Dr. John H. Gerstner (1914-1996) was one of the most renowned Jonathan Edwards scholars. i have had the immense privelege of taking a course on the theology of Edwards, which Dr. Gerstner thankfully completed before he died. the course has been a tremendous blessing for me, especially given that i have a personal goal to complete doctoral work in Edwards studies at some point in my life. apart from this legacy, the good doctor was also renowned for giving a set of the two volume Banner of Truth edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards to anyone who made a vow under God to complete the reading of both volumes within a year of receiving them. to my great amazement and joy, this is apparently still being carried on even though he has long since gone to be with the Lord. i received my set on thursday, and thus bind myself to the vow.

Resolved, having received the gift from the late Dr. Gerstner and thereby making a vow under God accordingly, to finish the reading of both volumes within the time period of a year, thus being February 24, 2007.

may God grant me patience and endurance in completing this task.

today in my Advanced Biblical Exegesis, we were discussing the importance of theological heritage and why that heritage is relevant to us today, even though we may feel far removed from it. in our discussion, we focused mainly on the importance of creeds and confessions and their use not only in corporate worship, but also in our personal devotions. our professor even went so far as to say that besides the Bible, creeds and confessions are the second most important deposit and treasury of truth that the church possesses. creeds and confessions are not infallible, nor should they be used in place of Scripture (thus the “second most” caveat), but they are vitally necessary for us today because they express the heritage of the church throughout the centuries.

being Reformed, and attending a Reformed seminary, the Westminster Standards are indeed a standard tool that i have had to grow accustomed to. everytime i read a part of the confession, or a part of the Larger or Shorter Catechism, i am just struck with the biblical depth of the statements, as well as they way they are presented and worded. you just don’t find that kind of writing or expression in this day and age. but today, as my professor was teaching, something else hit me about these creeds and confessions.

saints from all centuries and heritages have stood together and verbally proclaimed the words contained in these creeds and confessions.

after thinking about that for a minute or two, it started to seem strange to me to think this. after all, haven’t saints throughout the centuries read the same Bible? what makes these creeds and confessions more “special”, so-to-speak, than that? the answer i came up with is that there are a million different interpretations of the Bible. two people can read the same verse and have vastly different interpretations of that verse. 100 people can read a verse and have 100 different interpretations, and so on. but the creeds and confessions are different. they are simple, solid, unwavering, undeniable statements about what Christians believe to be true about God and His work in the world. statements such as Jesus being “very God of very God” as the Nicene Fathers put it. God being “Father” as the Apostle’s Creed states. that “the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal” as the Athanasian Creed puts it. even up to the time of the Reformation where there was a huge burst of new creeds and confessions during the “back to the Bible” movement that resulted from the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in response to the Roman doctrine it opposed. these newer creeds and confessions produced such statements as “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” just amazing statements about what we believe to be true according to the special revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures.

the class continued and our professor read us a story from B.B. Warfield’s Selected Shorter Writings that stressed the importance of these creeds and confessions, the impact they have on us, and the cross-cultural connection they give us to saints from all times on all parts of the earth, including our current time. if i hadn’t been struck by the importance of such writings by this point in the class, i no doubt would have been after our professor had finished the story. this is because he was moved to tears in relaying the story. there could be endless conjecture on why he was so moved, but it is enough for me to say that the story, at least to me, speaks for itself. and so i’ll leave this post with the portion that was read to us:

We have the following bit of personal experience from a general officer of the United States Army. He was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface:

“What is the chief end of man?”

On receiving the countersign, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

“Ah!” said he, “I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!”

“Why, that was just what i was thinking of you,” was the rejoinder.

It is worth while to be a Shorter Catechism boy. They grow to be men. And better than that, they are exceedingly apt to grow to be men of God. So apt, that we cannot afford to have them miss the chance of it.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

while reading one of my new favorite blogs, i came across this post that spoke of the author’s upcoming book. if you know anything about me, you’ll know that i’m interested in the so-called Emergent Church Movement that is currently sweeping the american church culture. Mark Driscoll is one of the more conservative pastors in this movement and i really enjoy his stuff. his book, coming out in may, will recount his experience in planting the church he currently pastors in seattle, washington. he’s posted an excerpt from his upcoming book, an excerpt that spoke of one of the main (and one of those most often misunderstood) issues regarding the movement.

a good number (probably most, if not very close to “all”) of emergents are very critical of the megachurch movement, charging that megachurches focus too much on being attractional and not enough, if at all, on being missional. what this means, according to these critics, is that megachurches are mainly concerned with boosting numbers (and church bank accounts) in a sort of community popularity contest to see which church can be the biggest and best, usually making the emphasis into nothing more than which service is more entertaining (self-admittedly this is a good bit of generalizing). those in the emergent movement would rather churches be missional, meaning that churches should not be all that focused on bringing people in to the church, but sending their people out of the church to minister to the outward community through building relationships.

Driscoll says, in the small excerpt posted on his blog, that this conflict is unnecessary and that both sides should be focused on moving toward the middle from where they are. he says,

Therefore, the growing hostility between attractional-ministry pastors with larger churches and missional-ministry pastors with smaller churches need not occur. Instead, each needs to learn from the other; each has a vital piece of the truth gleaned from the life of Jesus.

[...]

Simply, the goal of a church that is both missional and attractional is to continually follow Jesus’ example so that more people are saved for God’s mission and more influence is spread for God’s kingdom, without rejecting one aspect of Jesus’ ministry in favor of another.

i could not agree more. i think it’s important that both sides realize it’s not an either/or where our churches are totally focused on bringing people into the church and not ministering to the community or those outside our “church bubble”, or, on the flip side, so outwardly focused in ministering to the community that we neglect to shepherd and build up those in our covenant community.

i really liked what little Driscoll let us see in advance, and i cannot wait to read this book.

in a class on ecclesiology and sacraments i had the very great privilege of reading this book. Mark Dever is the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., an historic church that has had a congregation in its current building since 1912, but found its beginning in 1867. Dever also leads 9Marks ministries, an organization dedicated to helping churches reestablish themselves biblically in both their philosophy and practical ministry. his book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, is an exhortation for pastors to make their churches more healthy by following the nine simple steps that he identifies. this might seem strange to most Christians out there who are sick of and skeptical of any kind of book or sermon or conference that promises a better life in a small number of steps. however, the title of this book is clearly a sarcastic parody of other popular books that seriously think there are seven steps to living your best life now.

but rather than a sort of self-help guide, Dever’s nine marks are biblical principles that should be found in any biblical church, and that every Christian should look for when seeking to join a congregation. the nine marks are:

a commitment to expositional preaching
a commitment to biblical theology
a commitment to the Gospel
a biblical understanding of conversion
a biblical understanding of evangelism
a biblical understanding of church membership
a commitment to church discipline
a concern for discipleship and growth
a commitment to biblical church leadership

each one of these principles should be a “no duh” kind of thing for biblical Christians, but i think many of us would be surprised how many modern churches lack one or more of these nine marks. even if one thinks that all of these are present in their local church, it would be helpful to read this book to see how Dever (as well as the Bible) defines them. one might find a new understanding of a principle they think they have down, causing them to think more deeply about how their church could be spiritually healthier. in order to be a healthier church, congregations should take this book and identify the marks in which they are strong, but also pay careful attention to the marks in which they are weaker, or just don’t possess at all, asking the question, “how can we get back to a biblical form of this principle so that we can not only be healthier as a church, but also encourage our members to be spiritually healthier Christians?”

although the book is directed at pastors, it’s written in a plain enough style to where laypeople would benefit from it as well. in fact, it should be recommended that all Christians read this book as it could just as easily have been titled Nine Marks of a Healthy Christian.