Prayer is indispensable—it is the key ingredient in truly fruitful life and ministry. This week's Magazine Monday looks at a group of nineteenth-century Scottish ministers who knew this to be the case to an extraordinary degree.

Featured resource:

Jonathan Watson, 'John Milne of Perth and the Importance of Prayer,' Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 617 (February 2015).

Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org

Subscribe to the Magazine (print/digital/both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine

Leave us your feedback or a testimony: www.speakpipe.com/magazinepodcast

This week's Friday Extra is a short snippet from David McKay, author of Last Things: Preparing for the Future in the Present. This volume is one of our Banner Mini-Guides, concise introductions to essential areas of Christian belief and life.

More on the book:

https://banneroftruth.org/store/christian-living/last-things/

What makes a Reformed pastor? Ian Hamilton draws out some lessons from the strengths and weaknesses of the seventeenth-century Scottish pastor, Samuel Rutherford.

Featured resource:

Ian Hamilton, 'Marks of a Reformed Pastor: Lessons from Samuel Rutherford,' Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 617 (February 2015).

Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org

Subscribe to the Magazine (print/digital/both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine

Leave us your feedback or a testimony: www.speakpipe.com/magazinepodcast

What do we need to know when melancholy comes knocking? Where do we turn when the darkness does not lift?

This week's Magazine Monday is a reading from the Edinburgh minister John Colquhoun (1748–1827). The October 1971 issue of the magazine included the following excerpt from Colquhoun's Treatise on Spiritual Comfort (1814).

Featured resource:

John Colquhoun, 'Directions to Christians Afflicted with Melancholy,' Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 97 (October 1971).

Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org

Subscribe to the Magazine (print/digital/both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine

Leave us your feedback or a testimony: www.speakpipe.com/magazinepodcast

In this Friday Extra, Rufus Burton, Minister at First Presbyterian Church, Martinsburg, West Virginia, recommends Chad Van Dixhoorn's Confessing the Faith: A Reader's Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Buy the book:

https://banneroftruth.org/store/theology/confessing-the-faith/

Study guide, authored by Emily Van Dixhoorn:

https://banneroftruth.org/store/theology/confessing-the-faith-study-guide/

'Endeavour with all your might to make a conquest of all those enemies that be within you.' So wrote the Puritan Thomas Brooks (Works, vol. 6, p. 385).

This week we take a closer look at the virtue of self-control, without which we are left vulnerable to all of the predations of Satan and sin. Heaven-bound saints cannot afford to neglect self-control.

Featured resource:

Mark J. Larson, 'The Virtue of Self-Control,' Banner of Truth Magazine, Issues 515–516 (August–September 2006).

Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org

Subscribe to the Magazine (print/digital/both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine

Leave us your feedback or a testimony: www.speakpipe.com/magazinepodcast

In this Friday Extra, the Chair of the Banner board, Rev. Jeff Kingswood, recommends one of our more obscure biographical titles, Faith Cook's William Grimshaw of Howarth.

Buy the book: https://banneroftruth.org/store/history-biography/william-grimshaw-of-haworth-2/

The subject of health, and what is now called 'mental health,' comes up a great deal today, even in connection with ministry. While the treatment of the subject may sometimes leave much to be desired—biblically, theologically, or medically—it is at least firmly on the agenda.

That was not the case when Dr Brian Beardsworth was asked to speak on the topic of 'The Pastor and His Health' at the 1992 Leicester Ministers' Conference in England.

The substance of this address was published in two parts in Issues 358 and 359–60 (July and August–September 1993) of the magazine. Rather than read these, we have included Dr Beardsworth's address in its original form in this week's instalment of Magazine Mondays.

Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org

Subscribe to the Magazine (print/digital/both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine

Leave us your feedback or a testimony: www.speakpipe.com/magazinepodcast