Articles

John Murray was arguably the premier Reformed theologian of the twentieth century. He was born and brought up in a small crofting community in the Highlands of Scotland and was shaped by the piety and confessional rigour of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in which his father was a much respected elder. However, through […]

The following post first appeared as Picture This… on the Gentle Reformation website. Permit me to ride a hobby horse of mine for a few minutes! I want to issue a plea for an exegetically informed gifted illustrator to produce illustrations for a really excellent children’s Bible story book. I wonder how many children grow […]

Anne Ross Cousin is best known as the authoress of the hymn, The sands of time are sinking. Its nineteen verses (in its original form) are based on the death-bed sayings of a remarkable seventeenth century Scottish preacher, Samuel Rutherford. What is not so well known is that Anne Ross Cousin put into verse some […]

The following article from the pen of A. W. Pink appeared in the January 1978 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine, no. 172. It was the New Year message from Studies in the Scriptures, January 1939. The dawning of a new year is a fresh call unto each of us to put first things […]

This is about the person who has given his name to Christmas, Jesus Christ. It will only take you a few moments to read. A single word— special—sums up why you shouldn’t grudge the time. Special person Had you seen Jesus after he was born in Bethlehem special is not the word that would have […]

The following short article appeared in Issue 690 of the Banner of Truth Magazine (March 2021). The first volume of William Cunningham’s works to be prepared for the press by his literary executors, James Buchanan and James Bannerman, was The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation. It was published in 1862, a few months […]

Having your children with you in worship can be hard. It can be hard for the parents, for the children, and for the rest of the congregation. The squirming, the shuffling of papers, the loud whispers, and the louder cries, all can make it challenging to have our children with us in corporate worship. But […]

The following was published as ‘Preserve Evening Worship Services!’ in the October 2007 edition of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Issue 529). It was written by Michael G. Brown, who at the time was pastor of Christ United Reformed Church, Santee, CA. He currently pastors Chiesa Riformata Filadelfia in Milan, Italy. ‘Why do you go […]

The following, which appeared in Issues 611–612 of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Aug–Sep 2014) is from John Angell James, The Anxious Inquirer After Salvation Directed and Encouraged*. We are grateful to Mr Martyn Jolly for bringing this extract to our attention and supplying the text. It may seem strange to some persons, that I […]

1. Jesus Claim: Jesus had no interest in maintaining a male-female requirement for sexual relations. What the evidence really shows: Jesus believed that a male-female requirement for sexual relations was foundational, a core value of Scripture’s sexual ethics on which other sexual standards should be based, including the ‘twoness’ of a sexual union. Jesus predicated […]

The following post first appeared (on October 24, 2016) on www.reformation21.org, a blog run by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is posted here with their kind permission. After a cracking day at the Evangelical Library in London on “Reading John Owen” (opening, it has to be said, with Nigel Graham giving what may be […]

Think about someone being selected and sent to do an especially difficult job. Some major crisis has arisen, or some massive problem needs to be tackled, and it requires the knowledge, the experience, the skill-set, the leadership that they so remarkably possess. It was like that with Jesus. Entrusted to him by God the Father […]

The following article appeared in Issue 291 of the Banner Magazine, dated December 1987. ‘The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those that published it’ (Psalm 68.11) THE NEED FOR TRUTH I would like to speak to you today about the importance of the use of liter­ature in the church, for evangelism, […]

The following words, so contemporary in their feeling and import, come from John Kennedy (presumably of Dingwall), and were published in the 6th Issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (May, 1957). In times such as ours it is easy to seem a bigot, if one keeps a firm hold of truth, and is careful […]

The following post was published on the Reformation21 Blog, and is reproduced here by their kind permission. Last week I noticed that Ryan Gosling was nominated for an Oscar for playing Ken alongside Margot Robbie’s Barbie in last summer’s hit by the same name. Robbie, incidentally, was not so nominated. I won’t watch the film, but I […]

The following article first appeared here on October 26, 2006. In the light of recent developments across many denominations, most notably the Church of England, it remains a most necessary and timely piece. ‘The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.’ Proverbs 14:1 The mainline Protestant denominations […]

Elizabeth Prentiss lived in a different century, but the challenges she faced, and the way she responded to those challenges, speak powerfully to us today. Early in their married life, Elizabeth and her husband, George suffered the loss of two of their six children. Eddie died aged five and Bessie died when just a few […]

The following article first appeared in The Founders Journal, Issue 74 (Fall 2008) and was featured on the Banner website in January 2010. By ‘posture’ I do not refer to the alignment of one’s body when standing. Good posture, of course, is advisable, for one breathes better, projects his voice better and shows respect for […]

The following was an address delivered at the “Religious Conference,” held in the Theo­logical Seminary, Princeton, on October 13, 1902. Reprinted from The Princeton Theological Review, i. 1903, pp. 81-92. The article forms a part of Warfield’s Studies in Theology (1932, rep. Banner of Truth, 1988), which is currently out of print. WE may as […]

The meditations below are from the Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser of Brea, Minister of the Gospel at Culross, Written by Himself, as they appear in Vol. II of Scottish Puritans: Select Biographies. Fraser lived and ministered at a time of great trouble for the Church in Scotland, when those who had signed the […]

Here’s something that happened just over seven hundred years ago. On the 24th of June 1314 a famous victory was won by the Scots over the English at a place called Bannockburn. I mention it not because I am a Scot and Bannockburn is one of the outstanding events in our national history but rather […]

The following first appeared in the February 1991 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Issue 329). Over the years, the Trust has published several books by Dr R. B. Kuiper. However, there are many readers throughout the world who are more familiar with the titles of Kuiper’s books than with the man himself. It […]

Many think that Jesus was a “great teacher,” but often such people do not know what He taught about Himself: Jesus Christ said that He was the Messiah the Jews had awaited for over 700 years. John 4:25–26: ‘The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When […]

The following was first published in the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 6, no. 1 (2001): 21-23. It can be found on the Grace to You website here, and was first republished on the Banner website on March 1, 2000. Near the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo meticulously reviewed everything he had […]

The following is sourced from a talk on Samuel Rutherford given at the 2003 Aberystwyth Conference by Ian Hamilton, then of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, and now Associate Minister of Smithton Free Church, Inverness. ‘I am no expert on Rutherford, and I have been selective in what I have chosen to share about him. How are […]