Articles

The following article by Ian Shaw is featured in the November 2025 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (no. 746). You can subscribe to the magazine in print or digital formats for eleven edifying issues each year. ‘It is ironic that of all the people one might expect to hold a low view of […]

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), or ‘the Doctor’ of Westminster Chapel, was known for the clarity of his thought, the thoroughness of his exposition of Scripture, and the living vitality of his application of the Bible to the lives of his hearers. His treatment of Romans 13:1-7 exemplifies these qualities. To commend this teaching, which is […]

John Calvin was a prolific correspondent. He wrote to civil rulers and dignitaries, to fellow reformers, and even to figures who would later stray from the path of orthodox biblical faith. One such man was the Italian Lelio Sozzini (1525–1562) who would, together with his nephew Faustus Sozzini (1539–1604,) spark the movement that became known […]

The following article appeared in the August–September edition of the Banner of Truth Magazine. To receive a monthly selection of helpful articles on theology, church history, the Christian life, and contemporary issues, subscribe to the magazine in print or digital formats. Introduction The Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council, was convened in AD 325 […]

The March 2006 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (no. 510) was dedicated to the memory of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, on the 25th anniversary of his death. That issue included some fascinating detail about how Dr Lloyd-Jones (henceforth ML-J) assisted Arnold Dallimore in the writing of his two-volume biography of George Whitefield. The article […]

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 […]

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, […]

The following article by Toni Saad appeared in the May 2025 issue of the Banner of Truth magazine (no. 741). You can purchase a copy of the relevant issue, or subscribe in print or digital formats. It is a truism that even the more sophisticated strains of contemporary Reformed theology lack a developed theology of […]

The following article appeared in the January 2012 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Issue 580). Most men engaged in pastoral ministry will be asked, at some time, ‘What exactly does your work involve?’. Often, sadly, they will struggle to provide a clear and comprehensible answer. The ignorance in the popular mind about the […]

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 […]

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) was a powerful advocate of pastoral visitation (as indeed he was of preaching, which, as the ‘proclamation of the Gospel’, he saw as the minister’s ‘main work’). In his tract On the Right Ecclesiastical Economy of a Large Town he sets out the great benefits which attach to pastoral practice which engages […]

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 […]