Yearly Archives: 2005

[David Davies of Llandinam was one of the great benefactors of Victorian Wales. He was a Calvinistic Methodist elder and a generous supporter of the Forward Movement which sought to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the industrial towns and valley communities of South Wales. Though his philanthropy the University College of Wales grew. […]

“Jean-Paul Sartre, born 100 years ago on 21 June 1905, was the most striking presence in French postwar literature, and the originating cause of the left-bank culture of the Sixties. His prodigious literary gifts found expression in seminal works of philosophy, in novels, plays, stories, criticism, in a highly influential literary journal (Les Temps modernes) […]

“Enormous forces in our culture are determined to deny that Jesus was raised from the dead,” N.T. Wright, an Anglican bishop, said. “Over and over again, they use arguments that can be shown to be invalid and propose alternative scenarios which can be shown to be impossible.” Wright and John Dominic Crossan, a member of […]

“. . . since we are all tempted to some form of idolatry, it is helpful to know where we need to erect some defenses. If the rock myth does involve the tacit endorsement of pantheistic, primitivistic [this is, per the author, the noble savage idea of Jean-Jacques Rousseau] celebration of the self and the […]

I am concerned. I am very concerned about the absence of evangelistic preaching today. In many pulpits what is called evangelistic preaching is basically an appeal to non-Christians tacked on at the end of most sermons. But where are the sermons that from beginning to end are “reasoning and explaining and proving from the Scriptures […]

On June15 Miss Ruth Kelly, the British Secretary of State of Education, said that by 2010 state schools would open for breakfast at 8 a.m. and let children stay until 6 p.m. This is the editorial in the Spectator concerning this scheme. “When Ruth Kelly became Education Secretary last December, one of her female colleagues, […]

On March 3, four Royal Canadian Mounted Police were shot dead in a raid on a marijuana farm. The killer, James Roszko, turned the gun on himself. All of Canada was shocked, and at the funeral service in Edmonton on March 9 thousands of Mounties in their traditional broad-brimmed hats and scarlet tunics marched in […]

There seemed to me to be more men this year in the Evangelical Movement of Wales Ministers’ Conference than for some years – about 70 men. As always the spirit amongst us preachers in all our gatherings in the UK is loving and supportive. The main speaker was Arturo Azurdia, a pastor from north of […]

A conference on justification was arranged by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s Christian Education Committee of the Presbytery of the Midwest on March 17 in Des Moines, Indiana, USA. The handout of the Committee stated that some voices were calling for a “new perspective on Paul” because the Reformed Church had misunderstood what Paul said about […]

The Back to God Hour is our favourite Christian Radio broadcast. For half an hour each week a message in agreement with the standards of the Heidelberg Catechism is broadcast across America and in many other parts of the world. For many years its brilliant speaker was Peter Eldersveld, followed by Joel Nederhood who once […]

On 21 May, President Bush gave a speech to the 900 graduating seniors at Calvin College’s 85th Commencement ceremony in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The day before, between faculty, alumni, and friends, 823 people took a full page ad in “The Grand Rapids Press” with a signed petition protesting the presidents visit. Another one third of […]

Paul was a man who could stand without any fear and without any apology in Athens on Mars’ Hill. There he is confronted by a congregation of Stoics and Epicureans, and he can speak to them with authority. Ah, but when the same man visits Galatia, where they belonged to a rather primitive type of […]

On June 3, 1905, at Changsha, the capital of Hunan province in China, James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission (now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship) died. Hunan was the last province of China to be opened to the gospel. He was taken and buried at Chinkiang beside his wife Maria and four […]

“Make sure you’re not missing the point of your life – read this book! The Purpose Drive Life will drive you to greatness – through living the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.” Thus enthused Billy Graham and his son Franklin. It is an example of the many glowing recommendations for the book The Purpose […]

Struggling to achieve salvation through his own efforts, the Gloucester-born student, George Whitefield, at the age of twenty, read The Life of God in the Soul of Man, written by a 17th century Puritan divine, Henry Scougal. Near death for seven weeks because of his constant fasting, Whitefield learnt from this book that it is […]