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My Story

A Personal Word from the Author

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.

The purpose of these free study guides is to encourage you and help you to study the Bible for yourself. When you know for yourself what the Bible really says, it is much harder for anyone to fool you.

At first I did not plan to share my study guides. I was making them for my family and myself. But God has taught me so much, and it has brought so much joy to my soul, that I decided to share them for the benefit of others who are in similar situations and want to seek the truth for themselves.

My own story

I was once just like many of you. Today I understand that I was born again, by God and not by my own doing, on July 30, 2019 (John 1:13). I was at work, sitting alone in my cubicle. Suddenly my eyes were opened to who I really was, a sinner, and to who God is, holy and righteous. I felt overwhelming shame and guilt for who I was and for the sins I had committed against God over the years. At the time, I did not know or understand what was happening to me. I thought it was all me: my own guilt, my own emotions, and me simply turning over a new leaf. It took several years to fully unpack what had started to happen in me that day. I later understood what led to this after reading where Jesus said this is the work of the Holy Spirit: “he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8, KJV). To reprove means to show someone that they are wrong.

I did not hear a booming voice. I did not see a bright light. I did not have a vision. As I came to understand later, God used someone else in the most unlikely way. I had searched YouTube for “Seeking God.” A sermon called “Attracting God,” by a preacher named Myles Munroe, came up. He had died almost five years earlier. Within the first three minutes, it felt like a punch in the gut, as if he were speaking directly to me. I finished listening to it later that day, when I got home from work. Through it, God opened my understanding and turned my attention to this reality in an instant.

The best picture I can give is this. Someone puts a pot on the stove, then gets distracted by other things. Then something happens, a smell, a sound, or just a memory, and in a moment of shock they remember the pot and rush to check it. That is what it was like: a sudden shock that grabbed my attention and made me see at once that I was in trouble.

During the week leading up to July 30, 2019, and the days after it, up to August 17, 2019, I went through a series of experiences that changed me in dramatic ways. I did not understand what was happening at the time. All I knew was that I needed God, and I had a deep desire to learn about Him.

I bought a KJV Bible from Amazon, and it arrived at the beginning of August. I did not know where to start reading, so I started with the Gospels. I booked two weeks of vacation, because at work it had become hard to think about anything but God. During that vacation I went on a two-week fast, drinking only water and juice. I knew nothing about fasting except what I had overheard adults talking about when I was a child. I did not know exactly why I was fasting, and no church had given me rules for it. I just knew I needed God, and I felt I needed to fast and “purge” myself.

To guide the fast, I listened to recorded sermons by that same preacher, Myles Munroe. Years later, when I looked more closely, I found that some of the things he taught do not line up with Scripture. This is true of many preachers. They know some truth from Scripture, but they mix in their own false beliefs and doctrines. That is even more reason why we must examine everything we are taught: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, KJV). To prove here means to test.

I also learned that God can use anyone or anything to teach you or to get your attention. He once spoke to a prophet through a donkey (Numbers 22:28). Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached even by people with wrong motives (Philippians 1:15-18). God is not limited.

Other people noticed that I had changed a great deal, in many ways. I lost a lot of weight, though that was never my goal. My speech changed, and the way I thought was changing. I was now willing to forgive others. I wanted to repent and turn away from my sins, and my interest in the things of God kept growing.

In a very short time, I gave up many things and cut ties with many people and groups I had belonged to. God also set me free from a terrible habit I had for over 30 years. He did it so quickly that at first I did not even realize I had been set free. I only noticed it some time later in August 2019, and I smiled. I had been so focused on Him and on praying, sometimes for long periods, that I had not even noticed. I am so grateful that He delivered me. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV).

In those early days I read my Bible every day, for hours. But over time I started listening to men I thought were wiser and more spiritual than me, and I fell into a trap. I joined churches and listened to many false teachers, false prophets and false so-called apostles. They led me away from the truth of Scripture, into darkness and away from God’s “marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9, KJV). This went on for about six years. Then God set me free from that blindness and from those wicked and ignorant teachers in April 2025, in a way I never could have imagined. How He did it is a story for another time.

It took me about a year, from April 2025 to early 2026, to fully understand what had happened to me. As I began to study more deeply on my own, I became angry when I saw how badly I had been deceived.

During that year of study and reflection, I developed a greater appreciation of how great and loving God truly is. Jesus Christ is how God showed that love: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9, KJV). He is God’s Son and the perfect image of Him (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). The more I studied, and the more I learned how to study, the more I saw how badly I had been fooled.

The lies taught by the false teachers and preachers I had listened to caused a lot of harm, because I truly believed them. They caused many problems in my family. They also caused me constant stress, because I came to believe that if I did not see signs and wonders from God, it meant He did not love me. Lying preachers taught that I needed signs and wonders to prove I was saved, so I kept waiting for them. But Jesus said, “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29, KJV).

Looking back, I can see that God had been working in me since 2019. The fruit of the Spirit was there (Galatians 5:22-23). I ignored all of it, because I was waiting to be “taken over” by the Holy Spirit and to speak in tongues.

What I found when I studied for myself

The false teaching that held me the longest was this: that speaking in tongues is the proof that a person has the Holy Spirit and is saved. I truly believed it, and for a long time I resisted the truth. In time, I studied the matter for myself and learned the truth. At first it was hard to accept. But God does not lie, and He cannot lie: He is the God “that cannot lie” (Titus 1:2, KJV). Men lie: “let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4, KJV).

Not every believer will speak in tongues, and the Bible shows that this is God’s will. The Holy Spirit gives gifts “to every man severally as he will” (1 Corinthians 12:11, KJV), which means He gives each person the gift He chooses. Paul asks, “do all speak with tongues?” (1 Corinthians 12:30, KJV), and the answer he expects is no. Some say Paul is talking only about tongues used in church meetings, but no verse in the Bible draws that line. No verse in the Bible says that speaking in tongues is the first sign, or the needed proof, that you have the Holy Spirit. The book of Acts tells of people speaking in tongues three times (Acts 2, 10 and 19), and some teachers built this false doctrine from those three stories. Historians trace it to Charles Parham and his Bible school in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901.

Most of the people the book of Acts says were saved are never said to have spoken in tongues. On the day of Pentecost, about 3,000 people received Peter’s message and were baptized (Acts 2:41). The Ethiopian man (Acts 8:36-39), Lydia (Acts 16:14-15), and the jailer at Philippi and his household (Acts 16:30-34) all believed and were baptized. None of them is said to have spoken in tongues.

The Bible also says plainly what tongues are for: “tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not” (1 Corinthians 14:22, KJV). In the book of Acts, tongues were a sign of something God was doing, not a test every believer had to pass. At the house of Cornelius, they showed Peter and the Jewish believers with him, who did not yet believe that God would accept the Gentiles, that He had (Acts 10:44-47; 11:15-18).

This false teaching goes even further. Some so-called “Holiness” and “Apostolic” groups teach that Jesus Christ Himself spoke in tongues on the cross. But read what He said: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, KJV; see also Mark 15:34). Jesus was not speaking a language He had never learned. He was quoting the first line of Psalm 22, in the Hebrew and Aramaic that He and the people around Him knew well. Matthew even translates it for us, and some who stood there heard “Eli” and thought He was calling for Elijah, called Elias in the KJV (Matthew 27:47). There was nothing unknown about it.

Teachings like this have manipulated many sincere people and caused real harm. People are made to doubt their salvation, as I did, and to depend on a preacher to tell them whether God has accepted them. Some false preachers even call the Bible a “book of tongues” that only they can translate. That is a lie. The Bible was written in the ordinary languages of its day, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and it has been faithfully translated into your own language. Some parts take careful study, as Peter admits (2 Peter 3:16), but the heart of the Scriptures is plain enough for a child. Paul told Timothy, “from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15, KJV).

Learning the truth about this one teaching changed everything for me. It led me to question EVERY single thing I had been taught in the false churches I once belonged to, and to begin studying the Bible in earnest for myself, instead of relying on what men said. I wanted to know what God had written for my learning: “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Romans 15:4, KJV). Aforetime means long ago.

I started making many written and audio study notes on different topics for myself, and they grew quickly over several months. In early 2026 I purchased a copy of The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge: An Easy-to-Use One-Volume Library for Bible Study and Lesson Preparation, by Jerome H. Smith. For each verse, it lists the other verses in the Bible that connect to it. Soon after, I bought the electronic version, which made the work easier.

Most important of all, I prayed, and I still pray, asking God to give me wisdom, knowledge and understanding of His Word and the truth, because I wanted to know Him for myself. God promises this: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5, KJV). In other words, God gives freely and does not scold you for asking. I told Him I was tired of men’s lies and deception. I told Him I had no more faith or trust in men, and that I really needed Him. Scripture agrees: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8, KJV).

He answered my prayers. I am still learning so much about the things of God, and it brings great joy and fulfilment to my soul.

I no longer attend man-made churches, because I now see that most of them are just businesses, full of deception, confusion and lies. This does not mean that God cannot save you while you are in a man-made church. He can, and He often saves people in all kinds of circumstances, because He looks at the heart, not at outward appearance: “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, KJV). Peter warned that false teachers “through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you” (2 Peter 2:3, KJV). That means that out of greed they use made-up words to make money from you. I say most, because there are still some true churches that teach God’s people correctly, according to Scripture.

There are no true Christian churches close to where I live now, so I mostly fellowship online with other believers in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. That way we can keep encouraging and teaching each other, as Scripture encourages us: “let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:24-25, KJV). To provoke here means to stir each other up.

Why you must study the Bible for yourself

Preachers often quote this verse: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, KJV). In plain words, it means: work hard to please God, like a good worker who has nothing to be ashamed of and who handles His Word the right way. But very few preachers ever show you how to do it. They quote the verse and leave the rest up to you.

The Bible is a big book, with hundreds of pages, so this can feel overwhelming. Where do you start reading? How do you connect the different books and verses? Many people feel lost and quietly give up. Then they settle for listening only to whatever their preacher says. That can be a blessing if the preacher is sincere and knows the Word. It can be very dangerous if he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as many are in these last days. Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15, KJV). Ravening means fierce and hungry. Paul also warned that “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:3, KJV).

The only way to know which preachers are telling the truth is not to take their word for it, or anyone else’s. Use the Bible itself to test them. Compare every single thing they say with what is actually written in the Bible. John says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1, KJV). To try here means to test.

Bad preachers often try to discourage people from reading the Bible for themselves. They may say you will not understand what you read, that you need them to explain it, and that you MUST “sit” under them. Some will even say, in a patronizing way, “Sit down, son, and let me teach you!” But Scripture says every believer has the Holy Spirit as a teacher: “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you” (1 John 2:27, KJV). It also says, “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130, KJV). God does give pastors and teachers to His church (Ephesians 4:11-12), but their job is to point you to the truth in the Scriptures and to Jesus Christ, not to take their place.

Sincere preachers and teachers who are truly of God will encourage you to study the Scriptures for yourself, and they will make a real effort to help you. They will always point you to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. They will never deny that Jesus is the Son of God, who is alive and in heaven right now (Hebrews 7:25; 8:1). “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22, KJV).

They will also never mislead you into wrongly believing that Jesus Christ is the Father. The title Christ (in Greek, Christos) means “the Anointed One.” Scripture says it was God who anointed Jesus: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38, KJV). No one anoints God the Father. The Father is the One who does the anointing. So the Anointed One cannot be the Father who anointed Him. Some teachers answer that the Father anointed only the human side of Jesus. But in Hebrews 1:8-9 the Father speaks to His Son as another Person, calls Him God, and says His own God anointed Him: “unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever… therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee” (Hebrews 1:8-9, KJV). The One who is anointed is called God. So He is not just a human side of the Father.

Unlike false teachers, a good preacher or teacher will never try to lord it over you, insult you, abuse you, frighten you without reason, demand money from you, or manipulate you into serving his needs. Peter told the elders to feed the flock “not for filthy lucre” (that is, not for dishonest money), and not “as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2-3, KJV). Ensamples means examples.

All of this, and things like it, is spiritual bondage. Paul named it: “ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself” (2 Corinthians 11:20, KJV). Ye suffer means you put up with it. Flee from anyone who tries to put you in bondage by twisting the Word of God for his own gain (2 Corinthians 4:2). “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1, KJV).

This does not mean that sincere preachers and teachers never make mistakes. They do. But they are humble enough to admit it and to correct what they taught so that it lines up with Scripture. “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning” (Proverbs 9:9, KJV).

God is not trying to confuse us. “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33, KJV). He wants you to learn about Him and His Son, Jesus Christ. That is why it is so important to learn how to study the Bible for yourself, so that you will not be deceived and led down a road to physical harm, or even worse, spiritual destruction.

Jesus warned about this. He said, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14, KJV). God also said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6, KJV).

Do not take my word for it

Please do not just take my word for any of this. I am an imperfect man, and I do not have all the answers. I am simply thankful to God for opening my eyes and my understanding, and for calling me “out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9, KJV). Helping others study the Bible for themselves is my way of showing that thanks. Use these study guides to check the Bible for yourself. Do what the people of Berea did. They “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11, KJV). That means they checked every day to see if what they were taught was true.

Keep your own Bible open next to these study guides. Use the King James Version (KJV) or the New American Standard Bible (NASB), 1995 edition. I have found the NASB to be the more accurate of the two. I quote the KJV on this page because many readers know its wording. Some people say the KJV is the only true Bible, but do not believe that. I believed it for many years too, until I found out it is not true, and the Bible itself never teaches it.

Get to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for yourself, and build a loving relationship with Him. Think often about who He is and what He did for you. Learn to love Him and adore Him. These study guides will help you do that. I pray that God will open your mind to understand His Word, just as Jesus did for His followers. The Bible says, “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45, KJV).

If these study guides help even one person learn the truth of Scripture and about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, then God gets all the honour, glory and praise for it. I do not need or want any praise. “Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory” (Psalm 115:1, KJV).

God is the one who saves you

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will be the final judge of your life. The Bible says the Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22, KJV). That means the Father has given all judging to His Son. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also truly God (John 1:1; John 20:28; Hebrews 1:6-9). I have written separate study guides that explain this in more detail. Jesus has the final say on where you will spend eternity (Matthew 25:31-46).

Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Good works show that your faith is alive, but you cannot do good works to earn your salvation, because “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6, KJV). We are all stained by sin, so none of us is perfect: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, KJV). Only God can save us. You will do good works, as Scripture teaches, and God Himself has prepared those good works for you to do: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, KJV). Trust God to lead you in the right direction, even when it is not clear what is happening: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6, KJV). Often it is only by looking back that you see what God was doing.

You cannot save yourself by your good works. That is a lie that many false teachers spread. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, KJV). You cannot make yourself perfect in God’s eyes. No one can. If you try in your own strength, you will only wear yourself out and lose heart.

God is the one who saves you, through His Son, Jesus Christ. God does the work, and He does not need your help: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5, KJV). Faith does not earn anything. It simply receives what God has done. He makes you born again, and He does this even when you are at your worst. That is exactly what happened to me in July 2019, when I was at my worst, with sinful behaviour and attitudes. The Bible says, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, KJV). God changes you from the inside. The Bible says believers are born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13, KJV; see also John 1:12). Ask yourself this: can a baby plan its own birth? No, it cannot.

When God is truly at work in you, you will naturally want to obey Jesus Christ. Preachers rightly call people to be baptized, as the apostles did (Acts 2:38), and baptism is His command (Matthew 28:19). But you will not need to be pushed into it. Think of the Ethiopian man. When he saw water, he asked, “what doth hinder me to be baptized?” (Acts 8:36, KJV). In plain words, he was asking, “What is stopping me from being baptized?” It is God who makes you want to please Him. The Bible says, “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, KJV). That means God works in you, so that you want to do what pleases Him and are able to do it.

If you have put your trust in Jesus Christ, you will grow more sure over time that you are saved as you study the Bible. God wrote His Word so that you can know. The Bible says, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13, KJV). Our God is a good God. He is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9, KJV), and He does not want anyone to be lost. Trust Him, not men: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is” (Jeremiah 17:7, KJV).

Follow Jesus Christ, not men

Obey Jesus Christ. Obey His commandments, not the rules that men made up. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15, KJV). He also warned about people who teach “for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9, KJV), which means they teach man-made rules as if they came from God.

Flee from false teachers. Do not stay around hoping they will change. Paul said to “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17, KJV). To mark them means to watch out for them.

Stay away from men who lift themselves up with big titles, such as Apostle. Scripture shows that the apostles who laid the foundation of the church had to be witnesses of the risen Lord. When the apostles chose someone to replace Judas, he had to have been with them through Jesus’ ministry, and he was chosen “to be a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1:22, KJV; see Acts 1:21-22). Paul did not walk with Jesus during His ministry, but the risen Jesus Christ appeared to him, revealed Himself to him, and called him directly (Acts 26:16; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8; Galatians 1:11-12). Jesus praised the church in Ephesus, saying, “thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars” (Revelation 2:2, KJV).

Avoid women who take the role of preacher or pastor over the church. Scripture speaks directly against this and explains why: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:12-13, KJV). Suffer here means allow, and to usurp authority means to take authority that is not yours. Some point to women such as Priscilla (Acts 18:26) and Phoebe (Romans 16:1), but neither one is shown leading a church as its pastor.

Avoid men who call their wives the “First Lady” of the church. The Bible names roles such as elder and bishop, but it never teaches leaders to lift themselves up with titles, and it never mentions a “First Lady.” That is man-made nonsense. Jesus said, “be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matthew 23:8, KJV). A rabbi is a teacher or master.

Run to your Lord and Saviour instead. He is your only Good Shepherd. He truly cares about you, and you can trust Him fully. He said, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11, KJV).

Worship and honour Jesus Christ, just as you worship and honour the Father, because honouring Him also honours the Father. Jesus said, “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (John 5:23, KJV). A false teacher may tell you that Jesus Christ is not to be worshipped. Scripture disagrees. God Himself says of His Son, “let all the angels of God worship him” (Hebrews 1:6, KJV). Here are some of the places in the Gospels where people worship Jesus:

Learn from Him (Matthew 11:29), and obey Him. You are not doing these things to earn your salvation. You will do them naturally as the Holy Spirit leads you. Jesus said, “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13, KJV). God promised, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27, KJV). That means God will put His Spirit in you, and His Spirit will lead you to obey His laws. Give all the glory, honour and praise to God our Father and to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, not to men.

Enjoy these study guides. I created them with the understanding God gave me through diligent study, and with the knowledge He gave me to use modern tools such as AI to put the study guides and this website together and create any artwork in them. Feed on the Word of God in your own Bible as you read. May God bless you.

Percival Hall