April 18, 2024

For most churches, the challenge of church attendance is not practical but theological. Beyond busy schedules, online services, and all other contemporary challenges, many Christians today struggle with a weak understanding of what it means to belong to a church. One evidence of this weakness is in the way so many churches practice the ordinances.  So …

March 28, 2024

Susannah Spurgeon experienced both tremendous joys and agonizing suffering throughout her life, but the legacy she left behind testifies to her ultimate hope in the Lord and her undying faithfulness to her husband. She lived a life of service and devotion to God and her husband, and was ever his constant encourager and source of …

March 13, 2024

To understand Spurgeon, you must know something about his suffering. In this picture, Spurgeon is only in his late 50s, but you can see that the years have taken their toll on him. He’s not in London but in Mentone, southern France. This warm retreat was where he would regularly go to recover his health, …

March 13, 2024

Spurgeon believed that pastoral training was part of the pastor’s job description. Just as Paul commanded Timothy to train other preachers and teachers (2 Timothy 2:2), so “one minister brings another to Christ, and then charges that other to train other preachers and teachers to carry on the blessed work of evangelization.” Amid all the …

March 13, 2024

Spurgeon lived during a time when basically to be English was to be a Christian. In 1851, around the time when he began preaching, a religious census was taken throughout the United Kingdom and about 61% of the population reported to be church going. And yet, as Spurgeon observed all the religious activity around him, …

March 13, 2024

Spurgeon pastored in 19th-century London during a time of terrible working and living conditions for the poor. Because of growing industrialization, jobs were moving to the big cities, and people were pouring in from throughout the British Empire into London. If you’ve ever read Charles Dickens, you might have an idea of the terrible situation …

March 13, 2024

When Spurgeon first preached at New Park Street, Susannah Thompson, who went by Susie, was living with a deacon in the church, William Olney. After Olney had heard Spurgeon preach that Sunday morning, he quickly called others around him and urged them to invite others to come back for the evening service, lest the young …

March 13, 2024

In the winter of 1853, the situation at the New Park Street Chapel was dire. This congregation was previously pastored by giants like Benjamin Keach, John Gill, and John Rippon, and was a leading church among Baptists. But by 1854, it had fallen into serious decline. Attendance was down to a few dozen. They occupied …

March 13, 2024

In the summer of 1850, Spurgeon left Newmarket and moved to Cambridge to work as a tutor. He joined St. Andrew’s Baptist Church, and right away, he began to serve, teaching Sunday school, passing out tracts, going on visitation, and sharing the gospel. Throughout the fall of 1850, some in the church began to notice …

March 13, 2024

Born into a Congregationalist family, Spurgeon was baptized as an infant. But as a child in grade school, he was challenged by a Church of England clergy on his view of baptism. Anglicans held a different view of infant baptism from Congregationalists because they required sponsors to be appointed for each infant. This is how …