Topic Archives: History & Biography
The following is an excerpt from Why Read Church History1 by J. Philip Arthur It is fatally easy to develop an uncritical admiration for our heroes, but no one is beyond criticism. One of the most refreshing things about the Bible is that it never conceals the faults of God’s servants. There are numerous examples […]
Read‘Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood.’ (Isaiah 59:7) On the evening of April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was flying into the airport in Kigali when his plane was struck by two rockets, killing him and all on board, including the President of nearby Burundi, Cyprien Ntariyamira. […]
Read2015 marked the two-hundredth anniversary of a change of pastorate for the Rev. Thomas Chalmers. On Sunday 9th July 1815, after a ministry of twelve years, Chalmers preached a farewell sermon to his congregation in Kilmany (Kilmany is a village in the Fife region of Scotland). Later that month he was inducted to the pastorate […]
ReadIt’s quite overwhelming to see so many of you here today, November 14th 2015, numbers of you having travelled far, even hundreds of miles to be with us, and have gone to such expense to be at my Golden Jubilee – fifty years of being in the pulpit of Alfred Place. I’m tempted to think […]
ReadOf all the major Reformers, John Knox is the one about whose early life we know the least – a fact that may come as a surprise since he wrote a History of the Reformation in Scotland.1 We cannot even be certain of the year in which he was born; it was either 1514 or […]
ReadWhen Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses for public debate to the church door at Wittenberg on the 31st of October 1517, the Protestant Reformation officially began its long journey.1 Luther was not the sole pioneer of Protestantism, as he had already been influenced in his theology by the life of Jan Hus (1369-1415) and […]
ReadApproximately 150 years ago, Edith Cavell was born in Swardeston, Norfolk, England. The date was December 4, 1865. Throughout the fifty years of Edith Cavell’s life, she was content to be obscure, working hard and living humbly. But these virtues in and of themselves are not enough to make one unique. Surely there have been […]
ReadThat 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 […]
ReadConflict and Triumph was first published in 1874. With a pastor’s heart, the author, William Henry Green, opens up the meaning of the Book of Job. He explains the structure of the book, the role played by each of the participants, the significance of their speeches and the bearing of each part on the overall […]
ReadAugustine 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 […]
ReadThomas 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 […]
ReadMost 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 […]
ReadThe 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 […]
ReadHow Scotland Lost Its Hold of the Bible1 was first published in The Banner of Truth magazine, No. 623-624 (Aug-Sep 2015). The article can be downloaded as a 28-page print-ready pdf here, and may be freely printed and distributed. Man is now thinking out a Bible for himself; framing a religion in harmony with the development […]
ReadOn October 28, 1949, twenty-two year old Jim Elliot, then completing his studies at Wheaton College, Illinois, wrote in his journal: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. In less than seven years he had given his life as a missionary in Ecuador, attempting to […]
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