Fight the Good Fight of Faith

Here is a snapshot from the end of the life of Charles Hodge. Hodge died in the June of 1878, having taught for over fifty years at Princeton Seminary. In the April of that year Hodge had addressed the Sabbath Afternoon Conference on "fighting the good fight of faith" from the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy (1 Timothy 6:12). David Calhoun summarises Hodge's address:

"The first necessary condition of contention for the faith...is the firm conviction that the Bible is the infallible rule of faith." The second condition is "a firm conviction of the importance of these things" revealed in the Scriptures. The third is "an inward experience of the power of the truth." The "way to contend for the truth," Hodge said, is, first, "to confess it, to proclaim it"; second, "to answer misrepresentations"; and, third to do this "with meekness, speaking the truth in love, remembering that Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but it is God who gives the increase."

David Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony 1869-1929, p. 55