Archive for May, 2009

The current financial crunch has shaken and rattled the West to a depth that has not been seen since the 1930s. This financial collapse is affecting far more than America. Much of the world has been similarly impacted, with failing banks and the disappearance of financial liquidity. What is God saying in the midst of it? How has God worked during previous crises? Perhaps it is only now that we begin to ask profound questions that many of us tend to ignore in daily life. Why did this happen? What does it all mean? What is God saying in the midst of this financial mess? In whom do we trust?

This new booklet from Michael Haykin provides a timely perspective amidst our financial chaos.  Scheduled to be released at the F.I.R.E. Conference in Indianapolis, IN in a couple of weeks, it can be pre-ordered now at a 50% savings from Audubon Press.  That’s only $1.99 each.  This offer is good through May 20th.  You can also order by calling toll-free 800-405-3788 M-F 9:00-5:00 CST.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

On Saturday, May 16th, Dr. Michael Haykin will lead a morning conference on the Holy Spirit at Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY.   This free conference will last from 9 am – Noon (EST).  Conference Sessions are as follows:

• The Gift of the Holy Spirit
• The Work of the Holy Spirit
• The Holy Spirit and the Spiritual Disciplines

For directions to Farmdale Baptist Church, click here.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

A couple of days ago I mentioned my discovery of an hitherto unknown sermon by Abraham Booth–at least unknown to me. Here are a few quotes from the sermon, which is based on 2 Cor 4:2, in which Booth deals with the manner and aim of preaching:

“When I contemplate the Apostle Paul, as the most honoured and useful servant of the Lord Jesus, in spreading the glories of divine grace, I can hardly forbear wishing, like Augustin, to have beheld him in the pulpit; if, thereby, I might form a more correct idea of his doctrine and manner of preaching. Yet such a wish is quite unavailing; and indeed, the gratification of it quite unnecessary. For that incomparable man, in his several epistles, has drawn his own character both as a Christian and as a minister of Christ. In the words of our text, we have the representation of Paul in the pulpit. His grand business is, to manifest the truth.”

“Take care, that under pretence of being open and explicit, you do not degenerate into dogmatism, or become personal in your, addresses. In the pulpit, you have to do rather with characters than with persons. You are bound, in faithfulness and in duty, to declare, that drunkards, covetous, self-righteous men, shall not inherit the kingdom of God: but you must not single out any particular person before you; for you will then become ungenerous, and the consequences will be injurious.”

“The more you keep the approbation of conscience, and the favour of God, in your eye, the more careful will you be to study your text and to manifest the truth which it contains; that the understanding and the conscience of your hearers may be duly enlightened, feel its authority, and God himself approve your labours. My brother, you have first of all to do with the understanding of your hearers, and as there is a glorious harmony and influence in divine truth, it must certainly operate on the will.

“If you preach the whole counsel of God faithfully, you must expect to be treated by some as an Arminian—if you assert the unchangeableness of salvation for those who, though undeserving, yet believe in Christ, you must expect to be reproached by others as an Antinomian.”

Finitude
With confining hues
Paints us in a corner.

But was it not
The angle of Geneva
That coloured a hemisphere?

Michael A.G. Haykin©2009.

Clothing is far more important than our “casual” culture would like to admit. Clothing can never be equated with piety (1 Peter 3:3-4), but nor is it negligible, as the New Testament indicates (see 1 Timothy 2:9-10). It reflects inner attitudes.

For ministers and pastors, my dear friend Don Whitney has some excellent advice. See his article “Clothing Tips for Ministers” here.

A video of Dr. Haykin being interviewed at ETS last November about his recent work published by Broadman & Holman Academic, The Advent of Evangelicalism is now available online.

The Advent of Evangelicalism:  Exploring Historical Continuities is a thorough analysis of David Bebbington’s 1989 book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s which put forth the idea that evangelical religion is the result of transatlantic revival in the 1730s, and that it took a working together attitude toward the Enlightenment rather than a contradictory one. Today, Bebbington’s thesis has gained international acceptance, and scholars from Europe and North America present a review of its primary arguments and conclusions here in The Advent of Evangelicalism (B&H Academic, 2008).

Contributors include: David W. Bebbington, Joel R. Beeke, John Coffey,Timothy George, Crawford Gribben, Michael A. G. Haykin, Paul Helm, D. Bruce Hindmarsh, David Ceri Jones, Thomas S. Kidd, Timothy Larsen, Cameron A. MacKenzie, A. T. B. McGowan, D. Densil Morgan, Ashley Null, Ian J. Shaw, Kenneth J. Stewart, Douglas A. Sweeney, Garry J. Williams, and Brandon G. Withrow.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

Working yesterday on a title for the forthcoming book by Dr. Raymond A. Coppenger, the father of Dr. Mark Coppenger, on Abraham Booth—it will be entitled “A messenger of grace”: A study of the life and thought of Abraham Booth (1734–1806) (Joshua Press, 2009)—I found a hitherto unknown sermon by Booth, an ordination sermon for Dr. John Stanford, who eventually came to the United States. It is a meditation on 2 Corinthians 4:2, and quintessential Booth. He argues that Paul, as one who sought to make known the truth, is a pattern for imitation. There is hope that this new sermon will be included in a future volume of the collected works of Booth, currently being published by Particular Baptist Press—see The Works of Abraham Booth, Volume I. (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2006).

In the course of this discovery I also came across a remark Booth makes vis-à-vis a quote from his favourite author, John Owen (1616-1683). Booth is speaking about his dislike of the use of the title “Reverend,” a disapprobation common to Baptists of his day, and he quotes Owen quoting Martin Luther (1483-1546): Nunquam periclitatur religio nisi inter Reverendissimos (“Religion is never in any danger except among the most Reverend gentlemen”!). Of course, dangers have arisen from other quarters, but how often in the history of the church has it been ordained ministers who have sought to destroy the very faith they were commissioned to protect. May God enable all who have pledged themselves to be servants of the Word to be faithful to that trust.

This Wednesday my dear friend and brother Stéphane Gagné will be formally examined with regard to his ordination as a “servant of the Word,” to use the Lukan terminology. Those of you who pray for the Francophone world, do remember this brother at this important time in his life.

What a weight there is, though, to such a calling. All Christians have a calling, but not all have such a weighty calling. Who is sufficient to preach the gospel? Among those called to this service, none, not one. And even when we are conscious of our need of God’s help by the Spirit to fulfill this calling and rely upon the blessed Spirit of Jesus, what insufficiency marks our discourse!

But we are in good company: the Apostle Paul himself knew such weakness. As did God’s servants down through the years. And we can derive this comfort from the witness of the past: God enabled them, weak though they were, and his arm of strength is still mighty.

Baptists have excelled at emphasizing the biblical requirements for a true baptism, namely baptism should be by immersion and believers only are the proper subjects of baptism. What they have not always been equally adept at is explaining the answer to this question: what does baptism mean?

Yesterday evening when I got home from Quebec I watched a baptism via the wonder of the internet and heard a relatively extensive discourse about what baptism is not: it is not a saving event, the water is not important (by which I gather the baptizer meant that the water contains no “sacramental” properties—surely he could not have meant that baptism does not require water, which would be very odd for a Baptist to assert), and that baptism is merely a symbol.

Listening to this largely negative explanation of what baptism is not, I was struck by the fact that our Baptist forebears in the defining eras of Baptist thought—the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—would have had some concerns about these remarks. They had a rich baptismal theology. The remarks that I heard yesterday preceding the baptisms were wafer-thin in real theological reflection and stemmed more from the nineteenth-century Baptist reaction to the genuine theological errors of Campbellism than the biblical witness.

For instance, what does one make of this remark by the venerable Andrew Fuller: “The immersion of the body in water, which is a purifying element contains a profession of our faith in Christ, through the shedding of whose blood we are cleansed from all sin. Hence, baptism in the name of Christ is said to be for the remission of sins. Not that there is any virtue in the element, whatever be the quantity; nor in the ceremony, though of Divine appointment: but it contains a sign of the way in which we must be saved. Sin is washed away in baptism in the same sense as Christ’s flesh is eaten, and his blood drank, in the Lord’s supper: the sign, when rightly used leads to the thing signified” [The Practical Uses of Christian Baptism (Complete Works, III, 341)]. This statement “leads to the thing signified” seems to mean that when the person being baptized has such a faith as Fuller describes, then baptism confirms this faith and the individual’s share in the benefits of the gospel.

In other words, baptism is the place where conversion to Christ is ratified and, to borrow a phrase from another great Calvinistic Baptist theologian of the eighteenth century, John Gill, “faith discovers itself.” [An Exposition of the New Testament (1809 ed.; repr. Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc., 1989), I, 495, commentary on Mark 16:16].

We need to recover this rich baptismal thought of our forebears that was drawn from the extensive discussion of baptism in the New Testament, and move beyond the largely negative picture of baptism I heard yesterday on the internet.

I have returned from a long week (nine days in total) away from home with ministry and teaching as far afield as Florida, Southern in Kentucky (classes ended this past week), and Sherbrooke in Québec. Not surprisingly, I was tired when I flew into Montréal last Friday. But oh what refreshment time among the French Baptist brethren proved. I never spend time with my French brothers (this time, especially with Stéphane Gagné and François Deschamps—two very dear brothers and good friends) without coming away refreshed, humbled, challenged, and thankful for the wonder-working grace of God among these brothers and sisters.

The Lord is doing a great work in la belle province—unnoticed by much of the Anglophone Evangelical world (this should not surprise, for that world has largely forgotten—Calvin excepted—the great French Evangelical heritage). And this English-speaking Christian wants to go on record that I am deeply in the debt of these French-speaking Christian heirs of Calvin. Some of the happiest hours as a Christian I have spent among these believers. One of them, Jacques Alexanian, a key figure among the pioneers of the present work in Québec, I consider and honour as a father in Christ. Others of them are among my closest friends. Yet others have touched me deeply by their zeal, their worship and love for Christ and his kingdom. May God continue to bless these churches for the glory of his Son, the Lord Jesus.