Articles

Christianity teaches us to look to the past as we seek for help in the present. It has laid the foundations of our faith deep in historical events and invites us to build on those foundations all the days of our lives. As believers we unashamedly take our inspiration from days gone by confident that […]

I had a fellow elder in Darlington, Clifford Scurr, who often expressed the conviction that living Christianity reflected itself in people’s very faces. It was something I was occasionally struck with myself – at least by force of contrast. A duty that fell to me to fulfil from time to time was to take funerals […]

I’ve just come to the end of a Sunday morning series on ‘The Five Points’. I have preached several series going through all the great doctrines of the Bible. But I’ve never wanted to pick out the five points particularly. Partly, that’s because I’m aware that some folk have emphasised them in an unhelpful way. […]

Mark Johnston discusses the background and importance of the Banner of Truth conferences, the Ministers’ Conference in particular, and the impact it has had on his life. Learn more about the upcoming ministers conference in the US here and UK here.

Of all the casualties the church has suffered in recent decades, I wonder if many will have longer-lasting consequences than the loss of the evening service. There was a time, not so long ago, when many or even most churches gathered in the morning and the evening. But today the evening service is increasingly relegated […]

The Apostle Paul winds up one of the closing sections of his letter to the Galatians with the following exhortation: ‘as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith’ (Gal. 6:10). Our particular interest lies with this ‘opportunity’ of which he speaks at […]

Sometimes reading a Puritan author can take you into another world. The Puritans are not always the easiest of men to read, though the difficulty is often over-hyped. However, what follows is essentially an extract from the Works of John Owen, Volume 2, pages 77-78.1 He has been expounding the Christian’s communion with Christ, showing […]

Meditation 1 from The Life of John Brown with Select Writings,1 pages 159-161. Lord, what am I in myself? Dust and ashes; formed from nothing: I am ‘nothing, less than nothing, and vanity.’ But what am I as a sinner? An infinitely criminal enemy of God, my Maker, my Preserver, and Redeemer; whose heart is […]

Although they have allies and are numerous, they will be destroyed and pass away. Although I have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more. Now I will break their yoke from your neck and tear your shackles away (Nahum 1:12-13). In July, 1755 as British General Braddock, along with young, twenty-three year old […]

The Apostle Paul was a very great Christian indeed. He was also very human, a fact that is memorably brought home to us in a story that comes from his own pen. Writing to the church in Corinth he says, ‘When we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were […]

Some highlights from Mark Johnston and Ian Hamilton on Banner of Truth books at last year’s US Ministers’ Conference. Want to be there in 2014? Visit banneroftruth.org/us/events for US and banneroftruth.org/uk/events for UK conference information. Banner Book Room Tour Part 1 from Banner of Truth on Vimeo. Banner Book Room Tour Part 2 from Banner […]

This letter was sent from Aberdeen by the late Douglas Macmillan in September 1967 to Angus Smith who was at that time a minister in Snizort, Skye. A member of the Snizort congregation was a young policeman named Archie Angus Stewart. Gravely ill, he had been taken to a hospital in Aberdeen and was visited […]

Sometimes it is not easy to see blessings, and yet when we think more deeply we know that there are so many that it is difficult to single them out. We take them so much for granted, not always because we are ungrateful, but because the blessings we lack fill our thoughts and discomfit our […]

In one of the great promises of the Old Testament, God assures his people, ‘even to your old age I am he, and to grey hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save’ (Isa. 46:4). It is, in the first instance, a promise to the […]

Why did John Calvin preach eight times a week in Geneva? Eight times a week! How did he make the time? Was he not writing commentaries on almost every book of the Bible? Was he not writing treatises on numerous theological and pastoral subjects? Was he not the Reformation’s premier letter writer, writing to hundreds […]

I met Patience, a young black woman from Zambia, on my recent trip to Cape Town, South Africa. She is attending the Maranatha Family Church in Masephumalele, pastored by my friend Ronni Cronje. Patience, a year or so ago, was riding with her mother on a small taxi van from Zimbabwe to South Africa when […]

What a pastor learns over the years . . . 1. The kingdom of God does not, and will not, skip a beat when I am sidelined. 2. The church is more important than I thought when I started. 3. Some of my words and actions to which I am most oblivious can be hurtful […]

Imagine an ideal setting for spiritual revival. Odds are good that the razor wire and guard towers of Angola prison, Louisiana’s infamous maximum-security penitentiary, don’t fit the bill. Yet spiritual revival is precisely what is taking place among the prison’s inmate population, most of whom are incarcerated for life. ‘Dr. John Robson [who heads the […]

It ranks as one of the wickedest acts of a Jewish king, it has had many parallels, and the end result of them all is a failure to destroy the Word of God. Here’s the story. King Jehoiakim of Judah was listening as the words of a scroll were read to him – a scroll […]

‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness’ (Rom. 1:18). The text before us requires me to speak faithfully on the wrath of God. I am under authority to teach whatever is in the Bible. My hearers are under […]

First a confession: Christmas is not my favourite time of year. This is partly due to temperament; I don’t particularly enjoy the ‘jollity’ of the season (my children will testify that there is something of the ‘bah humbug’ in their father at this time of year). However, Christmas does present us with a focused opportunity […]

It is recorded of John Newton that he said: ‘I read the newspaper that I may see how my heavenly Father governs the world.’ Spurgeon said that he read the newspaper to find illustrations for his sermons. In our 21st century it is very revealing to read God’s Word side by side with the newspaper. […]

In 1993 Vladimir Radzihovski was living in southern Ukraine when he was invited to join the third of the river ‘Missions to Siberia’. Passenger ships were hired to visit cities, towns and small settlements along the banks of the rivers Ob and Irtish, to preach the gospel to those who had never heard it before. […]

Are you blessed? Psalm 1 says that if you do not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but delight yourself instead in God’s law, you are! And here is part of the reason. Such a person ‘is like a tree […]

Peter writes, ‘give diligence to make your calling and election sure’. Why? Only the elect get to heaven, the rest end up in hell. But who are the elect? How can a person know if he is in the elect? Interestingly Peter links calling with election and puts calling first. The two in his mind […]