John Bunyan & his poem/hymn "He who would valiant be"

In a recent book, Tom Paulin—The Secret Life of Poems: A Poetry Primer (London: Faber and Faber, 2008)—discusses John Bunyan’s “He who would valiant be” (pages 31-35) in terms of its poetic merit, its thought and its historical context. Paulin judges it to be “one of the finest English hymns” (p.31-32), a “simple and austere puritan lyric,” that is deeply indebted to Shakespeare in spots (p.32). The phrase “come hither,” for example, Paulin reckons to be taken from the Stratford bard’s As You Like It (p.32-33).

Paulin relates portions of the hymn to Bunyan’s own writings, especially The Pilgrim’s Progress and the vicious historical context of the persecution by the Stuart regime. He notes that 8,000 Dissenters died as a result of goal fever in this time. I do not recall having seen such a figure. Nor does Paulin give his source for it. But it drives home the difficulties of that day.

In sum, Paulin writes that “this short, beautiful lyric is packed with great historical and personal suffering—and with unyielding courage and conviction” (p.35)—high praise indeed.

P.S. Incidentally, at the 2nd annual Andrew Fuller Center conference, held this past week at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a number of papers dealt with this theme of persecution: the plenary session by Austin Walker on Benjamin Keach, and two parallel sessions on Abraham Cheare and Thomas Hardcastle by Jeff Robinson and Peter Beck respectively.

For the audio of these, see The English Baptists of the 17th Century, August 25-26, 2008.

Conference Audio Now Available

The audio for this week's conference on the 17th Century English Particular Baptists has now been posted online.  All the lectures (including the parallel sessions) are now available for free MP3 download on the conference page.  By all accounts, the conference was a great blessing to those who attended and it is hoped that this blessing can now be extended to those who would have liked to have attended, but were unable to do so.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

Conference on 17th Century English Baptists Begins Today

Today the 2nd annual conference of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies begins.  The theme this year is the English Calvinistic Baptists of the Seventeenth Century.  A complete schedule is available here.  It is hoped that the audio will be available soon in MP3 format online for the benefit of those unable to attend.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

Eusebeia 9 to the Printer

The latest issue of Eusebeia: The Bulletin of the Andrew Fuller Center is headed to the printer and should be ready to be shipped by the end of this month.  This issue focuses on the namesake of the Center, Andrew Fuller himself.  The theme is "Reading Andrew Fuller."  The journal features nine scholarly articles by the likes of Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, Dr. Carl R. Trueman, and Dr. Thomas J. Nettles.  Most of the articles were originally papers presented at last year's conference. For a complete Table of Contents with free access to the editorial and an article by Dr. Haykin click here. Subscription information, as well as limited access to past issues, is available here.  It is our desire to eventually provide a Table of Contents for all issues along with each issue's editorial by Dr. Haykin, a select article from each issue, and book reviews, all available for free PDF download. Some of the Table of Contents and articles from past issues have always been posted.  Others will be posted soon.  Be sure to visit this site regularly as new content is added often.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

William Carey, egotism, and eternal ennui

Writing to his dear friend Samuel Pearce in the autumn of 1795, William Carey told him: "Egotism is tedious..." [Letter to Samuel Pearce, October 2, 1795 in Periodical Accounts relative to the Baptist Missionary Society, I (1800), 215]. In the years that followed, Carey became something of a celebrity in the UK. He was very glad he was far away from most of it.

Why is egotism so tedious? Because to focus on the finite inevitably leads to boredom. But to focus on the Infinite God--infinite in glory, Infinite Beauty, infinite in kindness, infinite in goodness, Infinite Holiness--now that is a subject of which we shall never tire and it will take an eternity to plumb--and even then we shall not be done! And to be with men and women who are taken up with the Infinite God and filled with his glory and goodness and beauty--wow, what holy company, what fascinating fellowship--who would not want to be with such?

In this snippet of a comment, Carey joined that great theological conversation that had been going on since Origen postulated that the wicked angels fell because of satiety. Not so! But they and their fiendish leader are taken up with themselves--filled with egotistical pride--and what insufferable company to spend eternity with--eternal ennui--horrific the thought!

Call for papers

It might seem a tad early to be advertising this, but this post will serve as an initial call for papers to be presented in the parallel sessions of the 3rd annual Andrew Fuller Center conference to be held August 24-25, 2009, on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The theme for the conference is "Baptist Spirituality." Plenary sessions will be given by, among others: Drs. Robert Strivens of London Theological Seminary; Crawford Gribben of Trinity College, Dublin; Tom Nettles and Greg Wills of SBTS; Greg Thornbury of Union University; and Gerald Priest of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. Also, as a way of remembering the quatercentenary of the baptism of John Smyth, we hope to have as part of the conference a paper or two on John Smyth, his piety, and the General Baptists. This will be on the evening of August 25, when it can function as a stand-alone lecture or be taken as part of the conference.

Next year is also the sesquicentennial of the Seminary and so it will be a great time to be on campus.

We have a limited number of spaces (between a dozen and sixteen) available for the parallel sessions which should be 30 minutes or so in length. Potential speakers need to e-mail the Center (andrewfullercenter@sbts.edu ) with a title and brief outline of their proposal as well as a brief resume before October 31, 2008. The topic of these papers must fall within the theme of the conference, namely, "Baptist spirituality." Submission of the proposal does not guarantee acceptance. The schedule of the parallel sessions will be posted within two weeks of this deadline.

And while you are thinking of this, check out on this website the upcoming conference on "The English Particular Baptists of the 17th century" which we trust will be a fabulous time of learning, challenge and fellowship. It will be held this August, on the 25th and 26th.

A Cat’s Theology

Cats like my ChaiLike tickles and petting Not theology-vetting Nor pundits retting The Bible loose From its mooring.

But then— His theology is better Than Bultmann’s Or Hermann’s, Those radical Germans, For his Maker he “knows.”

Michael A.G. Haykin ©2008.

Reading Church History: 2. 2nd-Century Greek Christianity

Collections of primary sources Robert M. Grant, Second-Century Christianity. A Collection of Fragments (2nd ed.; Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).

Steven A. McKinion, ed., Life and Practice in the Early Church. A Documentary Reader (New York/London: New York University Press, 2001).

Herbert Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).

Cyril C. Richardson, Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Edward Rochie Hardy, eds., Early Christian Fathers (Repr. Touchstone, 1995).

Maxwell Staniforth, trans. Early Christian Writings (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968).

General studies

Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement and Origen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).

Henry Chadwick, The Early Church. (Rev. ed.; London: Penguin Books, 1993).

Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

F. L Cross and E. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Philip F. Esler, ed., The Early Christian World (London/New York: Routledge, 2000), 2 vols.

Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2nd ed.; New York/London: Garland Publishing, 1998), 2 vols.

Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1995).

Robert M. Grant, Greek Apologists of the Second Century (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988).

Geoffrey M. Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, trans. Michael Steinhauser and ed. Marshall D. Johnson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).

Eric Osborn, The Emergence of Christian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Colin. H. Roberts and T.C. Skeat. The Birth of the Codex (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).

Thomas A. Robinson, The Early Church: An Annotated Bibliography of Literature in English (Metuchen: The American Theological Library Association/The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1993).

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity. A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996).

David Trobisch, Paul’s Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994).

D.S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch: A Study of Early Christian Thought in the East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

W. C. Weinrich, Spirit and Martyrdom. A Study of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Contexts of Persecution and Martyrdom in the New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981).

Ignatius of Antioch

Charles Thomas Brown, The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch (New York: Peter Lang, 2000).

Virginia Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960).

John E. Lawyer, Jr., “Eucharist and Martyrdom in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch”, Anglican Theological review, 73 (1991).

Daniel N. McNamara, “Ignatius of Antioch On His Death: Discipleship, Sacrifice, Imitation” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, McMaster University, 1977).

Issa A. Saliba, “The Bishop of Antioch and the Heretics: A Study of a Primitive Christology”, The Evangelical Quarterly, 54 (1982).

Cullen I. K. Story, “The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch”, The Evangelical Quarterly, 56 (1984).

Christine Trevett, A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992).

Christine Trevett, “A Study of Ignatius of Antioch in Syria and Asia”, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 29 (1992).

Irenaeus of Lyons

David L. Balas, “The Use and Interpretation of Paul in Irenaeus’ Five Books Adversus Haereses”, The Second Century, 9 (1992).

Denis Minns, Irenaeus (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1994).

Richard A. Norris, Jr. “Irenaeus’ Use of Paul in His Polemic Against the Gnostics” in William S. Babcock, ed. Paul and the Legacies of Paul (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990).

Eric Osborn, Ireneaus of Lyons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Justin Martyr

Craig D. Allert, Revelation, Truth, Canon and Interpretation: Studies in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (Boston: E.J. Brill, 2002).

L.W. Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).

Willis A. Shotwell, The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr (London: SPCK, 1965).

The Letter to Diognetus

Bruce Fawcett, “Similar yet Unique: Christians as Described in the Letter to Diognetus 5”, The Baptist Review of Theology, 6, No.1 (Spring, 1996), 23-27.

Joseph T. Lienhard, “The Christology of the Epistle to Diognetus”, Vigiliae Christianae, 24 (1970).

H.G. Meecham, The Epistle to Diognetus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1949).

W. S. Walford, Epistle to Diognetus (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1908).

Melito of Sardis

Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast: Melito, Peri Pascha and the Quartodeciman Paschal Liturgy at Sardis (Boston: E.J. Brill, 1998).

Alistair Stewart-Sykes, ed., Melito of Sardis. On Pascha: With Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001).

The Odes of Solomon

James Hamilton Charlesworth, ed., The Odes of Solomon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).

Theophilus of Antioch

Robert M. Grant, trans., Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).

Rick Rogers, Theophilus of Antioch: The Life and Thought of a Second-Century Bishop (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2000).

The Poetic and Preaching

It seems so obvious that when a significant portion of Holy Scripture is poetic in form, poetry in genre, that preachers should take courses in understanding ancient poetry—and some instruction on how to interpret more modern forms of poetry would surely help as well. But the poetic is not in vogue in our culture (apart from modern music, and that is usually little better than nursery rhymes!), and we, and preaching, are the worse off. Is it no wonder that the Psalms, the poetic portions of the Prophets and other poetic portions of Holy Scripture are not regularly preached as much as the more didactic forms that appeal to the modern western mind-set?

Reading Week, February 1974–A Week Never to Be Forgotten

I was sitting with my daughter Victoria in a Second Cup café today partly because she has her reading week this week and some free time. As I was musing on reading weeks and their importance in the life of the student—and the teacher—I recalled a very important reading week thirty-four years ago. I find it hard to believe that so much time has passed, but it has. It was the Sunday following the University of Toronto’s reading week of 1974. I was at the worship service of Stanley Avenue Baptist Church, Hamilton, Ontario. The preacher was a Welshman by the name of Davies—was it Elwyn Davies?—and he preached one of those Spirit-anointed sermons one never forgets, and which we need far more of these days, and then gave an “altar call.” Within a minute the front of the church was packed with thirty or so people, among them myself. I came forward to give my life to Christ.

Then later that week, in the privacy of my apartment, I gave myself unreservedly to the Triune God and knew what it was to be a Christian. When was the moment of regeneration and when the hour of conversion? I am not sure, but O how I wish I had lived up to the commitment I made then. But if I have failed the Lord, He has never ever failed me.

But, whatever my failings and sins, there has been no turning back. And that because of God’s grace. I would not have seen that then. But I sure do now: only divine grace can enable perseverance. Eternal praises to His Name!

Reading Euripides

My son has been reading Euripides’ Antigone (442 bc) for an English class and he asked me to read the play so as to be able to help him think through some of the material. I must confess that I had never read Euripides before. It is a very powerful play, dealing with the central theme of the clash of personal conviction/conscience and state law. What struck me at the time of reading it and afterwards is that there are a number of things here that help illuminate New Testament teaching. Humanity’s ability to master the animal world, noted by James in James 3:1-5, is paralleled by lines 381-395. The fact that the guards around Polyneices’ corpse will suffer if they allow anyone to creep up and bury the body illuminates what is happening in Acts 12:19 regarding the guards killed by Herod.

And the overall themes of honour and shame (in this case, the disgrace of being bested by a woman), hybris, andthe importance of not violating one’s conscience, these are great perennial themes dealt with by holy Scripture and need to inform any student of God’s Word.

Teachability: Part of True Mentoring

What happens in the mentoring process, be it pastoral or academic? It is not the case that the person being mentored is totally passive and the mentor has all of the answers. Rather, a true mentoring experience is one in which there is a subtle interplay between teaching and learning on both sides. In the true mentoring experience the mentor also experiences what is to be a learner. And being a learner, summed up by that exquisite word “teachability,” lies at the heart of what it means to be a true leader.

Calvin’s Psychopannychia and the State of Your Soul

At one point in John Calvin’s earliest publication after his conversion, the 1534 treatise Psychopannychia, the French theologian reflected on what life is like without a saving knowledge of the living God. While his comments are not autobiographical in form, they can, as Heiko Oberman has pointed out, be interpreted as a commentary on his own life prior to his conversion. “Do you want to know what the death of the soul is? It is to be without God, to be deserted by God, to be abandoned to yourself. …Since there is no light outside of God who lights our darkness, when he withdraws his light then our soul is certainly blind and buried in darkness; our soul is mute because it cannot confess, and call out to embrace God. The soul is deaf because it cannot hear his voice. The soul is crippled since it does not have a hold on…God…”[1]

If Calvin is right—and I passionately affirm that he is with all of my being—oh what a sorry state all men and women are in without the Lord Jesus. And oh what bliss to know the Lord Jesus.

Reader: into which category do you fall? If the former, think hard about the folly of putting off commitment to the Lord Jesus. Passion for any other—be he the Buddha or Confucius or Muhammad—will do you no good in that day when fates are sealed. Then only One—yes only the great God and Saviour, Jesus—will be able to save your soul.

If the latter and the way sometimes proves hard, remember whose you are and the glorious joy of being loved by him and known by him.

[1] Trans. Heiko A. Oberman, ‘Subita Conversio: The Conversion of John Calvin’ in his, Ernst Saxer, Alfred Schindler and Heinzpeter Stucki, eds., Reformiertes Erbe: Festschrift für Gottfried W. Locher zu seinem 80. Geburtstag (Zwingliana, 19/2; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1993), 2:295, n.4.

For a translation of Psychopannychia, see Tracts and Treatises, trans. H. Beveridge, 3:413-490. For Beveridge’s rendering of the passage that Oberman has translated, see Tracts and Treatises, trans. H. Beveridge, 3:454-455. For the Latin behind this translation, see CO 5:204-205.

For a study of Psychopannychia, see George H. Tavard, The Starting Point of Calvin’s Theology (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 2000).

The Spirit of Holiness

One does not have to read far in Romans—the most systematic of all of Paul’s letters—to encounter a reference to the Spirit’s sanctifying work. In Romans 1:4 Paul describes the Spirit with a phrase that is unique in the New Testament—he is the “Spirit of holiness.”[1] What exactly does the Apostle mean by describing the Spirit thus? Why does he not use the more common term “Holy Spirit”? For some writers the terms “Holy Spirit” and “Spirit of holiness” are simply synonymous and they would understand the term “Spirit of holiness” to mean something like “the Spirit whose character is holiness.” There is another way, though, to understand this phrase and that is to see it as a description of the Spirit’s work: he is the giver of holiness, the One who supplies holiness to all who call upon the name of Jesus.[2] Given the Old Testament form of the phrase “Spirit of holiness,” the latter interpretation is probably the better of the two. It highlights the fact that central among the activities of the Spirit is the sanctification of the people of God. In fact, for Paul as for the other New Testament authors, the Holy Spirit is indispensable for living a life that pleases God.[3] Another key text with regard to the Spirit’s sanctifying work is found in Romans 15:8-21. Here, the Apostle begins by indicating that one of the ultimate goals of Christ’s ministry was that Gentiles might come to glorify the God of Israel for being a God of mercy. The citation of four Old Testament texts, drawn from various parts of the Old Testament canon, supports this affirmation (Romans 15:8-12). Christ’s intentions with regard to the Gentiles is of central concern to the Apostle for he has been called by God to preach Christ among the Gentiles where the name of Jesus has never been heard (Romans 15:20), or, as he puts it, “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God” (Romans 15:16). Using imagery drawn from the Temple worship of Israel to describe his ministry, Paul argues that Gentiles—who were formerly ritually impure and thus utterly unacceptable to God—have now become acceptable to God. In the immediate context of these verses, what has made them acceptable is their embrace of the gospel, which, in turn, was made possible by the Holy Spirit’s power (Romans 15:19). In Paul’s words, they have been “sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:16), that is, set apart to serve God and to fulfill his purposes, which, because of God’s holy character, inevitably involves leading lives of godliness.[4] It is on the basis of this sanctifying work of the Spirit that Paul, later in this chapter and in the one that follows, can call believers “saints” (Romans 15:25-26, 31; 16:1, 15).

Earlier in this letter, the sanctifying work of the Spirit had also been highlighted in Romans 8:1-4. Christ came into the world so that those who believe in him would be able to truly obey the essence of the Law (Romans 8:4). Central to Christ’s death is the liberation of men and women from the death-dealing bondage of sin. This obedience and freedom is made a reality in believers by the Spirit, who is none other than the “Spirit of life,” that is the Spirit of the living God, the source of all that is good. Thus, the liberating work of the Spirit is rooted in the saving work of Christ (Romans 8:2).[5]

Again in this chapter, Paul emphasizes that the Spirit’s indwelling presence in the life of the believer provides him or her with rich resources to fight sin: Romans 8:12-14. Although the believer has been radically delivered from sin’s tyranny, this does not mean—as so much of the teaching of the New Testament makes clear—that he or she now experientially enjoys perfect holiness. There is an ongoing battle with sin and thus the necessity of heeding the Apostle’s admonition to mortify sin (Romans 8:13).

This work of mortification—the “gradual annihilation of all the remainders of this cursed life of sin,” as the Puritan author John Owen (1616-1683) aptly puts it[6]—involves the believer’s complete involvement, though ultimately it is the Spirit’s work. Owen well sums up the Apostle’s thought in this regard when he states in his classic exposition of Romans 8:13, The Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656), that the Spirit

"doth not so work our mortification in us as not to keep it still an act of our obedience. The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures; he works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.”[7]

In other words, this is a variation on one of the central ethical principles of the New Testament: be what you are. Because you are saints lead holy lives; live in holy conformity with the Spirit who indwells you. Since he is holy, be holy. Paul puts it this way at the close of another well-known passage that deals with the sanctifying work of the Spirit: “if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25, ESV).

[1] As James D.G. Dunn notes, the term “Spirit of holiness” would almost certainly be understood by Paul and the first Christians as denoting the Holy Spirit” [Romans 1-8 (Word Biblical Commentary, vol.38A; Dallas: Word, 1988), 14-15. See also Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 43.

[2] C.E.B. Cranfield, Romans: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1985), 7; Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 483.

[3] See Smith, “Pauline Studies: Pauline Pneumatology.”

[4] See the similar idea in 1 Corinthians 6:11. See also the comments of James D.G. Dunn, Romans 9-16 (Word Biblical Commentary, vol.38B; Dallas: Word, 1988), 860-861; Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 626-627; David Peterson, Possessed by God. A New Testament Theology of Sanctification and Holiness (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1995), 58-59; Schreiner, Romans, 766-767.

[5] Cranfield, Romans, 174; Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 519-538.

[6] A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit [The Works of John Owen (1850-1853 ed., 16 volumes; repr. London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965-1968), III, 545].

[7] Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (Works, VI, 20). See also the comments of J. I. Packer, “ ‘Keswick’ and the Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification”, The Evangelical Quarterly, 27 (1955), 156.

Humility: One Avenue

In Romans 12:3 the Apostle defines one aspect of humility: knowing one’s gifts and limitations and acting accordingly. The constant temptation for God’s children is the one that came to Adam and Eve in the garden: we can be as God and know, and by implication do, all things. But we cannot be as God—we all have limitations, we all have a place to fill that no other can fill. One great task for all of us that call on the Lord Jesus is to determine where he would have us serve and do that to the best of our ability. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? If it were that simple, much of the turmoil in church life and in seminaries and parachurch organizations would be solved instantly, for in all these places we have people doing things they were not called to do. What they and we need to do is to take sober stock of our calling and our gifting and find where we should be. Such sober stock-taking involves looking at our gifts, passions, training, family context, and listening to what others say.

Oh to grow in humility!

An Elder’S Prayer

Baptists have historically not been into written prayers. If you want to know why, read John Bunyan’s I will pray with the Spirit. But it is great to have recorded prayers from godly men of the church like C.H. Spurgeon that help us understand the piety of our Baptist forebears.

Here is a prayer from a man whom it has been my privilege to know and serve with, Dr. Colin Wellum, Sr., with whom I have served as an elder at Trinity Baptist Church, Burlington, Ontario. I have just offered my resignation as elder at this my home church and that because of the duties I now have as a professor at SBTS.

But it has been one of the deepest joys of my life to serve alongside Dr Wellum, and the pastor, Carl Muller, and the other elders. They are a remarkable group of godly men, for whom I give thanks regularly. May the Lord continue to bless this church and own it, as he has done in the past thirty-five years, for his glory.

Here is the prayer, it is on the blog of Colin’s son, Kirk Wellum: To God Be The Glory.