Mahaney as Bunyan

Dear CJ,

As your message from T4G continues to live on in my head & heart, and I remember your repeated requests to be allowed merely to attend the conference, rather than participate publicly, I am reminded of the great puritan John Owen, who took every opportunity to hear John Bunyan preach.  Owen had been Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University during Cromwell’s time.  Bunyan had no formal education.  He was a pot-repairer.  When King Charles II once asked why all the people were crowding to hear this unlearned tinker (that’s what pot-repairers were called) Owen reportedly told the king that he would glaldly give all his learning in exchange for the tinker’s skill in touching the heart.  Brother, on behalf of all over-educated preachers (and especially myself), I want to thank God publicly for your Bunyan-like skill at preaching so as to touch the heart,

With love & respect,

Mark D.

PS–Al, anything on this "bears will make laser weapons in the woods before" quotation?

Baptist Pastor Leads Church to Embrace Elders!

Let me tell you about that Baptist pastor, but first this.  Being together for the gospel–not a conference; merely a normal Christian experience!–with Baptists and Anglicans over here in Sydney, Australia, for a few days, I’m struck by one challenge both kinds of churches have–finding appropriate ways to be shaped by Scripture in our local church polity.

As a convinced congregationalist, I have no doubt that there is a significant role for the congregation in being the final court of appeal for matters of church life and doctrine.  Not that our congregations are always right, but they always HAVE the right and responsibility to settle matters.

But one help we find in Scripture is having a plural eldership in our local churches.  Some people do not see such a pattern in the New Testament, nor do they think we have liberty to pursue it.  I respect such conscientiously-held opinions.  Others, however, oppose a plurality of elders merely out of a convenient conservatism.  Such an impulse is too often opposed to the sole supreme authority of Scripture itself.

Now, to that Baptist pastor.  He did what countless other Baptist pastors have attempted–many succeeding, many failing.   This one succeeded, by God’s grace.  The pastor was C. H. Spurgeon.  The church was the New Park Street Chapel, a Baptist church.  When Spurgeon arrived there as pastor, they had deacons, but no elders.  Spurgeon concluded from reading the New Testament that they should have elders, and that this was an important matter, especially for the spiritual, pastoral work of the local church.  In January of 1859 the church voted to appoint elders.  May more churches follow this simple, Biblical, useful pattern.  For the health of churches, the good of Christians and the greater glory of God, help your pastor find some men who meet the qualifications laid out in I Tim 3 & Titus 1, and put them around them, and watch the blessings that flow from such obedience.

On another note, Al, did you really say that bears will build laser weapons in the woods before the faculty of SBTS go home to Rome?!  You always did have a way with those arresting images!

A Prayer for Ministry, from Thomas Chalmers

Amen C.J.!

Thomas Chalmers was one of the leading lights of the Scottish evangelical awakening in the nineteenth century. From October of 1841 to September 20, 1846, on Sunday afternoons, Chalmers wrote a series of devotional-expositional-supplicational thoughts on each chapter of the New Testament, starting with Matthew 1 and going to Revelation 22. He wrote them, apparently, simply for his own edification, but they have become a source of edification to many a Gospel minister. I am happy to say that Solid Grounds Christian Books is producing a new edition of them! Get it.

Meanwhile, I’ll share with you a taste of the riches contained therein. Having begun his notes (written in long hand with no erasures, strikeouts or corrections in any of the volumes!) with the arresting words "All history is subservient to the great work of Redemption," Chalmers is meditating on Matthew 1, on a Lord’s Day afternoon (in October of 1841), and journaling—as was his habit over the last six or so years of his life and as described above—and he observes: "And under what an endearing and comforting title is it that he is first announced to us—Jesus the Saviour—and from what? He saves us from our sins—not the guilt of them only, but also the power of them." Then Chalmers records his personal prayer in light of this truth: "—Realize upon me, O God, the whole of this salvation. Give me a part, both in the justifying righteousness which this Jesus hath brought in, and in the sanctifying Grace which He sheds forth on all who believe in him, that I may be regenerated as well as reconciled; and that admitted to the pardon which has been sealed by His blood, I may furthermore be purified—and, meet for the Master’s use, may become one of His peculiar people, zealous of good works." May that be our prayer too.

Thomas Chalmers, Sabbath Scripture Readings (Matthew I), in The Posthumous Works of Thomas Chalmers, Vol. IV, edited by William Hanna (Sutherland and Knox: Edinburgh, 1848), 1-2.

T4G Hopes

Mark, you are so right – who knows what will come from T4G, but we all long for God to be glorified and his people helped as a result. And you are certainly right that we all want to see the Lord’s work cross-fertilized.

Two things are for sure. 1. We long to see a renewal of the old evangelical alliances, around the Gospel, and a strong coalition of Bible-saturated, truth-driven, God-entranced, prayer-soaked, aggressively evangelistic, Christ-treasuring, Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled, sovereign grace-loving, missions-advancing, hell-robbing, strong-thinking, real-need-exposing, soul-winning, mind-engaging, vagueness-rejecting, wartime-life-style-pursuing, self-denying, self-giving, risk-taking, justice-advancing, Scripture-expounding, cross-cherishing, homosexuality-opposing, abortion-denouncing, racism-resisting, heaven-desiring, imputation-of-an-alien righteousness-proclaiming, justification-by-faith-alone-apart-from-doing preaching, error-exposing, complementarian, joyful, humble, loving, courageous, happy pastors working together for the Gospel. (Thanks to John Piper for so many of these words and thoughts).

2. And we want to see them leading strong evangelical churches who, while they hold as faithfully and biblically as they know how to certain doctrinal distinctives not shared by all other biblical evangelical churches, band together for the Gospel on a basis that is robustly doctrinal, historic, orthodox, reformational, world-opposing-while-at-the-same-time-world-loving, Bible-preaching, Scriptural-theology-inculcating, real-conversion-prizing, deep biblical evangelism-practicing, New Testament church-membership-implementing, church-discipline-applying, healthy and growing Disciple-making, biblical church leadership teaching-obeying – for the display of God’s glory in the churches.

May the Lord raise up such a ministerial fraternity – not on the basis of doctrinal minimalism but rather on the basis of shared conviction of the truth and Gospel forbearance in the areas where we differ; not to the detriment of our convictions regarding our distinctives in faith and practice in the local churches and families of churches we serve, but to their enhancement. And may the Lord raise up churches that are truly a witness to grace in this passing age, a display of the glory and power of God’s saving grace, outposts of heaven, suburbs of eternity. For the church is God’s strategy, and there is no plan B.