March 3, 2021

One calm and scenic Saturday afternoon in May of 1857, a young Charles Spurgeon found himself standing underneath a mulberry tree with a fellow minister. The weather was calm, not a leaf stirred. During their conversation a gentle breeze passed through, rustling the leaves above their heads. Spurgeon suddenly interrupted the minister and said with …

January 26, 2021

Sounding like the start of a bad joke, Spurgeon once said, “Imagine Paul or Peter attending mass.” After observing the movements and rituals of the priests, “Paul would pluck Peter by the sleeve, and say, ‘Our Master did nothing like this when he took bread and gave thanks and brake it.’ Peter would reply, ‘Very …

January 21, 2021

An instance occurred in Spurgeon’s church that made him blush with embarrassment. Certain members were not partaking of the Lord’s Supper because, in their judgment, inconsistent and unworthy persons were coming to the table. Never lacking in wit, Spurgeon responded, “That is highly probable; and he may be wearing your coat, and looking out of …

December 22, 2020

Charles Spurgeon used to tell a tale about an old church buried deep in the ground. He wrote: “at Raleigh, they say, the old church bells still ring at Christmas time, deep, deep, in the earth; and that it was a Christmas morning custom for the people to go out into the valley, and put …

November 11, 2020

The year was 1855 as controversy brewed about the pews of London over the publication of a hymn-book entitled, The Rivulet. Penned by the local minister Thomas Lynch, the book raised more than a few ministerial eyebrows for its lack of explicit Christian orthodoxy. The hymn-book quickly acquired the epithets, “pantheistic,” “written by a Deist” with “not one particle of …

October 20, 2020

“And I, even I only, am left,” cried the prophet Elijah (1 Kgs 9:15, ESV). Twenty-eight centuries later, Charles Spurgeon likewise lamented his own country. His plight, however, was the lack of Puritan influence in English churches. Often considered the last of the Puritans, Spurgeon once said, “For my part, I think that, nowadays, we …

July 30, 2020

It is no overstatement to say Jesus’s ministry was primarily one of forgiveness. Whether he caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, or the paralytic to walk, he typically closed with some variation of “Your sins are forgiven, go and …

October 17, 2019

“[Christ] has never refused to bear your burdens, He has never fainted under their weight.”   The Teacher opens up the book of Ecclesiastes by asking the question, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?”(Eccl. 1:3) He had exhausted the pleasures of life and the best it had to …