Jonathan M. Threlfall

Eighteen years ago, my parents gave me a book by J. C. Ryle which I have picked up again: Christian Leaders of the 18th Century. It contains brief biographical sketches of men who “shook England from one end to another”—men such as George Whitefield, John Wesley, William Grimshaw, and Daniel Rowlands. Reading sections of this…

What is preaching? Every pastor should be able to answer that question. Unfortunately, we often lose sight of the answer. With the pressing burdens of church administration, the bewildering variety of high-profile preachers, and countless resources available to him, a pastor may find himself asking, “Now what was I trying to do?” only after he…

A Mother’s Rebuke A few years ago, English-speaking fans of Karl Barth were rattled by an essay which shed new light on the personal life of the 20th-century giant of theology. Many had already known about Barth’s love for a woman who was not his wife, but few had read his private letters, which painted a clearer…

Merriam-Webster defines envy as the “painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.” That’s a pretty good definition of what I’ve felt plenty of times. Maybe you know the feeling as well. You see someone who has or does something you want to have…

When preparing to preach on the theme of friendship from the book of Proverbs, I was interested in discovering the marks of a wise friend. During my research, I found that one of the most prominent marks of a wise friend is honesty. A wise friend tells the truth, even when that truth might be…

Fewer books have had a greater shaping force on my convictions about pastoral ministry than Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor (“Reformed” is not used in a theological sense: it means something like “changed for the better”). At the close of an especially stirring section (“The manner of this oversight”) Baxter pleads that his fellow pastors…

When preparing to preach on Romans 8:28 last Sunday, I was reminded of an imaginary dialogue I have seen floating around the web from time to time. Many people have found some sense of comfort in this dialogue, supposing that it illustrates God’s good sovereignty at work in the lives of his children. The dialogue…

“Start by reading something that will warm your spirit,” Martin Lloyd-Jones advises preachers who struggle in their prayer lives. “Get rid of a coldness that may have developed in your spirit. You have to learn how to kindle a flame in your spirit, to warm yourself up, to give yourself a start.” I’ve taken that…