Great Bible Truths with Dr David Petts

Talk 6   A Summary, a Reminder, some Suggestions, and a Final Word of Encouragement Hello again and welcome to my final talk in our series where we've been looking at New Testament Guidelines for Small Group Meetings. My purpose in this series, which has been largely based on my book When You Come Together, has been to show that we should take seriously Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 14:26, and...

Talk 5 Key Principles in 1 Corinthians 14:26 Hello again, and welcome to Talk 5 in our series on NT Guidelines for Small Group Meetings. Today we're going to be seeking to identify the key principles underlying our key verse for this series, 1 Corinthians 14:26: What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tong...

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 sometime...

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 looki...

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 ins...

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...

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...

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. Th...

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...

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 ab...

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 Afric...

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 year...

My Story   Talk 30   Finding my successor and saying farewell to Mattersey Welcome to Talk 30 in our series where I am reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Today my subject is finding my successor and saying farewell to Mattersey. From all I have said so far it has been clear that the Lord had abundantly blessed our work for him at Mattersey and there was no requirement that I sh...

My Story    Talk 29   Travels in Asia and Africa My first trip outside of Europe or America was in 1986 when I visited Pakistan, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. It came about in a quite remarkable way. One Sunday in 1985 I was reading an article about India in a Christian magazine when quite unexpectedly I had the distinct impression that the Lord was going to send me to India. I told Ei...

My Story   Talk 28   Activities Beyond Europe Welcome to Talk 28 in our series where I'm reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Looking back on it, I suppose I travelled fairly widely during the time we were at Mattersey. Apart from the many places in Europe we visited, I found myself on the Lord's business in America, Africa, and Asia, though never, incidentally in Australia. Thes...

My Story    Talk 27   More Activities in Europe Welcome to Talk 27 in our series where I'm reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was talking about our off-campus activities while we were at Mattersey. I began by talking about activities in Britain and concluded with our activities in Europe, particularly in connection with EPTA, the European Pentecostal Theological Ass...

My Story    Talk 26   Off-campus Activities Most of what I have said about our years at Mattersey so far has related to what happened on the campus, and that was certainly where we spent most of our time. But our ministry was by no means confined to the campus. It was becoming increasingly international and interdenominational. So in this talk I'll begin by describing some of my activities within...

My Story    Talk 25 Our Relationship with the Students A key to the success of any organisation, whether it be a business, church, school, or college, is the quality of relationship between those who work, worship or study there. St. Paul's use of the human body as a picture of the church is a great illustration of this principle. Each member of the body is unique and has a different function from...

My Story    Talk 24 Developing the curriculum and choosing the faculty Welcome to Talk 24 where I'm reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was talking about all the improvements we were able to make to the campus at Mattersey. We were, of course, grateful to the Lord for these improvements, especially for the provision of sufficient finances to build the new hall of res...

My Story   Talk 23 Improving the College facilities   The Urgent Need for Action When we arrived at Mattersey it was abundantly obvious to all concerned that, to say the least, the facilities on campus were far from satisfactory. Set in seven acres of beautiful grounds the setting was certainly picturesque, but the old mansion, Mattersey Hall, was in constant need of attention, as were the other t...

My Story   Talk 22 Facing New Challenges We said goodbye to Basingstoke after a moving farewell weekend at the end of July 1978 and moved to Mattersey with a great sense of excitement and anticipation. We knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Lord was sending us there, but we were also aware that great challenges lay ahead, not just for the College, but for us as a family too.   Challenges for...

My Story Talk 21 The Rocky Road to Mattersey (1972-78) Welcome to Talk 21 in our series where I'm reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I finished my series of talks on the years we spent I Basingstoke by telling you how in January 1972 God clearly told me that we were going to live at the Bible College. This didn't happen until 1978 when I was appointed principal of the...

My Story   Talk 20   Ministry at Basingstoke 1968-78   Part 5 Welcome to Talk 20 in our series where I'm reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I was telling you how God was clearly blessing my trips abroad, to Switzeralnd, France, Belgium and the USA, and, thanks entirely to the gift that God had given me, my teaching was in increasingly great demand both at home and ove...

My Story    Talk 19   Ministry in Basingstoke 1968-78 Part 4 Welcome to Talk 19 in our series where I am reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Today I'll be talking about how, while I was at Basingstoke, the Lord started to open up a wider ministry overseas.   It all began when early in 1971 Willy Droz, a pastor from Switzerland appeared on my doorstep and introduced himself. He h...

My Story Talk 18 Ministry in Basingstoke 1968-78 Part 3 Welcome to Talk 18 in our series where I am reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time we saw how, during the years we were there, the church in Basingstoke grew as a result of the consistent and regular preaching of the gospel by means of Sunday night gospel services, evangelistic missions, personal evangelism and door-...