Topic Archives: Pastoral Biography

I was converted to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ fifty-six years ago in January 1957. I had good parents and a stable home but neither my parents, nor I, nor my younger sister Ann, had any true knowledge of God before that date. My religious life amounted to saying private prayers in bed […]

At the recent Grace Baptist Assembly (The Hayes, Swanwick: 30 April-2 May 2013) Jeremy Walker gave a paper on Andrew Fuller. He was evidently quite moved when he came to the death of Fuller, so observes Gary Brady. Among the quotations was Spurgeon’s letter to Fuller’s son following the publication of the biography he wrote […]

My father was Jackie Ross, a minister in Lochcarron, but best known for his work with Blythswood Care, a Christian charity he started with friends in 1966. He led Blythswood through major growth years in the nineties, and continued to be involved with the leadership team until his death in 2001. I don’t hold him […]

A lecture given at Bethlehem Evangelical Church, Port Talbot, Wales on Thursday 28 March, 2013. The centenary of a birth, a death or some great event does not need much justification in order for it to be celebrated. If I were giving this lecture a year from now I would certainly choose as my subject […]

Pastor-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 […]

In the second half of the nineteenth century, C. H. Spurgeon so towered above English Calvinistic Baptists that other giants seemed to be much smaller, with one outcome being that they were quickly forgotten by subsequent generations. This was the case despite the great achievements connected to some of those men. One was Archibald G. […]

‘He was probably the best exegete Princeton ever had,’ Benjamin B. Warfield once told Louis Berkhof. Abraham Kuyper was so taken with his academic acumen that Kuyper offered him the chair of Old Testament studies at the Free University of Amsterdam when he was only twenty-four years old. J. Gresham Machen commented that if he […]

All I knew about Ernest Kevan before reading this book* was that he was the author of The Grace of Law (1964), a study of Puritan teaching on the place of God’s law in the Christian life (the published version of his doctoral thesis), but this useful account of his life introduced me to the […]

Charles Hodge (1797-1878) embodied the ethos of Old Princeton, whose two hundredth anniversary we celebrate this year [2012]. Hodge was not the passionate pulpiteer that Princeton’s first professor, Archibald Alexander, was. Nor did he enjoy the sheer brilliance of his celebrated pupil and successor, Benjamin B. Warfield. In the fifty-eight years that Hodge taught at […]

Graham Miller was a friend and mentor to many – not least to me – and ‘I thank my God in every remembrance of [him].’ Many will echo this sentiment as they read A Day’s March Nearer Home, compiled from his journals, formed into an autobiography by the Rev Iain Murray, and published by the […]

The death of B. B. Warfield in 1921 effectively marked the demise of the old Princeton Theological Seminary, for it was ‘reorganised’ in 1929 along liberal theological lines, but for 110 years its aim had been to produce godly pastors and faithful teachers of God’s Word. This volume* commemorates the efforts of the pious and […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY COMMENCEMENT MAY 2011 I am honoured to be given this Doctor of Divinity degree along with my old room-mate A. Donald MacLeod and Wayne Grudem. Some preachers have been disdainful of the D.D. degree. You recall the rhyme An old Baptist preacher called Fiddle Once rejected this honoured degree; ‘It’s bad enough […]

A new hardback edition of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression: Its Cause and Cure has been produced by Granted Ministries Press, Hannibal, Missouri (www.grantedministries.org). The following biographical foreword has been written by Geoff Thomas. There was no one in the twentieth century more suited to preach, counsel and write on this subject of spiritual depression than […]

A life dedicated to the Lord and the service of others Harold Crowter was first and foremost a preacher of the gospel, sent out to preach by the church at ‘Rehoboth’, Coventry, in 1954, and serving many Strict Baptist churches and individuals around the country until the last few months of his life. He was […]

John Charles Ryle was born on 10th May 1816 at Park House, Macclesfield. His father was the owner of a local silk mill. His mother Susanna was the daughter of the manufacturer Charles Hurt and cousin of Sir Richard Arkwright, a famous industrialist and inventor. John Ryle came from a good Methodist family but he […]

Augustus Toplady was born at Farnham, Surrey on 4th November 1740. His father, who was a soldier, died soon after he was born. He was educated for a time at Westminster School. When he was still a boy, his mother went to Ireland to claim some property there and he accompanied her. It was in […]

I remember every member of the congregation who stayed for a few services, or maybe a few years, and then grew disillusioned with my life and preaching and drifted off disgruntled. But that is not of first priority in my areas of failure. None left to hear more of Jesus Christ or a better gospel […]