Book Reviews

Here is another worthy addition to a fine series, Banner of Truth’s ‘Puritan Paperbacks’. The quarry of Puritan spiritual writings seems inexhaustible: surely a testimony to the Christian godliness of our nation in a past age. In his ten-page ‘Introduction’ to this book Lewis Allen provides a valuable overview for all those who are new […]

These 54 sermons were preached during the last period of Calvin’s life (1554-1555). They are the mature fruit of John Calvin, the pastor and the student of Scripture, delivered over consecutive Sunday mornings and afternoons. During the week he preached on the Old Testament. The preacher knows first-hand the trials and disappointments of the pastor, […]

At last ‘Banner’ have published an edition of this greatly valued Christian classic, and have done so in a format worthy of the lasting spiritual value of the work. John Bunyan (1628-1688) wrote voluminously, his collected making three portly volumes in the definitive nineteenth-century edition (available in facsimile reprint from the Banner of Truth Trust). […]

Proverbs 26.17 says, ‘He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a dog by the ears.’ Let go of either ear and you get bitten! If the controversy raised by this book review did not belong to me, wisdom would preclude my involvement—but alas, as a Reformed preacher I […]

Published the year after his world-wide bestseller, Pilgrim’s Progress, this 1679 work on the Fear of God is misunderstood & neglected. Yet, anything from the pen of the converted tinker is worth its weight in gold. Bunyan was not only a master of the Word of God — ‘prick him and he bleeds holy scripture,’ […]

This address was delivered by C. H. Spurgeon in 1891 and proved to be the final one he was to give at the Pastors’ College. A footnote to the introduction explains, ‘Having endured many years of poor health, which was not helped by the theological battles that had occupied his attention during the mid to […]

This is a remarkable volume to receive just now, in the early part of the 21st century. It is truly historically unique, containing as it does so much under one beautifully-produced cover. It is a joy to those committed to the Reformed Protestant Biblical Faith, and a timely publication in the midst of the gathering […]

The August-September edition of Banner of Truth is always something of an occasion — a significant increase in the heft of the envelope flopping on to the doormat, extra features etc — but the current issue has been particularly engaging. In the opening editorial Jonathan Watson hands over the reigns of the magazine to Ian […]

Scottish evangelical Christianity represents a tradition of biblically faithful, theologically rich, and spiritually powerful devotion and ministry. I think, for example, of William Still, Eric Alexander, and Sinclair Ferguson as outstanding representatives of this glorious tradition. And I can’t think of these men and others like them and what they stand for without emotion. So […]

This article is the third and final part of an extensive review of Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. It is not an endorsement of the book. The first part can be found here and the second here. * * * RULE 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient). This is […]

This article is the second part of an extensive review of Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. It is not an endorsement of the book. The first part can be found here. * * * RULE 4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today ‘No matter […]

Jordan Bernt Peterson has recently become a YouTube phenomenon and a publisher’s dream. He has hundreds of YouTube films that have been watched well over 100 million times. This, his second book, (the first was Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief) has sold truckloads of copies and topped the bestseller lists since publication. Who […]

Over fifty years ago, retired missionary Jock Purves wrote a series of articles in a magazine on the martyrdom of the Scottish Covenanters. They were gathered together into an influential book entitles Fair Sunshine (Banner of Truth). The pathos with which Mr Purves described these Christians’ arrests, trials, wisdom in their self-defence before their inquisition and their […]

The doctrine of justification is undoubtedly among the most important and most disputed doctrines in the history of the Christian Church. Central to the recovery of the faith once delivered to the saints at the time of the Reformation, it has been at the centre of assaults on that faith ever since. These assaults continue […]

I have just completed the best book I have read for years, or perhaps in all my life. It is hard to be sure of that, of course, but it must be up there with the most life-changing books that providence has brought my way. It is the book that I hope will be read […]