Philip Layton has been a keen student of the Bible since his teenage years, with role models from within his family, many of whom being Christian ministers.As a result, his love of God, the Bible, and The Salvation Army led to his ordination in 2000, when he was appointed with his wife, Karen, as corps officers (church pastors) to Swanage in Dorset, and then in 2003 to Hythe in Kent. Within this second appointment Phil also took on a 5-year dual appointment as a New Testament Tutor at William Booth College, London (2005-2010), as well as being a corresponding member of The Salvation Army’s International Doctrine Council (2006-2011), and also a member of the Moral and Social Issues Council in the United Kingdom (2005-2013).In 2014, at the request of The Salvation Army, Phil applied to the UK armed forces to become a chaplain in the Royal Air Force (RAF), and entered intensive military officer training at RAF Cranwell. His first posting was to RAF Marham, which included two short deployments to Op SHADER at RAF Akrotiri (Cyprus) at the climax of the United Kingdom’s defence against an increasingly bold and violent Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In 2015 he returned to RAF Cranwell as chaplain to the college and airbase, as well as formal teaching of the beliefs, ethics, and values programme to the officer-cadets. In 2016 he was deployed as Chaplain to the British Forces in the South Atlantic Islands (a.k.a. the Falkland isles), before being brought back to The Salvation Army as Spiritual Programme Director at William Booth College. In 2018 Phil and Karen took up an appointment as church leaders in Upper Norwood, South London.Phil finds greatest fulfilment when proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially on a one-to-one basis. However, he has written three books which highlight the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus, the reliability of the Bible, and the wisdom in thinking through the reasons why we believe certain doctrines. The first of these was ‘The Sacraments and the Bible’, published in 2007, taking a fresh look at what the Bible has to say about communion and baptism. The second book was published in 2009 and examines the Christian eschatological theme of ‘The Rapture’, examining its biblical validity as the next major event on God’s prophetic timeline.The third book, ‘Bible-Believing Christians’, was published in 2013, and comprehensively explains how the Bible can be trusted, demonstrating how apparent inconsistencies can be resolved. Phil has vocational qualifications in Management and in Information Technology, while academic studies include a Bachelor of Arts degree (Religious Studies) from the University of Kent, and a Master of Theology degree from Heythrop College, University of London, in which he focused on uses and abuses of the Bible, ethics, and the Gospels.Karen and Phil married in 1995 having met at Canterbury Salvation Army, and they have two adult children, Anastasia and Joshua, for whom they thank God, and of whom they are immensely proud!Read more about this authorRead less about this author