As soon as I cried out to him, the lowest level of despair turned to joy and hope. I was, like the psalmist says, lifted out of the miry clay I was wallowing in and set firmly upon solid rock. I was finally rescued. It was all because of grace; all because of God’s amazing... Continue Reading

Spurgeon knew the song of the Church should rightly magnify the Lord. While preaching to his congregation, he implored them to “mark how the music of the church is set to the same tune as that of heaven and earth — ‘Great God, thou art to be magnified.’” Their pastor understood God should not be magnified... Continue Reading

I am utterly convinced that nothing quite assaults our peace like sickness and the reality of death. No matter how much money we have, how successful we are, how well-educated we’ve become, or how much we prepare, there are certain things we cannot protect ourselves from. In many ways, money is like the insulation in a... Continue Reading

Stop reading Jonathan Edwards? Ignore any Edwardsean influence in American culture or evangelical theology? Would the first be safe, and would the second be possible?     The recent call to say “Farewell” to Jonathan Edwards was replaced with a more manageable observation to take the good and dismiss the bad. This initial call was... Continue Reading

Gilson writes with straightforward and clear prose, balancing grace and truth. Her clear-eyed, nuanced approach and wise insights will help anyone in the church to see more of the goodness of God in the sexual ethic of Scripture. Born Again This Way will also help ordinary Christians gain a better understanding of this complicated subject. Ultimately,... Continue Reading

Notice that for Frankl, the abused can become abusers and the oppressed become oppressors because they can fall prey to a “danger (in the sense of psychological hygiene) [that] is the psychological counterpart of the bends.”7 For him, it’s not that external factors in such cases bring out what is already in people (i.e., their... Continue Reading

Even the great Earl of Shaftesbury, a leader in the evangelical branch of the Church of England and an eminent social reformer, announced that after much study he was convinced the Salvation Army was clearly antichrist. One of the Earl’s admirers then revealed that in his own studies he had learned that the “number” of... Continue Reading

The news of their loving response headlined newspapers all over India—and then all over the world. It was a major story in the West. Gladys and Esther drew attention again when they chose to stay in India—even though some tribal people hid Dara Singh for a year before he was caught by police. Even though... Continue Reading

Spurgeon believed that deacons must be characterized by humble, persevering faithfulness. After all, “seldom are their names mentioned in public, and yet they are the mainstay of the church, the regulators of her order, and the guardians of her interests. Some of them have held the fort in troublous times: they have seen a dozen... Continue Reading

Motivated…to establish a private school in her own hometown…[Rosa] began a fundraising campaign. In her autobiography, she lists several reasons for her decision. In the Black communities she visited, she had seen much ignorance and superstition, a disregard for common morals, and poor living conditions.    At the turn of the twentieth century, many civil... Continue Reading