Resources

At the end of May, men will be gathering for the US Banner Ministers’ Conference, to enjoy a time of worship, prayer and fellowship. This year we will be studying the conference theme of The Living and Enduring Word. Have a look at the videos below to learn about what the speakers will be discussing. […]

When ministers and elders gather together, it is usual for them share their ministry burdens with each other. The calling of a minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is high and hard; the weightiness of the calling and the sufferings experienced in it give us the need to discreetly share some criticisms […]

It has been on my mind for quite a while to post an article on ‘sinner theologians’, but I hesitated because of its potential for being misconstrued. However, having just received the latest issue of the Westminster Theological Journal and having read a review article by Professor Donald Macleod, I was persuaded to go ahead […]

‘Yes, the Lord will give what is good and our land will yield its produce.’ – Psalm 85:12 George Frideric Handel was born in Germany in 1685 and was a devoted Christian in the Lutheran Church. While living in Italy as a composer of Italian operas, when this form of musical entertainment began to wane in […]

The Great Heresies – 4 Introduction The study of what historians refer to as ‘the Great Heresies’ is no mere intellectual or antiquarian exercise, but shows the main lines of error that have affected the Church over the centuries. In Gnosticism we are confronted with the lure of claimed secret knowledge, and of a matter-spirit […]

“…and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together…” (Gen 3:7) Atheists attempting to work out the worldview implications of their (un)belief-system appear to be on the rise these days (for an excellent handling of one example from a Christian perspective, see here). I recently came across another example in the […]

‘Wilt Thou not Thyself revive us again that Thy people may rejoice in Thee.’ – Psalm 85:6. On January 20 the USA witnessed the swearing in ceremony of Donald J. Trump to become the forty-fifth President of the United States of America. While I am expectant of economic progress for all due to President Trump’s economic […]

Omnipotent is one of the many words which appear in the older versions of the English Bible, but not in the more modern ones. It is also part of the vocabulary of our hymns, but is rarely employed in more modern choruses and Christian songs. It is a word which can only be applied to […]

Few would disagree that there is a lightness in society today. Men of substance are scarce. David Wells, in commenting on the loss of character, says: ‘We have become T  S Eliot’s “hollow men”, without weight, for whom appearance and image must suffice. Image and appearance assume the functions that character and morality once had. […]

Lately I’ve been sleeping less to get more done, and therefore feel drained in the doing; so I sleep more and get less done, but worry that I need to work faster. It’s a vicious cycle I’m sure many reading this have experienced. Reading through some old notes on Calvin’s Institutes made me realize what […]

Last November Pepe Moreno celebrated 25 years as the pastor of the Evangelical Church in Alcázar, central Spain. We caught up with him (this is not easy) and got him to answer a few questions… 1. When did you first think about becoming a pastor? My calling to the ministry is, in many ways, related […]

‘But God,’ -Ephesians 2:4a. God spoke and all things came into being. He gave freedom for man and woman to eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve was deceived and Adam deliberately disobeyed God. And then death came upon all mankind, […]

The God who knows everything about himself has by no means told us all. There are many things that remain a secret, known only to himself. Much, we may be sure, has been passed over in total silence. And when he has spoken, he has told us only a very little. The mysteries of Christianity […]

It came as a bit of a shock, although not a great surprise, to hear a leading Reformed minister say recently that he did not have a proper doctrine of the church for most of his ministry. We have witnessed a recovery of the doctrines of grace over the last sixty years in the United […]

‘What man is he that feareth the LORD? Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.’ (Psalm 25:12-13) There was a time not too many years ago when a believer was described simply as a ‘God-fearing man.’ That was […]

First Protestant missionary to translate the Bible into Chinese The great English poet and hymn writer William Cowper wrote the following well before Robert Morrison left for China: Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtues, temper, understanding and taste that lifts him into life and lets him fall […]

The so-called great heresies are worthy of examination for a number of reasons, one of which is that they represent the main lines of attack against Biblical Christianity. With the exception of Gnosticism, which begins with the claim to secret knowledge apart from the Bible, they depend on a distortion of the Biblical witness. Modalism […]

‘Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.’ – Revelation 2:10 Zakaria Botros, an Egyptian Coptic priest, born in Egypt in 1934, who was declared by the Arabic newspaper al Insan al Jadeed to be Islamic public enemy number one, has a $60 million bounty on his head from Al Qaeda. […]

It is not so long ago that in almost every church service we would hear the opening words, ‘Let us worship  God’,  or ‘Let us unite in the public worship of God ‘. When it came to the public reading of Scripture, the preacher would say, “Let us hear the Word of God’ . A […]

Iola Thomas 1941-2016. A husband’s tribute, given by Geoff Thomas at the funeral of Iola Thomas, 27th October 2016. I believe in God-honouring tributes to be given in Christian funerals, and enjoy them, and feel something is missing if they are absent. If I had to give you a text on which I had to […]

In recent years there has been an increasing argument as to whether the Act of Remembrance, as practiced across the United Kingdom and further afield on Remembrance Sunday each year, should include references to God. It was General William Tecumseh Sherman who first coined the phrase, ‘War is hell.’ If that is the case, then […]

Calvin’s sermons on Paul’s epistle to Titus have been available in the form of a facsimile of the 1579 edition of Calvin’s sermons on the letters to Timothy and Titus. This new translation by Robert White, however, has the pleasing effect of making them more accessible to the modern reader, as well as more portable. […]

Taken from an appendix to a new book on holiness by Sinclair B. Ferguson, entitled Devoted to God: Blueprints for Sanctification. In almost any discussion of the role of the law in sanctification there is one commandment that causes considerable debate—the commandment on the Sabbath day (Exodus 20:8-11). It is certainly the commandment that seems to give evangelical Christians the greatest difficulty. […]

Next year, 2017, will be the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. At the end of October, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg. We expect lots of murmurings and questionings next year, that that whole event was a ‘fiction,’ and that […]

On September 3 2016, Rhodri Brady, the son of Gary and Eleri Brady, was ordained to follow his grandfather, Geoff Thomas, as the pastor of Alfred Place Baptist Church (Independent), Aberystwyth. Geoff Thomas gave this ordination prayer on that occasion, using some material from Valley of Vision1. O blessed Saviour, help us. Who are we […]