• ‘The Arsenal of Grace’ by Nigel Benbow Bird

    A collection of writings from my Christian life – available to buy now.

A summary of content

A collection of articles fleshing out a considered Christian viewpoint respecting the Bible but based on relationship with God and other people arising from intelligence, learning, and mental suffering.

Included are auto-biographical factual, spiritual, and health testimonies; selected quotations from The Road Less Travelled, What is so amazing about Grace, and Total Forgiveness; what is ‘love one another’; examination of difficult theological topics; an appreciation of Male-female interaction (not love, sex, relationship); analysis and advice on prayer, dealing with disputes, and suffering particularly in mental health; summary of what Christianity is and why unity should be pursued; visions and prophesies; a definition of ‘open evangelical’, discussion of the Bible being infallible but not inerrant, living a love-centred life of fellowship; letters written by the author; related matter about Arsenal and football; difficult theological and psychiatric questions.

Check out the full list of contents by clicking here >>

About the author

The author has an MA in Mathematics from St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he first relapsed into mental illness that has affected his life, but he claims ‘success’ in being a survivor. He became a Christian at age 26 and worked successfully in the city for a while having gained a distinction in Actuarial Science at City University. He endured spells of severe suffering mentally while also building faith from the conservative evangelical tradition, growing towards a less intellectual and more practical ‘open evangelicalism’.

Watching Arsenal, playing Bridge, and travelling have kept his interest and been helpful to his health as has gaining some insight into mental illness. Writing has also been therapeutic in itself, as well as by receiving encouragement from others. For more information on Nigel see Nigel’s Facebook page and his LinkedIn profile

Nigel can be contacted by email: nigel@nigelbird.com

Take a look at Nigel’s latest book – What Is Love?

Grab your copy!

The Arsenal of Grace is now available to purchase in printed form. Purchase your copy via our Shopify store.

Summaries of the book from different perspectives (click here) >>>>

The ethos of the book is very much shaped by the quote below from Elton Trueblood.

The Strategy of Jesus

Jesus was deeply concerned for the continuation of his redemptive work after the close of His earthly existence, and His chosen method was the formation of a redemptive society. He did not form an army, establish a headquarters, or even write a book.

All he did was to collect a few unpromising men and women, inspire them with the sense of His vocation and theirs, and build their lives into an intensive fellowship of affection, worship, and work. One of the truly shocking passages of the gospel is that in which Jesus indicates that there is absolutely no substitute for the tiny redemptive society. If this fails, He suggests, all is failure; there is no other way. He told the little bedraggled fellowship that they were actually the salt of the earth and that if this salt should fail there would be no adequate preservative at all. He was staking all on one throw.

What we need is not intellectual theorizing, or even preaching, but a demonstration. There is only one way of turning people’s loyalty to Christ, and that is by loving others with the great love of God. We cannot revive faith by argument, but we might catch the imagination of puzzled men and women by an exhibition of a fellowship so intensely alive that every thoughtful person would be forced to respect it.

If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, wholly without artificiality and free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of loving souls, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably precious. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.

Elton Trueblood

Why not try the strategy of Jesus? Other options do not seem to work.

The cover of the book – back then front

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