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Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame. (Revelation 16:15) Midori Ito, the great Japanese figure skater, who was favoured to win the gold medal at the 1992 Winter Olympics […]

Cipriano de Valera was instrumental in giving Spaniards the Scriptures in their own language at the time of the Reformation, so much so that his name still adorns the spine of many Spanish Bibles today (along with that of Casiodoro de Reina). But for the last twenty-two years the name of Cipriano de Valera has […]

So it’s broken and won’t be working until next spring at the earliest. First there was ‘a glitch with one of the 30-tonne transformers which caused an initial delay of a few days’, then ‘a quench leaked a tonne of helium coolant into one of the tunnels, forcing a further shutdown while repairs could be […]

When I was a young minister, a man who never attended church (though formally a member) died unexpectedly. Some time later I was visiting with one of his sons and the son’s wife. During our conversation the young man said to me, ‘My Daddy believed that the Second Coming was near and would occur, if […]

The Promise of the Future is written by Cornelis P. Venema and published by Banner of Truth (2000)1. This is arguably the most important major Reformed study in biblical eschatology since The Bible and the Future (1972), by Anthony Hoekema, a former teacher of the author, who is professor of doctrinal studies at Mid-America Reformed […]

John the Baptist, incarcerated in the prison of Machaerus east of the Dead Sea, sent some of his disciples to Jesus with a question, which Luke reports twice. So it must be a question to which Luke wants to draw our attention. It is the most momentous question that should exercise minds now as it […]

Introduction Teresa of Avila calls for our consideration on several counts: 1. Her writings are increasingly popular amongst unconverted but professing Protestants who find her ‘mystical spirituality’ attractive in their own ‘pursuit of God.’ We are thus alerted to a dangerous ‘enemy within the gates.’ 2. She is revered by Romanists as ‘a quintessential Catholic’, […]

The child in the manger in Bethlehem, for whom there was no room in the inn, may have seemed powerless, but he was the Son of God. The angel had told Mary, his mother: ‘That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1:35). Thus, while he […]

From the ‘one flesh’ teaching about marriage (Eph. 5:22-33) Paul draws out the wonder and the glory of Christ’s relationship with the church. In verse 28 Paul is exhorting husbands to love their own wives as they love their own bodies. It would hardly please a wife to hear her husband say that he loves […]

‘an invaluable resource for the expository preacher . . . a landmark study for its sheer comprehensiveness and scholarship . . . immensely practical . . . this book should be on the shelf of every American preacher who is committed to the sacred task of biblical exposition’ [Logan Almy on John Carrick’s The Preaching […]

The Westminster Confession of Faith, insisting that Scripture is sufficient in our day, holds that ‘those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people’ have ‘now ceased’ (1.1). We who adhere to that doctrine are thus often called ‘cessationists.’ That label carries a lot of baggage. By itself, it’s negative. In current debates […]

Most readers will be acquainted with Spurgeon and the Downgrade Controversy. Today the apostasy signalized by Spurgeon’s opponents has probably reached its nadir. At least it is hard to imagine how much lower the enemies of the true Christian Faith can fall while retaining the name of Christ. The solid saving truths that were once […]

David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her. (2 Samuel 11:4) Recently a former Presidential candidate admitted to an adulterous affair against his wife who has been diagnosed with an incurable cancer. The National Inquirer broke the story last October but the candidate vehemently dismissed the story, […]

The word reveal means ‘to uncover.’ Suppose there is a plate of cookies on the table covered by a towel. When the towel is removed, then you can see what’s there – a plate and cookies. You see what you could not see before. When we use the word revelation in theology, we are talking […]

While commenting upon the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, I was brought into most intimate communion with Thomas Manton, who has discoursed upon that marvellous portion of Scripture with great fulness and power. I have come to know him so well that I could pick him out from among a thousand divines if he were […]