Topic Archives: Church & Ministry

Sitting in the pews listening to the pastor preach can be very trying if you have a burbling, wiggling ten-month-old on your lap and a three-year-old intent on colouring the hymnal beside you. You’re in a quandary. You do not want to disturb those in neighbouring pews, but you do want your children to learn […]

Gresham Machen, professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary (1929-1937), wrote the following introduction to The Narrow and the Broad Way, a book of sermons by J. Marcellus Kik (published bv Zondervan in 1934). This piece has not been included in any previous bibliography or compilation of Machen’s works, and was spotted by Richard […]

A discussion of chapter 3 of The Westminster Confession of Faith, presented at the Theological Conference of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in December 2007 by Rev Hugh Cartwright. R B Kuiper comments that it behoves us to remember that we are dealing with a profound mystery, that we are here on holy ground […]

We have received some correspondence regarding the article by Jeremy Walker, ‘John Owen and The Death of Death in the Death of Christ’, posted on the website April 17, 2007.1 The comments received and Pastor Walker’s reply appear below. Dear Editor, I found Jeremy Walker’s supposed review of John Owen’s Death of Death2 to be […]

BORIS OLEINIK OF THE CITY OF KIROV In 1986 Boris was conscripted into the Soviet Army for military service. His unit was sent to the disaster at the Chernobil nuclear power station. He suffered perilous levels of radiation. Earlier this year lumps began to appear on his body which grew and became increasingly painful as […]

It was with some relief, and thankfulness to the Most High, that we stepped onto the tarmac at Odessa airport on the very chilly, grey afternoon of Friday, February 15, after one cancelled flight, two delayed flights, and an enforced overnight stay in London en route. I was accompanying Rev Donald Ross, interim moderator of […]

The Question Should we sing Psalms only? ‘Exclusive Psalmody’ is the teaching that, in the worship of the church, we should sing all, and only, the 150 Psalms found in the biblical Book of Psalms. We are not allowed to sing hymns. Hymn singing is sinning against God. There is no unity on this question […]

How does God regard our worship? We may get some insight from the verse: ‘The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight’ (Prov. 15:8), where sacrificing and prayer are taken as two examples of acts of worship. Yet it seems very strong language […]

We are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. [2 Corinthians 2:15.] I recently was making my weekly evangelistic visits at a rehab centre and introduced myself to a man recuperating from knee replacement surgery. We talked a while about his surgery and recovery […]

Between 1875 and 1892 George Müller travelled the world preaching with seven objectives in view. The fourth of these was, ‘To promote among all true believers, brotherly love; to lead them to make less of those non-essentials in which disciples differ, and to make more of those great essential and foundation truths in which all […]

The Bible talks a lot about hospitality. In Old Testament times one of the marks of God’s people was that they opened their homes to others. Job said, ‘the sojourner has not lodged in my street; I have opened my doors to the traveller…’ (Job 31: 32). Abraham ‘lifted up his eyes and looked, and […]

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 […]

And now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. Genesis 45:5. George Washington Carver was born in 1864 to slaves living in Missouri. He could not read or write but as a young boy, after Emancipation, he had a burning […]

Guy Davies posted an interview with Robert Strivens, who is Principal-Designate of the London Theological Seminary, on his Exiled Preacher blog on 8 February 2008. The interview is reproduced here with kind permission. GD: Hello, Robert Strivens and welcome to Exiled Preacher. Please tell us a little about yourself. RS: Thank you, Guy. It is […]

‘. . .that they all may be one . . . so that the world may believe that You sent Me.’ John 17:21. Currently the number one, fastest growing website in the United States is www.godtube.com, the brainchild of former CBS television producer and graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary Chris Wyatt. Before going to seminary […]

I praise Thee, Father . . . that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to infants. Matthew 11:25. Katherine Hepburn, the four-time Academy Award winner, was born in Hartford on November 8, 1907, her mother being from the Houghton family of the Corning Glass company, and her […]

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12. Robert E. Webber, in his book The Younger Evangelicals (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002) observes that denominations as we have known them […]

Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee. Psalm 67:3. John Paton1 was born to godly Presbyterian parents in 1824 in a small village outside of Glasgow, Scotland. He was reared on the Shorter Catechism and the Westminster Confession of Faith in daily family worship, and from his earliest days […]

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 […]

Geoffrey Thomas is Pastor of Alfred Place Baptist Church, Aberystwyth, where he has served the Lord for over forty years. His preaching and written ministry are deeply appreciated by many of God’s people around the world, and he is no stranger to Northern Ireland [where ‘Men for Ministry’ is based], having spoken in a number […]

In The Free Presbyterian Magazine of October 2007 the following report of the address given by the Rev. S. Khumalo at the recent annual meeting of this mission was published and is reproduced here by permission. It was very kind of the Mbuma Zending Board to invite me and my wife to attend this important […]

The head of the Church is our Lord Jesus Christ. We see this particularly in the way he writes to the seven churches in Asia Minor in Revelation chapters two and three. He encourages and corrects and reproves. He observes too that while faithfulness in doctrine is commendable, it is possible to lose our first […]

YOUR SHIBBOLETH OR YOUR LIFE! During the judgeship of Jephtha, a civil war erupted between the Gileadites, members of the tribe of Benjamin, and the Ephraimites. The controversy was about the failure of the latter to help Jephtha in his war against the Ammonites. When Jephtha was victorious, the Ephraimites complained that they should have […]

‘The whole earth one community in Christ’ In his Miscellany 262, Jonathan Edwards predicted that in the future there will be better contrivances for assisting one another through the whole earth by more expedite, easy, and safe communication between distant regions than now. The invention of the mariner’s compass is a thing discovered by God […]

to proclaim … the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ephesians 3:8 Recently four teenagers, three of whom were entering their last year at high school, were killed in a car accident. I cannot imagine the grief and heartache of the parents of these young people, knowing that their children’s lives were snuffed out at such a […]