This week's recommended talk is by Adrian Holloway and is entitled How to Heal the Sick. If you want to learn how to have faith for healing on a regular basis (or if you simply want to hear Adrian singing Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up) then why not listen to his seminar from Mobilise 2008.

I don't know what springs to mind when you think of Sweden? ABBA and IKEA? Beowulf and meatballs?

Sweden is a thriving country full of innovation and culture (in which ABBA was an unfortunate blip!) and Newfrontiers is working in Malmö, building a multicultural church in a major city with residents from over 100 nations. Already the church is gathering people from Ghana, England, Finland, Syria, Palestine, Denmark, Iraq, Iran, Norway, Lithuania, Venezuela, Honduras and of course Sweden. It is an exciting and significant venture, and this summer we are inviting you to get involved!

What are you doing from 19-26 August? Do you want to be a part of our first ever Mobilise Worldwide team? We want to give you the opportunity to visit Malmö for a week to work with the church, experience life in a different culture and explore what it feels like to partake in overseas mission.

We are still recruiting for members and leaders to put faith into practice and join this pioneering team and have extended the application deadline until 1 May. So why don't you check out the worldwide page and sign up today?

The gospels all agree that something happened on Easter Sunday, but seem to disagree over the finer details. Can these differences be reconciled? And what did happen at Jesus’ tomb?

Read on...

As Christians across the world celebrate the most pivotal week in all of history, we want to share with you eight reasons why John Piper is confident about the resurrection of Jesus, and why you can be too. Reflect on his insights and enjoy celebrating this Easter.

8. There is a self-authenticating glory in the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection as narrated by the biblical witnesses.

The New Testament teaches that God sent the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.... He will glorify me” (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit does not do this by telling us that Jesus rose from the dead. He does it by opening our eyes to see the self-authenticating glory of Christ in the narrative of his life and death and resurrection. He enables us to see Jesus as he really was, so that he is irresistibly true and beautiful. The apostle stated the problem of our blindness and the solution like this: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.... For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6).

A saving knowledge of Christ crucified and risen is not the mere result of right reasoning about historical facts. It is the result of spiritual illumination to see those facts for what they really are: a revelation of the truth and glory of God in the face of Christ—who is the same yesterday today and forever.

As Christians across the world celebrate the most pivotal week in all of history, we want to share with you eight reasons why John Piper is confident about the resurrection of Jesus, and why you can be too. Reflect on his insights and enjoy celebrating this Easter.

7. The New Testament witnesses do not bear the stamp of dupes or deceivers.

How do you credit a witness? How do you decide whether to believe a person’s testimony? The decision to give credence to a person’s testimony is not the same as completing a mathematical equation. The certainty is of a different kind, yet can be just as firm (I trust my wife’s testimony that she is faithful). When a witness is dead, we can base our judgment of him only on the content of his writings and the testimonies of others about him. How do Peter and John and Matthew and Paul stack up?

In my judgment (and at this point we can live authentically only by our own judgment—Luke 12:57), these men’s writings do not read like the works of gullible, easily deceived or deceiving men. Their insights into human nature are profound. Their personal commitment is sober and carefully stated. Their teachings are coherent and do not look like the invention of unstable men. The moral and spiritual standard is high. And the lives of these men are totally devoted to the truth and to the honour of God.

From Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead, by John Piper, February 28 2007, © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

As Christians across the world celebrate the most pivotal week in all of history, we want to share with you eight reasons why John Piper is confident about the resurrection of Jesus, and why you can be too. Reflect on his insights and enjoy celebrating this Easter.

6. The Apostle Paul’s conversion supports the truth of the resurrection.

He argues to a partially unsympathetic audience in Galatians 1:11-17 that his gospel comes from the risen Jesus Christ, not from men. His argument is that before his Damascus Road experience when he saw the risen Jesus, he was violently opposed to the Christian faith (Acts 9:1). But now, to everyone’s astonishment, he is risking his life for the gospel (Acts 9:24-25). His explanation: The risen Jesus appeared to him and authorized him to spearhead the Gentile mission (Acts 26:15-18). Can we credit such a testimony? This leads to the next argument.

From Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead, by John Piper, February 28 2007, © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Desiderius Erasmus famously said, “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”

Now far be it from me to encourage you to run around naked this weekend, but perhaps we could learn from his example… Did you know that in the four days leading up to Easter 2008, around £280,000,000 was spent on Easter eggs in the UK! Approximately 80,000,000 are sold in the UK each year, and you can bet your life old Erasmus wouldn’t have eaten so much as a Cadbury’s Creme Egg.

So this Easter why not break the mould and ditch (some of) the chocolate in favour of a good book to help you grow in your appreciation of this momentous time of year. As a couple of recommendations, why not check out some of the following:

Death by Love – Mark Driscoll

A brilliantly pastoral look at what Jesus achieved at the cross. Insightful, accessible yet packing a punch, Driscoll guides us through a number of models for understanding the atonement. Buy from the Newfrontiers Online Shop

Pierced for Our Transgressions – Jeffery, Ovey and Sach

On the whole, a very helpful and thorough study of Penal Substitutionary Atonement. It dispels a number of myths and modern theological blunders, whilst clearly restating this important doctrine. Buy from the Newfrontiers Online Shop

As Christians across the world celebrate the most pivotal week in all of history, we want to share with you eight reasons why John Piper is confident about the resurrection of Jesus, and why you can be too. Reflect on his insights and enjoy celebrating this Easter.

5. The sheer existence of a thriving, empire-conquering early Christian church supports the truth of the resurrection claim.

The church spread on the power of the testimony that Jesus was raised from the dead and that God had thus made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). The Lordship of Christ over all nations is based on his victory over death. This is the message that spread all over the world. Its power to cross cultures and create one new people of God was a strong testimony of its truth.

From Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead, by John Piper, February 28 2007, © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

As Christians across the world celebrate the most pivotal week in all of history, we want to share with you eight reasons why John Piper is confident about the resurrection of Jesus, and why you can be too. Reflect on his insights and enjoy celebrating this Easter.

4. Paul claimed that, not only had he seen the risen Christ, but that 500 others had seen him also, and many were still alive when he made this public claim.

“Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:6). What makes this so relevant is that this was written to Greeks who were sceptical of such claims when many of these witnesses were still alive. So it was a risky claim if it could be disproved by a little firsthand research.

From Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead, by John Piper, February 28 2007, © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

As Christians across the world celebrate the most pivotal week in all of history, we want to share with you eight reasons why John Piper is confident about the resurrection of Jesus, and why you can be too. Reflect on his insights and enjoy celebrating this Easter.

3. The disciples were almost immediately transformed from men who were hopeless and fearful after the crucifixion (Luke 24:21, John 20:19) into men who were confident and bold witnesses of the resurrection (Acts 2:24, 3:15, 4:2).

Their explanation of this change was that they had seen the risen Christ and had been authorized to be his witnesses (Acts 2:32). The most popular competing explanation is that their confidence was owing to hallucinations. There are numerous problems with such a notion. The disciples were not gullible, but level-headed sceptics both before and after the resurrection. (Mark 9:32, Luke 24:11, John 20:8-9, 25). Moreover, is the deep and noble teaching of those who witnessed the risen Christ the stuff of which hallucinations are made? What about Paul’s great letter to the Romans? I personally find it hard to think of this giant intellect and deeply transparent soul as deluded or deceptive, and he claimed to have seen the risen Christ.

From Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead, by John Piper, February 28 2007, © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org