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Topic Archives: History & Biography

‘You are holding in your hands a rare and precious book’, reads the publisher’s description on the jacket of this book.1 ‘It contains the choicest practical writings of a man whom God used to transform his native country and bring it into the light and under the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and […]

Category Book Reviews
Date September 7, 2012
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The fact that the staunchly Reformed publisher Banner of Truth has released a biography of dispensational pastor John MacArthur is testimony to the fact that MacArthur is one of the most influential evangelical ministers of our times. This book1 began in 2009 as a biographical portrait commissioned from Iain Murray by the elders of Grace […]

Category Book Reviews
Date August 14, 2012
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The Wayfarers – And the Challenge of the Great Dragon River By Ruth Asp-Odlander Burleigh, Queensland: Zeus, 2009 274 pages, paperback ISBN: 978 1 92157 415 3 Among missionary biographies of recent years, this has to be one of the most challenging. Without the least attempt at the sensational, the author (b. 1935) tells the […]

Category Book Reviews
Date August 10, 2012
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Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy By Eric Metaxas Nottingham: Thomas Nelson, April 2010 608 pages, hardcover, list $29.99 ISBN: 978 1 59555 138 2 A HEROIC GERMAN PASTOR & MARTYR Having recently had some time off in keeping with my new ‘semi-emeritus’ status, (and having been given an e-reader) I was able to read a […]

Category Book Reviews
Date August 7, 2012
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This is the ‘re-typeset edition’ of the Banner of truth trust’s 1960 edition which has been reprinted a number of times and indicates the importance of this work for the trust and its readership. The letters themselves justify this enthusiasm. Here we have an insight into what Newton saw as his distinctive contribution to the […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date July 16, 2012
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The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards1 is written by John Carrick and published by the Banner of Truth. You should be interested in good preaching. You should care deeply about the preaching in your church and churches around the globe. You and others need the milk and meat of the Word, not spiritual junk food that […]

Category Book Reviews
Date July 6, 2012
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Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones: the life and legacy of ‘the Doctor’ Edited by Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones Nottingham: IVP/Apollos, 2011 376 pages, paperback, £16.99 ISBN: 978 1 84474 553 1 The book has emerged from a conference held at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, in December 2010 on ‘Martyn Lloyd-Jones: life and legacy’. Some papers […]

Category Book Reviews
Date June 29, 2012
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Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was an outstanding American preacher. He lived during times of great revival, but the reality of this revival was questioned by many. In connection with this Edwards was forced to think about what he called the most important question of all – how can we judge whether our religion is true or […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date June 19, 2012
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This letter was written by Sarah Edwards, wife of Jonathan Edwards, to her brother, James Pierpoint of New Haven about the visit of the evangelist, George Whitefield, who came to Northampton in October, 1740.1 October 24, 1740. Dear Brother James, I want to prepare you for a visit from the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, the famous […]

Category Articles
Date May 1, 2012
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‘How did we get here?’ is a question that is always relevant and often illuminating. Yet contemporary evangelicals don’t ask it as often as they should. In his book Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858,1 Iain Murray tells a story that helps explain how evangelicals – Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and […]

Category Book Reviews
Date March 20, 2012
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Hodge lived from 1797 to 1878 and was one of the outstanding theologians of the nineteenth century. In a fragment of autobiography which forms the first chapter of the book, Charles Hodge provides recollections of his family background and early life. Much of the remainder of the book consists of letters and other documents collected […]

Category Book Reviews
Date January 27, 2012
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Mr. Murray has done the Christian world a great service by writing this biography of Archibald Brown. Mr. Brown was one of the great pastors and preachers of the late 19th and early 20th century yet today he is hardly known. This probably because up to now no complete biography of this life has ever […]

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Category Book Reviews
Date January 21, 2012
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Francis Nigel Lee died on December 23, 2011 in Australia. One thing he left behind is the story of the conversion of the man who murdered his father. In April 1994, I was invited to fly round the world and expound the Lord’s Prayer in the USA during September. Having acquired the plane ticket, as […]

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Category Articles
Date January 20, 2012
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The conversion testimony of Kevin McGrane, elder of Bury St Edmunds Presbyterian church. I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, my father having been born in Dublin of Roman Catholic ancestry. Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and Confirmation followed in regular course. After junior education under Ursuline nuns, I moved to a boys’ grammar school […]

Category Articles
Date January 17, 2012
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This is part of a lecture ‘Witnessing in the Workplace’, given by the writer at the Barton Conference on Saturday 15th November 2008. A meeting at a carpenter’s bench at Ramsgate about 1895 was the means of the call by grace of my late grandfather, John William Walley. Working beside him for three months was […]

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Category Articles
Date December 20, 2011
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There have been better-known preachers of the gospel in Scotland than Hugh MacLean Cartwright but few can have been better loved by those whom they served. Among other features that distinguished his ministry was the way in which, by many published articles, he sought to keep alive the memory of Christians of former days.2 He […]

Category Articles
Date December 6, 2011
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Not many people get the opportunity to attend seminary. In an amazing way I have attended two. The first was training for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland and the second at a conservative Evangelical seminary in England. Raised a Catholic . . . but not knowing God Like most boys in the Republic of […]

Category Articles
Date November 15, 2011
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These are some notes of what was said on a tour which took place during a Free Presbyterian Youth Conference in Edinburgh, on Wednesday 13 April 2011. 1. John Knox’s House and Trunk’s Close. John Knox’s house is one of the oldest surviving houses in Edinburgh. It is not definite that Knox lived in the […]

Category Articles
Date November 11, 2011
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Jakob Herman did not have an easy childhood. Born into a Reformed family, he lost his father while still a child. Adopted by the family Pastor, young Jakob was sent to school, but when he was fourteen the Pastor died, and his mother was tragically killed just a year later. Befriended by Rudy Snell, a […]

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Category Articles
Date November 8, 2011
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By Brian Ellis, Manila, Philippines. What do I mean? I must start with some personal testimony so that I can explain. My interest in religion began when I was in the 6th form at Grammar School and I began to attend the Student Christian Movement meetings each week. There we discussed all manner of matters […]

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Category Articles
Date November 8, 2011
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My father was taken as a prisoner of war. He was assumed dead, so it was a shock for my mother when he returned home. I was one of the results of his homecoming! I was born at home in Finsbury Park in north London, on 23 September 1946. That was just over 65 years […]

Category Articles
Date November 4, 2011
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‘And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me’ (Psa. 50:15). The following account is a true incident in ‘the Battle of the Java Sea’ (27th February to 1st March 1942) in the experiences of Victor Hannaford, of Plymouth, England. ‘Abandon Ship!’ – the Captain issued […]

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Category Articles
Date November 1, 2011
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The word Puritan was originally a nickname, applied to those who, in the late sixteenth century, were anxious to have the Church in England further purified, in the light of Scripture. The name continued to be applied to their spiritual successors down to the end of the following century; among the best known of them […]

Category Articles
Date October 4, 2011
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A musical celebrity once visited our school. The girls listened spellbound to her talented performance. Then as the final applause died away there was a sudden rush towards the platform as dozens of us swarmed forward, autograph books opened, anxious to obtain the signature of so notable and gifted a musician. At that same moment […]

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Category Articles
Date September 30, 2011
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In his address to the 1960 Synod, ‘John Knox: Central Figure of the Reformation’, Rev J P MacQueen said:1 It is to be feared that his reputation as one of the most powerful and eloquent preachers of his day, with the fruit of widespread revivals, the edification, comfort and establishment of believers, and the salvation […]

Category Articles
Date September 23, 2011
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