God’s Ambassadors: The Westminster Assembly and the Reformation of the English Pulpit, 1643–1653, by Chad Van Dixhoorn. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2017, xxi + 215 pages, $40.00. The mere convening of the Westminster Assembly in 1643 is a wonder. Since the days of Edward VI, reform efforts in the church of England had stalled or been reversed under his Protestant successors, Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. The eruption of the English Civil War, with its political and military tumult, made the convening even more unlikely. But convene it did, and over the next decade, the fruits of its labors were prodigious. General histories and expositions of the assembly’s Confession of Faith and Catechisms are many. What distinguishes God’s Ambassadors: The Westminster…
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Summer orientation at Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson is this Friday, June 14. To our new Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Counseling students, welcome to our campus! I serve as RTS Jackson’s Dean of Students. You should know that any time my door is open you are welcome to come in and talk. My office is located on the second floor of the Dean Center. If it is an emergency, I can be reached on my cell at any time. My number is posted at the foot of the stairs to my office and in the student handbook. New and returning students are invited to dinner at Patterson’s Porch on Friday June 14 at 6 p.m. My wife,…
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Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the commencement of the Allied invasion of continental Europe. Within a year, Hitler was dead and the Nazi reign of terror over. President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 speech at Normandy marked the 40th anniversary of the invasion. Reagan used the opportunity not only to honor the allied soldiers who fought their way ashore, but also to strengthen NATO’s resolve in the face of threatened Soviet nuclear missile deployments to Eastern Europe. I introduced my high school rhetoric and debate students to this speech as one of the great presidential addresses of the 20th century. I recommend listening to the entire 13-minute speech. My father, George Thomas Wingard, Jr., fought in Europe later in…
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Retirement was not in the vocabulary of my uncle, John Calvin Wingard. Since ‘retiring’ from a lifetime of ministry at age 70, he pastored two churches, one for nineteen years and a second for the remaining three years of his life. Two weeks ago he was out making pastoral visits to his small flock at First Presbyterian Church in Ripley, Tennessee. On Mother’s Day, he drove fifteen miles to do what he did most Sundays for the past 68 years, proclaim God’s word. The next day, one of his sons drove him to Tupelo, Mississippi to visit his oncologist. He was informed that treatments would yield no further benefits. He walked into a hospital without assistance. By the end…
Read MoreOne of my goals at RTS Jackson is to introduce students to the “neglected voices” of the evangelical church. I am not the best qualified to remedy this neglect, but have made it my habit to assign readings that will help. One such book is Thabiti Anyabwile’s The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors. The book presents biographical sketches of Lemuel Haynes, Daniel Payne, and Francis Grimké, along with selected writings. First, Lemuel Haynes. Born in 1753, he was abandoned by his parents when only a few months old. He became an indentured servant to a Connecticut family who treated him as their own child, and where he was to receive the blessings of family…
Read MoreMichael A.G. Haykin gives a concise and inspirational account of the life and work of William Carey, English missionary to India and often called “The Father of Modern Missions.” Reformed theology was the solid foundation of Carey’s ministry. Haykin explains: In his theology, Carey married a deep-seated conviction regarding God’s sovereignty in salvation to an equally profound belief that in converting sinners God uses means.… Without understanding Carey’s consistent delight in Calvinism throughout his life, we cannot understand the man, his motivation, or eventually the shape of his mission. (43–44) One example of Carey’s firm grasp of the doctrines of grace appears when he writes that one “may well expect to see fire and water agree, as persons with…
Read MoreThe minister must approach preaching with appropriate solemnity because “he views eternity as just before him, and a congregation on the frontiers of it. . . . He will study and preach with reference to a judgment to come and will deliver every sermon in some respects as if it were his last, not knowing when his Lord will call him or his hearers to account.” – Lemuel Haynes in Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 33.
Read MoreEvery Christian denomination would do well to heed the prudent advice of AME bishop Daniel Payne (1811-1893): “Whenever a young man comes forward, and tells us that he is called to the ministry, let us examine him rigidly, according to our excellent discipline and the requisitions of God’s word. It is not enough that he tells us God has called him; let him show the evidences of his call.” Daniel A. Payne In Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 82.
Read More“If we are not going to preach the gospel, and teach the Word of God faithfully we have no business in the ministry. And the sooner we get out of it, the better.” – Francis J. Grimké in Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Crossway: 2007), 121.
Read MoreCharles Bridges reminds ministers that “it is indeed a ’neglect of the gift of God that is in us,’ to trifle in the study or in the pulpit. God will bless our endeavors – not our idleness. Our Master, and our people for our Master’s sake, have a just claim to our best time and talents, our most matured thoughts, and most careful study.” – Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry (1830; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 194.
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