Articles

We stood on the green grass sloping towards the deep-blue sea. Below us a burn meandered downwards until it became lost in the sand of the beach which skirts the ocean, while a huge bank of cloud dominated the horizon. It was a beautiful scene. But death cannot be kept out of even a beautiful […]

“Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.” So the Psalmist prayed, and we ourselves have much need of pleading for such help when the number of the Lord’s people in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is so sadly diminished. How great is the blank […]

Scotland has voted. The results have been declared and now, hopefully, all the political parties’ placards hanging from lampposts all over the country will come down. Among them were placards, from one small party, which declared: “Scotland deserves better”. Obviously, very few voters believed that this party would rule better than the others; none of […]

Egypt: Keeping the Copts Subjugated On 11 May, Muslims in the village of Bimha (or Bamha) in Ayat district (around 70 kilometres south Cairo) left their mosques after Friday prayers, armed and zealous for jihad against the indigenous Coptic Christian community and their solitary, partially built church. The violent Muslim pogrom in Bimha bears the […]

From a Northern Irish minister I just want to thank you folk at the Banner for this year’s conference. From my point of view, it was one of the best I have been at. When I was listening to Sinclair’s magnificent address on Monday night, I kept saying to myself, ‘Of course, it is so […]

A recent number of a religious journal contained an article upon endless suffering by one who calls himself an ‘Orthodox Disbeliever’ which is deserving of some remark, because it probably expresses the sentiments of a certain class which though not large may be increasing. The writer describes himself as expecting to enter the orthodox ministry, […]

Jerusalem was buzzing with activity during one of the high Jewish feast days. And now at the pool of Bethesda the controversial young rabbbi from Galilee had astounded everyone by healing a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years! But instead of rejoicing, the Jewish leaders first confronted the healed man for carrying his bed on the […]

The following was posted on the blog of Mauro Meister, Professor of Old Testament in Mackenzie University, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Benedict Pope Benedict XVI recently (May 2007) arrived in Brazil. He brought lots of things in his baggage. I’m not talking about the Popemobile or his Swiss guards. Nor about his clothing, patterned after that […]

‘The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments.’ (2 Timothy 4:13, ASV) As the Apostle Paul writes his second epistle to Timothy, he does so from the confines of a Roman prison awaiting trial. These are some of the last words he pens, or […]

Mark writes about the three women who were at the tomb of the Lord Jesus; ‘And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid,’ (Mark 16:8). The women who came to the tomb that first Easter morning showed […]

A few hundred yards beyond the house where Finlay Thomson lived most of his days, there stands prominently, on its own, a place of worship known as Teampaill Moluaidh, a building dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century and which, we are informed, was possibly built on the site of an earlier church. Moluag, as […]

Mary Stone was the daughter of Matthew Stone, a successful London Merchant. She met her husband Christopher Love, in 1639 and six years later they married. Christopher Love was a Puritan who became the lecturer at St. Ann’s Aldergate for three years before becoming the minister of St. Laurence Jewry, a church in London, in […]

In times of revival sinners experience a deep conviction of their sinful condition. Sometimes this experience can be agonising. As souls first discover their appalling condition of lostness and guilt and then are led to search for and find salvation by faith in Christ, the glory of God’s grace shines resplendently. The hymns which stem […]

I am constantly amazed how quickly and easily I forget that ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 6:12). This does not mean that indwelling sin is not […]

God made everything. His final act of creation was to bring mankind into existence. Like every other part of His work, Adam and Eve were perfect in every respect. “God saw every thing that He had made,” we are told, “and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Adam’s body was perfect; as was Eve’s. […]