Topic Archives: Christian Living

‘Remember my bonds.’ — Colossians 4:18 [‘The following is an extract from Dr W. M. Taylor, of New York, taken from his volume of the same title, The Limitations of Life, fourth edition, 1888.] What an exquisite pathos there is in these words of Paul! He is now ‘such an one as Paul the aged’, […]

One consequence of the individualism that blights the modern evangelical is the loss of what the Puritans called the Christian man’s calling. This loss is partly a cause and partly a result of the present impotence, and derives from the idea that people are primarily non-material beings with non-material1 needs and throw-away bodies. Creation is […]

The following review is for a forthcoming book from the Banner. Click here to learn more, or join the waitlist. In the opinion of many, next to the Bible itself, the very best tool for family worship is The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos. It is now back in print. Banner of Truth […]

The following is an extract from Thomas Manton’s commentary on Jude. * * * Of all graces, love needs keeping. Why? (1) Because of all graces it is most decaying (Matt. 24:12, Rev. 2:4). Flame is soon spent, graces that act most strongly require most influence, as being most subject to abatement; we sooner lose […]

According to an oft‑quoted saying of Francis Bacon, reading makes a full man, writing an exact man, and conversation a ready man. Experience shows the observant Christian that he was right. There is no ordinary way for a person to attain to fullness of knowledge in the things of God apart from a diligent application […]

There are several instances in Scripture when people make the wrong calculations or use the wrong measures. Samuel is in danger of doing so when he looks at David’s older brother, Eliab, while searching for the Lord’s anointed. He looks at his appearance and his stature, and is tempted to conclude that he has found […]

We can be creatures of extremes. Sometimes our reading of church history pushes us toward one or the other end of a certain spectrum. We absolutise the light or the darkness. It was never, to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times. To us, it was either the best or the […]

The Bible tells us that God controls everything in our lives and in our world. The problem is, however, that our lives and our world often seem so out of control. We all have a year full of examples of that, don’t we? One of the most helpful places in Scripture to give us perspective on this […]

This article is the contents of an address first given in February 2020 at the Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Newcastle, UK. * * * LIVING in the world. How are Christians to live in the world? The question can be answered in many ways. The topic is potentially vast in scope — that becomes more […]

In the video below, Geoff Thomas explains how he was first introduced to the ministry of the Banner of Truth through a gift from a friend. That friend gave him a copy of the Banner Magazine, which in turn led to Geoff’s introduction to Banner books. Geoff eventually became a pastor in Wales and for a time he was an editor of […]

The Beginning Job’s three friends could not have been more wrong. They looked at this profoundly afflicted man and concluded that by his sin he had brought all this suffering upon himself. What other explanation could there be? But there was another explanation, one that lay at the opposite pole to the one these men […]

In 1661, Elizabeth Heywood, a godly wife and mother from Lancashire, lay dying, aged just twenty-seven.1 Her last prayers were for the Church of God, for the Jews to be converted, and for the gospel to reach to all nations.2 Her vision extended far beyond her own situation, her own family and church and nation. […]

I am very grateful to two very old and dear friends of my family. Firstly, to Iain Murray for agreeing to the publication of his address, which as far as I know has never been published before, though some elements of it are in his biography of the Doctor. Below is the transcription of a […]

We Christians are heaven-bound pilgrims. The question is, do we see ourselves that way? Have we fostered this kind of pilgrim mentality in our own lives? If not, impatience may be the culprit. In this respect, many of us have been shaped by our culture more than we care to admit. To put it mildly, […]

The fruitfulness of Brownlow North’s ministry led him to become known as the ‘John the Baptist of the great awakening of 1859’. But this largely forgotten evangelist of the nineteenth century has much to teach us still today. Though these rules were written to help young believers, they remain relevant to Christians of all ages […]