Resources

I have been listening to some cassettes of a certain style of preaching which seems to have swept the evangelical church. Its emphasis is the Bible as a history of redemption (which it is), but it claims to be the one Christian group which is expounding and exegeting Scripture. It takes large sweeps across the […]

In so many churches today the centrality of preaching has lost its prominence. This sadly reflects a lack of trust not only in the authority of Scripture but also in the prominence that Jesus gave to the centrality of preaching. At the outset of his own ministry Jesus said to his disciples in Mark 1:38: […]

Later this month (September 2010) it is expected that John Henry Newman (1801-90) who was made a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church in 1879, will be ‘beatified’ by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to England. That is, Newman will be officially ‘the Blessed…’ and on his way to sainthood, Roman style. This must […]

I would normally preach through a Bible book. I am currently preaching through Colossians. Hence, this is what I have done: 1. Read the entire epistle to the Colossians a number of times, using the NKJV (the version the church uses) and other versions like NASB, NIV, ESV including the Bible in Chinese. We are […]

In Biblical terms, conversion (from the Latin convertere = ‘to turn’) means to turn from sin to God; conversion is the act of turning. Both the Hebrew words sub and niham and the Greek words epistrepho and metanoeo bear this meaning. When translated into English, they indicate returning or turning back to God through a […]

‘Church Planting is not a very popular option for men aspiring to enter the ministry but it is a biblical one.’ The final year students in the year I began my theological studies were tense. There seemed to them to be too few pastoral vacancies for them to have any hope of a call to […]

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan once said of F. W. Robertson of Brighton: ‘Robertson believed that Christ did something or other, which, somehow or other, had some connection or other with salvation.’ This vague ‘mystification’ covers all the heretical and erroneous views of the atonement being mooted today. Indeed, F. W. Dillistone tells us enthusiastically: ‘there has […]

Renew our days as of old. (Lamentations 5:21) John Girardeau, the Old School Presbyterian1 minister from Charleston, SC, in 1851 turned down the opportunity to pastor a large Presbyterian church in order to begin a church with African slaves, out of Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston. Girardeau’s methodology was to hold a weekly prayer meeting, to […]

My work before me is less with man and more with God. Isaac Ambrose Prayers and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything. John Eliot For thy name’s sake, lead me and guide me. (Psalm 31:3) O man of God, go on, go on; be valiant for that Plant of Renown, for that […]

The history of the Christian church, if rightly regarded and used, can be a great source of strength, wisdom and stability to the serious Christian. On the other hand, Church history wrongly regarded and misused can be a stumbling block, an occasion of weakness and stagnation. There are three attitudes toward the past history of […]

How lonely sits the city. (Lamentations 1:1) The Apostle John’s vision of the glorified Christ reveals the Son of Man’s zeal for his glory and the work of his church. He is clothed with a robe, reaching to his feet, girded across his breast with a golden girdle. His head and his hair are white, […]

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. (James 1:16) Henry Ward Beecher, born in Litchfield, CT in 1813, was the most famous man of the nineteenth century. His father was the prominent, last of the Puritan preachers, Lyman Beecher1, and Henry’s siblings accomplished remarkable things. One brother was a prominent theologian. A sister began a […]

Protestantism can be an embarrassing concept at times . . . For the first twenty years of my life the term was identified with the Troubles which raged around my generation, and the ugly notion of taking aggravated and hostile sides against ‘the other sort’. As school life at a Protestant boys’ school gave way […]

The Free Church (Continuing) Assembly was addressed this summer [2010] by one of its evangelistic workers, Donald John Morrison, and this is what he said of the missionary to the Indians, David Brainerd. A man with a great missionary vision once said that ‘the spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer […]

Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ (James 1:13) Charles Templeton, a newspaper reporter from Toronto, after a night of carousing and drunkenness, says that he had a conversion experience. By 1945 he was preaching with Billy Graham at Youth for Christ rallies around the U.S. and Europe. […]

Ian Hamilton was a minister for many years in the Church of Scotland. Since 1999 he has been the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church. His book, The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy: Drifting from the Truth in Confessional Scottish Churches1 has just been reissued in a revised edition with a new introduction, a chapter that details […]

In the history of the church of God, we believe no man is worthy of more honour than William Tyndale. When we think of that dear man, in loneliness translating the Scriptures, often in a musty cellar or draughty attic, what he sacrificed for Jesus’ sake! How different from an eminent minister preaching to hundreds, […]

If anyone in the ancient world wanted to know how to write, he read Marcus Fabius Quintilianus’ Institutio Oratorio. Among other things, Marcus pleaded that if you wanted to win the assent of your readers you must begin with a ‘courteou’a courteous and natural opening’; rather, he begins by calling down God’s curse of eternal […]

‘you don’t have to be a member of the Miller family for this autobiography to fascinate, astonish and inspire . . . There is no sense of self-aggrandizement or self-justification . . . Miller honestly chronicles set-backs and disappointments as well as the successes of his ministerial career and is careful to give God all […]

Rachel Lucas Pearce, for 59 years a member of the church at Bethel, Luton, entered her eternal rest on May 9th, 2010, aged 96. The following is her own account: As some of my children have repeatedly asked me to write a little concerning my hope of salvation, I venture with much fearfulness, feeling to […]

I recently had the opportunity to share with an unbeliever how I was converted to Christ. Some have enjoyed the privilege of having been raised by Christian parents and cannot recall a time in their lives when they did not trust Christ for their salvation. I have had the privilege of experiencing the saving grace […]

The author’s concern is with ‘spiritual, Christian greatness . . . and with the help it can be to see it in others’ and his ‘hope is that these pages 1 may give young Christians a relish for old authors, and encourage younger ministers of the gospel in the assurance that the Saviour of yesterday […]

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12) Aaron Burr, Jr. was reared in a godly home of prominence. His great grandfather was Solomon Stoddard, the powerful theologian and pastor […]

Luke 11:24-26 When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits […]

Satan makes great efforts to keep sinners in his kingdom. His evil hope is that they will continue to dishonour God for the rest of their lives and spend eternity still under his power. Thus Paul refers to the evil work of ‘the god of this world’: he ‘hath blinded the minds of them which […]