Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2023 Bavinck

 

This year's Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture at London Seminary was given by Dr James Eglinton on Bavinck on preachers and preaching. This very interesting talk revealed that only one sermon by Hermann Bavinck survives but he and his protege, his nephew J H Bavinck, wrote on the subeject and so it is possible to address the subject. The emphasis was on persuasion which begins with knowing the culture and then applying the biblical message. Sadly, the lecture was delivered in the dark as there had been a power cut. It was only once the lecture was over that the lights came on again. About 30 or 40 were there. Dr Eglinton did very well in difficult circumstances. He has been lecturing all week at the seminary on Dutch Neo-Calvinsim (Kuyper, Bavinck et al).

Bavinck on deathbed conversions

I went to the funeral of a neighbour today. It appears that he gave his life to Christ in the final week of life. Bavinck says that Arminians or Remonstrants attach little value to a deathbed conversion. When people have spent their whole lives “in sin” and have turned a deaf ear to all the invitations and warnings of the gospel, they consider such a last-minute conversion, which can no longer be proved by a new life, highly improbable, indeed impossible other than by an extraordinary act of divine mercy (Episcopius, P van Limborch) The Walloon preachers Jacques Bernard and Pierre Joncourt later expressed the same judgement. But on this subject, the Reformed generally held a more charitable opinion (C. Vitringa, Doctr. christ., III, 100–104).

Bavinck on missions

For a positive review of J H Bavinck's Introduction to the Science of Missions look here.