Topic Archives: Christian Living

I wonder if it has ever struck you in reading the New Testament how often faith and love are mentioned in the same breath. Again and again you find that where the one is the other is as well. Let me give you some examples. In one place, Paul declares that ‘we ought always to […]

J C Ryle was an evangelical Church of England minister of the 19th century who eventually became the first Bishop of Liverpool. During his life he became best known for writing tracts on a range of subjects. This book, first published in 1873, is a collection of nineteen such booklets. The common theme is the […]

Some Christians are doubtful of the help they can find in a Puritan book written some 400 years ago. Tom Richwine, a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust, addresses this concern with a recent example.

In how many ways may we glorify God? 1] It is glorifying God when we aim purely at his glory. God must be the untimate end of all actions. Thus Christ, ‘I seek not mine own glory, but the glory of him that sent me’ (John 8:50) . . . Oh let us take heed […]

It is the easiest thing in the world to say, ‘The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord’, when all is well with you and yours. When life is sweet, when your children are trusting in Christ, when your church is united and loving, when your spouse loves […]

One of the many temptations confronting the minister of the gospel in this generation is to become involved in unnecessary administrative church work. Once involved, the demands tend to increase, often resulting in a degree of deterioration in the quality of his pulpit ministry. Books which encourage such involvement are pouring from the press, lauding […]

Marriage was God’s gift to a perfect world. He had said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’, even when that man was without sin and living in holy communion with God. God in kindness saw fit to make a companion for Adam – another human being, not identical to him, but […]

In recent weeks I have been reading Augustine’s Confessions. It is a great and compelling read, a 300-page prayer that illuminates Augustine’s search for God and for life. As I read the opening chapters I was struck by a word that Augustine regularly uses and that had not registered with me before. Again and again […]

If you lift a stone in the garden you find all sorts of creepy crawlies underneath. Sin is a little like that. What are secret sins? Psalm 19:12 – Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. It is not entirely clear what these hidden faults or secret sins are. Secret sins are the […]

On 26 June 2013 the U.S.A. Supreme Court issued rulings that boosted the cause of same sex marriage by a 5-4 decision, and ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional. This is a major decision that will have long term impact. The court accelerated the advance of gay marriage in the US, […]

You may be an evangelical and be an Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Brethren or other. You may be Calvinist or Arminian. But we generally need more agreement on points of theology and worship if we are to live and serve together as a church. One of the ways in which churches identify themselves is by calling […]

Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, and be gracious to me and answer me. When Thou didst say, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to Thee, ‘Thy face, O Lord, I shall seek’ (Psalm 27:7-8). Sarah Butin, an eighteen year old recent high school graduate on her way to Furman University in the […]

I was converted to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ fifty-six years ago in January 1957. I had good parents and a stable home but neither my parents, nor I, nor my younger sister Ann, had any true knowledge of God before that date. My religious life amounted to saying private prayers in bed […]

It is clear that the Bible commends the quality of meekness, but what is our understanding of this virtue? Why is it commended to us, and what are its qualities? Most people clearly apprehend that humility is characterized by lowliness. We understand this because it is often contrasted with pride whereby a person boasts and […]

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite spirit, O Lord, Thou wilt not despise (Psalm 51:17). King David wrote, ‘. . . his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night’ (Psa. 1:2). But then David saw Bathsheba, desired her, took her, and […]