Resources by Baker, Al

‘And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God’ Ephesians 3:19. The day after our oldest son’s wedding in May, 2002, my wife was having her private devotional time, praying on her knees, when she was overwhelmed with a sense of God’s […]

‘When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy’ Matthew 2:10. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as Micah the prophet promised seven hundred years before He was born. Bethlehem, the city of David, is six miles south of Jerusalem on a limestone ridge, 2500 feet above sea level. The name in Hebrew means […]

‘. . .that they all may be one . . . so that the world may believe that You sent Me.’ John 17:21. Currently the number one, fastest growing website in the United States is www.godtube.com, the brainchild of former CBS television producer and graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary Chris Wyatt. Before going to seminary […]

I praise Thee, Father . . . that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to infants. Matthew 11:25. Katherine Hepburn, the four-time Academy Award winner, was born in Hartford on November 8, 1907, her mother being from the Houghton family of the Corning Glass company, and her […]

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12. Robert E. Webber, in his book The Younger Evangelicals (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002) observes that denominations as we have known them […]

Thy word is truth. John 17:17. David Wells, in his book Above All Earthly Powers [Eerdmans, 2005], observes that postmodernism has done in one generation what evangelicalism has not been able to do in one hundred years, and that is to dismantle modernism. For those of you not familiar with these terms, please allow this […]

Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee. Psalm 67:3. John Paton1 was born to godly Presbyterian parents in 1824 in a small village outside of Glasgow, Scotland. He was reared on the Shorter Catechism and the Westminster Confession of Faith in daily family worship, and from his earliest days […]

David Brainerd,1 the great missionary to the American Indians, was born in April, 1718 at Haddam, Connecticut. His father, a legislator in Connecticut, died when David was nine years old and his mother died when he was fourteen. He lived with a godly aunt and uncle until he was eighteen and then tried farming for […]

Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. Ephesians 3:13. My wife Wini was recently engaged in a service project where she was asked what was our church’s position on homosexuality. Wini responded by saying that we have had an extensive ministry with HIV […]

…and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things. Ephesians 3:9 The 16th century Reformation, which brought so much good to Europe, which delivered people from ignorance, poverty, superstition, and the darkness of paganism and idolatry, had a catch phrase […]

to proclaim … the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ephesians 3:8 Recently four teenagers, three of whom were entering their last year at high school, were killed in a car accident. I cannot imagine the grief and heartache of the parents of these young people, knowing that their children’s lives were snuffed out at such a […]

Horace Bushnell, the 19th-century Congregational minister from Hartford, along with Universalist Hosea Ballou, and Unitarian William Ellery Channing altered the way many people thought about Christ’s atonement. Until that time, the conventional view in the church of Christ was God-centred and objective. That is, the sovereign Triune God who created man requires obedience from mankind. […]

…by revelation there was made known to me the mystery. (Ephesians 3:3) Pearl S. Buck, the great novelist, who won the Pulitzer prize in 1932 and the Nobel prize for literature in 1938, grew up on the mission field. In her memoirs, she took up the question, ‘Do we need missionaries to go to foreign […]

I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3:1) Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, military and naval hero of 16th century France, who had converted to the Protestant faith during the awakening in France in the 1550s, was in Paris in August, 1572 for the wedding of Henry of Navarre, a Protestant, to Marguerite de Valois, […]

Be sober in all things. (2 Timothy 4:5) Paul, in his last epistle, written shortly before his martyrdom in Rome, gives several exhortations to his son in the faith, Timothy; and this one in particular needs our attention today. Paul’s exhortation to be sober is a present imperative, not referring to freedom from drunkenness but […]