LBC reunion!

Last weekend I was preaching at the Anniversary services of Broughton Evangelical Church. Great Broughton and Little Broughton lie more or less at the centre of the Maryport, Cockermouth and Workington triangle in north-west Cumbria. What is remarkable is that for all the services there were five old students from London Bible College present and six on the Saturday evening: Gordon Taylor, Brian Campbell, Elizabeth Campbell, John Fisher, myself and my wife Mary. Of these all but Elizabeth were at LBC in the late 50’s; she started her course in 1965 just after the death of Dr Kevan. It was a great pleasure to renew old acquaintances and also to be thankful for God’s preserving mercy over the years. I hope to be able to include a picture of five of us later. The small chapel was well-filled on the Saturday evening as friends came from other churches to give thanks and encouragement. I tried to emphasize the importance of the historicity of the Gospels for apologetics and, in particular, apologetic preaching, especially as this leads directly to Jesus Christ himself. In adopting this approach I was influenced by some words of Dr Kevan when was speaking to missionaries in India, in 1960: ‘We have to remember that our Christian faith is historically based. In my short journeys in India I had a number of conversations with educated Indian gentlemen, in the aeroplane and in the train, and one of the hardest things I found in these conversations was to get these men to admit the historical basis of our faith. They would say, “Everybody has his own ideas about religion”. My answer was to confront them with the facts, the historical facts of God incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ, who lived and suffered under Pontius Pilate. I tried to show them that the saving work of Christ is a thing that can be placed geographically, and be pinpointed chronologically. They would then go off again on some philosophical discussion of religious abstractions.’