Dr Paul Allen

When we consider this Baptist giant, when we read his stirring sermons, when we remember that his life’s work rivalled that of one hundred men, when we read of the revival and the winning of countless souls to Christ, we can imagine the Prince of Preachers encountering little but unbroken success. Compared with so many of our ministries, he seemed to soar high in the clouds. We rarely consider, as Iain Murray contends, The Forgotten Spurgeon — the Spurgeon who needed Matthew 5:11–12 hanging on his wall. Forgotten Prince The forgotten Spurgeon stood among the tornadoes of several great controversies in his day. His protestation against Arminianism, his disgust at baptismal regeneration, and his resistance to an evangelical unity founded upon fragments of Christian doctrine (known as the Downgrade Controversy) made him the target for many arrows. This Spurgeon, especially at the beginning and end of his ministry, had reason to reckon himself as “the scum of the earth” (24–25). ...

Charlie opened the letter and immediately realized that there had been a mistake. It was an invitation to preach at a famous London church with a view to becoming their pastor. Obviously, this was an error for several reasons. No one in the cultured city of London would have considered him to be a pastor in the real sense of the word. Pastors in London were highly educated, socially sophisticated, culturally sensitive, well-dressed, well-groomed, and well-mannered. Charlie was relatively uneducated, had no theological background, had neither formal nor informal training as a preacher, and on top of all this, he was only 19 years old. So, he wrote to his would-be hosts to clarify the probably mistaken identity. But remarkably the reply came back that no mistake had been made. He caught the train to London. The night before his sermon he met some young men at his hotel who told him of the mighty eloquence of the famous London preachers, which intimidated young Charlie even ...

I’m guessing that, as you read this, several things are demanding your attention. Since sitting down to type this article, my email reported two new messages, my phone alerted me to a new text, and Spotify just finished its third consecutive commercial — and I’m only finishing the second paragraph! Times are few and far between when we are completely undistracted. And distractions do not stay in the car when we enter into church on a Sunday morning. We arrive with the intent to worship Jesus with focus. But the burdens of our week, the tensions of our morning, the children by our side, the anxiety of our upcoming schedule, and the wandering of our thoughts all conspire to distract us. Blame It on Technology? Because temptations toward distractions often arrive through our devices, distraction can feel like a new problem unique to our current technological age. But that reaction concedes defeat too easily. If distraction is technology’s fault, then we have no way to es...

The Hour to Wake Up: Romans 13:11–12 In Romans 13:11–12, Paul appeals to the Christians in the city of Rome to understand “the present time” and explains that “the hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” ( NIV ). The “night” is the present evil age (see Gal. 1:4); “the day” is the day of the Lord . Paul’s assertion that “the day is almost here” (Rom. 13:12 NIV) means that the day when God will bring to an end human history as we know it is fast approaching. Paul is convinced that Jesus might return within a very short period of time. Paul does not seek to narrow down the time frame within which Jesus will return , nor does he base his exhortation on the assumption that Jesus’ return would take place very soon. But he clearly believes that Jesus’ return is the next event in G...

The Reformed Church of France, Paris, France (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) John Calvin (1509–1564) is easily the most important Protestant theologian of all time and remains one of the truly great men who have lived. A world-class theologian, a renowned teacher, an ecclesiastical statesman, and a valiant Reformer, Calvin is seen by many as the greatest influence on the church since the first century.  Apart from the biblical authors themselves, Calvin stands as the most influential minister of the Word the world has ever seen. Philip Melanchthon revered him as the most able interpreter of Scripture in the church, and therefore labeled him simply "the theologian" ( J. H. Merle d'Aubigné , History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol. 7[1880; repr., Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle, 2000], 82). And Charles Spurgeon said that Calvin "propounded truth more clearly than any other man that ever breathed, knew more of Scripture, and explained it more c...

This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been evaluated manually for evidence that the artist probably died before 1939, or that the work is anonymous or pseudonymous and was probably published before 1923. Author floruit in 1846, presumed dead by 1923. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Charles Spurgeon writes, . . . the real reason why God 's people do not feed under a gospel ministry, is, because they have not faith . If you believed, if you did but hear one promise, that would be enough; if you only heard one good thing from the pulpit here would be food for your soul, for it is not the quantity we hear, but the quantity we believe, that does us good—it is that which we receive into our hearts with true and lively faith, that is our profit (excerpted from " The Sin of Unbelief ").  The massive consumerism of our age has taught us to be critical. We are cons...