Roland Allen

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 To preach the Gospel requires that the preacher should read more

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 To preach the Gospel requires that the preacher should believe that he is sent to those whom he is addressing at the moment, because God has among them those whom He is at the moment calling; it requires that the speaker should expect a response.

Pentecost The Spirit is Love expressed towards man as redeeming love, and the Spirit is truth, and the Spirit read more

Pentecost The Spirit is Love expressed towards man as redeeming love, and the Spirit is truth, and the Spirit is the Holy Spirit. Redemption is inconceivable without truth and holiness. But the mere fact that the Holy Spirit's first recorded action in the gospels is an expression of redeeming love should cause us to suspect a teaching which represents His work as primarily, if not solely, the sanctification of our own souls to the practical exclusion of His activity in us towards others. It is important to teach of Him as the Spirit of holiness; it is also important to teach of Him as the Spirit which in us labours for the salvation of men everywhere.

The first Epistle (to the Thessalonians) was written about a year after St. Paul's preaching in the city where, according read more

The first Epistle (to the Thessalonians) was written about a year after St. Paul's preaching in the city where, according to Prof. [William] Ramsay's calculation, he had laboured for only five months. Thus his stay had not been long enough for him to do more than teach the fundamental truths which seemed to him of the first importance: all the circumstances of his visit were still fresh in his memory and he was recalling to the minds of his readers what he had taught them by word of mouth. Now in that Epistle we get an extraordinarily clear and coherent account of simple mission-preaching not only implied but definitely expressed. (Continued tomorrow).

In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by their read more

In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by their sense of the Spirit behind the action, not by any speculations as to consequences which might ensue. And so they found the truth. Gradually the results of the action manifested themselves, and, seeing them, they perceived what they had really done, and learnt the meaning of the truth revealed in the action. But if, from fear of the consequences, they had checked or forbidden the action, they would have lost this revelation. They would have missed the way to truth.

There is in St. Paul's definite, soul-stirring assertion of the wrath of God and the reality of the judgment at read more

There is in St. Paul's definite, soul-stirring assertion of the wrath of God and the reality of the judgment at hand, a truth more profound than any that underlies our somewhat enfeebled ideas of universal benevolence and the determined progress of the race. There is something more true in his denunciation of idolatry as sin than in our denial that it is possible for a man to worship an idol, or in our suggestion that all idolatry is only a road to spiritual worship of the one true God... One day, I think, we shall return to these stern doctrines, realizing in them a truth more profound than we now know, and then we shall preach them with conviction, and, being convinced ourselves, we shall convince others.