Crumbs from the Table

Novosibirsk, Russia is a city of two million right in the middle of Russia, just to the north of Kazakhstan. It is there that I spend my linguist's year abroad 1995/6, and also met my wife, Oxana, who was a student there. Having got married in 1999, and after the birth of our eldest daughter, Sophia, in 2004, we moved and made our home there until 2019/20. This is the story of Novosibirsk Baptist Church.  The city of Novosibirsk was founded as a settlement for railway workers in 1893 with the name Alexandrovsky. Shortly thereafter it was recognised as a town in Tomsk gubernia, with the name Novonikolayevsk. Around that time, in 1903, a young man called Luka Frolov alighted the train in Novonikolayevsk, and the origins of Novosibirsk Evangelical Christian/Baptist Church go back to him. The core of the church which formed around him was former Molokans (an evangelical movement within Eastern Orthodoxy). By the end of 1930 there were 30 people in the church.   At this time, Russia was

Our church, Radcliffe Road Baptist Church, Bury , was started in 1835. A figure who played in a key role in the formation of the church was William Gadsby (pictured right). Gadsby spoke at the inaugural service of our first church building on Bridge Street in 1836. And the "mother church", Hope Strict and Particular Baptist Chapel in Rochdale, which planted our church in Bury, had also been started by Gadsby.  While I am a conviction Reformed Baptist, I knew very little of William Gadsby and the Gospel Standard churches. Gadsby's story is that he grew up in the midlands in extreme poverty and with very little education. He was first converted in late adolescence (17), and later baptised on profession of faith at age 20. He ministered first in the midlands before taking up the role of pastor of what became Rochdale Road Strict and Particular Baptist Chapel in Manchester (picture below), where he was pastor from 1805 until 1844 (39 years). By all accounts, notwithstanding t

This is a blog post about the church polity (organisational structure) of Baptist churches. Baptists are independents, in the sense that we believe that each local church is a church in its own right, with all the relevant powers and privileges, and is free to manage its own affairs without interference from outside.  Here, for example, are the words of the 1644 First London Confession:  "That being thus joined, every Church has power given them from Christ for their better well-being, to choose to themselves fitting persons into the office of Pastors, Teachers, Elders, Deacons, being qualified according to the Word, as those which Christ has appointed in His Testament, for the feeding, governing, serving, and building up of His Church, and that none other have to power to impose them, either these or any other." (First London Confession of 1644, Article 36) However, as Baptists, we have also always believed in fellowship and cooperation between local churches. Here, once aga

This is how Mark 2:5 in Greek:  "καὶ ἰδὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὴν πίστιν αὐτῶν λέγει τῷ παραλυτικῷ· τέκνον ἀφίενται σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι." Here is my translation: "And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, "Child, your sins have been forgiven."    This verse, in the passage on the healing of the paralytic brought by his four friends, has various interesting features.  It was on seeing "their" faith, that Jesus spoke these words to the paralysed man. I would suggest this might reflect the role in the church of the early centuries of "sponsors" in assisting those coming to Christ. While unable to "believe for someone", they do nevertheless have a role to play.  Of particular interest is how Jesus addressed the paralytic, namely "child". The ESV translates this as "son", possibly imagining how an older or more senior person might address someone younger or more junior. I understand there is also an equivalent Hebrew fo