Topic Archives: Worldview/Culture/Religions

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. I hardly need to spell […]

The Christian Medical Fellowship have drawn up 10 sound reasons for opposing the government’s proposals to legalise homosexual marriage. 1. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman Throughout history in virtually all cultures and faiths throughout the world, marriage has been held to be the union of one man and one woman. […]

I am, apparently, something of a book nerd. I did not realise this, but it does occasionally get pointed out or exposed (for example, when someone makes a passing reference to some musty volume, and my instinctive response is, ‘Which edition?’ or something of that order). It feels very normal to me. But there we […]

The homosexual marriage debate is not about homosexuality. It is not about ‘gay-bashing’, and Christians who are often intimidated by that unjust jibe should not be afraid to take on the government over the issue of redefining marriage. It is not even about marriage. It is about God. Who is God? Is God God? Or […]

Joel Beeke, what three books have been most helpful to you as a Christian and as a minister? The first book that comes to mind is the Letters of Samuel Rutherford, which I kept on my nightstand for decades. Whenever I was discouraged, I would sweeten my mind with a morsel of Rutherford before I […]

A musical celebrity once visited our school. The girls listened spellbound to her talented performance. Then as the final applause died away there was a sudden rush towards the platform as dozens of us swarmed forward, autograph books opened, anxious to obtain the signature of so notable and gifted a musician. At that same moment […]

I spoke on the phone yesterday with a south London vicar whose parish had been hit by rioters. Actually, ‘rioters’ is not quite the word. The disorders straight after the death of Mark Duggan may have been riots with the associations of protest that brings, but by now a better word than rioters is looters, […]

The England riots are not just a breakdown of law and order, they are the consequences of a breakdown of morality in our society. We have all been appalled to see the shocking absence of respect for human life, for lawful authority and for private property. Why are these values so absent? In what social […]

Long-time readers of this magazine1 will have noticed that comment on church conditions in Scotland is almost non-existent in these columns. One reason for that has been the complexity of the situation. It is far easier to see the providence of God in events that happened many years ago than it is to understand our […]

PSALM 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? This Psalm refers to some unknown episode in the life of David, when such terrible things were taking place that it seemed that ‘the foundations’ of society were being destroyed. So, he cries out in grief in the third verse: ‘If the foundations […]

This is a sentiment I have encountered on numerous occasions. Why don’t you just give up? Surely, there is so much scientific evidence in favour of evolution? Surely, the biblical text doesn’t demand that we understand creation as taking place over a few days just a few thousand years ago? Why don’t you abandon your […]

A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel and it’s far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift affects us on the ground of everyday life. In his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology, famed Dutch Theologian Herman Ridderbos (1909-2007) summarizes this […]

And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. (Luke 8:53) These words record the reaction of certain people to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the days of his flesh. In different forms they are the words which are to be found constantly in the Gospel records of his life and […]

If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it? (Amos 3:6) The mammoth earthquake, 9.0 on the Richter scale, that struck northern Japan on March 11, and the ensuing tsunami, captured so dreadfully and spectacularly on video, has, […]

Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! (Job 38:3) After Elihu, the fourth of troubled Job’s friends, exhorts him to consider the glory and wonder of God and his providence, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind. God did the same with Elijah (1 […]