Topic Archives: Pastoral Theology/Pastoral Helps

APOSTASY WE MUST START FROM THE ‘GREAT POSITIVE STATEMENTS OF SCRIPTURE’ John Owen is one who has written comprehensively on this subject. I have, therefore, taken his writings as the basis for what I want to say, while drawing on the contribution of others here and there, and interjecting some comments of my own. By […]

THE UNRESOLVED CONTROVERSY:UNITY WITH NON-EVANGELICALS THE REALITY IS WE COULD HAVE DONE WORSE THAN THOSE WITH WHOM WE DIFFER [In the discussion and controversy which followed the publication of “Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 195O-2OO1”, its author, Iain Murray, was invited by Dr John F MacArthur to give an address […]

GOD’S THE TRUTH IS A LOVELY SONG, BECOME SWEET BY LONG AND TENDER ASSOCIATION Charles G. Finney believed that Bible teaching without moral application could be worse than no teaching at all, and could result in positive injury to the hearers. I used to feel that this might be an extreme position, but after years […]

One of the many privileges of my seminary education was to sit at the feet of Dr. Cornelis P. Venema, professor of doctrinal studies at, and recently named president of, Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana. Seminary professors are really amazing phenomena. Although you hear them lecture for only three or four years, they remain […]

O Lord, revive thy work. — Habakkuk 3:2 All true religion is the work of God: it is pre-eminently so. If he should select out of his works that which he esteems most of all, he would select true religion. He regards the work of grace as being even more glorious than the works of […]

ONE While the true greatness of a preacher will only be revealed at Christ’s tribunal, I would join my opinion with those of many others who make the earthly judgment that Charles Spurgeon was the most effective and useful of preachers since the days of the Apostles. Yes, as highly as I regard Augustine, Luther, […]

The sovereignty of God I take to be the absolute authority, rule, and government of God in the whole of that reality that exists distinct from himself in the realms of nature and of grace. It is a concept that respects his relation to other beings and to all other being and existence. It is, […]

At the end of the Banner of Truth ministers’ conference in Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, on June 1, Sherman Isbell took me to Baltimore airport and on the way we called in at the Green Mount Cemetery to visit the grave of Dr J. Gresham Machen. He is buried next to his parents and his […]

The 23rd American Banner of Truth Conference on the eastern part of the nation took place in Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, May 29-31. This has been its venue for over ten years having met in such places as Memphis and in Grand Rapids in the past. As the English Swanwick conferences share that centre in […]

When the town-crier comes through the street he opens his mouth and he’s a free man. He’s free in the sense that he’s not biting his nails nervously wondering ‘Oh, how will this news fall upon the ears of Mrs So-and-So in the light of what I happen to know about her through my second […]

You will appreciate that much of my time is devoted to the endeavor of applying the Word of God to individuals, as well as to the gathered congregation. The public ministry of the Word is accomplished through preaching. The private application of the Word to individuals, or couples, or families is done through counseling. I […]

There is no question that nothing will encourage a change in the condition of any congregation except it be achieved by true preaching. In this article John R. de Witt speaks of the link between revival and preaching. * * * The word revival sometimes has unfortunate connotations. When it is used, people frequently think […]

Christian Renewal (January 29, 2001), listed the position of some of the Reformed and Presbyterian seminaries in North America on the length of the days of Genesis 1. Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, allows for a diversity of views, limited only by reports and decisions adopted by the 1991 Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, […]

The Founders Journal is a quarterly Magazine committed to historic Southern Baptist principles and indispensable for ascertaining the reformation going on in that Convention. It is edited by Dr Tom Ascol of the Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida. In the current edition the Baptist Dr Roger Nicole, the Visiting Professor of Theology at […]

The Summary of an Address given by Iain Murray at the Carey Conference 2001 at Swanwick. During the Second World War a Scot who was in the services and visiting London went to Westminster Chapel but the Chapel was closed, damaged by bombing, but on a piece of paper visitors were directed to a nearby […]