Articles

Keith Underhill, Andrew Roycroft, and Hugh Ferrier agree to answer questions on the books that have impacted their life and faith. * * * Keith Underhill now lives in Liverpool but was a minister for over forty years in Nairobi, Kenya. Andrew Roycroft is a baptist minister in Northern Ireland. Hugh Ferrier is a Free Church minister […]

Many of us can recall the intense light and surprising warmth conveyed to our hearts when we first read the exemplary history of the Reformers and the Reformation Martyrs, along with their expositions of Scripture. Their brave and strong standing fast in the faith (1 Cor. 16:13) reached across the centuries and led us to new heights in serving […]

In the mid-twentieth century, those Christians who were willing to call themselves ‘Reformed’ or ‘Calvinistic’ were relatively few in number. Liberalism had done its work in the large  mainline denominations to discredit ‘Reformation’ doctrine. Evangelicalism had fallen so low that many dismissed theology altogether by saying that doctrine only divides. ‘Calvinist’ was a slur to denigrate a Christian and to advise […]

Mack Tomlinson, Gary Brady, and Gary Williams talk to us about books that have impacted their life and faith in this new series. * * * Mack Tomlinson is a pastor and author in Denton, Texas. Gary Brady has pastor of Childs Hill Baptist Church, London, NW2, for thirty years. Gary Williams is the director of Pastors’ Academy, […]

Much has been said and written about Martin Luther in recent months. A lot has been made of the phrase that he used to characterize his understanding of justification by faith , simul justus et peccator, Latin for ‘simultaneously righteous, yet a sinner’. It certainly does help to clarify the Scriptural teaching on justification. On the […]

If My people will. . . pray and seek My face. . . then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land. , 2 Chronicles 7:14 We must humble ourselves if we are to see revival; ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ they only, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of […]

Bill Hughes, Alec Taylor, and Robert Letham agree to answer questions about books that have impacted them in their faith. * * * Bill Hughes was raised in Liverpool and served a number of churches in England, Scotland and Florida. He has now retired from pastoring one congregation, but continues to preach extensively. Alec Taylor had a long […]

The church today is crippled with a comparative absence of strong and full assurance and, perhaps worst of all, most of us are scarcely aware of it. We live in a day of minimal, not maximal, assurance. How do we know this? Assurance is known by its fruits: a close life of fellowship with God; a tender, filial […]

Robert Strivens, Austin Walker, and Mike Iliff agree to answer questions about books that have impacted them in their faith. * * * Robert Strivens is the pastor of Old Baptist Church, Bradford on Avon, and former principal of London Seminary. Austin Walker is the retired pastor of Maidenbower Baptist Church, Crawley, Sussex. Mike Iliff of Aberystwyth is […]

Robert Cecil Rayner, a beloved deacon and member at Salem Chapel, Braintree, Essex, for twenty-six years, passed peacefully away on February 9th, 2017, aged 73 years. After a severe illness he wrote the following, dated November 2014. The heading was this: ‘Toiling with Rowing on the Sea of Life’. * * * My first recollections […]

I finally paid my first visit to the new location of the London Evangelical Library. It used to be in Chiltern Street, above the original location of the Banner of Truth but now it is to be found on a little industrial estate in the north of the city, just off the north circular road. […]

This month marks 500 years since the day which is conventionally identified as the beginning of the Reformation. On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther, a monk and theological professor in Wittenberg University, nailed to the church door a set of 95 theses, statements intended for debate. They were provoked by the unscrupulous sale of indulgences […]

500 years ago, the Church in Western Europe was awash with influences calling for much-needed reform. Most of these influences flowed from the Renaissance, whose Christian scholars were weighing the contemporary Church against what they found in the Bible and the writings of the early Church fathers. Their greatest figure, Erasmus of Rotterdam, had in […]

Tomorrow, on the 31st October 2017, we commemorate what was the beginning of the Reformation under Martin Luther. One of the features of his life and work was the central place that the Scriptures played in the spiritual revival that brought about the Reformation. Luther did not think of himself as a Reformer; the reformation […]

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act in the UK. Although this article was written with the UK in mind, much of its content remains relevant to any country in which abortion is considering being legalized or is already legal. * * * Anniversaries are how we mark out our history , some […]

This is the second half of a two part article on the character and writings of William Williams. Part one may be found here. * * * Like all those touched by the eighteenth century awakening, Williams Pantycelyn was led to see that the vital matter is grace. Williams’ characterisation of the years immediately before […]

The author previously published an article on William Williams of Pantycelyn’s life. The three sections can be found here: Part One , Part Two , Part Three * * * Having traced a little of the life and experience of William Williams, it is now time to look to his character and his theology. Williams […]

‘And He gave some as evangelists.’ , Ephesians 4:11  There is a plethora of good Bible teachers and preachers in the Reformed denominations of our day, and for this we ought to be thankful. We tend to attract men who love the Bible and theology and who, consequently, are gifted in communicating both. However it […]

This is the second half of a two part article. The first part can be found here. Semi-Pelagianism Yet the death of Pelagius was not the end of his speculation; not only were there still those who followed him, but there were those who tried to develop a ‘middle way’ between the strict Biblical teaching […]

Pelagianism can be regarded as the last of the ‘Great Heresies’; after Pelagius, heretics have, for the most part, been either reworking old heresies, or have been very limited in their influence. Pelagius, on the other hand, created a false teaching that challenged the Church to consider issues that had previously been taken for granted, […]

At the 2017 Shepherd’s Conference, in Sun Valley, California, the Banner of Truth hosted a student event for Master’s Seminary Students. We sat down with Iain Murray and John MacArthur to discuss reading in the ministry, asking them if they could share their accumulated wisdom after reading and writing for decades. Here are some of […]

The following is a poem, written by William Cowper on the subject of prayer. What various hindrances we meet, In coming to the mercy seat! Yet who that knows the worth of prayer, But wishes to be often there? Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw, Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw, Gives exercise to faith […]

The Enlightenment, emerging in 18th-century Germany, rejected all supernatural religion, stressing the all-sufficiency of human reason. Its rationalistic spirit penetrated deeply into German Protestantism, and by the 19th century it was making its impact on Protestantism worldwide. It undermined belief in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, encouraging a radical form of Higher Criticism that had a long-lasting […]

For the last four Septembers I have been scheduled to travel to a Reformed Conference in St Petersburg with a number of other men.  The initiative for this event came from Dewey Roberts, the long-standing pastor of the PCA congregation in Destin, Florida. The Russian people have been on his heart since 1999 and it […]

An account of John Swallow from Charlesworth written by his pastor, Mr E. Merrett. * * * John E. Swallow, for many years a deacon of the Particular Baptist cause at Charlesworth, Derbyshire, passed away on October 31st 1918, aged 56 years. In the following account we have a striking instance of the power of […]