In his celebrated book, Holiness, J.C. Ryle writes with his customary vigour about the Christian fight. He takes as his text 1 Timothy 6:12 – “Fight the good fight of faith.”
What follows is a summary.
Many are fascinated by warfare and fighting. But there is a warfare that is as real as any human battle, and of far greater importance. It is waged by every Christian man and woman who ever entered the world.…
This is a hard post to write. If there is one aspect of revealed truth that both saints and sinners wish was not there, it would be the doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked. Christians – including evangelical Christians – have become almost completely silent on this point, sometimes from misplaced humility (‘Who am I to speak of such things?’), sometimes from fear of what unbelievers will think (‘Non-Christians have a low enough opinion of Christianity, without alienating them even more with this talk of hell and judgment’), and sometimes from actual doubt as to whether Scripture does actually teach which it appears to teach.…
In a recent article reprinted in The Banner of Truth, Johann Odendaal sets out some of the principle priorities of Puritan preaching. These help to explain why these men should be regarded as ‘God’s giants’:-
1. Good preaching to them was the primary means of God’s grace to man. It was the highlight of public worship. Through the preaching the Holy Spirit would apply the Word in power to save people from their sins. It is primarily through the preaching of the Word that believers are built up in their faith.…
Christians, as J.I. Packer reminds us, believe in divine guidance. We believe that God has a plan for us, and we believe that God is able to communicate that plan to us.
We fall into error, however, when we think of guidance as inward prompting of the Holy Spirit apart from God’s written Word.
It is a mistake to narrow the focus of guidance exclusively to vocational guidance (Whom should I marry? Which church should I join?…
B.B. Warfield, while recognising the obvious fact that the term ‘Trinity’ is not a biblical term, nevertheless maintains that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a biblical doctrine.
The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view.
The doctrine of the Trinity, insists Warfield, not only is a biblical doctrine; it must be a biblical doctrine, because it is not discoverable by natural reason. …
It was no accident that J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) gave the first chapter of his celebrated book on Holiness the simple title, ‘Sin’. ‘I make no apology,’ he writes, ‘for beginning this volume of papers about holiness by making some plain statements about sin.’
Here are some of the rather striking things he has to say on this subject:-
‘Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies and false doctrines of the present day.…
It is clear to any reader of the works of John Calvin that he had a very high view of the truthfulness of Scripture. There are a handful of passages, however, where some have detected hints that the great Reformer thought that the Bible might err in matters of detail. These are categorised by J.I. Packer as follows:-
Laughter has not always been prized as a wholly positive phenomenon. In the 18th century Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son: ‘there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.’ John Ray called laughter ‘the hiccup of a fool’, and Oliver Goldsmith thought that it spoke of ‘the vacant mind’. As recently as 1964 a specialist psychology dictionary characterised laughter as an ‘emotional response, expressive normally of joy, in the child and the unsophisticated adult.’ …
How did it come to be virtually taken for granted that there are many paths to God, and that for any one of these (including Christianity) to make any claim to exclusiveness is either ignorant or arrogant?
John Stott discusses the various arguments for religious pluralism that have evolved in recent decades:-
1. The new global consciousness. Stimulated by threats to the environments, fears of nuclear conflict, and the continued existence of North/South economic divide. …
Some very short notes on the first few sermons from a series preached by Robert Traill (1642-1716).
Text: Heb 4:16
Q. Where is God to be found (cf Job 23:3)? Ans. On a throne of grace: this the antitype of the mercy seat, Heb 4:4ff, which was characterised by (a) limited access; (b) solemn atonement, Lev 16:12ff; (c) communion with God, Ex 25:17ff.
Doctrine: God in the gospel sits on a throne of grace, and from it calls and invites sinners to come to him.…
