Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 35

Monday Morning Humor

I hope your new school year is off to a good start (our kids don’t start until tomorrow!). Here’s a refresher course on the new Common Core math.

Ten Words of Advice for Seminarians

I can hardly believe it’s already been 17 years since I started seminary. I remember feeling nervous, excited, and far from home. Those three years were wonderful–filled with good friends and good classes. I strongly believe that any man wanting to prepare for a lifetime of pastoral ministry should make every effort to matriculate (yes, in person) to a good evangelical seminary and commit to several years of serious study and ministry formation.

If that’s you, or will be you someday, I’m really excited for you.

I also have some advice. Here are ten things every incoming seminary student should know, consider, and keep in mind over the next few years.

1. Get involved in the local church. Star this one. Underline it. Put it in italics and don’t forget. The seminary exists to serve the church. You are in seminary, presumably, because you desire to be a servant in the church. So don’t neglect the very reason you are where you are. Find a good church. Get plugged in. Get mentored. Volunteer (and not just for teaching and preaching). If you go through seminary without pursuing deep relationships and practical ministry opportunities in the local church you are doing it wrong.

2. Take advantage of what’s there. A good seminary is an amazing place. You have experts in Bible, theology, history, languages, counseling, and preaching. Learn from them. Go to chapel. Attend special seminars and lectures. It may all feel like too much at the moment, but soon you’ll be in a church, on your own, and your weekly routine will be almost all output and very little input. Be an engaged, grateful, hungry member of your seminary community.

3. Don’t forget about relationships. One of the best parts about seminary is the people you’ll meet. You’ll labor with some of these brothers in the same network or in the same denomination for the rest of your life. Take time to get to know people. Have fun. Go out to dinner. Pray together. Make friends.

4. Have a hobby. Trust me: you’ll get more seminary work done if you don’t try to do seminary 16 hours a day. If you like running or swimming or biking of fishing or hunting or even fantasy football, don’t quit now. You need an outlet. Man does not live by Greek flashcards alone. Even Spurgeon tells us to go take a walk on the beach. Don’t be too spiritual for your own good.

5. Take a Sabbath. Is it wrong to study Calvin and read about the Great Awakening and write about the meaning of pistou Christou on Sunday? No. Is it unbiblical to think seminary students don’t need a day for rest and worship? Yes. Plan ahead. Guard your Sundays.

6. Remember, it’s just a grade. I know how important it is to you to get an A instead of an A- or, heaven forbid, something in the B range. Grades were important to me too. But they are not the measure of your worth as a Christian, or even the best predictor of what kind of pastor you will be. A higher grade is not worth ruining your family or bankrupting your personal devotional life. Work hard. Know your limits. Don’t freak out if you don’t get the highest grade in the class.

7. Your life is not on hold. This may be a season of training and preparation, but it doesn’t mean you should wait three more years to be a serious Christian or a valuable member of the church. There are good works God has for you today. There is ministry he has called you to right now. Don’t think real life starts later.

8. Be careful, you know more than most everyone in the church. If you are enrolled at seminary, you likely already know more about formal systematic theology and church history and exegesis than 90% of the people in the pews. In another few years, especially if you are at a rigorous school (like you should be!), you will have more biblical, historical, and theological knowledge than 99% of the Christians on the planet. Your job is not to impress people with your learning. You must learn to communicate in a way that is open and accessible. Stay humble. Keep it simple. The best teachers make the hard stuff easy to understand.

9. Be careful, you know much less than you think. You may have more knowledge than ever before, but that doesn’t mean your discernment, your maturity, and your real world experience have caught up with your formal training. And even your formal training is less than you think. Anyone four weeks into a doctoral program knows more than you do about a given topic.  Keep reading. Keep growing. Listen to your elders. Learn from older Christians. Don’t be haughty.

10. Find your identity in Christ. When I was in college I was the guitar playing, Calvin quoting, Greek and Hebrew studying, ministry minded, theology guy. That’s who I was. I thought I was special. Until I got to seminary and realized that my supposedly unique identity now described every single person around me. It’s easy to compare ourselves with others, especially when the others are doing the same things and pursuing the same ends. Don’t forget: we are not justified by preaching (or by our knowledge of Turretin or the size of our church or the grade we get in personal evangelism). We are called to be sheep before we are called to be shepherds. You are who you are in Christ. That’s special enough for all of us.

 

Today’s Revisionists, Tomorrow’s Roadkill

Os Guinness nails it:

For a generation now the air has been thick with talk of “changing the world,” but who is changing whom? There is no question that the world would like to change the church. In area after area only the church stands between the world and its success over issues such as sexuality. Unquestionably the world would like to change the church, but does the church still want to change the world, or is its only concern to change the church in light of the world? Something is rotten in the state of Evangelicalism, and all too often it is impossible to tell who is changing whom.

Writing in his new book, Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization (IVP 2016), Guinness warns that whatever cost there may be in standing against the onslaught of the sexual revolution, the price the faithful pay is never as costly as the price of rejecting the authority of Christ and abandoning the gospel. Trading fidelity for (supposed) relevance is a devil’s bargain.

Today’s Evangelical revisionists should take sober note. Time and again I tremble when I hear or read their flimsy arguments. They may be lionized by the wider advocates of the sexual revolution for fifteen minutes, because they are siding with that wider culture in undermining the clear teaching of Jesus and the Bible that stands in their way. For their is no question that Jesus, the Scriptures and Christian tradition all stand resolutely in their way.

But in truth, the sexual revolution has no real interest in such Evangelicals, and they will be left as roadkill as the revolution blitzkrieg gathers speed.

But that is nothing compared with the real tragedy of the revisionists. It is no light think for anyone to set themselves above and against the authority of Jesus and the Scriptures. The apostle Peter betrayed Jesus and was restored, but Judas stands as the warning for all who betray Jesus for their personal, sexual or political interests and condemn themselves for their disloyalty.

Guinness isn’t finished yet. He compares today’s revisionists to Lot who tried to work his way up into the inner ring of Sodom, only to find that he was utterly naive and deluded to trust his adopted city to stand by him when the chips were down. No, in the end, they had no patience for Lot’s moral standards, no matter how nice a chap he had tried to be. They condemned him for acting like a judge and vowed to treat him worse than the rest (Gen. 19:9).

Guinness concludes:

Poor Lot had become a joke even to his in-laws. In spite of all his efforts and contrary to all that he had imagined, he had still not arrived, and he was never accepted as he imagined. He was always the alien–as Abraham never forgot that he was and was respected for being. We of course should always be resident aliens as faithful Christians who are in the world but not of it–regardless of the world’s pressure on us to change with the times and line up with them on the so-called right side of history. (Impossible People, 73-75)

Fifteen minutes of fleeting fame, or much maligned faithfulness. The cost of the former is actually much greater than the latter. Those who try to straddle the middle of the road should not be surprised when they get hit by oncoming traffic.

Monday Morning Humor

Witherspoon’s Pastoral Ministry

During my study leave this summer I worked on two dissertation chapters: one on Witherspoon’s ministry in the Kirk, and the other on Witherspoon’s relationship to the Enlightenment. The excerpt below is taken from the first of those chapters. In this section, I trace Witherspoon’s approach to church discipline, making use of presbytery and session records housed in Edinburgh at the National Records of Scotland. I’ve kept in most of my footnotes, though I’ve cut out a couple long digressions. One last note: the “Snodgrass affair” refers to an episode in which Witherspoon publicly rebuked and named several young men (among them, the lawyer John Snodgrass) for a drunken party that included a mock Communion service. This public censure, though considered appropriate by his congregation, landed Witherspoon in a 14-year legal battle in which he faced opposition from a hostile presbytery and formal charges of libel and slander.

*******

The long, circuitous Snodgrass affair is noteworthy on many levels—as a precedent-setting legal case, as a salacious glimpse into the messiness of real life in Presbyterian Scotland, and as a personal headache (and possibly a motivation for heading to America) for Witherspoon. What is most striking, however, at least for our purposes, is how the two Snodgrass episodes reveal Witherspoon as a man caught between two times. His adherence to the old Scottish paths won him a loyal following on a local level and among the evangelical wing of the Kirk, while at the same putting him out of step with the ecclesiastical powerbrokers and polite fashions of the day.

Witherspoon’s commitment to church discipline is an instructive case in point. When Ashbel Green noted that his mentor “had been known as the strenuous advocate, not only of the orthodox doctrine, but of the strict discipline of the Scottish church,” there was more evidence than the Snodgrass affair to make his point. “They that desire to banish discipline,” Witherspoon wrote, referencing one of the early Reformers, “desire to banish Christ from his church.”

Most of the items recorded in the minutes of the Beith Kirk Session (sadly, the minutes from Laigh Kirk are not available for Witherspoon’s tenure) deal with the sins of church members. On September 25, 1747, Margaret Snodgrass (no known relation to the aforementioned John) was called before the elders and asked if she was with child. She responded that she was and that the father was John Sheddan of Cuff. In October, Sheddan was brought before the session and denied having had “any carnal dealing with” Margaret. A few days later William Mitchell and Elizabeth Cochran, who had been rebuked by Witherspoon for their irregular marriage (i.e., conducted in secret without the sanctioning of the church), stood before the session and agreed to pay the Kirk dues for a regular marriage. Although most cases were concerned with adultery (and the resulting pregnancy) and irregular marriages, the session dealt almost every kind of serious transgressions, like the time Matthew Swan and Matthew Sheddan were accused of beating a poor woman and exhorted to beware of drunkenness, or the time Thomas Caldwell and David King were rebuked for “very indecent behavior in the church” and (after their failure to appear before the congregation) received the sentence of lesser excommunication.

While Witherspoon’s persistence in the Snodgrass Affair may seem excessive to modern sensibilities, it was not at all unusual for a minister, together with the session, to follow through with ecclesiastical oversight for several years following the initial allegations. Margaret Snodgrass and John Sheddan first appeared before the Beith session in the fall of 1747. Not relenting after an initial denial, in March 1748, the session ordered Robert Sheddan, John Sheddan of Marshland, and William Caldwell to speak with John Sheddan to see whether he would make a statement under oath before the Presbytery. Three years later, in July 1752, the issue was still resolved: Margaret and John were now married, but both had been found guilty (again) of “uncleanness” and ordered to appear before the congregation. Since Margaret had lied under excommunication she could only be absolved of her sin by the Presbytery, while John would not be absolved without evidence of good behavior.

Even more protracted was the case of George King and his servant Margaret King. When Margaret accused her master of committing adultery with her and being the father of her child, George denied the accusations and charged Margaret with sleeping around. The Beith session, not believing George’s denials, appealed to the Presbytery of Irvine for help. They too did not trust George’s profession of innocence, finding him “guilty of gross prevarication of such indecent behavior that he deserves to be publicly rebuked.” A decade later, in the summer of 1756, just after Witherspoon had received a call to Paisley, George King finally admitted before the Presbytery that he was guilty of adultery with Margaret. The Presbytery of Irvine then began the process of “removing the sentence against him” and referred the matter back to the session of Beith.

In pursuing such exacting oversight of his flock, Witherspoon was in step with the rigorous pattern of pastoral care that had reigned in Scotland for nearly two centuries. As Margo Todd has demonstrated in her magisterial work on the culture of Protestantism in early modern Scotland, the Reformation took root in Scotland in a way it never did in England because the latter lacked local kirk sessions to reorient religious practices and systematically administer thoroughgoing church discipline. Even Crawford, who is quite critical of Witherspoon in his handling of the Snodgrass Affair (calling it “a largely forgotten and infinitely darker side to Witherspoon’s life”), admits that Witherspoon’s actions were in keeping with the duties placed upon him as a Kirk minister. Indeed, as Ashbel Green was keen to point out, Walter Steuart’s Collections and Observations (1709)—a polity and disciplinary manual for the Church of Scotland—called for the relevant ecclesiastical judicatories to make a “timeous [i.e. prompt] notice of all Scandals.”

Church members presumed that clergy would not only preach on Sunday, but also visit the people from house to house and be intimately involved in their lives (even if they sometimes complained of the involvement). So when scholars conclude that “Few aspects of the history of Scottish Presbyterianism are more repugnant to the modern mind than kirk session discipline with its connotations of public humiliation, voyeurism and smug self-righteousness” the verdict reflects more about contemporary standards of privacy than what 18th-century Scots expected from their local parish.

And yet, by the middle of the century, even these expectations were changing. Within a day or two of the publication of Seasonable Advice (1762), George Muir came to Witherspoon’s aid with a published sermon of his own entitled The Excision; or, Troublers of the Church Characterized and Cut Off (Glasgow: Robert Urie, 1762). It was a vigorous defense of the session’s duty to discipline unholy men. But come September, Muir’s Excision would be mocked by William Thom (1710-1790), a Popular Party minister in Govan who sometimes exchanged pulpits with Witherspoon. A little more than a year later (November 8, 1763), John Erskine weighed in with a sermon before the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale entitled Ministers of the Gospel Cautioned Against Giving Offence in which the “enlightened evangelical” sounded a softer note, enjoining his fellow pastors to rebuke “the open practice of scandalous crimes,” but not in a way that allowed “sober reasoning” to be silenced “by raillery, by dark malicious innuendoes, by bitter satirical invectives, or by noisy cries for a vote.”

With an increasingly prosperous society less tolerant of ecclesiastical intrusion, and a Moderate regime intent on softening the Kirk’s hard edges, the traditional expression of pastoral care was changing, even within the ranks of evangelical clergy (like John Erskine) who hoped the old paths could be walked in new ways. William Maxwell’s summary is apt: “Under presbytery and episcopacy the disciplinary system pursued its relentless way, practically unchanged till the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was very gradually dropped.” This slow but profound change marked Witherspoon as a man caught in an age of transition—on the one hand embracing traditional ministerial practices familiar to most of his countrymen, while at the same time having to defend those practices in a world that was not sure it believed in them anymore.

Life, p.87.

Works, 2:445.

Beith, CH2/31/2/192. In 1751, the disorderly practice of clandestine marriages became such a serious matter that the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr overtured the General Assembly for help (Annals 1739-1752, p.219).

Beith, CH2/31/2/201.

Irvine, CH2/197/5/500-501. Lesser excommunication amounted to suspension from the Lord’s Supper and a final admonition before proceeding to greater excommunication, which meant cutting off the offender as “a heathen man” (See Walter Steuart, Collections and Observations Concerning the Worship, Discipline, and Government of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: W. Gray, 1770), pp.237-38.

The public acts of rebuke, confession, repentance, and absolution were an integral part of Kirk worship well into the eighteenth century. For a uniformly negative assessment of these Scottish traditions, see William D. Maxwell, A History of Worship in the Church of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp.145-55. A more comprehensive, and balanced, analysis can be found in Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, (New Haven: Yale, 2002), pp.127-82.

Beith, CH2/31/2/209.

Irvine, CH2/197/5/148-49, 151, 542.

Of course, pastoral care meant much more than formal discipline. In a letter from Paisley dated April 4, 1766, Witherspoon comforted Mrs. Hogg that it had “pleased God in his holy Providence” to remove her eldest daughter from this world. After expressing his “tender sympathy,” Witherspoon borrowed the language of Scripture in holding out hope that God would give a peace which the world cannot give and work all things together for good to those who love him (Princeton University, Firestone Ms. CO 274, Box 1, Folder 5a, “Hogg, Ballie Thomas, Mrs.”).

Todd, Culture of Protestantism, p.408

Crawford, Lost World, pp.2, 277-78.

Life, pp.86-87; see also Crawford, who points out that Witherspoon’s personal copy of Steuart’s Collections and Observations (the 1770 edition) can be found at Princeton (Lost World, pp.78-79).

Cf. Works, 4:445-46.

T.M. Devine, The Scottish Nation 1700-2000 (New York: Penguin, 2000), p.85.

See also “Questions to Be Put to Elders and Ordination” in Papers (Bundle 2nd No. 22). Question 3 asks the elder to approve the constitution and disciplinary procedures of the Church of Scotland. Question 5 is even more to point: “Do you promise to give faithful judgement as an office bearer and ruler in the Church of Christ and in this Congregation to be strict and impartial in the Exercise of Discipline for the Correction of Offenders and the preservation of others?”

Thom published two anonymous pamphlets in wake of the Snodgrass Affair: The Defects of an University Education (1762) and Scheme for Erecting an Academy Set Forth in Its Own Proper Colours (1762), both of which are including in The Works of the Rev. William Thom (Glasgow: James Dymock, 1799). The second pamphlet includes an accompanying note, entitled Uncorrupted Inhabitants of Paisley to the Public, in which Thom satirically advises that all ministers who speak favorably of educational academies should face “the EXCISION” (pp.348-50, emphasis original). Information on Witherspoon’s pulpit supply and pulpit exchanges in 1763 can found in Princeton University, Firestone Ms. CO 199, number 1141, “Manuscript 1763.”

John Erskine, Discourses Preached on Several Occasions, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: D. Willison, 1801), p.63.

Maxwell, History of Worship, p.146.

“[A] faithful minister,” Witherspoon suggests, “who openly dares to bear witness against the apostacy of others, is traduced and slandered, loaded with imaginary crimes, and often falls a martyr to the sinking cause of truth and righteousness” (“The Charge of Sedition and Faction against Good Men, Especially Faithful Ministers, Considered and Accounted For” [1758] in Works, 2:437).

 

End of Summer and Back to Blogging

This weeks marks the end of summer for me. Study leave is over. Vacation is done. I’m back in the pulpit, back to my regular work, and back to blogging.

Speaking of which, I thought I’d ease back into blogging by reflecting a little on what I’ve been doing for the past month and a half. Later in the week, I’ll share a few fruits from my doctoral studies. Today will be a little more personal.

The letter below is what I sent to our congregation as a way of summing up my summer. It will give you a feel for real life in the DeYoung household, and a couple pointers for prayer (if anyone is so inclined). If nothing else, it will catch up to speed the URC folks who are more likely to see this post on Facebook than check their email!

Once again, let me reiterate what a blessing it is to get time away each summer for reading, writing, and rest. Thank you for the six Sundays off. Because we were around most of the summer, I know firsthand that you were well served with Pastor Jason’s preaching, as well as excellent messages from Pat Quinn and Jon Saunders and the rest of the staff. And what a blessing to have Jon Anderson [our new Director of Music] with us and Kevin McAlvey [our new Church Administrator] on board too. VBS was a wonderful week as well. Lots of good things happening at URC over the summer.

Rather than taking time away from the sermon to give an update on the past month and a half, I thought I could highlight three things by way of the church newsletter.

First, my PhD work continues to move ahead on schedule. As a part-time student, the University of Leicester requires that I be enrolled a minimum of four years. That means the earliest I can graduate is September 2017. Given my current progress, I should be able to complete a draft of my dissertation within the next 6-9 months and then defend my thesis roughly a year from now, right at the four year mark. My dissertation will have an introduction and five other chapters. This summer I finished chapter 3 (on John Witherspoon’s ministry in the Church of Scotland) and wrote most of chapter 4 (on Witherspoon’s relationship to the Enlightenment). Five chapters down (more or less); one more to go. Stay tuned for a Sunday evening lecture on Witherspoon later this fall (I can feel the excitement building already!).

Second, many of you have kindly asked about my health. As you probably saw on my blog several months ago, I was diagnosed in the spring with an autoimmune disorder called Celiac Disease. Since the beginning of May I’ve been on a strict gluten free diet. The new diet is challenging, but worth it if it means I will start feeling better. For most of June I felt much improved, but then since the middle of July I’ve felt poorly again. Some of the weeks have been worse than when I was eating all the things I used to eat. That’s been discouraging. I’m not sure the reason for the setback. It could be the result of nutritional deficiencies (I continue to lose weight without trying), or it could be because of new food allergies (very common with Celiac Disease), or it could just be a matter of waiting a bit longer for my body to repair itself. I appreciate your prayers for strength, stamina, and healing. My most recent bloodwork showed that my Celiac related numbers were back to normal. That’s good. I’m hoping that a marked improvement is right around the corner.

Third, it’s been awhile since we’ve given you on update on Trisha’s dad. We are so grateful for your prayers, cards, and compassion. Roy is halfway through six months of chemo treatments for stage 4 colon cancer. His latest scan was encouraging: most of the cancer is gone (except for some spots in the liver). The doctor says Roy is in partial remission. His energy level is not what it was and he deals with bouts of nausea and stomach pain, but he still manages to be involved at their church, work a few hours a week, and spend time pursuing his woodworking hobby. We are praying for no setbacks and for the strength to endure another three months of chemotherapy.

Trisha and the kids are still with Trisha’s family in Colorado (where I was this past week). I’ll fly back to Colorado Springs after a week of work here and then drive them home before school starts. I’m eager to start up again with Exodus again. We will spend most of the semester working our way through the Ten Commandments in the morning services. In the evening, I’ll be sharing the teaching the load with Pastor Jason and others as we preach through the armor of God passage in Ephesians 6.

As always, it is a joy to be your pastor and labor with you for the cause of Christ.

In Him,

Pastor Kevin

Monday Morning Humor

Today marks the beginning of our annual staff retreat. It’s pretty much this nonstop for two days.

The Biggest Story Video

I’m breaking my blog fast for one day to show you this beautiful trailer for The Biggest Story animated short film. I’ll have more information about the full length video in a couple weeks. The folks at Crossway have done an amazing job putting this together over the past year.

The Biggest Story: The Animated Short Film (Trailer) from Crossway on Vimeo.

Summer Break

I’ve been on study leave for the past two weeks. I have another month to go. The singular goal is to make good progress on my dissertation. I have more or less four chapters written out of a six chapter thesis (up next: Witherspoon and the Scottish Enlightenment!). I’d love to get another 10,000-15,000 words written by the middle of August. I’m hoping against hope to be finished next summer.

In order to focus on my studies–and for the overall good of my soul–I’m doing something I haven’t done before. I’m taking a full month off from blogging.

Oh the horrors!

Yes, it’s not a big deal, but it’s a longer break than I’ve taken before. I’m really looking forward to it. In fact, I’m going to try as much as possible to stay away from Facebook and Twitter as well. I may tweet once in awhile on regular life and family stuff, but I don’t have anything scheduled. So don’t be concerned by the sounds of silence. Lord willing, I’ll be back in the middle of August.

Enjoy your summer, and have a great month. You may want to take a social media break yourself. But I’ll leave that between you, the Lord, and the the internet connection at your campsite. God bless.

A Love Like That

Most Reformed Christians like Charles Hodge. And rightly so. He was a brilliant, faithful, and hugely influential theologian. But do not labor for a theology like his without also working hard for a marriage like his.

I was moved Paul Gutjahr’s touching description of Hodge with his 51-year-old dying wife, Sarah.

The next death that visited Hodge was infinitely dearer to him. On Christmas Day 1849, just four months after her return to Princeton with her daughter and grandchild, Sarah “softly & sweetly fell asleep in Jesus.” She most probably fell victim to uterine cancer.

Sarah’s health had begun to deteriorate soon after her return, and by December her condition was such that Hodge had lost all hope of recovery. In her final weeks, he personally nursed Sarah, spending countless hours simply lying next to her. During these times, he held her hand, and conversed with her when she had the strength. The depth of their love remained so intense that Hodge later commented that “to the last she was like a girl in love.” During her final weeks, Sarah asked Hodge to tell her in detail “how much you love me,” and they spent time recounting the high points of their life together.

Hodge’s last hours with his wife were particularly poignant. As her life ebbed away, Sarah looked at her children gathered around her bed and quietly murmured “I give them to God.” Hodge then asked her if she had thought him a devoted husband to which she replied as “she sweetly passed her hand over” his face: “There never was such another.” (Charles Hodge, 258)

Married couples, if you imagine that your final moments together will be like this, rejoice and again I say rejoice. Let the thought of such bittersweet sorrow put your present troubles and conflicts in perspective. But if this scene feels like an impossible dream, what must you change now so you and your spouse can die like this later?

Who wouldn’t want a love like that?