G’day and welcome to Partakers Christian Podcasts! Join us for uplifting Bible teaching, inspiring readings, heartfelt worship, powerful prayers, and fascinating church history. Whether you’re new to faith or growing deeper in your journey, we’re here to encourage and equip you. 🎧 Tune in, interact, and be inspired—wherever you are in the world.
Episodes
2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Church History Part 2
Birth of the Church
The Promised Holy Spirit Comes!
~ G’day and welcome to Partakers and to our series, HAHA – Heroes and Heretics Abound. Together we will look at the story of the church from its origins to the Age of Reasoning in the 18th century. Today we look briefly at the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church – the start of its history.
Jesus has ascended back to the right hand side of the Father! The apostles have been commanded to go make disciples! But they were first told to wait. Wait for what, or rather, who? They were to wait for the coming of God the Holy Spirit who was being sent! Throughout His ministry Jesus had talked about how after He had departed that God the Holy Spirit would be sent to indwell those who follow Him (John 15v26). This would be in fulfilment of Ezekiel 36:27 “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Here is the start of the church! A wow moment in church history – the birth of the church – the body of Christ! Acts 2:1-2 “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”
No more waiting! The Holy Spirit came and the church was born and empowered! That is how the church has maintained a presence for the past 2000 years – only because of the presence of God within the believers. So what is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church? ~ The Holy Spirit’s prime role is to see that Jesus Christ the Son of God is praised and glorified (John 16v13-14). The Holy Spirit testifies for Jesus Christ (John 15:26) and witnesses for Jesus Christ and His salvation (Acts 1:8). The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, the Comforter! The Holy Spirit is one who is called to stand alongside Christians (John 14v16). Jesus said it would be better for Him to go away and send the Holy Spirit to live within his followers (John 16v7). The Holy Spirit ministers to Christian in the same way as Jesus would be to us if Jesus were here in person. Declares God’s Word: The Holy Spirit has a prime role in revelation and declaring the Word of God. It was He that spoke through the prophets (Ezekiel 2v2) and it was He who inspired the Bible (2 Peter 1v21).
Further to this, the Holy Spirit interprets and illuminates God’s Word (John 16v12-15; 1 Corinthians 2v10-16) to people!
Conviction: The Holy Spirit is sent to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8)
Salvation: Christian Disciples are born of the Holy Spirit and are known as regenerated (John 3v3-8)!
Indwelling: God lives inside each Christian Disciple through the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, a person cannot be a Christian Disciple (Romans 8v9; Gal 2v20; Colossians 1v25-27)! WOW! God is a personal God, lives within His people and is not merely a statue to be placed on a shelf.
Sealing / Ownership: The Holy Spirit indwelling the Christian Disciple is assured proof of being God’s possession (2 Corinthians 1v22; Ephesians 1v3)
Security: The Holy Spirit is a deposit, guaranteeing our future redemption, salvation and inheritance (Ephesians 1v13; 2 Corinthians 1v22).
Filling: This speaks of the Holy Spirit’s control or domination of our lives. The imperative here is that we are to be filled (Ephesians 5v18), and go on being filled. He gives power to enable Christian Disciples to evangelise (Acts 1v8; 4v8, 31).
Sanctification: The Holy Spirit transforms us into the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 7-18), as we walk, live in, and are led by the Spirit (Galatians. 5v16; Romans 8v13).
Baptism: This expression occurs 7 times in the New Testament. It occurs 4 times in the gospels, referring to Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 1 Corinthians 12v13 states that we are all baptized with the Holy Spirit into one body.
Service: The Holy Spirit equips us for service. God is working in you to will and to act accordingly to his purpose (Phil. 2v13), to be my witnesses (Acts 1v8).
As we look together at the church down through history, we will see evidence of the Holy Spirit being at work in people’s lives, the global spread of Christianity and the development of the Church over time.
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14 hours ago
14 hours ago
Psalm 139
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I'm far away.
3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.
5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!
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7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the deepest hell, you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night-
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.
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13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!
18 I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!
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19 O God, if only you would destroy the wicked! Get out of my life, you murderers!
20 They blaspheme you; your enemies misuse your name.
21 O Lord, shouldn't I hate those who hate you? Shouldn't I despise those who oppose you?
22 Yes, I hate them with total hatred, for your enemies are my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
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2 days ago
2 days ago
Church History Part 1- Introduction
~ Together we will look at the story of the church from its origins to the Age of Reasoning in the 18th century back to its origins. One aim of this series is to give a broad overview of church history to those who know very little or perhaps none of it. Of course there will be a Protestant European bias as that is my church background, but we will also include looks at other denominations including the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox streams of church. Another aim is so that we as the church of today and tomorrow, can learn some of how the church has developed, avoid the mistakes made and embrace the joys which can be found. We start today by leaping straight into the 18th century. We will see together how the Church’s practises and theology has developed.
Jesus’ Authority
Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ authority is a major theme. Where Matthew records Jesus doing miracles, this is to highlight Jesus authority in action and not just merely in words. Matthew records Jesus’ authority to forgive sins (Matthew 9v6) and He imparted authority to His disciples for a short time when they went on a mission in Matthew 10. Jesus has authority (Matthew 28:18) over all things, all people, all circumstances and happenings. Jesus has authority over all spiritual beings, whether angels or demons. Jesus has authority over all nations, governments and rulers. Jesus has authority over all earthly and spiritual authorities. Jesus has the authority. ~ This means regardless of what ever the Christian Disciple faces, Jesus is in control. Therefore, as Christian Disciples, we can obey him without fear of retribution from those who would seek to harm us. We can obey Him regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in. It is a great comfort to know, that He is in control of everything!! Through His death on the cross and His rising from the dead, Jesus has conquered all enemies. Now people sometimes confuse authority with authoritarian. Authoritarian means severe, rigidity and a dictator. None of these apply to Jesus. The authority of the church is a common theme down through history as we will see. ~ The early church exploded numerically as the twelve disciples exercised Jesus’ authority and His power. We read about the growth of the early church in the Book of Acts. Christianity is a faith whereby all Christian Disciples are to tell others of the goodness of God. Indeed God Himself is a missionary God.
Ever since Genesis 3 and the fall of mankind, God has been on a mission to bring and call people back to Himself. That was the purpose of the nation of Israel, to be a light to all nations of the goodness and glory of God! That was purpose when God, who is outside of time and space, entered human history taking on human flesh and restricted Himself in a human body as the man we know as Jesus Christ. Jesus whole mission was one of calling people back to life in God. That was the message told by the early church - showing and telling others of God’s message of reconciliation for them. It was also to be the role of the church in history. It never was meant to be forcing people to adopt Church standards (1 Corinthians 5:12) or to a message to simply join the church as a symbol of good works (Ephesians 2:8-10). ~ The coming of the Holy Spirit was prime for the explosive growth of the early church and His hand is evident throughout church history, as we will see. ~
Jesus' church...
- The Church's Foundation - Matthew 16:17-20 "On this rock, I will build my Church...". Christ loves the Church, builds the Church and nothing will prevent the building and growth of the Church.
- The Church's Commission - Matthew 28:18-20 "Make disciples of all nations..."; Acts 1:8 "Be my witnesses..."
- The Church's Mission - Acts 1:8 .Jerusalem (Home), Judea (Home State/Province), Samaria (Neighbouring State/Province), Ends of the Earth (Overseas).
- The Church's Authority - Matthew 28:18 - All authority is given to Jesus, He is with us as witnesses.
- The Church's Message - Acts 2:36-38 - Jesus is Lord and Christ; Acts 20:21 "Repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.
~ Thanks for reading and listening! This series continues next Saturday! Come back every day where there is something new added to aid your development as a Partaker of Christ. Thank you. ~
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3 days ago
3 days ago
40. Hebrews 13:20-21 - Farewell greetings.
(Unfortunately the NLT translation uses a word in the middle of this passage that is not exactly every day English, so I have used the ESV instead.)
The word that is common to nearly every New Testament benediction (literally a good word, finishing a letter or other writing) is peace. As this brief comment goes out from Dave’s web site it may be read, or listened to, by people in many different situations. Some of you will be able to live a quiet and peaceful life with little difficulty. But some of you may be reading this in situations that are far from peaceful. It is almost impossible to write anything to both groups.
Let those of us who dwell in peaceful parts of the world, offer our prayers for those who do not know peace. Our hearts go out to you. You may be struggling to relocate to another country hoping to find a great deal more peace than you are able to in the country of your birth and life so far. You are therefore a refugee. May you be sure of the Lord’s purposes for you and may you be able to follow him through thick and thin until you can find a reasonable amount of peace. Even as I write that I am aware that I should be exhorting you to find peace even in the most difficult of circumstances through your reliance on Jesus as your champion who initiates and perfects your faith. Remember he too suffered greatly for his faithfulness to the terrible task that his Father had sent him to complete. That is the theory. To actually put it into practice is no easy thing. May you be able to do so in rich and richer measure in the days ahead.
For those of us who do not labour under such difficulties the word from our writer is that we should do the Lord’s will, working on things which are pleasing in his sight because he has equipped us to do so. In many ways that is a much easier task. It is also a much easier task to avoid, to slide by, to overlook, to pretend we have not seen and understood what we should be doing.
None of us will ever be completely satisfied in our own eyes by what we have done in the days and the circumstances he has given us. He will be even less satisfied with us. Fortunately these are not the criteria by which he accepts us and loves us. Those things happen because the great shepherd of the sheep was seen to have completed (confirmed, or as the NLT has it ratified) his work through the blood of the eternal covenant.
May God’s grace be with you all.
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4 days ago
4 days ago
39. Hebrews 13:1–7 - Keep on … don’t forget … remember …
Give honour to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.
Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said,
“I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”
So we can say with confidence, “The LORD is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith.
There is no one outstanding highlight in these verses but they constitute a brief but important part of the whole writing. So I have to sweep them together into a little pile and say - look at this! The book of Hebrews is crammed full of teaching about our Lord, Jesus, who he is and why we should follow him. Only now, late on in his writing, does the author comment on what it should all mean in hard significant facts about our daily lives.
He is particularly anxious that we should:
1. Be very aware of the need to offer loving support to our fellow Christians through hospitality, special support to any who have fallen foul of anti-Christian authorities;
2. Be very careful about our sex lives. They will have been living in a situation in which it was as difficult to stay sexually pure as in any modern one. Our sexual appetites can be very strong and difficult to resist. But both within marriage and without we should stay pure;
3. Be aware of the dangers of living a life distorted by too great a concern for money and what it can buy.;
4. Be prepared to give full honour to those who work hard in the gospel, particularly through the pastoral ministry.
We all particularly in the West, are living in a society which in historical terms is rich beyond the wildest dreams of people from earlier societies. Even for ordinary citizens with no exceptional sources of wealth - Our houses are bigger, our kitchens are full of wonderful machines, we mostly own a chariot which will take us faster and in much greater comfort than any that have existed before, we holiday in greater comfort and in many more places than any but the very richest used to do.
Just imagine what our writer would have said to all that! What would he have expected us to do with all that in terms of support for the kingdom?
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5 days ago
5 days ago
38. Hebrews13:8 - Jesus, Son of God
So we read our passage here as:
Jesus Messiah had a very different yesterday from ours since he existed from before creation; he is today very different from us because he is the Lord of Glory and plays a big part in this world of ours; then tomorrow on one future day he will lead us forwards into a very different and wonderful future.
Our writer has said all these things on his way through his writing. He started off with ‘through the Son he created the universe.’ (Hebrews 1:2). Then he said ‘The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.’ (Hebrews 1:3). Now, as we reach the end of his writing he says we, ‘have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, … You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. … You have come to Jesus,’
We have all, no doubt, done many things – some good, some bad in our lives so far. No matter, we rest in the arms of the one who always was, is now and ever will be, who will one day take us to be with himself in a better life, the one still to come.
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6 days ago
6 days ago
37. Hebrews 12:22–24 Our wonderful destination
The most astonishing two words in these verses are ‘have come’. Not ‘will come’ looking forward to some future date. Not tomorrow; not next year; not when we die; but now. We are already there. Wow! What is it that we have already come to? Our writer’s words form something of a purple patch in his description of it. He does it all with a half-concealed contrast to what happened to the Israelites as they left their slavery and travelled to the promised land so that there they might build the Temple which was to be the resting place of the Lord.
We are already there, on Mount Zion, that is we are living in the city of God - wherever we may be living in this world of ours. So we are at the place where the Lord God will be. There are countless thousands of angels already worshipping all around us even though we cannot hear them or see them. We are surrounded by God’s first-born children - that is by all those with whom we are in fellowship, world wide. We have only ever met the tiniest fraction of them, a few dozen or a few hundred at most. But they are there, all around us, none the less real because we have never met them. We have met with the Lord, or perhaps we should rather say that he has met with us when we were converted and turned to follow him. He is the judge over all things, but that does not frighten us because we have been accepted through the blood of Jesus. At that same time we met the ‘spirits of the righteous ones in heaven’, that is we entered the spiritual world. But above all we met Jesus.
We are, each of us, one tiny bit of Jesus, the Lord of Glory. Paul says in Philippians 3: 3: 9 he (Paul) had become one with him (Jesus). Turning it the other way round Jesus represents us, every one of us who are his. In all this wide world of ours there is nobody and nothing with which we are in closer relationship than we are with Jesus.
This is because we are now members of the Kingdom, the unshakeable kingdom where no earthquake will ever disturb us, as it did the Israelites as they camped round Mount Sinai. We are now present in the very Temple of God, which is Jesus, a far superior temple to those built in Jerusalem.
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7 days ago
7 days ago
36. Hebrews 12:7 - Discipline
As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? (Hebrews 12:7 NLT )
If we are capable of working everything out for ourselves that means that the way you work things out may be different from the way I do. And the way children work things out may well be different from the way their parents do. So the parents cannot discipline their children for doing something different from what they would. The result is not good. In fact it is beginning to show up in an increasingly chaotic society. So the whole background idea from which the writer is working – (Hebrews 12:7–10) has no basis in our culture! Ouch!
However that does not make what he says invalid. We are not talking about human beings, misled by the philosophy of many centuries ago. We are talking about the Lord God, who is far above and beyond our cultures. He is going to be our judge one day when we meet him face to face. He has every right to try and bring us to a point where we can be accepted by his grace and goodness because of a life of faith in which we have tried as hard as we can to be his good people. He calls that, ‘a peaceful harvest of right living’ (Hebrews 12:11).
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7 days ago
7 days ago
Psalm 36
36:1 An oracle is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked:
There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
36:2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes,
too much to detect and hate his sin.
36:3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit.
He has ceased to be wise and to do good.
36:4 He plots iniquity on his bed.
He sets himself in a way that is not good.
He doesn’t abhor evil.
36:5 Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
36:6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God.
Your judgments are like a great deep.
Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.
36:7 How precious is your loving kindness, God!
The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
36:8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house.
You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.
36:9 For with you is the spring of life.
In your light shall we see light.
36:10 Oh continue your loving kindness to those who know you,
your righteousness to the upright in heart.
36:11 Don’t let the foot of pride come against me.
Don’t let the hand of the wicked drive me away.
36:12 There the workers of iniquity are fallen.
They are thrust down, and shall not be able to rise.
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Sunday Oct 05, 2025
Sunday Oct 05, 2025
35. Hebrews 12:1-3 Keeping spiritually fit.
If the writer to the Hebrews had known that we all have a mix of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles throughout our body he might have used them as an illustration of what he wanted to say. If, like me, you are short of the fast-twitch type you always come in at the back of all the sprint races. You may, however, do much better at the cross-country races. He would have been asking us to ensure that we develop as much slow-twitch spiritual muscle as possible. Experts in such things tell us our muscles are a mixture. Slow -twitch enable us to keep going for a long time: run in cross country races or marathons, or row across the Atlantic. Fast-twitch are good for sprinting, playing tennis and catching the bus. Different people have different amounts of each of these in the blend in their legs and everywhere else. Chickens have slow-twitch muscles in their legs with the brown meat so that they can walk and run a long way. The white meat of their breasts and wings gives them much better intense activity like flying, but they can’t keep it up for long. You may know some people, there are too many of them around, who become Christians with a great flourish in their early days or their teen years. They are full of enthusiasm rushing around telling us all to follow Jesus, do a lot of evangelising, go to many youth rallies and so on. But where are they a few years later? They seem to have disappeared from the church scene. Oh, dear. They were so concerned with their fast-twitch spirituality they failed to develop any of the slow-twitch sort.
The writer is talking about slow-twitch spirituality. He talks about ‘endurance’ in 12: 1; about not becoming weary and giving up in 12: 3; about getting a harvest in 12: 11; and, of course, the outstanding characteristic of the heroes of chapter 11 - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and all the rest is that they fought their way through many difficulties to reach their barely understood destinations.
Above all there is Jesus, who endured hostility and the shame of the cross, because he knew he was going to a place of honour at the right hand of God on high. We know where we are going - not quite to such an honourable place, but into his immediate presence.
If you want to stay healthy into your old age it is no good waiting until you are old before doing anything about it! It is no good thinking you were fit and healthy at school when you played a lot of football, cricket or netball. Health is something that has to be kept up throughout life.
All that is true of physical health, but it is also true of spiritual health. Don’t think you can turn off your fast-twitch spirituality when you leave your teens, get married, move house to another area with the need to fit into a new church. It will probably slowly decline, as the years pass but it must be replaced steadily by slow-twitch spirituality. That does not mean that you just become one of the too many people who go to church, sit in their pew or their comfortable chair and think that is now their Christian life. After all you would have a job to stay even reasonably healthy physically if you only did anything remotely healthy just once a week. No! You need to join a prayer group, a study group, teach Sunday School, or do something to maintain a reasonable level of spiritual fitness. Come on - get off your backside and do something! (with apologies if you already do.)