Mar 16, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Many of my references to the early Baptists in Virginia point to the persecution they endured. Forty-four were incarcerated for preaching without permission from the government and the Episcopal church. But the fact is there were other preachers whom the Lord...
Mar 10, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Pownal is a small community in the southwest corner of Vermont. In 1772 Benjamin Garner arrived in Pownal from Massachusetts, and a Baptist church was formed. During the following year some sort of disease swept through the area, and the Lord used it to awaken...
Mar 2, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Thomas van Imbroek of Cologne, Germany was arrested for his Christian faith in 1557. For nearly a year he was kept under guard, during which time religious and state officials tried to persuade him to change his mind about salvation and infant baptism. Thomas’...
Feb 23, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
John Picket was a Baptist preacher who ministered in Virginia just prior to the Revolutionary War. There were times when he would invite neighbors to meet him in a grove of trees or in an open field, and he would preach the gospel to them. On those occasions if the...
Feb 16, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
In 1874, Victoria, British Columbia, had a population of about four thousand people, but it had no Baptist church. In December of that year, about a decade before there was a rail link between eastern Canada and the Pacific, Alexander Clyde and his family emigrated...
Feb 9, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Henry Novotny was born in 1846. The place was Resetov, Czechoslovakia. At that time the official religion was Roman Catholic, but there were still a few Protestants meeting in various secret places. Somehow, young Henry visited one of those illegal meetings where he...
Feb 2, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
David Jones died on this day in 1820 at the age of 84. He was an amazing man with an amazing story. His family was Welsh, and he was saved by God’s grace in an American church where that was the spoken language. He attended the first Baptist school in this country,...
Jan 26, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
The Tower of London has been many things to many people, including the birthplace, on this day in 1620, of Lucy Apsley. Her father, a wealthy and powerful man, was governor of the tower at the time. So Lucy grew up in a privileged world, which included receiving the...
Jan 19, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
The Charlotte Baptist Chapel was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland about 1800. Christopher Anderson, who had been saved under the ministry of Robert and James Haldane, became the first pastor. The Holy Spirit abundantly blessed his ministry, and soon there were between...
Jan 12, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
On this day in 1549 a woman we know only as Elizabeth was arrested for possessing a Latin New Testament. For some reason, her trial was recorded and preserved. Many questions related to Catholicism were asked, such as, “What do you think of the most holy sacrament?...
Jan 5, 2023 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Jesse Vawter was born to Anglican parents in Culpepper County, Virginia in 1755. When he was nineteen he heard Thomas Ammon preach the gospel, and the Lord regenerated his soul. Jesse then joined the hated and persecuted Baptists through whom he met his Saviour. There...
Dec 29, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
I have told parts of this story several times, so I won’t go into any great deal of detail on this occasion. A few years ago, when our son and his family were living in Akin, South Carolina, my wife, Judy, and I drove a few miles across the Savanna River into Georgia,...
Dec 22, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Rueben Hill was born in a humble Kentucky home in 1808. Disciplining himself, he studied hard to become a physician. When he was twenty-five, two momentous blessings fell upon him: he was born again and he married. He joined the Knob Creek Baptist Church in Maury...
Dec 15, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
During the first half of the 18th century, the Lord brought spiritual enlightenment to Sweden, creating a polarizing effect in that country. While many souls were saved, even more became incensed, defending their Lutheran religion by persecuting the new converts to...
Dec 8, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
I often describe the persecution against the Baptists during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries here in America, as well as in Britain and a few other places. Going a little astray with this vignette, I turn to Russia and a much more recent date – December 11, 1985....
