Topic Archives: Theology

What is our hope for loved ones who, in the language of Scripture, now ‘sleep in Jesus’ (1 Thess. 4:14 ESV)? We are sure that, like the thief on the cross, they are at this very moment with the Saviour in paradise. But what of the future? In a glorious section of his first letter […]

I would like to ask you a question. But before I ask my question, I want first to prepare the way. The Bible has many ways to describe what a Christian is. A Christian is a forgiven sinner, a new creation in Christ, an adopted child of God, a heaven-bound pilgrim. One of the most […]

BOOK REVIEW: Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, by John M. Frame [Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2013], 1280 pages, hardback, $49.99 list, ISBN: 978 1 59638 217 6. John Frame, a former OPC (and now PCA) minister, who is currently a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, has written a long-anticipated systematic […]

‘The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9). We are considering the perfections of God. When the Puritan Stephen Charnock considers the attributes of God he lines up this beautiful string […]

I like to read a book about the Bible every year. Although I’m often reading what I already know, I still find it deeply beneficial to regularly remind myself what the Bible really is, how it came to be, and how I should read and interpret it. That’s especially true in a day when the […]

Scripture and history tell us that the destruction of men’s best interests is brought about by the reception of error. When churches embrace a lie rather than God’s truth there is an inevitable spiritual and moral decline. R. L. Dabney wrote towards the end of the 19th century: ‘While German scholarship has been busy with […]

John Flavel was a 17th century puritan preacher and writer. This small book consists of nearly 400 brief extracts from his works. It is a wonderful hors d’oeuvres—full of tasty titbits. To whet your appetite here are some quotes: How soon would faith freeze without a cross? Bear your cross therefore with joy. If I […]

Malachi 3:6 ‘I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.’ Whatever troubles we have today, and whatever buckets of regrets that burden us, they must shrink into thimblefuls as we begin to consider God. Whatever are the achievements that make us proud, they will grow less and less […]

An extract from Chapter 5, ‘The Hope and Puritan Piety’ in Iain Murray’s The Puritan Hope,1 due to be reprinted (2014) in a new, larger format. At the outset it has to be admitted that an interest in unfulfilled prophecy is not always conducive to Christian piety. The Christians at Thessalonica were only the first […]

. . . propitiation in His blood (Romans 3:25). Our God is a consuming fire. He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. In his just wrath he casts sinners into a Christless hell where they remain in conscious torment until the day they appear before the judgment seat of Christ and give account […]

‘And he went outside and wept bitterly’. It is Matthew’s final word about Peter. He has faithfully recorded the details of Peter’s sin – the warning that preceded it, the pride in which it originated, the sin itself in all its aggravating features – and now he speaks of the effect on Peter when the […]

People were amazed and critical then and they would be exactly the same today. Here was a star of the British Olympic team, one of the favourites to win the gold medal in the 100 metres, declining to run in the heats because they were being held on a Sunday. The reason? His Christian convictions. […]

We’ll come to our own day in a moment. But first, the world of Paul’s day and how there were things that many knew but failed to understand. One had to do with how people were living. All could see, for example, that in the realm of sexual behaviour, promiscuity in general and homosexuality in […]

Extracts from the chapter on ‘Adoption’ in John Murray’s Redemption – Accomplished and Applied, reprinted in a new British edition by the Trust in 2009.1 When God adopts men and women into his family he insures that not only may they have the rights and privileges of his sons and daughters but also the nature […]

I was born in 1974 in a small village in Siberia near the city of Tumen. My name is Vitali. When I look back on my childhood I cannot remember a single happy day. This was because both my parents were alcoholics. My father hardly ever worked and when he did all the money, or […]

Romans 3:24 ‘And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.’ Some sentences are packed with meaning and this is a prime example. These words are a forceful explanation of what the wonderful truth of God’s justification is all about. Virtually every word in the sentence is important, even […]

This is an excellent addition to Banner of Truth’s “Let’s Study” series. Like all the others this book seeks to combine explanation of the text with application. Mark Johnson admirably succeeds in this clear and concise commentary. He shows that Paul was writing to a relatively young church that was being destabilised by a mixture […]

‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (John 17:3). These words are from the greatest prayer ever prayed, and they tells us the answer to the quest all mankind has been engaged in since the fall of Adam: What is eternal […]

Introduction ‘When through the blood of the everlasting covenant we children of the shadows reach at last our home in the light, we shall have a thousand strings to our harps, but the sweetest may well be the one tuned to sound forth most perfectly the mercy of God.’ This thought of A. W. Tozer’s […]

For many years we have been deeply concerned that there are so many people in our congregations who clearly possess the fear of the Lord, and yet who have never found any real assurance of their interest in Christ, and so have never openly professed the Saviour’s name. The sad thing is that so many […]

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit . . . Do not quench the Spirit . . . Insulting the Spirit of grace (Ephesians 4:30, 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Hebrews 10:29). If the filling of the Holy Spirit yields conviction of sin, conversion, and sanctification;1 if the believer can expect his words to bring forth Holy Spirit […]

Worship services in evangelical churches do not mention sin, a major part of the gospel message, Dr. Cornelius Plantinga, senior research fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, said Monday [March 24, 2014] at the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Faith Angle Forum. ‘In very many evangelical and confessionally Reformed churches these days, sin […]

We have no idea what we take for granted in the United States. I emigrated from Syria to American when I was 19 years of age, and became an American citizen four years later, and then a Christian many years later. As a photojournalist for twenty-five years, I have experienced up close and personal this […]

The great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, infamously referred to the book of James as ‘an epistle of straw’ in his preface to the German New Testament. What is less well known or talked about, is that Luther also praised the book of James in the same preface. Luther said about James, ‘I praise it and […]

In the mid-nineteenth century, archaeologists digging around the Palatine Hill in Rome unearthed a house that formed one part of the palace of the emperor Caligula, an unpleasant man who reigned in Rome from A.D. 37 until he was murdered in A.D. 41. In the years following Caligula’s death, the imperial palace continued to grow, […]