Articles

A large group of people stands gathered at the door of a great stone castle. Their feet shuffle on the ground, raising dust just as they raise their voices to be heard over all the noise. Young and old are gathered there; women and children are seen among the men and grey-headed. They have come […]

Text: “Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south” (Psa. 126. 4). This urgent prayer seems to be with so many of the Lord’s people at present, a desire that the Lord in love and mercy will “turn again our captivity.” Did you notice that this prayer was mentioned right at […]

The Worship of God (Christian Focus Publications) is a collection of lectures and sermons, most of them given at the 2003 Spring Theology Conference at Greenville Theological Seminary. Like most collections the quality of chapters is uneven, but overall all it is a helpful contribution in defense of historic Presbyterian worship which is centered on […]

How Important And Relevant Is Truth? Perhaps the most significant growth point in a Christian’s life is when it dawns on him or her that doctrine matters. Too often there is the fatal (and I mean fatal) tendency for Christians to assume that doctrine is an optional extra, something that is not really needful to […]

There is an ancient curse that lingers with us to this very day – the willingness of human society to be completely absorbed in a godless world. It is the supreme sin of unbelievers that even though Jesus Christ Himself has come into this world, man does not and will not feel His all-pervading presence; […]

The English define a gentleman as someone who uses a butter knife when eating alone. Student-body president Noah Riner, this Fall, in his speech to the Dartmouth freshmen defined character in a similar way: “character is what you do when no one is looking.” Character has always been the test of a meaningful life. In […]

NEW YORK – Internationally known speaker and senior fellow of the Trinity Forum Os Guinness made no attempt to sugarcoat his words on Sept. 8 when describing the postmodern character of mainline denominational leaders: “Soren Kierkegaard called them ‘kissing Judases’ – followers of Jesus who betray him with an interpretation.” Guinness was addressing a worldwide […]

Archibald Alexander was brought up in a religious home. He learned to read the Bible by the time he was five and within two more years had committed the Shorter Catechism to memory. Charles Hodge comments on “the inestimable advantage of a correct doctrinal education in his youth” (Alexander (1772-1851), born into a Scots-Irish family […]

2. The Reason for Believing It The fundamental reason is that it is taught in the Bible. This is not unwarranted circular reasoning. We are dependent on the Bible for all we know of God’s special revelation of Himself. If we cannot believe what the Bible says about itself, we cannot believe what it says […]

Why write about this? One of the heartbreaks in my life has been seeing churches, and church groups, torn-apart by disagreement. All disunity is tragic but doctrinal disagreement is doubly sad because, instead of Christians turning to the Bible and either coming to agreement or settling for principled disagreement, matters often deteriorate and become vicious […]

NEW YORK – “I greet you with a heavy heart,” declared the Rev. Dr. J. I. Packer to an international gathering at the Metropolitan Club in New York City. “Like many of you, I am an Anglican, and I am caught up in the agony of world Anglicanism.” Packer, a world renowned evangelical theologian and […]

‘Discussion about cannabis smoking, whether among the student population or older, and whether inhaled or not, is a relic of earlier puritanical generations. What really matters is its long-term effect on both physical and mental health. Recent research has confirmed that cannabis smoking may induce psychotic-type breakdowns, and relatively frequently unmasks latent hereditary psychiatric disease, […]

In the light of the recent attacks by Islamic extremists in London, many questions have arisen about the religion of Islam. One area of confusion surrounds Allah. The question is, “Are Allah and the God of the Bible the same?” Islam teaches that the true god is a being called Allah, and that all other […]

Jim Elliff, president of Christian Communicators Worldwide, has issued a bold warning that should be heeded by Southern Baptists as well as Independent Baptists and others. In an article entitled “Southern Baptists; an Unregenerate Denomination”, (http://www.ccwonline.org/sbc.html) Elliff analyzes the frightful statistics pertaining to church membership and attendance. Out of 16 million members on Southern Baptist […]

Christians should never attempt to witness to Muslims by saying the God of Christianity and Allah are one and the same, Emir Caner said in chapel at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, September 20. Dr. Caner is the dean of The College at Southwestern. “I have heard over the years now that […]

At the age of 11 I worked hard to do well in my final year and this qualified for a place in the Girls’ Grammar School in Dover, Kent. My parents were very proud of me and I remember shopping for my new school uniform and collecting my train season ticket from the station. The […]

In the first of his articles (October 18, Banner of Truth web site), the author introduced the subject of the paganization of the church and stated that this paganization largely has to do with the way our culture views human sexuality, Cornelius Pronk quoted extensively from a recent published book entitled True Sexual Morality by […]

An Assessment When Grace and Truth Christian Congregation was founded, most local congregations were still known by the name of their “leader”. We were concerned over this trend because we believed that they gave prominence to an individual Christian rather than to Christ. In addition, we were increasingly unhappy with the tendency toward semantics of […]

There abounds in many churches and in much Christian educational material pictorial representations of Jesus. These pictures of our Lord are considered by many as helpful teaching tools for children, and as devotional aids for adults. If they do serve these purposes, could they be wrong? This is a question that has risen to some […]

It was Easter, and my first husband and I, together with our small daughter were on a luxury holiday in Kenya. In spite of the outward trappings of wealth and enviable lifestyle, I was far from happy with the circumstances of my personal life. In fact, I felt that I was at the end of […]

In the book of Proverbs we read that, A righteous man does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend, Psalm 15:3. Two middle school girls are standing at their bus stop and one says to the other, “I don’t like Alice. I don’t […]

The Lost Message of Jesus by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, and its significance for today. In the first article we reviewed the book with the above title. Our extended critique showed that The Lost Message taught nothing new but was the liberal social gospel in a fresh guise. Also, that it was worse because […]

By 1812 William Carey, the great Baptist missionary and linguist, had been in India for nineteen years. He had waited seven and a half years before he saw the first Indian convert from Hinduism to Christianity. Then the work seemed to accelerate, but in 1812 a fire broke out which destroyed the printing house, with […]

It is time for a little stir about worship, isn’t it? We have had Iain Murray’s booklet, The Psalter – the Only Hymnal? (Banner of Truth) which rejects exclusive psalmody for the New Covenant Church. Now we have this 250 page book, Old Light on New Worship, Musical Instruments and the Worship of God. A […]

The Lost Message of Jesus by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, and its significance for today. This book has featured in the evangelical world for a while now. Hardly a Christian magazine, newspaper, organisation, online discussion forum, preacher or individual Christian has not had something to say about it – for, against, or on the […]