Monthly Blog

[The following article was originally published in the Banner of Truth Magazine, June 2020] God is working to a plan (2) To make us like Jesus Like house-builders building a house or ship-builders building a ship or road-makers making a road God in saving sinners is working to a plan. Paul gives us a glimpse of it in Romans 8:29: ‘For those whom he foreknew he

[The following article was originally published in the Banner of Truth Magazine, May 2020] God is working to a plan (1) The overview Lots of new houses are being built in the part of town where you live. You pass them every day. And as you do so you see the whole process unfolding – from the digging of the foundations to the finishing touches. Nor is there anything haphazard about

[The following article is a slightly edited version of a guest editorial for the Banner of Truth magazine, March 2021] God’s intriguing timeframes How much of your life has passed? Sixty years in my case. In Moses’ case, eighty. That’s how old he is when the LORD appears to him in the burning bush and sends him to Pharaoh to bring the people of Israel out

[The following is a slightly edited version of an article published in the December 2020 issue of the Banner of Truth magazine] William Hamilton Burns (1779-1859), Pastor of Kilsyth ‘One sows and another reaps’ (John 4:37). So it was in the Scottish town of Kilsyth. On the 23rd of July 1839 a remarkable awakening began under the preaching of William Chalmers Burns. It was a spiritual reaping

Two books that will help you What are we to believe about gender? Is it the fluid thing we are continually being told? Something that we decide for ourselves? Or is it something fixed, identical with being biologically male or female, as has traditionally been believed? Let’s approach the question in a different way. Our children are being encouraged to explore their gender; to discover what it is. The

There is a quotation on the front cover of this book from the Puritan, Stephen Charnock: ‘It is impossible to honour God as we ought, unless we know Him as He is.’ An accurate knowledge of God is utterly indispensable to thinking and living that truly honours Him. That in turn makes Behold Your God an intensely practical book for its aim is to help us to grow in

On Sunday 9th July 1815, after a ministry of twelve years, the Rev. Thomas Chalmers took a sad farewell of his congregation in Kilmany, Fife. Later that month he was inducted to the pastorate of the Tron Church in the city of Glasgow. He was to remain in Glasgow for eight years, leaving in 1823 to teach in the University of St Andrews. Shortly after his arrival in Glasgow Chalmers wrote

To listen to some people, you’d think there’s nothing easier. But with others it’s different. They think of all the bad things that are going on – in their own lives and in the world – and they wonder how a God who allows these things can possibly be the loving God that Christians say he is. Is that where you are? At the end

In last month’s article we were reflecting on how rich the Lord Jesus was in his pre-incarnate state. He was rich in his freedom from need, rich in the adoration of saints and angels, rich in his possessions, rich in the love of the Father and the Spirit, rich in all that he was as God.      We begin this second article by noting that

What’s so great about the gospel? One way of addressing that huge question is to look at the greatness of our Saviour and the greatness of our salvation. The gospel is great because it sets before us a great Saviour. And it is great because the salvation that comes to us in and through that Saviour is a very great salvation.   In this article our focus is on

William Wilberforce   In the spring of 1786, William Wilberforce, Member of Parliament for Yorkshire, returned to the House of Commons a changed man. The various evangelical influences to which he had been exposed had at last borne fruit, and now, at the age of 26, he was a Christian.  His conversion profoundly affected his political life. Young and highly talented - Wilberforce was a remarkable orator - his burning ambition had

 Jonah Two helpful expositions I will always associate the book of Jonah with the Isle of Skye and Hugh Martin. Skye was where I did a number of student pastorates during the years I was at the Free Church of Scotland College. The first of them was in 1985 and over the course of six weeks I preached my very first series – an exposition of the book of Jonah

Church and danger: now they are together [To avoid any misunderstanding, it should be said that the following piece was written to help me think this matter through for myself and is posted in the hope that it may help readers do the same] Church and danger. Up until recently it would not occur to British Christians to put these two words together. We associate church with many things. But not

Job – A Reflection from the End of the Story   We all love a story with a happy ending and Job’s story, in this respect, does not disappoint us. Friends and family members come to comfort him and to help him get started again; the Lord makes him twice as prosperous as he had been before; ten more children are born to him; and the story ends with

Job – A Reflection from the Middle of the Story Through a great swathe of the book of Job – from the beginning of Ch.3 to the end of Ch.31 – we are listening, largely, to Job himself. As we do so, one thing stands out more clearly than anything else. Job is a man who is struggling. He is carrying the most terrific weight of sufferings and is

Job – A Reflection from the Beginning of the Story Job’s three friends could not have been more wrong. They looked at this profoundly afflicted man and concluded that by his sin he had brought all this suffering upon himself. What other explanation could there be? But there was another explanation, one that lay at the opposite pole to the one these men so vehemently contended for. And that

In the Best of Hands One of the abilities that we have as human beings (and it’s one that distinguishes us from all the other creatures), is our ability to ponder the future – to wonder, to imagine, to look forward to, to fear what lies before us. And we all do it! Our minds are often turning to the future and what that future might hold for us

Tired and scared? Ol’ Man River – a song from the Kern and Hammerstein musical Show Boat – has suggested both our title and subject. Listen on YouTube to Paul Robeson singing it in the 1936 film version or to William Warfield in the 1951 re-make and enjoy the treat. It movingly expresses the hardships and struggles of African Americans; especially the lines, Ah gits weary An' sick of

"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." John 17:24 O death! why dost thou touch the tree beneath whose spreading branches weariness hath rest? Why dost thou snatch away the excellent of the earth, in whom is all our delight? If thou must use thine axe, use it upon the trees which yield no fruit; thou mightest be thanked then

"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed."Matthew 26:39 There are several instructive features in our Saviour's prayer in his hour of trial. It was lonely prayer. He withdrew even from his three favoured disciples. Believer, be much in solitary prayer, especially in times of trial. Family prayer, social prayer, prayer in the Church, will not suffice, these are very precious, but the

Letters of John Newton Banner of Truth The Letters of John Newton reviewed here needs to be distinguished from Select Letters of John Newton, also published by the Banner of Truth. This is a much larger and quite separate selection. It was first published in 1869 and was edited by Josiah Bull, one of Newton’s biographers. It has a number of attractive features. One is the book itself as

[The following is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the Banner of Truth magazine for January 2019] It’s God the Father who made it happen! They are surely among the saddest words that fell from our Saviour’s lips: ‘You refuse to come to me that you may have life’ (John 5:40). And in every generation since the folly and sin

Whatever else changes, God will not What changed for you last year? Maybe a great deal. It’s so often how it is with us. Things can be very different at the end of a year from what they were at the beginning. And often these changes are unwelcome. A loved one no longer with us. A major loss of income. A drop in the value of our savings. A

Three impossible things We begin with a little exchange from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. Alice tells the White Queen, “One can’t believe in impossible things”. To which the Queen rather loftily replies, “I daresay you haven’t had much practice. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” If you are reading this