Close Encounters

Close Encounters: unforgettable meetings with Jesus
By Melvin Tinker
Christian Focus Publications
158 pages. £4.99
ISBN 1 85792 132 1

Relevant evangelistic books suitable for giving to unconverted friends are always in demand, and here is an excellent one to add to your list.
Simple, but not simplistic, it looks at ten characters in the Gospel of John who had an encounter with Jesus Christ and the difference that it made in their lives.
It does not introduce us to them as their stories appear in the gospel, for Melvin Tinker starts at the end with Thomas the doubter, and finishes with Peter who denied his faith in an alarming way, and yet still found forgiveness when he came back to Jesus in repentance and sorrow. I imagine that the author wanted to show the great contrast between the various characters in deciding in what order to introduce them.
Keeping to the Bible narrative as the foundation, the book has a touch of humour that is always relevant, and the illustrations are apt and topical (some I have already filed away for future use!)
Your friends would not need to be great readers to cope with this book as it could be read a character at a time over a cup of coffee. Possibly of greatest use is to give it to someone who has had some previous contact with the Christian faith, rather than a rank pagan outsider.

Peter Anderson

© Evangelicals Now - October 1996
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Main Articles

• Thirty years of hurt?
  Putting the record straight concerning Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones's 1996 address to the Evangelical Alliance
• Kategoria?
  Christians could be less apologetic in a society which is more religious than it appears to be
• The times they are a-changing
  We must not be worldly but we must be relevant
• The collapse of the wall
  A view of the Soviet Communist collapse
• The rough guide to temptation
  The results of a survey concerning temptation
• Chasing the wild goose
  What is Celtic spirituality?
• Where to find Christ in the Promised Land
  Christian tourism in militaristic Israel
• God's valiant warrior
  Some lessons from the life of David Livingstone

Other articles

• A Dictionary of Theological Terms
• Worship in Spirit and Truth
• The Lord's Prayer - Laying siege to Doubting Castle - an extract from Peter Lewis's book on the subject of lead us not into temptation
• UFOs - The Hidden Truth
• Strange Fire?
• Marriage and its Modern Crisis
• Independence Day
• Evangelicals and Catholics Together
• The Quest for God
• God The Father, God The Son
• Close Encounters
• God In The Dark