Ray Stedman Library

About the Ray C. Stedman Library

This web site gathers together in one place the entire Ray C. Stedman Library originated in 1995 at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California where Ray Stedman was pastor for 40 years. We offer fast download of printed and audio files, free of charge for educational purposes-- according to the copyright notice at the end of each message. We are currently adding all of Ray's in-print and out-of-print books to this web site.

Ray C. Stedman was this century's great champion of expository preaching. Rather than topical preaching--which is common in many churches today--Ray believed the "whole counsel of God" was best communicated to God's people by systematically teaching through the entire Bible, usually an entire book at time. This included giving the sense of the passage (Nehemiah 8:8)--and its application to contemporary living. In this way the Christian could build up a broad base of Biblical knowledge---since the Bible teaches truth on various topics, "here a little there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept." Ray's sermons were delivered with minimal notes and when transcribed into printed form rarely needed any editing. Ray was always prepared for questions afterwards. It is said that he recommended to young pastors that they spend 20 hours of preparation for a one hour message.

A favorite Scriptural verse of Ray's was:

"This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy." (1 Corinthians 4:1-2)

Occasionally Ray would preach on an issue of critical current concern to his audience, or on an issue of basic foundational truth. These topical messages are usually to be found under the category of "Single Messages."

Ray strongly emphasized the New Covenant in all his teaching. In his very popular book Authentic Christianity (online) he shows clearly that most nominal churchgoers today have defaulted into some form of Old Covenant living and have failed to discover real life in Christ as God intended it to be under the terms of the New Covenant which our Lord instituted at the Last Supper..

Ray's teaching on church life and government represents a return to New Testament principles of non-hierarchical leadership in the church and the ministry of all the saints rather than the tradition clergy/laity division of effort common in most churches. See our collected Leadership files.

Early in Ray's work at Peninsula Bible Church the Board of Elders decided that Ray should spend most of his time teaching out of town. This means that we have fewer books and sermons by Ray on our web site than would otherwise exist. Ray's greater calling was to teach young pastors around the world about Expository Preaching. He led a vigorous movement called the Congress on Bible Exposition (COBE) for some years. He was featured speaker at countless Bible conferences and seminars around the world. This web site therefore preserves only one corner of Ray Stedman's enormous influence on the Christian community in his generation--much of it behind the scenes and featuring the low profile of a faithful servant of the Lord.

On this page we have attempted to very briefly summarize the overall content of Ray's available messages. Our web site search engine can be of some help.

For more on the life of Ray C. Stedman see his Biography page. Elaine Stedman's 1998 message, Body Language is an excellent survey of Ray's ministry and life during the foundational years of Peninsula Bible Church. She has recently written on the New Covenant in response to a question.

This web site preserves all of Ray's sermons and also his books--whether books now in print or out of print. (Books are currently being added to the site one by one).

A further goal of this project is foreign language versions of Ray's messages. We have made a good start in the Spanish Library and welcome contribution to pay for the cost of translations services. Four books in Russian by Ray Stedman are available in our Russian Library.

Contributions: This web site is supported by the gifts and contributions of interested friends. Most of the work is done by volunteers and the web site resources are offered free of charge. Should you wish to contribute: Gateway Christian Church, 5550 Commerce Blvd., Suite 1, Rohnert Park, CA. 94928. Designate your gift: "Raystedman.org Ministry"

Visit PBC, Palo Alto, for sermons by other speakers and for current church information.

A note concerning pdf files:We have added Adobe Acrobat versions of the papers and many of the books in this library. You will need Acrobat Reader to read and print these files. The advantage is better formatting and pagination, especially useful if you wish to print the messages. You are welcome to print and use our messages subject to the stated copyright limitations.

Books in print, Tapes, Booklets, and Discovery Papers by Ray C. Stedman. A CD ROMof this entire library and most of the other PBC sermon libraries is available. Many of Ray Stedman's books and most of his messages on cassette tapes or CD are available from Discovery Publishing. Discovery Publishing may be contacted by email at (Robin_Yee@PBC.Org). Amazon.com carries many of Ray's books, both books in print and used. Discovery House Publishers is the regular publisher of Ray Stedman's books. You may order directly from their web site.

Other Ray Stedman Resources: The complete Ray C. Stedman Library plus 67 messages in MP3 format is available on a free CD from Firefighters for Christ Address: #4 Santa Maria, Foothill Ranch, CA 92610, 949-470-9883

Easy Access to the Bible online and Bible Search Engine

The Paraclete Forum is available to answer your questions and to pray for you.

Maintained by volunteers. Last Update August 3, 2005 by Webmaster. Broken links? Missing files? Please let us know--we'll fix them promptly. webmaster@raystedman.org

Ray Stedman's Biography and Tribute Page