Why We Need to Study Our Calvinistic Baptist Heritage

Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the leading church historians of this century, used to tell of an occasion in 1956 when he was in Copenhagen and decided to seek out Hal Koch, an authority in second- and third-century Christianity. Twenty-four years earlier Koch had published a book on the Alexandrian theologian Origen, Pronoia und Paideusis, which had subsequently played a fundamental role in shaping Pelikan’s understanding of early Christian thought. To Pelikan’s surprise and even chagrin, though, Koch had ceased researching the patristic era. Instead, he was concentrating his energies on studying the life and thought of N. F. S. Grundtvig, a Danish theologian. When Pelikan expressed his surprise at this change in area of specialization, Koch replied that while the thought of Origen and other early Christian authors would never lack for students, if he and his fellow Danes did not do research on Grundtvig it would never get done.[1] Ever since I read this anecdote I felt how accurately it applied also to our Calvinistic Baptist heritage. A few figures from this heritage are of interest to those of other Christian communitites, for instance, John Bunyan and Charles Spurgeon, but the vast majority of those who played an important role in creating this heritage or tradition and passing it on have been all but forgotten. And the only way that their achievement is going to be remembered and valued is if we who share like theological convictions make a concerted effort to rediscover it.

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[1] “Foreword” to Henry W. Bowden, ed., A Century of Church History. The Legacy of Philip Schaff (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), ix.

Theresa Veronica Haykin (1933-1976)

A few days ago I posted regarding my appreciation for my father. Growing up, though, my mother was much the main figure around my house. My father was simply too absent at work for much of my early life. My mother was Irish. And if I am pushed to the wall as to my ethnic identity, I am Irish or Irish-Canadian. My father is Kurdish, but certain decisions he made effectively cut off any contact with that part of my past. And so I grew up in a strongly Irish Catholic household with my mother’s culture forming the ambience in which I moved and had my childhood and teens. Yes, born in England. But there is far too much in my make-up that cannot be explained by the English land in which I was born and, as I have gotten to know the Irish better, I see it is that cloth that I am cut from

Origins are not everything. The most important fact about me is this: I am a sinner with a great Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (to borrow from John Newton). But this sinner was born and raised Irish. And I have grown to love that cultural heritage.

My mother was a consummate extrovert and loved people. People fascinated her and she could strike up a conversation with anyone. She became a true believer in the Lord Jesus not long before she died—and is now in glory (what a fabulous word that—glory!). Growing up, I adored her. Her death was devastating. Not that I ever doubted God’s goodness or right to do with his creation as he pleased.

She was a beautiful person. That death was in 1976. Over thirty years ago. In some ways, though, her person is as fresh now in my mind as when last I saw her on the day before she died.

Learning from Ruth Graham

This is an excellent piece by Stephen Griffith: Lessons Learned from Ruth Graham. HT: Justin Taylor.

Episcopalian Priest: Both Christian & Muslim!

What a world we live in! It sometimes takes one's breath away in terms of its beauty and symmetry. At other times, the horror of sin and death leaves one stunned, speechless, and sorrowing!

And then there are those moments that also leave one stunned, but in this case it is because of the folly of humanity.

Dr. Mohler reports on the case of an Episcopalian priest by the name of Rev. Ann Holmes, who has recently claimed she is both a Christian and a Muslim. Dr. Mohler rightly points out the folly of such thought. You cannot be both! Unless, as he states, you redefine these terms. She does, and is really guilty of heresy—from both Christian and Muslim standpoints! What is equally foolish is her bishop who says that Rev. Holmes’ commitment to both Christianity and Islam is exciting in terms of inter-faith dialogue.

Read the account here by Dr Mohler: Clueless in Seattle -- Can You Be Both a Christian and a Muslim?

Thanking God for My Father

I went to visit my father yesterday since he was flying to Helsinki, Finland, later in the day and would not be around for Father’s Day. As I think of my father, I am deeply thankful for a father who was never afraid to weep for his children, especially me, when I was a wayward youth.

I am thankful for a father who personally sacrificed for his children and decided not to go back to his homeland in Iraq because he rightly felt that we would have a better life in the West. What a providence that! I would have been of age to have fought in the Yom Kippur War, which Iraq was involved in. What I was spared from!

I am deeply thankful for a man who raised us in the West and gave us western values. One of my birth names is Azad (the A. in my signature is for Anthony, an uncle, not for Azad). It means “freedom.” It well depicts what my father felt when he came to England where I was born. It probably is not politically correct to say this, but I am so thankful to God for such a providence that I was raised in the West and that he led such a father to make critical decisions that have affected my life. I probably should start using that A. again—even if it means having three initials!

Heavenly Father, thank you for this man, who was the first man in my life.

Our Speech & the Holy Spirit

On the Lord’s Day, February 21, 1748, a sorrowful Jonathan Edwards mounted the pulpit of the Northampton meeting-house to deliver a funeral sermon for his daughter Jerusha (1730-1748), whom Edwards later said in a letter to John Erskine was “generally esteem’d the Flower of the Family.”

As he spoke that morning of his daughter who had died the previous Sabbath and who was the first of Edwards’ eleven children to die, he confessed that his heart was “very heavy and sorrowful” and that his daughter’s death was “so bitter and afflictive” to him. Yet, Edwards was ever the disciple of Christ, eager to learn what his divine Lord was teaching in the midst of this sorrowful event

As Edwards sought to apply the lessons that God was teaching through his daughter’s death, he began by telling the young people of the congregation to:

“Avoid a light and vain conversation. Don’t let any filthy communication come out of your mouth, contrary to that rule, Col. 3:8… Don’t delight in lascivious talking and jesting, and lewd and filthy songs, contrary to those rules, Eph. 5:3-4…And avoid all profane speeches, speaking in a light manner of things that are of a sacred nature, as though you had not much reverence towards God and things divine and religion, but could lightly bring in these things to set off a jest and enliven your diversions with them. It becomes Christians to observe that rule, Col. 4:6, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.” When you meet together, contrive that your conversation may often turn upon something in some respect profitable, tending to some instruction.”

Among the passages that Edwards is drawing these thoughts from is Ephesians 5, in which Paul is listing things that grieve the Spirit of God. While all unholiness grieves the Spirit, Edwards was right to notice the way that the Apostle Paul highlights misuse of our tongues as a way of grieving the Spirit.

“Do not grieve”

The text, Ephesians 4:30, is a classical proof-text of the personhood of the Spirit. This ascription of grief to the Spirit is an assumption of His personality. “To grieve” is to “affect with … deep sorrow.” In other words, “to grieve” is to cause emotional pain, deep emotional suffering, to disappoint, to sadden. As such, it is an affection which is only felt by persons. Only persons have such a rich emotional life to encompass grief. One cannot grieve a force, nor I dare say, animal. It is only persons who can be grieved.

As the Puritan author John Owen rightly says: “to talk of grieving a virtue or an actual emanation of power, is to speak that which no man can understand the meaning or intention of.”[2] The practical consequences of this means that we are to reverence and obey the Spirit.[3]

Forgetting who the Holy Spirit is

How are we to reverence the Spirit? Well, first, we are to reverence the Holy Spirit by having a high view of the Spirit. We grieve the Spirit when we fail to consider that dwelling within us is a co-equal member of the Godhead, worthy of worship, reverence and honour, One who has all the resources needed to overcome sin.

A part of a letter, though written nearly 200 years ago, well expresses the point here. It comes from the pen of a young Welsh Calvinistic Methodist woman named Ann Griffiths (1776-1805). Writing to a friend named Elizabeth Evans she says the following:

“Dear sister, the most outstanding thing that is on my mind at present as a matter for thought is to do with grieving the Holy Spirit. That word came into my mind, “Know ye not that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in you” [1 Corinthians 6:19]; and on penetrating a little into the wonders of the Person, and how he dwells or resides in the believer, I think in short that I have never been possessed to the same degree by reverential fears of grieving him, and along with that I have been able to see one reason, and the chief reason, why this great sin has made such a slight impression upon my mind, on account of my base and blasphemous thoughts about a Person so great.

“This is how my thoughts ran about the Persons of the Trinity. I feel my mind being seized by shame, and yet under a constraint to speak because of the harmfulness of it. I thought of the persons of the Father and the Son as co-equal; but as for the Person of the Holy Spirit, I regarded him as a functionary subordinate to them. O what a misguided imagination about a Person who is divine, all-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful to carry on and complete the good work which he has begun in accordance with the free covenant and the counsel of the Three in One regarding those who are the objects of the primal love. O for the privilege of being one of their number.

“Dear sister, I feel a degree of thirst to grow up more in the belief in the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in my life; and this by way of revelation, not of imagination, as if I thought to comprehend in what way or by what means it happens, which is real idolatry.”[4]

Notice the statement “all powerful to carry on and complete the good work which he has begun.” Ann is alluding to the fact that the Spirit is the One who enables us to persevere to the “day of redemption”, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 4:30.

Grieving the Spirit by sin

But we also grieve the Spirit when we sin in thought, word or deed. Paul lists some examples of such sinful behaviour in the larger context of Ephesians 4:17-5:14:

We grieve the Spirit when:

· We live as though we do not have a new nature (Ephsians 4:17-24; 5:8-9). In general terms, the Holy Spirit is grieved by everything that is contrary to Holiness. Since he is the “Holy Spirit,” he is always grieved by unholiness.

· Specifically, when we sin with our mouths by lying (Ephesians 4:25), using “foul or abusive language” (Ephesians 4:29), slandering others (Ephesians 4:31), uttering obscenities, foolish talking, coarse jokes (Ephesians 5:4), we grieve the Spirit.

· When we exhibit unjustified anger (Ephesians 4:26-27, 31).

· When we steal (Ephesians 4:28).

· When we engage in sexual immorality (Ephesians 5:3). Cp. 1 Corinthians 6:19.

· When we covet (Ephesians 5:3, 5).

Notice how behind these admonitions lie a number of the ten commandments: You shall not murder, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not covet.

The Holy Spirit and our speech

Now did also you notice how many of the sins listed in these verses involve the tongue, Ephesians 4:25, 29, 31; 5:4? In fact, the Scriptures devote a lot of attention to sins of tongue. This devotion is well captured by a remark attributed to C.H. Spurgeon that “if all men’s sins were divided into two bundles, half of them would be sins of the tongue.” That this statement is no exaggeration is shown by the frequent reference to the tongue in, for example, Proverbs, our Lord’s teaching, James 3, and the letters of Paul, of which the text before us is a very instructive example.

Ephesians 4:25

Lying and deceit grieve the Spirit. “Falsehood can mean any distortion of the truth whether in act or word. Here, however, the emphasis seems to be on spoken falsehood, i.e. lying.”[5] Christians are to steer clear entirely of this vice. Yet, how easily to fall into, especially when we’re in a tough spot. Instead, Paul says, and he quotes from Zechariah 8:16, Christians are to tell the truth to one another. Why? First, truth is admirable for its own sake. By being truth-tellers we reflect the character of the Holy Spirit: see Titus 1:2.

Then, lying is especially detrimental to the Christian community. It is noteworthy that Paul does not appeal to the Decalogue: see Exodus 20:16. Instead he states that the bonds of Christian love and fellowship are broken when we deceive one another. “How can there be fellowship if there is lying?”[6] And Christian unity is a creation of the Spirit—look back to Ephesians 4:3. Insofar as lying hurts Christian fellowship, it grieves the Holy Spirit. When we speak the truth, we gladden the Spirit.

Do you grieve the Spirit by lying? Do you embellish, stretch the truth? Do you exaggerate? Do you flatter? Do you make promises you have no intention of keeping? Or do you seek to be honest with all your words?

Ephesians 4:29, 31; 5:4

Not only lying grieves the Spirit, but also “unwholesome word(s)”(NASB)/“corrupt communication” (NKJV). What is meant by “unwholesome words”? Look at some different ways this phrase is translated:

· “corrupt communication” (KJV; NKJV)

· “evil talk” (RSV)

· “unwholesome talk” (NIV)

· “foul language” (Phillips)

The Greek word behind these different translations has the idea of something that is “rotten” or “corrupt,” and bears the connotation of that which spreads rottenness. It can also be used to mean something that is “useless” or “worthless.” What lies behind this admonition is that “words reveal character.” See Matthew 12:33-35.

Further on Paul uses other terms that are part of this general admonition: slander and malicious gossip, described in Ephesians 4:31 as blasphemy and obscene language and lewd stories (Ephesians 5:4). Blasphemy is “speaking evil of others, especially behind their backs, and so defaming and even destroying their reputation.” It “includes the enjoyment linked with slandering others, deliberately saying or repeating things about others that are calculated to do them harm.”[7]

Even the best of Christians wrestle with this misuse of the tongue. A good example comes from the diary of John Newton (1725-1807), the well-known evangelical author and hymn-writer, and author of “Amazing Grace.” In a diary entry for 1777, some 30 years after his conversion, we find these words:

“My Lord, forgive me that, besides many other things wrong in me, I have not bridled my tongue. I profess to abhor evil speaking of another, yet I fear I have been guilty of it in a rash and needless censure of Mr. De Courcy—was ensnared in other respects with levity, from a foolish desire of pleasing. Oh pardon me, and teach me to avoid the like evils in future.”[8]

Ephesians 4:31

Then, finally there is the sin of shouting, screaming, brawling, which has its roots in anger and wrath (Ephesians 4:25-26). Now, Paul is aware that there can be such a thing as righteous anger. See Ephesians 4:25-26. Verse 26 is best understood in relationship to a text like James 1:19-20. “Anger, though on a rare occasion appropriate, does not often serve God’s purposes…, since it is usually compounded with…human sin. Only if this can be excluded can anger be justified.”

From the example of Jesus we see that anger may be free from sin, but such anger is rare in our existence. And even justified anger has a way of taking control of a person if it is nursed and allowed to smolder in the heart. Thus Ephesians 4:26. If one fails to heed this and allows anger to linger on until it grows into bitterness and resentment, you give the Devil a foothold, a base of operations, within your life, from which he can pollute your entire being (Ephesians 4:27).

What about you? “Are you guilty of any contention or strife? Do you quarrel, argue or engage in heated discussions?” Do you like to give people a “piece of your mind”?

The solution

How do we deal with the problem of the tongue? First, there needs to be constant recollection of who indwells us, namely, the blessed Holy Spirit of God who is grieved when we misuse our tongues. If we were more conscious of his presence and more fearful of hurting him we would be less likely to sin in this way. Then, Paul gives us positive ways of using our tongue:

· Speaking the truth (Ephesians 4:25)

· Ephesians 4:29: The test of a man’s conversation is not simply “Am I keeping my words true and pure?” but “Are my words being used to minister grace to the hearers?” And to do this, Paul stresses we must take into consideration the needs of those to whom we are talking. As we do so we follow footsteps of Christ: Isaiah 50:4.

· Ephesians 4:32.

Finally, there needs to be persistent prayer: see Psalm 141:1-3. A striking illustration of this is found in an account of the early ministry of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (d.1981) by his Bethan Lloyd-Jones in Aberavon, Wales:[9] “William Thomas seemed to have little trouble with the lesser things, nor with some of the bigger hindrances either. His drinking habit just left him, with no effort on his part to deal with it. It had been a part of the whole of his adult life. There were not many days without drink playing a big part in them – not many evening and nights when he was not totally incapacitated through alcohol. And yet, at his conversion, his desire for it left him and was never a problem in his Christian life.

“There were, however, other areas of fierce struggle, and heading the dark list was bad language. Staffordshire Bill was foul-mouthed—so much so that even the toughest of his worldly acquaintances were sickened by him—one of the reasons why he always found himself left to his own company, in some deserted corner of the place where they were drinking. With his conversion came the conviction that he must do something about this. He realised that it was dishonouring to God and offensive to man. He must stop swearing and using bad language. But now he discovered that he was up against something that was too strong for him. He could not speak without swearing, he could not utter a sentence that was not peppered with oaths and blasphemies. He could not help it and he could not stop it.

“The truth is that he did not know that he was doing it until the words were out, and then the realisation that these horrible terms and words came from his own lips sickened and shamed him and he was driven to a frenzy of despair and to abject misery. It may seem strange that he never sought the help of a fellow Christian in this matter, but he was too ashamed, and he suffered for some weeks, little dreaming that deliverance was at hand.

“It came about in this way: he was getting up one morning and gathering his clothes together to get dressed. But there were no socks among his

clothes. He went to the bedroom door and shouted to his wife ‘I can’t find my … socks! where are the … things?’ As he heard himself, and realised what he had just said, a great horror possessed him and he fell back on the bed in a paroxysm of despair. He cried aloud: ‘O Lord, cleanse my tongue. O Lord, I can’t ask for a pair of socks without swearing, please have mercy on me and give me a clean tongue.’

“As he lay there and then got up from that bed, he knew that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His prayer, his cry of agony was heard and answered. It was his own testimony that from that moment to the end of his days no swear word or foul or blasphemous word ever again passed his lips. Hearing his own account of this amazing deliverance on a subsequent Wednesday night at the Fellowship Meeting is something we who were there will never forget. His face, wet with tears and alight with an inner joy and wonder, his faltering voice broken with emotion, brought a warm wave of response from every heart.”

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[1] OED, IV (1933), s.v.[2] Works, III, 88.[3] Cf. C.R. Vaughan, The Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975; rpt. 1894 ed.), 409-412[4] Cited A.M. Allchin, Ann Griffiths (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976), 49-50.[5] C. Leslie Mitton, Ephesisans (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1976), 167.[6] See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 155.[7] Lloyd-Jones, 282. Cf. L.H. Marshall, The Challenge of New Ethics, 284-285.[8] Josiah Bull, John Newton (London, 1868), 223. [9] Memories of Sandfields 1927-1938 (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1983), 86-89.

In the World, but Not of the World

Appreciated this blog posting by my good friend Kirk Wellum: Here We Go Again. Kirk rightly points out the end-term problems with allowing culture to drive theology. Of course, as we have seen in the past 100 years, Baptists are not immune to this. One thinks of the Down-grade controversy in the 1870s and 1880s, the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the 1920s, and the more recent struggles within the SBC. Of course, there is a tension here: how to be within a culture to have a credible witness yet not have one's core values shaped by that context? There is the rub!

But it can be done, as numerous instances of faithful witness down through the centuries remind us. One solution to the problem is to know our history better. It is not the only solution. One thinks of prayer, for example. But knowing the past is a solution. The writer of Hebrews 11--or should I say, the preacher of Hebrews 11, for I think Hebrews a sermon--knew this truth.

And taking history seriously will itself be a counter-cultural act in a world that is fascinated with the present and adores the future, but loathes the past.

True Shepherding a La Baxter

I have been thinking about ecclesial issues intentionally now for a number of years. In part it is a way of resisting the drift of North American Evangelicalism’s laxity when it comes to ecclesiological matters. One critical question for our day is: what is ministry according to the new covenant? What does it look like when “all shall know the Lord” and his Word is written on all of the hearts of the members of the community? Surely, it entails the minister becoming a true shepherd of the sheep—guiding them and guarding them, being a custos animae. In his response to the award he was given last night at the Centre for Mentorship and Theological Reflection in Toronto (see previous blog entry), Dr. Packer spoke about the God of happy surprises. He described how, when he was called to be a pastor, he responded to the call by insisting that he was a bit of an “odd fish”—a good English expression—and really very shy. How was such a person to do the work of ministry, he asked himself and God. But he sensed God telling him to go forward and he would enable Dr. Packer.

What struck me afterwards as I reflected on this was that Dr. Packer hit the nail on the head regarding pastoral ministry. It is work among sheep, minding them, nurturing them, making sure that they do not fall into a thousand and one calamities. And to do all of this one must get among them.

In other words, the shepherd must smell of sheep! I am sure shepherds when they come home from their labours smell “sheepy.” So must true pastors. Here, Richard Baxter is the guide, is he not? For all of his oddities regarding certain soteriological issues, he laid out a true guidebook to pastoral work in his The Reformed Pastor. It is a very convicting book—but so necessary in our day for Reformed brothers whom God has called to pastoral ministry.

The task of the true pastor is a multi-faceted work: prayer and preaching, mentoring and discipleship, caring and loving. Please brothers who are called to this ministry, give your selves to this task: 1 Peter 5:2, shepherd the flock of God in all of its dimensions.

Thanking God for J. I . Packer

What follows is a small tribute I was asked to bring at the annual meeting of the Centre for Mentorship and Theological Reflection, Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, where Dr. Packer was given an award for his distinguished contributions to the Body of Christ as an historical theologian. In the mid-1730s George Thomson (1698-1782), the Anglican vicar of St. Gennys, a windswept village in North Cornwall perched atop cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, wrote to the Nonconformist hymnwriter Isaac Watts (1674-1748) to let the latter know how much he appreciated his hymns and other writings.[1] In his letter, Thomson happened to remark about the way that he and Watts were “differently ordered,” a reflection on their ecclesial differences. Well, I find myself in a similar position to Thomson, though in this case it is the Nonconformist thanking the Anglican Evangelical for his writings.

A few years ago, Dr. Alister McGrath, who has written the biography of Dr. Packer,[2] drew up a short collection of what he called the “core theological writings” from Dr. Packer’s massive literary output between 1954 and 1998. It sought to give the reader interested in Dr. Packer’s work some guidance as to the central ideas of Dr. Packer’s thinking. The pieces included ranged across the entire breadth of Dr. Packer’s contribution to the life and thought of the church, from biblical inspiration to ecclesiological issues, from revival to the cross, from Reformed piety to the importance of recognizing our indebtedness to the past.[3] Reflecting recently on this valuable collection caused me to think about what works of Dr. Packer have been most instrumental in shaping my Christian life and thought.

Undoubtedly, the first would be his classic Knowing God (1973), which I read not long after I became a Christian in the mid-1970s and gave me a vision of the God of the Scriptures: holy and sovereign, Triune and a God of mercy and grace abounding to sinners. Then there would be his Keep In Step with the Spirit (1^st ed., 1984) that was of enormous help in making me realize that the central work of the Holy Spirit in this new covenant era is the glorification of the Lord Jesus (see John 16:14). This was of tremendous help to a believer struggling with the claims of the then-charismatic movement.

Then, Dr. Packer’s helpful essay “Steps to the Renewal of the Christian People” (1983) gave me a morphology for understanding revival that has stayed with me ever since I first came across it in the early 1980s. Fourth, Dr. Packer has helped establish me in the Reformed tradition through books like Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (1961) and his introductory essay to John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ, which convinced me of the true nature of the biblical gospel.

Finally, may I say that Dr. Packer’s numerous essays on figures of the past, ranging from Thomas Cranmer to Richard Baxter, from George Whitefield to Martyn Lloyd-Jones have been of enormous help to me in knowing how to read history as both a Christian and as an historian. In particular, Dr. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (1990) has been a major shaper in my thinking about that remarkable body of believers, the Puritans. Dr. Packer led me to see the Puritans as sure guides to many areas of the Christian life. Though we are “differently ordered”, I thank God for Dr. Packer: for his enormous contributions to the life and thought of the church—and for the help that he has given, by the grace of God, to this one sinner seeking to be a faithful Christian pilgrim.

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[1]For a good study of Thomson’s ministry, see G. C. B. Davies, The Early Cornish Evangelicals 1735-1760. A Study of Walker of Truro and Others (London: S.P.C.K., 1951), 30-34, 37-52. For the letter, see Donald Davie, The Eighteenth-Century Hymn in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 49.

[2] J.I. Packer: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997).

[3] The J.I. Packer Collection (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999).

Reformed Preachers Whistling Dixie?

I am constantly amazed that far too many good preachers who love the doctrines of grace and who are assiduous in their reading of the Scriptures fail to notice one critical aspect about ministry in the New Covenant: it is intimately linked to bulding community and relationships. There is, I suspect, among some of these brothers, a mistaken view of what constituted faithful ministry in the past—among the Reformers, for example, or the Puritans. Those brothers in the faith from those bygone eras are seen as great expositors and nothing more. Now, there is no doubt that they were preeminentely preachers. And there is no doubt that the Word was central in their ministries. But, without friendships (is not Calvin the great model of friendship here with his passionate friendships with Farel and Viret? Or the spiritual brotherhood among the Puritans, a logical result of which was Baptist ecclesiology) and mentoring relationships (look at the remarkable Baxter in Kidderminister) the Word does not have a context in which to bear fruit.

When I first read the life of that quintessential Reformed loner, A.W. Pink, I thanked God for his great insights into the Word in a day when Reformed truth was not in high demand. But I was horrified (and I do not say that word lightly) by his isolationism and lack of concern for friendship and fellowship. Surely, the love of the truth should lead to a walking in the light with fellow lovers!

Or to put all of this more colloquially: if we think we are being faithful to the New Testament and are not passionately concerned about building Christian community, we are whistling Dixie!

F.W. Boreham & His Mentor, J.J. Doke

F. W. Boreham (1871-1959) has long been one of my favourite authors. I am not sure where I first encountered his writings. Most likely I came across them in what was then the library at Central Baptist Seminary,Toronto, the first school where I had full-time employment as a teacher. But I took an immediate liking to this author who was the final student C. H. Spurgeon ever accepted into his Pastor’s College. The books I first read were his unique topical sermons on Bible texts that he preached in Baptist Churches in New Zealand and Australia and that summed up the lives of various figures in church history. Boreham’s A Bunch of Everlastings (1920) and A Casket of Cameos (1924) are gems in this regard. It was with great interest, then, that I picked up this slim study—F. W. Boreham, Lover of Life: F. W. Boreham’s Tribute to His Mentor (Eureka, California: John Broadbanks Publishing, 2007)—by Boreham on the man who was his mentor, Joseph John Doke (1861–1913). Doke was a Devonian from the West Country in England who came out to New Zealand when Boreham had just arrived at his first pastoral charge. The two became close friends and in the matrix of their friendship there was what proved to be a rich experience for Boreham, namely that of being mentored by Doke. It was Doke who helped make Boreham into a voracious reader when Boreham had come to recognize the limitations of his theological training. The solution Doke suggested was reading: “Read my dear man,” he once told Boreham, “Read; and read systematically; and keep on reading; never give up” (p. 8)!

It was also Doke who challenged Boreham to reflect deeply on how to walk with God. On one occasion, by role-playing, he helped Boreham learn how to minister to the sick and dying. As Geoff Pound states in the introduction, this small work is “a helpful vision of what a mentoring relationship might become” (p. x).

Though a frail man physically, Doke was cut from heroic cloth, as his later years well reveal when he helped Mahatma Gandhi in his struggle for human rights in South Africa. On one occasion he even saved Gandhi’s life.

This is the first of a series of Boreham’s books that are being reprinted by the newly-formed John Broadbanks Publishing. It is attractively produced and augurs well for future reprints.

Note: “Chuddigh” on p. 6 should be “Chudleigh.”

To learn more about Boreham, visit: “The Official F W Boreham Blog Site” (http://fwboreham.blogspot.com/). For a brief biography, see Geoff Pound, “F. W. Boreham: Australia’s Greatest Baptist Preacher Ever”, The Baptist Studies Bulletin, 6, No.1 (January 2007) (http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/bulletin/2007/january.htm#Worlds%20Greatest ).

The Beauty of God and Its Derivatives

If the Triune God is the paradigm of beauty, all other things in this universe derive their beauty from him.

This means that this world is beautiful, despite the horrors of human sin and fallenness that we have seen this past week.

And to long to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is not only an eschatological passion that should grip our souls but is something that we can experience in the here and now—in his Word, among his people, and in his creation.

And does this not mean that the longing for that beatific vision of the Triune God in the face of Christ cannot simply entail a turning away from this sin-sick world? Is it not the glory of God in this world—yes, experienced imperfectly because of the Fall—that drives in part my longing to see that glory in the world to come?

Thinking about God

Within the borders of the universe that humanity inhabits there are two types of beings. There are those beings that are dependent on another. They encompass everything from elephants to snails, from angels and demons to galaxies and suns, from human beings to viruses. Then, there is that One Being, upon whom all of this depends. He alone is self-existent—the great Yahweh, the One who told Moses that his name was “I am that I am.” All other beings draw their sustenance and existence from him. He is utterly unique in that he has no need of anything outside of himself. He alone possesses what students of theology (the study of God) call aseity, the attribute of self-existence. And in giving life and being to all of creation, from the greatest object to the smallest particle, he is to be confessed as the one and only Creator. There are many gods that men and women worship. Being made in the image of the true God human beings have an unquenchable desire to worship. But being fallen they inevitably worship gods of their own making. Well did John Calvin, the French Reformer, say that the human mind is a factory of idols. The sole remedy is God’s gift of spiritual sight, by which, when it is given like a ray of light from heaven, people are awakened to know the true God and know themselves as his creatures.

He is thus sovereign over his creation. He gives life and he takes it away, he raises up nations and mountains and casts down them down, he brings suns to light and extinguishes them. And none can hinder him. What he has decided will surely come to pass, and in this exercise of sovereignty is his glory.

Human beings have the privilege and responsibility of acknowledging this sovereignty of God. Again, they can only do so when God so inclines their heart. By nature they are rebels, despising his authority, with some going against what they instinctively know, and claiming that God does not exist.

But oh he does exist! Of that fact the Christian is more sure than anything else he or she knows. And it is the Christian’s “sweet delight”—to borrow a phrase from Jonathan Edwards, the 18^th century Christian preacher—to submit to this great God and acknowledge utter dependence on him and live for him and his glory.As such, Christian talk about God is far more than a philosophical discussion about his existence. It is joy itself, for the Christian has come to the one and only true God and in knowing him find meaning for life, and yes, life eternal.

Andrew Fuller the Reader: A Conference at Southern

Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) is the most influential theological figure in 19th-century Baptist life and thought. C.H. Spurgeon once described him as “the greatest theologian” of his day. And Southern Baptist historian A.H. Newman was convinced that Fuller’s influence on American Baptist life was so large as to be almost “incalculable.” Despite this enormous significance, though, relatively little has been done recently to explore the nature and impact of his thought. In conjunction with the publication of the critical edition of Fuller’s works by Paternoster Press, this is the first of four conferences exploring Fuller’s world and his thought. In this conference, North American and British scholars explore the theological influences that went into shaping Fuller’s thinking. Papers will explore the way that colossi of Christian thought, men like John Owen and Jonathan Edwards, and other lesser-known figures played critical roles in shaping Fuller’s thought. This conference is a must for any Baptist keen to understand the roots of his or her heritage as well as for anyone interested in exploring the thought of a man who is, in his own way, a colossus in Church history.

The conference will take place August 27-28, 2007, at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. More details to follow.

I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins

When it comes to sin, human beings are prone to one of two errors. Either, as in our day, they do not believe in it at all or have so watered it down that it is but a pale copy of the hideous reality; or, as in the Middle Ages, sin so grips the mind that the reality of a merciful God is practically regarded as little more than fancy and recourse had to others, like Mary, to find a balm for the troubled heart.

But as in a few other areas of the Christian life, Christian orthodoxy—oh what a lovely phrase that is in our day of rampant error—affirms both. Sin is real, far more real than we moderns—or should one say, post-moderns—like to admit. It goes down deep into the recesses of our being, and so leaves its ugly stain upon all of our thought and spoken words, upon our every act and gesture.

But, equally Christianity affirms that there is a God—the one, true and living God, who is the God of Israel and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—who ever delights in mercy, is slow to anger and pours out his kindnesses upon a thousand generations. It is He—and He alone—who forgives sin, casts our wickednesses into the depths of the sea, and removes them from us as far as the east is from the west. The forgiveness of sin is a reality, as real as earth and sky.

For the most wicked tyrant and murderer, for the vilest of men, there is offered a genuine place where their sin can be dealt with and the burden of it rolled from off their backs. But equally so, for the one who takes pride in his religious achievements and firm moral principles, but who is a stranger to living for God’s glory—for such pride and God-forgetfulness there is forgiveness as well.And the place to find this forgiveness? In Christ crucified alone.

The chorus by Ralph E. Hudson says it well:

At the cross, at the cross Where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away…

What a mercy to know such a God! How unspeakably rich those who know Him and the forgiveness he freely offers—yes, freely, but oh, at what cost to his dearest Son!

Holiness in an Unholy World

The holiness of God is a fundamental conviction of the Bible. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” the prophet Isaiah heard angelic beings proclaiming in a vision of God that he had (Isaiah 6). The holiness of God first of all means that God is completely different from his creation. He is the Creator, unique and in total control of all that he has made. Human beings—like every other creature in this universe, from galaxies to gnats, from mountains to moles—are limited in what we can do. Our knowledge is finite, never exhaustive. And our lives on this earth are relatively short in duration and often dogged by painful experiences—“nasty, brutish, and short,” is the way that one philosopher once described them. Not so God. He is immortal, can do all that his good pleasure decides, and has absolutely no limitations. To say God is holy is then to speak of his uniqueness and his otherness from his creation.

By extension, God’s holiness means that God is without any moral blemish. He, unlike humanity, has never erred, can never err, and will never err. Whether it has to do with matters of knowledge or moral issues, God is splendidly flawless. By contrast, human beings are not. We are flawed—far more flawed than most of us would like to admit. We tend to think of ourselves as “good” people. As Jesus Christ once said, though, there is none good but God alone. At the centre of what makes us who we are—what makes us tick, as it were—there is a “bentness,” a crookedness that makes us fail each other, hurt each other, and even hate each other. And only in the brilliant light of the moral perfection of God, do we see ourselves clearly for what we are: marred and broken creatures—yes, sinful creatures.

There is hope, though. And that is the gospel. We can find healing for our souls through the Lord Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for all the wrong that we have thought, said or done. Now, when we become followers of the Lord Jesus Christ (who, while fully sharing our humanity, never did, said, or thought anything wrong) and enter into a living relationship with the God who made the heavens and the earth and all that are in them, we discover that we have been given a passion to be morally pure like God. We hunger to be holy as he is holy. We desire to know what it is like to live in total harmony with ourselves and our fellow human beings. And we come to realize that holiness is a necessary pathway to true happiness. In fact, if anyone claims to know God, who is holy, and that person has no interest in living a life marked by holiness, there is something seriously wrong in their claim.

Trying to live in a holy way—to order everything we do or think or say from the point of view of God—and to do this from the core of our lives is not easy, for human societies are anything but holy. There is much that is beautiful in human culture and life, for which we thank God. But there is also much that is ugly and sinful. Not surprisingly, followers of Jesus Christ often find themselves at odds with their culture. Thus, there are constant temptations to give up living in a holy way. But God’s command to be holy as he is holy never ceases to resound in the hearts and minds of Christians. And the deep attractiveness of his total purity and utterly untainted character beckons us on along holiness’ pathway to heaven.

Shifting & Consolidating: A New Look & Website

I have shifted all of my blog entries from Blogger to Wordpress. I am deeply indebted to Darrin Brooker for help in this. Truth be told I was fed up with Blogger for a number of reasons, especially the inability of the system to provide good text graphics. I am also hoping to consolidate all of my old FONTES website stuff under this new website--www.historiaecclesiastica.com. This will make things much easier to locate and consult.

Dr Bruce Metzger

I just heard of the death of Bruce Metzger, pre-eminent New Testament textual critic. A brief account here. I heard Dr Metzger at McMaster Divinity College back in the 1970s and was deeply impressed by both his learning and his Christian demeanour. Over the years I have used a number of his books with great profit, especially those dealing with New Testament textual criticism and his superb work on the New Testament canon.

Praise the Lord for the gift of such a scholar.

One Night with the King

My wife, daughter and I watched the new movie about the story of Esther, One Night with the King, last night. Overall it was excellent. The costumes and sets sumptuous as one might expect of the Perisan Empire at its height. The acting was very good as well, though I found the Persian King a little stiff. And justice was done to the overall biblical text which was faithfully reproduced in the script. Scenes of prayer were especially done well. Esther is, of course, a great story, easily adaptable to the media of film. Over the years it has helped me understand God's sovereignty in history. This is very interesting since the name of God is not explicitly mentioned in the book. But the whole story is redolent with God's providential workings on the stage of time and space.

It was interesting to see Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole together in the same film, reminsicent of that great blockbuster Lawrence of Arabia. Sharif plays Memucan and O'Toole the prophet Samuel. The latter is involved since a link is made between Haman the Agagite and the Amalekite king Agag (1 Samuel 15), whom Samuel told Saul to destroy along with all of his people. This link is something of conjecture.

Another piece of filler had Haman linking the Jews with the democratic-loving Greeks. Bring a lover of Greece—and rooting for their victory over Persia in the Persian Wars when I read those accounts as a young boy—and, since my conversion to Christ, a lover of ancient Israel as well, I found quite this link interesting. I didn't feel this additional stuff about the Greeks, rooted in scholarly opinion that the feast that Ahasuerus throws at the beginning of Esther 1 was preparatory to his campaign to subdue the Greeks, detracted from the movie, which was superb and well worth one’s time.

And it was a love story to boot--very appropriate on the eve of St.Valentine's Day

The Moral Responsibility of Theologians

Last fall in The Globe and Mail (Monday, October 23, 2006, p.A19), Michael Higgins made a very astute comment regarding the public role of intellectuals. Writing in a piece entitled “Lament for our public intellectuals,” he emphasized that the specialization of scholarship in our culture requires all the more for there to be public intellectuals who communicate their ideas to the world outside of academia. There is, he rightly pointed out, a “the concomitant moral responsibility of intellectuals to communicate lucidly with the larger community, eschewing in the process the sometimes parasensical jargon” of the Academy.

This is also true of the world of theological academia. One of the great negatives of the current ecclesial scene is the separation of church and academy that has afflicted us in North America in various ways and to various degrees since the late nineteenth century. If God has called a person to a life of theological scholarship, such a person has a responsibility before God to “communicate lucidly” with the church. And also to recognize that he is responsible to the church for his doctrine and thought.