Fact File – Slovak Republic Area: A landlocked country of 18,932 square miles; once the eastern 40% of Czechoslovakia. Neighbours: Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic. Environment: The rugged Carpathian Mountains, including the Tatras, lie to the north (highest point 2,655 metres). South-western Slovakia’s fertile lowland extends to…
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Area:A landlocked country of 18,932 square miles; once the eastern 40% of Czechoslovakia. Neighbours: Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic. Environment: The rugged Carpathian Mountains, including the Tatras, lie to the north (highest point 2,655 metres). South-western Slovakia’s fertile lowland extends to the River Danube on the Hungarian border.…
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Here's an interesting question - why should a 21st century Evangelical learn theology from a 5th century African bishop? The answer is that the bishop knew more about God’s grace, both theologically and in his spiritual experience, than many of us. The bishop is of course Augustine of Hippo, the early Church Father whose…
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The Roman Catholic world is preparing to commemorate the promulgation of 'The Immaculate Conception' of Mary 150 years ago. Much has taken place already to celebrate this event and the climax is expected on 8 December 2004.Worship of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is standard practice in the Church of Rome. A Catechism of…
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In August this year, journalist John Waite brought to public notice an alarming practice carried out in the name of Christ. It should be a major concern for all Christians, particularly those working with believers who know the pain of infertility.The practice is the supply of so-called ‘miracle-babies’ by Kenyan Archbishop Gilbert Deya, who…
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Culture clashThere is much heart-searching over the clash of cultures in Britain’s multi-ethnic society. The media sometimes approach overload in dealing with the subject, as politicians and community workers jostle to air their views.Yet the most basic culture clash of all often goes unrecognised — the conflict between the wisdom of the world and…
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Slovakia, like Poland, Spain and Italy, is predominantly Catholic, even though it has many churches claiming to be Protestant. These include Baptists, Moravians and various kinds of Brethren. However, in Slovakia, Protestants are largely ecumenical and liberal in theology; and the real, regenerate church — believers saved by grace, through faith in Christ —…
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They also set up false witnesses who said ... 'We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth with ... change the customs which Moses delivered to us' (Acts 6:13-14).Last month we saw how New Testament preachers ‘found’ Christ in the Old Testament in Messianic prophecies and types. But they also found Christ…
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Suppose you sang this verse from Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘All ye that pass by’:For what you have doneHis blood must atone:The Father hath punished for you his dear Son.The Lord, in the dayOf his anger, did layYour sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away.And then someone turned on you, and denounced this…
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The Roman Catholic world is preparing to commemorate the promulgation of 'The Immaculate Conception' of Mary 150 years ago. Much has taken place already to celebrate this event and the climax is expected on 8 December 2004.Worship of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is standard practice in the Church of Rome. A Catechism of…
Read more
They also set up false witnesses who said ... 'We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth with ... change the customs which Moses delivered to us' (Acts 6:13-14).Last month we saw how New Testament preachers ‘found’ Christ in the Old Testament in Messianic prophecies and types. But they also found Christ…
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Matthew Levi - a tax collector-turned-Christian - had no qualms about recounting his own call to follow Christ. Simply and succinctly he writes in his Gospel: 'As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, "Follow me", and he rose and…
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Last month we saw that the discovery of penicillin (and thus of antibiotics generally) involved what Professor R. G. Macfarlane has called an 'incalculably large series of coincidents'. Let us now summarise these.1. The way in which the special mould got into Fleming’s laboratory and onto a Petrie dish loaded with staphylococci bacteria (staphs)…
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On 11 April 2004 a new book appeared at number 10 on the New York Times best-seller list and shot straight to the top of online booksellers' lists.1,2 The Maker's diet by Jordan S. Rubin has fast become one of the most popular health plans in the USA.Rubin claims that his health plan is…
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God is utterly sovereign in all things, yet we human beings remain responsible for our actions. This is one of the most difficult, yet also one of the most crucial, teachings of the Bible.We cannot easily see how both these things can be true at the same time, but the Scripture certainly teaches both.…
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Czechoslovakia divided into two distinct republics in 1993. The Czech Republic is largely irreligious, but the Slovak Republic is predominantly Roman Catholic. In addition to Catholicism, shrines and large church buildings in Slovakia evidence Eastern Orthodoxy, and it is estimated there are about 400,000 adherents of Lutheranism. The credal distinction between Romanism and Lutheranism…
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Have we lost the priority?I wonder how we can encourage Christians in the UK to give a special place to the church prayer meeting. I detect a change in attitude to corporate prayer and a tendency for it to decline. At the same time, it seems that God's blessing often rests conspicuously on churches…
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All night the wind howled. The heavy wooden beams of our log house groaned in protest. In the morning I wandered around our property surveying the damage. Broken branches littered the ground. To the north, the gale had felled a wood-pecker-riddled tree. To the south the wind had snapped off the top half of…
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Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6)The Bible warns the professing church over and over again that if God’s people persist in sin and abandon close fellowship with him, his…
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3. The heart of the covenant'For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them…
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Have we lost the priority?I wonder how we can encourage Christians in the UK to give a special place to the church prayer meeting. I detect a change in attitude to corporate prayer and a tendency for it to decline. At the same time, it seems that God's blessing often rests conspicuously on churches…
Read more
On 11 April 2004 a new book appeared at number 10 on the New York Times best-seller list and shot straight to the top of online booksellers' lists.1,2 The Maker's diet by Jordan S. Rubin has fast become one of the most popular health plans in the USA.Rubin claims that his health plan is…
Read more
Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6)The Bible warns the professing church over and over again that if God’s people persist in sin and abandon close fellowship with him, his…
Read more
What drew Pink to theosophy is unknown. Perhaps, as in the case of others, it was the society's claim to experience occult phenomena, and certainly their practices were allied to spiritualism. In a later address on the subject Pink spoke of spiritualism (belief in communication with the spirit of the dead) as the ‘pioneer’…
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Suppose you sang this verse from Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘All ye that pass by’:For what you have doneHis blood must atone:The Father hath punished for you his dear Son.The Lord, in the dayOf his anger, did layYour sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away.And then someone turned on you, and denounced this…
Read more
