Christian ministry

Augustine of Canterbury – A Reluctant Missionary Augustine of Canterbury, often known as “the apostle of the English,” would have never made it across the Channel if it hadn’t been for the insistent prompting of Pope Gregory I. The eighth century historian Bede tells us in fact that Augustine and...

The Shadow of Christ in the Book of Lamentations How many sermons have you heard from the Old Testament book of Lamentations? Clearly, it’s not a “fan favorite,” but—as author and professor C.J. Williams explains—the prophet Jeremiah’s poetic laments offer us practical insights into grieving with...

Ambrose of Milan – The Reluctant Bishop Who Called Emperors to Task If you visit downtown Milan, Italy, besides viewing the most popular monuments, such as the Duomo and the Sforza Castle, you may want to walk a mile out of the way to explore an older church named after a fourth-century bishop,...

Many define “worship” as the music Christians employ in Sunday services. Others hold to a certain “style” of worship. What kind of worship does God demand? In his new book, Trembling Joy: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Worship, Pastor Ryan Speck defines terms and points his readers to what...

Lactantius – An Original Writer Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius was born around the year 255 in North Africa. Quickly earning a reputation for his intellectual prowess, in 290 he was invited by Emperor Diocletian to serve as professor of Latin and rhetoric in Nicomedia of Bithynia (today’s...

“They’re trying to get me” is the catch phrase of the paranoid mind. The question it raises, is the identity of “they”. But the leading declaration of Psalm 129 is quite different. It is not a statement of fears but of memory: “Many time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say.” (1...

Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet In his time, Huldrych Zwingli was a deeply polarizing figure. Though clearly a leader of the Swiss Reformation, contemporaries Martin Luther and John Calvin denied Zwingli's influence, due in large part to his position on the Lord's Supper. Unlike his more famous...

Hope Masterton Waddell and His Missionary Team In 1841, a group of missionaries in Jamaica read a copy of Sir T. Fowell Buxton’s seminal book, The Slave Trade and Its Remedy. One portion stood out more than others. According to Buxton, among the black Christians in the West Indies, “there may arise...

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke – Learning to Number His Days “One thing Christianity and we National Socialists have in common, and only one: we demand the whole man.” These words, pronounced by Roland Freisler, State Secretary of the Reich, at the time of the trial of Helmuth von Moltke, were...

I hope that you’ve read the previous four articles on the doctrines of grace: depravity, election, limited atonement, and irresistible grace. This 5 th installment may not make much sense to you if you haven’t. The reason for this is because this final doctrinal summation of Reformed thought is the...