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Major W. Ian Thomas
Major W. Ian Thomas (1914–2007) was a British preacher, evangelist, and Bible teacher whose ministry emphasized the indwelling life of Christ as the key to victorious Christian living. Born on September 13, 1914, in London, England, to Albert and Jennie Thomas, he was raised in a middle-class family. Converted at age 12 during a Crusaders Union camp, he committed his life to Christ’s service at 15, preaching on Hampstead Heath and engaging in evangelistic efforts. Educated at Merchant Taylor’s School, he studied medicine at London University for two years with aspirations of becoming a missionary doctor in Africa but left to pursue full-time ministry after experiencing spiritual burnout at 19, a turning point marked by a midnight prayer in 1933 that revealed Christ as his life source. Thomas’s preaching career spanned decades and continents, beginning with open-air evangelism in the UK and expanding globally after serving in World War II with the Royal Fusiliers, including the Dunkirk evacuation, earning him the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry. In 1946, he and his wife Joan founded the Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers at Capernwray Hall in England, a ministry that grew into Torchbearers International, with 25 Bible schools worldwide by his death. He pastored no single church but preached itinerantly, authored influential books like The Saving Life of Christ and The Mystery of Godliness, and moved to Estes Park, Colorado, in the late 1980s. Married to Joan, with whom he had four sons—Chris, Mark, Peter, and Andy—he died on August 1, 2007, leaving a legacy as a preacher who transformed lives through his focus on Christ’s sufficiency.
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Major W. Ian Thomas preaches about godliness not being about imitating God, but allowing God to reproduce Himself in us, leading to Christ-righteousness through faith and dependence on God. This righteousness restores the image of God in us, making us active in Christ's work and exalting us to kingly stature. While spiritual regeneration doesn't bring sinless perfection, our faith and obedience allow God to work in us, transforming us to be more like Him.
You Must Have What He Is (Life) to Be What He Was (Perfect)
For godliness is not the consequence of your capacity to imitate God, but the consequence of His capacity to reproduce Himself in you; not self-righteousness, but Christ-righteousness; the righteousness which is by faith a faith which by renewed dependence upon God releases His divine action, to restore the marred image of the Invisible God. It is not inactivity, but Christ-activity; God in action accomplishing the divine end through human personality - never reducing man to the status of a cabbage, but exalting man to the stature of king! "For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:17). At first sight this might seem to offer to you the possibility of sinless perfection as the result of spiritual regeneration, but this is far from being the case; for it is only your faith and your obedience which allow Him to be in you now what He was then (perfect) - and you will be what He was then only to the degree in which you allow Him to be in you what He is now (perfect)! All of the Father was available to all of the Son, because by His faith-love relationship, all of the Son was available to all of the Father, and this constituted His perfect manhood; and the availability of the Son to you will be in the degree of your availability to the Son, because of your faith-love relationship to Him!
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Major W. Ian Thomas (1914–2007) was a British preacher, evangelist, and Bible teacher whose ministry emphasized the indwelling life of Christ as the key to victorious Christian living. Born on September 13, 1914, in London, England, to Albert and Jennie Thomas, he was raised in a middle-class family. Converted at age 12 during a Crusaders Union camp, he committed his life to Christ’s service at 15, preaching on Hampstead Heath and engaging in evangelistic efforts. Educated at Merchant Taylor’s School, he studied medicine at London University for two years with aspirations of becoming a missionary doctor in Africa but left to pursue full-time ministry after experiencing spiritual burnout at 19, a turning point marked by a midnight prayer in 1933 that revealed Christ as his life source. Thomas’s preaching career spanned decades and continents, beginning with open-air evangelism in the UK and expanding globally after serving in World War II with the Royal Fusiliers, including the Dunkirk evacuation, earning him the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry. In 1946, he and his wife Joan founded the Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers at Capernwray Hall in England, a ministry that grew into Torchbearers International, with 25 Bible schools worldwide by his death. He pastored no single church but preached itinerantly, authored influential books like The Saving Life of Christ and The Mystery of Godliness, and moved to Estes Park, Colorado, in the late 1980s. Married to Joan, with whom he had four sons—Chris, Mark, Peter, and Andy—he died on August 1, 2007, leaving a legacy as a preacher who transformed lives through his focus on Christ’s sufficiency.