Inventing the Universe, by Alister McGrath Subtitle: Why we can’t stop talking about science, faith and God The author’s main aim is to show that science and belief in God (in particular, the Christian faith) complement and enrich each other. He acknowledges this is nothing new, but is necessary given the increased…
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The Supreme Court of Pakistan agreed on 22 July to hear an appeal by Aasia Bibi, a Christian mother of five who has been languishing on death row since 2010 after she was unjustly convicted of blasphemy. Saiful Malook, Aasia’s lawyer, said in a statement: ‘The Supreme Court today accepted the petition of my…
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The old adage goes like this: ‘Convince a man against his will, he’s of the same opinion still’. It seems to get truer and truer. Let me explain. As Christians we are commanded to give a reason for the hope that we have. The aim is to persuade and commend faith in the Lord…
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On 31 July, legislation designed to counter human trafficking came into force across England and Wales, following campaigning by charity Christian Action Research & Education (CARE). The Modern Slavery Act, which was given Royal Assent by the Queen earlier this year, is the first piece of anti-slavery legislation for nearly 200 years. Research from the…
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Back in 1994, the Trinitarian Bible Society moved from a smaller building into our large headquarters at Tyndale House, Dorset Road, London. By the grace of God, from these premises, millions of Scriptures and Scripture portions were sent out. Bibles, New Testaments, Gospels, calendars, tracts, cards and other Scripture items were despatched to over 150…
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The Sunday before West Row Baptist Church’s bicentenary, we celebrated the fifth anniversary year for our pastor, Evan King. We surprised him with a gift from the fellowship and a cake. His wife Carolyn received a rose bush with the instructions, ‘Dig a hole in your garden and then forget about it!’ (gardening is…
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More than 33,000 girls under the legal age of consent have been provided with long-acting contraceptive implants or hormonal injections by NHS sexual health clinics over the last four years. The figures were compiled by the government’s Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) and show 5400 under-16-year-olds were given the contraceptive implant; and,…
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That things are terribly wrong in British society is obvious at all levels — individual, family, communal and institutional. Evangelical Times reports on this every month, perhaps less adequately than it should, not because the editors enjoy muck-raking, nor because they want to transform evangelical churches into communities of Pharisees, but in order to…
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The second European Huddle was held at Guessens in Welwyn, headquarters of the European Missionary Fellowship (EMF), from 10-12 July. It was hosted by this year’s students, as the final part of their training at the School of Biblical Studies. Yet again, the Lord was gracious in giving the sun so that the beautiful…
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How a person becomes a Christian is of vital and prime importance. In Galatians 1:3, Paul very simply tells us that it is through ‘the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins and rescued us from the present evil age’. This is the gospel. This is God’s way of salvation. It…
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Hopefully, the sales of Evangelical Times have not dipped calamitously since last month’s Guest Column! If you are still there, I want to pursue a couple of lines of inquiry. Last month I described something of my journey to date. Since moving from the world of the Reformed Charismatic, I have been honoured to…
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Ultra-dispensationalist publications such as those from the Open Bible Trust make few references to the various biblical covenants. Indeed, one of the nineteenth century founders of dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), vehemently attacked Reformed covenant theology. Darby denounced the seventeenth century Westminster Confession of Faith’s doctrines of God’s covenants and law as nonsensical, mischievous…
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Dispensationalism divides history past and future into seven (the exact number varies) eras known as ‘dispensations’. Each dispensation represents a distinct and separate spiritual economy for God’s self-revelation to and dealings with mankind. Dispensationalism has been popularised by the Scofield Bible and is adhered to by millions, especially in the USA. It is hyper-literalistic…
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New York judge, Justice Barbara Jaffe, has denied a request to extend legal rights to two chimpanzees. In July, she ruled against the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) at the New York state Supreme Court. The two eight-year-old chimps, Leo and Hercules, being kept at a New York university laboratory, are not people and so…
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A Christian minister and politician has defended the sanctity of marriage in a discussion about infidelity on national television. Rev. George Hargreaves, former leader of the Christian Party, stressed that there are ‘consequences’ for people who have an affair. He was speaking after Ashley Madison, a website that facilitates extra-marital affairs worldwide, was targeted by…
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Barnabas Fund has reported that two South Sudanese pastors, Yat Michael and Peter Reith, who were both facing the death penalty, were released on 5 August. They had served eight months in detention, in Khartoum. Pastor Yat Michael was arrested last December while visiting a church in Khartoum which has undergone significant pressure from…
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‘Mindfulness’ — a practice that has its roots in Buddhism — is fast becoming the latest fad in schools and colleges, according to a professor of education from the University of Sheffield. Speaking at the annual Family Education Trust conference, in June, Prof. Kathryn Ecclestone set the rise of the mindfulness industry against the…
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I am writing this while I recover from shingles. I don’t recommend shingles. It’s painful. I have been taking anti-viral pills and some strong pain killers, for which I am thankful. Illness can strike any one of us of course, but how should we think about illness? Christians get ill We are guaranteed perfect…
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So it has happened again! The Summer School of Reformed Theology took place in Minsk for a third year in a row! An event of micro-significance for many Western countries is a big achievement for us in Belarus. The audience grew to the upper limit which we set for this project three years ago…
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On Friday 11 September the Assisted Dying Bill, proposed by Rob Marris MP before the House of Commons rose for its summer recess will have its Second Reading During the summer representatives from disability rights organisations, including Silent Witness actress Liz Carr, delivered a letter to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, seeking…
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Thomas Cranmer, one of the Reformation’s most famous martyrs, can accurately be described as the architect of the Church of England, and consequently of the worldwide Anglican communion. Despite this, considerably less has been written about him than other key figures of the Reformation. Born in humble circumstances in 1489 in Aslockton, Nottinghamshire, he…
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The busy pedestrian streets in the heart of the cities of Oxford and Cambridge are filled with thousands of tourists from all over the world, as well as students, buskers and local people. It is here that Christian Answer teams came again in June, to preach and testify to the saving power of Jesus…
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Peter Trumper was born in Chatham, Kent, in 1934, but lived most of his life in Wales. His father was second-in-charge of the home guard for Wales during World War Two. At school, he was taught by George Thomas (later Speaker of the House of Commons). He gained a choral scholarship and continued during his…
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We were off to Israel (from 11–23 May 2015) with our whole family and 44 friends — 51 in all! I was more excited this time than I was 23 years ago. Our 9-month-old son had grown up and had someone else to take care of him; and I could focus on absorbing the…
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Seven FIEC churches in south-east London gathered for a joint service in June to hear about the joy and blessing of belonging to God’s family, from ‘Home for Good’ founder Krish Kandiah. Home for Good is a Christian adoption and fostering charity. As well as sharing about its work, Krish preached about the joy…
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‘Mindfulness’ — a practice that has its roots in Buddhism — is fast becoming the latest fad in schools and colleges, according to a professor of education from the University of Sheffield. Speaking at the annual Family Education Trust conference, in June, Prof. Kathryn Ecclestone set the rise of the mindfulness industry against the…
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On 17 June 2015, Dylann Roof, aged 21, opened fire on a Bible study in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. No shooting in the United States has ever been quite like this one in respect to its intended purpose and outcome. Racial tensions within the US are still high,…
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In a letter to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, Christian Institute Director Colin Hart says Ofsted ‘must learn that the mistreatment of Christian pupils is a problem that deserves its attention’ and Ofsted and the Department for Education have given ‘inadequate attention’ to the ‘bullying of Christian pupils’. The letter criticises the Ofsted response to…
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At this year’s Lewis Christian Conference, held in Stornoway from 19-22 June, the visiting speaker — Dr Charles Price from Toronto, Canada — took as his theme ‘Knowing God in your secret soul’. His three addresses were from the Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6. His delivery and content captivated the audience…
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Three invitations were given over the weekend of 4-6 July 2015, when the 68th Bible ministry weekend, sponsored by Longhorsley Free Church, Northumberland, and meeting in Longframlington, took place. Andrew Lucas (Omagh Evangelical Presbyterian Church) opened the convention by asking all who had gathered from fellowships across the North East to take a trip with…
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Continued from Following the culture? (1) The apostles established a ministry common to the churches, a common worship, in which all the churches were expected to participate. Nicholas Wolterstorff, writing in defence of diversity in worship, points out that, ‘The Corinthian church did things differently from the Jerusalem church’ (Themes from the Reformed tradition, p.277).…
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150 years ago, Hudson Taylor, a Yorkshire lad from Barnsley, gave a challenging call to the Christians of his day. He wrote: ‘Can the Christians of England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes [of China] are perishing for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly, which has made England what…
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A Tory MP criticised by the press for stating that Extremism Disruption Orders (EDOs) would be used to stop teachers, including those in Christian schools, from teaching that gay marriage is wrong, has stood by his comments. The Daily Telegraph quoted the MP as saying EDOs ‘would apply in situations where a teacher was…
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Grace Baptist Partnership (GBP) Scotland reports: ‘It was a joy to serve alongside Grace Baptist Church Edlesborough, Bucks, from 21-28 June in a concerted series of evangelistic efforts. ‘An excellent team of 30 from Scotland, England and the USA were enabled to reach thousands of homes in a number of villages with gospel literature…
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This year’s conference was the 16th in succession. It was again held at WEST in Bridgend. Residential accommodation was all but filled. It was good to see many old friends and welcome some new ones. As well as folk from England and Wales, there were several other nationalities present: Scots, Dutch, Finnish, Iranian, West…
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Born in 1939, growing up in a Monmouthshire mining valley then in Cardiff, Brian Norton came into contact with the church through the Boys’ Brigade. At the age of 13 he came to faith in Cardiff, under the powerful preaching of Rev. Dr Gwyn Walters, who himself was influenced by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Still…
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Lions are mentioned 100 times in Scripture. They are portrayed positively and negatively; sometimes in a literal sense, at other times metaphorically in a variety of contexts. The Barbary or Atlas lion and the Asiatic lion were the lions of the Bible lands. Their domains originally overlapped. With an impressive dark mane, and weighing…
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‘Did not our heart burn within us?’ said Jesus’ disciples in their home in Emmaus. He had shown himself to them in the Scriptures, even though they had not recognised him in person. That is how we felt at the 2015 Argyll Convention, in Oban, in early August. Under the heading ‘The true and…
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The Archbishop of Ondo, Nigeria, has expressed his shock at the Bishop of Liverpool’s dereliction of duty, after the bishop described homosexual lifestyles as a gift to the church. The recently appointed Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, made the controversial comments, according to Christian Concern, as he joined a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT)…
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Mike Scott came to our attention at North Curry Independent Baptist Church, near Taunton, Somerset, in 2013, as a preacher from Cornwall needing further experience. We as a church had already agreed to encourage and help aspiring preachers wherever possible, as we were concerned about the future of the Lord’s work in this country, with the…
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September 2015 is the 60th anniversary of the first issue of The Banner of Truth magazine, in September 1955. As with all the Banner’s work, this has been very influential and much blessed of God in the cause of Christ’s kingdom. Sixty years ago, in September 1955, a small pamphlet was published in Oxford…
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About 30 years ago I was at a meeting of the Tyndale Fellowship Historical Theology Study Group when someone raised the question, ‘What difference does being an evangelical make to the study of the history of theology?’ Gerald Bray, the author of this book, offered an answer: ‘It’s what you consider to be important’.…
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This Pillar NT Commentary abounds with the author’s own approach to exegesis. It is scholarly but dry reading. It will doubtless appeal to the academic reader; there is much consultation of other authors. However, notable omissions in the consultation are John Calvin and Philip Hughes, neither of whom is cited. The pastor may find…
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The introduction alone to Unleash the Word is a good enough reason to buy this book! But there is more — much more — to this guide into how to lead a small-group Bible study. Here is a most helpful resource to aid us in preparing and leading such studies. In little more than…
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I have had a bee in my bonnet that widows in churches are a neglected group and, therefore, I was delighted to review this book. Brian Croft and Austin Walker have combined ‘to inform the reader of the biblical imperatives upon God’s people for this task, and then give practical helps on how pastors…
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If you want an answer to this question which is thorough, reasonably succinct and well-written, then this is the book for you. It covers all the main issues and objections, presenting a clear, pastoral and practical message to Christians wrestling with this unsettling issue which has been thrust upon the church in the twenty-first…
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This book comprises 20 short letters written by the author to students at various US seminaries where he has taught over the years. Men preparing for ministry are clearly the target readership, though ministers of all ages would benefit from the book. The letters cover a variety of subjects (only the fourth letter is…
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This is a well-researched, sensitively written account of the life and influence of Bethan Lloyd-Jones, née Phillips (1898-1991) wife of the late Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It will be welcomed by all who are eager to learn more about those remarkable years of recent ministry from Dr Lloyd-Jones, first at Sandfields, Aberavon; and then Westminster…
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Christians are perhaps more influenced by the consumer driven mentality of the world around us than we are prepared to admit. There are an increasing number of professing Christians who do not see any need to commit themselves to a local church. Combined with carelessness over the observance of the Lord’s Day, this can…
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