Topic Archives: Theology

It is one of the conceits of the carnal mind that it thinks itself capable of discerning and understanding the designs of God. The unbeliever thinks he fathoms God and finds the Almighty wanting. The deluded believer hesitates to embrace the teaching of Scripture unless he thinks he perceives the divine design in it. Those […]

When we talk about the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ we begin by pointing out that there was nothing supernatural in the emergence of Jesus from the womb of Mary–what we usually refer to as the ‘birth’ of a baby. The whole process of foetal and embryonic development was again normal. We are […]

I was reading recently some words of George Swinnock (a mid seventeenth century Puritan) that seemed (at least to me) to describe twenty-first century evangelical Christianity: ‘We take the size of sin too low, and short, and wrong, when we measure it by the wrong it doth to ourselves, or our families, or our neighbours, […]

Everybody talks about being ‘born again.’ But what does it mean? What happens if you are born again? How does this idea apply to you? Do you need to be born again? These important questions need answers. Do you need to be born again? If you are like the woman that once met Jesus at […]

Dr Jay E. Adams, recently writing of the advantages of a new confession of faith which could deal, for example, with some of the false teaching coming into the Reformed church, mentions, ‘Aberrations of the faith found in such movements as Sonship should be pointed out and rejected. These movements–both large and small–constantly plague the […]

The following is the current editorial (December 1 & 8, 2000) of the English Churchman (1843) and St. James Chronicle (1761), and used by permission:– A correspondent says it would be helpful to know in which direction the English Churchman considers ‘Reform’ should have decided to move at its October’s Conference (‘Readers Write’ 17 November). […]

On September 2 Dr Joel Beeke, Minister of the Netherlands Heritage Reformed Congregation, Grand Rapids, gave three addresses to the Salisbury Conference at Emmanuel Church, Salisbury, England, on the theme, ‘Calvinism: Doctrinal, Practical, Experimental.’ The Conference as chaired by the pastor of the Emmanuel Church, Malcolm Watts. The following report was published in the English […]

Earlier this year the late Dr James Montgomery Boice delivered a series of three messages–the Den Dulk Lectures–at Westminster Theological Seminary, Escondido, California. The following are his opening words which appeared in ‘Update’, the Westminster Seminary in California magazine and used by permission:– * * * These are not good days for the evangelical church […]

For years, feminists have waged an increasingly successful struggle to strip the Bible of patriarchal language while claiming such alterations will lead to no further Biblical cleansing. Now the slippery slope is confirmed. A recent article in the Jewish Telegraph tells of recent success in an 18-year campaign by retired Jewish publisher Irvin Borowsky to […]

These are not easy times but we have known some genuine encouragements in the past two weeks–in the midst of much that could undermine our conviction that the Lord is reigning. A month ago four of us were planning the Grace Baptist Assembly for May next year. We have some men speaking who take the […]

Someone has said, Imagine you had never driven a car before. In your village all you have are horses and carts. A car appears one night in a field. No one quite knows what to make of it. Eventually, seeing it has wheels, people decide that it must be a vehicle of some sort. So […]

John Piper has written The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 which is published by Baker Book House, (1993, 245 pp. paperback). In a sermon entitled ‘I Will Be Gracious to Whom I Will Be Gracious,’ John Piper confessed that when a junior in seminary, ‘Romans 9 came on me […]

The God who knows and controls is under assault. Self-described evangelical theologians such as Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, and Greg Boyd espouse a form of inclusivism known as the ‘openness of God,’ the major tenets of which hold that God’s knowledge of future events is not exhaustive, that God is often surprised by the actions […]

In the extraordinary opening ceremony to mark the opening of the Olympic Games one of the climaxes of the evening was to see that one word that hung suspended from the giant arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The word was ‘ETERNITY’. It had also been hanging there on January 1 to greet the dawning […]

Chris Harmse of South Africa is a hammer thrower. He holds the record on the African continent for that event. A big man in every way he had qualified for the South African team during a pre-Olympic event in Croatia on July 15. Then he discovered that the final of the hammer throw took place […]