The passage below comes from the autobiography of Stephen Anderson, a lay evangelist Church of Scotland

 It was in Barrhead that some of the most dramatic results were seen. I was thrilled in the third session there to hear a woman say that already the subject of conversation was no longer the price of groceries but the Good News about Jesus. Even more thrilling was the testimony of two Church of Scotland elders who had come to faith through the Scriptures, read as part of the course.

  At the same time a third elder in the same church was furiously angry and accused me of proclaiming a false gospel. Part of the course had consisted of homework from the Bible, and he had meticoulously worked out percentages on his home computer that there were more references to the Old Testament or the Epistles than to the Gospels. He was convinced that the gospel was in the life of Jesus as portrayed in the words of the Gospel writers which we have as an example for today. My stress on the need for salvation from sin by Christ's atoning death on the cross was anathema to him. He even interrupted a meeting in one of the town churches at a later stage of the mission to object vociferously to an invitation to respond to a cruciied and risen Christ.

 Paul wrote to the church at Corinth 'We preach Christ and Him crucified' and 'this Gospel was the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death, to the other the fragrance of life.' The Gospel is like Marmite - you either hate it or love it

"Mussels at Midnight; the story of Stephen Anderson",
printed by Christian Focus Publications ©1989