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Topic Archives: Church & Ministry

The previous article, in February, discussed some ‘aspects of the Church’: its twofold character as visible and invisible, and its twofold character as catholic and local. All references in the text are to James Bannerman, The Church of Christ, Banner of Truth Trust reprint, 2015. * * * When we come to discuss the actual […]

Category Articles
Date March 23, 2018
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Watch long-time Ministers’ Conference attendee David Bissett talk about his first conference experience and a recent trend that has encouraged him.

Category Articles
Date March 19, 2018
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Tuesday 20th February was a crisp winter day in Seoul and my body clock was slowly adjusting to a new place. I left London at 10.30, taking the bus and then the tube to Heathrow Terminal 5. Everything went swiftly. I never spoke to anyone, even when attaching my baggage label to my suitcase and […]

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Date March 16, 2018
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As we long for the spiritual recovery that is so much needed in the Church and in the nation, it seems at times that we are living in two parallel worlds. In the one world there is a great output of zeal and energy and some advances are being made; in the other world there […]

Category Articles
Date March 7, 2018
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In John Bunyan’s book The Pilgrim’s Progress, the story begins with Christian discovering news which causes him great alarm. Clothed in rags and with a burden upon his back, he is distressed to learn from a book he has been reading that the city he lives in is soon to be destroyed by fire from heaven. […]

Category Articles
Date February 28, 2018
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On Sunday morning, August 5, 1855, 21-year-old Charles Haddon Spurgeon stepped behind the pulpit of New Park Street Chapel, London, to challenge his congregation to follow the example of one of the saints who had inspired his ministry, the apostle Paul. ‘As a preacher of the word,’ Spurgeon said of Paul, ‘he stands out pre-eminently […]

Category Articles
Date February 23, 2018
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This article was first given as a paper at the Free Presbyterian Theological Conference. * * *  These articles deal with a theological work which, more than any other, gives a comprehensive treatment of the whole field of ecclesiastical theology, from the Scottish Presbyterian position. It is James Bannerman’s treatise entitles The Church of Christ. A […]

Category Articles
Date February 12, 2018
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This latest book by Murray revisits some of the men whom the author has encountered in his reading and work for the Banner of Truth Trust; as such, it may be said to be proudly unoriginal. Murray is not breaking new ground, but mulling over past ministries and seeking to bring the memory of these […]

Category Book Reviews
Date January 31, 2018
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‘…and He gave some as evangelists.’ , Ephesians 4:11 My friend, William Hatcher, once said to me, ‘A company can have a nice, new beautiful building with the latest equipment to make the company profitable. It can have a great research and development department. It can train its employees very well, and position them strategically […]

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Date January 22, 2018
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‘Do the work of an evangelist.’ , 2 Timothy 4:5 In my many travels around Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in the United States, one thing is now very clear to me-I almost never see an evangelist on the staff of these churches. To be sure, on rare occasion the Senior Pastor is an evangelist and […]

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Category Articles
Date January 10, 2018
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2017 has witnessed some large sale commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Conference organizers and publishing houses have worked hard to ensure that the long lasting implications of Luther’s ‘breakthrough’ are not lost on our own generation of believers, and for this we are much in their debt. The story less told, […]

Category Articles
Date December 29, 2017
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In the first part of our discussion on Worship we were concerned to make the distinction between what would generally be called the body of worship and the heart of worship. We used another illustration of hardware and software to press that distinction. We have thus far identified two key issues which make for the […]

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Category Articles
Date December 15, 2017
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Content is at the heart of worship. It is a sad thing to hear people in worship mindlessly repeat things. Most worship services will differ little from the chanting and frenzied episodes of oriental mysticism or African ‘spirit-ism’. Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle writes, ‘If I am asked to define worship in one word, […]

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Category Articles
Date December 13, 2017
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We were in Uganda two months ago and happened to attend the only church we believed to be reformed. We had this impression because friends of ours had in previous years come to this church and found it to be not too bad. We were rather disappointed when we went in to find that it […]

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Category Articles
Date December 11, 2017
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Regular exposition of the Scriptures in one church fellowship places certain unique demands on the preacher. Remaining fresh while remaining faithful, and preaching consistently without preaching predictably can be significant challenges. A perennial problem for any settled preaching ministry, however, is that of remaining Christ-centered and gospel focused in our ministry of the Word, while […]

Category Articles
Date December 6, 2017
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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 […]

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Date November 29, 2017
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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 […]

Category Articles
Date November 27, 2017
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‘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 […]

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Date October 23, 2017
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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 […]

Category Articles
Date October 16, 2017
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Malta is a Mediterranean island situated 60 miles south of Sicily. Its population is 420,000, almost half of whom live in the capital, Valletta, and the numbers have been swollen in recent years by a stream of refugees from North Africa. Its official language is Maltese but many of the people speak English. It became independent […]

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Date October 2, 2017
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Ian Hamilton discusses his first time reading John G. Paton’s Autobiography as a young Christian, and the ‘seismic impact’ it had on his Christian walk.

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Category Articles
Date August 29, 2017
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One sometimes meets Christians who use scriptural words and thoughts with no more feeling than if they were licking stamps. They seem to belong to a religious world whose citizens live always north of the Arctic circle of emotion. Their spiritual affections are buried beneath yards of ice and snow. When they venture to talk about […]

Category Articles
Date August 18, 2017
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The members of First Church (not the real name of the church) consistently made false accusations against one another. They would regularly throw verbal mud at one another. At times, they would even form alliances and fight against one another. Some of their claims were silly. One elder accused a teenager of rebelliously going to […]

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Category Articles
Date August 11, 2017
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Some of us who are advanced in years can lay claim to  remembering life in a God-centred church and, to a certain extent, in a God-centred nation. The influence of  three centuries of the Shorter Catechism being memorized in the home, the church and the school had left its mark. The opening question: ‘What is […]

Category Articles
Date August 4, 2017
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‘. . . I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.’ , 1 Corinthians 9:16 Even a cursory reading of the Acts of the Apostles clearly shows the zeal the Apostle Paul had for preaching the gospel. The man was relentless. He went far, fast, and furious with the […]

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Category Articles
Date August 2, 2017
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