union with Christ

From the earliest days of Protestant missions, foreign missionaries understood the need of training local pastors. The priorities given to this task varied. In many cases, circumstances helped to hasten the process. This is what happened in Manchuria, a historical region of northeast China, in 1941...

Maria Fearing and the Mission to the Congo If you think you are too old for something you wish to do, Maria Fearing can prove you wrong. She learned to read when she was 33 and became a missionary at 56. She would have continued until her death if the Presbyterian mission board hadn’t stopped her...

When Freud arrived in America to give five lectures at Clark University he is said to have quipped, “We are bringing them the plague.” He knew of what he was speaking. He wrote to a colleague referring to his invitation to Clark University saying, “By the way, we could soon be ‘up [expletive] creek...

We are familiar with treatments, such as that by B.B. Warfield, on the emotional life of Christ and we very quickly realise why it is vital to our understanding of his Person and work. God, in Holy Scripture has seen fit to include this insight into the incarnate life of his Son, not just to...

With All Your Heart Dr. Craig Troxel is professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Seminary California and James’ former pastor. Craig visits the podcast to discuss his recently written book, With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ. When Scripture mentions the...

Walking with God Jonathan and James have the pleasure of speaking with Rhett Dodson today. He’s the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Hudson, OH. Pastor Dodson was scheduled to speak at the Banner of Truth East Coast Ministers’ Conference this month, had the event not been cancelled due to the...

When we think about the doctrine of salvation, one of the more important topics to explore is the relationship between union with Christ and justification by faith. In fact, if we have a poor connection between these concepts, our understanding of salvation will be lacking. John Murray has written...

When I found that Banner of Truth was slated to reissue nineteenth-century Scottish pastor Horatius Bonar’s exposition of the doctrine of justification The Everlasting Righteousness [1] this year, I was inordinately delighted. That’s because, outside of Scripture, The Everlasting Righteousness is...

It shouldn’t surprise Protestant readers that our Roman Catholic friends (or maybe they’re not your friends) really do believe that God justifies sinners. When they read Romans 3:19-26 they also say “Amen!” But of course, it’s what is meant by the term justify that needs careful clarification. In...

Every Christian can readily acknowledge, ‘I’m not what I used to be; but I am not yet what I will be!’ We are all very much a work in progress. This is reinforced by the verb tenses the Bible uses to refer to different aspects of salvation: we ‘have been saved’ (Eph 2.8), ‘…are being saved’ (1Co 15...