Topic Archives: Christian Living

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 […]

‘Stand firm in the faith’ 1 Corinthians 16:13. Ann Douglas, the feminist Harvard professor, in her book, The Feminization of the American Culture has observed that by the late 18th century America was jettisoning her God-centred, strong, objective Calvinism for a man-centred, emotional, subjective Arminianism which paved the way for feminism in our culture. In […]

This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the passing of the ‘Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’. It was the culmination of a long period of agitation against a trade which ran strongly in the face of every claim that Britain was a Christian nation. Many of the leaders of the campaign […]

The Bible is essentially a practical book. Its principles and teachings are never merely academic, philosophical, or speculative, but are always anchored in and aimed at the living God and the daily living of his people. That is one reason why there is so little in the Bible about heaven. The focus of the Word […]

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 […]

Definition, Indications and Motivations Surrogate gestational motherhood1 can be defined as an arrangement where one woman carries a pregnancy to term for another woman who is either unable or unwilling to do so. There are two types of surrogate mothers. The one type is ‘partial surrogacy,’ in which the surrogate mother is also the genetic […]

David Brainerd,1 the great missionary to the American Indians, was born in April, 1718 at Haddam, Connecticut. His father, a legislator in Connecticut, died when David was nine years old and his mother died when he was fourteen. He lived with a godly aunt and uncle until he was eighteen and then tried farming for […]

Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. Ephesians 3:13. My wife Wini was recently engaged in a service project where she was asked what was our church’s position on homosexuality. Wini responded by saying that we have had an extensive ministry with HIV […]

Pastor Conrad Murrell of Louisiana helped one man who came to him in this unusual manner. This is how he reported it. A few years ago a pastor brought a troubled man to me for counselling. When I asked him about his problem, he replied, ‘I want to serve the Lord but I am having […]

A Christian farmer had two small boys named John and Tom. He called into the bedroom to see them before they went to sleep, and he asked them had they prayed. They hadn’t, and one of them – John – complained that he wasn’t feeling well. They said that they didn’t know how to pray. […]

We live in a world where sorrow repeatedly enters. Indeed, at any given moment, multitudes all over the world are experiencing sadness for all sorts of reasons. Death follows illness, accidents and disasters into families and leaves sorrow behind. And death, however unexpected – however unwelcome – is irreversible; no one returns from the eternal […]

For years, modern readers of the Bible have shunned the food laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy about as religiously as the ancient Israelites shunned pork and shrimp. A recent New York Times bestseller, however, touts the benefits of the biblical food laws for obese and unhealthy North Americans. In his book, The Maker’s Diet,1 […]

Alexander Whyte, an eminent Scottish minister in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, wrote of Christians who lived as if sanctification were by vinegar. I was reminded of this when preparing recently to preach on Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. As Luke concludes his account of this eunuch’s conversion, he […]

Horace Bushnell, the 19th-century Congregational minister from Hartford, along with Universalist Hosea Ballou, and Unitarian William Ellery Channing altered the way many people thought about Christ’s atonement. Until that time, the conventional view in the church of Christ was God-centred and objective. That is, the sovereign Triune God who created man requires obedience from mankind. […]

…by revelation there was made known to me the mystery. (Ephesians 3:3) Pearl S. Buck, the great novelist, who won the Pulitzer prize in 1932 and the Nobel prize for literature in 1938, grew up on the mission field. In her memoirs, she took up the question, ‘Do we need missionaries to go to foreign […]

I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3:1) Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, military and naval hero of 16th century France, who had converted to the Protestant faith during the awakening in France in the 1550s, was in Paris in August, 1572 for the wedding of Henry of Navarre, a Protestant, to Marguerite de Valois, […]

Acts chapter 9 recounts two miracles performed by the Apostle Peter in regard to Aeneas and Dorcas of Joppa – Aeneas, a man who was paralyzed for eight years, and lay on a mat; the other Dorcas, who was very much alive, until she died suddenly in the midst of her labours. I thought of […]

The Bible, God’s own Word, can be deeply disturbing to read. It has a ‘knack’ (being inspired by the Holy Spirit this should never surprise us) of unsettling us, and deeply humbling us. This has been the case with me these past few weeks in particular. Let me explain. I am trying (and trying is […]

A recent number of a religious journal contained an article upon endless suffering by one who calls himself an ‘Orthodox Disbeliever’ which is deserving of some remark, because it probably expresses the sentiments of a certain class which though not large may be increasing. The writer describes himself as expecting to enter the orthodox ministry, […]

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 […]

I am constantly amazed how quickly and easily I forget that ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 6:12). This does not mean that indwelling sin is not […]

It is everyone’s duty to pray. Yet there is a serious difficulty: how can a holy God answer the petitions of a guilty sinner? So Isaiah was directed to tell rebellious Israel: “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear” […]

Imagine a prominent conservative Christian publicly announcing that he has renounced heterosexuality and will henceforth and forever be homosexual. Add to the scenario the leader declaring he is dedicated to promoting the glory of gayness and encouraging others to become homosexual. Now try to imagine the mainstream media ignoring such an announcement. Try as I […]

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 […]

He was born in 1712 and reared a Calvinist in Geneva. He came from a well-to-do family and his mother died when he was an infant. He had one sibling, a brother seven years his senior. His father loved his brother but despised him. He gave us cold baths, weekend cottages, and the notion that […]