Geoffrey Thomas Resources

In the Banner of Truth magazine, December 1971, the late S.M.Houghton wrote about the Passion Play at Oberammergau: “In recent days Protestantism has suffered invasion from the Bavarian village of Oberammergau, noted for the Passion Play which it presents to the world once in a decade, a thank-offering, as it terms it, for a deliverance […]

Three unrelated items all appearing in the daily paper on the same day have been enough to sound again the warning bells about the steady slide of our society. No doubt they are all true. They present obvious concerns for parents. We are aware that the subtle war for the minds of men is more […]

The annual Aberystwyth Conference of the Evangelical Movement of Wales takes place during the second full week of August. The preceding week is the National Eisteddfod of Wales and the succeeding week is the annual EMW Welsh language Conference which a few hundred people attend. The significance of these weeks, carefully laid out in August, […]

On July 23 1999 Paquito, the seven year old son of Pastor Paco and Mrs Julia Orozco of Hermosillo, Mexico, finally died after three to four years of battling with leukaemia. Jim Adams of the Cornerstone Church in Mesa, Arizona, flew to Mexico for that funeral service, an occasion never to be forgotten. Paco reminded […]

Billy Morrison spoke in our church in Aberystwyth on June 20th. I had not seen him for six or seven years when I visited the prison in Northern Ireland where he was serving twelve years for terrorist offences. His father had been a member of the loyalist para-militaries and so he was raised to consider […]

Renowned scholar learned to love the Bible at his grandmother’s knee. “I’m not really a scholar,” says J. Alec Motyer softly, “I’m just a man who loves the Word of God.” Now retired as principal of Trinity College in Bristol, England, Motyer has spent his professional career studying the Bible. However, he learned to love […]

Roman Catholic militancy does not end. Two big books have just appeared, written by leading Catholic teachers. One is titled “Not by Faith Alone – The Biblical Evidence for the Doctrine of Justification” by Robert Sungenis. It is 774 pages in length, costs 25 dollars and is published by Queenship Publishing Company of Santa Barbara, […]

Two years ago a representative of the Slav Lands Christian Fellowship was invited to western Siberia to see the fruit of an indigenous missionary outreach that had begun seven years before in this previously unevangelised field. He went not as a tourist but to assess the possibilities of co-operating in a practical ways with our […]

Forty years ago Rousas J. Rushdoony wrote a booklet called “The Myth Of Over-Population.” It was greeted with coolnes  or even disapproval in Calvinistic circles. Everyone ‘knew’ that the population of the world was expanding out of control. Now a big cat has got out of the bag. The United Nations itself, which for decades has […]

John Newton and William Cowper lived for many years in the little town of Olney in Buckinghamshire. The town is in the middle of a triangle of larger towns with Northampton to the north-west, Bedford due east, and Milton Keyes due south. These two men both wrote hymns, some of them the most outstanding in […]

I [Geoff Thomas] first saw Dr Koop in Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1961. He was an elder, and bore a striking resemblance to the pastor at that time, Mariano Di Gangi. He was a surgeon in the Children’s Hospital, Philadelphia. Then I heard of him again when his son was killed rock-climbing one […]

SESSION 1 The Conference commenced with the 300 men singing the metrical version of Psalm 65, and with prayer. Iain Murray then explained to the Conference that the sickness of Dr Robert Godfrey of Westminster Seminary, California, had prevented his attendance, and that Dr Sinclair Ferguson would speak instead of him. John Marshall opened a […]

Modern historians who are sympathetic to Roman Catholicism such as Eamon Duffy have sought to rewrite the history of the Reformation in England. They deny that Protestantism found a welcome response in the hearts of the people. They suggest that it was merely a few eccentrics and some hopeless recusants who had become Calvinists who […]

The modern evangelical church does everything to music. Even the sermon ends with soft chords and melodies from the organ. Music taps into an emotion a congregation is already feeling, and then manipulates it powerfully. City stores know the power of music to loosen the purse strings and open credit card wallets. Psychologists are united […]

The Reformed churches in Liverpool have a monthly officers meeting on Fridays in the winter, and I was invited in February, at the last minute withdrawal of Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, to speak to them on the subject of worship for 35 minutes to be followed by discussion. There were about 25-30 […]

There was just one occasion on which my wife and I attended Westminster Chapel during the ministry of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It was on Whit Sunday in May 1965. Thus it was with the greatest interest that we noticed that in the newly published volume of sermons on the book of Acts the very sermon […]

Two hundred years ago was the beginning of the golden age of missionary expansion from Europe and North America. At that time there were 174m professing Christians in the world which had a population of 730m. So Christians set up missionary societies. The first was founded in 1794, plainly called the Missionary Society. This became […]

Pastoral Challenges For Our Ministry In The New Millennium, By Brian Edwards [February 15, 2000] Brynygroes Conference Centre, Bala, at the annual Day Conference of the evangelical ministers of North Wales. We are living in unique days. Could it ever have been so hard to be in the ministry of the gospel as today? Consider […]

This letter arrived from Paul Williams, the pastor of an Evangelical Church in Swindon, which triggered off a chain of thought. “Yesterday Ruth and I had some time off and went to Bristol. We were taken by friends to the George Muller museum there, and also saw for ourselves the vast orphanages. What a joy […]

An Introduction James I. Packer ‘BAXTER, Richard, gentleman; born 12 November 1615, at Rowton, Salop; educated at Donnington Free School, Wroxeter, and privately; ordained deacon by Bishop of Worcester, Advent 1638; head of Richard Foley’s School, Dudley, 1639; curate of Bridgnorth, 1639-40; lecturer (curate) of Kidderminster, 1641-42; army chaplain at Coventry, 1642-45, and with Whalley’s […]

The British law known as Section 28 prevents public money from being spent on the promotion of homosexuality in schools and elsewhere. It has curbed the excesses of many local authorities, but taxpayers’ money is also being funnelled into pro-gay schemes through Health Authorities, whose actions are not subject to Section 28. The government is […]

In the current Westminster Theological Journal (Vol 61 No 2, Fall 1999) Bob Letham, formerly of England but now a pastor with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Delaware, reviews Alister McGrath’s “J.I.Packer: A Biography” (Baker in the USA; Hodder and Stoughton in Great Britain). He makes many good points. He begins, “After Basil Hall’s ruthless […]

‘Essentially Evangelical’ is the name adopted by a group of evangelical ministers to a proposed organisation of individuals (and perhaps of churches) sharing certain convictions. The envisaged movement would not constitute a denomination with any form of centralised leadership, but would be a voluntary means of promoting co-operation. Other such groups already exist in British […]

Almost ten years ago J.I. Packer’s collection of articles and essays on the Puritans appeared, entitled in Great Britain, “Among God’s Giants” (Kingsway Publications, 447 pages). Many of the papers had been given at the Puritan Conference, and there were a number of other articles, not readily available to us before the appearance of this […]

The Times (Monday January 24, 2000) printed an extract from Monica Furlong’s critical biography of George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury (“C of E. The State It’s In,” by Monica Furlong, to be published by Hodder and Stoughton on February 17, £18.99). At 17 years of age Londoner Carey professed conversion in an Anglican church. […]