Topic Archives: Church & Ministry
Recently I read the large two volume official biography of John Stott written by Timothy Dudley-Smith. The books are interesting because of the account they give of many events, organisations and people in the British evangelical scene during the second half of the twentieth century. There is no doubting the huge impact Stott made in […]
ReadThe Act of Uniformity of 1662 prescribed that any minister in England who refused to conform to the Book of Common Prayer by 14th August 1662 would be ejected from the Church of England. Over 2,000 evangelical ministers left their livings rather than conform to what they saw as extra-Biblical rules and regulations. It was a sad […]
ReadSee, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant (Jeremiah 1:10). Why must we have prophetic preaching in our day? To answer this simply – because business as usual is not working. We […]
ReadBut if I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in and I cannot endure it (Jeremiah 20:9). On Memorial Day, May 30, 1889 John Parke, the resident civil […]
Read. . . and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed (Acts 13:48b). Without question the Scriptures teach the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. That is – ‘[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us […]
ReadIn the December 2012 issue (No. 591) of The Banner of Truth magazine, Iain Murray asked the question, ‘Where are the Best Tracts?’ As indicated in the February 2013 issue (No. 593), we received some very helpful responses to his question, although not all were included in the magazine. A number of pastors said that they wrote […]
Read. . . they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace (Acts 14:3). Upon Saul of Tarsus’ conversion on the road to Damascus, Ananias was commissioned by the resurrected Christ to go to this persecutor of Christians and to lay hands on […]
ReadThere is a place you can go in the world to learn about evangelism. It is a place unlike any other I have found, where the beauty of God’s creation and the darkness of humanity’s sinfulness stand in such stark contrast to each other. It is a place where evangelism is the focus of the […]
ReadI am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent (Revelation 2:5). The church at Ephesus (in the province of Asia Minor, modern day western Turkey) was established by the Apostle Paul on his third missionary journey (Acts19:1ff). Upon his arrival he found a few believers there, who […]
ReadI solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by appearing and kingdom, preach the word (2 Timothy 4:1-2). Eschewing his privileged religious pedigree – having been circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a […]
ReadThe material below is dated in that it was published once before 13½ years ago, but also in that the always-trendy-but-always- behind kind of evangelism it describes continues in its evolution of outreach methods. A pleasant consequence of the publication of this article was that the author received a letter of appreciation from Dr John […]
ReadTo be casual today is usually regarded as a good thing; it is cool. To be ‘non-casual’ (stiff? formal? intense?) is not good. You need to chill. One of the first books I read as a Christian was The Best That I Can Be by J. Oswald Sanders. On the front cover is a photo […]
ReadDr. Haddon W. Robinson is the Harold John Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He is considered the doyen of teachers on the subject of preaching in the USA, and his text books are used in many American seminaries. In a recent interview in the magazine Ministry he was asked the […]
ReadPavel Setchov, youth leader in Tobols I was born in 1978 in the south of Russia in an area known as the Caucasus, in the town of Zhelyeznovodsk. When I was only five years old my father left my mother to bring up three children on her own. He sometimes returned home aggressively abusive and […]
ReadI am the Lord—I will not give My praise to graven images—Sing to the Lord a new song—you islands, and all those who dwell on them. Isaiah 42:8-10 After King Kamehameha consolidated his power in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in the early 1800’s, he ruled with unbridled power. The Kapu religious system demanded human sacrifice […]
ReadPastor-Teachers of Old Princeton 1 In 1994 and 1996 respectively, the Banner of Truth Trust published two magnificent volumes on the faith, learning, and majestic testimony of Princeton Seminary.2 Professor Calhoun’s work was highly commended by a number of outstanding scholars, including Bruce M. Metzger, Collard Professor of New Testament Emeritus. Metzger wrote at the […]
Read. . . but to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word. Isaiah 66:2 When the Puritans came to the Massachusetts Bay in 1630 under the leadership of John Winthrop, they came humbly, expectantly, seeking earnestly to fear and honour God, to […]
ReadHere is a clarion call to Christians to hold fast to the true Gospel – that is that we are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. The 8 chapters in the book have been taken from two works of the Victorian minister: Knots Untied and Home Truths. They cover subjects such as […]
ReadPublic worship is one of the areas where there is great confusion today. This little booklet by J. C. Ryle the Victorian Church of England minister and author brings much needed biblical thinking to the subject. He answers some basic questions such as: Why is it important for men and women to worship God? What […]
ReadThe Great Ejection 1662: Today’s Evangelicalism Rooted in Puritan Persecution By Gary Brady Darlington: Evangelical Press, September 2012 176 pages, paperback, £8.99 ISBN: 978 0 85234 802 4 2012 has been a year of achievement and celebration in the United Kingdom. Highlights of the year have undoubtedly been the centenary of the sinking of RMS […]
ReadIf someone were to ask you, a neighbour, a fellow worker or fellow student, ‘What exactly is the gospel?’ what would you say? Perhaps I could ask you to stop reading this article, pick up a pen (or turn on your computer), and write in a few brief sentences what is the heart of the […]
ReadOn the whole, pastors in the West today minister without seeing revival on a large scale. Yet many of the role models we have adopted from history did labour in revival times: Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Charles Spurgeon, among them. They have a great deal to teach us, of course. But their very success, […]
ReadOn Monday 10th September 2012 I had the privilege of attending a minister’s fraternal in Mount Merrion Free Presbyterian Church, Belfast, where the guest speaker was Dr Joel Beeke. Dr Beeke is minister of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and President of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. The subject he had chosen to […]
ReadIf the world hated you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. John 15:18 At one time I taught logic at our Classical Christian School on St. Simons Island, GA to seventh graders, and the focal point of that first year curriculum was to demonstrate all the logical fallacies which people […]
ReadThe annual meeting of the Mbuma Zending, of Malawi, was held as usual on April 30, and the venue this year was the spacious Brabanthallen in the town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This date is always chosen as it coincides with the public holiday observed annually in Holland in celebration of the Queen’s birthday. When presumably most […]
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