, one of our former students, was leading a church. On Sunday morning I preached on Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8 and I remember saying that sometimes unexpected problems suddenly arise in our lives, but Jesus is well able to see us through them and get us to the other side. Who knows what might happen this week? But whatever happens Jesus is with us. And I flew home that afternoon.

I have preached that message many times, but little did I know what was to happen just two days later. On Tuesday evening, sitting in her armchair Eileen had a severe stroke and was rushed into Torbay Hospital. From head to toe she had no feeling down the right side of her body. The next Sunday, still in hospital, she suffered another stroke and we were told that the outlook was extremely bleak. She was rushed to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth and underwent surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Her life had been saved.

After eleven days she was transferred back to Torbay where she remained for eight days until a bed was available at Newton Abbot where she began a course of rehab. Throughout this time we were all looking to the Lord for a complete healing, whether instantaneous or gradual, but her progress was extremely slow, and it was becoming increasingly clear that she needed a miracle if she would ever walk again.

And although the healing miracle we were praying for never happened, we could see the hand of the Lord at work in other ways. Firstly, on July 28^th when we were sitting in the hospital day room and eating cake to celebrate our wedding anniversary, the Torbay doctor who had told us that the outlook was extremely bleak approached us and said, I’m looking for Eileen Petts. And when he saw her he said, I can’t believe it. Which was something he repeated more than once during the fifteen minutes he was with us. He clearly had not expected Eileen to survive, and this encouraged our faith that God was at work in the situation.

On 10^th August, after eight weeks in three different hospitals, Eileen finally came home. And that, in itself, was a miracle. We had been told just a few days earlier that Eileen would have to be discharged as her bed was needed for someone else. To continue her rehab she could either go into a care home if we could find one that would take her, or the NHS would provide rehab workers to come to our home, but we would need to find a home care company to take care of Eileen’s other needs. The problem was that at the time there were over 70 people in Torbay on a waiting list! I needed an answer – quick!

And just in time the answer came. Just a day before Eileen had to be discharged, Trude Hyde came to me and said that she and her twin sister Sylvia would take care of Eileen if we would like them to. How wonderful! I didn’t need to ask Eileen because I knew she would love it, but for the sake of all concerned, I felt I needed to ask the Lord for his guidance. And I did foresee one possible problem. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to choose Eileen’s carers or if they would require certain recognised medical qualifications.

I needed an immediate answer to that question, and I didn’t know where to find it. I was just going off to visit Eileen, and I didn’t want to mention the twins’ kind offer until I knew the answer in case it led to her being disappointed. And then I remembered that Katie, the daughter of our next-door neighbour, Sue, was the lead carer for the whole of Torbay. She would certainly know the answer. I was just about to go and knock on Sue’s door when I changed my mind and said,

Lord, if this is of you, before I get into the car, please let Sue come out without me knocking on her door.

And that’s what happened. No sooner had I prayed that prayer than Sue came out of her house. In less than five minutes Katie was on the phone and told me that I could choose whom I liked. Eileen was overjoyed, and Trude and Sylvia took care of her visiting our home four times a day for the next four years until we moved to a bungalow on the other side of town, when workers from Abide Care, Brixham, took over. 

Eileen finally went to be with the Lord in February 2024 almost eight years after that awful stroke. She was always grateful that her condition was not physically painful, but frustrated at her inability to walk and do all those things we normally take for granted. And we both naturally wondered why the Lord had allowed this to happen. One Bible passage that Eileen found particularly helpful was 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 where Paul says:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

And the comfort and strength our Father gave to Eileen certainly did overflow to others, not least as a testimony to the dozens of carers from Abide who came into our home over the final four years of her life. Throughout this whole very difficult period both Eileen and I had been sustained by our Christian faith and by a particular word received from the Lord through Barrie Taylor, our daughter Sarah’s father-in-law.

Barrie and Sandra live some distance away and we normally only saw them once or twice a year. On one such occasion when Eileen seemed to be making little progress after her stroke we were all having a meal together at Berry Head Hotel, when Barrie said the Lord had given him a word for us:

My Father is at work in your lives and situation which He is using as a platform to display his sustaining grace.

God sometimes uses amazing miracles of healing to display his power and love, but it is often the sustaining grace that he gives his people in times of suffering that brings others to faith. Through Eileen’s suffering the lives of many were touched, people who might never have otherwise heard the good news about Jesus. And since she died there have been many opportunities to share the gospel. The funeral staff at the crematorium were visibly moved and said they had never experienced a service like it and neighbours said the same thing about the church service that followed it.

As Christians we know where we are going, and the knowledge that our loved ones are with the Lord is a source of great comfort and even joy. Although I still miss her every day, I sometimes weep for joy at the thought of how happy Eileen must now be in Heaven! And one day we shall meet again! But until then there is still work for me to do down here. But that’s the subject of our final talk.

My Story   Talk 33  Life after Mattersey (3)

India

Our last trip beyond Europe during the years following our departure from Mattersey was to India in 2010. Like my first trip to Ethiopia in 2005, this came about through Arto Hamalainen, the Overseas Missions Director for the Pentecostal churches in Finland. One of their missionaries had asked him to recommend someone who would come and teach about the Holy Spirit and Arto suggested me. The Finns said that they would cover my airfare and, as Eileen had never visited India, I was happy to pay for her.

Our destination was Machilipatnam on the eastern coast of India, stopping briefly to minister at Mumbai before flying home. However, as several of our former Mattersey students were from India, we decided that we’d like to visit them as well, if at all possible. So I contacted Lawrence Arumanayagam in Coimbatore and Victor Palla in Palakonda and they were keen to have us come.

So an itinerary was arranged for us to arrive at each place on a Monday and then stay for six days before moving on the following Sunday evening or Monday. I made it clear that it was important for me to abide by the Sabbath principle of resting one day in seven. Apart from that, they could arrange as much ministry as they liked during our stay with them.

However, it turned out that they were all so keen to make the most of our visit that they organised ministry for all six days and counted on us travelling on to the next place on the day we were supposed to be resting! So the itinerary turned out as follows:

Friday 19^th February – travel to London Heathrow

Saturday 20^th – depart Heathrow

Sunday 21^st – arrive Mumbai at 1a.m. (local time) – attend church in Mumbai and preach in the evening

Monday 22^nd – fly to Machilipatnam

Tuesday to Sunday – ministry in Machilipatnam

Sunday 28^th – evening, fly to Hyderabad (staying overnight at the airport)

Monday March 1^st – travel  on to Palakonda

Tuesday to Sunday – ministry in Palakonda

Monday 8^th – travel to Coimbatore via Chennai and Bangalore

Tuesday to Sunday – ministry in Coimbatore

Monday 15^th – travel on to Mumbai

Tuesday-Wednesday – ministry in Mumbai

Thursday 18^th March – fly home.

I have taken space to include this itinerary to show how busy our schedule was and to indicate what was probably the reason for the health challenges I subsequently faced and which I will describe later. But first let me briefly mention some of the highlights of the trip.

Machilipatnam

Although we were already tired from our long journey to Mumbai we needed to be up by 4.50 on Monday morning to catch the 6.50 flight to Bangalore where we changed planes and flew on to Vijayawada where we were met by Pauli, our Finnish host. We were so grateful for the comfortable taxi he had hired to take us on to Machilipatnam.

Pauli and his wife accommodated us throughout our stay in a comfortable room in their home and fed us well. From Tuesday to Friday I was teaching every morning and afternoon and developed a sore throat, partly due, I suspect, to the dry heat. However, on the Saturday there was no meeting until the evening, and we were taken to visit some of the local villages and a vast beach where people were in the sea dressed in their everyday clothes. This was a very poor area which had been badly affected by the Tsunami a few years earlier. We were also interested to visit the Hyny Bible College, named after the first missionary from Finland, ‘Mother’ Hyny.

Once again I am grateful to Eileen’s journal which brings back happy memories of the Sunday morning meeting:

For the first half of church children from orphanages sit on the floor. They come for Sunday School and then stay for the meeting. They are so still and well behaved. They have Bibles and some take notes. They gave us garlands again…

After a quick lunch we were back in a taxi again speeding our way to Vijayawada airport. Our stay had been brief and very busy, but despite our tiredness we were grateful for the opportunity the Lord had given us to visit these wonderful people and to share his word with them.

Palakonda

Palakonda is also on the east coast of India, but further north. The quickest way to get there was to fly inland to Hyderabad in central India and then northeast to Visakhapatnam. This would require an overnight stop at Hyderabad airport where fortunately a comfortable bedroom was available at a very reasonable price.

At Visakhapatnam we were greeted by Victor Palla and one of his associate pastors. Victor was one of our former students having taken both our undergraduate and MA courses. He knew Bob Hyde well as they had both been at Mattersey together and our church in Brixham was supporting Victor and the thirty churches he had planted in the Palakonda area after leaving college.

The taxi journey on to Palakonda took a further three hours and we were grateful for the large ensuite airconditioned bedroom Victor and Lydia provided for us throughout our stay. The hospitality was lavish and the food both plentiful and excellent. It’s so difficult not to eat too much when people are so generous.

There was only one problem. Palakonda is famous for its malaria carrying mosquitos and both of us were bitten while we were there despite Victor’s efforts to zap the invaders with an amazing racquet powered by batteries that electrocuted them. However, thanks to prayer and the antimalarial tablets we were taking, neither of us contracted the dreaded disease.

During the course of the week we ministered in numerous meetings in Palakonda and the surrounding villages. In one of them we were told how the church had started with a family becoming Christians. The rest of the villagers worshipped a tree. The Christian family wanted to cut it down but were afraid of the people. Then Christians from another village came and after praying cut the tree down. The villagers expected something bad to happen to these Christians, but when nothing of the kind happened, they all became Christians.

But the highlight of our visit was undoubtedly the day we left at 10am for a meeting with ten churches in the beautiful hills surrounding Palakonda. We travelled by Jeep on extremely bumpy roads at an average speed of 10mph passing through villages that hadn’t changed for centuries. We finally arrived at a village where a large banner with our names on it welcomed us.

Leaving the Jeep there we were led up a rocky, dusty path to the church where some 400 people were sitting outside it on the ground under a leafy shelter. We sat on chairs with our backs to the church building and the girls came and washed Eileen’s feet and we were both given beautiful garlands to wear. The meeting started with lots of singing followed by prayer, after which I preached. This was followed by a meal where the people sat in rows on the ground and were served with a rice dish on disposable plates made from sown leaves. In her journal Eileen commented:

            The whole time was special. Amazing atmosphere.

And the same day, after returning to Palakonda for a short rest, we were driven to a village after dark where 200 had gathered for another meeting where, after a firework display, I was asked to preach again. We returned to Palakonda extremely tired, but very happy. It was very much the same the entire week and by the time we moved on to Coimbatore I was beginning to feel the need of a good rest.

But what a privilege it had been to have fellowship with Victor and Lydia and to share the word of God with so many wonderful people in the Palakonda area whose way of life is very different from ours but with whom we have so much in common.

Coimbatore

After a busy week in Palakonda, the following Monday we flew on to Coimbatore via Chennai (formerly Madras) to be greeted by Lawrence and Getzi Arumanayagam and were made very welcome in their lovely modern apartment. On the Tuesday we were straight into teaching sessions both morning and afternoon in their beautiful church. I was pleased to see that the congregation was much larger than it had been when I had visited them in 1986.

The teaching sessions continued on the Wednesday. They started well until something happened that I had never experienced before. In the middle of preaching I suddenly began to feel unwell. Eileen, who was sitting on the front row, said afterwards that she thought I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack. I asked if I could sit down for a moment and the people, suspecting that I was suffering from dehydration, kindly brought me some fluids and chocolate.

After a few minutes I was feeling a bit better and was able to resume preaching although I remained seated to do so. Looking back on it, I’m sure that it was because of overwork and the extreme heat. I hadn’t had a rest day since we left England and India was even hotter than usual that year. But the experience had seriously affected my confidence.

The next day, realising that I needed a rest, Lawrence and Getzi decided to take us for an overnight stay in Ooty where the temperature is a few degrees lower because of its altitude. Eileen said it felt almost cold at times, but I was so grateful for it. We had a delightful two days there and I began to feel better.

We took the opportunity to visit the Livsey Children’s Home built in memory of Helga Mosey.  Helga had come to our youth camp in the New Forest back in the seventies and was one of the passengers on Pan Am flight 103 destroyed by a bomb while flying over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Her parents John and Lisa were well known to us, and the home had been built from part of the proceeds of the compensation they had received.

The trip to Ooty did us good and I thought that I had got over whatever it was that had caused the problem on Wednesday. However, on Saturday morning I was feeling so unwell that I was unable to attend a graduation service where I was expected to preach. Instead, Lawrence phoned a Christian doctor at the hospital who arranged an immediate appointment for me. They took my blood pressure and gave me an ECG and some tablets for vertigo, but could find nothing wrong with me.

Encouraged by the news, on Sunday I was feeling somewhat better and managed to preach three times, at 6.30am in Zion Church where Lawrence’s father was the pastor, at 9.30am in Bethel City Cathedral led by Pastor David Prakasam, another of our former students, and again in the afternoon at the students’ graduation where Eileen and I presented their certificates.

Mumbai

On Monday we flew back to Mumbai where the temperature was five degrees hotter than usual. Our hosts were Yukka and Lily, Finnish missionaries who, hearing that I was to visit India, had asked if we could fit in a couple of days of seminars before we returned to England. We were accommodated in a comfortable hotel room, but once again I began to feel unwell and ate very little breakfast. I was beginning to feel I just wanted to get home to England, but the flight wasn’t until Thursday.

However, when Biju Thampi, another of our former Mattersey students, called me and asked if he and his wife, Secu, could take us to lunch, we were keen to see him and we agreed to go. They arrived at 12 and before lunch took us to see a little of what they were doing for some of the many homeless children of the area. There were dozens of children on a piece of wasteland in the shadow of a viaduct where people regularly dumped their rubbish.

Biju’s ministry involved sending buses to these children where they provide them with a meal and give them a basic education. He told us moving stories of how they had been able to help these children and of miracles that had happened among them, and we decided to hand over all our remaining rupees to him as a small contribution to this vital work.

By contrast, immediately afterwards they took us to a high-class hotel not far from the rubbish dump where we were treated to a delightful lunch. After what we had seen we almost felt guilty eating it. Our time with Biju and Secu had been all too brief, but as I was scheduled to teach in the afternoon, we had to say goodbye.

Yukka had hired the Catholic Centre and arranged seminars for us from  3.30 to 5.00, and 5.30-7.00 that day with two further sessions scheduled for the Wednesday starting at 9.30. People had travelled great distances to be there to hear me talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately it was extremely hot and there was no air conditioning in the building and I soon began to feel unwell again.

Realising I had a problem, during the break Yukka arranged for me to sit in his car with its air conditioner on and I was able to continue teaching for the first part of the next session. But sadly I had to finish 30 minutes earlier than planned and they rushed me back to the hotel and sent for a doctor who told me that there was nothing seriously wrong with me and that it was all probably due to the heat.

Although that was reassuringly good to hear, it did not, of course, solve the immediate problem. The first session was at 9.30 and the temperature was no cooler and I was unable to complete the seminars. I apologised profusely and the people were very understanding despite their disappointment. They promised that if we ever came again they would be sure to hire an air-conditioned building.

The next day we flew back to England, disappointed that a wonderful trip had finished as it had but intensely relieved to be going home where, hopefully, I would soon be back to normal. But I was soon to discover that my recovery would take far longer than expected. There would be new challenges to face for both of us. But that will be the subject of our next talk.

My Story   Talk 32   Life after Mattersey (2)

Welcome to Talk 32 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was telling you how the Lord opened up a wider ministry for me after we left Mattersey and we concentrated on Countries in Europe. Today it will be Africa and Reunion Island.

 

African Countries

I have already mentioned my first trip to Africa which was to Burkina Faso in the year 2000 while we were still at Mattersey. The next trip was to South Africa in 2004, just after leaving Mattersey, which I have also mentioned already. The African countries I visited after Mattersey were Ethiopia (five times between 05 and 09), and Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa again, making a total of ten trips overall, half of which were to Ethiopia..

 

I visited Ghana in 2007 at the invitation of Paul Frimpong Manso, then the Superintendent of the Ashanti Region and later to become the General Superintendent of Assemblies of God in Ghana. Paul had been a student at Mattersey in the nineties, being one of the first to earn our newly validated BA degree and had later returned to take our MA too.

 

The purpose of my visit was primarily to speak at their pastors’ conference and preach at their ordination service for new ministers. I was treated like royalty despite the fact that they were all smartly dressed in suits and ties – and some even with clerical collars – while I wore a short sleeved open-necked shirt, a special concession granted to me as someone unaccustomed to the temperature which, although it was only January, was far too high for my liking – a problem I was to face later in India in 2010.

 

It was a privilege to see the great work that Paul was doing and to know that he valued highly the teaching he had received at Mattersey. One of the things he had said to his fellow-students about my teaching on the Holy Spirit was that in Ghana they not only believed the things I taught but that they also put them into practice! Miracles seem to happen more often in Africa than they do in Europe, but often there is a lack of sound biblical teaching to go with them. The truth is, we need both. And a major part of my ministry has been to emphasise this.

 

My visit to Nigeria in 08 was unique in that the invitation did not come from any of the usual sources. Barrie Taylor is my daughter Sarah’s father-in-law and has exercised an ongoing ministry for many years visiting Nigeria and by regular visits has developed a strong relationship with some of the churches there. As a result they respectfully refer to him as Uncle Barrie.

 

 

 

Barrie invited me to accompany him on one of these trips and I was delighted to do so. We flew to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, and were met by pastors John Sarota and Vitalis Yahemba, the CEO of Truth and Life Ministry. We travelled by car to Kaduna a journey of some 200 kilometres to the north of Abuja and stayed at the Catholic Social Centre sleeping in relatively comfortable rooms.

 

But I confess I was disturbed at times by the high-pitched buzz an occasional mosquito flapping its wings at 250 times a second and by the fear that one might find its way under the mosquito net. Another disturbance early each morning was the sound of the muezzin calling from the minaret of a local mosque reminding faithful Muslims to pray. Kaduna lies very close to the northern area of Nigeria which is predominantly Muslim and where so many Christians have lost their lives for their faith.

 

Despite the ever-present Muslim threat, Christians from the area gathered in large numbers, evidenced by the fact that while we were there the total attendance was around 2,500, meetings being held at Talmo College in a hall holding about 800 and the messages relayed to four marquees and translated into four different tribal languages. We both felt that the trip had been well worthwhile and I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to get to know Barrie better and to discover how much we both had in common.

 

I went to South Africa again in November 2009 at the request of Paul Alexander to teach at the Africa School of Missions which he had founded some time previously. I enjoyed teaching the small class of students and the fellowship at mealtimes with staff members too. However, there were long periods each day when I had little to do and, apart from a quick visit to the Kruger National Park, which I had visited with Eileen in 04, I needed to find something to do to occupy my time. So I decided the start writing a new book.

 

For some time I had been feeling that I should write something that would be useful as a tool in evangelism, and this was confirmed by something Brian Niblock said to me when he was preaching in our church in Brixham. And that’s how I came to write my little book, Signs from Heaven – why I believe. To my surprise, the whole thing was finished by the time I left South Africa.

 

But perhaps the most significant moment about the whole trip was what happened on the flight home. I checked in online at the earliest possible moment and was able to get a seat at the front of economy where there was the most legroom. But after boarding the plane I was soon asked by a flight attendant if I would vacate my seat as someone had been taken ill and needed easy access to a seat on that row. So I ended up sitting in a different seat, but on the same row and, as it turned out, right next to the man who was unwell.

 

He was accompanied by his wife who explained to me that only a few days earlier they had flown to South Africa for a holiday but on arrival her husband had been rushed to hospital. His condition, the details of which I forget, was quite rare, totally unexpected, potentially fatal, and required specialist treatment. They were returning to England in a state of shock and understandably very worried.

 

They asked me what I had been doing in South Africa, and I said that among other things I had been writing a book about miracles. I said something like,

 

It sounds like you need a miracle right now.

 

It turned out that they were Catholics and, though they hadn’t been to church for a long time, certainly did believe in miracles. I shared the gospel with them, prayed for them, gave them a copy of my book on healing, and posted them Signs from Heaven as soon as it was published. Years later she told me that her husband, who had made an unexpectedly quick recovery, had now died, but that that encounter on the plane had restored their faith in the Lord Jesus.

 

My first trip to Ethiopia was in January 2005 at the invitation of Heikki Pentinnen, a Finnish missionary who was organising an international charismatic conference in Addis Ababa and looking for a main speaker to take several sessions on the gifts of the Spirit. He had heard about me from Arto Hamalainan who knew me well through our work on the PEF presidium. Hundreds of leaders, including those from Orthodox and Coptic churches, gathered from across Ethiopia for this unique occasion and I was thrilled to see their desire to get a biblical grasp on the work of the Spirit.

 

I made annual visits for the next four years (2006-09) teaching for one or two weeks in a Bible College in Addis at the invitation of Canadian missionaries Jeremy and Teresa Feller with whom I usually stayed. Jeremy and Teresa’s parents, Brian and Valerie Rutten, had all come to Mattersey to take our MA in Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies and were keen to have me come and teach in the college where they were serving with PAOC (Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada).

 

On at least two of these occasions, I was accompanied by Eileen who loved the country and its wonderful people. Apart from the teaching in the college we were taken on lengthy trips to parts of the country which were far hotter than Addis where the climate is more acceptable because of its high altitude. One such trip in February 07 was to Awassa some 290 kilometres to the south. Eileen’s journal captures the memory very well:

Lush vegetation, bananas, sugar cane. Beautiful. Lakes, mountains, animals, people, donkey carts. Small groups of huts. Camels, ostrich, hyena. A dead animal being eaten by a vulture and a dog watching and waiting, Young children herding animals, carrying heavy loads, water, bundles of leaves, sticks.

 

The Pentecostal Church in Awassa where I preached on the Sunday was one of the largest in Ethiopia. 2000 people gather at 6.00 every morning to pray. There were 6000 in the 9am service. They have six branch churches with a total membership of 12,000. God is doing amazing things in Ethiopia and I’m so grateful to have had the privilege of teaching and preaching there over those few years.

 

And I’m grateful, too, that we were able to fund the translation into Amharic of Body Builders, my book on spiritual gifts. Despite the massive growth of the church, Ethiopian church leaders recognise their need of sound biblical teaching and if I have made at least a small contribution to that, the Lord be praised.

 

Ile de la Réunion (Reunion Island)

Located in the Indian Ocean between Africa and India, the Ile de la Réunion is an overseas French territory. I have already mentioned in an earlier chapter how in 2004 I was the main speaker at the French National Pastors’ Conference in Bordeaux. It was there that I met David Cizéron who told me about his father’s work in Réunion and gave me a book about him. Aimé Cizeron was now with the Lord, but I was fascinated with the account of his apostolic ministry as a result of which some 40 churches had been planted all over the island.

 

So I was pleasantly surprised a year later to receive an invitation to be a guest speaker at the 40^th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of ADD in Réunion in 2006. They were happy to pay the airfares for both Eileen and me and, as I learnt later, as a tropical island Réunion is a much sought after holiday destination particularly for the French. But we had accepted the invitation well before we knew all this because I was determined to visit the place where 5000 people were gathering within four weeks of the start of Cizéron’s ministry as a result of the miracles of healing that were taking place.

 

So in April 06 we flew to Réunion via Paris, landing at the Roland Garros airport to be greeted by a TV crew asking how we were expecting the eight days of meeting to go. I was very tired after what had been an extremely long journey, made worse by an eleven hour delay in Paris, and simply replied, I believe the Lord will bless us greatly, which he certainly did.

 

But that did not mean that everything would go smoothly. The very next day, our hosts, Patrick and Joanna, were showing us round a market in Saint Denis when they met a friend and introduced us to her. She then said something very strange: You are not afraid of the Chikungunya? Now there were some live chickens for sale in the market and, not knowing what Chikungunya was, I thought it must be something to do with chickens.

 

 

 

But no. Chikungunya is a highly infectious disease borne by mosquitoes and potentially fatal! The entire island was affected by it and we had not noticed the warnings about it when we arrived at the airport. We found out later that Tom Trask, American AoG General Superintendent and guest speaker at the conference, had been warned about it in advance, but somehow no one had thought to tell us.

 

But despite all that, we had a great eight days of meetings and the Lord not only preserved us from the chikungunya but greatly blessed all the meetings and ministry. So much so that we were invited back the following year for a longer visit where I conducted seminars for the pastors on spiritual gifts, preached in two evangelistic meetings, and took a series of Bible studies from Monday to Friday in the church in Saint Denis.

 

The people were really hungry for the Word of God. In each evangelistic meeting over 200 people came forward in response to the gospel appeal, and there were over 700 each night for each of the Bible studies. My subject, as usual, was spiritual gifts, but I shall never forget the remarkable way some one came to Christ at the close of one of those meetings. But first I need to tell you about Véronique.

 

Véronique was a kind lady who took us to explore various parts of the island during the daytime when there were no meetings until the evening. Réunion is a volcanic island and one such trip involved driving to the top of the volcano and then walking down into its crater. This was apparently quite safe even though the volcano erupted quite frequently and the steam was still rising from the lava months after the last eruption.

 

One of the days we were there was a public holiday and Véronique had taken her children to the beach. While she was there she told a friend about the meetings and persuaded her to come. She came to the meeting and was so overwhelmed by the worship that she felt she had to leave. But when she was about ten minutes away from the church she suddenly heard the music from the church coming through her mobile phone. No one had called her and, unable to think of any natural explanation, she felt compelled to return to the meeting. She sat through it in tears and at the end, although I had not made a gospel appeal, came forward and asked how she could be saved. It was such a joy to be able to lead her to the Lord and to learn later that she was regularly attending her local ADD church.

 

So the Lord was using us and blessing us in so many different ways and I look back on those years with great gratitude to God. Next time I’ll be talking about our trip to India in 2010 when I began to experience very real health challenges for the first time in my life.

My Story   Talk 31   Life after Mattersey (1)

Welcome to Talk 31 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. In this talk I shall begin to talk about our life and ministry after we left Mattersey. I’ll explain why I decided to retire from Mattersey when I did and why we moved to Devon. I’ll describe my continuing involvement with Mattersey for a further 12 years and conclude by outlining our wider ministry in Europe.

 

Why I decided to retire when I did

In 2004 both Eileen and I had reached the age of 65. As was customary for women at that time, Eileen had retired as Matron of the College five years previously and I had told the Lord that, unless he clearly showed me that I was to stay on, I would retire as Principal when I was 65. First and foremost, we both wanted only to do what the Lord wanted and as we prayed about it became convinced that the time was right for our departure.

 

Our decision was based on several facts. The Lord had not given us any indication that I should stay on, and he had clearly shown me that the man who would be appointed as my successor would be the man of his choosing. And, as I mentioned in an earlier talk, I had already discussed the matter with other leaders who had agreed with me that the timing was right.

 

It was not as if my relationship with Mattersey was at an end. I was not retiring from Mattersey. I was retiring as its Principal.  Increasing requests for my ministry overseas had meant that a decision had to be made. I could not do justice to my role as Principal and accept so many invitations to minister elsewhere. But that did not mean that I could not continue to teach in the College as a visiting lecturer, and, at the kind invitation of successive principals, I continued to do so for another 12 years.

 

Why we moved to Devon

Of course we had always known that we would have to move because the house we were living in belonged to the College and would be needed by my successor. And we knew that we would have to move immediately. That’s why we were considering our options two or three years beforehand.

 

Colin Whittaker had written to me encouraging me to move right away from Mattersey and Eileen and I both felt that this would be wise. For one thing, the new principal would almost certainly want to make some changes and it would be easier both for him and us if we were not living close by and being asked by our friends in the local church if we approved! Apart from that, our first consideration, wherever we moved, was to be sure that there was a good local AoG church within easy reach where we could become members. Of course, there were plenty of places like that all over the country, so why did we choose Devon? One option might be to move near to one of our children, but as they were all serving the Lord in different parts of the country and might move on at any time, that might not be the wisest course of action.

 

So we felt it would be better both for them and for us if we were to move to a part of the country where the grandchildren would enjoy coming for their holidays. And we could think of no better place than Devon. I had been there on holiday as a teenager, and it was there that I had felt God calling me to the ministry. We knew that there were three AoG churches in Torbay, one in Torquay, one in Paignton, and one in Brixham, where Bob Hyde, one of our former students, was the full-time pastor and leader of the ministry team.  Bob had invited me down to minister on at least two occasions and we were very happy with the way the church was structured and with the spiritual atmosphere in the meetings.

 

Neither of the other churches had invited us to minister and so we knew very little about them, so we started to seriously consider fellowshipping with the Brixham assembly if we were able to afford to move into the Torbay area. I phoned Bob and asked if he would be happy about this, explaining that I was not looking for any position in the church and that my ministry would be further afield.

 

For two or three years we had been looking at property prices in the area and, as it was not convenient to make regular 600 mile round trips to view properties as they came on the market, decided on a new property that was to be built in Paignton. We were able to view one just like it and choose a plot where another was to be built – a four-bedroom house with spectacular views over open countryside and the sea, the nearest beach being only a ten-minute drive away.

 

We decided very quickly that this would be the house for us and, because of God’s wonderful provision, were able to buy it in 2003 and move in immediately after we retired from Mattersey in July 2004. We spent ten very happy years there until we felt the Lord prompting us to move into Brixham to be nearer to the church in 2013, more of which later. Meanwhile I continued to teach at Mattersey and expand our travelling ministry overseas.

 

Continuing Ministry at Mattersey

It was always a great joy to revisit Mattersey each year to teach various M.Th. courses, specialising on The Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Divine Healing. Each time we stayed with our friends, William and Anthea Kay who were still living close to Mattersey and enjoyed renewed fellowship with them.

 

It was on one such occasion, in September 2005, that Eileen was involved in a serious accident. I was teaching a combined class of students in the College chapel when I was surprised to see Dr Dave Allen come in at the back. He walked quietly forward and approached me on the platform. Then he whispered to me,

 

You need to go. Eileen is all right, but she’s been involved in an accident. I’ll take over here. They’ll tell you more in the office.

 

The accident had happened less than a mile outside Mattersey on the Retford Road. Someone, I don’t remember who, drove me there immediately and the first thing I saw was a fire engine and an ambulance. I was so glad that Dave Allen had already told me that Eileen was all right, or I would almost certainly have feared the worst. I later discovered a voice-mail message on my phone, which had been switched onto silent while I was lecturing. It was Eileen saying,

 

David, I’ve been in an accident. You need to come. I can’t breathe…

 

… and her voice petered out. I’m so grateful that I didn’t receive that message until after I knew she was all right. It was the airbag that had saved her, but the pressure of it was causing the difficulty in her breathing.

 

The accident was not Eileen’s fault. She was driving into Retford to do some shopping when another car coming in the opposite direction overtook a cyclist on a blind bend and crashed head-on into Eileen. As both cars were probably travelling at 50 m.p.h., the full force of the impact would have been about 100 m.p.h. Both cars were a write-off and the other driver was told that she would probably never walk again as a result of the injuries she suffered. Eileen escaped with two cracked ribs from which she recovered relatively quickly.

 

Our insurance company provided a courtesy car for us and a few days later we drove home to Devon after I had finished the series of lectures I had been giving. Fortunately, we had enough money to buy a replacement vehicle without waiting for the insurance settlement to come through, as less than a week later I was committed to teach an MA course at the Continental Theological Seminary in Brussels. We were both so grateful for the loving care of Trude and Sylve, twin sisters from our church in Brixham who looked after Eileen during my absence. I have always been amazed at Eileen’s patience and fortitude in situations like this and the courage she displayed in face of adversity. I have already mentioned this when speaking about the accident which prevented her from travelling with me to Burkina Faso. But these qualities became even more evident in later life about which I will say more in a later talk.

 

 A Wider Ministry

Apart from my continuing input at Mattersey in the years that followed our departure to Devon in 2004, much of my ministry involved teaching in Bible Colleges and speaking at National Conferences overseas. Invitations came from former students and because of contacts through EPTA, PEF, and the PWF. Eileen was usually able to accompany me and between 2005 and 2012 I ministered in churches, colleges and conferences in Belgium, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Ireland, Luxembourg, Madeira, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Réunion, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, and Ukraine. In this talk we’ll just be referring to countries in Europe.

 

Some of these places I visited only once, while others, like Finland and Belgium, were countries where I taught in their Bible colleges annually. The subject was almost invariably connected with the work of the Holy Spirit – his person and work, the baptism in the Spirit, spiritual gifts, and healing. Of particular importance was the time I spent with pastors and national leaders sharing with them on how to encourage spiritual gifts in the local church.

 

Places I visited only once during these years were Sweden (05), Ukraine (06), Poland (07), and Slovakia (08). Eileen accompanied me on the trips to Sweden, for a week’s teaching in Kristinehamn, and Slovakia, for an EPTA conference in the vicinity of Bratislava. I travelled unaccompanied to Poland to teach for a week in the Warsaw Theological Seminary and preach in the local Pentecostal church.

 

But when I visited Ukraine I was part of a three-man team from our church in Brixham.  As it was my first (and only) visit, Bob Hyde and Mark Goodyear, both of whom had been before, let me do most of the teaching. In all the churches we visited the subject they asked me to speak on was spiritual gifts. There, as is sadly the case in so many places elsewhere, there is very little teaching on this important subject, so when the opportunity was given in each church, at the end of the meeting the people flocked forward for prayer.

 

Visits I made to Ireland (06, 07, 08) were mainly in connection with my new role as a member of the Board of Governors of the Irish AoG Bible College in Greystones, a seaside village a few miles south of Dublin, where Daniel Caldwell, a former Mattersey student was now the Principal and where several other Mattersey graduates like Roy Leith and Sandy Tutty were now involved . I also had the privilege of preaching at their graduation service in September 07.

 

Eileen and I had often visited our friends John and Ann Leese in Luxembourg as we were en route for our holidays in France or Germany and were always grateful for their hospitality. And in 2006 I was asked to be the guest speaker at their church’s weekend retreat held in Arlon in nearby Belgium. It was always a joy to renew fellowship with our friends from that wonderful church. I also preached there in September 2012 after teaching at CTS in Brussels and before driving on for a week’s teaching in churches in the Paris area of France.

 

Over a period of about 20 years we regularly went to France for our holidays and I would often end up preaching in one of the ADD (AoG) churches there. I don’t have detailed dates for these occasions, but I remember preaching in Auch, Bordeaux, Clermont Ferrand, Metz, Mourrenx, Toulouse, and Versailles, sometimes with less than 24 hours notice! But perhaps the most interesting part of France we ever visited was the Ile de la Réunion.  To which I will return next time.

 

The countries I visited most frequently were Germany (3x), Portugal (4x), Belgium (8x), and Finland (11x). With the exception of Germany, this was because I was annually teaching in their Bible Colleges. Having said that, in 2009 I did teach for a week at Kniebis in the Black Forest at the European Theological Seminary, a beautiful college belonging to the Church of God, where the EPTA conference was to be held the following week.

 

And in 2007, after attending a PEF related conference in Oslo, Norway, we flew to Germany to conduct seminars at the national pastors’ conference of the BFP (Bund Freikirchlicher Pfingstgemeinden), the nearest equivalent to the AoG in Germany. It was also in Oslo that I bumped into Werner Fraas, the president of the Volksmission group of German churches and was invited to conduct a tour of their churches in southern Germany in 2008. Eileen always remembered this well as we slept in a least ten different beds during the course of two weeks’ ministry there before driving on to the EPTA conference in Slovakia.

 

I first visited Portugal in 1982 for an EPTA conference, but it was many years later that I had the opportunity to teach in their Bible College and preach in their churches. Harry Osland was an American missionary who, at the time, was director of the Portuguese Bible College in Fanhoes near Lisbon. It so happened that in 2006 he was in an MA class I was teaching in Belgium at the Continental Theological Seminary and he asked me if I would be willing to come to teach in Portugal.

 

So for three years (07, 08, and 09) I spent a week or so in Portugal, teaching in their college and preaching in their churches. Harry not only organised the itinerary for me but also arranged for several of my books to be translated into Portuguese. He and his wife Beth became good friends and Eileen and I really appreciated their kindness and hospitality.

 

Another contact I had with Portugal was Reginaldo Azevedo de Melo, a Brazilian brother based in Portugal who came to Mattersey as one of our students. With the cooperation of Pastor Luis Reis, who knew me through PEF, after he graduated Reginaldo arranged an itinerary for me preaching in several churches.

 

Our trips the Portugal gave us a taste for Portuguese cuisine, something we also experienced in Madeira, a Portuguese overseas territory, and popular holiday destination because of its pleasant climate all the year round. We first went there in 2008 courtesy of our friends William and Anthea Kay who let us use their lovely time-share apartment. This inspired us to get our own time-share and we returned for three weeks in 2010 when I was asked to preach in the small AoG church in Funchal, about which I shall say more later.

 

My ministry in Belgium was due first to my work with the International Correspondence Institute, which I referred to in an earlier talk, and secondly, to my contact with CTS, the Continental Theological Seminary, through fellowship with friends in EPTA. Roland and Judy Dudley, American AoG missionaries, had led the Portuguese Bible College back in the eighties and had moved on to Sint-Pieters-Leeuw near Brussels to head up CTS. At Roland’s invitation I taught on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Divine Healing on their MA programme for eight consecutive years (2005-2012). I was often asked to preach in their chapel services when we saw many students receive the baptism in the Spirit. Eileen and I were housed in one of the well-equipped apartments in the college.

 

We always enjoyed our visits to Belgium and took the opportunity to admire the wonderful architecture in cities like Brussels and Ghent as well as preaching in churches there. And every year we were at CTS made sure that we made a visit to the outlet store of a nearby chocolate factory and bring back plenty in time for Christmas!

 

And finally Finland, a country we visited even more often that Belgium. Apart from my contact with Teuvo Valkama that I mentioned in an earlier talk, it was friends I met at PEF and EPTA meetings who were the main instigators of our visits to that beautiful country. I first met Arto Hamalainnen at the ICCOWE conference in Brighton in June 1991 but later got to know him much better as we both served on the PEF Presidium, he as secretary and I as vice-chairman. Arto was the Missions Director for the Finnish Pentecostal Churches and was responsible for recommending me for my first visit to Ethiopia in 2005 and my visit to India in 2010, about which I will say more next time.

 

But it was Pasi Parkkila, the Director of the Finnish Bible College, who was responsible for most of our visits to Finland. I first met Pasi at an EPTA conference – I don’t remember which, possibly at CTS in 02 or in Nantwich in 04 – but he asked me if I would be willing to teach on their MA programme at Iso Kirja, which incidentally means The Great Book – what a name for a Bible College! So, apart from 2010 when I was too unwell to go, I taught at Iso Kirja the same subjects as I was teaching at CTS every year from 2005 to 2012. But apart from teaching at Iso Kirja I also visited Finland for the EPTA conference in 06 and was the guest speaker at their National Pastors’ Conference both in 08 and 09.

 

Eileen invariably travelled with me on our visits to Iso Kirja when most years we were accommodated in a comfortable log cabin overlooking a beautiful lake.  Tuula, Pasi’s wife, a primary school teacher, kindly loaned us her car throughout our visits which gave us a measure of independence while we were there enabling us to drive into the nearest town, Keuruu, or to Jyväskylä a larger town a little further away.

 

We were also able to visit a number of churches during our trips, including one at Seinäjoki where outstanding miracles of healing were regularly taking place in their meetings. From the reports I was hearing I could hardly imagine that there was anyone in the church left with a problem, but after my preaching some fifty or sixty people came forward for prayer, all expecting to be personally prayed for. And as we had to communicate through an interpreter this inevitable took twice as long as usual. An hour and a half after the end of the meeting I laid hands on the last person and was feeling in need of prayer myself. I was extremely tired and hungry but felt I had learnt a lesson – even when miracles are happening there will always be people in need of prayer.

 

Perhaps the final thing to say about Finland is that at the request of Aikamedia, the Finnish Publishing Department, at least four of my books have been published in Finnish. I am encouraged that my teaching in Finland still goes on even though I have not been there in person since 2012.

 

The Lord had certainly extended the scope of my ministry and confirmed that it was right for us to leave Mattersey when we did.

 

Next time we’ll talk about our trips to Reunion, Africa and India.