Ernest Kevan: Leader in Twentieth Century British Evangelicalism
Paul Brown
Paperback, 294 pages
Retail Price: $14.00
RHB Price: $10.70
What makes an effective leader? Ernest Kevan certainly fitted into that category, but he did not have the charismatic personality that is so often associated with success in this sphere. What he did have was the ability to influence. His enthusiasm for Puritan and Reformed theology molded the thinking of many young pastors beginning work in British churches in the post-war years. In many ways he was a pioneer, and in some ways an anomaly – that a Baptist pastor who entered the ministry with no formal training should become the first principal of a new an innovative Bible college is testimony to his intellectual skill and generous attitude to evangelicals of all denominations. First as a pastor, and then as Principal of London Bible College, he steadfastly devoted himself to the work that God had called him to do. This biography serves as a worthy memorial to a man who, though now largely forgotten, contributed enormously to the life and thought of English-speaking Evangelicalism in the mid-twentieth century.
“We need to live our lives, as Ernest Kevan lived his life, in the presence of God and in anticipation of the coming of Christ. Then by God’s grace we shall grow in strong biblical convictions…and in the gentle courtesy of Christ as we defend and proclaim our convictions.” – John R.W. Stott (At Dr. Kevan’s memorial service in 1965)
Sermons on Genesis: Chapters 11-20
John Calvin
Hardcover, 903 pages
Retail Price: $39.00
RHB Price: $28.00
Preaching as Calvin undertook to do it extends far beyond the confines of a carefully written manuscript. It is not bound by the niceties of style, sentence structure, and the like. it is marked by an immeasurably greater degree of intensity, by an obvious determination to instruct and persuade, by an astounding capacity to confront hearers both with the truth of divine revelation and with the implications of that truth for faith and obedience. There are distinct advantages, therefore, in having before us these sermons on Genesis precisely as they were delivered. They let us see and hear a man aflame with love for the lord and his Word, a preacher who spent himself utterly in the work of summoning his people to repentance, faith and holiness. The feature that has struck me most powerfully is the sermons’ immediacy. As I have read them, it has quite often seemed to me almost as though I were sitting with the congregation in Geneva and listening to Calvin himself as he opened up the passage, and then carefully, deliberately, and sometimes with painful specificity applied its teaching to those who heard him. In his masterful translation Dr. McGregor has quite wonderfully brought the preacher back to life and allowed us the privilege of being able, with a little imagination, to take our places in St. Peter’s Church on those cold autumn and winter days with the Reformer himself in the pulpit.
