Zacchaeus: Luke 19:1-10
Zach was a tax collector in Jericho. He wanted to see Jesus but was too short so climbed a tree. He was an outcast, but when Jesus spots him he invites Zach to spend dinner at Zachs house where Zach says he will give to the poor and pay back anyone he has cheated.
The effects of Peter’s preaching: Acts 2: 40-42
3000 were baptized after the powerful words of Peter.
Was a group conversion. It lead people to change their lives, share possession and give to the poor etc.
Phillip and the Ethiopian official: Acts 8:26-39
Ethiopian working for the coat – gone to pray but reading prophet Isaiah. Phillip explains scripture to the Ethiopian to which he decides to get baptized.
St Augustine of Hippo: (354-430AD)
From no faith to faith
- Born in N. Africa to a Christian Mother (St. Monica) and a pagan father, Patricius. He was an able and ambitious young man, who studied the art of rhetoric at Carthage and followed the Manichean beliefs.
However, he moved to Rome and came to doubt the Manichaen belief system and was increasingly interested in Christian teaching. He had a mistress and they had a son, Adeodatus. His mother often prayed that he would become a Christian.
- He moved to Milan & was greatly impressed by the preaching and words for St Ambrose, bishop of Milan. At the age of 31, he had a conversion experience which he describes in his autobiography Confessions.
Whilst in a friends garden, greatly moved by reading the life of St Antony, he wept and head a ‘voice like a child’ saying ‘take up and read,’ at which he opened the Bible and read Romans 13: 13-14 ‘Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ, forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.’
Augustine described the moment ‘I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.’
John Wesley (1703-1791)
from faith (believing) to faith (trusting)
- Founder of the Methodist church became a charismatic and well known preacher in his own lifetime. He travelled far preaching the gospel.
However, through his life of trying to be a disciplined Christian he became increasingly dispirited and felt he was losing his faith, eventually asking a Lutheran friend whether he should continue preaching. His friend told him to continue “Preach faith till you have it, then, because you have it, you will preach faith”. - He struggled because there was no experience in his own life of God’s power, then in May 1738, he reached a crisis. He went to a society in Aldersgate Street, where someone was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. “About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt a trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved e from the law of sin and death”.
John Wesley spent the rest of his life building up the Methodist revival in England and Wales.
“It was though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled” - Confessions
John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
- His family were members of the COE without any strong religious commitment. In 1808 he as sent to Ealing school and it was there at the age of 25 that he underwent a profound religious conversion to what can be fairly be described as evangelical Christianity with a strong anti-Catholic bias.
- He then went to Oxford, and later became vicar of the Oxford Uni church of Saint Mary the Virgin. His spiritual influence there on parishioners and members of the uni was substantial, especially through his preaching.
In 1833 he went on a tour of the Mediterranean an in Sicily found himself seriously ill. He recovered and was convinced that God had spared him to perform some special work in England. - A series of events within the Church of England caused him to question his spiritual path within the Anglican faith. He withdrew from Oxford and for three years led a very strict religious life, praying for light and guidance. In 1845, his mind was clear within Catholicism and on 9th October of that year, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. His choice to convert to Catholicisim meant he was ostracized by his family and friends. Undeterred, he set out to study for the priesthood and he was ordained a priest in Rome.
Sundar Singh (1889-1929)
From One faith to another
Was raised a Sikh, then became a Hindu and later became a Christian. He recounts how a light seemed to fill his room and he was the figure of Jesus saying, ‘Why do you persecute me? I died for you.’
Martin Lurther (1483-1546)
From faith (intellectually believing) to faith (trusting). Martin Luther is a good example when he realised he was justified by faith (receiving) rather than works (achieving). He discovered that God have his righteousness as a gift in Christ. Then he was certain of his salvation.
