1515 William Tyndale is created an MA. He will place the Bible above philosophy and make an English translation of God’s word that will become the basis of the Authorized version. Thomas Shepard was a seventeenth-century Pilgrim leader renowned for his power in prayer. He migrated from England to Massachusetts in 1635 and became minister…
1555 HT: Dan Graves The sheriff feared a riot if he moved John Bradford while most people were still out in the streets. And so he had his soldiers transfer the condemned man to Newgate Prison around midnight. Despite the government’s attempt at secrecy and the late hour, thousands of the good man’s supporters lined…
1637 HT: Dan Graves ON THIS DAY, 30 JUNE 1637, William Prynne was pilloried with Henry Burton and John Bastwick. The authorities cropped the stubs of Prynne’s ears, cropped three years earlier for a libel, and he was branded with the letters “S.L.,” standing for “Seditious Libeler.” On his way back to prison, he wrote…
1315 (traditional date) Death by stoning of mystic and missionary Raymond Lull in Bougie, North Africa (Tunisia). He had been persuaded by a vision to seek the conversion of Muslims, had founded a school to train men to the task, and had studied Islamic culture. 1900 HT: Dan Graves Our missionaries have remained with us;…
Here’s this week’s inspirational delve into the past by Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh Image: Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), contemporary photograph, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons In faraway Cairo, a much-loved chaplain to the armed forces was laid to rest in 1917 with full military honours. Here soldiers, civilians and local people alike mourned the passing…
HT: Christian History Institute In 1900, rising anti-Western feeling in China led to the Boxer (Thunder-fist) massacre of westerners, many of them Christian missionaries. Hard hit was Taiyuan in the Shanxi province of northern China, where many Chinese Christians and at least forty-five foreign missionaries were executed in July. Among them was Dr. Arnold E.…
1836 HT: Christian History Institute Alexander Duff was a Scotsman who became a missionary educator in Calcutta, India, serving there for much of the nineteenth century. He set up his first school under a banyan tree and within two years had over a thousand students. However, he saw few conversions. Nonetheless, his educational methods inspired reform…
1776 HT: Christian History Institute John Newton was a slaver when he became a Christian. Some years after leaving the slave trade, he became a staunch anti-slavery man, a Minister in the Church of England, and the author of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” He also counseled people by letter. On this day, 20 June, 1776, he wrote…
Here’s this week’s inspirational delve into the past by Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh. In the Gospels we find the two brothers James and John together for Christ’s cause; in Scottish church history it is Revd Andrew Bonar (1810-1892) and his brother Revd Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) who stand out. These brothers were key leaders behind…
On the anniversary of the birth of the Prince of Preachers in 1834, I’ll post a couple of great articles by others about this great man. HT: Geoff Chang C. H. Spurgeon, maybe more than any pastor, knew how busy pastoral ministry can be. In addition to preaching four times a week, he led his…