Listening to the Devil

The central ethical dilemma for eighteenth-century, transatlantic British society was that of running the slave-trade and of owning slaves. It was only resolved when British Evangelicals came to rightly realize that they had to fight in the political realm for the right of persons of African descent to be recognized as full human beings. And in so doing, they used the democratic processes of their day to take on those powers that supported the slave trade and slavery, which John Wesley rightly depicted as “that execrable sum of all villainies.” [The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley A.M, ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: The Epworth Press, 1914), 5:445-446]. There are few today who would dispute the rightness of that moral struggle. But central to a number of critical ethical issues of our day is the very same question: what does it mean to be human? The resolution of the ethical dilemmas surrounding, for example, abortion and genetic engineering cannot be found unless this question is answered. It strikes me that just as our eighteenth-century Evangelical forebears’ activism against the slave trade and slavery was rooted in their conviction of the utter sinfulness of the slave trade, so today the clarity regarding the vileness of abortion must issue in action.

Now, the truth about the perverse thinking of those who would defend abortion can be seen in various statements of an abortionist by the name of William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas. For the full report of the horrific candour of his views, see Al Mohler’s “The Perverse Logic of Abortion,” today’s entry on his website www.AlbertMohler.com. For instance, something of the perverse stance of this man can be seen in the Reproductive Freedom Task Force newsletter, where Harrison claimed to have heard “a still, small voice asking, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ to which I was at last compelled to reply, ‘Here am I, send me’.” Harrison is parodying of course the call of Isaiah the Prophet in Isaiah 6.

Let me suggest without mincing any words that the still small voice that Harrison has been heeding is not from the Glorious One that called Isaiah and Who is the awesome Maker of all life in the womb, but from his wicked adversary, a murderer from the beginning!

Confessional Christianity & Baptists

Lack of interest in confessional Christianity is nothing new. Among the most fascinating figures of the 18th century is Robert Robinson (1735-1790), at one time clear in his confessional identity as a Calvinistic Baptist and the author of the well-known hymn “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing.” Yet, by the end of his life, it was said of him: “[Robinson] hath his own opinions of the nature of God, and Christ, and man, and the decrees, and so on: but he doth not think that the opinion of Athanasius, or Arius, or Sabellius, or Socinus, or Augustine, or Pelagius, or Whitby, or Gill, on the subjects in dispute between them, ought to be considered of such importance as to divide Christians, by being made the standards to judge of the truth of any man’s Christianity.” [Seventeen Discourses of Several Texts of Scripture; Addressed to Christian Assemblies in villages near Cambridge. To which are added, Six Morning Exercises (New ed.; Harlow: Benjamin Flower, 1805), p. iv-v].

This is sad, to say the least. As an excellent corrective to a replication of this state of affairs in our day is the announcement that Reformed Baptist Academic Press is soon to publish Jim Renihan’s True Confessions. Baptist Documents in the Reformed Family.

It was with a deep sense of “finally” that I heard of this new work by Dr. Renihan, who heads up The Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. We have long needed this detailed and tabular comparison of the foundational documents of our Calvinistic Baptist heritage—the First London Confession of Faith (1644), the Second London Confession of Faith (1677/1689), The Baptist Catechism (sometimes called Keach’s Catechism) and Hercules Collins’ The Orthodox Catechism (1680)—and their sources. This work will remind lovers of that heritage that those who drew up these documents saw themselves as part of a Calvinist International, “a broader Reformed community” as Renihan puts it. As such, this book will be vital in helping us, who are the heirs of the men who wrote these texts, know not only what we must affirm in this day of doctrinal confusion but also know whence we have come and who belongs to our extended family, as it were, within the great body of Christian believers.

May it further these ends and the study of confessional theology among us Baptists, and so avoid the sad latitudinarianism of Robert Robinson in his final days.

An Advent Reflection

Here is a thought-provoking meditation by Russ Moore on the Christ that should occupy our minds before Christmas — “The Apocalypse at Christmastime.” Despite the advent of Christmas, Moore decided to lead his Sunday School class in thinking about “Jesus as a conquering Warrior Messiah, dripped in blood and destroying his enemies”. As Moore notes: “With Bethlehem before her, Mary also had Armageddon on her mind. So should we.” He is right on. Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, are meant to provide us time to reflect on the second coming of Christ, his second advent. He has come as Saviour—we know await his coming as a conquering King.

And that Day when he comes will be a day of reality, an awful unveiling when the plasticity of so many will be melted away by the awesome fire of his presence and the true state of their lives exposed. For all of their talk about love and tolerance and live and let live, they will be shown to be narrow-minded, having ever refused the expansive love of God in Christ, and filled with hate for Him who is the Source of all that is truly good and pure.

But it will also be a day of vindication for the people of God when they will see that their love for Christ—so often maligned and scorned here and slandered for being intolerant and hateful—has its true reward: everlasting joy in the presence of Christ.

And far from being hateful, true Christians are men and women of love, who desire ultimately the best for those who are not Christians. As Moore further notes: “We must remember that our love for family and friends and Christmas includes our responsibility to plead with them to be found in Christ before the great and terrible day of the Lord.”

May God give us, who look for his appearing, such an opportunity this Christmas. And if you are reading this and you are not a Christian, now is the time to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Do not delay. For his coming draws nigh! For a good guide to how to become a Christian, read Dialogue on Christianity.

The Spiritual Brotherhood of the Puritans

In his address at the inauguration of the Puritan Resource Center, located in the library of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary (www.puritanseminary.org), Sinclair Ferguson, senior pastor-elect of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, spoke on “The Puritans: Can They Teach Us Anything Today?” [PRTS Update 2, No.4 (December 2005), 1-5]. It is vintage Ferguson. He mentions four things in particular that we need to learn from the Puritans, those ecclesial Reformers of the British Isles and New England who longed for Spirit-wrought revival.

  • The “significance of spiritual brotherhood in the movements of the Holy Spirit” (p.2-3)
  • The necessity of “the recovery of the pulpit for the recovery of the church” (p.3-4)
  • Driving the Puritans was “their deep sense of the infinite glory of a Triune God” and thus they mining of Scripture produced a theology with a “Trinitarian character” (p.4-5)
  • The Puritans were men and women devoted to the Bride of Christ: they “recognized with great clarity the significance of the church in the purposes of Christ” (p.5)

To all of these points I heartily say amen!

I was especially struck by the first point: the need for a spiritual brotherhood—Christians with “a common vision and a common burden, a common prayer life, and therefore a common goal” (p.3). What was true of Puritan leaders like Richard Greenham, John Cotton, and Richard Sibbes—men bound together in a spiritual family tree—is true of all true movements of the Spirit. Here, as Ferguson emphasizes, one thinks of the Cappadocian Fathers or the circle of friends around Augustine (p.2). Or one might think of two “Puritan” style groups in the 20th century, the circle of men around Martyn Lloyd-Jones and those men mentored by William Still of Aberdeen.

And the same must be true if we are going to see any forward movement of the Spirit in our day. We, who have been made to delight in the sovereign grace and glory of the Triune God, need to learn to esteem one another highly for the sake of the Gospel. This does not mean becoming wishy-washy in our convictions. But it does mean breaking down the barriers erected by distrust and pride and the pettiness of turf-wars. It means ongoing displays of genuine humility and repentance. O for a clear eye centred on the things of first importance and not bedimmed by the things of this passing world.

Some of this is taking place. I am thinking of the upcoming Together for the Gospel conference hosted by Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, Albert Mohler with special guests John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul in Lousville next April. But we need to see far more initiatives like this one. May God be gracious to us.

The Gospel of Thomas for Today?

The main theme of the 57th Annual Meeting of ETS a couple of weeks ago was “Christianity in the Early Centuries.” For me one of the highlights was Nicholas Perrin’s brilliant presentation on the Gospel of Thomas, “Thomas, the Fifth Gospel?” (see my posting, 57TH ANNUAL MEETING OF ETS). Perrin argued for a late dating of this Gospel and a Syriac provenance. From a methodological point of view, his arguments appeared to be sound. Within a few days of hearing Perrin, I found myself reading through Ron Miller, The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice (Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publ., 2004), which is an attempt to use this Gospel to forge a spirituality for modern western sensibilities. Miller sees this Gospel as a call to each human being to realize that he or she is the “twin” of Jesus (which he derives from the name of the supposed author, Thomas Didymus, that is “twin”). What this means is to realize that all of us are actually as much God as Jesus is! (p.79-80). Such a remark makes a mockery of the early Christian experience recorded in the New Testament and the works of men like Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyons. Alongside such unorthodx remarks are remarkably fatuous statements like “we all derive from a virgin birth” (p.86-87).

Miller, a one-time Jesuit, has a deep hostility towards any expression of orthodox Christianity that highlights the unique deity of the Lord Jesus and upholds his death for sins as the pathway of salvation (p.xii, 81-83, for example). Miller believes that true spirituality—being a “Thomas believer,” as he puts it—must move beyond any such exclusivism and embrace all religions as being true (p.xi, 2, 87). Miller is confident that the Gospel of Thomas contains such an all-embracing pluralism.

Yet time and again, I had the distinct feeling that the spirituality Miller claims he finds in the Gospel of Thomas is shaped far more by post-modern infatuations than by the actual text of this Gospel. For instance, the Gospel of Thomas emanated from circles committed to asceticism and a dislike of bodily existence. Yet Miller believes that he can claim to be wholly in sync with the teachings of this Gospel and also affirm the “holiness” of “sexual desire” and that Catholic parishioners (which he had once been ) should make love before coming to the Mass (p.17-18)! If Miller cannot get such basic worldview issues of the Gospel of Thomas right, how can I trust him in the rest of his interpretation of the Gospel? Let me say clearly that—as the Song of Songs bears witness—sexual desire within marriage is a holy thing. Miller is surely right here. But the Gospel of Thomas simply does not advocate this way of thinking.

Nor am I convinced that the Gospel of Thomas is as pluralistic as Miller believes it to be. Many Gnostic groups—and Miller is right to stress their diversity (p.xii and 125, n.3)—were as exclusivistic as their orthodox opponents. That is simply a fact of history. Of course, Miller may respond by saying that this is simply my personal read of the Gospel. As he writes in the Introduction: “My reading of the Gospel of Thomas may not be that of other scholars in the field and may even disagree with what the original author (or authors) intended” (p.xii). At such a point, though, interpretation becomes thinly veiled eisegesis and real discussion as to the meaning of the text is at an end. Why not come clean and admit that the supposed ancient spirituality of the Gospel of Thomas is only as old as the concerns of western post-moderns?

Praying with Tertullian

One of the most poignant lines from the writings of the Latin Church Father, Tertullian, comes at the end of his early treatise On baptism: “This only I pray, that as you ask [in prayer] you also have in mind Tertullian, a sinner” (tantum oro, ut cum petitis etiam Tertulliani peccatoris memineritis, De baptismo 20). Who of us who writes cannot echo this request? For those brothers and sisters who think of me from time to time, please remember me, a sinner saved solely by grace, in prayer. Can you pray especially for my ongoing work on Samuel Pearce? I have been wanting to write his biography for fifteen years now, and so many other projects always seem to be intervening. Please pray that by God’s grace this will be accomplished. Thank you.

“Surely Irish Zion Demands Our Prayers”

One of the most prominent aspects of the life of Samuel Pearce—which I have been studying now for the past seventeen years—was his passion for the lost. One excellent example of this is found in a missionary trip he took to Ireland in 1795. In July of that year he received an invitation from the General Evangelical Society in Dublin to come over to Dublin and preach at a number of venues. He was not able to go until the following year, when he left Birmingham at 8 a.m. on May 31. After travelling through Wales and taking passage on a ship from Holyhead, he landed in Dublin on Saturday afternoon, June 4. Pearce stayed with a Presbyterian elder by the name of Hutton while in Dublin who was a member of a congregation pastored by a Dr. McDowell. Pearce preached for this congregation on a number of occasions, as well as for other congregations in the city, including the Baptists.

Baptist witness in Dublin went back to the Cromwellian era to 1653 when, through the ministry of Thomas Patient (d.1666), the first Calvinistic Baptist meeting-house was built in Swift’s Alley [B. R. White, “Thomas Patient in England and Ireland”, Irish Baptist Historical Society Journal, 2 (1969-1970), 41]. The church grew rapidly at first, and by 1725 this church had between 150 and 200 members [Joshua Thompson, “Baptists in Ireland 1792-1922: A Dimension of Protestant Dissent” (Unpublished D. Phil. Thesis, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, 1988), 9]. A new meeting-house was put up in the 1730s.

By the time that Pearce came to Ireland in 1796, though, the membership had declined to roughly forty members. Pearce’s impressions of the congregation were not too positive. In a letter he wrote to his close friend William Carey (1761-1834) in August, 1796, the month after his return to England, he told the missionary:

“There were 10 Baptist societies in Ireland.—They are now reduced to 6 & bid fair soon to be perfectly extinct. When I came to Dublin they had no meeting of any kind for religious purposes… Indeed they were so dead to piety that, tho’ of their own denomination, I saw & knew less of them than of every other professors in the place” [Letter to William Carey, August, 1796 (Samuel Pearce Carey Collection—Pearce Family Letters, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford)].

This opinion does not appear to have dampened his zeal in preaching. A Dublin deacon wrote to a friend: “We have had a Jubilee for weeks. That blessed man of God, Samuel Pearce, has preached amongst us with great sweetness and much power.”  And in a letter to a close friend in London, Pearce acknowledged:

“Never have I been more deeply taught my own nothingness; never has the power of God more evidently rested upon me. The harvest here is great indeed; and the Lord of the harvest has enabled me to labor in it with delight” [Memoir of Rev. Samuel Pearce. A.M. (new York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 132].

This passionate concern for the advance of the gospel in Ireland is well caught in a sentence from one of his letters to his wife Sarah. “Surely,” he wrote to her on June 24, “Irish Zion demands our prayers” [Letter to Sarah Pearce, June 24, 1796 (Samuel Pearce mss.)].

If Pearce were alive today, I would suggest that he would still breathe this prayer. May God pour out his Spirit upon the churches in Ulster and in Eire do the same and so advance his Kingdom throughout the Emerald Isle!

Reading Basil of Caesarea’s on the Holy Spirit

One of the great joys of my life has been the study of the classic treatise on the person of the Holy Spirit, written by Basil of Caesarea (c.330-379) and entitled simply On the Holy Spirit. In the early 370s Basil found himself locked in theological combat with professing Christians, who, though they confessed the full deity of Christ, denied that the Spirit was fully God. Leading these “fighters against the Spirit” (Pneumatomachi), as they came to be called, was one of his former friends, indeed the man who had been his mentor when he first became a Christian in 356, Eustathius of Sebaste (c.300-377). The controversy between Basil and Esuathatius, from one perspective a part of the larger Arian controversy, has become known as the Penumatomachian controversy.

Eustathius’ interest in the Spirit seems to have been focused on the Spirit’s work, not his person. For him, the Holy Spirit was primarily a divine gift within the Spirit-filled person, One who produced holiness [Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, “Eustathius von Sebaste”, Theologische Realenzyklopädie, 10 (1982), 548-549]. When, on one occasion at a synod in 364, he was pressed to say what he thought of the Spirit’s nature, he replied: “I neither chose to name the Holy Spirit God nor dare to call him a creature”! (Socrates, Church History 2.45).

For a number of years, Basil sought to win Eustathius over to the orthodox position. Finally, in the summer of 373 he met with him for an important two-day colloquy, in which, after much discussion and prayer, Eustathius finally acquiesced to an orthodox view of the Spirit’s nature. At a second meeting Eustathius signed a statement of faith in which it was stated that:

“[We] must anathematize those who call the Holy Spirit a creature, those who think so, and those who do not confess that he is holy by nature, as the Father and Son are holy by nature, but who regard him as alien to the divine and blessed nature. A proof of orthodox doctrine is the refusal to separate him from the Father and Son (for we must be baptized as we have received the words, and we must believe as we are baptized, and we must give honour as we have believed, to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and to withdraw from the communion of those who call the Spirit a creature since they are clearly blasphemers. It is agreed (this comment is necessary because of the slanderers) that we do not say that the Holy Spirit is either unbegotten for we know one unbegotten and one source of what exists, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or begotten, for we have been taught by the tradition of the faith that there is one Only-Begotten. But since we have been taught that the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father we confess that he is from God without being created. (Basil, Letter 125.3).

In Basil’s thinking, since the Spirit is holy without qualification, he cannot be a creature and must be indivisibly one with the divine nature. The confession of this unity is both the criterion of orthodoxy and the basis upon which communion can be terminated with those who affirm that the Spirit is a creature. This pneumatological position thus defines the precise limits beyond which Basil was not prepared to venture, even for a friend such as Eustathius.

Another meeting was arranged for the autumn of 373, at which Eustathius was to sign this declaration in the presence of a number of Christian leaders. But on the way home from his meeting with Basil, Eustathius was convinced by some of his friends that Basil was theologically in error. For the next two years Eustathius crisscrossed what is now modern Turkey denouncing Basil, and claiming that the bishop of Caeasrea was a Modalist, one who believed that there were absolutely no distinctions between the persons of the Godhead.

Basil was so stunned by what had transpired that he kept his peace for close to two years. As he wrote later in 376, he was “astounded at so unexpected and sudden a change” in Eustathius that he able to respond. As he went on to say: “For my heart was crushed, my tongue was paralyzed, my hand benumbed, and I experienced the suffering of an ignoble soul…and I almost fell into misanthropy… [So] I was not silent through disdain…but through dismay and perplexity and the inability to say anything proportionate to my grief.” (Letter 244.4)

Finally, he simply felt that he had to speak. His words were those of the one most important books of the entire patristic period, On the Holy Spirit.

Out in Left Field at ETS

In an earlier post I mentioned that I heard one or two bad papers at ETS last week. Given the number of papers given it is not surprising that there are some in this category. One that I did not hear and that sounds like it was completely out in left field was by Luther Seminary professor Alan Padgett, who maintained in a paper that Christ submits to the church. According to a news report by Jeff Robinson, in “the question and answer session that followed his presentation, Padgett—who serves as professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.—asserted an even more radical idea: in the New Jerusalem the church will no longer submit itself to Christ”! For the full report, see Gender-News.com.

Getting the Facts Right

One of the great things about the ETS meetings are the books that have been significantly discounted and even some that are given away free. One that I received free was by C. Gordon Olson entitled Getting the Gospel Right: A Balanced View of Salvation Truth (Cedar Knolls, New Jersey: Global Gospel Publishers, 2005), which is an abridgement of an earlier volume entitled Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism: An Inductive Mediate Theology of Salvation. The book comes highly endorsed by men like Tim LaHaye, who writes the Foreword, and Earl Radmacher, whom I heard with great profit as a graduation speaker at Central Baptist Seminary, Toronto, many years ago. I have not had time to read the book, but glanced at a few pages, including ones in which Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was mentioned. On page 111 Fuller is given as an example of the way in which subjective introspection can be an obstacle in the way of finding assurance of salvation. On pages 121-122 the author argues that Fuller’s theology helped establish the foundation for the ministry of C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), which I think is true (see also page 350 in this regard). But then Olson states that “George Whitefield, Andrew Fuller, the New Divinity preachers, Charles Finney, Moody, and Spurgeon” were “key figures in moving Protestantism back to a more simple gospel presentation” (p.122). Putting all of these men together as if they believed the same thing does not bode well for a good understanding of biblical truth about salvation. Finney was an out and out Pelagian, while Moody was probably somewhat atheological. The others were clear-cut Calvinists.

On page 334 Fuller is rightly called William “Carey’s friend & theol[ogical] mentor,” though Olson wrongly states that Whitefield was saved through reading Philip Doddridge’s The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. It was reading Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man that God used to bring Whitefield to the new birth. On the following page the impact of Jonathan Edwards and Joseph Bellamy’s True Religion Delineated on Fuller’s thought is noted.

Finally, on page 347, Olson reiterates the fact that Fuller “was moved from extreme Calvinism” by Edwards’ writings and those of the neo-Edwardsians, namely men like Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins. What he does not make clear is that Fuller remained a Calvinist—in his words, a “strict Calvinist.” Olson is right to point out that Fuller’s The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1st ed.: 1784; 2nd ed.: 1801) “caused a firestorm” for it challenged the Baptists of that day to engage in fervent evangelism. The impression given, though, is that by becoming committed to missions, Fuller and his friends abandoned Calvinism. This is simply not true. For Fuller, Calvinism and evangelism were ever warm friends.

How vital it is for a historian to get his or her facts right! If these are not right, it raises questions about the rectitude of other assertions—in this case the getting of the gospel right!

Ellingsen & Bray on Augustine

Material on Augustine is legion. The quip that warns potential graduate students not to get into the Latin master because they won’t get out is so true. Nevertheless, knowing this colossus of the Faith is so important, not least because of his enormous influence on the present. But knowing about that influence does not automatically mean that one knows how Augustine would have answered many of the questions that we are seeking to answer. As Gerald Bray reminds us in a very helpful review of Mark Ellingsen’s The Richness of Augustine: His Contextual and Pastoral Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005)—in the November 2005 of Reformation 21—“we cannot go back to the past and make it fit our own notions of what the people who lived then should have been like.”

57th Annual Meeting of Ets

I have been at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, this past week. The meeting ran from Wednesday, November 16 to Friday, November 18. As with any conference of this magnitude there were good sessions and papers and some not so good. Among the former that I considered outstanding, and which I heard, were the following:

  • Nicholas Perrin’s brilliant presentation on the Gospel of Thomas, “Thomas, the Fifth Gospel?”, that convincingly argued for a late second-century dating of the Gospel and a Syrian provenance;
  • Daniel Williams, “Theological Hermeneutics of Tradition before Nicaea,” in which Dr Williams from Baylor University examined the patristic understanding of the relationship between Scripture and tradition;
  • Brian Vickers’s well-argued examination of the doctrine of imputation in Romans 5: “Made Righteous: The Fundamental Language of Redemption in Romans 5:19”;
  • Paul Hartog from Faith Baptist Theological Seminary who spoke on “Polycarp, Scripture and Ephesians”—an excellent study of Polycarp’s reference to Ephesians as Scripture;
  • John A. Nixon’s paper on “Athanasius’ Understanding of the Relationship between Theology and Scripture”—this was a very fine study of the utterly vital role that Scripture played in the formulation of Athanasian theology; at its conclusion it would have been very difficult not to have recognized that Athanasius was a bibliocentric theologian;
  • Timothy Larsen’s detailed examination of the way in which David Bebbington’s 1989 magisterial study of the history of British Evangelicalism was received during the 1990s: “The Reception Given Bebbington’s Evangelicalism in Modern Britain Since Its Publication”;
  • And Thomas Kidd’s “ ‘Prayer for a Saving Issue’: Evangelical Developments in New England Before the Great Awakening”, in which Kidd, a historian from Baylor University, convincingly showed the presence of Evangelical-style sermons and thinking in New England long before the Northampton revival that Dr Bebbington dates as the start of Evangelicalism in the world of Transatlantic Anglophones.

Of course, in addition to listening to papers there were the joys of fellowship and discussion and the books being sold! Next year the conference is in Washington, DC, and the topic is “Christians in the Public Square.” It really is a must for anyone who loves Evangelicalism and wants to deepen his or her grasp of its history and contemporary expressions.

Free St. George’s

Here is a picture of the church where Alexander Whyte—see entry for November 10, 2005, ALEXANDER WHYTE, A "SPECIALIST IN THE STUDY OF SIN" —ministered for many years in Edinburgh. See Why Free St. George's? The blog, in which this entry appears, is called Free St. George’s and looks like it will be an interesting blog. I really like the goal of the blog as expressed in its subtitle: “Turning the light of Scottish Church History on the Problems of the Modern Church.”

Dr Adrian Rogers–A Christian Gentleman

Here is a fabulous anecdote about the late Dr Adrian Rogers by Phil Johnson. It speaks volumes about Dr Rogers as a true Christian gentleman—and also tells us much about Johnson’s keen sense of humour. Sad to say, such etiquette is a lost art for far too many believers today . See “This is where I am going to be Today.” Note Phil’s words about Dr Rogers: “I had the highest respect for him, a great love for his preaching ministry, and a special appreciation for the courage and diligence he showed in resisting the erosion of confidence in the Scriptures in some SBC circles.”

For two other personal appreciations of Dr Rogers, see George Grant: “Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)”; and Nathan Finn: “A Tribute to Adrian Rogers Dr. Adrian Rogers pass...”

The Apostle Paul: Our Precursor As Paleo-Blogger?

My friend and colleague Clint Humfrey has posted a very thoughtful entry on his blog entitled “The Apostle Paul: Paleo-Blogger?” Clint makes a good point in noting that Paul’s use of the letter as a medium of communication between himself and his churches bespeaks his pastoral heart and he rightly evidences 2 Cor 10:9-11 as proof. He also argues that there is a distinct similarity between the Apostle’s letters and the nature of blogging. In his words, “The use of blogging as a means of occasional correspondence to a wide range of readers—some of whom we may never meet—seems to offer parallels to Paul’s ministry.” He thus suggests that it is significant that the Apostle did not “draw up a circular Manual of Discipline, or a 95 Theses, or construct a Didactic Constitution for Christianity.”

Putting aside the question of whether each of these genres of litearture would have been available to the Apostle in his cultural environment, I think it is important to stress that Paul’s letters cannot be fully understood as being primarily, as Clint puts it, “ ‘occasioned’ by a situation needing to be addressed.” This is certainly not true of the circular letter we know as Ephesians and is hardly true of the heart of Romans (1:16-11:36). Some would argue that 1 Timothy has a “church manual” feel to it, though I personally would differ with this view of the purpose of the letter.

Granted there are distinct historical situations that give rise to the other letters—the issue of the Judaizers in Galatia, Paul’s impending death in 2 Timothy, etc.—yet Paul is well aware that he is writing Scripture (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 7:10, 25; 14:37-38; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, 8; Colossians 4:16), and, as such, he is aware that his letters have a message that transcends that which occasioned them (see Romans 15:4; cp. 2 Timothy 1:13-14 and 2:2). And he was not alone in thinking this way (see 2 Peter 3:15-16).

Thanks, Clint, for stimulating these thoughts—iron sharpening iron!