Here is a collection of images from the appendix of “Revival on Rose Street”, the 200-years written history of Charlotte Chapel.
Category: Slider
Church History – 36 Illustrated Lectures
When Ian completed his Ph.D. and was invited to lecture part-time on Church History at the Scottish Baptist College, he preferred to give an ‘overview’ of the two thousand years. He also did this three times, for eight weeks at a time, at the Asian Theological College in Manila in the Philippines in 2001 and 2002. He similarly taught students at the Faith Mission Bible College from 2008 to 2012 and at the Edinburgh Bible College from 2013 to 2016, as well as ‘Saturday only’ students at the Institute of Biblical Studies, held at the Carrubbers Christian Centre in Edinburgh, every year from 1995 to 2016.
Now that he is no longer able to deliver these lectures in person, he has been asked to make them available in this format, for any who would like an overview of Western Church History. Read More
Exam papers – school and university, 1949-55
In the 1950s, the usual route for pupils at Edinburgh Academy who aspired to qualify as solicitors in Scotland, was to sit the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board School Certificate at age 16/17 and then to sit the Scottish Higher Leaving Certificate at age 17/18, in order to gain qualification for entrance to the University of Edinburgh for the combined degrees of Master of Arts and Bachelor of Laws. Read More
Taxation of Judicial Accounts
If a litigant is awarded ‘expenses’ against another litigant in a Court case (called ‘costs’ in England), the successful litigant’s solicitor makes up a Judicial Account of Expenses, itemizing the work done, and tries to agree it with the paying litigant’s solicitor. Read More
1958 Diary of Honeymoon Trip to Germany
April 1958, and the newlyweds enjoy their honeymoon at the Drei Konige (Three Kings) Hotel, Bernkastel, Mosel. This involved a meandering drive through Europe Read More
Common Grace and Saving Grace
Background
The exclamation ‘Eureka!’ (‘I have found it!’) is attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes, after he discovered how the volume of irregular objects could be measured with precision. He had stepped into a bathtub and noted that the rise in the the water level (which could be measured) equalled the volume of the parts of his body he had submerged. A ‘Eureka moment’ now describes finding the answer to a puzzling question. Read More
The Peril of Taking a Lawyer’s Advice
In one of Shakespeare’s plays, Dick the Butcher and Smith the Weaver are planning how to make the world a better place. “The first thing we do”, says Dick, “let’s kill all the lawyers”. This is taken up enthusiastically by the others, and they make a start by hanging the Town Clerk of Latham.
For the Baptist Union of Scotland 1976 Presidential Address, Ian Balfour expressed his own concern about four lawyers found in the New Testament, whose attitudes have had influence in our Churches. He goes further, warning the reader against taking their advice.
The Peril of Taking a Lawyer’s Advice
The Lands of the Book – 1953
Ian Balfour’s twenty-first birthday present was a rail ticket on 11 March 1953 from Edinburgh to the border of Syria, an airline ticket from Tel Aviv to Athens and Rome on 7 April and then rail back to Edinburgh, with some spending money but no fixed itinerary for the fortnight between the Syrian border and Tel Aviv. So many people asked about the experience that he wrote it up in the form of a diary. One of Ian’s friends returned the book with the illustrated cover and the phrase ‘The Lands of the Book’ on it.
Part 1: Edinburgh – Istanbul
Part 2: Smyrna – Jerusalem
Part 3: Bethany – Calvary
Part 4: Damascus Gate – Corinth
Part 5: Greece – Edinburgh
The relationship of man to God, from conception to conversion, in the writings of Tertullian [thesis]
During his student days, Ian developed an interest in Church History, and embarked in 1971 on a Doctorate of Philosophy as a part-time post-graduate student at New College, Edinburgh. The thesis was on The Relationship of Man to God in the writings of Tertullian – a second century lawyer who was converted in his thirties and who gave the remainder of his life to teaching in the Church in Carthage. The Ph.D. degree was awarded in 1980.