500 years of William Tyndale and the English Bible
Brian H. Edwards
Date posted: 10 May 2025
On 30 June 1513, the young king, Henry VIII, arrived in Calais determined to reassert his title as "King of England and France."
His army, together with the flamboyant and hugely expensive royal paraphernalia that accompanied it, spent three months achieving little before returning home to a plague-ridden England, with measles for the King and a miscarriage for Queen Catherine.
Overlooked by the world, but purposed by God
Tim Vasby-Burnie
Date posted: 10 May 2025
Reports of a "Quiet Revival" have been exciting Christians in recent weeks, yet for the foreseeable future we will continue to feel the deep relevance of 1 Peter to the contemporary church: we are “exiles” in this world (1 Peter 1:1).
As with many of our brothers and sisters across the world, we are a minority in a culture that is suspicious of our faith and all too ready to speak maliciously against the church (1 Peter 3:16, 4:4). Do you feel this yourself?
World War II: How God moved in the shadows of war
Lt Col (Retd) Dr Martin Gliniecki QGM
Date posted: 8 May 2025
On 27 January 1945, Soviet troops, advancing from the East, liberated Auschwitz extermination camp. Around the same time the German Army in Western Europe was in full-scale retreat into Germany, following defeat in the Ardennes region by US, UK, Canadian and Belgian forces, which became known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Germany's defeat was unavoidable but there would be more than three months of fighting before their unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945, and victory celebrations in Britain the following day, VE (Victory in Europe) Day - which took place 80 years ago today.
earth watch
The 7th Carbon Budget: love your neighbour?
Paul Kunert
Date posted: 7 May 2025
The Seventh Carbon Budget is out now. It won’t make it to our news feeds, but it’s an important document.
Published by the UK government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), it’s a well-articulated pathway to (trigger alert) net zero. It’s their best effort at how we in the UK can live more or less as we do now, but without ruining the world around us. For us evangelicals though, there’s something about it that really stands out. Something quite amazing. Though lacking the poetry of Isaiah 65, its themes of prospering humanity, long life, well-being, justice, peace and a flourishing earth could come right out of the prophets.
Ten questions with: Mark Meynell
en staff
Date posted: 6 May 2025
Mark Meynell has recently become a freelance writer and teacher, having pastored in local churches, taught in an East African seminary and, for the last 22 years, served with Langham Preaching (a programme of Langham Partnership).
1. How did you become a Christian?
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).
A message from one broken person to another
Anna Jones
Date posted: 4 May 2025
Life in my thirties looked somewhat sorted out, at least from the outside.
I was married, had three children, worked part-time, and was active in my local church. I ran the toddler group, played piano on a Sunday, led evangelistic Bible studies for young mums, and even signed for a young deaf man in the evening service.
pastoral care
What is the most underrated quality in the Christian life?
Steve Midgley
Date posted: 4 May 2025
Of the many qualities worthy of note in the Christian life, surely one of the most underrated must be perseverance.
Perseverance isn’t showy. It’s not a quality to raise the temperature or quicken the pulse. Perseverance is one of those things that just presses on in the background. New things get noticed. Exciting fresh initiatives draw praise. But perseverance? It’s a quality that only seems to get noticed when it disappears.
How do Ukrainian Christians now want us to pray?
Ryan Burton King
Date posted: 2 May 2025
“How can we pray for Ukraine?” is a question I am often asked, as someone with extensive personal and ministry connections there.
There are numerous suggestions I have made by way of an answer, some more specific to areas of personal involvement, broader ministry interests, or recent events, while other answers may be more general. Recent Russian attacks on civilians in Kryvyi Rih and Sumy, as well as much talk about ceasefires, truces, and peace without any real changes, have perhaps reminded people that their prayers are still very much needed.
a Jewish Christian perspective
How odd of God...
Joseph Steinberg
Date posted: 2 May 2025
British journalist W.N. Ewer wrote: “How odd of God to choose the Jews” and in response are the words: “But not as odd as those who choose a Jewish God and hate the Jew.”
Christian antisemitism is confounding. It is a terrible self-harm on the part of the church. In Genesis 12 the Lord chose Abraham and cut a covenant with him (Gen. 15) so that “through your offspring all the nations on earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 22:18) What does God’s intended blessing to the nations via the Jewish people look like? It looks like the days of the early church!
engaging with culture today
Environment: Are humans the number one problem?
Hadden Turner
Date posted: 1 May 2025
The environment (or creation) needs humans. While this claim is uncontroversial for Christians, in some environmentalist circles this assertion attracts scorn.
Surely, humans are the environment’s number-one problem, the cause of widespread degradation and damage?
How can comparing Bible and Qur’an help with our evangelism?
Andrew Marsay
Date posted: 1 May 2025
The July 2023 edition of en ran my article "How can we think deeply about Islam?", a precis of a book that I am working on called Thinking Theologically About Islam.
It is my response of amazement that a religion with as little theological substance as Islam has can enthral the minds and hearts of so many millions of people. But to understand why I am convinced that a much more deliberately theological approach to Islam is needed, you will need to know something of my religious background.
Sport, disordered eating and the cross
Rosie Woodbridge
Date posted: 30 Apr 2025
This Easter, many of us will have enjoyed our chocolate eggs and a big feast on Easter Sunday. But for those of us with a more complicated relationship with food, times of the year like this can be a source of trepidation.
It is estimated that at least 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder[1].
Who is music for?
Matt MacGregor
Date posted: 29 Apr 2025
As a devotee of classical music, I always think there is something to be learned from J.S. Bach. Consider the question: “Who is music for?” Bach’s answer to this question has defied and perplexed every generation that followed.
At the time of Bach’s death in 1750, the Enlightenment was in full swing. Amid that first flowering of liberty, equality and fraternity, music was thought an application of humanity’s “own native genius … that would revive his spirits and enliven his taste”. Who was music for? The audience’s pleasure.
You having a laugh? Comedy and coping with bad news...
Graeme Shanks
Date posted: 24 Apr 2025
“Stand-up comedy is a budget version of psychotherapy.”
I read an interesting article recently about the newfound flurry of interest in stand up comedy in Ukraine. Those opening words are from artist Anton Tymoshenko who became the first Ukrainian stand-up comic to give a solo performance at one of Kyiv's most prestigious venues.
culture watch
Are we too quick to demonise screens?
Rebecca Chapman
Date posted: 20 Apr 2025
Too much time on screens can provide something of a health-hazard. Physically, emotionally, even arguably spiritually.
A huge number of column inches over recent days have been devoted to the perils of the screen-based online world for young people especially, following the release of Netflix’s Adolescence. Meanwhile, YouGov data released in March revealed that in the last year, the median Briton has only read or listened to three books. A staggering 40% of the public had not read or listened to a single book in that time. This perhaps becomes less surprising if you consider that in England, 18% of adults aged 16 to 65 – so 6.6 million people – have “very poor literacy skills”. If you were looking to increase Biblical literacy, you wouldn’t start from here.
Easter 2025: 250th anniversary of a famous hymn
Marylynn Rouse
Date posted: 20 Apr 2025
The River Ouse meanders peacefully behind the church of St Peter and St Paul in Olney, Buckinghamshire. It bids a pleasant walk along its river banks as swans glide gracefully by while a watchful heron keeps an eye on a troop of Canada geese on the opposite side of the bank. This tranquil scene was the refuge of the local minister, newly ordained, who fled there in a state of panic.
Before coming to Olney the Reverend John Newton had published six sermons. He had just preached from the last one! A friend explained many years later, "he thought he had told them his whole stock, and was considerably depressed."
everyday evangelism
Crossing the great divide in evangelism
Gavin Matthews
Date posted: 19 Apr 2025
Let me tell you about Patrick. When I was a student, the chaplaincy centre (where the CU met) and the student union were separated by a narrow alleyway. Whilst you could almost simultaneously touch the two places if you stretched out your arms wide enough; culturally and spiritually they were miles apart.
In the chaplaincy we welcomed great Bible expositors, prayed, studied the Scriptures, and debated theology. On the other side of the great divide, they sorted out student accommodation, earnestly debated student politics, played pool and drank copious quantities of diluted cut-price lager.
