Topic Archives: Christian Thought

Picture life as a journey, a journey from birth to death. We are born, we live, and we die. That’s how it was for Jesus. Life was a journey for him too. When he made our nature his own, he made our journey his own as well. At both the beginning and the end of […]

One of the most difficult things at present for the Reformed Christian is to strike a balance between yesterday and today. This is not perhaps surprising. The Reformed Christian believes that in the sixteenth century the Reformers recovered the biblical faith, and that no Protestant ministry has excelled that of the seventeenth century. Reformers and […]

Readers will be interested to know that the Trust is soon to re-issue Robert Traill in two volumes. There are a number of reasons why Traill deserves to be reprinted. First, his long and active life spanned the period of the Puritan Age. Born in 1642, almost on the eve of the Westminster Assembly, he […]

The following are Professor Murray’s notes of a sermon which he preached not long before his illness and death. They constitute only an outline, the material being expanded in delivery.  * * * Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the […]

The idea that the Christian faith is better felt than thought and believed is a widespread one. Its roots are widespread as well. In Protestantism since the time of Kant it has been axiomatic that God cannot be known, only ‘postulated’ or ‘projected’. This by-now traditional agnosticism has been reinforced by challenges to the meaningfulness […]

One of the greatest of the problems that have agitated the Church is the problem of the relation between knowledge and piety, between culture and Christianity. This problem has appeared first of all in the presence of two tendencies in the Church — the scientific or academic tendency, and what may be called the practical […]

It belongs to God to put the world right; the Christian’s first duty is to put himself right. In so doing the believer takes the first step towards influencing others for good. But it is a difficult and an unwelcome task and one in which he can expect little help or encouragement from others. Repentance […]

From as early as I can remember, books, poetry, and literature have mattered to me a great deal. That interest intensified in my teens, and eventually led me to study English as a single honours subject at university — I had no career plans back in those care free, fee-free, days of undergrad education! Lurking […]

The obituary of Harry Blamires recently printed in the Times newspaper came as a shock. Not having heard of this writer for years, one assumed he had long passed away, but through he columns of this daily newspaper one learned that he had recently died, 21 November, aged 101 years and 15 days. The obituary was […]

The longer one lives in this world as a Christian, the more he or she becomes aware of the significance of their words and thoughts. The mind of the the believer plays a far more central role than we often realise. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he’, the scriptures say. We […]

One sometimes meets Christians who use scriptural words and thoughts with no more feeling than if they were licking stamps. They seem to belong to a religious world whose citizens live always north of the Arctic circle of emotion. Their spiritual affections are buried beneath yards of ice and snow. When they venture to talk about […]

It is now over sixty years since Professor John Murray, in his 1955 Peyton Lectures, later published in Principles of Conduct (IVP, London, 1957), spoke of the ‘eclipse of the fear of God’. It was such he said that ‘we have become reluctant to distinguish the earnest and consistent believer as God-fearing’. If that was […]

‘What man is he that feareth the LORD? Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.’ (Psalm 25:12-13) There was a time not too many years ago when a believer was described simply as a ‘God-fearing man.’ That was […]

Western  society  is  beset  with  slogans  of  one  kind  or  another.  There  can  be  few  societies  which  have  had  to  face  so  many.  Not  that  previous  generations  have  not  had  to  respond  to  them.  Virgil  spoke  to  the  ancient  world  of  ‘Eternal  Rome’,  and  people  were  meant  to  be  grateful  that  the  Roman  Empire  would  […]

Clear and concise, encouraging and exhilarating, reliable and readable are six words that quickly come to mind. They help explain why the writings of J C Ryle have such an enduring value. But they are not the main reason why I, and so many others, find his books so beneficial. Ryle tackles controversial issues in some of articles and tracts. He […]