Book Reviews

We can scarcely have too many books on prayer, though sadly it is often easier to read books about prayer than to get down and pray. We all need stirring up to pray and this book helps to do that. As the title with its subtitle indicates, it is primarily about private or personal prayer, […]

Robert Oliver has served up a treat for his readers. Developed with additional chapters from his PhD. thesis, the book is very readable, containing fifteen concise chapters, which are both stimulating and fascinating. The author has divided his material into three parts: ‘The Eighteenth-Century Heritage,’ ‘When Good Men Differ,’ and ‘Re-Alignment.’ It is not a […]

A review by Kenneth J. Stewart of Princeton and Preaching: Archibald Alexander and the Christian Ministry by James M. Garretson.1 Seminarians do not often reflect upon the question of what has been the theological discipline standing behind their required courses in practical or pastoral theology. That the lecturer has a basic theological education plus accumulated […]

Getting the Gospel Right, Assessing the Reformation and New Perspectives on Paul1, is written by Cornelis P Venema, and published by the Banner of Truth Trust. For those who need to know what is happening in other parts of the religious world and, in particular, current threats to the gospel, this little book may prove […]

Rev Hugh Cartwright was once the professor of church history at the Free Church College, Edinburgh. He is now a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He was asked to review the History of the English Calvinistic Baptists 1771-1892, From John Gill to C H Spurgeon,1 by Robert W. Oliver, and this is […]

A review by Kenneth Macleod of Evangelistic Calvinism: Why the Doctrines of Grace Are Good News by John Benton, published by the Trust as a booklet of 32 pages.1 The questions this booklet addresses are: Does Calvinistic preaching – that is, true scriptural preaching – hinder the proclamation of the love of Christ to a […]

A review by Kenneth Macleod of The Ministry by Charles J. Brown.1 The author was a well-known minister of the Disruption Free Church in Edinburgh. Some readers will be familiar with his excellent little book The Divine Glory of Christ.2 Now a further little volume has been reprinted consisting, for the main part, of fairly-informal […]

DON’T STOP PREACHING Where are the preachers of the gospel in our land today? There are plenty of performers, but where are the proclaimers? From two different sources this week we received exhortations about continuing to believe in preaching. I was struck with these words of Phil Eveson, the Principal of the London Theological Seminary, […]

THE NOVELS OF JAN KARON WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU READ A NOVEL WITH PAGES PEPPERED WITH PRAYERS BY THE PROTAGONIST? Many American Christians are enthusiastic about the novels of Jan Karon, and it was in the USA that we first came across them, but we obtained the Penguin boxed set of the best-selling […]

THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE SEMINARY PROFESSORS ARE REALLY AMAZING PHENOMENA One of the many privileges of my seminary education was to sit at the feet of Dr. Cornelis P. Venema, professor of doctrinal studies at, and recently named president of, Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana. Seminary professors are really amazing phenomena. Although you […]

BOOK REVIEW THE PRAYER OF JABEZ: BREAKING THROUGH TO THE BLESSED LIFE By Bruce Wilkinson (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2000, hardcover, 93 pages). How many of us have ever heard of The Prayer of Jabez? Had we asked this question a year or so ago most people would have answered with an embarrassed shrug […]

BOOK REVIEW WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE? by Philip Yancey, (Zondervan, 1997) “Grace [is] ‘the last best word,’ the only unsullied theological word remaining in our language.” (p.232) So writes Philip Yancey in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace? Other words, like love and charity, for instance, have all but lost their original theological […]

THE GRACE AND DUTY OF BEING SPIRITUALLY MINDED DECLARED AND PRACTICALLY IMPROVED. by John Owen Found in Volume 7 of the Works, and published by the Banner of Truth Trust. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. Romans 8:6 Set your affection on things above. Colossians 3:2. LONDON: 1681. Prefatory Note An Outline:- Preface […]

This little book has been published to commemorate the forthcoming 500th anniversary of the birth of John Knox, the great Scottish reformer. It consists of the transcripts of two addresses given by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the 1960’s and a new biographical sketch written by Iain H. Murray. In the first address Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones […]

At the end of the Banner of Truth ministers’ conference in Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, on June 1, Sherman Isbell took me to Baltimore airport and on the way we called in at the Green Mount Cemetery to visit the grave of Dr J. Gresham Machen. He is buried next to his parents and his […]