‘You are holding the last book of a true shepherd who knew what it is to be one of Christ’s sheep. It is a rich, biblical, theological, experiential, devotional meditation on the Twenty-third Psalm, combined with a testimony to God’s faithfulness by a godly pastor and professor who is now at home with his Good Shepherd, having long lived in the valley of the shadow of death.’ — LIGON DUNCAN, in the preface

Book Description

The Twenty-third Psalm is probably the best known of all the chapters of the Bible and among the most memorable words ever written in any language. It is so familiar that it would be easy to think that we can learn nothing more from it. But through exposition intermingled with prayers and personal testimony, David Calhoun reminds us that this psalm has great depth, and that lifelong meditation on its words will help Christians to understand just what it is to be a sheep under the care of the ‘good Shepherd.’

Each of the ten chapters in A Sheep Remembers contains a version of the Twenty-third Psalm or a hymn that is based on the psalm, followed by commentary on the verse that is being considered; writings from shepherds that help us to understand sheep and their ways; prayers, quotations and stories that illustrate the theme; and in the last place, the author’s own personal testimony.

This is a striking and profound little volume that will give much spiritual help to readers at all stages in the Christian life.

Review

• • Review by Ligon Duncan, featured on The Gospel Coalition

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post A Sheep Remembers appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

In his Spiritual Unfolding of Bishop H. C. G. Moule, John Baird wrote, ‘No course of reading is more establishing than that of Christian biography — the battle story of those who in the conflict of earth have been great in the life of God.’ Swift and Beautiful tells the amazing stories of a dozen men and women who at great cost gave their lives to take the gospel of God’s grace to those who had not heard it. Some of these faithful missionaries are well-known, others almost forgotten, but all are ‘great in the life of God.’

‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”’ (Isaiah 52:7, ESV).

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post Swift and Beautiful appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

Hundreds of biographies have been written of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox and John Bunyan. But there is something unique to be gained by listening to these men tell their stories in their own words.

Here, in In Their Own Words is a collection of testimonial statements drawn from the writings of Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Bunyan. We see men who candidly confessed their sins and boldly testified to the grace, mercy, and goodness of God to them. Their testimonies illustrate the great truth stated by Paul that ‘where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom. 5:20-21).

Table of Contents Expand ↓

Reviews

• Books at a Glance: Review by Andre A. Gazal

The post In Their Own Words appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

The goal of Knowing God and Ourselves is to help students, especially beginning students, of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion to better understand what they are reading and to encourage them to persist in working through this important but challenging book.

Calvin intended the Institutes to be a guide in reading Scripture and a theological companion to his commentaries. Above all, he wanted his readers to respond to biblical truth with love for God and obedient lives. The subtitle of this book is Reading Calvin’s Institutes Devotionally. Reading the Institutes devotionally is not merely one way of reading Calvin’s book. It is the only way to read it.

The sections in the Institutes to be read with each chapter of this book are clearly indicated. The reading assignments are from the McNeill-Battles edition of the 1559 Institutes; but if one prefers to use the briefer but ample 1541 French edition of the Institutes, translated by Robert White (and also published by the Banner of Truth Trust), the relevant chapter and page numbers for that edition have also been added to the ‘Read’ section at the head of each chapter in this guide.

‘By nature I love brevity’, Calvin wrote. The length of the Institutes may not seem to justify Calvin’s claim, but compared with many theologies, past and present, Calvin’s book is remarkable for its lucid brevity. David Calhoun has sought to follow Calvin’s advice in Knowing God and Ourselves. It is a short and lucid guide to Calvin’s Institutes, which, in turn, is a guide to the Bible.

‘I did not read Calvin’s Institutes until I was in my doctoral studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. I have been reading this book ever since, along with other writings by Calvin and books about Calvin. For twenty-five years, I taught a course in the Institutes at Covenant Theological Seminary. I do not idolize Calvin, but my respect for him as a teacher and pastor has grown through the years. Facing the daily task of living, with its many demands and pressures, struggling with incurable cancer, and trying to find a way to understand the chaos and grimness of world events unfolding around me, I have found Calvin a source of solidity and strength. Enjoying the gift of life, the blessing of love of family and friends, the joy of food and drink, the beauty of nature, and the wonder of it all, I have discovered in Calvin a fellow pilgrim whose words often reflected and focused my feelings and helped me to fix my eyes on heaven and to give thanks. Calvin also challenges me, rebukes me, and leads me on, gently but firmly, toward greater love for God and obedience to his word. I pray that your study of Calvin’s Institutes will bring you great blessing also.’

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post Knowing God and Ourselves appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘This splendid, thoroughly researched, two-volume history of Princeton Seminary reads like a novel. It tells the story of one of the key institutions that shaped the transformation of post-colonial, adolescent America into a world power, and that for the first time made the Christian faith global, carrying it literally to the uttermost ends of the earth. Calhoun has ‘the gift’ , he makes historical characters spring to life. His story is more than the story of a theological seminary; it captures the essence of a whole century and a quarter (1812-1929) of the coming of age of America.’ — SAMUEL HUGH MOFFET

‘What a blessing for mind and heart!’ — ROBERT PETERSON, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, COVENANT SEMINARY

Book Description

Volume 1
From modest beginnings in 1812, Princeton Seminary soon became an intellectual and theological school of great importance. Long before the death of its first professors its name was almost synonymous with erudite biblical exposition, carefully worked-out reformed theology and deep spirituality. Hundreds of ministers (Baptist as well as Presbyterian) and many outstanding missionaries passed through its lecture rooms, chapel services and communal fellowship to leave a permanent spiritual mark on the people whom they later served in the advance of the gospel. These
were men who believed that ‘preaching Christ is the best, hardest, sweetest work, on this side of beholding him.’ In this, the first of two volumes, we have the story with a wealth of detail and colour down to the year 1868. While the history of an institution, it is also a record of thought and action, trends and personalities. Backed by years of careful research, by his own long experience in the training of men for the ministry, David Calhoun has produced a work which must find a permanent place in the Christian literature of the English-speaking world.

Volume 2
Here we encounter the great Hodge lineage; the broad scholarship of B. B. Warfield; the brilliance of Geerhardus Vos; the emergence of the young J. Gresham Machen. And through them we are introduced to the army of men they taught, loved, and sent through-out the world to serve Jesus Christ. It is a story which enables us to catch a glimpse of what, under God, scholarship, seminary life and Christian fellowship can be.

But faithfulness to Christ and Scripture may well lead to conflict, as the Princetonians often stressed. One such conflict would eventually divide the faculty itself and cause the loss of some of its brightest stars, as Dr. Calhoun records. He has given us a narrative of joy and sorrow, surprise and disappointment, triumph and sometimes tears. All this and more lies in the story of Princeton Seminary between 1869 and 1929.

This is indeed a ‘majestic testimony’ and it leaves upon us the same conviction that Archibald Alexander’s grandson expressed at the Seminary’s centenary in 1912; ‘If the sort of theology which is taught here should die, and its enemies should grant it a decent burial, like the Lord of Life Himself, it will have a triumphant resurrection. For the Gospel which it teaches is an unconquerable force.’

The post Princeton Seminary appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘I have often said that Dr. William Childs Robinson was the greatest scholar I had the privilege of studying under. I believe that I took every elective that he offered and would say that his theological influence on my thinking was greater than that of any other teacher. I have quoted him more than probably all of other professors combined.’– D. JAMES KENNEDY

Book Description

A minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States for more than sixty years, William Childs Robinson’s career spanned the great events of twentieth-century history from the Great Depression to the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. These were difficult years for America and for Protestant Christianity in America. In this book, David Calhoun tells of how Robinson tirelessly laboured to arrest the Southern Presbyterian Church’s slide toward a liberal theological position and preserve the old Calvinism that had marked the church from its beginning. In seminary classrooms, in pulpits across the South and beyond, and in the courts of the church, Robinson’s voice was heard “pleading for a Reformation vision” based on faithfulness to Scripture and supported by the testimony of Reformers, English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters.

There then follows a selection of twenty-three articles from Robinson’s pen which show something of the breadth and depth of Robinson’s vision. In them one sees a man who exercised an all-round ministry as evangelist, pastor, church historian, and theologian, equally at ease writing on such diverse subjects as “The Saviour of Sinners”, “Under His Wings”, “The Theological Emphases of the Old Columbia Seminary”, and “The Trinity: God in Action”. Though unsuccessful in halting the church’s decline into theological liberalism, Robinson’s long years of ministry influenced successive generations of students and ministers, many of whom preserve his legacy by pleading for the same “Reformation vision”.

Review

• Review by Stephen Westcott
• Review by Greg Goswell
• Review by Alan Hill
• Review by Roy Middleton

The post Pleading for a Reformation Vision appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘I have long admired the historical/theological writings of Dr. David Calhoun (of Covenant Seminary) because he has the rare gift of combining historical accuracy, wide and deep cultural perception, theological insight and best of all, the fragrance of Christ and his gospel. His most recent volume on the first century of Columbia Theological Seminary (then in South Carolina), 1828-1927 exhibits all of these qualities in a beautiful combination.’– DOUGLAS F. KELLY

Book Description

A few blocks from the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina, is a fine antebellum mansion, the Robert Mills Historic House, named for the man who designed it. The house, beautifully restored, with Regency furnishings, marble mantelpieces, and sterling silver doorknobs and locksets, reflects the wealth and culture of Ainsley Halt, the man who briefly owned it. More fitting, however, would be desks and tables and books of the professors and students of Columbia Theological Seminary, which made the house its home for almost a hundred years. The rooms of the main floor were the classrooms, where George Howe trained generations of Southern ministers in biblical exegesis, where James Henley Thornwell taught Calvin’s Institutes, where John Adger explained the sacraments and church polity, and where John Girardeau set forth the great themes of Reformed theology. It was in one of these rooms that two students organized the Society of Inquiry on Missions in February of 1831.

On the top floor was the library-many of its books lovingly collected in Europe by Thomas Smyth, pastor of Charleston’s Second Presbyterian Church. Woodrow Wilson said that in the little chapel, originally the mansion’s stables, he had heard some of the greatest examples of eloquent and powerful preaching. In that chapel the Southern Presbyterian Book of Church Order was hammered out. A later Columbian beautifully wrote that ‘the Book of Church Order for a church which glories to acclaim [Christ] alone as King who was cradled in a manger, was composed in a house built for a carriage stable’ (William Childs Robinson, Columbia Theological Seminary, p. 94).

Table of Contents Expand ↓

Reviews

• Review by Barry Waugh
• Review by Barry Shucksmith
• Review by Gary Steward
• Review by Kenneth D. Macleod

The post Our Southern Zion appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘This splendid, thoroughly researched, two-volume history of Princeton Seminary reads like a novel. It tells the story of one of the key institutions that shaped the transformation of post-colonial, adolescent America into a world power, and that for the first time made the Christian faith global, carrying it literally to the uttermost ends of the earth. Calhoun has ‘the gift’ , he makes historical characters spring to life. His story is more than the story of a theological seminary; it captures the essence of a whole century and a quarter (1812-1929) of the coming of age of America.’– SAMUEL HUGH MOFFET

‘What a blessing for mind and heart!’ — ROBERT PETERSON, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, COVENANT SEMINARY

Book Description

From modest beginnings in 1812, Princeton Seminary soon became an intellectual and theological school of great importance. Long before the death of its first professors its name was almost synonymous with erudite biblical exposition, carefully worked-out reformed theology and deep spirituality. Hundreds of ministers (Baptist as well as Presbyterian) and many outstanding missionaries passed through its lecture rooms, chapel services and communal fellowship to leave a permanent spiritual mark on the people whom they later served in the advance of the gospel. These
were men who believed that ‘preaching Christ is the best, hardest, sweetest work, on this side of beholding him.’ In this, the first of two volumes, we have the story with a wealth of detail and colour down to the year 1868. While the history of an institution, it is also a record of thought and action, trends and personalities. Backed by years of careful research, by his own long experience in the training of men for the ministry, David Calhoun has produced a work which must find a permanent place in the Christian literature of the English-speaking world.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post Princeton Seminary appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘This splendid, thoroughly researched, two-volume history of Princeton Seminary reads like a novel. It tells the story of one of the key institutions that shaped the transformation of post-colonial, adolescent America into a world power, and that for the first time made the Christian faith global, carrying it literally to the uttermost ends of the earth. Calhoun has ‘the gift’ , he makes historical characters spring to life. His story is more than the story of a theological seminary; it captures the essence of a whole century and a quarter (1812-1929) of the coming of age of America.’– SAMUEL HUGH MOFFET

‘What a blessing for mind and heart!’ — ROBERT PETERSON, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, COVENANT SEMINARY

Book Description

Here we encounter the great Hodge lineage; the broad scholarship of B. B. Warfield; the brilliance of Geerhardus Vos; the emergence of the young J. Gresham Machen. And through them we are introduced to the army of men they taught, loved, and sent through-out the world to serve Jesus Christ. It is a story which enables us to catch a glimpse of what, under God, scholarship, seminary life and Christian fellowship can be.

But faithfulness to Christ and Scripture may well lead to conflict, as the Princetonians often stressed. One such conflict would eventually divide the faculty itself and cause the loss of some of its brightest stars, as Dr. Calhoun records. He has given us a narrative of joy and sorrow, surprise and disappointment, triumph and sometimes tears. All this and more lies in the story of Princeton Seminary between 1869 and 1929.

This is indeed a ‘majestic testimony’ and it leaves upon us the same conviction that Archibald Alexander’s grandson expressed at the Seminary’s centenary in 1912; ‘If the sort of theology which is taught here should die, and its enemies should grant it a decent burial, like the Lord of Life Himself, it will have a triumphant resurrection. For the Gospel which it teaches is an unconquerable force.’

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post Princeton Seminary appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.