Topic Archives: Spiritual Growth

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbour, for we are members of one another. [Ephesians 4:25] I had the privilege recently of speaking with Dr. Peter Jones at the Connecticut Valley Conference on Reformed Theology and the topic was modern paganism. My job was simply to prepare the way […]

Over the past weeks I have been reading through The Letter to the Hebrews. It has, as ever, been a fascinating, sobering and richly encouraging read. The Letter, as you will know, was written to Hebrew Christians who had become influenced by false teaching and were under pressure to give up on Christ and return […]

The Apostle Paul writes, “But to each one of us grace was given, according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Ephesians 4:7). William Farel became a true follower of Christ in the early 1520s, during the time the Reformation, under the leadership of Martin Luther, was raging like a wild-fire throughout Europe. Farel had a […]

John Owen’s classic work ‘On Temptation’ has recently been published by Banner of Truth in an updated edition as Temptation Resisted and Repulsed.1 The church which I serve used this newer version as the basis for a series of adult Sunday School classes over a course of months. It became quickly apparent that the material […]

Paul described himself to Titus as ‘a servant of God’. And that was how he imagined himself in his pre-conversion days. He was, so he thought, blameless as ‘touching the righteousness which is in the law’ (Phil. 3:6); he was, in his own eyes, a marvellously-faithful servant of God. But when he met the risen […]

In times of revival sinners experience a deep conviction of their sinful condition. Sometimes this experience can be agonising. As souls first discover their appalling condition of lostness and guilt and then are led to search for and find salvation by faith in Christ, the glory of God’s grace shines resplendently. The hymns which stem […]

Has it ever struck you how often the New Testament defines the life of faith in terms of the words we speak and the way we speak them? Writing to the Christian church in Colossae, Paul urged God’s people to rid themselves of “anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from (their) lips.” John warned […]

… among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Ephesians 2:3. Ernest Hemingway, an American icon of the 20th century, one who, perhaps more than any other writer, changed […]

A reader wrote to Iain Murray: “I have a request. I am seeking Puritan or Reformed authors and books that deal with the pursuit of holiness, practical godliness and a deeper walk with Christ. I want more experimental power over sins, attitudes and the core inner failures that plague me. Any authors that you may […]

By the mid 1960’s George and Patti Harrison were deeply into Eastern mysticism, evidenced in a number of George’s songs he had written for the Beatles during that time. But on Thursday, August 24, 1967 their involvement in Eastern mysticism went to a whole new level. Patti heard that the Maharishi Yogi was lecturing in […]

Caroline Hand writes on how reading John Gwyn-Thomas’s Rejoice Always1 helped her. Why is it we do not always see the fulfilment of God’s promises in our own personal circumstances? Romans chapter 5 tells us that tribulation produces perseverance, character and hope, with the end result that God’s love is poured into our hearts. But […]

David declares that our Lord is a God of deliverances, to whom belong escapes from death (Psa. 68:20). Some of those escapes can be quite narrow, as David himself experienced. At one time only a mountain stood between a murderous Saul with his army and a fleeing David and his company (1 Sam. 23:26). At […]

Aaron Burr, Jr. was less than two years old when his father, the President of Princeton, died suddenly and unexpectedly in September, 1758. A few months later Aaron’s grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, who had been elected President of Princeton to succeed his son-in-law, died from complications due to a small pox inoculation. A few months after […]

Perpetua, a young, well to do woman, lived in Carthage in 200 A.D. Carthage, modern day Tunis in north Africa, had a vibrant Christian community living amongst a pagan people, and Perpetua had come to believe in Jesus as the Christ. She was attending a Catechism class to prepare her for public profession and baptism, […]

THE 2002 PASSAGGIO REFORMED CONFERENCE IN ITALY The eighth annual conference of the reformed publishers ‘Passaggio’ took place at a new venue this year. Some fears had been expressed beforehand that moving the conference farther south to the town of Misano on the Adriatic coast would deter some of the participants of past years from […]