Articles

Robert Strivens, Austin Walker, and Mike Iliff agree to answer questions about books that have impacted them in their faith. * * * Robert Strivens is the pastor of Old Baptist Church, Bradford on Avon, and former principal of London Seminary. Austin Walker is the retired pastor of Maidenbower Baptist Church, Crawley, Sussex. Mike Iliff of Aberystwyth is […]

Robert Cecil Rayner, a beloved deacon and member at Salem Chapel, Braintree, Essex, for twenty-six years, passed peacefully away on February 9th, 2017, aged 73 years. After a severe illness he wrote the following, dated November 2014. The heading was this: ‘Toiling with Rowing on the Sea of Life’. * * * My first recollections […]

I finally paid my first visit to the new location of the London Evangelical Library. It used to be in Chiltern Street, above the original location of the Banner of Truth but now it is to be found on a little industrial estate in the north of the city, just off the north circular road. […]

This month marks 500 years since the day which is conventionally identified as the beginning of the Reformation. On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther, a monk and theological professor in Wittenberg University, nailed to the church door a set of 95 theses, statements intended for debate. They were provoked by the unscrupulous sale of indulgences […]

500 years ago, the Church in Western Europe was awash with influences calling for much-needed reform. Most of these influences flowed from the Renaissance, whose Christian scholars were weighing the contemporary Church against what they found in the Bible and the writings of the early Church fathers. Their greatest figure, Erasmus of Rotterdam, had in […]

Tomorrow, on the 31st October 2017, we commemorate what was the beginning of the Reformation under Martin Luther. One of the features of his life and work was the central place that the Scriptures played in the spiritual revival that brought about the Reformation. Luther did not think of himself as a Reformer; the reformation […]

Anniversaries are how we mark out our history , some are welcome, others are not, some are humdrum, others are special. This year two are extra special , a 500th and a 50th. Both changed our world. The first is when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church […]

This is the second half of a two part article on the character and writings of William Williams. Part one may be found here. * * * Like all those touched by the eighteenth century awakening, Williams Pantycelyn was led to see that the vital matter is grace. Williams’ characterisation of the years immediately before […]

The author previously published an article on William Williams of Pantycelyn’s life. The three sections can be found here: Part One , Part Two , Part Three * * * Having traced a little of the life and experience of William Williams, it is now time to look to his character and his theology. Williams […]

‘And He gave some as evangelists.’ , Ephesians 4:11  There is a plethora of good Bible teachers and preachers in the Reformed denominations of our day, and for this we ought to be thankful. We tend to attract men who love the Bible and theology and who, consequently, are gifted in communicating both. However it […]

This is the second half of a two part article. The first part can be found here. Semi-Pelagianism Yet the death of Pelagius was not the end of his speculation; not only were there still those who followed him, but there were those who tried to develop a ‘middle way’ between the strict Biblical teaching […]

Pelagianism can be regarded as the last of the ‘Great Heresies’; after Pelagius, heretics have, for the most part, been either reworking old heresies, or have been very limited in their influence. Pelagius, on the other hand, created a false teaching that challenged the Church to consider issues that had previously been taken for granted, […]

At the 2017 Shepherd’s Conference, in Sun Valley, California, the Banner of Truth hosted a student event for Master’s Seminary Students. We sat down with Iain Murray and John MacArthur to discuss reading in the ministry, asking them if they could share their accumulated wisdom after reading and writing for decades. Here are some of […]

The following is a poem, written by William Cowper on the subject of prayer. What various hindrances we meet, In coming to the mercy seat! Yet who that knows the worth of prayer, But wishes to be often there? Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw, Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw, Gives exercise to faith […]

The Enlightenment, emerging in 18th-century Germany, rejected all supernatural religion, stressing the all-sufficiency of human reason. Its rationalistic spirit penetrated deeply into German Protestantism, and by the 19th century it was making its impact on Protestantism worldwide. It undermined belief in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, encouraging a radical form of Higher Criticism that had a long-lasting […]