Monthly Blog

A message for Christmas 2023 Here’s something that happened just over seven hundred years ago. On the 24th of June 1314 a famous victory was won by the Scots over the English at a place called Bannockburn. I mention it not because I am a Scot and Bannockburn is one of the outstanding events in our national history but rather as an illustration of a special ability that we

The Banner of Truth has just published a book of daily readings. It is called From Day to Day and was written by Robert Macdonald. There is a link to it at the end of this article. It was my privilege to write an introduction both to the author and his book. What follows is the text of that introductory sketch. Robert Macdonald was born in Perth, Scotland, on the 18th

The emotions of God God has been described as a being with “a profound emotional life”, and the Scriptures – particularly the Old Testament – certainly bear that out. We ourselves are emotional creatures. We know what it is to have love, joy, peace in our hearts. We have felt anger, jealousy, grief, pity, disgust, hatred, compassion. We are familiar with a whole range of feelings. God is portrayed

A heart for the lost After the death of Catherine Marsh in December 1912 Handley Moule, Bishop of Durham, wrote of the “great gift” it had been “to have known such a Christian woman, and to have seen Christ so magnified in her”. That gift has not been completely withdrawn. Through her writings and through a biography written by her niece, Lucy O’Rorke, The Life

[The following review originally appeared in the August 2023 edition of Evangelical Times]        Why the Reliability of Every Word from God Matters                             Question Three of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What do the Scriptures principally teach?” Here is the first part of the answer: “The

Sam Alberry is eager for his readers to grasp what he calls “the positive vision the Bible gives us of singleness”. “When I started this project”, he says, “my initial aim was to write about the goodness of singleness. It is often maligned or demeaned in the church today. I wanted to redress that”. If this positive vision of singleness is to be ours, however

John McLaren was the minister of the United Presbyterian congregation of Burnbank in the Cowcaddens area of Glasgow. He was its first minister and in the five years of his ministry the congregation experienced remarkable growth. Sadly, on the 21st of June 1859, after an illness of several months, McLaren died. He was just a few weeks short of his thirty-third birthday. In early February of that year he wrote

The Lord our Shepherd - Douglas MacMillan The name of Douglas MacMillan will not be familiar to most of you. He died in 1991 at the relatively young age of 58. In the mid-80s, when I was a student at the Free Church of Scotland College in Edinburgh, he was Professor of Church History. I owe him a great deal. I’m not sure how much history I learned

Captain Hedley Vicars A Christian soldier Robert Murray M’Cheyne, minister of St Peter’s Church in Dundee, Scotland, died in March 1843 at the early age of twenty-nine. When Captain Hedley Vicars died in March 1855, twelve years later, it was at much the same age. Writing of the similarities in their experiences an eminent contemporary, William Arnot, says the following: “Upon both, in diverse spheres

A book for Easter Words from the Cross by Ian Hamilton                                                            

From darkness to light Some very distinguished ministers of the Scottish church began their ministry in spiritual darkness. Alexander Henderson was one. Thomas Chalmers a second. A third was an older contemporary of Chalmers, Alexander Stewart, successively minister in Moulin, Dingwall, and Edinburgh. It is with Stewart’s story that our interest lies. Alexander Stewart became parish minister of Moulin near Pitlochry, Perthshire, in 1786. He was twenty-two years

John Aaron The name Thomas Charles of Bala had been familiar to me for many years and I knew that he was an eminent evangelical Welsh minister of a bygone day. But beyond that, I confess, I knew next to nothing about him. If any reader of these lines has to make the same admission let me encourage him or her to make Thomas Charles’ acquaintance. He is well worth

The story begins like this: on the night that Jesus was born certain shepherds were out in the field, keeping watch over their flock. It was to them first of all that the news of his birth was broken. And by an angel no less! “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people”, he said. “For unto you is born this

[The following article originally appeared in the Banner of Truth magazine for July 2022] Who really knows what is going on in the heart of a sufferer? Only the one whose heart it is. That is what Solomon means when he says, Proverbs 14:10, “The heart knows its own bitterness”. It’s a word about solitude. By bitterness we are to understand sorrow, heartache, anguish. We all

[For the background to this series of articles see the post for May 2022, Forty years ago] Charles Haddon Spurgeon The fuller picture Entering the world of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) – of his life and ministry – is no mere matter of exchanging monarchs (from Charles III to Victoria), or modes of transport (from high-speed jets to horse-drawn carriages), or methods of communication (from the internet to

[For the background to this series of articles see the post for May 2022, Forty years ago] Robert Murray M‘Cheyne The beauty of holiness When Robert Murray M‘Cheyne died on March 25th 1843, at the early age of twenty-nine, the grief was deep and wide-spread. ‘Perhaps never’, writes his friend and biographer, Andrew Bonar, ‘was the death of one, whose whole occupation

[For the background to this series of articles see the post for May 2022, Forty years ago] George Whitefield The power of the gospel A young man by the name of George Whitefield, not yet twenty, and a student at Oxford University, was deeply in earnest about saving his soul. And he did seem to be making progress. He had been fasting and praying, meditating on Scripture and earnestly doing good

[For the background to this series of articles see the post for May 2022, Forty years ago] John Calvin From Geneva to the world Calvin and Geneva. The two are inseparable. For though John Calvin was a Frenchman most of his adult life was spent in the famous Swiss city. First from 1536-1538 and then from 1541 till his death in 1564 Calvin served as a minister of Geneva&rsquo

[For the background to this series of articles see the post for May 2022, Forty years ago] John Knox Scotland’s great Reformer When John Knox arrived in the east coast town of St Andrews in June 1559 his friends were anxious to prevent him preaching. The reason? A threat from the archbishop that if he appeared in the pulpit the soldiers present would shoot him. But Knox was resolute

It all began on my twenty-first birthday. One of my gifts was an edition of John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It was my first introduction to church history and Christian biography. I was gripped. That was January 1982. Come June I started a summer job (I was a university student at the time) with Mother’s Pride, a factory bakery in my home-town of Ayr. Now

The happiest of disappointments “See Mary weeping”. So runs the invitation in the Townend-Getty Easter hymn, See what a morning. Mary has come to Jesus’ tomb on the morning of the first day of the week and stands outside it weeping. Why is she weeping? She gives us the answer herself: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid

[This month’s post is the text of a booklet written a number of years ago. I had been asked by several different people about the statement in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ descended into hell. What did the Creed mean by that? And was it correct? What follows is my attempt at an answer. With Easter next month it seems an appropriate time to consider the matter afresh

Revival in Rose Street is a history of Charlotte Baptist Chapel, Edinburgh, by Ian L.S. Balfour, published in 2008 to mark the 200th anniversary of the congregation. It is a massive book, extending to 515 pages, and full of fascinating information.  I bought it principally for the history of the revival (1905-1907) from which it takes its title. What follows is largely a series of excerpts from Balfour

Ever envied Titus? Perhaps not. He did after all have rather large shoes to fill when Paul left him in Crete and it was no easy task he had been assigned. There were big things that needed to be done, difficult situations that needed to be addressed, important truths that needed to be taught. And Paul was no longer there to help him. Titus did, however, have one very remarkable resource