Author-David Pawson
Publisher-Hodder and Stoughton
ISBN- 0-340-489723
This book is written for all involved in Christian ministry in any form. Leaders, church workers, pastors and all who have a heart to bring others to Christ should read it. The burden of the author is that all coming to Christ should have a ‘better quality conversion’. Birth affects life, and spiritually speaking this is also true. A good birth free from complications is to be preferred to a complicated and protracted one which damages the child being born. Pawson suggests that modern evangelicalism has over simplified what truly constitutes a biblical new birth so that a distortion is the result. He seeks to synthesize emphases of the main streams of Christian backgrounds, in particular bringing together the evangelical and the Pentecostal understandings of what constitutes new birth. He considers that true Christian Birth consists of true repentance and genuine faith, expressed in water baptism with a conscious reception of the Holy Spirit with power. The book handles these four components from Theological, Biblical and Pastoral standpoints and is extremely helpful. It is a serious study but does not demand an academic background or knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. It should be read with an open Bible at hand and a number of scriptures are examined in order to steadily build up the picture of a healthy Christian Birth. Towards the end of the book a section is included which deals with a number of frequently asked questions. These concern evangelical Christian counseling especially examining the inadequacy of the common ‘sinners prayer’ approach to new birth. There are practical tips on helping potential disciples to repent and believe and be baptized and receive the Spirit. Not all may agree with his adding the ‘sacramental’ aspect of water baptism to the new birth plexus but the bringing together of the charismatic and evangelical aspects is surely vital reading. The steady dilution of truth on this most essential matter is leading to rampant confusion in the churches along with weakness in Christian testimony. May this book be read carefully by many and acted upon.
