This year, we considered the topic ‘A Theology of Ministry.’ 24 men gathered for a week of lectures and fellowship.

The churches of our Association are very generous in their support for Gospel work. Whether it is foreign missions, special projects, or the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, I am always blessed by the faithful contributions which come in from our congregations. But perhaps there is an area where our giving could be increased.

I came to faith in Christ in 1970 through the ministry of an average sized evangelical Baptist church in a small city in Massachusetts. There really wasn’t much remarkable about the church. It was a downtown church with about 150 years of ministry in the city. It had been planted as the 2nd Baptist church in town, and had served well for all of those years. Attendance was probably around 250, with a mix of older people from the neighborhood, families that had grown up in the church and now drove in to the services and new faces visiting on a regular basis. The church had a generous missionary budget, and an annual missions conference. We had a youth group of about 20-25. The congregation had all of the regular activities familiar to the day—it was a typical church in every way—with one significant exception.

I was a sophomore in high school when I began to attend and was baptized. There were two grades of students ahead of me, and of course by the time I was a senior, there were three grades behind me. From these young people who were part of that church between 1969-1976, 10 men entered the gospel ministry—8 in pastorates in the US, and 2 in foreign missions, and now 35 years later, these men are still in these positions. The more I think about this, the more remarkable it seems to me. Why did that very typical—even average—church send so many of its men out to serve in the ministry? This is a question worth considering. Several reasons come to mind, and these perhaps may serve as thought-provoking points for our churches to reflect on. Here are some to contemplate:

1.    The pastor and assistant pastor regularly encouraged all of the spiritually minded young people to consider what was called ‘full-time Christian service.’ Sometimes this was emphasized publicly in various meetings, but also it was frequently presented to us privately. It was not unusual for one of these men to speak directly and personally to one of us and urge us to consider whether Christ might be calling us into the ministry. There was no guilt manipulation, simply personal exhortations to pray and consider. These exhortations forced us to confront the matter of a call on a regular basis. We had to consider carefully the Lord’s will. It was not just a general question for others—it became a personal issue for each of us.
2.    The male leadership of the church (being a very traditional Baptist church, we had a pastor and deacons, but they really functioned more like elders) were also actively involved in encouraging men to consider the ministry. One of the key moments in my own life was a meeting I had with the pastor and deacons of the church. As part of their oversight of the church, they scheduled a conversation with all of the young men my age, seeking to give some advice and direction for the future. When they met with me, they told me directly that they were convinced that I should attend seminary and train for pastoral ministry. I came away from that meeting convinced that I could not ignore the unanimous counsel of the spiritual leadership of the church.
3.    The people of the church also prayed for and encouraged men to pursue gospel ministry. When they learned that one of us was considering Christ’s call, they were very supportive. There was almost a sense of excitement that another of their own would one day be serving Christ in a position of leadership. This congregational interest promoted a special climate for each of us. We saw respect and appreciation for ministers. We saw the esteem in which Christ’s servants were held. For young men, this made the ministry seem to be an honorable calling—it was something to aspire to under Christ. Lest I be misunderstood—this did not breed pride in anyone. Rather, it provided a sense of the value and importance of the work, and gave to us a desire to be useful with God’s blessing in such a great work.

I could easily continue with reasons, but perhaps these are enough for now. Pastors, do you encourage your men to consider the gospel ministry? Do you spend personal time with them and encourage them to pray about this? Do your elders likewise seek to press this matter upon your young men? Do they urge these men to consider the possibility of Christ’s call? And what about your people? Do they esteem ministers? Will they rejoice when one of their own gives himself to serve the Lord in the ministry? I am convinced that our churches must place a higher priority on cultivating their men for service in the church.

In 1833, a South Carolina Presbyterian, George Howe, published an article appealing for men to pursue the Gospel ministry. Consider some of his questions:

1. Every church requires the labors of a pastor. Should not every particular church, then, have one of her sons in training for the holy ministry? If she takes one man from the church at large, as her spiritual guide, should she not put one of her sons into the field to supply his place?
2. Should not every church, having a number of youth within her bosom, who have natural qualifications, which, if improved, would fit them for the ministry, furnish all she can for this sacred office? Should not our vacant pulpits he filled? Should we not pour a constant flood of spiritual instruction over the wide plains lying south and west of us, and send out our sons thither to preach Christ? Assimilated as we are in climate to the great body of the heathen world, have we not a solemn and important work to perform in sending the gospel to them?
3. Perhaps you are a minister, or an elder in the church? Have you ever interested yourself to lead ingenuous, prudent, and devoted young men to reflect on the duty of consecrating their lives to personal efforts for the salvation of souls? Can you recollect any golden opportunities of putting a sanctified, well-balanced mind into operation, with the sole object of doing good; opportunities which you have suffered to pass by unimproved?
Will you not now look around you, and see if there are not young men within the circle of your influence, who would be an acquisition to the effective force of the ministry, if they were educated for it? Will you not pray the Lord of the harvest to send them forth into his harvest?

How much does your church give? Has it given any men to serve Christ in the gospel ministry?

John 10:16 Conference

John 10:16 Conference
Website: www.john1016conference.com
Topic: God’s Wrath or Redemption
Dates: Aug. 4-5, 2010
Location: New York, NY
Speakers: Michael Horton, James White, Voddie Baucham, Julius Kim, Dennis Johnson, Mark Spence, and Leon Brown

Puritanism in Context

God willing, the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, in cooperation with the Midwest Center for Theological Studies, will be offering Prof. Renihan’s course Puritanism in Context in Owensboro, KY, June 14-19. Here is more information:

Puritanism in Context

You may find it here:

True Love

But what need of ordinances, for I enjoy God most in private; when I go unto God alone, when I am all alone in prayer I enjoy God more than I do under the public ordinances, and therefore what need of them?

Do you enjoy more of God in private; what, more than ever you did in public? Where wert thou then converted? Wert thou not converted under the public ministry? Ordinarily men are converted by the public ministry; and now you have some good affections in private, doth that good affection that you have in private arise to a higher enjoyment of God than your first conversion to God? Do you think that a little affection or drawing out of the heart in private, doth arise to a higher enjoyment of God than your first turning to him? This cannot be. Is it not an easy thing for a man to think that God is most enjoyed when his heart is most affected? It is possible a man’s heart may be more affected when God is less enjoyed; such is the deceit of our hearts. God is most enjoyed where God is most served. But, now, suppose God were more enjoyed in private than under public ordinances, I do but suppose it, yet were this no reason why a man should lay by the public ordinances: for you are sometimes in your closet at prayer, and there you enjoy God; sometimes you are below at dinner and supper, and you have some enjoyments of God there. But, I pray, tell me, whether do you enjoy God more at your ordinary dinner and supper or in your closet in prayer? Surely I enjoy God more in my closet in prayer. And is this a reason why you should never dine and sup again? Yet, notwithstanding, how do people reason thus: I enjoy God more in private, therefore I must lay by the public.

If they [i.e. God's people] hear preachers boasting that they have been in their studies but a few hours, on a Saturday or so, they reckon that such persons rather glory in their shame. Sudden sermons they may sometimes admire from their accomplished ministers, when the suddenness has not been a chosen circumstance…. The best ministers in New England ordinarily would blush to address their flocks without preparation.

And,

Nothing is more fulsome and nauseous than for a preacher to value himself on such a crime as his not spending much time in study.

In January 2010, I completed Dr. Jim Renihan’s course Baptist Symbolics, at the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, and it is very difficult not to speak too highly of it. The quality of the source material Dr. Renihan has put together excels in instructing students in a proper understanding of the First and Second London Baptist Confessions and the historical context in which they were written.

In both content and presentation, perhaps Dr. Renihan fulfills something of the desires which the Confession’s framers expressed in the introduction to our Confession when they wrote,

“One thing that greatly prevailed with us to undertake this work, was…the profit that might from thence arise, unto those that have any account of our labors, in their instruction, and establishment in the great truths of the Gospel; in the clear understanding, and steady belief of which, our comfortable walking with God, and fruitfulness before him, in all our ways, is most neerly (sic) concerned…”

Dr. Renihan’s understanding of Puritan history is informed by 17th Century primary sources. The class provides exposure to these materials and through them the broader political, social and historical context of the reformation in England and the role of Particular Baptists in it.

One of the most significant appreciations I gained from the class was just how well-read and theologically informed our 17th Century forefathers were and how deeply committed they were to covenantal theology. This is evident in the very structure of their confessions, especially the Second London Baptist Confession. Invariably, the careful reader is brought back to God’s plan in redemptive history through the Pactum Salutis, Historia Salutis, and the Ordo Salutis. Though these terms are not present in the text, the confession is replete with a commitment to their concepts. The stated intention of our forefathers was to identify themselves with the covenantal theology of the Westminster Divines and the Congregationalists through both the words and structure of our confession. They wrote,

“…we designed to explain our sense, and belief of; and finding no defect, in this regard, in that fixed on by the assembly [i.e. the Westminster Assembly], and after them by those of the Congregational way [i.e. the Savoy Synod], we did readily conclude it best to retain the same order in our present confession: and also, when we observed that those last mentioned, did in their confession (for reasons which seemed of weight both to themselves and others) choose not only to express their mind in words concurrent with the former in sense, concerning all those articles wherein they were agreed, but also for the most part without any variation of the terms we did in like manner conclude it best to follow their example in making use of the very same words with them both, in these articles (which are very many) wherein our faith and doctrine is the same with theirs, and this we did, the more abundantly, to manifest our consent with both, in all fundamental articles of the Christian Religion…”
Our Confession, therefore, did not come to us do novo but was written by some well-informed and nuanced-thinkers who understood covenant theology and their place in redemptive history.  In the writing of the two London Baptist Confessions the authors were making it clear that their intention was to stand without hesitation in solidarity with the Magisterial Reformers, the English Presbyterians and the Congregationalists.

Most of the errors our 17th Century Baptist forefathers had to fight against remain with us to this very day. How the errors are expressed may be different but we share in their battle. We may not have the same need to differentiate ourselves from the Anabaptists or the tragedy of Munster, but we still need to stand against Preparationism, Arminianism, Socinianism, Pelagianism, and all other heresies that undermine the gospel today. A sound understanding of our confession is a wonderful guard against such errors while giving us a clear expression of the hope of the gospel and the life that is built upon it. It also is an effective tool in training up a future generation of faithful believers who will be prepared to fight the good fight of faith without having to reinvent the wheel.

The warrant for a class on Baptist Symbolics is the general decline in our age of the Christian faith and of the Reformed faith in particular. Calvin warned us of the danger of corrupting religion to a privatized or personalized understanding of Christianity. He wrote, “Now we must also hold that all who corrupt pure religion – and this is sure to happen when each is given to his own opinion – separate themselves from the one and only God.” Dr. Renihan’s class is a constructive buffer for such danger. Today there is a growing easiness with defining the Christian faith and practice according to our own experiences and preferences. It is not a rare occurrence to discover a church or a minister claiming to be Reformed while holding to very little of what makes Reformational theology distinct. Some subscribing to a Reformed creed have a praxis that is more consistent with Arminianism or Preparationism. Others have a low view of the church and her offices, while some seek authority for the Christianity outside of the Scriptures in experiences or pragmatics. The problem is rarely an outright denial of covenant theology or the material and formal causes of the Reformation. More often than not, it is simply the neglect of principles that slowly erodes our foundation.

Before joining ARBCA, I labored for two decades in another Baptist association. I witnessed the spiritual decline of the association and the wreckage brought to local churches because there was no commonly held doctrinal confession of faith. I served in a church that suffered under a revolving-door of pastors, each with his own opinion on what was important to believe and how to do effective ministry. The lack of a fixed doctrinal standard led to complete breakdown in congregational unity and eroded confidence in the Bible.

We must remember that the Reformed Confessions express a recovery of the gospel in doctrine and piety that led to a revival which changed the face of the entire world. The divine power of the gospel recovered in the Reformation led to an evangelistic and missionary thrust that produced the transformation of cultures and societies. Our own Reformed Baptist tradition produced men like William Carey, the so-called father of modern missions. Think of the regions of the world that have had the benefit of the Reformed faith and you witness the highest development of society, education, health care, civil rights and the general welfare of mankind. Reformed confessional Christianity offers the most consistent expression of the gospel of Christ and has been used of God to transform nations.

Another benefit of a class on Baptist Symbolics is the strengthening of ARBCA. One of the beauties of baptistic confessionalism is its ability to promote a robust biblical unity while protecting congregational diversity. The stronger our commitment to a commonly understood confession the better we can work together and affirm areas in which our local congregations differ. A strong commitment to a commonly held confession does not limit our association but empowers it to work well together even as we differ in some of how we express our faith.

What a treasure we have in the Second London Baptist Confession and the other Reformed Baptist documents. What a blessing it has been to discover the rich truths contained in it with the aid of Dr. Renihan’s class on Baptist Symbolics.

God willing, in January 2011, we will offer Baptist History. Are you interested?

We are living in a confused and confusing time for confessional Christians (Christians who are anchored by a public and corporate theological commitment to be faithful to the Bible’s teaching on faith and practice as expounded by the great confessions of the Protestant Reformation). We are witnessing the final demise of theological liberalism, the rise of Pentecostalism, the beginnings of the so-called emerging church movement, the breakdown of evangelicalism, and an utter discombobulation about how the church is to conduct its life and ministry in an increasing “post-Christian” culture. All around us, in the name of reaching the culture with the Gospel, we see evangelical churches compromising (usually without intending to) in both message and methods.

The rest is here.