William Williams Pantycelyn – The Sweet Singer of Wales In most of the world, William Williams is only known to those who read the names of authors in their hymnbooks. Most people don’t, and go on singing his most…
Samuel Davies – Preacher, Father, and Poet Most parents share mixed feelings of excitement, wonder, and anxiety at the birth of a child. Samuel Davies, one of the main preachers of the Great Awakening, was no exception. In fact,…
The familiar words of Isaiah 40:1-2 call to mind the sonorous strains of Handel’s Messiah: “‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,’ saith your God. ‘Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her … that her iniquity is pardoned.’” They are…
Perhaps the greatest risk surrounding the doctrine of grace in the Bible is that we allow it to become a cliché. We talk about it, sing about it, take great care to define it, but through it all fail to…
Satan tells us that repentance is easy and forgiveness is available, so yielding to temptation is not serious. We are tempted to think that we’ll only commit a sin a few times and then claim God’s forgiveness. “Correcting the situation…
Anyone who might still hold to the classical liberal perspective that the God of the Old Testament was this angry, vengeful, “bad-hair-day” deity that frankly hated everyone and everything ,while the New Testament Jesus was a veritable hippie, spouting free…
The sixth commandment is “You shall not murder.” (Exo 20:13),[1] or, in the memorable KJV, “Thou shalt not kill.” The later vividly captures the word picture of the original, meaning, “to slay, or strike down”. The former is, however, more…
Simon Goulart – Preacher of Confident Hope In 1595, Simon Goulart joined the company of famous preachers who angered powerful women. The woman in this case was Gabrielle d’Estrée, mistress of King Henry IV of France, who persuaded the…
There’s something of a progression when one moves from the first commandment – “You shall have no other gods before me” – to the second commandment forbidding the making and worship of idols. It’s a move delineating how the one…
One summer, a family man (and personal friend) traveled to Paris, where he spent a morning enjoying Luxembourg Gardens. In time, he noticed a group of mothers who, he realized, were so engrossed in their conversation that they tilted toward…
