‘Biblical Spirituality’ Category

By Dustin W. Benge

The revival of interest in Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) in recent years has brought his Resolutions to a new generation of readers. The Edwards Resolutions have been printed on tee-shirts, been the subject of ministry conferences, and have been read by many preachers desiring somehow to emulate the life and ministry of their author. However, Edwards was not the only preacher of the 18th century to have a list of maxims against which he regularly measured his life and heart. In fact, such lists for personal self-examination were common practice among ministers and other Christians.

Like Edwards, fellow 18th century revivalist and preacher, George Whitefield (1714–1750) also composed a list of criteria, which he used each night as a basis of judging himself on his actions during the day. Whitefield’s smaller list^[1] (to be compared with the 70 Resolutions of Edwards) seems to be much more manageable for the contemporary Christian to use as a mirror into their own soul.

The list is,

Have I,

1. Been fervent in private prayer?
2. Used stated hours of prayer?
3. Used prayer every hour?
4. After or before every deliberate conversation or action, considered how it might tend to God’s glory?
5. After any pleasure, immediately given thanks?
6. Planned business for the day?
7. Been simple and recollected in everything?
8. Been zealous in undertaking and active in doing what good I could?
9. Been meek, cheerful, affable in everything I said or did?
10. Been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others?
11. Recollected in eating and drinking? Thankful? Temperate in sleep?
12. Taken time for giving thanks according to Law’s rules? (William Law)^[2]
13. Been diligent in studies?
14. Thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
15. Confessed all sins?

By Evan D. Burns

In a sermon entitled, “On an Intimate and Practical Acquaintance with the Word of God,” Andrew Fuller meditated deeply on the piety exemplified in Ezra 7:10—“Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.”  Fuller made four outstanding observations about Ezra’s character, which Fuller strongly commended for Christian imitation.  Here is what he gleaned so exquisitely from one verse:

1.  SEEK THE LAW, or will, of God
   1. Seek it.
   2. Seek it at the fountain-head.
   3. Seek the will of God in every part of the Bible.
   4. Seek it perseveringly.
2. PREPARE YOUR HEART to seek the law of the Lord
3. KEEP THE LAW.
   1. Dread nothing more than recommending that to your people to which you do not attend yourself.
   2. More is expected from you than from others.
   3. You will attend to practical preaching.
   4. Attend not only to such duties as fall under the eye of man, but walk with God—in your family, and in your closet.
4. TEACH in Israel the statutes and judgments of God.
   1. Let Christ and his apostles be your examples.
   2. Give every part of the truth its due proportion.
   3. Dare to teach unwelcome truths.
   4. Give Scriptural proof of what you teach.
   5. Consider yourself as standing engaged to teach all that hear you—rich and poor, young and old, godly and ungodly.
   6. Teach privately as well as publicly.[1]

One of the most perceptive and potent points Fuller argued from this verse was the preeminence of seeking the will of God in the Bible alone.  Under the first point, Fuller contended:

Seek it at the fountain-head.—You feel, I doubt not, a great esteem for many of your brethren now living, and admire the writings of some who are now no more; and you will read their productions with attention and pleasure. But whatever excellence your brethren possess, it is all borrowed; and it is mingled with error. Learn your religion from the Bible. Let that be your decisive rule. Adopt not a body of sentiments, or even a single sentiment, solely on the authority of any man—however great, however respected. Dare to think for yourself. Human compositions are fallible. But the Scriptures were written by men who wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Human writings on religion resemble preaching—they are useful only so far as they illustrate the Scriptures, and induce us to search them for ourselves.^[2]

By Dustin Bruce

By Steve Weaver

Dustin Benge, one of the contributors to this blog (and Junior Fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center), has recently published two books featuring devotional selections from the writings of two of the greatest theologians in the history of the church. Benge’s first book provided daily devotions from the sermons of Jonathan Edwards and was published by Reformation Heritage Books (sample pages here). Don Whitney (Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) has said the following about this volume.

“Few Christian writers could be mentioned in the same breath with Jonathan Edwards when it comes to heart-stirring devotional writing that is theologically rock-solid. Dustin Benge has done the church a great service by compiling these God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, Gospel-centered, soul-enriching excerpts from some of Edwards’s magnificent, but lesser-known sermons. Read edifying passages from Edwards like this every day for awhile, and you’ll be the better for it.”

A second work by Benge, which was also published by Reformation Heritage Books, provides a selection of 150 prayers by John Calvin (sample pages here). These prayers were previously only available in Calvin’s voluminous Old Testament commentaries. Benge has now made these prayers accessible to a new generation through his diligent efforts. Steven J. Lawson, author of The Expository Genius of John Calvin, had this to say about the volume.

 “Dustin Benge has done the church a great service by compiling this generous selection of prayers by the great Genevan Reformer, John Calvin. Extracted from his luminous Old Testament Commentaries, these fervent intercessions reveal the warm piety that accompanied this theological genius. Calvin’s personal logo was an open hand, holding a heart, extended upward to God with the words, ‘My heart I offer to Thee, Lord, promptly and sincerely.’ This book clearly demonstrates such singular devotion to God. Here is Calvin’s high doxology, arising upward from his high theology. And here is his exaltation of God, ascending from sound exegesis and exposition. By reading these prayers, I have no doubt but that your own heart will be likewise inflamed.”

You can listen to an MP3 lecture by Benge on the prayers of John Calvin which was delivered at an AFCBS mini-conference a couple of years ago. You can read Benge’s continuing reflections on biblical spirituality at the new blog “Tinkers & Saints” which he maintains along with fellow AFCBS contributor and Junior Fellow Dustin Bruce.

Steve Weaver serves as a research assistant to the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a junior fellow of the Center. He also serves as senior pastor of Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY. Steve and his wife Gretta have six children between the ages of 2 and 13.

In September of 2011, with the kind help of Rev. Malcolm Watts, I made the trek on a rainy Sunday from Salisbury, England, to the nearby village of Broughton, Hampshire. The latter is a village situated roughly mid-way between Salisbury and Winchester. I was looking for a house, a chapel, and a grave. All were associated with Anne Steele (1717–78), the daughter of William Steele, the pastor of the Calvinistic Baptist chapel in Broughton. We soon found the Baptist chapel in Broughton easily enough. Sadly, it has been closed. The house where she lived, known as “Grandfathers,” in Rookery Lane, was more difficult to find, but eventually it was located. Her grave took even longer, as it is to be found in the Anglican parish church—somewhat unusual as she was a Baptist.

Anne was converted in 1732 and baptized the same year. She grew to be a woman of deep piety, genuine cheerfulness and blessed with a mind hungry for knowledge. She never married, although there were two proposals of marriage—one from none other than the Baptist pastor and hymn-writer Benjamin Beddome (1717–95). Anne, however, made a conscious choice to remain single.

Anne’s singleness gave her the time to devote herself to poetry and hymn-writing, a gift with which the Lord had richly blessed her. About ten years before her death, sixty-two of her hymns were published in a Baptist hymnal entitled A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1769), whose editors were John Ash and Caleb Evans. This hymnal gave her hymns a wide circulation throughout Baptist circles, and, in time, her hymns became as well known in Baptist circles and beyond as those of Isaac Watts, John Newton, or William Cowper. They played a part in revitalizing areas of the Calvinistic Baptist cause throughout England.

In the past few areas a number of studies of Steele have appeared, of which the latest is Priscilla Wong’s Anne Steele and her Spiritual Vision (Reformation Heritage Books, 2012). This is a slim volume, but it provides the interested reader with a great overview of some of the central spiritual themes of Anne’s hymns. Warmly recommended.

Joy Unspeakable and Full of Glory: the Piety of Samuel and Sarah Pearce (Joshua Press, 2012). Pearce was described by his friend Andrew Fuller as another Brainerd. He was one of the intimate circle of friends that included Fuller, John Sutcliff and William Carey. This book examines the piety of Samuel and his wife Sarah through their letters.

From the Publisher: Joshua Press

Classics of Reformed spirituality series

Series editor: Michael A.G. Haykin

Samuel Pearce, a young eighteenth-century English pastor, was described by his friend and biographer Andrew Fuller as “another Brainerd”—a referenceto the celebrated American missionary David Brainerd. Pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, England, during the tumultuous 1790s, and a close friend of pioneer missionary William Carey, Pearce played a key role in the early days of the Baptist Missionary Society. In the providence of God he died at just thirty-three, but in the eyes of many of his contemporaries, he seemed to have condensed a lifetime of holy and joyful ministry into a single decade.

His marriage to Sarah Hopkins was one of deep love and mutual respect, and she joined him in his passion for the salvation of sinners—both at home and abroad. Through excerpts from Samuel and Sarah’s letters and writings, we are given a window into their rich spiritual life and living piety.

SPECS

• ISBN 978-1894400480
• Binding Paperback
• Page count 248 (i-xviii + 230)
• Width 5.5″
• Height 8.5″
• Spine .625″

Here is a thought-provoking quote about William Carey from Howard Norrish’s article “The Great Century” in Mike Barnett with Robin Martin, eds., Discovering the Mission of God: Best Missional Practices for the 21st Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 270:

“Carey believed in radical discipleship and was committed to a biblical worldview.” I am interested in unpacking the first claim about Carey: “radical discipleship.” What did this mean exactly for Carey?

If we define a faithful minister of the Word along the lines of Acts 6, a man devoted to the Word and prayer, it seems to me that in the twentieth century faithful orthodox seminaries have done fairly well in training men in one half of this equation: the Word. But what of the other? Well, I think many leaders in former generations expected these things to be caught by osmosis even though Jesus responded positively to the disciples’ request that he teach them how to pray. Spirituality needs to be “taught” and handed on.

And while all professors in a seminary need to approach their specific subjects with an answerable spiritual frame, it is not wrong for some to focus on spirituality. Given the fact that spirituality and spiritual formation are increasingly huge engagements for both our larger cultural “moment” and within the boundaries of the Church, it is not unrealistic to ask certain men to specialize in the praxis of spirituality and the history of biblical spirituality.

As an historian, I feel the latter is very important: during the course of the twentieth century for a variety of reasons many of those who loved the Scriptures as the inerrant Word of God and faithfully upheld biblical orthodoxy failed to pass on the rich piety of their forebears in the Reformation, Puritan, Pietist and early Evangelical traditions. And surely this is one of the reasons why certain communities within the broad stream of twentieth-century English-speaking Evangelicalism became enamoured of the Spirit and talked as if they were the first to discover him since the Pentecost: they looked around and saw a tradition that seemed to have little place for piety, experience, and dare I say it, rapture (no I am not talking about an eschatological item!). Incidentally, here is where a man whom Carl has been writing about in recent days, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, is so helpful: his balance of Word and Spirit is admirable (re other matters Carl has raised about the Doctor, this is not the place to go into those, though I agree with Carl that the recent collection of essays on the Doctor is by and large a welcome addition to the books on that remarkable servant of God).

Maybe, I need to take up Carl’s offer and we can do a book together on this subject of the seminary and piety—and maybe Dr Lucas, if he is so inclined, could also be involved!

One of the classic introductions to theological studies is B.B. Warfield’s The Religious Life of Theological Students, where his primary concern is to argue for the necessity of personal piety in the life of those studying at a theological seminary. He expects that the seminary be a place of piety, where piety is inculcated and where the students experience what we call today “spiritual formation.” Reading my dear friend Carl Trueman’s recent post at reformation21 on “Witsius, Character and Cleaning Rosters” I was honestly surprised to find the following remarks in which he clearly disagrees with his distinguished Presbyterian forebear:

“I find the whole notion of ‘spiritual formation’ within seminaries to be somewhat problematic: seminaries impart knowledge and skills which are essential for ministry and which cannot be acquired with like ease in a practical mentoring situation; they also provide a context for developing important and useful friendships which will last a lifetime; but they cannot really engage in spiritual formation in any deep way.”

Trueman argues that this is because seminaries are not centers where the means of grace like the Lord’s Supper and the preaching of the Word are observed:

“Certainly, the professor can and should strive to model Christian behaviour; but the real, deep, lasting spiritual formation for ministerial candidates takes place in a church context just as it does for every other Christian. The church is where the word is preached, the sacraments administered and discipling takes place.”

To be sure, seminaries are not churches and I agree wholeheartedly that as such a seminary is not the place where baptism (albeit Carl and I differ somewhat about this ordinance/sacrament) and the Lord’s Supper are carried out. But surely the Word is preached at Westminster? What does Carl expect should happen as that Word is heard by students there? And surely the lifelong friendships formed are a central means of grace in the lives of the students—or maybe my dear brother has forgotten the way that our Evangelical (or should I say Reformed?!) forebears prized friendship as a means of grace? And would he disagree that part of the seminary professor’s role is to mentor the students (or some at least) under his care? Surely seminaries are places where more than places where “knowledge and skills which are essential for ministry” are imparted? If this is all our idea of a seminary, I would not be surprised if the long-term result were a hall of dry orthodoxy!

I am sorry, I think I shall stick with the perspective of B.B. Warfield, or one of my favorite models, D.A. McGregor (1847–1890), professor of systematic theology at and then principal of Toronto Baptist College. A former student said of his teaching: “He not only thought out the…doctrines upon which he lectured, but he felt their power, and falling tears often evinced his emotion while he spoke of some particular aspect of the truth. This made us all feel that we had before us not only a theological professor but also a Christian man whose life was swayed by the great principles about which he spoke… He not only made us see the truth, but he made us feel its power and perceive its beauty.” Were not lectures like this a rich vehicle of spiritual formation?

In fine, spiritual formation is a vital part of what should be happening at the seminary as well as the local church.

Today, I was able to spend some time at the University of British Columbia campus with my wife and daughter—and no surprise, bookstores occupied much of the day: the UBC bookstore where my daughter found a goldmine of Loeb classics, and Regent College Bookstore, which is an absolutely awesome place. I found a new book on William Wilberforce and his wife Barbara Spooner by Anne Stott, and also a fresh translation of Athanasius’ letters to Serapion and Didymus the Blind’s On the Holy Spirit. I also picked up the latest Crux magazine that has an article on A. Fuller by Keith Grant.

I also picked up The Regent World, 24, no.1 (Winter 2012),where, on p.6, in an advertisement for a pastors’ conference entitled “Overflow—Spiritual Rhythms and Practices that Draw from Christ’s Fullness” (featuring Bruce Himdmarsh, Darrell Johnson and Susan Phillips), mention is made of pastors, due to demands on their time, being reduced “to a spotty spirituality and to sporadic fullness.” The phrase “spotty spirituality” is “spot-on” as a way of describing a leading affliction of Christian leadership in our day. Hopefully, what we are also doing at Southern in our programs on biblical spirituality will help diminish this affliction.