Author Archives: botukadmin

Over fifty years ago, retired missionary Jock Purves wrote a series of articles in a magazine on the martyrdom of the Scottish Covenanters. They were gathered together into an influential book entitles Fair Sunshine (Banner of Truth). The pathos with which Mr Purves described these Christians’ arrests, trials, wisdom in their self-defence before their inquisition and their […]

The doctrine of justification is undoubtedly among the most important and most disputed doctrines in the history of the Christian Church. Central to the recovery of the faith once delivered to the saints at the time of the Reformation, it has been at the centre of assaults on that faith ever since. These assaults continue […]

Charles Spurgeon was the unlikeliest of candidates to win the heart of Susie Thompson. He was rural England and she was London and Paris. After seeing and hearing Charles in the pulpit for the first time, the furthest thought from her mind was marrying him. How then did Charles Spurgeon win and keep the heart […]

I spent five years immersing myself in the sermons of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It was truly a transformative season in my life. What was the biggest takeaway? The answer may surprise you. He taught me how to pray. Those who really knew Lloyd-Jones will not find that answering surprising at all. His wife once said, ‘No […]

We have been charting the biblically wise advice of John Owen for pastors, given in an ordination sermon preached on Friday 8th September 1682. His counsel is profound, challenging, and utterly relevant to our contemporary task as preachers. Thus far we have observed the essentials he attaches to preaching the Word and his four great […]

During my first seven years in the pastoral ministry (1980-1987), I felt very green — inexperienced, and in some ways unprepared. Before coming to Bethlehem Baptist Church at the age of 34, I had never been a pastor. I was in school full time till I was 28 and then taught college Bible courses until […]

Heroes of the Spanish Reformation In the first part of the sixteenth century, Luther’s publication of the Ninety-Five Theses started a new movement across Europe which we know as the Reformation. By 1525, not only were Luther’s works translated into Spanish but Illuminist teaching was taking hold and subject to scrutiny and opposition. Valera, from […]

‘Be zealous’ — Revelation 3:19 This watch-word of Christ, it be not now a word in season, I know not when ever it was, or will be. If God should now send through the earth such surveying angels as Zechariah mentions (Zech. 1) could they return any other observation of their travels than this, ‘The […]

After nearly three decades, John Bolt is approaching his impending retirement from Calvin Theological Seminary with admitted ambivalence, grateful to be liberated from long faculty meetings and other academic tedium but wistful about closing a long and lively chapter of engaging students with a bracing seminars on Reformed dogmatics. ‘I feel incredibly privileged when I […]

I have just completed the best book I have read for years, or perhaps in all my life. It is hard to be sure of that, of course, but it must be up there with the most life-changing books that providence has brought my way. It is the book that I hope will be read […]

Almost two years ago I shared 15 reasons why visitation is good for your Pastor (you can read it here). At the time it was so fulfilling to talk to people about what I’d written, both online and in the real world, and to feel a sense of conviction about my own pastoral practice in […]

‘Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.’ — Genesis 15:16 We find in Genesis 15 that Yahweh Elohim reaffirms His covenant with Abram (Genesis 12:1-3), saying that He will be Abram’s shield and great reward. He would have a son and his descendants […]

There’s a well worn quotation – often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain – which goes along the lines of ‘by the age of seventeen I realised that my father knew nothing. By the age of twenty one I was amazed at how much he had learned’. Regardless of who coined this phrase, it carries a […]

It’s exam-time. Over the next few weeks most of the youngsters who attend the church will be sitting exams of one sort or another. SATS, GCSEs, A levels, university assessments, music exams. . . From early childhood into our twenties, we face one daunting educational hurdle after another and some of us then go back […]

My late Dad bought me a pair of Grenson shoes for my wedding, solid and sensible footwear. They can be buffed to guardsman standard, but are stiff and inflexible and uncomfortable. I wore them to his funeral after my wedding, and have only worn them when I’m conducting funerals in the fourteen years since. Along […]

No doubt readers of New Life are well aware of my love for the work of the Banner Of Truth Trust. There is a good reason for this. As a student for the ministry I was one of the many victims of a broad, liberal ‘theological education’. I didn’t exactly fall for it ‘hook, line […]

There are the usual things I believe and say about any conference, for example, that its ethos is bigger that the messages. Each conference emerges from a certain constituency and reflects its values and beliefs, but when its constituency changes, this is reflected in the rearrangement of emphases in the conference. We also believe that […]

It used to be a feature of a Sunday afternoon that a letter would be written to missionaries, absent friends, or children away in college. This was the practice of Dr. Cornelius Van Til of Westminster Theological Seminary, especially writing to the mother of Bob Den Dulk whose godliness and wisdom he greatly admired. Then […]

‘. . . they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also.”‘ –Acts 17:6 When Paul the Apostle answered the Macedonian call and travelled from Troas to the Roman province of Macedonia, to the city of Philippi, God did a great […]

Of all the societal and psychological changes brought on by the dominance of social media, one of its most interesting effects is on our language. Headlines have been replaced by hashtags as a means of capturing the essence of a story, and terms can be coined, duplicated and globally disseminated in a matter of minutes. […]

The Great Commission stands at the center of Christianity as the command of the risen Lord Jesus Christ for his church to proclaim the name of God in the world for the sake of all nations and God’s glory among them. The church fulfils the commission by making disciples of Christ, teaching them to observe […]

It’s probably true — though I can’t prove it — that every Church Prayer Meeting will have people in attendance that do not pray. We all know what it’s like to be in a meeting with those ‘awkward silences’. Not only that, it’s probably every minister’s goal to get everyone praying. It’s the ministerial equivalent […]

Roger Hitchings talks to us about the books that have impacted his life and faith. * * * The book that changed my life… This is not original since it is Redemption Accomplished and Applied. As a boy of 19 I was struggling with some of the theology in the Pentecostal church where I had been […]

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing…teaching…’ –Matthew 28:19, 20 There is a long history of Christians, on both the political right and left, who find themselves being seduced by Babylon, the political spirit of the age. The seduction is real, but it often goes unnoticed, slowly gaining a grip on our […]

I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh. — Romans 9:1-3 (ESV) […]