Topic Archives: Christian Living

It was the first day of July 1866. As John Kennedy stood ready to preach on that Sabbath, in the pulpit of his Dingwall church, he gave out as his text: ‘For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better’ (Phil. 1:23). […]

The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground. (Genesis 4:10) ‘An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule on their own authority, and my people love it so. But what will you do at the end of it?’ (Jer. 5:30-31). […]

By the sweat of your face you will eat bread. (Genesis 3:19) In 1776 Adam Smith, a Scottish economist and Deist, a good friend of David Hume the sceptic, wrote his famous book Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations that has profoundly affected the capitalist system in our world. Smith […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labour increases it. (Proverbs 13:11) Because the Bible is written by God the Holy Spirit through men whom he raised up for that purpose, it does not lie. It is infallible. It speaks truth on every issue. Ill-gotten wealth is a good case in […]

It is a constant surprise to me that many Christians are worried about guidance. Please don’t misunderstand me. I do not mean that Christians should not be concerned about doing God’s will. But why is it that many (and I think ‘many’ is the appropriate word) Christians get worried, confused and at times even spiritually […]

When I began to consider what I should say in these pages, I found myself pulled in two directions. My first impulse was to lament the spiritual decay that people of my generation have observed at close range and to urge the next generation to carry on the struggle against it with unremitting faithfulness and […]

Resting in the Redeemer Do you think that the Christian life is hard? If so, what makes it hard, and if not, why does it seem so hard for so many professing Christians? We can begin to consider this matter in terms of the context of the question and in terms of our defining what […]

During my seven years as a campus minister, there were two different women in our ministry who became pregnant out of wedlock. In these cases, since they were associated with a group of students, it was among those students that they had most of their relationships. Of course, a campus ministry group is not a […]

But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. (Genesis 9:23). Noah was a righteous man, called by God to bring the animals into the ark, along with his wife, three sons and their wives, in order to preserve the […]