Yearly Archives: 2005

When Carl Manthey Zorn died in Cleveland, Ohio, the renowned Lutheran theologian, August Pieper wrote a 73 page biography of him, saying, “When he died one of the great ones of Israel fell.” Zorn was not even a member of Pieper’s own denomination. Who was this local minister who was to remain a pastor throughout […]

On Saturday 15th October, to mark the 450th anniversary of the deaths of Oxford Martyrs, Bishops Latimer, Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer, an open-air witness was conducted in Oxford city centre. Jonathan Hewett and Colin Tyler of Wollaston Evangelical Church in Stourbridge, travelled to Oxford to preach the gospel and distribute tracts. Arriving around noon, we […]

The Evangelical Press have been organising annual conferences in Russia for the past six years, and this year John Currid the professor of Old Testament in Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, and myself were invited to be the two speakers in St Petersburg. I flew there from Birmingham via Frankfurt along with John Norris, an […]

A large group of people stands gathered at the door of a great stone castle. Their feet shuffle on the ground, raising dust just as they raise their voices to be heard over all the noise. Young and old are gathered there; women and children are seen among the men and grey-headed. They have come […]

Text: “Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south” (Psa. 126. 4). This urgent prayer seems to be with so many of the Lord’s people at present, a desire that the Lord in love and mercy will “turn again our captivity.” Did you notice that this prayer was mentioned right at […]

The Worship of God (Christian Focus Publications) is a collection of lectures and sermons, most of them given at the 2003 Spring Theology Conference at Greenville Theological Seminary. Like most collections the quality of chapters is uneven, but overall all it is a helpful contribution in defense of historic Presbyterian worship which is centered on […]

How Important And Relevant Is Truth? Perhaps the most significant growth point in a Christian’s life is when it dawns on him or her that doctrine matters. Too often there is the fatal (and I mean fatal) tendency for Christians to assume that doctrine is an optional extra, something that is not really needful to […]

There is an ancient curse that lingers with us to this very day – the willingness of human society to be completely absorbed in a godless world. It is the supreme sin of unbelievers that even though Jesus Christ Himself has come into this world, man does not and will not feel His all-pervading presence; […]

The English define a gentleman as someone who uses a butter knife when eating alone. Student-body president Noah Riner, this Fall, in his speech to the Dartmouth freshmen defined character in a similar way: “character is what you do when no one is looking.” Character has always been the test of a meaningful life. In […]

NEW YORK – Internationally known speaker and senior fellow of the Trinity Forum Os Guinness made no attempt to sugarcoat his words on Sept. 8 when describing the postmodern character of mainline denominational leaders: “Soren Kierkegaard called them ‘kissing Judases’ – followers of Jesus who betray him with an interpretation.” Guinness was addressing a worldwide […]

Archibald Alexander was brought up in a religious home. He learned to read the Bible by the time he was five and within two more years had committed the Shorter Catechism to memory. Charles Hodge comments on “the inestimable advantage of a correct doctrinal education in his youth” (Alexander (1772-1851), born into a Scots-Irish family […]

2. The Reason for Believing It The fundamental reason is that it is taught in the Bible. This is not unwarranted circular reasoning. We are dependent on the Bible for all we know of God’s special revelation of Himself. If we cannot believe what the Bible says about itself, we cannot believe what it says […]

Why write about this? One of the heartbreaks in my life has been seeing churches, and church groups, torn-apart by disagreement. All disunity is tragic but doctrinal disagreement is doubly sad because, instead of Christians turning to the Bible and either coming to agreement or settling for principled disagreement, matters often deteriorate and become vicious […]

NEW YORK – “I greet you with a heavy heart,” declared the Rev. Dr. J. I. Packer to an international gathering at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. “Like many of you, I am an Anglican, and I am caught up in the agony of world Anglicanism.” Packer, a world renowned evangelical theologian and […]

‘Discussion about cannabis smoking, whether among the student population or older, and whether inhaled or not, is a relic of earlier puritanical generations. What really matters is its long-term effect on both physical and mental health. Recent research has confirmed that cannabis smoking may induce psychotic-type breakdowns, and relatively frequently unmasks latent hereditary psychiatric disease, […]