Tucker Project

“A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He sees only one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives, or whether he dies,– whether he has health, or whether he has sickness,– whether he is rich, or whether he is poor,–whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offense,–whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish,– whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise,– whether he gets honour, or whether he gets shame,–for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing; and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God’s glory. If he is consumed in the very burning, he cares not for it,–he is content. He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such an one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, and work, and give money, he will cry, and sigh, and pray” (Practical Religion, [London: James Clarke & Co. , Ltd. , 1959], p. 130).

I’ve started reading a book about evangelism that coincides with a study that my church is about to go through. I can’t help but notice that talk of hell and the wrath of God is (almost if not completely) absent in much of this talk about the gospel. More emphasis seems to be on getting people to church than to Christ. Is that really the gospel? Is that even Christian? Is that even loving? Getting people to church and neglecting to telling them about the coming wrath of God? Even in my own church, many people squirm at the idea of telling people that without Christ they are damned to hell. We would much rather forget about that “inconvenient truth” and simply talk about God’s love for us. “Part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.“ (J.I. Packer)

Today while I was thinking about these matters after skimming through Bill Hybel’s “Just Walk Across The Room” I couldn’t help but think of a recent quote from John Piper during a 9marks interveiw in answer to the question: Is it loving to give a cup of cold water without any reference to hell or salvation to a
thirsty person?

It is not ulitmately loving if you have no design for their salvation. I don’t mean that you stop giving it to them if they don’t believe. I mean that when you give them the cup and you don’t care whether it leads them to eternal life or not you’re not a loving person, I don’t care how thirsty they are…I can’t argue that everytime you give your enemy a cup of water you must mention the Gospel verbally. But I can argue that if your whole approach towards culture transformation or suffer amelioration isn’t aimed and designed and tailored, which would include a lot of speaking, tailored towards delivering people from ultimate suffering you don’t love them. You simply don’t love them. You say you do but you don’t believe in hell or whatever. So the way I like to talk at Bethlehem is we are about alleviating all
suffering, especially eternal suffering. And the alleviating of the short-term suffering is a means to awaken them to the kind of God who died for them so that they might be saved from eternal suffering. -John Piper

The think I like about Piper is that he always takes me to Christ and not himself or even myself. So many Christians are preoccupied with telling themselves and others how special they are, or how God has such incredible faith in them. They portray God as some doting lover who just can’t live without them or some super-proud parent who believes their child is some super-genius who can do anything. I will go so far as to say that almost all of these comments come completely detached from who we are in Christ or in the best of moments the fact of Christ is merely assumed. In such a self-obsessed culture, this ideology detached from the person and work of Jesus Chris is insulting to God and cheapens the Gospel. We must push past the smallness of me-centered theology to something bigger (and much better and more biblical). Christ is the end and chief of all desires and joys and without Him, we are NOTHING.

I think this is why I stand in awe of men like Spurgeon, Luther,and Newton. At the end of everything, they found their glory and strength in Christ. Their answer to the question “Do I have what it takes?” was a resounding “NO!” followed by the Pauline answer of “‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)‘ and everything I do I do ‘with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:29)‘”

The love of God is not God’s making much of us, but God’s saving us from self-centeredness so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. And our love to others is not our making much of them, but helping them to find satisfaction in making much of God. True love aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive. It does not lead people to the only lasting joy, namely, God. Love must be God-centered, or it is not true love; it leaves people without their final hope of joy.

John Piper from an article entitled “The Goal of God’s Love May Not Be What You Think It Is.”

or to push the idea even further…

If you want to know why you can have security in God; it’s because God loves God so much…God loves God more than He loves you. And that’s why His love for you will stand. And if He didn’t love Himself more than He loved you, you would have no hope in Him because His love would be man-centered which is no foundation at all.

“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

(Thanks to my friend Amanda Setser for this gem.)

How does one become an historian? Well, the path is not an easy one. But then the learning of no skill or art is easy. It does not come through merely much reading. Nor does it come through merely much writing. There have been all kinds of journal-writers—currently prolific bloggers—but neither much writing nor much reading in themselves doth an historian make. There must be reading and there must be writing, but being prolific in either or both does not guarantee good history.

There must be discernment. There must be reflection. But before anything else there must be an attitude that takes time to be careful and precise, an attitude that is revealed in the small things of the craft. In fact, how one tackles those small things reveals the ability to handle the larger. If, with regard to the small things, the seemingly unimportant things, there is simply the desire to get them out of the way as soon as possible to make way for the truly “significant things,” the faculty of a good historian is lacking. Such an attitude is not perfectionism—an impossibility in this life for fallible humanity—though it is the desire to make everything written the best and most precise it can be.

Without precision, the faculty of taking care to be exact and right, the interest in details, there can be no good history-writing. If such a faculty is naturally present, it must be honed. If it be not present, it must be learned.

Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin is Professor of Church History at Heritage Baptist College and Theological Seminary in London, Ontario. (Original post here)