Topic Archives: Christian Living

An extract from Chapter 6 of Paul D. Wolfe’s book, My God Is True: Lessons Learned Along Cancer’s Dark Road,1 pp. 96-101. One . . . aspect of the church’s life that we ought to consider in connection to suffering [is that] the Lord uses faithful preaching to shape the hearts and minds of his […]

A Tale of Two Cities The Christian believer is always living in an inescapable tension! Much as we would love to be free of this tension, until we leave this earthly scene and enter the nearer presence of our great and gracious God, we will be engaged every moment of every day in this tension. […]

Events in 1732 made Ebenezer Erskine consider the time ‘a day of trouble’. Twenty years had passed since Parliament had reimposed patronage on the Church of Scotland. This meant that the right to nominate a minister for a vacant congregation lay with, normally, a local landowner. Now the 1732 General Assembly had agreed, in the […]

And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. (Romans 13:11) Paul is writing to the congregation of new Christians at the heart of the Roman Empire. First of all he has given to […]

Let me begin with a question (not a trick one!): ‘What is the principal exercise of faith?’ It is a straight-forward question and a very important question. For John Owen, the great English Puritan divine, the answer was instinctive: ‘The contemplation of the glory of Christ.’ Saving faith unites the believer to the Lord Jesus […]

A tender farewell The fellowship meal of Abraham with the Lord and the two angels was over, and one part of God’s mission in leaving heaven and coming to Mamre to the patriarch and his wife had been completed. The Lord had assured Sarah that she was going to give birth to a son within […]

Why should Christians be familiar with the great doctrines of the Bible? Let me give you four reasons. 1) The first is the simplest of all: Because we love God. And if you love someone, you want to know everything about them. If a young man meets a girl and falls in love, he’ll want […]

God created man in his own image. (Genesis 1:27) On the sixth day of creation, after making cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts, Elohim, in a marvellous intra-Triune council decided to create man in his own image. The word ‘image’ in Hebrew literally means to cut from a stone, much like what Michelangelo did when […]

Over the years I’ve done a lot of it. I can’t count the books, the articles and the various other items that I have composed. I always had a penchant for writing. In my first pastorate, I bought a Miller printing press; in order to bring it inside, I had to partially knock out a […]

Summary of a 10-minute address at the Banner of Truth Leicester Ministers’ Conference, 2009. Acts 9:1 ‘Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter.’ Acts 9:3 ‘Suddenly a light from heaven.’ What drama in the Early Church! The chief antagonist is on the warpath. His theme as he engages on his latest crusade is described as […]

‘Man is an enigma, whose only solution can be found in God.’ So wrote Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch theologian. What Bavinck wrote is immediately applicable to fallen men and women. Science cannot explain who we are and what we are. Science cannot tell us what will ultimately become of us. It cannot explain the […]

God is gathering a people for Himself. He finds them in Satan’s kingdom and calls them effectually by the Holy Spirit in His infinite grace. He convinces them of sin and makes them willing and able to believe in Christ and to follow Him along the narrow way which leads to everlasting life. But will […]

Pray in the Spirit. (Ephesians 6:18) Some time after Peter preached at Pentecost where three thousand were saved, he and John were going to the temple to pray when they saw a lame man begging alms. Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold but what I do have I give to you. In the […]

What word best summarizes the content of the Bible? I have received an array of answers to that question, such as: God, Christ, grace, truth, and love. In fact, there are many words in the Bible, and we need them all rightly to understand and gratefully to live our new life in Christ. However, while […]

1. Jesus Claim: Jesus had no interest in maintaining a male-female requirement for sexual relations. What the evidence really shows: Jesus believed that a male-female requirement for sexual relations was foundational, a core value of Scripture’s sexual ethics on which other sexual standards should be based, including the ‘twoness’ of a sexual union. Jesus predicated […]