Monthly Archives: July 2025

Near death experiences

Posted on 09/07/2025 by Jon Garvey

I laid myself open when I preached on the Ascension last Sunday. I majored on one of the things I find most wondrous – that there is an embodied Man in heaven, ruling all things on the throne of God. I unpacked scriptures around that. In passing, I warned people against the hundreds of YouTube videos along the lines, “God took me to heaven, and gave me this message for the world…” Even the apostle Paul was told to keep quiet about what he heard and saw, whether in or out of the body he knew not, in his one view of the third heaven.

Posted in Philosophy, Theology | Leave a comment

Pleading the fifth (monarchy)

Posted on 02/07/2025 by Jon Garvey

My lack of recent posting is largely explained by research for a project on the Particular (ie Reformed) Baptist founders of my church, which is celebrating its official 370th anniversary next Sunday, from when its records began, though it is probably closer to 378 years old. Two of the main founders, William Allen and John Vernon, have a bigger documentary footprint than I’d realised, and were somewhat significant figures in the Parliamentary army during Britain’s Civil War. Allen became Cromwell’s Adjutant-General in Ireland, and Vernon his Quartermaster-General.

Posted in History, Theology | Leave a comment