Useful to the Lord: A Review of “Long May Thy Servant Feed Thy Sheep”
Pastors must remember the subtle but significant difference between a pulpit and a platform.
Pastors must remember the subtle but significant difference between a pulpit and a platform.
In his recent address to the various branches of the American government, our King, Charles III (1948–), spoke of feeling “the weight of history.” Speaking especially about the semiquincentennial—one might also call it by more obscure terms, such as the bisesquicentennial or the sestercentennial—of the founding of the American republic, he was calling to mind all of the momentous aspects of that event in the mid-1770s as well as historical details of the “special relationship” that has evolved since then between the United States and the United Kingdom. He was also reaching back, though, to such seminal documents as the...
1700 years ago, a council of bishops met in the city of Nicaea, summoned by Emperor Constantine to discuss and settle numerous issues. The most important issue on the table was the doctrine of God. Arius (250-336), an influential leader in Alexandria, taught that Jesus, the Son, was created and not equal to the Father. Arius popularised the tune about Jesus, “There once was a time when he was not.” At the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, Arius’s teaching was weighed next to Scripture, and he was condemned as a heretic. His theology was outside the bounds of Christian...
Christina Rossetti, the finest poetess of the Victorian era, was born into a remarkably gifted family in London, on December 5, 1830. Her parents, Gabriele and Frances Rossetti, were emigrés from Italy. When they came to England, they began attending All Souls, Langham Place, where Christina was baptized shortly after her birth. Though the family was gifted artistically, they had little money and seem to have struggled financially, despite the fact that her father was a Professor of Italian at King’s College, London. It was from her mother that she imbibed her evangelical faith. In 1848 Christina became engaged to...
History is full of surprises. Sometimes, history is downright stranger than fiction. Church history, including Baptist history, is no exception to this principle. When the Baptist movement, as we know it today, emerged in the seventeenth century, early Baptists had to settle their views on several important issues. For those with a cursory knowledge of Baptist life and history, you can probably guess some of the significant questions: Calvinism vs. Arminianism and Open vs. Closed Communion, for example. Yet, some early Baptist disagreements may be a shock. In my experience, many present-day Baptists are baffled when they learn that the...