John Bertram Phillips was a Bible translator, writer and clergyman. Phillips was born in Barnes, Surrey. He was educated at Emanuel School and took a degree in Classics from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was ordained an Anglican clergyman in the Church of England in 1930.
His work translating the Bible made him one of Britain's most famous Bible communicators. Phillips also translated parts of the Old Testament. In 1963 he released translations of Isaiah 1-39, Hosea, Amos, and Micah. This was titled Four Prophets: Amos, Hosea, First Isaiah, Micah: A Modern Translation from the Hebrew. But, he did not translate any more of the Old Testament. He talked of the revelation he made as he translated the New Testament, describing it as "extraordinarily alive" unlike any experience he had had with non-scriptural ancient texts. He referred to the scriptures speaking to his condition in an "uncanny way" similarly to the way the author of Psalm 119 talks. Phillips was a masterful apologist and defender of the Christian faith. He upheld the basic tenets of the faith, and was able to present them fresh to the modern reader and hearer, much as he had done so with his translation of the New Testament.
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New Testament Christianity: Chapter 1 - Explanation
"New Testament Christianity". The critic will probably ask as he picks up this book: "Is this an attempt to distil the teaching of those early Christian documents which we call the New Testament, or is it an attempt to contrast the vigorous and vivid life of the Young Church with the frequently over organised and sometimes laboured movement of the ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 2 - The Angels' Point of View
On Palm Sunday many of us sing a hymn containing these lines:
The Angel armies of the skies
Look down with sad and wondering eyes
To see the approaching Sacrifice.
That, of course, is "only a hymn", but we have at least one piece of evidence from the Gospels that the angels of God are interested in human affairs. For Jesus Him self sa ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 3 - God Makes News
That this is a Visited Planet was the heart and core of the Young Church's faith. Many of the very early Christians had of course actually seen the young Prince of Glory during His earthly life. They had by no means always known Who He was, but after the resounding demonstration of the Resurrection, and after the unforgettable reassurances of His a ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 4 - The Faith-faculty
Quite a number of present day Christians are consciously or unconsciously on the defensive. They are only too well aware that they are a small minority, and many of them are faithfully and strenuously defending their convictions. Their courage and loyalty to Christ in the face of the widespread apathy of the surrounding world is wholly admirable. B ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 5 - Ground for Hope
The second great quality which New Testament Christianity exhibits seems to me to be Hope. Hope runs high in the inspired pages; it is not a superior form of pious wishful thinking but hope based solidly upon the character and purpose of God Himself. But for us, during the last fifty years particularly, the quality of hope has ebbed away from our c ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 6 - Love
In English speaking countries at least we breathe such an atmosphere of diffused traditional Christianity that we are apt to take some of the major Christian revelations about God as though they were self evident, which of course they are not. We assume that kindness is a better thing than intolerance, and love a better thing than hatred. But these ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 7 - The Love-deficiency
We have already tried to take an imaginative glance at this planet from the angels' point of view. Probably next to the shrivelling of the faith faculty and the closely allied dying down of hope, the most disturbing symptom of the world's disease in the eyes of Heaven is the lack of outgoing love. It is perfectly true, as John pointed out, that "lo ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 8 - Peace
Despite the fire, energy, daring, hope, and faith that distinguished the Young Church, there is no trace of hysteria or morbid excitement in its re corded life. Some of us have seen people do all sorts of extraordinary things under the influence of religious excitement, and those of us who are pastors of souls have sometimes been not a little pertu ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 9 - Christian Maintenance
In order to live a life of New Testament quality, we shall find it necessary to work out some kind of practi cal plan to keep us alive and sensitive to the Spirit of the living God, which will keep us supplied day by day with the necessary spiritual reinforcement, and which will help us to grow and develop as sons and daughters of God. It is unfort ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 10 - Christian Service
The early vigorous Church was essentially a work ing, serving, and forward looking Church. Partly because of a sensitivity to the Spirit's direction and partly because of the rising tide of persecution, the Young Church did not have much chance of becoming self satisfied and complacent. It expanded and spread into all sorts of unlikely places, arme ...read
New Testament Christianity: Chapter 11 - Some Conclusions
The foregoing chapters have all been given as addresses to groups of people in different parts of this country and in California, and naturally they have been followed by discussion. Speaking generally, I find a widespread desire to recapture the power and energy of the new born Church, and a very marked wil lingness, particularly among young peopl ...read
