Topic Archives: Culture

Why did John Calvin preach eight times a week in Geneva? Eight times a week! How did he make the time? Was he not writing commentaries on almost every book of the Bible? Was he not writing treatises on numerous theological and pastoral subjects? Was he not the Reformation’s premier letter writer, writing to hundreds […]

The material below is dated in that it was published once before 13½ years ago, but also in that the always-trendy-but-always- behind kind of evangelism it describes continues in its evolution of outreach methods. A pleasant consequence of the publication of this article was that the author received a letter of appreciation from Dr John […]

The Christian believer is always living in an inescapable tension! Much as we would love to be free of this tension, until we leave this earthly scene and enter the nearer presence of our great and gracious God, we will be engaged every moment of every day in this tension. I hardly need to spell […]

The homosexual marriage debate is not about homosexuality. It is not about ‘gay-bashing’, and Christians who are often intimidated by that unjust jibe should not be afraid to take on the government over the issue of redefining marriage. It is not even about marriage. It is about God. Who is God? Is God God? Or […]

The England riots are not just a breakdown of law and order, they are the consequences of a breakdown of morality in our society. We have all been appalled to see the shocking absence of respect for human life, for lawful authority and for private property. Why are these values so absent? In what social […]

Long-time readers of this magazine1 will have noticed that comment on church conditions in Scotland is almost non-existent in these columns. One reason for that has been the complexity of the situation. It is far easier to see the providence of God in events that happened many years ago than it is to understand our […]

PSALM 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? This Psalm refers to some unknown episode in the life of David, when such terrible things were taking place that it seemed that ‘the foundations’ of society were being destroyed. So, he cries out in grief in the third verse: ‘If the foundations […]

A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel and it’s far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift affects us on the ground of everyday life. In his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology, famed Dutch Theologian Herman Ridderbos (1909-2007) summarizes this […]

Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! (Job 38:3) After Elihu, the fourth of troubled Job’s friends, exhorts him to consider the glory and wonder of God and his providence, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind. God did the same with Elijah (1 […]

Only be strong and courageous. (Joshua 1:7) We seem to be like the proverbial frog in the pan of water on the stove. As the water is slowly heated the frog is unaware of his perilous condition until it is too late and he is boiled to his death. We seem to be like fish […]

Jeremiah’s was a very difficult situation. He had watched the spiritual situation in his country deteriorate further and further. As a prophet of the Lord, he had to declare what was revealed to him about future judgement against his people. No wonder he wished ‘that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of […]

Introduction In winding up his magnificent exposition of the sovereignty of grace in salvation, the apostle Paul writes: ‘For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things’ (Rom. 11:36). That is, from God as the Source, through God as the Means, to God as the End, all things exist and have their […]

How lonely sits the city. (Lamentations 1:1) The Apostle John’s vision of the glorified Christ reveals the Son of Man’s zeal for his glory and the work of his church. He is clothed with a robe, reaching to his feet, girded across his breast with a golden girdle. His head and his hair are white, […]

Consider what has happened in the church over the past decades. The 1970s were an exciting time. We saw an unprecedented rise in conservative evangelicalism, the explosion of Christian broadcasting and publishing, a number of excellent new Bible translations and study aids, the proliferation of small-group Bible studies, and tremendous growth in Bible-believing congregations. In […]

THE ORWELLIAN LOGIC THAT’S TURNING THE FAITH BRITAIN WAS BUILT ON INTO A CRIME Terrifying as this may seem, the attempt to stamp out Christianity in Britain appears to be gathering pace. Dale Mcalpine was preaching to shoppers in Workington, Cheshire, that homosexuality is a sin when he found himself carted off by the police, […]