Yearly Archives: 2015

Although the tendency to self-congratulation is no new phenomenon, the outlets for it have increased enormously. News of the so-called success of a congregation or a Church can speed round the world in minutes. The growth of the megachurches in the USA or the spread of the ‘New Calvinism’ is constantly to the fore. The […]

Election It might be supposed that the doctrine of election could not properly be incorporated into an evangelistic message, or, at least, could not properly be the topic of an evangelistic message. This is a grievous mistake. It is true that only believers have any right to regard themselves as elect of God and only […]

A review by Jeremy Marshall of J. C. Ryle’s Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots.1 If there was one book any Christian could have – in addition to the Bible, obviously – various candidates would be advanced. Historically, it would have been, in English-speaking countries anyway, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.2 Other books might […]

God gave them over (Romans 1:28). The recent Supreme Court decision in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which redefines 3500 hundred years of legal and biblical precedent, and which mandates that all fifty states must uphold same sex unions, is a shock to the sensibilities of most Christians. Forty-eight percent of Americans now approve of same sex […]

A Response to the Supreme Court Decision on Gay Marriage Peter said in the passage just before this one (i. e. verses 11, 12) that the good lives of believers help to win over the unbelieving world. Then he shows us exactly how this works as we do our duty to the civil government. 1 […]

James Bannerman was a son of the manse, his father being minister of the Cargill, Church of Scotland, congregation in Perthshire. James Bannerman was ordained and installed as the minister of the Ormiston, Church of Scotland parish in 1833 and in 1843, the year of the Great Disruption, he left the Church of Scotland for […]

At the recent US Banner Ministers’ Conference we sat down with Dr. Ligon Duncan to ask him about his favourite Banner book, and why Christians should consider reading it for themselves.

The Christian church on earth is always, in a sense, in exile. Whatever the incidental identities of her members may be — whether of nationality, race, class, or gender — their ultimate identity is that they are in Christ and belong to him. Compared to the ephemeral categories that human cultures have created for distinguishing […]

On October 28, 1949, twenty-two year old Jim Elliot, then completing his studies at Wheaton College, Illinois, wrote in his journal: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. In less than seven years he had given his life as a missionary in Ecuador, attempting to […]

The United States is in big trouble. Our foreign policy is in shambles. There is geo-political instability all over the globe – China, Russia, the Middle East, Isis, Al Queda. Things on the home front continue to go from bad to worse – racial unrest, the embrace of same sex marriage and the disenfranchisement of […]

John Murray, the great 20th-century theologian, once spoke to the children in his Sunday School on the surpassing value of The Shorter Catechsim,1, 2, 3 saying, Now everyone of you children should know The Shorter Catechism from the beginning to the end without a mistake by this age. Now that’s without joking at all. At […]

A review by Peter Barnes of J. C. Ryle’s Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots.1 No one has written more simply, more graciously, and more helpfully than J. C. Ryle, and the 21 chapters which constitute the full edition of Holiness (the enlarged 1879 edition which expanded the 1877 edition) reveal Ryle at his […]

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come (2 Corinthians 5:17). Elvis Presley was already a huge rock and roll star when he sauntered into the Sun Records studio in Memphis in December, 1956. Jerry Lee Lewis was gaining fast on Elvis’ […]

1. Pastor Boichenko of Tumen We joyfully greet you! We thank the Lord for you, your faithfulness over the years, your kind concern for the very poor among us and your generous support for our mission workers. May the Lord reward you abundantly. CHRISTMAS EVANGELISM Until quite recently we Baptists and Evangelical Christians were regarded […]

A review by Mignon Goswell of Iain H. Murray’s Amy Carmichael: ‘Beauty for Ashes’ – A Biography.1 Iain Murray has written yet another compelling biography, this time about Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, whom Murray believes is ‘not known as she used to be’. As Murray read more of Amy Carmichael’s writings he became convinced […]