Biographia Evangelica

The Seventeenth Century: No Time of Reformation

George Ella — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:39:33 +0000

True heroes exchanged for lesser men Nowadays, at least in Britain, our Reformed churches teach us to take our gaze off the 16th century Reformation and concentrate on the Revolutionary period of the 17th century where, they say, we shall find true Reformation theology. This, they say, was the age of Puritanism, though they define Puritanism in a very limited and often political way. This is advice which would be foolish to follow. The 17th century brought with it a grave departure from the teaching of the Reformation. The British public, government and churches experienced military and moral rebellion, down-grading and back-sliding in religion, fierce intolerance, anarchy in politics, an upsurge of Rationalism, a bawdy... Full Article

Remembering Hampton Court

George Ella — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:04:21 +0000

Sir: The article Remembering Hampton Court (No. 55) though excellent in its appraisal of the Authorised version, suffers from amnesia concerning the so-called Conference which was rather an informal, summing-up chat in the King’s quarters after substantial reforms had been made in Convocation. Far from only one puritan being present, most of the clergy and politicians who took part were strong on the doctrines of grace. Who would reject Chaderton’s, Knewstub’s, Spark’s, Reynold’s and Field’s credentials? Whitgift and Bancroft were men of the Lambeth Articles. However, Reynolds and Spark, thought wrongly nowadays to have represented the ultra-puritan side, were certainly weak in displaying... Full Article

Affirmation 2010 Deals with Critics

George Ella — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:12:38 +0000

The adverse criticism levelled at Affirmation 2010 in a good number of Christian magazines and digital publications has moved The Bible League Trust to over-react with an eight point, five-paged rebuttal claiming that all such criticisms are unfounded, ill-conceived, fallacious, confused and indicate a departure from sound teaching. In their condemnation of honest criticism, they sarcastically denigrate the intelligence, integrity and orthodoxy of their critics. Besides choosing to exonerate themselves by ridiculing those who question their policies, they play down this opposition, claiming that they have only found ‘one or two critiques’. This must be the understatement of the year as their ‘critical responses’... Full Article

The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed By David Silversides

George Ella — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:05:10 +0000

The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed By David Silversides Marpet Press, 2005 Yet another former sturdy defender of the faith now endorses a deceitful gospel which outclasses the errors of older Liberalism. David Silversides has joined such modern apostles as John and Iain Murray, Malcolm H. Watts, Phillip R. Johnson, Errol Hulse, David Gay and Ken Stebbins in their campaign to alter radically the Christian’s view of God and His Word. Pastor Silversides traces the roots of opposition to his new divinity in the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches in the nineteen-twenties under the leadership of Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965), arguing that the PRC presented a caricature of the free-offer position thus fostering... Full Article

An Overview of the Church Today

George Ella — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:10:55 +0000

Since my conversion fifty-three years ago, the churches have witnessed worldwide ups and downs, triumphs and defeats. However, the gospel has spread territorially, church planting has increased and there are far more Christians in the world today than ever before. I now receive letters from Continents and countries where spiritual blindness prevailed half a century ago. True, these churches are handicapped by modern apostate churches, the dumbing down of doctrine, the growth of para-church movements, big business and entertainment groups masquerading as Christianity. Thankfully, these are dud squibs and self-destructive. The new generation will soon be free to use the whole world as a basis for strenuous ploughing, sowing and... Full Article

John Albert Bengel (1687-1752): The Father of Modern Biblical Scholarship

George Ella — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:44:50 +0000

Bengel’s Life Bengel’s birth and upbringing John Albert Bengel was born in Winnenden near Stuttgart on 24 July, 1687, the son of scholar-deacon Martin Albert Bengel. John’s father began to home-school John early but died of an epidemic fever when John was six. Then Louis XIV’s troops plundered and burnt down the Bengels’ home, destroying the Bengels’ valuable library. Concerning these hard times, John testified that at his father’s death, he received a firm conviction that his Heavenly Father would be his best parent and educator. He began to pray fervently, read the Scriptures and devotional books and sought to walk worthy of God so that he could later say, “My youth was a sea of mercies.” Happily, a friend of... Full Article

Affirmation 2010: A Non-Starter

George Ella — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:57:36 +0000

Sir. Why is the EC promoting the para-church creed, Affirmation 2010, which seeks to ‘win the widest possible agreement’ in ‘various church bodies and constituencies’? This aim is doomed from the start as the twenty-four subscribers to date obviously represent different theologies and denominations and are dodging and dumbing down doctrinal issues. Their views of the Trinity, redemption, atonement, the gospel, law, justification, sanctification and the Church alone can be ranked from sub to anti Reformed and several subscribers’ views of the Scriptures are Barthian and Liberal. They have found unity in signing the same document, but there the unity ends. Indeed, the separate publications of the subscribers show what... Full Article

Where Olyott Got It Wrong

George Ella — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:49:42 +0000

Stuart Olyott caused such a stir with his slangy persiflage of Luther in his Where Luther Got It Wrong – and Why We Need to Know About It that the BOT magazine had to spend part of the following two issues striving to repair the damage. Olyott claims, without giving either source or context, that Luther’s position on the Word of God was the following: ‘I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all. Had I wanted to start... Full Article

Where Luther Puts Olyott Right

George Ella — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:44:09 +0000

In the December 2009 issue of the BOT magazine, Stuart Olyott argues in his article Where Luther Got it Wrong – and Why We Need to Know About It that Luther believed in a mere ‘Word ministry’ which Olyott identifies as relying wholly on the Word of God for the conversion of sinners and neglecting other pastoral duties, in particular prayer and a trust in God’s immediate and direct action in conversion. He thus denies what he calls ‘mediate regeneration’ whereby God uses means, in this case the Scriptures, to awaken and regenerate sinners. As his title states, Olyott blames Luther for being the original force behind a Word Only ministry. Olyott gave a gabled rendering of Luther’s preaching without declaring his... Full Article

Mottos on the Walls

George Ella — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:15:21 +0000

My mother Gladys Ella, née Hume, started going to Sunday and elementary school a year before the outbreak of the First World War in England. When I left home to do my apprenticeship in Sweden in the mid 1950s, Mum sent me a chain of letters, mostly from Memory Lane. Here is a letter she sent me on her earliest childhood entitled ‘Mottos on the Wall.’ Mum was brought up in a poverty-stricken home bereft of a father but could write the account given below in joyous remembrance. How different it was then to the grumpy groaning of modern society who have no Scriptural ‘Mottos on the Walls’: How well I remember the Mottos once hanging on our bedroom walls. They were coloured and framed, depicting the seasons of the... Full Article