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, ...

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...

A big news story in Britain in recent days has been a conversation between Lady Susan Hussey (83), a close friend of the late queen, and an activist from Hackney, Ngozi Fulani, the founder of a charity supporting victims of domestic abuse, at an event hosted by the Queen Consort, Camilla. The controversy surrounds questioning by Lady Hussey as to where Ngozi Fulani was "from", who "her people" were.  I was discussing this incident with my friend last night (who, I should say, like me, is a straight, cisgender, white, middle-aged male).  So far, the public has only heard one side of the story. The narrative is one of residual racism in the royal family and the misconception that Ngozi Fulani was in some way "not British". It may well be that Ngozi Fulani deserves an apology. But maybe there is another side to the story as well.  We do want to be a society that includes people from all backgrounds and puts them at the centre. But there are backgrounds. That ...

Here is a non-exhaustive list of issues with the ESV translation of the Bible. It is not a translation from scratch, but an edit of the RSV In many instances, the word order should be revised to reflect the natural word order of modern English. In many places it breaks the conventions of English idiom to, unhelpfully, follow the language of the original: "stands in the way of sinners" (in modern English this suggests "obstruct" rather than "mimick") Similarly, the phraseology suggests something different from the intended meaning "he puts the lonely in a home" (Ps 67) Damaris is described as a "man" in Acts 17; in modern English the Greek anthropos would be human or person, while man means "male adult".  Likewise in modern English, we say, "everyone should bring their own lunch", not "everyone should bring his lunch". See the ESV translation of, for example, John 6:57.  1st century Capernaum, with an esti...

When strongmen rulers appeal to the "moral majority", and claim to uphold traditional values against the onslaught of liberal decadence, they follow in the footsteps of rulers who have gone before them, not least Adolf Hitler.   The period between the First and Second World Wars in Germany is known as the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). This followed defeat in World War One, and various attempted uprisings at that time. The Weimar Republic was an attempt to introduce liberal democracy to Germany, however it ultimately served as the prelude to the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler. As well as the infamous hyper-inflation and the inept divisions in party politics, the Weimar Republic was a time of moral decadence. Berlin was particularly notorious for this decadence, represented by figures such as Anita Berber (painted by Otto Dix - left) or night clubs such as the Eldorado or Moka Efti. The Nazi party was able to capitalise on popular revulsion towards the moral decadence o...