The Wanderer

How glorious is the thought that there is a family even upon earth of which the Son of God holds Himself a part; a family, the loving bond and reigning principle of which is subjection to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so embracing high and low, rude and refined, bond and free, of every kindred and every age that have tasted that the Lord is gracious; a family whose members can at once understand each other and take sweetest counsel together, though meeting for the first time from the ends of the earth – while with their nearest relatives, who are but the children of this world, they have no sympathy in such things; a family which death cannot break up, but only transfer to their Father’s house! Did Christians but habitually realize and act upon this, as did their blessed Master, what would be the effect upon the Church and upon the world?

David Brown, The Four Gospels (Banner of Truth), 76.

Spurgeon, for all his Victorian floweriness at times, did not like fluff, gumpf, and blether:

It is infamous to ascend your pulpit and pour over your people rivers of language, cataracts of words, in which mere platitudes are held in solution like infinitesimal grains of homœopathic medicine in an Atlantic of utterance.

Better far give the people masses of unprepared truth in the rough, like pieces of meat from a butcher’s block, chopped off anyhow, bone and all, and even dropped down in the sawdust, than ostentatiously and delicately hand them out upon a china dish a delicious slice of nothing at all, decorated with the parsley of poetry, and flavoured with the sauce of affectation.

via Pyromaniacs: On Eloquence in Preaching.

Part one: arrival and first Lord’s day

Part two: Copperbelt Ministerial College

Part three: Lusaka, the compounds and Kabwata

As mentioned in part one, Alan Dunn was in Zambia to teach the doctrine of salvation, and I was there to introduce the Gospels and the Acts. We began on Monday morning, enjoying a slightly slower start to allow the men travelling a distance to arrive. They began to trickle in, and slowly we reached the point at which we had enough present to begin. After singing and praying, we got down to business.

I was first up, with three morning sessions, in which I gave a brief introduction to introduction, before looking at the intersection of the three cultures – Roman, Greek and Jewish – which created the God-ordained environment of the New Testament. Then we headed straight into Matthew’s Gospel. As we came toward the end of the allotted time, the excellent college administrator, Katongo, slipped me a note: “No food. Keep going.” I did, enabling me to get ahead of the game for the first morning. When the food arrived, I had finished Matthew’s Gospel, giving me a good start for the week. After an excellent meal (you could not fault the quality, only the timing), Alan got to grips with soteriology, hogging the blackboard with a diagram of such intricacy that I felt it would be churlish to wipe it off and make him re-create it every day. He managed three of his four planned sessions before the day drew to a close.

Heading back to our lodgings, we got ready to head out to the home of one of the church families. These were delightful evenings, and this was the pattern of our week. Each night one of the families invited us into their home, hosted us graciously, spoke to us kindly, and fed us splendidly. We would arrive back at the Phiri home afterward, negotiate the guard dogs, and get fairly soon to bed.

The next morning would begin with us up at around 0600 or 0630. I would head for the bathroom, and do laps round the bath, dashing repeatedly under the cold shower to allow for lathering and rinsing. Meanwhile, Brother Dunn would prepare a boiled egg or four. I would emerge gleaming, we would partake of some cereal and eggs, and I would clean up while he performed his ablutions. Then we would be about ready for the day. Picked up promptly by one of the young ladies from the church who lived nearby, we drove through Ndola to the church building, to be met by our eager students, who realised by day three that we intended to start on time unless genuinely providentially hindered. After a brief devotional time of singing and prayer, we would forge ahead, alternating mornings and afternoons on the two topics, and generally getting in about eight hours of fairly intense lecturing every day.

[You may need to click through to see the video if you are reading this on an RSS feed]

I honestly could not think of forty men in the UK who would gather for such a week four times yearly, and give themselves so intensely and earnestly to study, their main complaint at the end of the week being that insufficient time had been given to the teaching and subsequent discussion. Each day closed, where possible, with a brief question and answer session, in which the questions demonstrated that these blokes were really wrestling with the material.

As the week drew on, Pastor Kabwe Kabwe of Grace RBC, Northrise, arrived back from leave, and it was good to meet him. Lazarus Phiri dropped in a couple of times to give us the once over as we taught. Toward the end of the week, the Phiris invited us back to their home, with a special guest for the evening: Conrad Mbewe was passing through (heading for the wedding which he discussed here), and he and Lazarus Phiri go way back. So we enjoyed an evening listening to these two men reminisce and banter, and chatting about all manner of things.

On Friday, we arrived for our final two sessions each, and both of us dropped a couple of lectures from the planned fifteen, having had to manage our material around the late and occasionally extended lunches. The men gave us some splendid gifts – sandals for our wives, and chitenge shirts for us (Alan’s was zebra print, mine adorned with calabashes) – and expressed warm appreciation. We ate our last meal together, and posed for a few photos.

Alan and I then headed back to the Phiris once more, taking a couple of hours to get our stuff together before spending our final evening in Ndola with Kabwe Kabwe and his family, an enjoyable and relaxing end to the week before heading down to Kabwata on the Saturday. Of that, and of life in the compounds, more will follow . . .

Part one: arrival and first Lord’s day

Part two: Copperbelt Ministerial College

Part three: Lusaka, the compounds and Kabwata

Reviews of A Portrait of Paul have been generally positive so far, the response has been fairly encouraging, and my co-author displays a remarkable knack for finding out what people are saying. With thanks to Rob for tracking these down, here is a sample of snippets and places to see what people have been saying:

Andrew Swanson in the Banner of Truth Magazine (Issue 573, June 2011), says:

In the Foreword to this book Joel Beeke declares: ‘This is a great book that should serve as required reading in an introductory course on Christian ministry. Every minister should own a copy and read it . . .’ This is high praise for a book, yet I agree with his assessment.

The subtitle alone, (Identifying a true minister of Christ) suggests that it ought also to have as wide a readership among those in the pew. It is this concern, to reach both pastors and people, that makes A Portrait of Paul such valuable reading.

The book’s great strength is that it is an exposition of Colossians 1:24-2:5 In other words this is not the attempt of two young men to put the church to rights by expressing their own opinions about who is fit to occupy the pastoral office. As one of the writers confesses, ‘I fear I cannot readily point to myself as a pattern of genuinely Christlike ministry. But I can point to Christ, and I can point to what there is of Christ in Paul.’ To a remarkable degree this is what the Lord has enabled the authors to do.

The result is a book that ‘pulls no punches’. Yet at the same time it has a remarkable blend of searching application coupled with sound biblical encouragement to press on to higher attainments. At times it makes for uncomfortable reading—it searches, convicts and humbles. But the aim is not to devastate but to encourage fresh resolve and effort to move closer to Paul’s great example.

This book deals with a vital subject, and, with God’s blessing, may be useful in restoring the spiritual health of the church in the West.  If a second edition is required, I hope the publisher will include an Index.

Elsewhere online . . .

Paul Washer’s review and recommendation can be seen as a video here.

You can read several CBD reviews here. A couple of positive snippets:

This book is a must read. How many times have you heard that before? But it’s true—really. Men in the ministry, men aspiring to the ministry, and churches evaluating men for the ministry simply must read this book. Extremely well written, weighty with content and substance, but not heavy to read, there’s nothing fluffy here. Some reviewers have commented on how convicting the book is. It is that. But it’s also extremely encouraging, especially for men who take the ministry seriously, and have had a taste of ministerial suffering. Applications are searching and practical, coming evidently, not from academic theoreticians, but ecclesiastical practitioners. Christ-centered and thoroughly biblical, it would be difficult for a gospel minister, or one in the making, to read this book and not profit from it.

. . . and . . .

It’s easy, as a pastor, to lose focus in the midst of so many demands upon our time; or to get into a rut, just doing things one week because you did them the week before. The exposition of Paul’s ministry to the Colossian church and its applications to the modern pastor and church in this book, helped me to refocus on the things that are most important in the service of Christ. My mind was instructed, my heart encouraged, and conviction often drove me to my knees to cry out to our Saviour for grace to be a faithful pastor. Both men have written with great insight. At times, I felt like they were sitting in my congregation. At other times, it seemed like they were with me in my study, with a clear understanding of my heart. It was just what I needed to spur me on to seek greater likeness to the great Shepherd.

The Reformation Heritage Books page has a review here, suggesting as follows:

One of the most helpful books I’ve ever read. It´s just Word-based and Christ-exalting. Beautiful in its simplicity, astounding in its gravity and striking in its relevancy. A must-read for every minister of the gospel.

“The Sola System” blog reviews it here, saying:

There are many different kinds of books dealing with pastoral ministry from a Reformed perspective.  Some focus more upon pastoral theology; others more on preaching and practical piety; with still others emphasizing everything from Christian counseling to program administration and local community involvement.  While there is, perhaps, a legitimate place for most (if not all) of these kinds of books, few are as indispensable as A Portrait of Paul, since few set forth the pastoral theology of the New Testament with greater balance, accuracy, and unmitigated clarity. While the book’s expositional flavor – along with its abundance of extended Pauline citations – may at times cause the reader to cry out “Cut to the chase!”, this occasional weakness is far outweighed by strength of its ad fontes methodology. Moreover, the self-conscious desire of its authors to equip church-hunting believers and pastor-hunting congregations is such a unique and valuable feature that few modern works on ‘pastoral ministry’ seem likely to equal its breadth of appeal within the Christian community.  In short, it is the earnest hope of this reviewer that Christians everywhere would drink deep of this wonderful book as they strive to obey Paul’s command to “imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (I Cor. 11:1).

It is available at Monergism Books, where it is reviewed here, concluding that

. . . this book is a must-read for anyone involved in searching for a pastor; but it is also geared for a much wider audience than that – it is not simply a “how to” manual for pastoral search committees. Its nature as a book describing in detail what a faithful minister looks like makes it an obvious choice for present or aspiring pastors; and one structural feature both underscores that use and effectively extends the target audience to virtually any believer in Christ: after the bulk of each chapter deals at a very practical and expositional level with a portion of the passage in Colossians, there are concluding segments addressed first of all to fellow-believers, and then to fellow-pastors of the authors. These segments are always suffused with intentional, practical wisdom appropriate both for the sheep and the shepherds. Not only will the pastor gain much insight into how to fulfill his ministry well, but the sheep will gain much insight into how to benefit from the labors of the pastor most fully, and how to support and uphold him, not just for his own good, but also for their own. I cannot think of any class of believer that does not stand to benefit by this marvelous book. It really is, as John MacArthur expresses it, “a wonderful, powerful, soul-stirring examination”.

Christian Book Notes says:

If you are a pastor, please pick up this book. If you are thinking about going into the ministry, this book is an must read–you may quickly learn that the pastoral calling is not for you! If you have a pastor, pick up a copy today and give it to them. We are indebted to Rob Ventura and Jeremy Walker for writing this book. While many may not read Baxter’s Reformed Pastor because it was written so long ago by a (gasp!) Puritan that it can’t possibly speak to us today, they would readily pick up this book given its “modern” take on the ministry. In so doing, they will be the greater for it and the congregation in which they are the undershepherd will reap the benefits.

The Westminster Bookstore has reviews from Carl Trueman and Ben Dahlvang, who opines:

If you are burned out in your ministry or have lost the vision of what it means to care for Christ’s sheep, read this book. If you are a member of a church and find it easy to criticize your pastor, read this book. If you think you are called to the gospel ministry, and especially if you think you know what that call entails, read this book twice.

In addition, there’s an encouraging titbit here. Amazon.com reproduces many of the above with a couple of fresh ones here.

That’s about all that I can find, so my responsibilities to my co-author and publisher with regard to publicity are, I hope, discharged for the time being, and I trust that you are at least encouraged to consider buying the book for yourself or for some deserving individual. Links for purchase are in the sidebar if you are interested.

Part one: arrival and first Lord’s day

Part two: Copperbelt Ministerial College

Part three: Lusaka, the compounds and Kabwata

It has, I know, been a little quiet on the blog in the last few weeks. The main reason for that is a recent trip to Zambia.

The silence descended a few weeks ago, when – after recovering from a bad illness, and the arrival of a daughter some days later than expected, and wrestling with an uncooperative computer – the upcoming visit began to loom large. It was time to get the head down and cause smoke to pour from the tortured keyboard and the ears venting the tortured brain of yours truly.

I had been asked, together with Alan Dunn, pastor of Grace Covenant Baptist Church of Flemington, New Jersey, and a long-time friend (by which I mean he is both, as opposed to Alan Dunn together with another chap that I happen to get on with), to go and teach at the Copperbelt Ministerial College, housed at Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Northrise, in Ndola, in Zambia. The request came via James Williamson (see his Lion of Zambia website), who had travelled with his family from the Reformed Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky, to serve the Zambian churches, particularly in the matter of church-planting and pastoral training. At first, I was due to teach soteriology, but Alan played a pity card and I agreed to let him have that topic as he had taught it before, and I selected an introduction to the Gospels and the Acts.

Thus it was that, with a couple of weeks before I was due to fly, I looked with some horror at the piles of books that had been growing in my study over the previous months, and realised it was time to try and get some of that stuff on to paper ready to be delivered in Zambia. And so began the groaning of mental gears and the scorching of keyboards that resulted, about a week before I was due to leave, in a set of lectures at last in a state to be delivered.

And so, with bags packed and heart light-ish, I boarded flight BA0255 for Lusaka on the Friday evening of the royal wedding (no traffic on the roads – marvellous!) and settled down to read. The night passed as my nights usually do on long-haul flights, rather slowly, substantially uncomfortably and largely sleeplessly. I arrived early Saturday morning with the kind of bruised knees that arise only when a substantial gentleman in the seat in front has dropped said contraption into a sleeping position and made it a full eight hours of pressure on the patella. Springing from my seat, I came to a flying stop for an hour or so in the immigration line before making my way out into the dull humidity of that Lusakan morning. I spent a couple of hours hanging around waiting for the arrival of Alan (who had been in country a couple of days before me). He duly arrived and we boarded a flight for Ndola, enjoying some splendid views on the way.

We arrived just before midday, picked up by Katongo, the college administrator, and David Wagener, a Presbyterian working with another local theological school. They dropped us off at the home of Lazarus Phiri and his family. Lazarus is missiologist-at-large for a missionary organization called Pioneers, and he and his family gave us splendid care during the course of our stay.

We were taken out for a bite to eat for lunch, spent a couple of hours settling in (and, in my case, getting an hour or so of sleep to make up for the lost night) before Arnold Kapembwe, one of the elders of the Grace Baptist Church of Northrise, took us out for an excellent dinner.

Returning home and negotiating Lazarus’ splendid guard dogs, we collapsed into our respective beds, having been briefed for the following day’s labours.

We woke bright and early, Alan heading a little way north and west to preach at the Trinity Baptist Church of Kitwe, and me to remain in Ndola for the day. Alan left first, and I was picked up soon after. I was the last one left in the property, and my departure was slightly complicated by the fact that, when I let the guard dogs out, one of them, probably using some kind of astral travelling trick as far as I could tell, teleported through the gates and tried to eat a passerby. I kid you not! I was later informed that it was not the first time that this had happened, as the dog had learned how to open the gate (note to self: always buy a guard dog with enormous teeth, proven savagery, and poor dexterity). When I had finally recovered the dog and smiled kindly at the slightly agitated passerby, I collapsed sweating into the vehicle of Mr Kapembwe, and we left for church. There I met the three deacons, and was able to hear Mr Kapembwe’s Bible class considering the character of Cain, as well as seeing the new buildings going up for the housing of future modules of the Copperbelt Ministerial College.

I preached to a good-sized and attentive congregation in the morning, having a more evangelistic focus, as directed, and then enjoyed a delightful repast with Mr Kapembwe, heading back to our lodgings for a rest (though I generally can’t do rest while the sun is up) and then heading back to the church in the evening. There were far fewer out on that occasion when I preached on John 11, drawing some lessons from Christ at the tomb of Lazarus. I had a great time chatting with people afterward, and we set up the building ready for the arrival of the students on Monday morning.

Before heading back to the lodgings, Twande, one of the deacons, invited us back to his home, where his wife had prepared a feast. Alan and the friends from Kitwe arrived before too long and we were invited to the table in Zambian fashion, by our hostess dropping to one knee: traditionally, it is the height of rudeness to invite guests to the table while standing, we were given to understand. Back to the lodgings once more, where we spent a while chewing the fat before hitting our respective sacks in order to be in good shape (or at least, as bad shape as possible) for the rigours of the module from Monday to Friday, of which more to come . . .

Part one: arrival and first Lord’s day

Part two: Copperbelt Ministerial College

Part three: Lusaka, the compounds and Kabwata

The fact that the world is not ending today does not mean that the world will not end. As the apostle Peter writes in his second letter:

Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Saviour, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they wilfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. (2Pt 3.1-10)

Quite rightly, genuine Christians repudiate the nonsensical numerology of Harold Camping, knowing from the Scriptures that the day has not been revealed and will not be revealed to men. Peter makes that very point above: the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. A thief does not inform you in advance of the precise date on which he intends to pay a visit.

The Lord Christ himself assured us both of the coming end and of the impossibility of knowing when it will come, even as he warned us that it will come:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. (Mt 24.35-39)

So, to quote the over-used and much-abused billboard, the end is nigh, and, if we are Christians, we have a difficult task. We must at once prove from the Scriptures that there is a day of judgment at hand, and also that there is no way of knowing when that day will be. We must expose the foolishness of false predictions, and at the same time expose the folly of those who imagine that there is no such day. Furthermore, we must ourselves remember that such a day is coming, and that it should have a profound, pressing and perpetual impact upon the way in which we live. We must not allow the scorn of the world nor the errors of those who take the name but not the truth and the life of Christ’s disciples to dull our awareness. We must take pains that our distaste for such false teachers does not become a carnal scorn that actually undermines our own faith and the platform from which we must warn all men. Peter goes on:

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation– as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” (2Pt 3.11-18)

So our preaching and our living must reflect the uncertain certainty of the last day, and we must think and speak and act with that edge that comes from the fact that we know that such a day is coming, and that we cannot know when it will come.

There may well be rapture parties held before the day is out, where men will be “eating and drinking” as if there was nothing to fear, and some will pillow their heads tonight full of scorn and perhaps, even, in their heart of hearts, relief. People will go on living as before. That would be foolish. It is not today. It may well be tomorrow. Faith in Christ, lived out every day, is the only way to be ready.

And what was the cause of this man’s and woman’s loss of a dream? Gossip.

They just couldn’t take it any longer. The slander. The criticism. The backbiting. He concluded that the only people who can make it in the church must have thick skin. Gossip is surely the native tongue of the church.

So says Bill Mounce as he describes the wreckage left by gossip and slander. I have been in a church where I had a particular sense that gossip seemed to be “the native tongue” and it was pernicious. Sins of the tongue are easily overlooked, but Satan knows their value to him and the Lord God their utter obnoxiousness. Bill’s article is a worthwhile reminder of this.

So how does your sermon compare? Nathan Bingham elucidates.

Spurgeon, in his autobiography, writes as follows:

I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit. The habit of regular morning and evening prayer is one which is indispensable to a believer’s life, but the prescribing of the length of prayer, and the constrained remembrance of so many persons and subjects, may gender unto bondage, and strangle prayer rather than assist it.

To say I will humble myself at such a time, and rejoice at such another season, is nearly as much an affectation as when the preacher wrote in the margin of his sermon, “Cry here,” “Smile here.” Why, if the man preached from his heart, he would be sure to cry in the right place, and to smile at a suitable moment; and when the spiritual life is sound, it produces prayer at the right time, and humiliation of soul and sacred joy spring forth spontaneously, apart from rules and vows.

The kind of religion which makes itself to order by the Almanack, and turns out its emotions like bricks from a machine, weeping on Good Friday, and rejoicing two days afterwards, measuring its motions by the moon, is too artificial to be worthy of my imitation.

Self-examination is a very great blessing, but I have known self-examination carried on in a most unbelieving, legal, and self-righteous manner; in fact, I have so carried it on myself. Time was when I used to think a vast deal more of marks, and signs, and evidences, for my own comfort, than I do now, for I find that I cannot be a match for the devil when I begin dealing in these things. I am obliged to go day by day with this cry,—

“I, the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me.”

While I can believe the promise of God, because it is His promise, and because He is my God, and while I can trust my Saviour because He is God, and therefore mighty to save, all goes well with me; but I do find, when I begin questioning myself about this and that perplexity, thus taking my eye off Christ, that all the virtue of my life seems oozing out at every pore.

Any practice that detracts from faith is an evil practice, but especially that kind of self-examination which would take us away from the cross-foot, proceeds in a wrong direction.

Amen.

Thanks, Pyros.

Michael Haykin offers some advice to a friend on what to read first in Andrew Fuller. I would not disagree.

Kevin DeYoung suggests that we may have overcomplicated our parenting, focusing too much on the minutiae of what we do (on the basis of having read that book or heard that sermon series or found that system – you know, the one that really works) and overlooking the vital significance of who we are. It is encouraging and yet demanding stuff. He also records the gospel-rich communication that many parents wish might be the standard of their interaction with their children alongside the conversation that most of us have, which is worth reading in itself.

Could it be we’ve made parenting too complicated? Isn’t the most important thing not what we do but who we are as parents? They will see our character before they remember our exact rules regarding television and twinkies.

I could be wrong. My kids are still young. Maybe this no-theory is a theory of its own. I just know that the longer I parent the more I want to focus on doing a few things really well, and not get too passionate about all the rest. I want to spend time with my kids, teach them the Bible, take them to church, laugh with them, cry with them, discipline them when they disobey, say sorry when I mess up, and pray like crazy. I want them to look back and think, “I’m not sure what my parents were doing or if they even knew what they were doing. But I always knew my parents loved me and I knew they loved Jesus.” Maybe it’s not that complicated after all.

Read it all.

What I think what vast numbers are hasting the downward road; how few walk the narrow way; and, comparatively speaking, what little success attends our preaching, and what little ground Christ gets in the world, my heart fails and is discouraged. But it did my heart good last night to read Isaiah xlii, 4, “He shall not fail or be discouraged till he have set judgement in the earth!” I could not but reflect that Christ had infinitely more to discourage him that I can have to discourage me; and yet he persevered! But, methought, judgement is not yet set in the earth, except in a small degree. And what then? May I not take courage for that the promise has not yet spent its force? Christ has much more yet to do in the world; and, numerous as his enemies yet are, and few his friends, his heart does not fail him; nor shall it, till he has spread salvation throughout the earth, and leavened the whole lump.

Andrew Fuller to Benjamin Francis [?], Horsley, 3 July 1788; Regent’s Part College, Oxford: Angus Library, Fuller 4/5/1.

HT: here.

I am sure it has been noticed a thousand times before, but I have noticed it again. We need to listen to the gaps. Let me explain.

Error and heresy are not always immediately obvious. To be sure, they can be. Some problems are glaring, and ought to require only that you have a functioning pair of eyes and ears in order to determine the problem (though we know that those things spiritually discerned need more than mere physical perception). God says that something is white; a man says it is black. QED.

But very often error and heresy masquerade under the appearance of, or – perhaps more insidiously – alongside a seeming orthodoxy. A man seems so reliable and gifted. Perhaps he has a genuine gift of oratory – he speaks and writes and preaches with acknowledged clarity and potency in so many ways. He develops a reputation. People want to know what he says. In so many respects he seems spot on. He seems so effective, perhaps even fruitful. And then you begin to listen to the gaps.

And as you open your ears to the silences, something disconcerting becomes apparent.  When he is asked that question, he fudges the answer. When he preaches on that text, you are waiting for the insight or application that seems obvious, even necessary, not least in the context of the day, and he skates past it. An opportunity is given in which you think the moment has arrived for a clear declaration, and the man flits over the surface. He mumbles and stutters when the moment calls for clarity and force; he evades and declines when the time is right for courage and forthrightness. Then you add up the gaps, and begin to realise that there is a truth or truths that the man will neither commend nor defend.

He may never have said that what God says is white is, in fact, black. And yet he has consistently and repeatedly failed to acknowledge or has avoided acknowledging that God declares something is white, or he fails to deny or he avoids denying that it is, by way of contrast, black.

The problem lies not in what he says, but in what he fails to say. And in failing to say it when it could and should be said, he establishes a space, an error- or heresy-shaped space. It takes form over time, gradually delineated by what he actually does say, leaving the hole where what he could and should say might exist. The trumpet makes an uncertain sound when it hits certain notes. It warbles and wobbles where it might ring clear. The symphony of truth develops small but jarring emptinesses.

Perhaps it is carefully veiled. There are certain truths that are more important than others, he says. Certain things need to take priority – can’t we all see that? He refuses to major on the minors. Some things are not the crying need of the hour, and he does not need to deal with them. He has no interest in disputes – he is, rather, a peacemaker. He would like to reformulate something, not to change it. He would rather say this than that. We need to be sensitive to the culture in which we find ourselves. We must speak in love. Others are painted (perhaps, again, in the gaps between such statements) as narrow, bigoted, obsessive, heresy hunters, out of tune, outmoded, and – worst of all – unloving and divisive.

Such a man may, before the end, break cover. Error and heresy have a way of hardening into shape, sometimes even of demanding a hearing. The gap becomes compelling, and something must fill the vacuum. Or, it may be that he himself will live and die without being pinned down. He grows old and gray leaving that silence, employing his gifts of insight and oratory, refusing or refuting all attempts to obtain clarity. But then you listen to the disciples. What once was a silence has become a whisper, and the hole is being slowly filled in. Something unpleasant and ugly begins to coalesce in the space left in the first man’s teaching. Over time its features become increasingly plain, and error and heresy take form. And as months and years roll on, in perhaps two or three generations, there is a scream where once was a silence, and error and heresy are rampant. The church may sit in stunned sterility as God and his gospel, entangled in the filth of error and crippled by the impotence of untruth, are derided and denied until God is pleased to raise up men to declare the truth again in all its splendour, in all its scriptural substance and biblical balance.

And that is why we must listen for the gaps, and why it is incumbent upon us to declare all the truth we know. We may accept that some truths are more central than others, some more critical, some more applicable and necessary in our age, but let us never imagine that there is some truth which God has been pleased to reveal which we can then dismiss as unimportant or avoidable. Such sentiments too easily provide the holes where error and heresy can take shape. Often Christians who hold to an orthodox confession of some sort are dismissed as de facto schismatics, men who make too much of lesser things, who draw lines where others eradicate boundaries, who foster division where others promote peace. But these solid, time-proved confessions, expressing “the things most surely believed among us,” as the 17^th century Baptists had it, paint a fuller picture of the main things (they never pretended that it was all things), and leave less space for these crucial gaps. But still we must watch. Confessions do lay a foundation for a full-orbed unity, in which there can be intelligent and rich agreement between brothers who can see all that there is in common, even where they recognise that there is sincere disagreement at points. However, a confession of faith is not a panacea; there are matters that our confessions do not explicitly address, issues in the application of their principles that their signatories did not face in their day. There are matters, for example, to do with our essential humanity – with gender identity and relationships between men and women – that lie subsumed within the general declarations of the confession but need to be made explicit in the present hour.

And so we continue to listen, we continue to watch, we continue to speak. We should tremble to add to what God speaks, to trample upon true Christian liberty or to add the commandments of men to the Word of God. That is not our place. But we tremble, too, to be silent where God speaks, to be less precise and less careful, less full and less clear, when God – for the glory of his name and the good of men’s souls – has seen fit, in his infinite wisdom, to make known the truth as it is in Jesus. We cannot be ashamed to say all that God says, in its proper place and proportion. That is our calling. We cannot fail to commend and defend the truth, nor to expose and identify the error. And so we must watch the holes. And so we must listen to the gaps.