Articles

The following article is featured in the present issue (743–744) of the Banner of Truth Magazine, Aug–Sept 2025. The world is a needy place; it lies in darkness and the only remedy is gospel light. This should weigh on us, as it weighted on the Lord Jesus. As he himself was engaged in preaching the […]

The following article appeared in the February 1982 issue of The Banner of Truth Magazine. In May, 1789, Adam Rankin, having travelled from Kentucky to Philadelphia for the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, made the following query: ‘Whether the churches…have not fallen into a great pernicious error by […]

Beginning on 26 September 1680, John Owen preached three consecutive sermons from 1 Corinthians 15:31, opening up Paul’s statement ‘I die daily.’ At points he is intensely personal, preaching to himself, preparing for his own death which took place almost three years later on 24 August 1683. He was also aware of other noteworthy men […]

Beginning on 26 September 1680, John Owen preached three consecutive sermons from 1 Corinthians 15:31, opening up Paul’s statement ‘I die daily.’ At points he is intensely personal, preaching to himself, preparing for his own death which took place almost three years later on 24 August 1683. He was also aware of other noteworthy men […]

Beginning on 26 September 1680, John Owen preached three consecutive sermons from 1 Corinthians 15:31, opening up Paul’s statement ‘I die daily.’ At points he is intensely personal, preaching to himself, preparing for his own death which took place almost three years later on 24 August 1683. He was also aware of other noteworthy men […]

Beginning on 26 September 1680, John Owen preached three consecutive sermons from 1 Corinthians 15:31, opening up Paul’s statement ‘I die daily.’ At points he is intensely personal, preaching to himself, preparing for his own death which took place almost three years later on 24 August 1683. He was also aware of other noteworthy men […]

Beginning on 26 September 1680, John Owen preached three consecutive sermons from 1 Corinthians 15:31, opening up Paul’s statement ‘I die daily.’ At points he is intensely personal, preaching to himself, preparing for his own death which took place almost three years later on 24 August 1683. He was also aware of other noteworthy men […]

Beginning on 26 September 1680, John Owen preached three consecutive sermons from 1 Corinthians 15:31, opening up Paul’s statement ‘I die daily.’ At points he is intensely personal, preaching to himself, preparing for his own death which took place almost three years later on 24 August 1683. He was also aware of other noteworthy men […]

The following article is the editorial from the July 2025 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine. You can purchase the issue here, and subscribe to the magazine for monthly features on Christian life, faith, and doctrine. If you were to ask the question, ‘Who needs a creed?’ the answer from many would probably be, […]

John Murray was arguably the premier Reformed theologian of the twentieth century. He was born and brought up in a small crofting community in the Highlands of Scotland and was shaped by the piety and confessional rigour of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in which his father was a much respected elder. However, through […]

The following post first appeared as Picture This… on the Gentle Reformation website. Permit me to ride a hobby horse of mine for a few minutes! I want to issue a plea for an exegetically informed gifted illustrator to produce illustrations for a really excellent children’s Bible story book. I wonder how many children grow […]

The following post first appeared as Picture This… on the Gentle Reformation website. Permit me to ride a hobby horse of mine for a few minutes! I want to issue a plea for an exegetically informed gifted illustrator to produce illustrations for a really excellent children’s Bible story book. I wonder how many children grow […]

Anne Ross Cousin is best known as the authoress of the hymn, The sands of time are sinking. Its nineteen verses (in its original form) are based on the death-bed sayings of a remarkable seventeenth century Scottish preacher, Samuel Rutherford. What is not so well known is that Anne Ross Cousin put into verse some […]

The following article from the pen of A. W. Pink appeared in the January 1978 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine, no. 172. It was the New Year message from Studies in the Scriptures, January 1939. The dawning of a new year is a fresh call unto each of us to put first things […]

This is about the person who has given his name to Christmas, Jesus Christ. It will only take you a few moments to read. A single word— special—sums up why you shouldn’t grudge the time. Special person Had you seen Jesus after he was born in Bethlehem special is not the word that would have […]

The following short article appeared in Issue 690 of the Banner of Truth Magazine (March 2021). The first volume of William Cunningham’s works to be prepared for the press by his literary executors, James Buchanan and James Bannerman, was The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation. It was published in 1862, a few months […]

Having your children with you in worship can be hard. It can be hard for the parents, for the children, and for the rest of the congregation. The squirming, the shuffling of papers, the loud whispers, and the louder cries, all can make it challenging to have our children with us in corporate worship. But […]

The following was published as ‘Preserve Evening Worship Services!’ in the October 2007 edition of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Issue 529). It was written by Michael G. Brown, who at the time was pastor of Christ United Reformed Church, Santee, CA. He currently pastors Chiesa Riformata Filadelfia in Milan, Italy. ‘Why do you go […]

The following, which appeared in Issues 611–612 of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Aug–Sep 2014) is from John Angell James, The Anxious Inquirer After Salvation Directed and Encouraged*. We are grateful to Mr Martyn Jolly for bringing this extract to our attention and supplying the text. It may seem strange to some persons, that I […]

1. Jesus Claim: Jesus had no interest in maintaining a male-female requirement for sexual relations. What the evidence really shows: Jesus believed that a male-female requirement for sexual relations was foundational, a core value of Scripture’s sexual ethics on which other sexual standards should be based, including the ‘twoness’ of a sexual union. Jesus predicated […]

The following post first appeared (on October 24, 2016) on www.reformation21.org, a blog run by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is posted here with their kind permission. After a cracking day at the Evangelical Library in London on “Reading John Owen” (opening, it has to be said, with Nigel Graham giving what may be […]

Think about someone being selected and sent to do an especially difficult job. Some major crisis has arisen, or some massive problem needs to be tackled, and it requires the knowledge, the experience, the skill-set, the leadership that they so remarkably possess. It was like that with Jesus. Entrusted to him by God the Father […]

The following article appeared in Issue 291 of the Banner Magazine, dated December 1987. ‘The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those that published it’ (Psalm 68.11) THE NEED FOR TRUTH I would like to speak to you today about the importance of the use of liter­ature in the church, for evangelism, […]

The following words, so contemporary in their feeling and import, come from John Kennedy (presumably of Dingwall), and were published in the 6th Issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (May, 1957). In times such as ours it is easy to seem a bigot, if one keeps a firm hold of truth, and is careful […]

The following post was published on the Reformation21 Blog, and is reproduced here by their kind permission. Last week I noticed that Ryan Gosling was nominated for an Oscar for playing Ken alongside Margot Robbie’s Barbie in last summer’s hit by the same name. Robbie, incidentally, was not so nominated. I won’t watch the film, but I […]