Topic Archives: Church & Ministry

In the current Westminster Theological Journal (Vol 61 No 2, Fall 1999) Bob Letham, formerly of England but now a pastor with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Delaware, reviews Alister McGrath’s “J.I.Packer: A Biography” (Baker in the USA; Hodder and Stoughton in Great Britain). He makes many good points. He begins, “After Basil Hall’s ruthless […]

‘Essentially Evangelical’ is the name adopted by a group of evangelical ministers to a proposed organisation of individuals (and perhaps of churches) sharing certain convictions. The envisaged movement would not constitute a denomination with any form of centralised leadership, but would be a voluntary means of promoting co-operation. Other such groups already exist in British […]

The following report is published in the current edition of the American “Presbyterian & Reformed News” [Vol. 5 No.4. December 1999]. In October, controversial Anglican minister John R. W. Stott preached in chapel at Covenant Theological Seminary, the denominational seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) located in St Louis, and filled the pulpit […]

The Times (Monday January 24, 2000) printed an extract from Monica Furlong’s critical biography of George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury (“C of E. The State It’s In,” by Monica Furlong, to be published by Hodder and Stoughton on February 17, £18.99). At 17 years of age Londoner Carey professed conversion in an Anglican church. […]

Mark Pickett of Brighton was a student in Aberystwyth twenty years ago and for many years he, his wife and three children have been living, studying and working in Nepal. He has just written a simple commentary on Genesis in one of the Indian languages, actually their first commentary on Genesis. I recently heard a […]

Over forty years ago the Banner of Truth reprinted John Owen’s “Death of Death in the Death of Christ ” The book became instantly famous in the English-speakng world because of its introductory essay written by the youthful Dr. J.I.Packer. The book is still in print, and here are its timeless opening paragraphs: “The Death […]

We are asking the question today “How do we assess hymns, and how do we assess hymn-books?” I hope to do three things. Firstly I want to make a general observation about singing in the New Testament. Then I want us to look at Paul’s instructions in Ephesians and Colossians. Then I want us think […]

There were some weaknesses in Abraham Kuyper. 1. Kuyper’s approach to the Bible was not uniformly helpful because his preaching was not that of the careful exegete. At times his sermons were more like lectures than expository addresses. He would, for example, seize on single words in a text like ‘rooted’ or ‘grounded’ and use […]

There is also unease we have with Dr Klaas Schilder. These would be in these areas: 1. The polemics which finally resulted in the trial, the suspension from office, the schism and the new denomination. I am limited by not reading Dutch, but one unanswered question which comes across is that surely there was enough […]