Is this the biggest threat to evangelicalism today?
Russell Moore
Date posted: 23 May 2025
Any organisation— business, ministry, school, whatever —typically asks what the biggest threats are to its mission. The assumption behind that exercise is that the most dangerous obstacles are those that one never sees coming.
Consider for a moment that the biggest threat to evangelical Christianity might not be any of those about which we argue and strategise — not secularisation or sexuality debates or political captivity, or institutional collapse or perpetual scandals or fragmentation and polarisation.
The faith of Pol Pot's chief executioner
Julia Cameron
Date posted: 13 Apr 2025
Next week sees the 50th anniversary of the fall of its capital Phnom Penh on 17th April 1975, setting the stage for one of the most barbaric regimes in modern history.
By mid-afternoon on that fateful day the whole population of this elegant city was being forced into the countryside by Cambodian rebel leader Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army. Sidney Schanberg of the New York Times captured the brutality of those hours as patients in hospital, some still with saline drips attached to their arms, were pulled from their beds and thrust into the melée. There was no mercy.
everyday theology
To a better understanding of ‘Scripture trumps all’
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 6 May 2025
Again and again since the close of the New Testament, the church has reasserted the essential evangelical principle of the supremacy of Scripture alone. Why so? Quite simply, because that is what Jesus taught about how we can know the truth.
Mark 7:1-13 depicts Jesus’s controversy with the Pharisees over Scripture and its authority. A dispute had arisen over handwashing. The Pharisees’ concern was a religious one, that they might be “defiled” (v.2) and they therefore insisted on a ceremonial handwashing according “to the tradition of the elders” (v.3). Their objection to Jesus was that His disciples did not walk according to this tradition (v.5). To this, Jesus replied: “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men” (v.8).
Pakistan’s little-known Christian story
Mike Wakely
Date posted: 5 Feb 2025
In a small town in western Punjab, now in northern Pakistan, there lived a Hindu from a caste of farmers. His name was Nattu Lal. He heard the gospel, put his faith in Christ and was baptised in November 1872.
Nattu was the son of the head man in his village. His family was wealthy, but Nattu wasted his money and proved himself to be a poor Christian witness. But he did one thing that was of immense importance. He brought a poor man called Ditt to faith in Jesus.
the ENd word
How questions about the resurrection are changing in 2025
Jon Barrett
Date posted: 7 Apr 2025
Alistair Begg recently said that preaching is often “less about telling them something new, but more about reminding ourselves what we mustn’t forget”.
He’s right. As a preacher I’m well aware that, to borrow a line from Oscar Wilde, “I have nothing original in me but original sin.” That’s not to say that I steal other preacher’s sermons (I don’t), but is an admission that I’m very unlikely to spot something brand new in a text that’s never been spotted before by anyone else. The truth has already been “once revealed to the saints” and my job is to bring out the meaning of what God has previously made known in the pages of Scripture.
safeguarding briefing
Safeguarding – it’s time for a critical conversation
Jules Loveland
Date posted: 28 Feb 2025
The news of Archbishop Justin Welby’s resignation at the end of last year sent ripples across the wider church. The news broke in the week leading up to Safeguarding Sunday where thousands of UK churches had already planned to shine a spotlight on the very issues that led to his resignation.
For some, the resignation was welcome news, for others it has raised concerns. But perhaps we can all agree that the safeguarding issues that have come to light are devastating, and we pray for all victims and survivors seeking healing and justice.
Creation care: It is a gospel issue, although not a salvation one
Chris Wright & Dave Bookless
Date posted: 25 Feb 2025
We appreciate the article ‘Is creation care a gospel issue?’ by John Samuel and Richard Buggs in the January issue of en, and share their concern that the phraseology of the Cape Town Commitment might be mistakenly interpreted as ‘adding works to grace,’ and thereby ‘undermining’ the message of the gospel itself.
That is certainly no intention of ours, or indeed of the Lausanne Cape Town Commitment, which elsewhere in Part 1.8 defines the gospel of grace very strongly in terms ‘trusting in Christ alone … on the work of Christ and the promise of God.’
everyday theology
What is the most urgent need of the church today?
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 27 Mar 2025
What is the most urgent need of the church today? Better leadership? Better training? Healthier giving? Orthodoxy? Moral integrity? Each of these are undoubtedly needs, but underneath them all lies something even more vital: gospel integrity.
In Luke 12, when thousands had gathered together to hear Jesus, He began to say to His disciples first: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (v1). That might have been unsurprising had He been warning the people as a whole, but He said it to his disciples first, to those who had already left all and followed Him.
a Jewish Christian perspective
To the Jew first
Joseph Steinberg
Date posted: 31 Jan 2025
As a leader in Christian mission to Jewish people, I often hear people quote Romans 1:16 where Paul writes, ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.’
But recently I was asked to speak from Paul’s corresponding words a few verses later in 2:9 where he writes: ‘There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.’
everyday theology
The good life in Christ: rejoicing in suffering
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 5 Mar 2025
Is ‘the good life’ a life without suffering? Ease and prosperity in and of themselves are not really what make up the good life. Christ Himself was made like His weak and tempted brothers in order that He might help those who are tempted (Heb.2:16-18), and in the same manner, it is weak and suffering people that God has chosen to minister to the weak and suffering.
The great Refiner uses the days of small things. He uses the setbacks and discouragements, and even severe suffering, for our ultimate blessing. He did just that at the cross: it was through that darkest and most discouraging day that He definitively overturned and defeated the very root of darkness and suffering. Through that death He defeated death; through our comparatively light sufferings He is able to defeat our selfish independence and our foolish wandering and to make us more like His free and victorious Son. For those who have even glimpsed the unfettered beauty of Jesus, that thought itself puts mettle in our joy.
everyday evangelism
We’re almost ALL digital evangelists now
Glen Scrivener
Date posted: 27 Feb 2025
After this month I’m taking a break from writing this Everyday Evangelism column. It’s partly so I can focus more energy on reaching out online. This article explains a little of why.
There are 2.5 billion monthly users on YouTube. Three billion on Facebook. If these were countries, they would be easily the biggest countries on earth. How can we be missionaries to these lands?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones: From Doctor to Pastor
Ray Gaydon
Date posted: 22 Jan 2025
Martyn Lloyd-Jones was born in Cardiff on 20th December 1899 and died in London on St David’s Day 1981.
His early years were spent at Llangeitho in Cardiganshire and in his youth attended Daniel Rowlands Chapel in the village. His father, like so many others in Wales at that time, relocated to London in 1914 seeking a better life for himself and his family. A couple of years later, Martyn began medical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and, at the age of 23, earned a Doctorate in Medicine and became the chief clinical assistant to the King’s physician, Sir Thomas Horder.
the Bible in action
‘The deaf shall hear’
Martin Horton
Date posted: 16 Feb 2025
When did you last buy a Bible? Was it as a gift or because your well-loved copy was falling apart? How easy was it to choose?
With more than 60 versions of the Bible in English, choosing a new Bible might take a while: you might even suffer from ‘Bible decision fatigue’– a genuine phenomenon, according to Bible Gateway.
lessons from Jude
What it means to 'contend for the faith'
Tom Forryan
Date posted: 12 Feb 2025
You always understood that following Jesus wouldn’t be easy. It may be about to become much more painful than you ever imagined—and all because you set out your stall to obey Jude 3 and contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
The church you go to is everything you ever thought a church should be. The work has steadily grown under the influence of an internationally-respected minister who has been in place for a number of years.
everyday theology
Even our trials are in His kind hands
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 29 Jan 2025
‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings...’ (1 Pet. 4:12–13).
Peter can urge us to rejoice in our sufferings not because he’s a religious masochist but because he knows: Christ is the firstborn, our forerunner, and where He goes, we follow. He is our Head, and like in a birth, the body must follow where the head goes. This is the pathway through suffering to glory.
the pastor's toolkit
Streamlining your sermon: what to keep, what to ditch
Martin Salter
Date posted: 28 Jan 2025
'Friends, I’m sure you’ll agree that once a robust postmillennial eschatology is established, the implications for ecclesial and missional praxis become self-evident'... said no preacher ever – hopefully!
One of the challenges for many preachers is how we package up all the stuff we’ve learned into digestible communication. It’s easy for an excited preacher to forget that most of the people in front of us haven’t read Calvin’s Institutes and (weird I know) probably don’t want to!
the ENd word
How vulnerable was Jesus?
Jon Barrett
Date posted: 23 Jan 2025
One of the habits we’ve developed as a church staff team is to have a book that we commit to reading and discussing as part of our weekly staff meeting. Normally we opt for something theological but occasionally, to keep things lively, we go a bit rogue.
Recently we’ve been on one of our excursions into left field and have been working through Brené Brown’s bestselling book on the subject of vulnerability, Daring Greatly. In all honesty, to employ a clerical metaphor, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg of a book.
South Asian interchange
Why race and class matter for mission
Rani Joshi
Date posted: 1 Jun 2024
July and August will be a time of celebrating South Asian heritage – a similar concept to Black History month. Whilst this is lovely, it also makes me think: why don’t we remember and celebrate one another’s cultures more?
As I have been meeting and talking to different organisations and leaders, I’ve been recognising the beauty of the church, but also the challenges it carries and faces. We have such great opportunities to celebrate and love one another as Jesus did, so where are we perhaps needing to do better?
Debunking 3 myths about the origins of Christmas
Ryan Burton King
Date posted: 7 Dec 2024
Christmas. 'It's the most wonderful time of the year,' Andy Williams croons. Or, as a cast of characters from Jim Henson's Creature Shop sang in The Muppet Christmas Carol, it is 'the summer of the soul in December'.
But for others, it is a season of woe, an opportunity to blow a cold frost wind over the festivities with assorted dubious claims, doubtless well-intentioned but badly thought through and poorly communicated.
The gym is the new church
Simon Lennox
Date posted: 9 Jan 2025
Every year, as the clock strikes midnight on 1 January, we are bombarded with familiar messages of ‘new year, new me.’
Self betterment has become an inevitable part of our culture, with methods of improving yourself ever increasing in both volume and popularity. 79% of New Year resolutions are centred on fitness, with half of those surveyed stating that their top resolution is to exercise. Yet just 31 days later, the gyms have quietened down, with 80% losing the motivation to stick to their goals. But as Christians, what if faith and fitness are more similar, and more important, than we previously imagined?
women in mission
Tired of feeling guilty about evangelism?
Anna Price
Date posted: 31 Oct 2024
Seeking to develop a culture of evangelism in our church, we recently surveyed our church members about how they felt about evangelism. One response made me laugh out loud, only because it resonated so much with me: ‘I absolutely hate evangelism, but I do love to talk about Jesus whilst sharing my daily life’.
The truth is, I would go a step further; I hate evangelism and really don’t think I talk about Jesus much in my daily life. I wonder how many of us feel something of that and the guilt that that induces!
The power of calling God 'our Father'
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 30 Dec 2024
In Matthew 6:9, Jesus says: 'Pray … like this, "Our Father in heaven."' These words open the floodgates of prayer — and heavenly blessing.
We live in a world where people believe they are self-sufficient. They don’t need to cry out for help. And Christians are swept along: we are becoming like busy Martha, doing our many tasks but failing to sit with Mary at Jesus’ feet. But without prayer, Christians are hollow. For prayer is the mark of Christian integrity.
The Parthians are coming... to Matthew’s Gospel
Ray Porter
Date posted: 24 Dec 2024
The visit of the Magi recounted in the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is one of the more curious parts of the Christmas story.
First, that we find it in this Gospel which is written primarily for a Jewish audience, and secondly, that such pagan astrologers should be lauded as those who come from a distant land to worship the infant Jesus. And then we have the matter of the star, which has excited the imagination of astronomers down the centuries; and that is before we get the accretions of legends and the perversions of countless nativity plays. The symbolism that we attach to the gifts they brought and the echoes that we find of Old Testament prophecies take us away from a consideration of what we might be able to reconstruct from their contemporary historical setting and why their coming so alarmed not just Herod but the whole of Jerusalem.
bridging cultural divides
Festive stress: an opportunity for grace?
Jason Roach
Date posted: 13 Dec 2024
Every year, as Christmas approaches, I find myself navigating the festive family diplomacy of our intercultural marriage. It's a delicate dance that starts with a seemingly simple question: 'So, where are we spending Christmas Day?'
My wife pulls out her diary. 'Right,' she says, 'let's work out the logistics.' For her family, it's straightforward - maximise the number of people, find the most convenient time, get everyone together. My family, though? Completely different story.