Church

This week, Jonathan and James chat with Ken Golden. Ken’s a writer and contributor for reformation21.org, pastor of Sovereign Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Illinois, and the author of Presbytopia and Entering God’s Rest . Today, Ken is joining us to talk about his most recent book, Eating...

This Church Discipline series focused on guiding members in need of repentance by formal levels of rebuke. But the hopeful prayer of elders at each point of censure along the way is that it need never go further, especially not to the final act of excommunication. Proverbs 25:11-12 reads, A word...

There are times within a disciplinary process that some in the church must be temporarily postponed from their normal opportunity to take part in the formal fellowship or service of the saints. The status of those so suspended is not revoked (as with excommunication from membership or deposition...

Reformed, confessional theologians often point out that discipline is one of three signs of a true church. [1] Highlighting this distinguishing mark, my seminary professor once rhetorically asked our class, “How many true churches are out there?” The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) chapter 30...

Margaret Mure and the Love of Christ Today, James Durham is remembered as a faithful preacher, a moderate spirit at a time of great controversy, and an early advocate of the free offer of the gospel. But few people know that some of his celebrated commentaries were edited and published after his...

Tiyo Soga – The First Ordained Black South African Many things had changed in South Africa since Tiyo Soga had first traveled to Scotland in 1846. And he had changed as well. He had left a young seventeen-year-old graduate of the Lovedale Institution in South Africa, an outpost of the Glasgow...

Rebecca Protten and the First Black Protestant Church in the Americas When seven-year-old Rebecca Protten was kidnapped from her family home in Antigua, she couldn’t possibly imagine that her new life in the island of St. Thomas, a Danish sugar colony in the West Indies, would become a catalyst for...

Helene Kottanner – A Medieval Thriller Helene Kottanner had been a loyal friend and adviser to Queen Elisabeth of Hungary. But when the queen asked her to steal the royal crown, her devotion was severely tested. It all started in 1439, when King Albert II died after fighting against the Ottoman...

George Liele – First Baptist Missionary in Jamaica It has been said that the first American Baptist missionary was not Adoniram Judson, but George Liele, a former slave. Some have quibbled that Liele, although licensed to preach, was not specifically sent abroad by a church. In any case, his life...

An old spiritual laments, “Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrows.” A modern rock song languishes, “You don’t know how it feels to be me!” But Jesus does . In Matthew 26:36-46 , Jesus’s agonizing, lonely prayers in Gethsemane show the hellish human suffering of His soul before...