Resources

Some Christians are doubtful of the help they can find in a Puritan book written some 400 years ago. Tom Richwine, a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust, addresses this concern with a recent example.

Thomas Oden, long time professor of Theology and Ethics at Drew University, for years wrote volume after volume elaborating and espousing the latest theories and practices — successful, up-to-date, modern, in the best liberal tradition — yet somehow he remained dissatisfied. So, quite a while ago now, he shifted gears sharply and produced a volume […]

Born in June of the year of the French Revolution, in the then village of Basildon, Essex, Allen Gardiner longed to go to sea, to fight the French, and to follow Mungo Park in exploring the interior of Africa. By 1810 he was at sea and engaged in fighting in the Pacific in the Phoebe […]

Having been vacant since June 2010 with the emeritization of Dr. L. W. Bilkes, the Free Reformed Church of Grand Rapids was privileged and blessed to install Dr. David Murray as a Free Reformed minister labouring in our congregation. Synod 2013 of the Free Reformed churches unanimously approved Dr. Murray to be called as Free […]

Lately many new church buildings have or are still being built by congregations of our denomination. Some of these are the congregations’ second buildings since their founding. What a contrast this is to the situation in Israel. During the entire history of Israel as a modern state, not a single building was erected and dedicated […]

On 30th August 2013 the news broke that Seamus Heaney had died in a Dublin hospital, following a short illness. A measure of the legacy left by the poet’s life and work was given by the widespread sense of sadness across cultures and continents that a man of greatness and forceful intellect had passed away. […]

In how many ways may we glorify God? 1] It is glorifying God when we aim purely at his glory. God must be the untimate end of all actions. Thus Christ, ‘I seek not mine own glory, but the glory of him that sent me’ (John 8:50) . . . Oh let us take heed […]

We are all familiar with the feeling of accomplishing a big task. Often we can feel the pressure almost physically in our muscles and bodies. But then one day we can say it is done, we tick it off and feel the relief. That is how we felt at HaGefen when the fifth and final […]

Who is sufficient for the task of spiritual leadership? The man who leads Christ’s flock needs at least two rare qualities: a compassionate heart, and also nerves of steel. No one is well equipped to guide the saints of God on earth unless he has two seemingly contradictory sides to his character. He needs to […]

At the Banner’s 2013 U.S. Ministers’ Conference, Paul Wolfe shared with us one of the most important lessons he has learned in his 12 years of pastoral ministry.

It is the easiest thing in the world to say, ‘The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord’, when all is well with you and yours. When life is sweet, when your children are trusting in Christ, when your church is united and loving, when your spouse loves […]

Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9). That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal . . . he found no place for repentance, though he sought it with tears (Hebrews […]

I first attended a meeting at the Aberystwyth Conference almost fifty years ago in 1964. It was Eric Alexander who was giving the morning conference addresses and I still remember an illustration he used in his message on man’s sinfulness. A circus performer had a boa constrictor. He would give the snake an order and […]

One of the great mistakes Christians make with regards to the Christian Sabbath is viewing it as a prison or hindrance. In fact, God has given it to us to bless us. In Isaiah 58:14, God promises three things in connection with the faithful observance of his day: increased delight in him, spiritual victory, and […]

New Testament Worship That which is special, that which is our best, that which is sacrificial: We may be tempted to think such standards made sense in the context of Israel’s ancient worship but have little to do with us. After all, none of us shows up at church on Sunday morning bearing sacrifices. Or […]

Welcome to the new Banner website. We are excited to introduce you to a completely new online experience of the ministry of The Banner of Truth Trust. On this site you will be able to learn more about the ministry of the Banner, shop more effectively for sound Christian books and find fresh, edifying content […]

How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels By N.T.Wright New York: Harper Collins, 2012 304 pages, paperback ISBN: 978 0 06173 057 3 Wright has carved out a name for himself in his studies of the historical Jesus and Paul’s theology. He has consistently and convincingly challenged the liberal view of the […]

One of the many temptations confronting the minister of the gospel in this generation is to become involved in unnecessary administrative church work. Once involved, the demands tend to increase, often resulting in a degree of deterioration in the quality of his pulpit ministry. Books which encourage such involvement are pouring from the press, lauding […]

Marriage was God’s gift to a perfect world. He had said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’, even when that man was without sin and living in holy communion with God. God in kindness saw fit to make a companion for Adam – another human being, not identical to him, but […]

‘Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!’ (Rom. 11:33). These words are the ending of the theological section of the letter to the Romans as Paul has set it out in the first 11 chapters of the epistle, and […]

What we put on may be more important than we think. The so-called ‘worship wars’ of recent years may have produced a winner. Many congregations remain divided between traditional and contemporary styles, but in most places the contemporary appears to have gained the upper hand. What’s more, our worship services have become increasingly relaxed and informal […]

Judged by the unqualified appeals in much modern ‘evangelism’ to the natural man’s unaided reason, emotions and will, one might conclude that ‘modern man’ is able to respond positively, and that he has no need of God’s efficacious grace. That such presumption is wholly groundless was the firm conviction of the late R. A. Finlayson, […]

What an excellent book, a brilliant series of studies on theologians, witnesses, pastors and fathers of the church that both clearly and concisely tell us not only about the people themselves, their times and their beliefs but in so doing helps inform us about our own faith, theology and beliefs – especially if you are […]

In recent weeks I have been reading Augustine’s Confessions. It is a great and compelling read, a 300-page prayer that illuminates Augustine’s search for God and for life. As I read the opening chapters I was struck by a word that Augustine regularly uses and that had not registered with me before. Again and again […]

‘No man in his time spake with such evidence and power of the Spirit . . . many of his hearers thought no man since the apostles spoke with such power.’ (John Livingston) Whilst he was in the ministry at Edinburgh, he shined as a great light through the whole land, the power and efficacy […]