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.

When Wrong Is Honoured As Right

Darrin Brooker, a very close friend, alerted me to the fact that it has been suggested that Dr. Henry Morgentaler be awarded the Order of Canada. I was personally deeply distressed by this, for this man has made it his life’s goal to promote abortion throughout this fair nation—which is nothing less than the slaughter of countless innocents—and we are considering honouring this man with one of our nation’s highest honours! I love our country and have been greatly exercised by the way what is wrong has been promoted as a good and what is good has been treated as a merely cultural artefact and outmoded. Goodness never goes out of style; and what is wicked does not change its hue because of a different cultural scene.

There is a poll that The Globe and Mail is conducting regarding this—please take the time to register your opinion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/poll/static/nationalPoll.html.

What If the English Reformation Had Never Happened?

In a recent review of Bill Griffeth’s By Faith Alone: One Family’s Journey Through 400 Years of American Protestantism (Harmony, 2007), Chris Scott notes Griffeth’s assertion that his family roots, which are among the New England Puritans and their journey from England to America, would “never have happened if Henry VIII’s request for a divorce had been granted’ [“Religion: Faiths of the Forefathers”, Bookpage (January 2008), 30]. In other words, if Henry VIII had been able to coax Pope Clement VII (Pope, 1523-1534), the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, into giving him a divorce then the English Reformation would not have taken place. This is an intriguing thought—one of those that delight those who enjoy the pastime of reading of alternative histories. It is like the question: What if JFK had never been assassinated? Or this one: What if Hitler had invaded England in 1940? This Reformation alternate history then is this: Was the English Reformation so dependent on state support that if Henry had not gone into schism over his desire for a new wife, then the Reformation would have been stillborn?

Any close study of the period I think would reveal that men like William Tyndale would have pursued their programme for Reform—could the Reformation have succeeded, though, without state support? And if Henry had stayed within the orbit of Rome, would his children have done the same? It might be the case, that what might have been produced would have been the Reformed Church the Puritans longed for—in which case there would have been no need for the Puritans to venture overseas.

But this is not what happened. Clement stalled for time, not wanting to alienate either Henry or the nephew of Catherine of Aragon—Henry’s wife—who was Charles V, before whom Luther stood at Worms and who genuinely scared the Pope. And in the providence of God there was a Reformation in England—and how thankful we are to God for such. Whatever England may be now, her sons and daughters were once at the cutting edge of the advance of the Kingdom of God in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And their American evangelical cousins performed a similar service in the twentieth century and are still, by God’s grace, at the heart of the expansion of that Kingdom. Long may it be so!

A Stunning Case of Historical Ignorance!

According to a Fox News passed on to me by a friend, “1 in 4 Britons Think Winston Churchill Never Existed”! I know—it sounds ludicrous! One of the most powerful memories of my childhood in England was Churchill’s funeral—I can almost see the headlines now announcing his death. What are we coming to? If this is an accurate assessment of the state of historical ignorance, it is no wonder tripe like the Da Vinci Code seems plausible to so many. This is one of the key reasons for studying and teaching history: there is so much bad history out there. And the idea that Churchill never existed is bad history at its worst!

The Perversity of the Human Heart

So perverse is the human heart that even when a person grows up under the constant sound of the gospel and hears the Word preached regularly, and has surrounding him or her godly models of the Christian life, unless God acts in sovereign grace, there will be no saving faith in the heart. Well did John Calvin put it in his Treatise on Eternal Election (1562): ‘It is not within our power to convert ourselves from our evil life, unless God changes us and cleanses us by his Holy Spirit.’[1]

[1] CO 8:113.

Calvin & Loving Unity

One of the great griefs here in this vale of tears is that God’s people—those blood-bought brothers and sisters who will spend eternity with the Saints and with their heavenly Lord with whom they have union—cannot get along. Sometimes, the issues are major—the nature of gospel preaching, for instance. Sometimes, they are minor—I think some of the divisions over worship today fall into this category. I dare not say all, for worship is an important matter. What shall be our attitude to all of this? I can recommend none better than that of John Calvin, that lover of church unity, who feared to leave Rome lest he was engaging in schism! When Martin Luther was “flaming against the Zurichers,” Calvin said the division between Luther and the Zwinglians of Zurich caused him “no little grief” and he “lamented in [his] own breast in silence.”[1]

Sometimes separation must take place—but it must be deeply lamented and all done to secure unity before such a step taken.

[1] Second Defence of the Pious and Orthodox Faith Concerning the Sacraments, in answer to the Calumnies of Joachim Westphal [Tracts, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1859), 2:253].

Who Is This? Philosophical Questions, Truth & the Saints

What prevents human reasoning from proving the existence or non-existence of God? Human logic and reasoning are flawed and not infallible and are shaped by all kinds of reasons that do not accord with Reason. We are like people then trying to speak about something that lies outside of our complete ken—or like Plato’s cave dwellers.

But I shall never forget that day in the fall of 1972, when, in my first year of university, I sat down to prove the existence of God with pen and paper. I was new to the halls of academia and I was filled with the love of philosophy and philosophical books and the love of words and reasoning. I had gathered a small cache of books, maybe twenty--in them my world of thought was confined. And I often regretted that one day I would die and could peruse those books no more. Little did I know what awaited me that golden autumn. For that day, there in a room in a house off Richmond Street in London, Ontario, where I was boarding with a very elderly couple, before I could put pen to paper, I knew...I knew God existed. Oh, my world was changed. He existed.

I did not yet know him as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who is as burning fire, the God of glory revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. But I was being turned from the confines of human reason to Truth above. I was starting on that road--rather, he was taking my hand down that road--that would lead to a church pew in Stanley Avenue Baptist Church, Hamilton, Ontario, where I heard the Gospel really for the first time and a one-room apartment in Toronto on Dundonald Avenue, where the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Maker, revealed himself in the fire of revelation and I came to the point where I could say, without any philosophical hesitation, Christianus sum.

I then knew, as I had never known before, the limits of reason and why I was alive and I was given a reason to live forever. To enjoy his presence and to bathe in his glory with the saints of his Church: philosopher saints like Augustine and Anselm and humble saints like Augustine's mother Monnica.

"Who is this that hangs there dying while the rude world scoffs and scorns Numbered with the malefactors, torn with nails, and crowned with thorns? 'Tis our God who lives forever mid the shining ones on high In the glorious golden city, reigning everlastingly." (William W How)

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).

New Year’s Resolution: This Year a Budding Historian!

I have entered a new phase of my life: full-time professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I am deeply humbled and in some ways terrified! But I see it also as an opportunity to be what God has called me to be: an historian. I wrestled with that calling long and hard. By that I do not mean that I ever fled from being an historian. In some ways it fits me as naturally as my skin! But for a long time, in a church culture that sees calling as primarily meaning becoming a missionary or pastor, I could not believe that this was my calling. I suppose it was not until I was fortyish that I began to accept it as my calling.

Since then I have been learning what it is that God has called me to do—and learning what he has not called me to do. The latter has been especially very difficult, since there is this underground rivulet (or is it a stream?) in my heart that keeps hankering to be more than an historian. But that is my calling—after Christian, husband, dad, and friend.

And then I look at what it means to be an historian—and that daunts me as well! Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, I will begin to be an historian, I think. But I am nowhere near where I should be—and I am in my early fifties!

A fitting new year’s resolution: this year a budding historian!

Interpreting English Calvinistic Baptist History

The reigning paradigm for interpreting English Calvinistic Baptist history is as follows: Significant growth in the 1640s and 1650s

Persecution but still growth from 1660-1688

Increasing stagnation and even decline from 1688 to the 1770s /1780s

Revival between the 1770s/1780s and the 1830s

This is a common-enough hermeneutic grid for making sense of the English Calvinistic Baptist story. But it makes sense only if one presumes that the whole story is about numerical growth.

But what if we approached the whole history from the 1640s to the 1830s from a somewhat different angle, say the angle of being pilgrims and strangers? Do you still get the same graph of growth, decline and growth? No, then the pattern is somewhat different. Then the early period—when the historical background was the Puritan Cause Triumphant—is not as close to the New Testament pattern, since many of the Calvinistic Baptists were wielding power in the army and were influential in Puritan politics (witness Ireland, for example, and William Kiffin). The second era, the one of overt persecution, looks a lot more like New Testament faithfulness.

And the third era is not so stark. Why? Because the Baptists have been relegated to second-class status—and there are significant numbers abandoning the good ship Dissent (witness the Wesley brothers’ parents and Faithful Teate’s son, Nahum Tate). Then, the Baptists increasingly see themselves as a beleaguered minority, a pilgrim people in an alien land. Now, the question which must be asked is this: how did the Baptists of the third era from the 1680s to the 1770s—nearly hundred years—interpret the pilgrim people themes of the New Testament. Are they truly a pilgrim people? If so, then the story of that period is not so bad after all.

Two important caveats to all of this: I am not discounting the importance of evangelism. Far from it. But I am asking whether or not that is the only heuristic tool available. Second, I am not completely rejecting the older interpretation of this era from the 1688 to the 1770s as one of stagnation and decline. I am just seeking to see whether or not other interpretative models can yield valuable insights. PS: a blessed new year to all of my readers!

On the Difference between the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

The difference between seventeenth-century Puritan theology and that in the eighteenth century is well summed up by the following remark made by the Calvinistic Baptist David Kinghorn to his son, the famous Joseph Kinghorn: “I think if [Stephen] Charnock were abridged by a skilful hand, it would be a valuable work.”[1]

The seventeenth-century passion for big systematic tomes was simply not shared by the eighteenth-century men, even when the two different generations shared a similar commitment to Reformed orthodoxy.

[1] Letter to Joseph Kinghorn, December 18, 1790 [in Martin Hood Wilkin, Joseph Kinghorn, of Norwich: A Memoir [1855 ed.; repr. in The Life and Works of Joseph Kinghorn (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 1995), I, 182].

Nine Top Biographies

A friend asked me about a list of top ten biographies that I would recommend. I came up with the following nine--I have always preferred odd numbers to even. It is quickly done and does not have the academic bibliographical stuff, but I trust the books I am referring to are clear. These are ones that have had a profound impact on my life. There are others I know that should be here but that would lengthen it maybe to the top seventeen! These are in no particular order.

1. Iain Murray, DM Lloyd-Jones (2 vols.)

2. Faith Cook, Grimshaw of Haworth

3. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore (Adoniram Judson)

4. Timothy George, Faithful Witness (W Carey)

5. Andrew Fuller, Memoirs of Samuel Pearce

6. A Dallimore, George Whitefield (2 vols.)

7. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo

8. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards

9. Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards

The Past & Understanding Islam

Understanding Islam is imperative. Such knowledge is vital for stability in the Middle East and, with the spread of jihadist terrorism, it is now essential for the larger sphere of global peace. More importantly, such knowledge is vital for the great task that the Church has in our generation, namely, the planting of gospel churches among Muslim peoples. And as with other spheres of human insight and understanding, such knowledge must come from first-hand contact. Far too much so-called knowledge in the West about the Muslim world is sketchy at best and utterly untrustworthy at worst. Western Evangelical Christianity, confident that it is not influenced by the secular press, has become an unwitting perpetrator of far too many myths about the Muslims. Westerners, even Evangelicals, tend to adore the present and future, and look with disdain on the past. But such an attitude is fatal in any work seeking to be fruitful among Muslims, where the contours of the past are constantly being recalled. And so to understand Islam we must remember the past, and especially our past encounters with Islam.

Clement of Alexandria and the Term “Father”

The use of the term “father” for Christian mentors is quite ancient. Here is a quote from Clement of Alexandria that indicates this: “Words are the progeny of the soul. Hence we call those that instructed us fathers” (Stromateis 1.1.2-2.1).

Of course, Paul uses it thus in 1 Thessalonians 2:11. Our Lord emphasizes, though, that the term cannot be used in such a way that it compromises the fact that God the Father alone is our true Father. Any other father in Christ is relative compared to Him (Matthew 23:9).

The Puritans & Their Immersion in the Word

In a piece in The New York Times Magazine this past summer, Noah Feldman reflects on his upbringing in Orthodox Judaism. There were quite a number of things I found fascinating, but none more than this remark about his immersion in the Hebrew Bible: “Line by line we burrowed into the old texts in their original Hebrew and Aramaic. The poetry of the Prophets sang in our ears. After years of this, I found I could recite the better part of the Hebrew Bible from memory. Among other things, this meant that when I encountered the writings of the Puritans who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, I felt immediate kinship. They read those same texts again and again—often in Hebrew—searching for their own errand into the American wilderness.” [“Orthodox Paradox”, The New York Times Magazine (July 22, 2007), 43].

This is extraordinary not only for the remarks about the memorization of the Old Testament, but also for the kinship felt by Noah, an orthodox Jew, for the Puritans. It is good testimony to the latter’s immersion in the Word of God

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!

Pursuing the Study of History with Chastity?

Here is a fascinating quote from the Puritan historian Patrick Collinson: “History fails to impress or inspire me. I refer you to a quotation from Lord Acton, used as a motto prefacing The Elizabethan Puritan Movement: ‘I think our studies ought to be all but purposeless. They want to be pursued with chastity, like mathematics.’ ”

It is taken from an interview on The Conventicle website. Fascinating that there were no comments on the interview or this particular statement. It surely cuts against the grain of much of my own thinking about history! To be sure, there must be a deadly seriousness with regard to accuracy--but to admit no inspiration from the past or purpose in studying it strikes me as ultimately self-defeating as an historian.