Articles

And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32). At Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit came, Peter preached with great convicting and converting power, resulting in three thousand people calling on the name of the Lord to be saved […]

We’ll come to our own day in a moment. But first, the world of Paul’s day and how there were things that many knew but failed to understand. One had to do with how people were living. All could see, for example, that in the realm of sexual behaviour, promiscuity in general and homosexuality in […]

Extracts from the chapter on ‘Adoption’ in John Murray’s Redemption – Accomplished and Applied, reprinted in a new British edition by the Trust in 2009.1 When God adopts men and women into his family he insures that not only may they have the rights and privileges of his sons and daughters but also the nature […]

I was born in 1974 in a small village in Siberia near the city of Tumen. My name is Vitali. When I look back on my childhood I cannot remember a single happy day. This was because both my parents were alcoholics. My father hardly ever worked and when he did all the money, or […]

The disciples once asked Jesus that very question. A storm was raging, their boat was in danger of sinking, and Jesus, of all things, was asleep! Shouldn’t he have been awake and helping them? Didn’t he care if they drowned? These men are not the only disciples to have questioned Jesus’ care. Many others have […]

The Banner had the opportunity to sit down with Mark Johnston and ask him to tell us a little bit about his past. A Banner author of three titles , Let’s Study Colossians and Philemon, Let’s Study 2 Peter and Jude, and Let’s Study John , Mark shared with us his upbringing as a child […]

Romans 3:24 ‘And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.’ Some sentences are packed with meaning and this is a prime example. These words are a forceful explanation of what the wonderful truth of God’s justification is all about. Virtually every word in the sentence is important, even […]

A look at the life of John Bunyan, by Pastor Geoff Thomas. HIS CONVERSION John Bunyan had no family influences encouraging him to become a Christian. His grandfather married four times, his father three times, while he married twice. His grandfather was what we might understand to be a kind of ‘travelling salesman’ who left […]

I have now been in the ministry for 37 years and, looking back, deplore the fact that I have made so many mistakes that could have been prevented, had I known better. On the other hand, by God’s grace alone, I have been blessed with a ministry which has been rewarded in the sense that […]

Psalm 119 is a large collection of very short prayers, most of which we only pray as we read the Psalm itself. Some of them, however, have so woven themselves into our memories and experiences that we frequently find ourselves praying them at other times. A fine example is the prayer of verse 18: ‘Open […]

This has been my Ed Clowney week. It began when I was reflecting about how to understand Sabbath better, and remembered I’d never read Clowney’s How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments. There it was, he opened it up, he told us so well just what it meant to rest in Jesus, so pastorally. I couldn’t […]

‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (John 17:3). These words are from the greatest prayer ever prayed, and they tells us the answer to the quest all mankind has been engaged in since the fall of Adam: What is eternal […]

Supposing you were suddenly to find yourself among 7,000 mainly young people, singing without any band, Reginald Heber’s ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!’, and gathered to hear sermons for three days, you might well wonder where you were and what was happening. My own arrival in that situation was not entirely sudden for I […]

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher/theologian, described life as paddling in an ocean ten thousand fathoms deep. How right he was. This thought is no less and even more appropriate to the study of theology, the coherent teaching about himself that God has revealed to us in the Bible. Some of us know the […]

‘There is no danger,’ writes Albert Barnes, ‘that more constantly besets Christians, and even eminent Christians, than pride. There is no sin that is more subtle, insinuating, deceptive; none that lurks more constantly around the heart and that finds a more ready entrance than pride.’ In a remarkable section in one of his letters, one […]

Introduction ‘When through the blood of the everlasting covenant we children of the shadows reach at last our home in the light, we shall have a thousand strings to our harps, but the sweetest may well be the one tuned to sound forth most perfectly the mercy of God.’ This thought of A. W. Tozer’s […]

This is a wonderful little book that deals with that daily battle against Satan, the enemy of our souls. John Brown was a faithful preacher of God’s word who ministered in Scotland the first part of the 19th century. Whilst in Edinburgh he expounded all of 1 Peter. This took 16 years. This book is […]

As according to Paul’s custom he went to them (Acts 17:26). On his second missionary journey, after heeding the Macedonian call to go into Europe and preach the gospel, Paul made his way from Philippi through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica. Luke tells us that according to Paul’s custom he went directly to the Jews, […]

For many years we have been deeply concerned that there are so many people in our congregations who clearly possess the fear of the Lord, and yet who have never found any real assurance of their interest in Christ, and so have never openly professed the Saviour’s name. The sad thing is that so many […]

Here are some choice selections from Banner’s newest book in the Pocket Puritans series: None But Jesus.1 These quotes from John Flavel will give the reader a good taste of the riches found within this small volume. Buy one for yourself, for your friends and for your family members and drink deeply from Flavel’s edifying […]

Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory! (2 Corinthians 4:17). It is good to know that there is a limit to affliction. It is but for a moment – it has its appointed end. Not always will the war go […]

What do people look like who look like Jesus? One part of the answer is this: they bear what is described by the Apostle Paul as the ‘fruit of the Spirit’, namely, ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’ (Gal. 5:22-23). In the days of his flesh our Saviour exhibited this fruit […]

I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees (Ecclesiastes 2:5-6). The Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem writes of the futility of living life ‘under the sun’,1 that […]

With a population of some 10 million, Wenzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang Province, is one of China’s great coastal megacities. A 480km drive south of Shanghai on the East China Sea, Wenzhou is often referred to as ‘China’s Jerusalem’ as it is believed to have the largest Christian population of any city in China – […]

There are two helps in remembering, first, how the deacon is different from the elder or the pastor-preacher, and second, what the deacons’ duties are. 1. A Three-fold Office The church is the body of Christ, and our Saviour has a three-fold office, and so his body also has a three-fold office. i] Christ is […]