Providence

Great providence of heaven--
What wonders shine
In its profound display
Of God's design:
It guards the dust of earth,
Commands the hosts above,
Fulfils the mighty plan
Of his great love

The kingdoms of this world
Lie in its hand;
See how they rise or fall
At its command
Through sorrow and distress,
Tempestuous storms that rage,
God's kingdom yet endures
From age to age

Its darkness dense is but
A radiant light;
Its oft-perplexing ways
Are ordered right.
Soon all its winding paths
Will end, and then the tale
Of wonder shall be told
Beyond the veil.

David Charles, 1762-1834;
Translated from the Welsh by Edmund Tudor Owen

Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Confession of Faith (1823)

Article 7, Of God's Providence in the Preservation and Government of the World

God, in his wise, holy, and righteous providence, upholds and governs all creatures and their actions. His providence extends over all places, all events, all changes, and all times. His providence, in its operation, is full of eyes to behold, and powerful to perform, and makes all things work together for good to them that love God. It overrules the sinful actions of men; nevertheless, it neither causes nor occasions the sinfulness of any of them.

Belgic Confession

Article 13 About the Providence of God

We believe that this Most High God, after He created all things, did not in the least hand them over to fate or the rule of fortune, but continually rules and governs them according to the precept of His sacrosanct will so that nothing may happen in this world apart from His decree and ordination.

Neither is it possible to say that God is the author of or the guilty party in the evils that occur in this world. For both His power and goodness lie widely open as immeasurable and incomprehensible, and His work and proceedings are sacredly and justly determined and executed, although both the Devil and the wicked unjustly act.

Truly, whatsoever He does, having exceeded human constraints, we do not wish to inquire about these things pryingly and beyond our constraints. In fact, on the contrary, we nevertheless humbly and reverently adore the hidden and just judgments of God. For it is enough for us, as disciples of Christ, to learn no more than that which He Himself teaches us in His Word, without transgressing the limits that we regard as lawful.

Truly, this doctrine brings immeasurable comfort to us. For from it we know that nothing happens to us by fortune, but only all things by the will of our heavenly Father, Who truly keeps watch for us with fatherly care, having subjugated all things unto Himself so that not even a hair our head (which have all been numbered down to the individual one) can be plucked out, nor can the smallest chick fall to the ground, apart from the will of our Father.

And so we thoroughly rest in this, acknowledging that God restrains the devils and all our enemies, just as curbed with whips, so that no one is strong enough to hurt us apart from His will and good permission.

And therefore in this place we reject the detestable opinion of the Epicureans, who create an idle god, doing nothing and forfeiting all things.

Act. 23:8; John 5:17; Heb. 1:3; Prover. 16:4; Iacob. 4:15; Jacob. 4:15; Job 1:21; 2 Kings 22:20; Act. 4:28; 1 Sam. 8:25; Psal. 115:3; Isa. 45:7; Amos 3:6; Deut. 19:5; Prover. 21:1; Ps. 105:25; Isa. 10:5; 2 Thess. 2:11; Ezech. 41:9; Rom 1:28; 1 Kings 11:23; Gen. 45:8, 50:20; 2 Sam. 16:10; Matt. 8:31; 1 John 3:8

Westminster Confession of Faith

Chapter 5: Of Providence

I. God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

II. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

III. God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.

IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first Fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God; who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.

V. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God, doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.

VI. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous judge, for former sins, doth blind and harden; from them he not only withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon their hearts; but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had; and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan; whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God useth for the softening of others.

VII. As the providence of God doth, in general, reach to all creatures, so, after a most special manner, it taketh care of his Church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?

A. God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

The Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 26. What do you believe when you say: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth?”

That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who of nothing made heaven and earth with all that in them is,¹ who likewise upholds, and governs the same by His eternal counsel and providence,² is for the sake of Christ, His Son, my God and my Father,³ in whom I so trust as to have no doubt that He will provide me with all things necessary for body and soul;⁴ and further, that whatever evil He sends upon me in this troubled life, He will turn to my good;⁵ for He is able to do it, being Almighty God,⁶ and willing also, being a faithful Father.⁷

¹ Gen 1-2; Ex 20:11; Job 38-39; Ps 33:6; Isa 44:24; Acts 4:24, 14:15; Col 1:16; Heb 11:3; ² Ps 104:2-5, 27-30, 115:3; Mt 6:30, 10:29-30; Acts 17:24-25; Eph 1:11; Heb 1:3; ³ Mt 6:8; Jn 1:12-13; Rom 8:15-16; Gal 4:4-7; Eph 1:5, 3:14-16; ⁴ Ps 55:22, 90:1-2; Mt 6:25-26; Lk 12:22-31; ⁵ Acts 17:27-28; Rom 8:28; ⁶ Gen 18:14; Rom 8:31-39, 10:12; ⁷ Num 23:19; Mt 6:32-33, 7:9-11

Q 27. What do you understand by the providence of God?

The almighty, everywhere-present power of God,¹ whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures,² and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought,³ fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,⁴ health and sickness,⁵ riches and poverty,⁶ indeed, all things come not by chance,⁷ but by His fatherly hand.⁸

¹ Jer 23:23-24; Acts 17:24-28; ² Heb 1:3; ³ Jer 5:24; ⁴ Acts 14:15-17; ⁵ Jn 9:3; ⁶ Job 1:21; Ps 103:19; Prov 22:2; Rom 5:3-5; ⁷ Prov 16:33; ⁸ Mt 10:29; Eph 1:1

Q 28. What does it profit us to know that God created, and by His providence upholds, all things?

That we may be patient in adversity,¹ thankful in prosperity,² and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love,³ since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.⁴

¹ Job 1:21-22; Ps 39:10; Rom 5:3; Jas 1:3; ² Deut 8:10; 1 Thes 5:18; ³ Ps 55:22; Rom 5:3-5, 8:35, 38-39; ⁴ Job 1:12, 2:6; Ps 71:7; Prov 21:1; Acts 17:24-28; 2 Cor 1:10

Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Fathers at Ref 21

The link to which I would like to draw your attention is to be found at Reformation 21.

My good friend Paul Levy has written Calvinistic Methodism and Rock 'n' Roll, a review of this recently published, first time in English, two volume work on the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Fathers. He's also written a provocative and helpful piece on The Advantage of Virtual Church.

I would also like to draw your attention to the recent emphatic victory by my rugby team the Cardiff Blues over Carl Trueman's team Gloucester.

A Reformation Day Challenge

Let me encourage you to make a resolution this Reformation Day. Take up the challenge to read three key books on the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Before I say a little about each book let me underscore a few reasons why we ought to know the truth of justification as well as we can.

1. We cannot afford to lose this truth. And truth can be lost sight of, and that not merely for a generation but even for centuries. When justification by faith alone is lost sight of not only are we left in darkness but we will grope around to find in ourselves and our works the ground of our acceptance with God. In a day when this truth is being questioned, attacked, denied, and revised thank God that he has raised up men who are able to teach it clearly from the Scriptures, able to refute opponents, and for publishers who are making new and old volumes on this truth available.

2. We cannot afford to live without this truth. We dare not approach God without the obedience and blood of Christ, and we cannot benefit from the work of Christ except by faith alone. We deliberately need to turn away from ourselves and toward Christ, resting and relying on him alone in order to be declared righteous before God.

3. We cannot afford to die without this truth. Once we learn that we have already passed from death to life, that for us looking to Christ alone by faith alone the judicial verdict of God has been passed and we are declared righteous in his sight, we may then approach death without fear of future condemnation. Iain Murray tells an encouraging story that illustrates this:

About a hundred years ago Alexander Whyte, as a pastor in Edinburgh, visited one of his elders who was dying. A book was close to the man's hand and, recognizing that it was not the Bible, Whyte looked on the open page to see what it might be. There his eyes fell on the words, "Chapter 11--Of Justification":

Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

Murray adds "We too will die, and when that day comes there will be no truth we shall value more than the doctrine thus stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith."

The first book that I would encourage you to read is John V. Fesko's recently published Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine (available here). It is a substantial volume weighing in at 480 pages. This work seeks to set justification clearly in the framework of the history of salvation and the order of salvation. It also has an eye to recent controversies over justification by faith alone and seeks to understand and respond to challenges to the classic Reformed doctrine.

The second book takes us back to the 19th Century, where again the doctrine was under attack. Let me encourage you to read James Buchanan's classic work on The Doctrine of Justification (available here if you live in the US or here if you live in the UK). Buchanan deals with the OT and NT teaching on justification, justification in church history and various aspects of the doctrine.

Joel Beeke says:

Buchanan expounds the doctrine itself by covering the scriptural meaning of the term, its relation to the law and justice of God, its relation to the mediatorial work of Christ, its relation to grace and works, and more. The chapter on justification in relation to the work of the Holy Spirit is alone worth the price of the book.

Again it is a substantial volume at 540 pages.

The final book was written by the greatest theologian the British Isles has ever produced, John Owen. Owen's work The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ explained, confirmed, and vindicated) is available here (US) or here (UK). At 448 pages it is the shortest of the three! You will find that Owen's work, although written in the seventeenth century, has a contemporary feel to it. It is proof positive that the same debates are played out again and again in church history. This work will enrich your soul as well as inform your mind.

Reading, like running, requires commitment and development. If you want to run a marathon you have to train and build up your stamina over long distances. We should all aim to read so that we can move onto to more substantial literature.

Take time to work through these volumes carefully. Meditate on them, summarize their points and arguments, digest their teaching, speak to others about what the Lord has taught you. And on your knees thank him for having mercy upon you a sinner by not counting your sins against you, but instead counting, as if it were yours, the obedience of your Lord and Saviour, your representative and substitute, the only mediator Jesus Christ.

Twelve years ago I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Hans Kung's teaching on justification in relation to official Roman Catholic and classic Protestant views on the doctrine. I well remember at times spending twelve or thirteen hours a day working on it. I still remember the joy of laying my head on the pillow in the certain knowledge that it wasn't my works but Christ and his perfect work that was my righteousness before God. I thank God the same is true today and I can sing in the words of the old hymn:

A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear, with Thy righteousness on, my person and off’ring to bring.
The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do;
My Savior’s obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view

Happy Reformation day!

Mike Ovey interview

Christian Focus will be publishing a collection of interviews that I conducted with senior ministers and seminary professors. The provisional title is To Protect and Serve: Interviews on handling truth and error in the Church. The line up includes Mike Horton, Carl Trueman, Scott Clark, Mark Dever, Tom Schreiner (penal substitution), Joel Beeke, Kim Riddlebarger, Derek Thomas, and Ligon Duncan (justification). The foreword is by Sinclair Ferguson.

Robert Letham writes about the interviews:

This collection is fascinating, sobering and encouraging. It presents an impressive range of experience and wisdom on the challenges facing the church and its ministry in dealing with false teaching while being sensitive to those affected by it.

I have also interviewed Mike Ovey, one of the authors of Pierced for our Transgressions and the Principal of Oak Hill Theological College. You'll have to buy the book to read the full interview but here is a taster:

How should a minister keep his own heart, mind and will from theological error?

I think a minister must remember first that his mind is not a neutral instrument, but one that not infrequently will be used to rationalize his heart’s desire. From that point of view there is a real need for a minister to concentrate on the fruit of the Spirit and in particular the virtues of humility and gentleness. It does seem to me that a heart that is prone to pride and aggression is likely to be prone to theological error. So spending personal time with the Lord, submitted to his word, and where possible having an accountability group – all these things to my mind help protect us from theological error as well as from unholiness of life. The two do, I think, go together.

Why do men possessed of fine intellectual gifts end up embracing and believing significant theological errors?

I think there are three things that spring to mind. First, pride: in particular perhaps a pride of intellect that insists God should have said this rather than that, and therefore squeezes the Scripture into one’s own system. Secondly, boredom: I think there is a spiritual malaise that has a sense of ennui at the presentation of simple Gospel truths (Christ died for my sin, Christ rose again, he is the ascended Lord) and wants, so to speak, to explore the periphery of Christian theology. I think there is a cultural spirit in our time that loves the new and loves the esoteric. Thirdly, we can embrace error because we want to justify what we are doing: simple immorality over the years has led many of us astray.

Idolatry, trials and grace

"Each one of us hath a whore and idol besides our Husband Christ"

"The world, and the things of the world, Madam, is the lover ye naturally affect beside your own husband Christ. The hedge of thorns and the wall which God buildeth in your way, to hinder you from this lover, is the thorny hedge of daily grief, loss of children, weakness of body, iniquity of the time, uncertainty of estate, lack of worldly comfort, fear of God's anger for old unrepented-of sins. What lose ye, if God twist and plait the hedge daily thicker?"

"Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy"

Samuel Rutherford

Gratitude

We are so thankful for all the messages of love, sympathy and support that we have received from all over the world. And we are grateful for the prayers of our church, and Christian friends. But most of all we are grateful for Christ our great high priest. Perhaps no one has expressed this better than Louis Berkhof:

It is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not present to our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against the dangers of which we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end.

On Sunday 2nd November I will be preaching at the anniversary services of Grove Chapel, Camberwell (London). Check out the Grove Chapel website here.

They lose nothing who gain Christ

"You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then He is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation,--a rock rising above the storm."

Robert Murray M'Cheyne, letter to one bereaved, March 9th, 1843

"Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die...but shineth in another hemisphere. Ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country.

If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity...Build your nest upon no tree here; for ye see that God hath sold the whole forest to death; and every tree whereupon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end that we may fly and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock."

Samuel Rutherford, letter to Lady Kenmure, on occasion of the death of her infant daughter, January 15th, 1629

A dark providence, a gracious God

Our hopes of the birth of our third child have come to an end. Last Friday there was no reassuring heartbeat on the ultrasound scan, and our worst fears were realised. Our son Morgan died, seventeen weeks and four days into the pregnancy.

His eyes would never open to see the wonders and sorrows of this world, but we are sure that they have opened to see the beauty and glory of Jesus Christ, of a perfect world of love that his family on earth have only begun to poorly imitate.

We shall lay his earthly remains in the grave, but not our hopes with them. Christ is risen, death is conquered, our night of weeping will give way to everlasting days of joy.

We live by promises, not explanations. George Whitefield wrote after the death of his second child "To explain God's providence by his promise, and not his promise by his providence, I find is the only way both to get and to keep our comforts." And his comforts come by speaking of his gospel promises that are stronger than death (1 Thess. 4:18).

Here is Article 17 of the Canons of Dort (1618)

The Salvation of the Infants of Believers

Since we must make judgments about God's will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy.

"A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud"

I wrote this on 10th October 2007. What we believe we live by.

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As long as our doctrinal understanding is undeveloped we are ill equipped to face the intellectual, emotional, and practical challenges that meet us every day. Think of Paul's description in Ephesians 4:14-16 of immaturity in knowledge and its effects:

So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Crucially, as long as we are like this, there is will be no stability in our Christian walk. Instead, tossed to and fro by the waves, immature believers are carried about by every wind of doctrine. The solution to this is for the church to be confessional, speaking the truth of the gospel in love. Not only were they troubled by instability but the young believers at Ephesus were also impressionable, fair game for the craft and cunning of false teachers.

The same means intended to deal with their instability would also deal with their vulnerability to error. What this of course means is that as we grow in knowledge so we are better able to discern and reject error.

And so it is when we come to the doctrine of providence.

Consider the following on providence and sanctification the Westminster Confession 3:5:

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.

Is this how I view temptation? Do I discern it it God's design to work all this together for my good? What about those periods of emotional flatness? Or a felt sense of God's absence? (Even though by Word and Sacrament we see his pledge never to leave nor forsake his people).

How easy it is to be troubled by our circumstances because we have not developed a robust biblical, and essentially comforting (read "soul strengthening") view of the providence of a good and faithful God.

Our culture has taught us that the world operates by chance, that our lives are ultimately unguided. In this atmosphere we appear to live and move and have our being. And then there are versions of providence that encourage to view God as frustrated, limited, and thwarted. This is the God who is almost sovereign.

The Heidelberg Catechism (Questions 26-28) not only affirms, summarises, and explains the doctrine of God's providence, it also takes us by the hand and shows us the application of it. A Christian instructed about God's providence should know that it teaches us to be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future to have good confidence in our faithful God and Father.

Knowing and applying this gracious teaching about God's providence gives strong consolation in times of trial, adversity and grief. Consider the words of Sarah Edwards as she wrote to her daughter Esther on 3rd April 1758 to break the news of her husband's death:

"What shall I say: A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness that we had him so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left to us! We are all given to God: and there I am and love to be."

We cannot respond like this without knowing about God's providence from his Word. This is precisely the point that Paul underlines in Romans 8:28. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." We know this! We know it because God has revealed it.

And consider also the words from Ryland's hymn (which to me personally when I read them a few years ago on the back of a Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth magazine in the library of Gordon Conwell Seminary were a timely help). What confidence we can have in a God who is Almighty and a Father who is Faithful:

Sovereign Ruler of the skies
Ever gracious, ever wise
All my times are in Thy hand
All events at thy command

He that formed me in the womb
He shall guide me to the tomb
All my times shall ever be
Ordered by his wise decree

Times of sickness, times of health
Times of poverty and wealth
Times of trial and of grief
Times of triumph and relief

Times the tempter's power to prove
Times to taste a Saviour's love
All must come, and last, and end.
As shall please my heavenly Friend.

Plagues and deaths around me fly.
Till he bids I cannot die:
Not a single shaft can hit
Til the God of love thinks fit.

O Thou gracious, wise and just
In They hands my life I trust
Thee, at all times, will I bless
Having Thee, I all possess

Both Almighty God and a Faithful Father

26. What do you believe when you say: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth?”

That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who of nothing made heaven and earth with all that in them is, who likewise upholds, and governs the same by His eternal counsel and providence, is for the sake of Christ, His Son, my God and my Father, in whom I so trust as to have no doubt that He will provide me with all things necessary for body and soul; and further, that whatever evil He sends upon me in this troubled life, He will turn to my good; for He is able to do it, being Almighty God, and willing also, being a faithful Father.

27. What do you understand by the providence of God?

The almighty, everywhere-present power of God, whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.

28. What does it profit us to know that God created, and by His providence upholds, all things?

That we may be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love, since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.

Our Only Comfort

The HC Q & A

1. What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live unto Him.

New Book: Bible Overview

Christian Focus has just brought out Bible Overview by my friend Steve Levy. Order it here. Or take Glen Scrivener's advice and get it cheaper here.

The book should stir up some debate on important issues, not least of which is the content of the faith of Old Testament saints. One wonders whether liberal theology and higher critical Old Testament scholarship eviscerated evangelical confidence that David knew that Christ was his Lord, that Israel grieved the Holy Spirit in the wilderness, and that the Church in the Old Testament wasn't Unitarian.

Have a read of the following recommendations (there is one from me inside the book):

"Steve has a fever for the Bible and is desperate to infect you! Let him."

Dale Ralph Davis

"This is a page-turner of a book! I truly cannot think of a better way of introducing someone to the Bible than through these wonderfully luminous chapters."

Richard Bewes

"That it is well written and easy to read is good for starters; but the heart of the situation is the sheer happiness of meeting someone who is so in love with the bible, so sensible in his approach..."

Alec Motyer

"My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will use this lively and stimulating book by Steve Levy to remove the veil from many minds."

Stuart Olyott

Here's a comment from Glen Scrivener at Christ the Truth:

Loving what I’ve read so far. I reckon this is the book I’ll be giving to anyone wanting a grounding in Christ-focused biblical theology.

Here’s a provocative paragraph early on:

“When you are reading any of the Old Testament books, whether Numbers, Leviticus, Kings or Chronicles, you are reading about the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are not reading an illustration of the gospel, you are not reading stories that can be reinterpreted in the light of the gospel. You are reading God’s clear word about Jesus. That is how the Bible sees itself.” (p22)

Amnesia and Apostasy

The Bible is clear: amnesia produces apostasy. That is why Scripture is so frantic about the church not forgetting what Yahweh has done for us (see Deut. 4 and 6). So Jeremiah diagnosed faithless Israel:

They did not say, 'Where is the LORD
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that none passes through,
where no man dwells?'

When we allow either his quiet keeping or his dramatic rescue to slip into oblivion we are on our way toward Baal.

Nor is it merely some ancient Israelite problem. The apostle warns us of false teachers who will be "denying the Master who bought them" (2 Pet. 2:1 RSV, italics added).

Which is good reason for us to partake gratefully and frequently of the Lord's Supper. Lest we forget.

Dale Ralph Davis, Such a Great Salvation: Exposition of the Book of Judges, p. 37

Podcast spirituality

Twelve years ago I discovered that if you wanted to listen to sermons without a real preacher and real congregation present all you needed to do was to get hold of a tape catalogue and work out how much you could afford to spend (I was a student in those days).

Today, at the click of a button I can listen to a vast amount of material, from the cream of the crop, still without a real preacher or real congregation present, and all for free.

Twelve years ago my supply was limited by my finances, and thereby limited in its impact. It formed a tiny part of my spiritual diet alongside books, and listening to real preachers in a real congregation.

Today, the sheer volume of audio material available means that I am far more likely to make that a significant part of my spiritual diet. And today I am that real preacher in a real congregation.

The question is, what is this individualism doing to me?

Given that technology is reconfiguring our spiritual intake, and I take it that the benefits are obvious, how do I become aware of the dangers? What are the dangers?

What is this doing to local churches? Will this lead to an audio hierarchy where the best internet preachers are really the most influential figures in local churches? Is that healthy? Are we already there?

What does that do to the way we listen together week by week in the context of local church life?

Why we must guard the gospel

When Paul describes false teaching in 1 & 2 Timothy he is not working with the literary style that is suitable for a textbook or encyclopedia entry. Paul's language wouldn't go down well with the false teachers, but it is very appropriate to the reality of what he is dealing with.

What is false teaching?

In 1 Timothy 6:20 it is "irreverent babble" (ESV), "godless chatter" (NIV), it is falsely called knowledge.

What happens when false teaching like this spreads?

It destroys faith, it is the spiritual equivalent of gangrene (2 Tim. 2:16).

The "good deposit" must be guarded, and the pattern of sound teaching must be kept (2 Timothy 1:13-14). And so what appears to be a fairly restrictive and somewhat negative approach to ministry is seen against serious and severe background.

These are not small matters. Unoriginality in this regard is to be prized, for the true teacher will not seek to modify or adapt the content of the message to suit his age or audience. Rather he will see that guarding and keeping are significant aspects of authentic orthopraxy. This is what God requires of gospel ministers.

The real impact of this is not measured by the influence of the church in the present age, but in the eternal destiny of those who listen to false and true gospels. Yet even here Timothy is to take heart that in the midst of a confused church scene, there is no confusion on the Lord knowing his people (2 Tim. 2:19.

The fall and rise of churches

Why do churches decline and die out?

Is it due to a failure to transition from one culture to the next, shedding what is culturally obsolete and retaining what is theologically permanent?

Is this a law, an observable principle that makes church growth and decline predictable?

How important are forms of church life (small groups, worship styles in relation to culture etc.)? Are these indicators of how a church will flourish or ossify?

How do our answers to the questions above relate to the presence, gospel preserving and life giving power of the Holy Spirit?

What is the relationship between church growth and divine sovereignty?

What difference does the view of divine sovereignty that we take, make to our cultural analysis and perspective on "means" when it comes to church health and growth?

What is the relationship between church decline and the judgment of the church by its Head?

Do churches decline on a predictable, observable pattern, or because of the disciplinary action of Christ? If the latter than what are the biblical indicators of being under the Lord's displeasure?

What precisely are the right biblical categories in assessing the fall and rise of churches? Are they the ones that bring clarity and focus to our thinking and practice on these matters?

What difference does this make to our assessment of church growth?

Recovering the Reformed Confession: out now

You can order it here, and have a look at some sample pages here.

Seeking God's approval

The following searching comment is from Iain Murray's short bio of Thomas Chalmers (in A Scottish Christian Heritage, p. 94). It would be worth reading and contemplating before preaching:

The governing principle upon which the strength of all ministerial duties depends is regard for the approval of God.

If a minister lacks that principle his public work will be dominated by regard for himself or for the approbation of men.

Where that principle is truly present it will operate first in the sphere of the preacher's own inner life.

Chalmers expressed it thus:

How little must the presence of God be felt in that place, where the high functions of the pulpit are degraded into a stipulated exchange of entertainment, on the one side, and of admiration, on the other! and surely it were a sight to make angels weep when a weak and vapouring mortal, surrounded by his fellow sinners, and hastening to the grave and the judgment along with them, finds it a dearer object to his bosom to regale his hearers by the exhibition of himself, than to do, in plain earnest, the work of his Master.

Of course you do understand that everyone loves doctrine

When I worked with student Christian Unions it was not self evident to some that having a doctrinal basis, a statement of core non-negotiable beliefs, was a good idea.

In fact the very idea that we should set down what we believe in words, and use language that was as clear, concise and helpful as possible, went against the grain of what some understood being Christian or evangelical to be about.

Now when confronted by this response it is easy to take the objections at face value and to accommodate yourself to assumptions that need exposing and challenging.

One way that this happens is to bend over backwards to show that "doctrine" (that dry, dusty, archaic word), is in fact vibrant and vitally connected to life-giving Christian experience. I'm not disputing for a moment that it is. And you would think that people at university would have the smarts to know that doctrine is simply another word for teaching.

But everyone who begins to spit and hiss at the sound of the word doctrine, much as Dracula does when shown a crucifix, in reality loves doctrine. You just need to figure out what kind of doctrine they love and what kind they hate. One thing is for sure, they must be committed to doctrine. Whether that doctrine is really compatible with Biblical Christianity is the question.

As counter-intuitive as it may appear to be, people who find doctrine a switch-off are actually deeply committed to doctrine and couldn't live without it.

The Bible is simply instinctive with the impulse to confess the true identity of the Lord, his Triune identity, and to confess, believe, and proclaim his mighty works of creation, providence and salvation.

For example take Psalm 93:1-2:

The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength.
The world is firmly established;
it cannot be moved.

Your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity.

And Daniel 4:34-35:

I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.
His dominion is an eternal dominion;
his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the peoples of the earth
are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases
with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
or say to him: "What have you done?"

And 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (once you have read it take a look at Deut. 6:4 and see what Paul has done with it):

We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

We might add Romans 10:9 and 1 Corinthians 12:1 into the equation too.

There are truths that have been revealed, and they are to be believed, confessed, taught, defended and proclaimed. Any aversion to this betrays a spirituality, as well as a theology, cut adrift from biblical norms. And that of course is the real issue here.

Aversion to the biblical doctrines of God, his sovereignty and Triune identity, the person and work of Christ, the Creator-creature distinction, and so on, any aversion to speaking clearly about these matters as publicly revealed truths to be confessed by all believers and articulated in words is the tell-tale hallmark of pseudo-Christianity.

We are all going to be doctrinal, it is merely a question as to whether we are committed to the kind of truths and their authoritative source that Paul spells out in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, or else to the doctrines of uncertainty, vagueness, theological plurality and experiential tyranny.

God of the Covenant

A date for your diary...

Iain D. Campbell will be speaking on Covenant Theology at the EMW Ministers Day Conference on Wednesday 3rd February 2009 at Bryn-y-Groes in Bala (North Wales).

There will be two sessions during the day:

"Covenant Theology: The Exegetical Foundations"

and

"Covenant Theology: The Practical Implications"

More details soon

Praying to a sovereign God

From the pen of John Flavel:

Prayer begets and maintains holy courage and magnanimity in evil times. When all things about you tend to discouragement, it is your being with Jesus that makes you bold, Acts 4:13.

He that uses to be before a great God, will not be afraid to look such little things as men are in the face.

Messenger of Grace

Wonderful words for preachers to think on:

Would I describe a preacher...I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds may feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes a messenger of grace to guilty men.

William Cowper, The Task

Available to order

If you live in the US you can order it at a good price from the WTS bookstore.

Top Ten UK Christian Bloggers

Dave Bish has the list

Update

I have fallen out of the top ten! Good job that my blog ranking doesn't justify my existence.

By the way Dave Bish doesn't actually look like Sir Jimmy Saville. And how a blog with the title "Against Heresies" could make the list is beyond me. Although I have been thinking about changing it to "Reformation Central."

(Technically he could add Ref 21 to the list)

Living for Christ in a hostile world

If you live in North Wales, Chester, Cheshire, Liverpool, or Shropshire why not come along this Saturday to the EMW day conference "Living for Christ in a hostile world"?

Speakers are Gwynn Williams (Welsh Evangelical Church Cardiff) and Justin Mote (Director of the North West Partnership training course). The venue is Ebenezer Baptist Church Mold.

The church will be open from 12pm for drinks and lunch (bring your own sandwiches or buy locally) and the first session begins at 1pm. The programme is simple and straightforward:

1pm Daniel 1-2

2.30-3.30pm Coffee, news and interviews

3.30-5pm Daniel 4

There will be a creche for young children and a programme for primary age children.

B.B. Warfield and the Simpsons

Geoff Thomas has a delightful little article on the life of B. B. Warfield over at the Calvin500 blog.

The Simpsons connection is in the third paragraph.

Consumerism the Church and the abnormal Christian life

This is a re-post from earlier this summer. Consumerism is theological problem and a major one at that.

The following is from an editorial written for the Evangelical Magazine:

“The big theme of the story that follows is the defeat of politics by shopping...Consumerism has shouldered aside other ways of understanding the world—real political visions, organised religion, a pulsating sense of national identity.” So begins Andrew Marr's bestseller A History of Modern Britain. It is this consumer mentality that is bleeding to death Christian service.

Tragically much of this has been self-inflicted. No amount of exhortation to passionate, sacrificial service will alter the mess that we are in. In fact no amount of actual serving on camps, overseas mission trips, beach missions, or attending conferences will change it either. Instead it will simply mask over the problem. The real problem is that we have adopted a consumer mentality when it comes to thinking about the Church.

There are some threats to the Christian faith that are unsubtle and obvious. You know where you are with books like The God Delusion that make a direct attack on the truth. Yet there are dangers that are far more subtle and devastating. One of the dangers is the way in which living in the West in the 21st century has changed the way we think about God, the Gospel, and the Church. We live, and move, and have our being in an atmosphere where individualism, consumerism, and felt needs shape our approach to the Church.

By God's design the Church is the means of grace, of Christian growth and nurture, of teaching and training, of outreach, accountability and service. We, however, have succumbed to a mind-set that sees this as optional at best, or an impediment at worse. Instead of the Church being the context for growth, service and outreach we have come to terms with finding input and output elsewhere.

This crisis has been a long time coming. Dr. Lloyd-Jones identified it as a loss of nerve by Christians in the 19th century when faced with the intrusion of error into the churches. Their response was to set up movements as outlets for united service instead of facing down the false teachers infiltrating the sheep fold. Today, the error driving our Church crisis is the triumph of shopping.

The sign that we are not thinking biblically on these matters is that we are asking all the wrong questions about Christian activities. “What's in it for me?” is the unspoken assumption as we listen to sermons and sing God's praise. Our reasons for choosing a church, or even staying in a church, can be exactly the same as the reasons we have for choosing a product. How does it make us feel? What are the personal benefits? What activities are on offer for the children? A further sign of wrong thinking is that a culture of criticism about church activities is tolerated.

When was the last time that you went to church in order to do others good spiritually? Is that your deliberate aim? The Bible is full of images that describe Christians as part of a greater whole. We are sheep in a flock, parts of a body, members of a family, bricks in a building. Each image undermines the idea that we can think about being, and acting, as a Christian apart from the Church. We are to build one another up in love, to spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Think of the impact that individualism and consumerism can have on growth and nurture. There is no need to be dependent on the local church for teaching when there are so many books, downloadable sermons, and conferences available. Not, of course, that these things are wrong. It is the use that we make of them that is the issue. We gather as God's people each week to listen to his Word. This demands that we respond to and apply the Word together in a way that isn't the same when we listen to recordings or attend conferences. There is an accountability upon us in the local church that is lost when we are in the big conference surrounded by people many of whom we don't know, and others that we see once or twice a year.

The same danger can be seen in evangelism. Being involved with camps and beach missions can be a great opportunity to learn and serve. Nevertheless we are all aware that living the Christian life in that context is somewhat artificial. It is far more demanding to build good relationships and tell the gospel in the week by week context of church life. By God's design it is the local church that displays the lived out reality of the Gospel. The local church is the place where you see the God of grace at work as people love one another, carry burdens, and forgive each other.

The challenge to do this is there for ministers too. As a friend of mine put it “ministers need to cut it at the local level.” It is easy to pour our energies into wider activities to the neglect of building up, in love and in numbers, the local church.

Involvement in the local church is not “another” option on the spiritual menu for 21st century Christians. To belong to God's people, to be part of God's family, is the high privilege conferred on God's children. Here is the place where God dwells by his Spirit. Here is the place where God assembles us, speaks to us, and sanctifies us. Here is the place where he has given gifts. Here is where we are to serve him, serve one another, and display the Gospel. It is time to put consumerism back on the shelf.

Jonah and Christ

"E. J. Young recognized years ago that the main message of Jonah is focused on Christ:

The fundamental purpose of the book of Jonah is not found in its missionary or universalistic teaching. It is rather to show that Jonah being cast into the depths of Sheol and yet brought up alive is an illustration of the death of the Messiah for sins not his own and of the Messiah's resurrection.

Jonah, first and foremost, plain and simple, has the most important message for the Christian church today: Christ, the risen One who is greater than Jonah, brings salvation through judgment and mercy to his people, those inside and outside of Israel who call on his name. What is foreshadowed and illustrated in Jonah becomes reality in Christ."

Bryan D. Estelle, Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy: The Gospel According to Jonah, p. 2-3

Salvation is of the Lord

"...the doctrine of monergistic regeneration--or as it was phrased by the older theologians, of 'irresistible grace' or 'effectual calling'--is the hinge of the Calvinistic soteriology, and lies much more deeply embedded in the system than the doctrine of predestination itself which is popularly looked upon as its hallmark.

There is accordingly nothing against which Calvinism sets its face with more firmness than every form and degree of autosoterism. Above everything else, it is determined that God, in his Son Jesus Christ, acting through the Holy Spirit whom he has sent, shall be recognized as our veritable Saviour.

To it sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save himself, bit of actual saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, or urge, or induce, or aid him to save himself, but to save him. This is the root of the Calvinistic soteriology.

He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to this choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God."

B. B. Warfield, "Calvinism" in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield volume 5: Calvin and Calvinism, p. 359-60

Preaching a great and gracious God

Then Job replied to the LORD :

"I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted...My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:1, 5-6)

"No wonder Jonathan Edwards, the 18th-century New England theologian and preacher so mightily used by God, wrote that he found the most gracious work of God was generally performed when he was preaching on the sovereign Lord.

When God is seen and sensed as the living Lord he really is, then the groundwork is laid in our lives for true spiritual restoration."

Sinclair Ferguson, Man Overboard! The Story of Job, p. 52

Gifts and Grace: Great pastoral counsel for preachers

From John Newton:

"Beware, my friend, of mistaking the ready exercise of gifts for the exercise of grace.

The minister may be assisted in public for the sake of his hearers; and there is something in the nature of our public work, when surrounded by a concourse of people, that is suited to draw forth the exertion of our abilities, and to engage our attention in outward services, when the frame of the heart may be far from right in the sight of the Lord."

Quoted in Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah, p. 30

Preachers and their reputations

"When I watch the working of my own heart...this is what I am compelled to write:

I am Jonah. In the matter of my own reputation as a preacher that is. For I used to say, Let me die first before I am eclipsed by another in my pulpit and among my people.

I fought with a Jonah-like fierceness against the remotest thought of my reputation ever passing over, in my day at any rate, to another."

Alexander Whyte

Quoted in Sinclair B. Ferguson, Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah, p. 27

Seeing our sin and seeing the Saviour

Some extracts from a letter that Robert Murray M'Cheyne wrote to a "soul seeking Jesus.

If you did not know your body was dangerously ill, you would never have sent for your physician; and so you will never go to Christ, the heavenly Physician, unless you feel that your soul is sick unto death. Oh, pray for deep discoveries or your real state by nature and practice!

Pray to see yourself exactly as God sees you; pray to know the worth of your soul. Have you seen yourself vile, as Job saw himself? (Job xi. 3, 5, xiii. 5, 6); undone, as Isaiah saw himself? (Isa vi. 1, 5). Have you experienced anything like Ps. li.?

Perhaps you will ask, Why do you wish me to have such a discovery of my lost condition? I answer, that you may never look into your poor guilty soul to recommend you to God; and that you may joyfully accept of the Lord Jesus Christ, who obeyed and died for sinners.

You will never stand righteous before God in yourself. You are welcome this day to stand righteous before God in Jesus.

Vintage M'Cheyne

"Pray for me, that I may be made holier and wiser--less like myself, and more like my Heavenly Master."

"It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God."

So wrote Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843), minister of St. Peter's, Dundee. It is a long time since I have picked up Andrew Bonar's deeply affectionate Memoir of M'Cheyne's life. It is a work full of impressive insistence on godliness and grace. Spurgeon said that "This is one of the best and most profitable volumes ever published...The memoir of such a man ought surely to be in the hands of every Christian and certainly every preacher of the Gospel."

Here's a thought provoking comment from his diary:

"We may be too engrossed with the shell even of heavenly things."

How true that is, even for ministers of the Word.

In an age of surface, superficial, spirituality Bonar's account of M'Cheyne offers a way to find a deeper, greater, more self-effacing godliness of character founded upon the experiential reality of the gospel of free grace in Christ.

Bonar wrote of young M'Cheyne's journey toward the truth of the gospel:

...it was the reading of The Sum of Saving Knowledge, generally appended to our Confession of Faith, that brought him to a clear understanding of the way of acceptance with God...I find him some years afterwards recording: "March 11, 1834.--Read in the Sum of Saving Knowledge, the work which I think first of all wrought a saving change in me."

It will be observed that he never reckoned his soul saved, notwithstanding all his convictions and views of sin, until he really went into the Holiest of all on the warrant of the Redeemer's work; for assuredly a sinner is still under wrath, until he has actually availed himself of the way to the Father opened up by Jesus. All his knowledge of his sinfulness, and all his sad feeling of his own need and danger, cannot place him one step farther off from the lake of fire. It is "he that comes to Christ" that is saved.

Major New Series: Classic Reformed Theology

Scott Clark gives us the heads up on a new series of texts being produced by Reformation Heritage Books. The series is called Classic Reformed Theology and the first volume is a series of sermons on the Heidelberg Catechism by William Ames. The series will provide critical English editions of key texts from the vitally important era of Reformed orthodoxy.

Richard Muller says of this series:

"This is an important project that promises to make available in good editions and translations a series of eminent works of Reformed theology from the era of orthodoxy. These volumes will offer students of the Reformed tradition an invaluable resource and will hopefully stimulate interest in the highly refined and carefully defined thought of an era that was formative of the Reformed faith and that assured its intellectual and spiritual vitality for later generations."

You can have a look at the book here. It will be available, appropriately, on 31st October.

The introduction to the series, by Scott Clark, is available here.

Here is Scott on the importance of this series:

"We call this series Classic Reformed Theology because, by definition, a period is classical when it defines an approach to a discipline. During the period of Protestant orthodoxy, Reformed theology reached its highest degree of definition and precision. It was in this period when the most important Reformed confessions were formed, and when the Reformed churches took the form they have today.

There are at least three reasons why classic Reformed theology ought to be studied and thus why this series of critical English translations should exist. First, Reformed orthodoxy forms the intellectual background of modern theology. Second, Reformed orthodoxy merits attention by those who identify with the Reformed confessions because it is their heritage and thus shapes their theology, piety, and practice. Third, contemporary scholarship has shown that it must be regarded as a vital intellectual and spiritual movement, and thus an important subject for continued study."

Letham on developing a Trinitarian mind

I found this article from the Ordained Servant (OPC) very helpful.

(HT: Scott Clark)

The wrong kind of peace

One day just before the meeting of the General Assembly Mrs. Stevenson, the wife of the seminary president, met B. B. Warfield on the street and said,

"Dr. Warfield, I hear there is going to be trouble at the Assembly. Do let us pray for peace."

"I am praying," replied Warfield, "that if they do not do what is right, there may be a mighty battle."

From Calhoun, Princeton Seminary Volume 2, p. 347

Doctrine matters: If you tolerate this then your children will be next

Sadly the idea that doctrine is somehow bad, unhelpful, the cause of pride, an evangelistic impediment, not necessary for spiritual growth, divisive etc. etc. has more traction and plausibility than is warranted. Of course people who downplay doctrine are not really anti-doctrine at all, just anti a particular form of doctrine that they don't like (like God's sovereignty, or penal substitution).

If all that was at stake here was the matter of correctness the situation would not be so dire. But when people deliberately set out to diminish the importance of sound doctrine, and encourage others to do the same, they are a clear present danger to the Church. And they are acutely shortsighted.

The following words from David Calhoun (Princeton Seminary Volume 2, p. 398) should not only be read careful but weighed:

"When the Presbyterian church rejected the Old Princeton message and chose institutional unity above doctrinal integrity, it undermined not only its own history but also its witness.

Opening the doors to the influences of a secularizing society, it became more and more difficult for the church to sustain its Christianity and to pass it on to the following generations. Most of the baby boomers surveyed in a recent study of Presbyterians who have left the church said they knew little about what their parents believed--a finding that led the authors to conclude that in passing on their faith to the next generation, parents have to teach their children about doctrine.

A second conclusion from the study was that children of the church were more likely to maintain their Christian identity if they were taught that Christianity is the only way of salvation.

In the words of the sociologists themselves, "the single best predictor of church participation turned out to be belief--orthodox Christian belief, especially the teaching that a person can be saved only through Jesus Christ."

That conclusion should make large segments of evangelicalism, and other contemporary movements, think again.

Old Princeton vs. Yale

A. A. Hodge once said to a Yale teacher who was making fun of the "fossilized" theology of Princeton: "The trouble with you Yale theological professors is that you only teach your students to think...In Princeton we let God do the thinking and teach the students to believe."

From David Calhoun's wonderful book Princeton Seminary Volume 2: The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929, p. 408-9