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Yearly Archives: 2017

2017 has witnessed some large sale commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Conference organizers and publishing houses have worked hard to ensure that the long lasting implications of Luther’s ‘breakthrough’ are not lost on our own generation of believers, and for this we are much in their debt. The story less told, […]

Category Articles
Date December 29, 2017
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‘You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?’ , James 4:4 In a most insightful blog in The Masculinist,1 author Aaron Renn takes up the issue of the American evangelical church and why we lack powerful impact in our culture. He writes of positive world Christianity, neutral world Christianity, and […]

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Date December 27, 2017
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Derek W. H. Thomas, Guy A. Davies, and Steve Martin agree to answer questions on books that have impacted their life and faith. * * * Derek W.H. Thomas is the minister of First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina. Guy A. Davies pastors two Baptist churches in Rural Wiltshire. Steve Martin has been appointed the dean of students […]

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Date December 22, 2017
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The conference year ends with what we call the ‘Westminster’, or as it was once known, the ‘Puritan’. But back then the conference was nearer Christmas, school and university terms were over and college students, school teachers, and lecturers could attend. I like it then, during the days immediately before Christmas. Now it is in […]

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Category Articles
Date December 20, 2017
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There was always my dear cousin Bobi. Being an only child, my cousins were important to me and none more so than Bobi who was nine years older than me. He would become my best man on my wedding day in 1964 and we would live more than five decades together in the same small […]

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Date December 18, 2017
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In the first part of our discussion on Worship we were concerned to make the distinction between what would generally be called the body of worship and the heart of worship. We used another illustration of hardware and software to press that distinction. We have thus far identified two key issues which make for the […]

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Category Articles
Date December 15, 2017
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Content is at the heart of worship. It is a sad thing to hear people in worship mindlessly repeat things. Most worship services will differ little from the chanting and frenzied episodes of oriental mysticism or African ‘spirit-ism’. Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle writes, ‘If I am asked to define worship in one word, […]

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Category Articles
Date December 13, 2017
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We were in Uganda two months ago and happened to attend the only church we believed to be reformed. We had this impression because friends of ours had in previous years come to this church and found it to be not too bad. We were rather disappointed when we went in to find that it […]

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Category Articles
Date December 11, 2017
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Paul Levy, George Macaskill, and Billy McCurrie agree to answer questions on the books that have impacted their life and faith. * * * Paul Levy is a Welshman and the pastor of the International Presbyterian Church in Ealing, London. The church is currently involved in a massive building program. George Macaskill is a retired pastor in […]

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Category Articles
Date December 8, 2017
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Regular exposition of the Scriptures in one church fellowship places certain unique demands on the preacher. Remaining fresh while remaining faithful, and preaching consistently without preaching predictably can be significant challenges. A perennial problem for any settled preaching ministry, however, is that of remaining Christ-centered and gospel focused in our ministry of the Word, while […]

Category Articles
Date December 6, 2017
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Jim Elliot’s wife, Elizabeth, once said of him, ‘At 21, Jim began an adventure that would require the ultimate sacrifice.’ That adventure was to follow Christ toward the mission field of Ecuador and, ultimately, martyrdom at the hands of the Auca Indians he loved so much. A Habit of Reading A big personal part of […]

Category Articles
Date December 4, 2017
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Keith Underhill, Andrew Roycroft, and Hugh Ferrier agree to answer questions on the books that have impacted their life and faith. * * * Keith Underhill now lives in Liverpool but was a minister for over forty years in Nairobi, Kenya. Andrew Roycroft is a baptist minister in Northern Ireland. Hugh Ferrier is a Free Church minister […]

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Category Articles
Date December 1, 2017
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Many of us can recall the intense light and surprising warmth conveyed to our hearts when we first read the exemplary history of the Reformers and the Reformation Martyrs, along with their expositions of Scripture. Their brave and strong standing fast in the faith (1 Cor. 16:13) reached across the centuries and led us to new heights in serving […]

Category Articles
Date November 29, 2017
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In the mid-twentieth century, those Christians who were willing to call themselves ‘Reformed’ or ‘Calvinistic’ were relatively few in number. Liberalism had done its work in the large  mainline denominations to discredit ‘Reformation’ doctrine. Evangelicalism had fallen so low that many dismissed theology altogether by saying that doctrine only divides. ‘Calvinist’ was a slur to denigrate a Christian and to advise […]

Category Articles
Date November 27, 2017
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Mack Tomlinson, Gary Brady, and Gary Williams talk to us about books that have impacted their life and faith in this new series. * * * Mack Tomlinson is a pastor and author in Denton, Texas. Gary Brady has pastor of Childs Hill Baptist Church, London, NW2, for thirty years. Gary Williams is the director of Pastors’ Academy, […]

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Category Articles
Date November 24, 2017
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Much has been said and written about Martin Luther in recent months. A lot has been made of the phrase that he used to characterize his understanding of justification by faith , simul justus et peccator, Latin for ‘simultaneously righteous, yet a sinner’. It certainly does help to clarify the Scriptural teaching on justification. On the […]

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Date November 22, 2017
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If My people will. . . pray and seek My face. . . then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land. , 2 Chronicles 7:14 We must humble ourselves if we are to see revival; ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ they only, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of […]

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Date November 20, 2017
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Bill Hughes, Alec Taylor, and Robert Letham agree to answer questions about books that have impacted them in their faith. * * * Bill Hughes was raised in Liverpool and served a number of churches in England, Scotland and Florida. He has now retired from pastoring one congregation, but continues to preach extensively. Alec Taylor had a long […]

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Category Articles
Date November 17, 2017
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The church today is crippled with a comparative absence of strong and full assurance and, perhaps worst of all, most of us are scarcely aware of it. We live in a day of minimal, not maximal, assurance. How do we know this? Assurance is known by its fruits: a close life of fellowship with God; a tender, filial […]

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Category Articles
Date November 15, 2017
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In 2012, a new five volume edition of the minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly (1643-52) was published (Oxford University Press). This was the fruit of years of work by Rev. Chad Van Dixhoorn. This monumental work will probably form the basis for study o the Westminster Assembly for the remainder of this century […]

Category Book Reviews
Date November 13, 2017
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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 […]

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Category Articles
Date November 10, 2017
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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 […]

Category Articles
Date November 8, 2017
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Friends, Thank you for participating in this giveaway. Congratulations to those who will be receiving 1, 10, or 100 Banner books! It is our prayer that these books won’t just be on your shelves, but that you’ll have time to read through them and benefit from them spiritually. Here are the winners who have confirmed […]

Category Announcements
Date November 7, 2017
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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. […]

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Category Articles
Date November 6, 2017
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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 […]

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Category Articles
Date November 3, 2017
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