On 23 April 1954, a student at Moore College, Sydney, was listening to a history lecture by Marcus Loane, being part of a series on Paul and Acts. It was a day not to be forgotten by W. J. Lawton, who would later speak of the ‘breath-taking grandeur’ of the address and would add,…
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This commentary from Philip Eveson, in the Welwyn Commentary Series, begins with a ten-page introduction, briefly touching on psalm headings (part of the Hebrew text); the division of the Psalter into five books; different types of psalm (praise, prayer, thanksgiving, wisdom, law, history, etc.); Hebrew poetry; musical accompaniment; and the use of psalms in…
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After running for 28 years as the ‘North of England church officers’ conference’, we met at Dewsbury Evangelical Church on Saturday 4 March, under a new name — ‘Connected’ — with the strap-line, ‘Serving together in the local church’. The Friday evening session of previous years was cut to accommodate busy schedules. This, and…
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Imagine John, the last of the apostles, now an old man in his 80s, and close to death. He has not lost the wonder of God’s undeserved love; it still fills him with amazement. He says: ‘Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us…’ (1 John 3:1). It is years since…
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It was a real blessing to have Tim Challies over with us in Ballygomartin Baptist Church, all the way from Ontario, Canada. The well known author, blogger and pastor kindly accepted an invitation to come over and speak at our first ‘Treasuring Christ’ conference last November. Although his schedule was tight, he was keen…
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If one thing could be said of Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, he is not a man to mince his words or follow the status quo. This was clear from his inauguration address on 20 January: ‘Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning, because today we are not merely transferring…
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Students in hard-line religious countries perform worse in science and mathematics, research from Leeds Beckett University controversially claims. However, the research team was forced to speculate that the time spent on religion has a negative correlation with educational performance in mathematics and science, because there was little data to state how much time was…
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The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster’s (FPCU) ‘Get Ready for Reformation’ year of events has been a success so far, with outreach planned across Northern Ireland in celebration of the Reformation. Any congregation wishing to hold a Reformation service or seminar is welcome to use the graphics and text created by the FPCU’s committee,…
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Last month, I was taken aback when on different occasions three separate people, each of them stable, mature Christians whom I admire, said the same thing about the church to which they have each belonged for years. They are fully involved with their churches and, as far as I know, walking with the Lord.…
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The Syrian government’s use of sarin gas on civilians has seen US President Trump and Russian President Putin at loggerheads after months of seeming mutual respect between them. After Trump ordered an air strike on Syrian government military bases, seemingly carried out without prior consultation and voting agreement at the United Nations, Putin expressed…
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Birth control means that atheism and even nominal Protestant Christianity could end up dying out by numbers, as artificial contraceptive use and planned parenthood sees fewer children born to those not professing or practicing a religion. By contrast, births among Muslims are on the rise, with an average of 4.29 children born to Muslims…
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Church-plants are breathing life into many unreached parts of Britain. But what happens when these plants conflict with existing ministry? Reports of church-planting have multiplied, with concerted efforts among organisations and large churches to revitalise gospel ministry across the UK. Acts 29, Co:Mission, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) and others are busy…
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Continued from ‘These 50 years’ (1) A sermon preached at the thanksgiving service on the 50th anniversary of Evangelical Times (Hayes Town Chapel, 4 February 2017): ‘The righteous shall see it and rejoice: and all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness…
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Marriage statistics for 2014 — the first year in which same-sex couples could marry in Britain — have defied expectations. The figures for 2013, the last year in which all marriages involved opposite-sex couples, sounded further alarm bells about attitudes to marriage in Britain. In that year, only 240,854 couples were married in England…
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After finishing a school assembly recently, a few of the children came up to ask some questions. Two, independently of each other, asked the same one: ‘How old is God?’ How do you answer that in a couple of minutes! It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that by a child. Many years…
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Cancer — the dreaded c-word — is dreadfully common. In 2014 there were 356,860 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the UK, the equivalent of a new diagnosis every two minutes. Experts state that 50 per cent of people in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in…
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The wrath of God against sin results not only in occasional catastrophic punishments, but sometimes in unrepentant communities being given over to vile and outrageous immoralities. The widespread push in the UK for ‘gender-fluidity’ exemplifies the latter type of judgment. It is a sign, if ever we needed it, of God’s displeasure with our…
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It could be argued that there is something very wrong with the prevailing subculture of much evangelicalism today. We preach the brokenness of life in a messed-up world, but expect our churches to be full of near perfect people. The story is told of a church, outside of which was the following notice: ‘Workshop…
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Children from 140 schools across the Tyne and Wear have celebrated the production of a historic Bible, which they helped to create. At a special service on 5 April, held at St Peter’s Church in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, the children witnessed the launch of the Children’s Codex — a collection of Bible stories bound into…
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Scripture truth hangs together; displace a part of it and you distort the whole. Treating Genesis 1-3 as allegory rather than history not only undermines the doctrine of special creation but the gospel itself. Christ could only be a real ‘second Adam’ if the federal headship of the first Adam was historically true (Romans…
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Oak Hill College has published a special edition of its regular quarterly magazine, Commentary, as a tribute to former principal Mike Ovey, who died suddenly in January 2017. A copy was given to each of the 800 people who packed out his memorial service at All Souls, Langham Place, on 13 March. The testimonies in…
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I often feel that I have a ridiculously boring testimony. I can’t count the number of times I have sat through courses, seminars and Bible studies and have heard the value of a good testimony in evangelising the lost. And like any long-time believer, I have heard some incredible ones. I have heard about…
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A small group gathered in Fort William on the evening of Friday 31 March to hear about the work of the Trinitarian Bible Society in providing faithful and accurate translations of the Bible in the languages of Africa today. It was reported that good progress was being made in projects like Amharic and Shona…
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Last October, a little rusty key, along with the metal fob attached to it, was sold by auction. Somebody picked it up for £85,000. It is exactly 105 years since the Titanic sailed from Southampton bound for New York. As everyone knows, it was her maiden voyage. And, as everyone also knows, she never…
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Christians are being pushed out of public life by growing ‘religious illiteracy’, Andrea Williams has claimed. The chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre said, ‘Religious illiteracy is pushing Christians out of public life and robbing society of the service of many good people’. She made the comments in response to an employment tribunal,…
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The Christian Institute (CI) has urged prayer for British MPs after the act of terrorism, which saw the deaths of five people at Westminster and others seriously injured. It commented that while it is right to ‘pray for the grieving families and the dozens injured, Christians must also pray for those in authority over…
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Great Whyte Baptist Church in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, invited Christians from the area to a seminar, on 25 February 2017. The speaker was Rev. John Martin from the Medway Fellowship in Huntingdon. Peter Steward, elder at Great Whyte, introduced John Martin and explained how Mr Martin came to know the Lord in Iraq while serving…
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Aisling Hubert, the young woman who unsuccessfully took on the Crown Prosecution Service and two gender-abortion doctors only to face exorbitant legal bills — an outcome that has surely baffled all fair-minded people — has been thrown a lifeline. After her failed attempts to challenge the CPS for not prosecuting doctors who were proven…
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The Iron Curtain came down during 1989-1990. Returning then from Romania, as shots were still being fired, killing mourners at burials, we had come through Hungary and were on our way home via Czechoslovakia. A few of the Czech believers insisted I visit the Old Town Square in Praha, the capital. In all my…
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Grace and Truth Congregation at Rishon- Le-Tzion, Israel, hosted a concert featuring Finland’s Nina Åström on 7 March 2017, in which she performed gospel songs and shared her Christian faith with attendees. In a Grace and Truth newsletter, the organisation expressed gratitude to Nina, who was called to minister to prisoners in Russia, the…
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Pastor and missionary Gilbert McAdam has started a new chapter of his ministry on the northern coast of Scotland, with his wife Emily and their 10-year-old adopted daughter from the Philippines. Mr McAdam, 66, was inducted as minister of Wick Harbour Mission on 31 March, answering the prayers of the church’s five women members…
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Colossians 1:26-27 speaks of: ‘The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is, Christ in you, the hope of glory’. Paul was particularly…
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Timothy J. Keller, founding pastor of Manhattan’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, has had an honour rescinded by Princeton Theological Seminary. Because Mr Keller has stood against gay marriage and does not agree with the ordination of women or allowing practicing LBGT people into the Christian ministry, Princeton has said it would no longer be giving…
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Extremist Islamic preachers have been operating across Australia, reports from Barnabas Fund have revealed. During one meeting of Hezb ut Tahrir in a public library in Sydney, reports claim the preacher told those attending, ‘Islam is clear that apostates do attract capital punishment. We don’t shy away from that’. Although the statement has made…
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Mission college Redcliffe, which was set up in 1892 for aspiring female missionaries, has created 25 scholarships to help underprivileged students. The scholarships will help students, men and women, who are studying on the blended MA programmes in Contemporary missiology, Global leadership, and Member care. Aimed at enabling students working in self-supported, charitable or individual…
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Egypt’s Coptic Church suffered more bomb attacks during Holy Week and Easter, after at least 44 people were killed on Palm Sunday alone. Coptic Christians are the oldest surviving Christian community in the Middle East and are increasingly subjected to acts of terrorism by hard-line Islamic extremists. On Palm Sunday, two bombs exploded in…
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The John Owen Centre (JOC) at London Seminary and the US-based Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary have forged a strategic partnership to set up a doctoral study centre. The PhD programme will focus on the writings of Puritan and other Reformed thinkers, and comes in response to a growing trend among pastors, churches and academics…
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Inclusive policies at the Girlguiding association have caused concern among parents that men will abuse the organisation’s diversity policy and put young girls at risk. The Christian Institute’s Head of Communications, Ciarán Kelly, said he was concerned that the Girlguiding’s new equality and diversity policy, which will allow men who identify as women to…
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When settling into the Holy Land, refugee families suffer difficulties. Charity Siloam Christian Ministries aims to help such families, through a project called ‘Love to the Needy’. As parents to three children, Lena and Valery know the distress of having lived in an area with frequent shelling. Although traumatised by their experience, Lena works…
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This month we will be making a transition to our brand new Evangelical Times website. We are delighted with its new appearance and the new ways of finding relevant articles. We have been working very hard to integrate all our systems and streamline our administration. The new website is part of this process. We…
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On 24 March this year, a service of thanksgiving for the life of Rev. David Arthur Streater was held at Bethany Baptist Church, Mumbles, Wales. The church was packed to capacity for the occasion. The service was led by the pastor, Rev. Mike Leaves. Prayers were taken by David’s son-in-law, Rev. Dr Dick Seed,…
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Hundreds of people gathered in Westminster Chapel, London, for ‘Our Daily Bread Ministries’ 2017 Bible conference. Entitled ‘Psalms for the journey’, it comprised four talks on different psalms alongside testimonies and times of worship. The talks were given by Rev. Bill Crowder. The first was on Psalm 42, with the title, ‘When the journey…
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Grace Church Wakefield (www.gracechurchwakefield.org.uk) is an initiative, sponsored by Dewsbury Evangelical Church (www.dewsbury-church.org.uk), to establish a gospel church in Wakefield. Wakefield is a busy city in West Yorkshire of at least 77,500, though this number probably increases to 110,000 when including near-neighbour areas. Wakefield has long been a gospel black spot, a city notable…
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18 March marked the opening day of a new church plant: Breck Road Baptist Church in Liverpool. In 2015, Crown Christian Heritage Trust was contacted by the leadership of the ministry using the church building — the independent evangelical work had come to a point of decision about their future. The desire of the…
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This collection of 37 hefty essays by leading scholars, edited by Donald Carson, is a window on the state of the authority of Scripture in the Anglo-Saxon evangelical world today. Six contributions come from the UK, three from Australia, one from France, and the remaining 70 per cent from North America. The range of…
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Much attention is being paid to World War 1 and it is important to study its impact on Christians. The Strict Baptists were a relatively small denomination in 1914, but Dr Matthew Hyde’s study gives illuminating insight into the impact of the Great War upon these believers. He is also aware of the wider…
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Commentaries come in many sizes and formats, from the highly technical and exegetical to those of a more devotional character. This one falls into the category of expository reflections on the text of Ephesians and is one of the latest additions to the Mentor series of commentaries. There is no formal introduction to Ephesians…
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There is, arguably, no more searching book in the Bible than the first letter of John. I may say that I am a Christian and believe that I am a Christian, but the key question is, am I? John, in his first letter, addresses this question head on. He does so lest we be…
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This DVD explores the scientific evidence advocated by evolutionists and shows that it is more consistent with the Creation-Fall-Flood paradigm. The film proceeds by way of interviews with scholars from different scientific and linguistic disciplines, including, among others, Hebrew, geology, microbiology, astronomy and archaeology. The film concludes with a pastor’s perspective. The interviews take place in various…
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In this short book, John Blanchard gives six reasons why Jesus is unique and the only one through whom we can have a saving relationship with God. ‘Back to the future’: this section covers the Old Testament prophecies that are fulfilled in Jesus; nobody else has fulfilled these prophecies. ‘Family news’ highlights how Jesus…
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Ecclesiastes is perhaps the most startling and intriguing book of Scripture. In this series of consecutive studies, David Gibson draws lessons that follow the flow of thought in an uncompromising fashion, without trying to sanitise the hard-hitting original. Destiny is not a comprehensive commentary on Ecclesiastes. Some passages are passed over and several of the more puzzling…
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This is a must-read for every Edwards aficionado. It is a treasure trove of eighteenth-century publishing and the activities of booksellers. Some might be tempted to dismiss the garnered facts as mere minutiae, but we soon capture the theme undergirding this seminal and exciting work. Who could fail to be moved when reading about…
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This book brings us an exploration of biblical themes relating to heaven and hell. From its phraseology, it seems derived from spoken addresses, but there are pitfalls as well as advantages in turning preached sermons into book form. On the one hand, it is rich in biblical quotation and allusion, drawing from a variety…
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This book’s intriguing title conjures up images of a long forgotten manuscript recently discovered in a dusty attic. That’s not quite the case here, as all these addresses have seen the light of day in printed form in The Sword and Trowel. The fact that they have not been reprinted presumably indicates that successive…
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For bright young things contemplating a call to pastoral ministry, church planting is where it’s at. Alternatively, service in an already large and thriving work is often pursued. Why bother trying to turn around a dying church when you can start a new one? After all, isn’t the gospel about new births and fresh…
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This is a new edition of a book originally published in 1994. I am pleased that it has been made available again. Many people, particularly new or young Christians, find the Old Testament daunting. They find it difficult to piece together the details of the historical accounts. They may struggle to link the poetic,…
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Ever since I heard Alec Motyer’s classic Bible readings on Amos in the early 1970s, I have devoured anything he wrote on the Old Testament. He continued to speak and write until the Lord called him home late last year. As well as being a great Old Testament scholar technically, he always approached the…
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Twentieth-century secular pronouncements about the imminent death of belief in God proved premature. But what about the arguments of the ‘new atheists’? In six short chapters, the reader is led to consider the bankruptcy of atheism from the viewpoints of cosmic origins, human reason, science, life, humanity and morality. Succeeding chapters then show the…
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Home for Good (http://www.homeforgood.org.uk) wants to find a nurturing home for every child in the UK care system. The charity has recently extended its remit to work with unaccompanied refugee minors. CEO Krish Kandiah recently spoke to Sheila Marshall. SM How did your passion to help these children come about? KK In…
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