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E.H. Broadbent
Edmund Hamer Broadbent (June 15, 1861 – June 28, 1945) was an English preacher, missionary, and author whose ministry spanned continents, spreading the gospel within the Plymouth Brethren movement. Born in Crumpsall, Lancashire, England, to a Methodist family involved in textile manufacturing, he converted to Christianity in his youth and began traveling with evangelist Frederick W. Baedeker in his twenties, mastering French and German to aid his work. His early career included engineering, but a call to ministry led him to abandon it for full-time mission work by 1900. Broadbent’s preaching career took him across Austria, Belgium, Egypt, Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the Baltic states, North and South America, and Uzbekistan through the 1920s, often slipping into “closed” regions with a quiet courage. His sermons focused on New Testament church principles, delivered in homes, crowded halls, and bazaars, adapting to local conditions with a calm demeanor that belied his fearless witness amid pre-revolutionary unrest in Russia and rising Nazism in Germany. He authored The Pilgrim Church (1931), a seminal history of churches following apostolic patterns, reflecting his deep research into forgotten Christian movements. Married to Dora Holiday in 1891, with whom he had eight children, Broadbent died at age 84 in Stoke-on-Trent, England, leaving a legacy of missionary zeal and scholarly devotion to biblical faith.
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E.H. Broadbent emphasizes the significance of the New Testament as the worthy completion of the Old Testament, enriching and fulfilling the Law and the Prophets. He highlights that the New Testament presents a revelation suited to all men in all times, with Jesus Christ best known through the Gospels and the doctrines from His death and resurrection taught in the Epistles. Broadbent also discusses how the Old Testament reveals the history of Israel, while the New Testament unveils the Church of Christ, composed of all who are born again through faith in Jesus.
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The New Testament Churches
“The New Testament is the worthy completion of the Old. It is the only proper end to which the Law and the Prophets could have led. It does not do away with them, but enriches in fulfilling and replacing them. It has in itself the character of completeness, presenting, not the rudimentary beginning of a new era which requires constant modification and addition to meet the needs of changing times, but a revelation suited to all men in all times. Jesus Christ cannot be made known to us better than He is in the four Gospels, nor can the consequences or doctrines which flow from the facts of His death and resurrection be more truly taught than they are in the Epistles. “The Old Testament records the formation and history of Israel, the people through whom God revealed Himself in the world until Christ should come. The New Testament reveals the Church of Christ, consisting of all who are born again through faith in the Son of God and so made partakers of the divine and eternal life (Jn. 3:16). “As this body, the whole Church of Christ, cannot be seen and cannot act in any one place, since many of its members are already with Christ and others scattered throughout the world, it is appointed to be actually known and to bear its testimony in the form of churches of God in various places and at different times. Each of these consists of those disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who, in the place where they live, gather together in His Name. To such the presence of the Lord in their midst is promised and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is given in different ways through all the members (Mt. 18:20; 1 Cor. 12:7). “Each of these churches stands in direct relationship to the Lord, draws its authority from Him, and is responsible to Him (Rev. 2-3). There is no suggestion that one church should control another or that any organized union of churches should exist, but an intimate personal fellowship unites them (Acts 15:36).”
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Edmund Hamer Broadbent (June 15, 1861 – June 28, 1945) was an English preacher, missionary, and author whose ministry spanned continents, spreading the gospel within the Plymouth Brethren movement. Born in Crumpsall, Lancashire, England, to a Methodist family involved in textile manufacturing, he converted to Christianity in his youth and began traveling with evangelist Frederick W. Baedeker in his twenties, mastering French and German to aid his work. His early career included engineering, but a call to ministry led him to abandon it for full-time mission work by 1900. Broadbent’s preaching career took him across Austria, Belgium, Egypt, Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the Baltic states, North and South America, and Uzbekistan through the 1920s, often slipping into “closed” regions with a quiet courage. His sermons focused on New Testament church principles, delivered in homes, crowded halls, and bazaars, adapting to local conditions with a calm demeanor that belied his fearless witness amid pre-revolutionary unrest in Russia and rising Nazism in Germany. He authored The Pilgrim Church (1931), a seminal history of churches following apostolic patterns, reflecting his deep research into forgotten Christian movements. Married to Dora Holiday in 1891, with whom he had eight children, Broadbent died at age 84 in Stoke-on-Trent, England, leaving a legacy of missionary zeal and scholarly devotion to biblical faith.