I once heard a story from a soldier who...had laid siege against a fort, that so long as the besieged were persuaded their foes would show them no favour, they fought like madmen. But when they saw one of their fellows taken and received with favor, they all came tumbling down from their fortress and delivered themselves into their enemies’
hands. I am persuaded that if men believed that there is that grace and willingness in the heart of Christ to save sinners, as the Word imports there is, they would come tumbling into His arms. But Satan has blinded their minds so that they cannot see this thing. Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus has, as I said, that others might take heart and come to Him, given out a commandment that mercy should,in the first place, be offered to the biggest sinners.“Begin,” says He, “ at Jerusalem”.
A blog featuring whatever I fancy, often on the Christian faith but not exclusively
Hairstyles 9 Ivy League Cut
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| Miguel Angel Azua Garcia, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Doddridge on the ministry
This can be seen here
On the whole, pastors in the West today minister without seeing revival on a large scale. Yet many of the role models we have adopted from history did labor in revival times: Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Charles Spurgeon, among them. They have a great deal to teach us, of course. But their very success, in terms of numbers converted, can have a discouraging effect on us who minister in leaner days.
It is worth examining, therefore, the lives of men and women who lived in more ordinary times, yet served the Lord faithfully and effectively. One such person was a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards. Like Edwards, he ministered in Northampton, but this was Northampton in England, not New England. He was Philip Doddridge (1702-51), who served for 20 years as pastor of a fairly large congregation in that town. Doddridge also ran an academy that trained men for pastoral ministry, kept up a continual flow of publications, maintained a wide correspondence, and sustained a regular itinerant preaching ministry. Although he lived during the early years of the Evangelical Revival in Britain, his own ministry was largely unaffected by it, as he was confined to existing congregations of Independents and Presbyerians. How then did he operate, and what can we learn from him? Here, briefly, are 10 lessons:
1. Doddridge's priority was his own congregation. He pastored them faithfully, preaching to them every Lord's Day and on weekday meetings, unless he was away from town. He admitted that he did not visit them as often as he would have liked. To compensate, he divided up the congregation with his elders, so that each individual did receive regular pastoral visits from a church officer, if not from the pastor himself. 2. He believed firmly in the importance of a well-ordered local church---church membership, properly appointed church officers, effective church discipline, reverent worship, a frequent Lord's Supper, and regular biblical preaching.
3. He took great care to maintain his daily devotional life, with extended periods of private prayer and Bible reading, usually two or three times each day. He kept a journal that recorded his times of devotion as well as his reading and studies. He was attentive to the confession of personal sin, to intercession for his family and congregation, to pleading with the Lord for greater usefulness in his ministry, and to adoration of his triune God. He valued the Lord's Supper highly indeed as an essential means of grace for the believer.
4. He sought to work with all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ and believed and preached the gospel, whether Church of England men, revivalists, Moravians, or otherwise. He did all he could from his side to keep up good relations, even with difficult people.
5. He understood the need for thorough training for pastoral ministry. He gave himself to this task in his own academy. His students were exposed to the Latin and Greek classics, to studies in rhetoric, to philosophy, and natural sciences, as well as to the more usual elements of ministerial training: theology, ethics, church history, and pastoral and homiletic studies.
6. He made sustained efforts to stir churches up to revival. He developed a ten-step plan, designed to inculcate a greater seriousness and devotion to Christ among the congregations with which he had contact in various parts of the country. Associations of ministers were formed as a result, to seek to implement the plan and encourage family worship, attendance on the Lord's Supper, private prayer, greater familiarity with the Bible, and better training for ministerial candidates.
7. He stood up for biblical truth. He did not write polemical works. When John Taylor of Norwich wrote a notorious work denying the biblical doctrine of original sin, a number of Doddridge's contemporaries took up their pens to refute him (including Isaac Watts and Jonathan Edwards). Doddridge, instead, preached a series of sermons on regeneration, which took issue with Taylor's thesis by expounding biblical doctrine and exhorting his hearers to true faith in Christ. He then arranged for the sermons to be published and by those means secured a wide circulation for the truth in answer to Taylor.
8. He worked very hard, often rising at 5 a.m. or working beyond midnight. He calculated that, by rising and setting to work two hours earlier than he might otherwise, a man could gain an extra ten years of working life.
9. As a young man training for pastoral ministry, he had given himself to hard study in order to prepare himself as best he could for the work to which God had called him. He read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French. He was familiar with the latest philosophical and theological writings. He continued to read and to study hard throughout his ministry.
10. He was a family man and a man of warm feelings. His correspondence with his wife, much of which survives, is delightful. Although he was often away, his heart was always at home and his thoughts and prayers with his family. His grief at the death of his beloved daughter Tetsy, when she was just five years old, reveals him as a man of the tenderest emotion. He was no ivory tower preacher. Philip Doddridge was not perfect, by any means. His teaching methods have been criticized for allowing too much freedom of opinion among his students on important doctrinal issues. He was probably insufficiently discerning in the burgeoning controversy over trinitarian doctrine, which led many, later in the century, to outright unitarianism. He probably worked too hard. But like many examples of imperfect men in Scripture, God used Doddridge's faithful labor to advance his gospel.
Hairstyles 8 Hime Cut
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| Kaede, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Machen lecture now available
The lecture I gave on J Gresham Machen on Monday is now available as a pdf here and, for a small cost, from the Library in audio format.
Lord's Day September 23 2012
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Nigerian Wedding
It was great on Saturday to be at the wedding of one of the members of our congregation Yemisi as she married Emmanuel Akinfenwa. We have known Yemisi most of her life so it was a great joy to see. The wedding was at St Marylebone parish church (Emmanuel's dad is Archbishop of Ibadan - it was good to meet him and his wife) where I preached the homily then at the very swish One Mayfair. I have never seen bride and groom put on their own like this. Trends come and go I guess. Apparently it's called a sweetheart table. (I'd also not seen the throwing of the bouquet actually happen either). Emmanuel is a very talented guy. He not only sang but played saxophone too. We wish them every future blessing.
Hairstyles 6 French Twist
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| Stilfehler, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Hairstyles 5 Emo
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| The original uploader was Steevven1 at English Wikipedia.Later versions were uploaded by TmanMrT, Arnesh, Pinotgris at en.wikipedia., CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons |
A busy week passed by
The week before last was such a busy week I haven't quite recovered yet. I did want to report back, however, so better late than never I hope. There were four main things that took up my time.
1. The John Owen Centre 2012 Conference on Adam in the Bible the Church and the World. Monday 10, Tuesday 11. This was a very good conference featuring six speakers over seven sessions, of which I caught five. It was very orderly so we began with vice principal David Green on Adam in the Old Testament and ended with Michael McClenahan (a new name to me) on Preaching Adam to Adam's Race which looked at Psalm 1 and the parable of the sower. I only caught the first of Lane Tipton's messages on Adam in the New Testament, I'm afraid. Garry Williams on Adam in the covenant of works was the stand out paper perhaps though the whole thing is worth getting to hear. See here.
2. The September 2012 Kent Evangelical Ministers Meeting. Monday 10. On the Monday evening I was not able to be at LTS because I was speaking at Waterford House, Strood. The pattern there is to begin with a meeting for pastors and elders at 5 pm and a more open meeting later at 7.30 pm. I spoke first on the session of Christ and then on the men of 1662, which seemed to be appreciated and lots of people snapped up copies of my new book, which was gratifying. See here.
3. GBM's Engage get together in Guildford. Thursday 13. Grace Baptist Mission have organised a series of three get togethers for supporting churches to discuss future strategy. Some 40 gathered at this second session in Chertsey Street, Guildford, and it seemed very worthwhile given that GBM endeavours to be a church based society. The real test will be what happens I guess. See here.
4. The LIP Annual Meetings for 2012. Saturday 14. The fourth thing was a series of meetings down at Orange Street, Trafalgar Square. We began with a trustees committee. Then in public, we had first a report on the work and then a preaching meeting which I chaired with former worker Ben Thomas from Criccieth speaking on 2 Kings 6. The project is due to end next August. More here.
Hairstyles 3 Corn rows
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| Hokuto lover, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
I did think of the crew cut and someone suggested the comb over but corn rows
(or can rows if you prefer) it is
Lecture on Machen at the Evangelical Library
Machen’s Wars: aspects of the life of J Gresham Machen
The lecture starts at 1 pm and will be for about 40 minutes with time for questions. Do join us if you can.
The Evangelical Library
5/6 Gateway Mews, Ringway
Bounds Green, London
N11 2UT
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 8362 0868
5/6 Gateway Mews, Ringway
Bounds Green, London
N11 2UT
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 8362 0868
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