Articles

For their sakes I sanctify Myself (John 17:19). In a country where the evangelical church has been declining for years, where only seven to eight percent of the population are evangelicals (twenty-two to twenty-six million people); in a nation where evangelicals are alarmingly and increasingly called more dangerous and divisive than Muslims; it is high […]

It was something Caleb said about himself (Josh. 14:8). He had fully followed the Lord. Nor was it an idle boast. His words are merely an echo of the Lord’s: ‘my servant Caleb…has followed me fully’ (Num. 14:24). How may we do the same? We need faith. When Caleb and Joshua and the other ten […]

That was the question posed to me. I was asked to consider in the light of fifty years’ ministry in one small congregation in a bi-lingual town of 20,000 people in mid-Wales whether I had gained any understanding of the work of the ministry that might colour the choices I made all those years ago […]

‘How Scotland Lost Its Hold of the Bible’ is the title of an excellent address by the Rev Iain Murray, published in The Banner of Truth magazine (Issue 623-4, Aug/Sept 2015).1 It is not surprising that a nation and church that has lost the Bible should also lose the gospel. The two are intertwined. We […]

As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied (Isaiah 53:11). We all know we ought to be lifting up Jesus every time the Holy Spirit opens up a door to speak to someone of his glorious person and work. If you are like me, however, perhaps you […]

When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life’ (Acts 11:18). With a few exceptions Jews living a hundred years or so before the birth of Christ did not have any interest in ‘Gentile evangelism.’ They considered the […]

‘If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, […]

As I walked by a church a few days ago I noticed the slogan on its wall: ‘Try praying’. This church was not the first to use these words to encourage people in difficulty to begin to pray. To encourage people to pray is obviously a good thing, but the slogan does raise important questions. […]

Augustine of Hippo is without doubt one of the most significant figures of the early Church, and perhaps the most important of all those to write in Latin. It has been said that, ‘Apart from the Scriptural authors, no other figure had a greater impact on Christian life and thought up to the time of […]

At New Covenant Church, we enthusiastically encourage parents to keep their children in the worship service – the whole worship service. Being with the congregation in the worship service from childhood is one of the greatest privileges that God has given to children growing up in a Christian home. That begs the question, however, ‘If […]

One of the remarkable features of the early church was its preoccupation with the doctrine of God. Initially the concern of men like Athanasius (300-371) was to establish and defend the deity of Christ against men like Arius who taught that Jesus was a creature. Athanasius understood that if Jesus was not God in the […]

Thomas Charles of Bala (1755-1814) remains one of the great figures in the history of Christianity in England and Wales, remembered especially for his work for the Bible Society and Sunday schools in Wales.1 A clergyman of the Church of England, he was one of the leading figures in the emergence of the Calvinistic Methodists […]

Most of us in our allotted span live through two generations. We note that in some stages of history little changed in two generations. But not so in our situation, for there has been a great acceleration in some sixty years. We have seen major changes. We can think of it in terms of a […]

. . . and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth (Jeremiah 26:6). Early on Tuesday morning, August 19, 1561 Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived at Leith and made her way later that day to the Palace at Holyrood in Edinburgh. This occurred in the midst of the […]

The Reformation of the Church stands out in our minds as having started on 31 October, 1517. On that day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the chapel door at Wittenberg in Germany. That will be 500 years ago in two years’ time. However, the roots of the Reformation were already alive and well […]