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Geoffrey Thomas Resources

I have been listening to some cassettes of a certain style of preaching which seems to have swept the evangelical church. Its emphasis is the Bible as a history of redemption (which it is), but it claims to be the one Christian group which is expounding and exegeting Scripture. It takes large sweeps across the […]

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Category Articles
Date September 10, 2010
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Luke 11:24-26 When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits […]

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Category Articles
Date July 30, 2010
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The Church of Scotland Glasgow Presbytery held a ‘Commemoration of the 450th Anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland’ service in Glasgow Cathedral on 29th June. The address was given by a prominent Roman Catholic, Prof. Tom Devine of the University of Edinburgh on ‘The importance of the Reformation for the Development of Scotland’ and it […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date July 13, 2010
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[The second part of a paper given in January 2010. The first part can be found here.] 3. AREAS TO BE GREATLY VALUED BY THE PREACHER. i] There is the utter delight and enormous cost of preaching. There is joy that is unspeakable in exalting God as a congregation listens, magnifying his grace, describing the […]

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Category Articles
Date April 13, 2010
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This paper was given to a gathering of ministers near Cardiff on 18 January, 2010. The topic was requested by the organisers. How infrequently are older men able to learn brand new lessons. Over fifty years ago I learned at a student week-end conference the Scriptures’ teaching of justification by faith. I believe that that […]

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Category Articles
Date April 9, 2010
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Too much has been made of the fact that Jesus is never said to have smiled or laughed. That fact has been linked to his description as ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ The picture is developed making Jesus’ life joyless and stressful. That is a gross over-simplification. For one thing, a joyless […]

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Category Articles
Date March 16, 2010
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I gave this paper on Monday November 23, 2009, in Bala at the first conference to be held in Wales specifically for ministers who had been in the pastorate for under five years. I am not sure that there are important differences between ministers who have been in the ministry five years and those who […]

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Category Articles
Date December 24, 2009
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Whom Do We Shepherd? Whom do we pastor? We evangelize the community; we pastor the congregation. WE PASTOR OURSELVES Paul in his farewell to the elders in Ephesus exhorts them to keep watch over themselves (Acts 20:28). That is to be their first priority, and then he adds, ‘and all the flock over which the […]

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Category Articles
Date December 18, 2009
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Shepherding God’s Flock1 When I was a student fifty years ago I came under the influence of a group of Welsh ministers. I was greatly impressed with them, considering them to be great gifts to the church of Jesus Christ and peerless pastors. My feelings about that have increased with the passage of time. Some […]

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Category Articles
Date November 20, 2009
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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 […]

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Category Articles
Date August 7, 2009
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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 […]

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Category Articles
Date July 31, 2009
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I have just completed preaching through the twelfth chapter of Romans, thirty years after I had first preached through the letter. It is the Everest of New Testament ethics, corporate and individual, ecclesiastical and personal. I preached fifteen sermons on it and found much helpful material available compared to thirty years ago. There is the […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date June 23, 2009
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The Apostle Paul exhorts the congregation in Rome in Romans 12:11 ‘Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.’ This text is easily understood; there are no complicated words; the structure is obvious. First of all the exhortation is stated in a negative form telling us we’re never to lack […]

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Category Articles
Date March 31, 2009
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On Saturday 4th October the twelfth Salisbury Conference took place at Emmanuel Church. Over 150 people attended to hear Richard Barcellos of the Midwest Center for Theological Studies in Owensboro, Kentucky. Dr Barcellos’ first study was on John Calvin and the Decalogue. Why should this Genevan Reformer be studied? He had a great impact on […]

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Category Articles
Date October 17, 2008
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Luke 6:43-45 ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn-bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings […]

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Category Articles
Date August 19, 2008
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John 3:1-8 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” […]

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Category Articles
Date July 22, 2008
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[On Saturday 14th June 2008 the graduation took place of the London Theological Seminary, and at the end there was a service of thanksgiving for the retiring principal Philip Eveson who for decades has been the resident tutor at the Seminary, the pastor for years of the adjoining Kensit Church and then for a long […]

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Category Articles
Date July 15, 2008
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‘Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.’ [Ephesians 5:25-27] For fifty years I have believed that […]

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Category Articles
Date April 22, 2008
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Day One GWYNN WILLIAMS – OPENING SERMON Gwynn Williams from the Welsh Evangelical Church in Cardiff based his opening sermon on the text I Thessalonians 1:5, ‘Our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.’ A Christian in the small Welsh town of […]

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Category Articles
Date April 18, 2008
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Day Three JOEL BEEKE (3) – PREACHING CHRIST’S OFFICES Luke 22:31 – The temptations of Peter. The threefold office of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be applied to our hearts by the Spirit. Our Lord is the only one who can meet our needs, and he does so as prophet, priest and king. As […]

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Category Articles
Date April 18, 2008
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‘Berkhof’ – it has a certain ring of defiance about it, an abbreviation for an almost 1,000 page volume of systematic theology which is considered a touchstone of orthodoxy, but . . . ‘surely a bit out of date’ . . . ‘Dutch’ . . . ‘not a note about revival’ . . . ‘rather […]

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Category Articles
Date March 28, 2008
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On Tuesday and Wednesday February 19 & 20, 2008, Ted Donnelly of Ulster visited Wales and gave the identical two addresses on the above theme to gatherings of ministers in Bala and in Bridgend. These are my notes taken at the first conference in Bala in North Wales. About 35 ministers were present – as […]

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Category Articles
Date February 26, 2008
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Turretin and the Place of Systematic Theology The second day opened with a paper of the above title given by Maurice Roberts of Inverness. The 1974 Dictionary of the Christian Church has no reference to Francis Turretin, but thirty years later the Wikipedia contains much, to the effect that Francis Turretin was also known as […]

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Category Articles
Date January 8, 2008
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The annual Westminster Conference was held in the Friends’ Meeting House opposite Euston Station on December 11 and 12, 2007, with the usual 200 people (largely men) in attendance. The first paper was given by Roger Fay, a pastor from Ripon, and the editor of the Evangelical Times. He spoke on The Clapham Sect and […]

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Category Articles
Date January 4, 2008
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The obituary of Aldous Huxley’s wife, Laura, was in The Times on Monday, 17 December 2007. It ended with that quotation which Dr. Lloyd-Jones used to such effect showing that man’s abandonment of God inevitably results in losing the meaning of life. Laura had been interviewed by a journalist in 1992 and asked what she […]

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Category Articles
Date December 18, 2007
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