Topic Archives: Worldview/Culture/Religions

The following testimony is from Near to God: 9 True Stories of a Wonderful Discovery. The love of Christ compels me to give testimony to my conversion from the Roman Catholic priesthood to the born-again life in Jesus Christ. For twenty-five years I was a Roman Catholic priest, strictly following the rituals of a system […]

The following post, reflecting on the value and relevance of Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto, appeared at Christ Over All and is used here with their kind permission. Francis Schaeffer wrote A Christian Manifesto in 1981, three years before he died. It is worth reflecting in general on this work, the cultural moment in which […]

Kevin DeYoung’s recent World news article on evangelical compromise with LGBTQ is immensely helpful. DeYoung points out that such compromise is rarely, if ever, instantaneous. Rather, it manifests gradually, as truth is first omitted, then de-emphasised, and finally deemed to be beyond the pale. ‘Rarely do evangelical leaders and institutions leap all at once from […]

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah the prophet saw the Lord, high and lifted up. There had been no king like Uzziah since the golden age of Solomon 300 years before. He had reigned for 52 years—the vast majority of the people did not remember any other king. It was a time of […]

‘Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son! … May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth! In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!’ (Psalm 72:1, 6-7). As tributes to Queen […]

In the book of Revelation the apostle John is taken up through an open door into the throne room of the whole universe. We watch through his eyes as the Lord Jesus appears before the throne of God and takes a scroll from the right hand of God. This densely-worded scroll contains God’s blueprints for […]

If you would strengthen your faith to suffer great and hard things, study much the book of the Revelation, which is a standing cordial for the relief of the saints, in anti-christian times; and study and read and commend to your children, the Book of Martyrs, where you have examples to the life of the […]

One of the most difficult things at present for the Reformed Christian is to strike a balance between yesterday and today. This is not perhaps surprising. The Reformed Christian believes that in the sixteenth century the Reformers recovered the biblical faith, and that no Protestant ministry has excelled that of the seventeenth century. Reformers and […]

This article is the contents of an address first given in February 2020 at the Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Newcastle, UK. * * * LIVING in the world. How are Christians to live in the world? The question can be answered in many ways. The topic is potentially vast in scope — that becomes more […]

When coming to consider plagues throughout history and some Christian responses, it is appropriate to begin with this extract from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: O Almighty God, who in thy wrath did send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in […]

Self-isolation; pandemic; super spreader; coronavirus; COVID-19. Just a few of the words that have become part of everyday conversation in the weeks since the first outbreak of a novel coronavirus was reported in Wuhan, China on 31 December 2019. As of today there are 83,650 confirmed cases and have been 2,858 deaths worldwide, although those […]

This second half of the address by the most eminent of all Calvin’s biographers was delivered in the ‘Salle de la Reformation’, at Geneva, in April 1902. It was translated and printed in the Princeton Theological Review, October 1909, from which source it is here reprinted with very slight abridgement. Emile Doumergue (1844-1937) was, at this […]

This address by the most eminent of all Calvin’s biographers was delivered in the ‘Salle de la Reformation’, at Geneva, in April 1902. It was translated and printed in the Princeton Theological Review, October 1909, from which source it is here reprinted with very slight abridgement. The allusions at the opening of the Address are […]

It would appear that one of the many ways in which God punishes the sins of men and nations is to give them over at times to widespread perplexity and confusion. Life in a perfect world would be ideally simple. We should all instinctively seek first the glory of God and he would unfailingly supply […]

There are two verses in the New Testament which highlight the battle for the mind of man; a battle which was going on in the days of the Apostles and is going on today; a battle which shows clearly the power of the written Word. The first verse brings to us a poignant picture. Paul […]

‘Man’, said Blaise Pascal, ‘is like one who has been cast sleeping on to a desert island, only to wake and discover that he does not know where he came from, why he is there, and where he is going.’ When men tell us that the great problem facing man today is that of his […]

The substance of this article was first given in the form of a lecture on behalf of The Reformation Translation Society. * * * ON the night of October 30th, 1517, at his castle in Schweinitz in Germany, the Elector Frederick of Saxony had a peculiar dream. Germany was then just on the threshold of […]

Education is very much in the forefront of the nation’s thinking these days. Within the last few years we have seen the publication of several important official reports. The supply and remuneration of teachers, the virtues of various forms of secondary education and the relation­ships between pupil, parent and school — all these are, rightly, […]

‘For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.’ — Romans 5:6 It goes without saying that we must have compassion for all who are outside of union with Christ, including the homosexual. I think you know that I have ministered extensively in the past to the homosexual community, […]

In a world which invites us to constantly publicise ourselves, self-description heavily outweighs self-knowledge. Social media and celebrity culture invite us to write our own label and then live up to it, whether or not we have thought through how psychologically accurate or even morally appropriate that description might be. Twitter asks us to compose […]

‘If Spurgeon has been a blessing to your soul, would you consider writing a brief testimonial,’ they said. Not an easy task, because Spurgeon has been such a blessing to me, but to begin with, there are the Sermons, in which Spurgeon takes a small phrase of Scripture and uses it as the key to […]

The writings of Mr. Bunyan need no recommendatory preface. The various editions they have passed through, and the different languages into which many of them have been translated, sufficiently prove that the gifts of God which were in him, have, by the divine blessing, been made very acceptable and useful to the churches. Though he […]

It was that title that caused me to read a book review and then purchase the book. I had never heard of Marilynne Robinson but was informed that she had been raised in a Presbyterian home, and had become a writer of sharp, subtle, moving prose, internationally acclaimed and a Pulitzer prize-winner. In the book […]

This article is the third and final part of an extensive review of Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. It is not an endorsement of the book. The first part can be found here and the second here. * * * RULE 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient). This is […]

This article is the second part of an extensive review of Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. It is not an endorsement of the book. The first part can be found here. * * * RULE 4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today ‘No matter […]