What If There Had Never Been A Bible - Part 2 (W Graham Scroggie)

This is the second part of the article, What If There Had Never Been a Bible, by W Graham Scroggie.

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But further, there is

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Considerable as has been its influence on Art and Music, its influence on Language and Literature has been vastly greater. But for the Bible the English Language, and English Literature, as we know them, would never have been. Prof. Quiller-Couch, lecturing at Cambridge University, said:

“The Scriptures in our Authorized Version are part and parcel of English Literature,” and “the most majestic thing in our Literature,” “a well of English undefiled.”

And again,

“The Authorized Version has set a seal on our natural style, thinking, and speaking”; “it is in everything we see, hear, and feel, because it is in us, in our blood.”

And J. R. Green, in his History of the English People, says:

“As a mere literary monument, the English Version of the Bible remains the noblest example of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made it, from the instant of its appearance, the standard of our language.”

And Macaulay said of the English Bible:

“If everything else in our language should perish, it would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.”

Try to imagine, then, what would happen if the Bible and all its influences were obliterated! It would mean that all copies of Bible manuscripts would disappear, and consequently all Scripture quotations and references in the writings of the Church Fathers; all Versions of the Bible also, the Bishops’, the Authorized, and the Revised; and all translations of the Bible, which are in over 1,000 languages and dialects; and in consequence, of course, so would all agencies for the circulation of the Scriptures, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the National Bible Society of Scotland, the Hibernian Bible Society, and the Trinitarian; all Bible Societies in Europe, and in America, and all similar agencies throughout the world.

All these would go, and with them, all the influences they have exerted on the mind and heart and will of uncounted millions of people, of all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and all their effects upon social and national life everywhere.

But what if the Bible and all its influences were to be expunged from English Literature, that, for instance, of the Elizabethan and Victorian periods! Could anyone assess the loss?

MILTON’s Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained would completely disappear, for the one is about the Fall in Eden, and the other is about Christ’s victory over the devil in the wilderness. Could we afford to lose these masterpieces, as literature? And think of SHAKESPEARE’S works. Bishop Wordsworth wrote in 1864:

“Take the entire range of English literature; put together our best authors, who have written upon subjects not professedly religious or theological, and we shall not find, I believe, in them all united, so much evidence of the Bible having been read and used, as we have found in Shakespeare alone.”

And a more recent writer has said that “Shakespeare definitely made identifiable quotations from or allusions to at least forty-two books of the Bible.”

There are many passages in Shakespeare which cannot be understood by anyone who is not acquainted with the Bible. Such references are found in Hamlet, As You Like It, Richard III, King Henry IV, All’s Well, and in numerous shorter works.

And what about BUNYAN? But for the Bible, do you suppose we would ever have heard of the Bedford tinker? Bunyan’s contribution to style and to literature is due entirely to the Authorized Version of our Bible, which he so imbibed, and in which he so soaked, that the only way he could write was Biblically. This unlettered man produced 60 works, longer and shorter, one for each year of his life. The elimination of many of these would not mean serious loss, but the Life and Death of Mr. Badman, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the Holy War, and, greatest of them all, the Pilgrim’s Progress, “final flower of Puritan theology and experience,” these are part of the English Language, and of English Literature. This masterpiece, the Pilgrim’s Progress, has been translated into no fewer than 108 languages and dialects, and has become a part of the thought-stock of an uncountable multitude of people.

What a tragic gap would be made in literature by the elimination of Bunyan’s characters; Christian, Evangelist, Obstinate, Pliable, Prudence, Talkative, By-Ends, Hopeful, Great-Heart, Ready-to-Halt, and many others! Of this book Gosse says: “It is the matchless and inimitable crystallization into imaginative art of the whole system of Puritan Protestantism”; and, remember, it is based squarely on the Bible.

But these are not isolated instances of the Bible’s influence in literature. Herbert, Crashaw, Quarles, Spenser, and Addison must be added to those who in the 16th and 17th centuries were indebted to the Bible. Francis Bacon has more than 70 allusions to the Bible in his Essays. And it can be safely claimed that all that is best in the Victorian period gives evidence of this influence, which, were it extracted from the writings of Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and Browning, and Carlyle, and Ruskin, and Cowper, and Coleridge, and Burns, and Scott, and Thackeray, and George Eliot, and Dickens, and Reade, and Stevenson, and the Brontes, and Hawthorne, and Longfellow, and Southey, and many more, would so impair them as, in some instances, to ruin them. An index of Bible references in the writings of Ruskin makes a volume of over 300 pages; and in Van Dyke’s book on Tennyson is a list of the poet’s Bible quotations and allusions which covers 24 pages.

For over 1200 years the Bible has been an active force in English literature, and during the whole period it has been moulding the diction of representative thinkers and literary artists. With the obliteration of the Bible all that would go, with the result that we would not have a literature at all.

And all the religious classics would go also: the Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes; Keble’s Christian Year; the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis; the Thoughts of Pascal; the Saint’s Rest, by Richard Baxter; the Confessions of Augustine; Holy Living, and Holy Dying, by Jeremy Taylor; the Serious Call, by William Law; the Cardiphonia, by John Newton; Rutherford’s Letters, and hundreds more; for, but for the Bible, these things could never have been written, or thought.

And, to an extent which is not appreciated, the language of the Bible has entered into our common speech, and all the time terms are being employed by the people, the origin of which, for the most part, they do not know.

Illustration of this is seen in such expressions as, highways and byways; hip and thigh; arise as one man; lick the dust; a broken reed; the root of all evil; weighed and found wanting; the sweat of his brow; a word in season; heap coals of fire; a pearl of great price; the burden and heat of the day; wars and rumours of wars; an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; casting pearls before swine; and hundreds more. These are often used in a sense quite false, and entirely opposed to their original meaning; but that only demonstrates the influence of the Bible where it is least intended or expected.

When we sing, God Save the King, we are using Bible language (1 Sam. x. 24). The inscription over the front portico of the Royal Exchange is from Psalm xxiv, “The earth is the LORD’s and the fulness thereof.” The University of Oxford has for its motto, Dominus illuminatio mea, which is from Psalm xxvii. Truly in the very fabric and fibre of our life is this Book of books.

And now, for a moment, let us think of

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON BELIEF

Everybody believes something, if it is only that he believes nothing. It is not humanly possible not to believe. The heretic believes that he is orthodox; and even the lunatic believes that he is sane.

But when we come to Christian belief, we are face to face with monuments of theological thought, representing the progress of the Church’s Faith; a Faith which expresses itself in Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms, These have been of the substance of Christian thought for 1600 years.

One needs only to name - the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Te Deum Laudamus; the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession; the Catechisms of Geneva, and Heidelberg; the Larger, and the Shorter Westminster Catechisms - to indicate the wealth of theological thought which is the Church’s heritage.

But these Statements of Faith - and there are many more - are based on the Bible, and if it and all its influences were obliterated, all these summaries of the Truth would disappear, and with them the Christian Church, for, but for these Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms, there would never have been any personal faith, any public testimony, any doctrinal vindication, any authoritative dogma, any test of orthodoxy, or any standard of discipline; everyone would have believed, and said, and done “that which was right in his own eyes”; and where would that have landed us!

Had there been no Bible, would we ever have heard of Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr, and Tertullian; of the two Clements, and Origen, and Athanasius, and Basil, and Augustine, and Jerome; of Aquinas, and Calvin, and Luther, and Zwingli?

And had there been no Bible and no beliefs, the noble army of martyrs would never have existed. Wild beasts would have lost many a meal in Roman arenas; Inquisition racks would never have been stained with the blood of Christian confessors; nor would fire flames in London, Oxford, and Edinburgh ever have licked human flesh.

If the Bible had never been written, women like Perpetua, and Felicitas, and Blandina, and Margaret Lachlan, and Margaret Wilson would never have glorified the history of courage. Nor would we ever have heard of Savonarola, and Huss, and Latimer, and Ridley, and Cranmer, and Tyndale, and thousands of others “of whom the world was not worthy.”

Only for deep convictions would people suffer as the saints have suffered, and those convictions could have grown in no other soil than that of the Bible; but if there had been no such Book, there would have been no such sufferings, because there would have been no such convictions for which to suffer.

And who can estimate

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON SOCIAL REFORM

It has been a charge against evangelicalism that it has no social passion, that its pursuit of the salvation of souls excludes interest in the salvation of society. Nothing could be further from the truth than such a charge, and they who make it only advertise their colossal ignorance. Social reform in our own and other countries owes more to evangelicalism than to any other influence.

It was John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Fowell Buxton, and Abraham Lincoln who fought the slave traffic, and they were all evangelicals. It was John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, both evangelicals, who championed the cause of prison reform. To the memory of that great reformer, Lord Shaftesbury, a pioneer emancipator of industrial England, and also an evangelical, stands the Eros Monument in Piccadilly Circus, purchased with the pennies of the grateful poor.

It was John B. Gough, Frances Willard, and Sir Wilfred Lawson - all evangelicals - who attacked the entrenched interests of the drink traffic, and whose labours resulted in many Temperance Societies for both old and young. It was Robert Raikes, an evangelical, who inaugurated Sunday Schools in this country, which, says J. R. Green, “were the beginnings of popular education.” It was Benjamin Waugh, George Muller, William Quarrier, C. H. Spurgeon, J. W. C. Fegan, and T. J. Barnardo, all pronounced evangelicals, who espoused the cause of the children, and established Orphanages in England and Scotland which are flourishing at the present time.

It was William and Catherine Booth who brought into being the vast and world-wide organization of the Salvation Army. Sir George Williams originated the Young Men’s Christian Association. Arthur Broome founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (R.S.P.C.A.); and Florence Nightingale was the great reformer of hospital nursing. All these were outstanding evangelicals, and deeply-rooted believers in the Word of God.

But if there had been no such Word there would have been no such benefactors and benefactions, and this country would at this time be sunken in the most incredible bestialities, as indeed it was, in the earlier half of the eighteenth century, before the Evangelical Revival, as Dr. Bready has shown in his book, England, Before and After Wesley.

And we must not omit to refer to

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON PREACHING AND REVIVALS

Do we realize that if there had been no Bible there would have been no Christian preachers, or teachers, or commentators, or Biblical scholars; for there would have been nothing to preach, nothing to teach, and nothing to investigate! But look at this a little more in detail.

Had there been no Bible there would have been no Preachers, for preaching owes its existence to revealed religion. Had God never spoken to men, they never would have had anything to preach, and so the possibility of any record of preaching would have disappeared, and the necessity for Theological Colleges and Bible Institutes from the time of Samuel to the present day, would never have existed.

As preaching from the time of Christ to the present time has been dependent on His incarnation, life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, and as this supreme revelation has for its background the whole of the Old Testament, it is easy to see that if the Bible had never been written, we would never have had any knowledge of preaching under either the Old Covenant, or in the time of Christ, or in the Apostolic age; and without all this, preaching from the close of the first century A.D. would have had neither foundation norsubstance, and, needless to say, the loss through these nearly nineteen hundred years would have been incalculable and calamitous.

We would never have heard of the warning words of Enoch and Noah, the instructions of Moses, the testimony of Joshua, nor of the challenge of Elijah. The seraphic utterances of Isaiah would never have reached us:

“Seek ye the LORD while He may be found,
Call ye upon Him while He is near;
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return unto the LORD,
And He will have mercy upon him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.”

We would never have listened to the tender pathos of Jeremiah and Hosea; to the denunciations of Amos, and Micah, and Malachi; nor to the encouragements of Ezekiel and Zechariah. We would have been entirely ignorant of the preaching of John the Baptist, and Peter, and Stephen, and Paul; and what would be a more grievous loss than all beside, we would never have heard the words of the greatest of all preachers:

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give yourest.”

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die.”

Scores of suchlike utterances, which are in the warp and woof of Christian thinking and experience, would never have been known, if there had been no Bible.

We would have remained strangers also to the eloquence of Ambrose, and Chrysostom, and Jeremy Taylor, and Chalmers, to the profound thought of Athanasius, and Augustine, and Calvin; to the conscience-smiting pleading of Luther, and Wesley, and Knox; and to the passionate evangelism of Whitefield, and Spurgeon, and Moody. And to these great names we must add those of: Bernard, and Eckhart, and Tauler, and Sibbs, and Baxter; Owen, and Bunyan; Hooker and Donna and Fuller; McCheyne, and Caird, and Matheson; Dale, and Parker, and Morley Punshon, and Maclaren; F. W. Robertson; J. H. Newman, and H. P. Liddon; Christmas Evans, John Evans, and William Williams; Vinet, and Godet, and Monod; and Tholuck; Jonathan Edwards, and Finney, and Phillips Brooks; Beecher, and Bushnell, and a host of others down to this hour. Had there been no Bible there would have been no Campbell Morgan, preacher and teacher, and tens of thousands of people would never have sat in this Church, listening to him expounding the Word of Life. And, of course, if there had been no preachers, and teachers, and spiritual leaders, there would have been no cathedrals, or churches, or chapels, or mission halls; but the land would have been full of gin palaces, casinos, and brothels.

All this ministry owed its existence to the fact and substance of the Bible, and had the Book never been, these men and their messages would never have been.

And what in a passing moment can we say about Revivals? It has been thought that the Christian Church exists, as a motor car is worked, upon a succession of explosions. It is a fact, at any rate, that in the history of the Christian Church a law of periodicity, in this matter of revivals, is discernible. This law is implicit in all progress. There are times of ebb and times of flow in poetry, and art, and literature, and learning, and science, and commerce; and it would be strange indeed if there were no such times in spiritual experience. But the fact is, there have been religious revivals throughout all ages, and these, we may see, have been essential to spiritual progress.

Revival is a re-awakening to something that has been forgotten, a flourishing again of something that appears to be dying, a stimulus of attention and interest in something that has been neglected; and this, I say, has characterized the history of religion for millenniums. We have illustrations of it in the time of Moses, of Samuel, of Hezekiah, of Jonah, and of Ezra and Nehemiah.

In the first century Pentecost was a mighty leap forward in the spiritual experience of men. In the fifth century Chrysostom’s preaching of the cross enraptured multitudes in Constantinople.

In the twelfth century the Waldenses, in the Piedmont valleys of the Alps, were preaching the simplicity, purity, and authority of the Gospel; and notwithstanding persecution, they became the chief evangelists of Italy. In the same century, and also in Italy, Francis of Assisi, by example and proclamation, was succeeding in calling men from the indulgence, deadness, and papal absolutism of the Medieval Church.

In the fourteenth century Wycliffe fought, almost single-handed, for purity of worship, and to make the people of England familiar with the Bible, and in this ministry he anticipated and prepared for the Reformation.

In the fifteenth century Savonarola was proclaiming his message of sin and redemption to great effect in Florence, arousing the people from their moral stagnancy and turpitude.

In the sixteenth century, Luther, in Germany, Calvin in Switzerland, and Knox in Scotland, were, in different ways, making religious history, and the results have been seen and felt ever since. Calvin’s great message centred in the truth of God’s sovereignty, and is embodied in his Institutes; and Luther’s great message centred in the truth of Justification by Faith in Christ alone, and its abiding expression is in Protestantism. John Knox in Scotland, with tremendous power, attacked the ignorance, superstition, and tyranny of his time by proclaiming emancipation in Christ. His uncompromising and fiery ministry gave to Scotland a national life and a national Church, and made religion the dominating factor in the common life of the people.

Then, in the eighteenth century came the great Evangelical Revival under the ministries of the Wesleys and Whitefield, John the theologian, Charles the poet, and George the evangelist. This movement changed the face of England, not only spiritually, but also socially, politically, and educationally, and the effects of it are still with us.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century came the movement inspired instrumentally by Moody and Sankey, a movement which stirred the whole of the British Isles; which brought salvation and spiritual renewal to multitudes of people, and a great impetus to missionary work abroad.

And at the beginning of the twentieth century revival again visited Wales, which, among other benefits, resulted in a diminution of drunkenness, an abandonment of feuds, and the restitution of property.

Who can compute the compelling and restraining power for good of all this preaching, and all these revivals! Yet, had there been no Bible there would have been none of it, and instead of spiritual renewal there would have been a deepening and damning degradation. But for the Bible there would have been no revivals of religion, for there would have been no religion to revive. But for the Bible the world would have been, and would still be, a loathsome reeking charnel-house.

What If There Had Never Been A Bible - Part 1 (W Graham Scroggie)

If there is one thing in the life and ministry of Graham Scroggie that has made an indelible impression upon me, it is the fact that in his first two pastorates, he was forced to leave them because he preached the truth. He reminded me of the many faithful prophets of our Lord in the Old Testament, some of whom suffered more than just rejection. And whenever I do encounter people in the Churches where I have preached who seem resistant to God’s Word, I take comfort in the remembrance of Scroggie and that I am not the first (nor the last) to experience such resistance. I have always found Scroggie helpful especially with his ability to provide a broad overview of the whole Scriptures, and portions of the Scriptures. I think here particularly of two of his better known works, The Unfolding Drama of World Redemption and A Guide to the Gospels, both of which I have found very informative and instructive. The wonderful thing about reading Scroggie is that you never know when you might discover a real gem. He has this uncanny ability to point out something in the Scriptures which is so very obvious and yet so very easily missed by us. While there have been some helpful modern attempts at constructing a Biblical theology of the whole Bible, Scroggie remains for me a must when it comes to understanding the history of redemption chronologically. I am given to understand that he has written some other works but I have not had the privilege to reading them. What I can say is that from what I have read of the two books mentioned above, we have much to learn from him today still, dated though he might in the opinion of some.

William Graham Scroggie (1877-1958) was born at Great Malvern, England, of Scottish parents who ministered as evangelists. Being one of nine children in a home without normal educational advantages, he grew up in an ambiance of rich Christian experience. After a few years in business, he entered Spurgeon’s College in London at the age of 19 to train for the Baptist ministry. Turned out of his first two churches in London and Yorkshire because of his opposition to modernism and worldliness, he set himself to the study of the Bible. And, in the next two difficult years, when he had to live with little to support him, he laid the foundation of all his subsequent work. He served a succession of churches, the most fruitful of which was that at Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh (1916-1933). In his years in Charlotte Chapel, 32 men entered the ministry and 51 missionaries were sent overseas. For many years Scroggie wrote Scripture Union and Sunday school materials for The Sunday School Times. He also led thousands through a Bible correspondence course. Following further pastorates in New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, the United States, and Canada, he became pastor of Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, during World War II. His home was bombed on three occasions, and his historic church building destroyed during an air raid. Increasing ill health forced him to retire in 1944. He devoted his remaining years to completing his literary work, The Unfolding Drama of Redemption. He died on December 28, 1958.

The following quotation by Scroggie probably sums up his one great desire and purpose as a Bible teacher and preacher better than anything I have read:

Preachers will take for texts, phrases which convey a moral or spiritual suggestion, and will develop that thought along one or other of many lines. But one may do that kind of work for half-a-century and yet leave his audience in appalling ignorance of the Bible. Such sentence can be found by the hundred thousand in the world’s literature, and a very instructive course of sermons could be preached from the dicta of Confucius; but that is not the business of the Christian preacher.

The following article is a lecture delivered at Westminster Chapel, London, as part of The Campbell Morgan Memorial Bible Lectureship in 1950. Like his quotation above, the lecture demonstrates the unique and supreme place the Bible has in Scroggie’s life and ministry. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I did!

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When the Trustees who have instituted this Lectureship invited me to deliver the second Lecture, I could not and did not hesitate to comply with their wish. I am deeply sensible of the honour they have done me, and grateful for the opportunity to identify myself with their intention, in concrete ways, to perpetuate the memory of one who, on both sides of the Atlantic, exercised a unique ministry, by voice and by pen, in popularizing interest in and knowledge of the Holy Bible.

The Christian public of London was greatly privileged to have the opportunity for so many years of listening to the preaching and teaching of George Campbell Morgan, and I am confident that the time will never come when Westminster Chapel will cease to be a centre of Biblical instruction and inspiration to all who desire these blessings.

The subject I have chosen for your consideration is in some sense novel, but of the utmost importance for a true apprehension and adequate appreciation of the incomparable and inestimable value of those Sacred Scriptures which we call The Bible.

I begin by assuming that but for the Bible Christianity would not have survived. The Bible is the record of a divine revelation, and if there had been no record, no one, after the apostolic age, would have had any means of knowing what that revelation was. Oral tradition would have become more and more corrupt by omissions, additions, and other influences, until, finally, the truth would have been altogether lost.

This observation relates to the recorded New Testament revelation, but it must be evident that except for the Old Testament Writings the entire background of the New Testament revelation would never have been known, for Judaism had misread its own history.

The Biblical record is not the original revelation, but, had there been no record, we would never have known what the revelation had been, or, indeed, that there had been a revelation.

Christians do not worship the Bible, but the God who therein is revealed, but we do realize, or we ought to, that the Bible which makes the redeeming God known to us is, beyond all estimate, our most precious heritage.

Our present task is to try to envisage the obliteration of the Bible, and all traces of it, in our history, literature, art, music, language, social institutions, worship, service, and individual life.

I cannot hope, within the limits imposed by this lectureship, to succeed in so ambitious a task, but perhaps I may start a line of thought which will lead us to renewed thankfulness to God for having given to us such a book as the Bible, and thankfulness also for all who have diligently studied it, and faithfully expounded it.

I do not claim originality for the idea of the obliteration of the Bible, for in a book with the title The Eclipse of Faith, which was published anonymously in the middle of the nineteenth century, but was written by a Henry Rogers, there is a chapter called, The Blank Bible.

It tells of a dream a man had, that, on turning to read his Bible, as was his custom, he found only blank pages. On inquiry, he learned that all the Bibles in his neighbourhood were also blanks, and all copies also in the book shops.

Some people, who never looked at the Bible while they had it, became interested in it now that it was lost.

One man who had never read it, said that it was “confounded hard to be deprived of his religion in his old age.” Another person greatly mourned the loss of her Bible, because in it, for greater safety, she had deposited £100 in notes, and these, too, had become blanks. All the Bibles in the land were blanks, and the volumes were being sold for day-books and ledgers; and instead of Isaiah, and our Lord’s parables, there were orders for silks and satins, cheese and bacon.

Then a movement was set afoot to re-write the Bible from the memories of those who had read and studied it.

A Trinitarian differed from a Unitarian over a critical recension. An Episcopalian did not agree with a Presbyterian that the words bishop and presbyter were interchangeable. A Calvinist had a vivid recollection of Romans ix, and an Arminian had some doubts about some of Paul’s sentiments. Husbands remembered what was due from their wives. Undertakers remembered it had been said that there was “a time to mourn.” A comedian recalled that it was said there was “a time to laugh.” Some young ladies remembered that there was “a time to love,” and everybody knew there was “a time to speak,” except a Quaker who thought that there was “a time to keep silence.”

Protestants and Papists disagreed about many passages, and some infidels thought that the visitation on the Bible was a great mercy, removing a book which promoted idolatry.

This dream begins to show what consternation and confusion would result from the obliteration of the Bible, but the subject can be indefinitely expanded.

Of course, the major disaster would be the loss of the Bible itself, but that would involve so many other losses, the contemplation of which must make the mind to reel, and the heart to faint.

Let us, then, consider some of the influences which this Book has exercised, which would have had no being had there been no Bible.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON ART

By Art, more is meant than at first may be thought, for it includes architecture, sculpture, symbolism, painting, mosaics, monograms, frescoes, stained glass windows, and decorated manuscripts, and on all these Christianity has left its imprint.

In Architecture, from the basilicas of the time of Constantine to the magnificent cathedrals of our own time and country, the Christian idea and ideal have stood in marked contrast to the pagan temples of the ancient Greeks. Although it has been said that the devil invented Gothic architecture to prevent the people from hearing the Gospel, yet, expressive as it is of sacrifice, aspiration, peace, unity, and beauty, it is the embodiment of Christian ideals, and to multitudes has been an aid to Christian worship. Christian architecture, as Forsyth has said, “is stone made spiritual and musical,” it is “symphony in stone.”

As to Christian Symbolism, it is almost contemporary with the Christian era, appearing before the end of the first century. The favourite symbols have been the Fish, representing the fulness of Christ’s divinity; the Dove, representing peace; the Ship, representing the Church; the Anchor, representing hope; the Good Shepherd, and the Lamb of God. All these, as early as the second century, have been found in the catacombs of Rome.

But later, and down to our time, the influence of the Bible on Painting is seen in a very large number of masterpieces. As examples, one need only mention the Madonnas of Rubens, Raphael, Michelangelo, and of others; Rembrandt’s great works on The Supper at Emmaus, Christ before Pilate, The Descent from the Cross, and many more; Raphael’s Transfiguration; Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi; Tintoretto’s The Marriage Feast; Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper; Guido’ s Ecce Homo; The Presentation in the Temple, and Mary Magdalene by Titian; Correggio’s Assumption of the Virgin, and The Crucifixion by Van Dyck, Velasquez, and Fra Angelico; and the more modern religious studies by Millais, Hole, Holman Hunt, Millet, G. F. Watts, Burne-Jones, Gabriel Rossetti; and Tissot’s 350 water-colour drawings on New Testament subjects.

But for the Bible these works would never have existed, and Art Galleries in London, and Dresden, and Florence, and Venice, and Paris, and Antwerp, and Milan would never have housed these great creations of Christian Art. It is not too much to say that some of the finest work that has ever been done by pen, and brush, and chisel, and trowel, has been done in the presentation of themes and scenes which only the Bible can supply.

Then there is

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON MUSIC

Christian music, comprehensively understood, is much more popular - that is, ‘of the people’ - than Christian art, for it embraces psalm, hymn, anthem, carol, cantata, chorus, chant, and oratorio, and their instrumental accompaniments as well.

If there had never been a Bible, all these expressions of emotion and aspiration, of adoration and faith, would never have come into being, and the loss would have been incalculable and calamitous.

If there had been no Bible there would have been no Psalms. Never would we have known the thrill of singing Ye gates lift up your heads on high; I to the hills will lift mine eyes; O send Thy light forth, and Thy truth; All people that on earth do dwell; O God, our help in ages past; Let us with a gladsome mind; and, The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want.

Don’t you begin to feel a chill in your very bones at the bare thought that these inspirations might never have been?

That, however, would have been only the beginning of the loss. But for the Book of Proverbs, we would never have sung, O happy is the man who hears instruction’s warning voice. But for the Epistle to the Hebrews, we would never have heard, Father of peace, and God of love, we own Thy power to save; or, Where high the heavenly temple stands, the house of God not made with hands. But for Luke’s Gospel we would never have heard of the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Nunc Dimittis. And but for the final Apocalypse, we would never have known that heaven will be full of song, and that the singers will be Angels, and Living Creatures, and Elders, “and every creature in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.”

But the Church has always been a singing Church; and the song began in the Upper Room that night when Jesus and His disciples, at the Institution of the Supper, sang a hymn, part of the Hallel of Psalms cxiii-cxviii. The early Christians, we are told, sang, not only with their spirit, but also with their understanding, which their posterity have not always done; and they sang, not Psalms only, as some Scottish folk still do, but also “hymns and spiritual songs; making melody in their heart” (for all cannot do it with their voice) “to the Lord.”

But this early custom would not long have survived if the knowledge on which it was based had been lost. The written Word of God has inspired sacred song in the West in an unbroken line from the time of Ambrose to the present day, and, as we shall see, this has increased in volume and richness in times of evangelical revival; but it has all been rooted in the written Word.

But for the Bible would we ever have heard of John and Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, William Cowper, Paul Gerhardt, John Newton, Augustus Toplady, Bernard of Clairvaux, Gerhard Tersteegen, Reginald Heber, James Montgomery, John Keble, John M. Neale, and a host of others, men and women, who, drawing inspiration from the Scriptures, have poured it out again in immortal song!

Thousands of Christian hymns are so much a part of the thinking of evangelical Christians, that it has never occurred to us, perhaps, that we might never have had them. Yet, if the Bible had not been written, we would never have sung, or have heard sung, Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; All hail the power of Jesus’ name; Jesus, Lover of my soul; Rock of Ages, cleft for me; How sweet the name of Jesus sounds; Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts; Nearer my God, to Thee; Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth his successive journeys run; When I survey the wondrous Cross; O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; Jesus, Thy boundless love to me; O happy day that fixed my choice; O Love, that wilt not let me go; Em feste Burg ist unser Gott, A firm defence our God is still; and so on through thousands of hymn books.

Would it mean nothing to you if these were taken out of your life? Then you must still be “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” It is true that we have, and sing, many songs of sweet emptiness, which cannot claim to have originated in the Scriptures, and the loss of these would be a distinct gain, but the truly Christian hymns are in the warp and woof of the Church’s life, because the Bible is there.

But in addition to all this, what magnificent contributions to Sacred Music we have on the grand scale; productions which are especially the heritage of the peoples of Western Europe.

One need name only Haydn’s Creation; Handel’s Messiah; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and his 190 Church Cantatas; Mendelssohn’s Elijah, with its ‘O rest in the Lord,’ and, ‘He that shall endure to the end’. Spohr’s The Last Judgment; Purcell’s Jubilate; Sullivan’s The Light of the World, and his tune to ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’; and Stainer’s Crucifixion.

All this, and vastly more, would never have been, if the Bible had never been written!

The Vital Force of Missionary Intercession (Robert Hall Glover)

I felt this piece was worth sharing not only because it is a necessary reminder of the vital importance of prayer to the worldwide mission of Christ's Church today, but also because Glover has pointedly (and rightly) linked mission with revival. While there can be no doubt that the Church today is seriously engaged in global mission as never before, I fear that we have also forgotten how very often the missionary passion or, should I say pathos, has arisen from a genuine revival of Christ's Church by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. And while it is certainly right to pray for the worldwide mission of the Church and the ministry of missionaries, we mustn't neglect to pray also that the Lord will be gracious to revive His people so that they may capture a new vision of His glory and a passion for the salvation of souls worldwide. The two go hand-in-hand as Glover would remind us in this piece. My hope is that as you read this you will be challenged to join the fellowship of "intercessors".

Robert Hall Glover was born in Canada, but spent most of his life in China and the United States. He was a graduate of the University of Toronto, New York Missionary Training College, and New York University Medical College (M.D.). He was appointed a medical missionary to China in 1894 by the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). He survived the Boxer rebellion, when many missionaries were killed and others were forced to flee the country. In direct response to the growing pressure to abandon missionary work in China, Glover wrote a stirring defense of missionary efforts there entitled “Shall Suffering and Danger Halt Our Missionary Work?” His service with the Christian Missionary Alliance in China continued until 1913. During his years in China he was ordained and married Caroline Robbins Prentice, and founded two educational institutions. In 1913 he was appointed C&MA foreign missions secretary. In 1921 Moody Bible Institute recruited him to serve as director of missionary studies. He filled this position until 1926, during which time he wrote the Progress of World-Wide Missions (1924), one of the most widely used mission histories ever written. In 1926 he became a missionary administrator for the China Inland Mission (CIM), serving as assistant home director (1926-1929) and as home director (1930-1943). He retired in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1943 and passed on to glory in 1947.

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The most vital consideration in missions is not method, money, or even men, but it is God himself and His working, and it is prayer which brings the revelation of God and calls forth His working. However, praying is never a substitute for going in the case of those who are qualified and able to go. In other words, going, giving, and praying are not three different options which the individual Christian may pick from according to their personal preference. Nor will any amount of giving or praying fulfill the Great Commission to evangelize the world apart from going. The command is "Go, preach"! But those who cannot "Go" in person can still "Go" by prayer.

Yet, as it is true that praying without preaching can never carry out the missionary task, it is equally true that preaching without praying cannot either. God has joined the two together in His Word and they are inseparable. We read in the book of Acts how the early apostles decided on the appointment of deacons to care for the secular affairs of the church, that they themselves might be free for the more direct spiritual ministry, and their words were, "But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word." Here are mentioned the two great lines of Christian ministry, prayer and preaching, and they are presented in such a way as to indicate clearly that they are co-equal. How many there are who regard preaching as being by far the more important ministry, and prayer as simply an added supplement, a kind of "aid to preaching"! However, that is not what the Word of God says. The two, prayer and preaching, are put on the same level and given the same importance; indeed, if any significance is attached to the order of the inspired words, then prayer has the precedence as being mentioned first. The fact is that they are complementary one to the other, not two separate ministries but rather two essential parts of one ministry. Prayer is the priestly function of appearing before God on behalf of men to plead their needs and invoke His help. While preaching is the prophetic function of appearing before men in behalf of God, to proclaim His Word of Life and implore their acceptance of it. Either one is imperfect without the other.

Missionaries are needed to go abroad and preach to the unreached, but their efforts will not reach full fruition without the support of effective intercessors at home. Paul, the prince of missionaries, continually appealed to the churches for prayer. Hear his plea to the Thessalonian Christians, "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of God may have free course, and be glorified." He was faithfully preaching the Word, and in the power of the Spirit, as he repeatedly claimed; yet the fullest effect of that preaching depended upon the believing prayers of others.

Two distinct aspects of prayer are presented in the Bible and find an essential place in the life of all true missionaries, and indeed of all spiritually minded Christians. They are respectively the devotional and the intercessory aspects.

Devotional Prayer

This is communion with God, a holy, intimate and growing fellowship, cultivated by regular seasons of waiting upon Him in adoring worship and quiet meditation on His Word. The book of Psalms abounds in passages illustrating this aspect of prayer, while its supreme example is the Lord Jesus Himself, whose communion with the Father throughout His life on earth was unbroken and intensely real. Jesus was a man of prayer, or more correctly, THE Man of prayer. His life began, continued, and ended in prayer. Limited as is the record given of His earthly career, it includes impressive glimpses into His prayer life. We see Him praying at His baptism, in His wilderness temptation, on the mount of transfiguration, at the grave of Lazarus, in the garden of Gethsemane, on the Cross of Calvary. He prayed in public and in private. He spent whole nights alone in prayer, one of these before choosing the twelve apostles. After a typically strenuous Sabbath day's ministry in Capernaum, the next morning "rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." Jesus could not live without regular communion with His Father.

Now if the very Son of God felt such a need for daily devotional prayer, what a presumption it is on the part of any human missionary or other Christian worker to neglect it! The men who have accomplished most for God have been men of prayer.

Adoniram Judson, one of the greatest of America's missionary sons, was emphatic in his insistence upon prayer. He wrote: "Be resolute in prayer. Make any sacrifice to maintain it. Consider that time is short and that business and company must not be allowed to rob thee of thy God." That was the man who mightily impressed a great empire for Christ and laid deep and strong the foundations of God's kingdom in Burma. Hudson Taylor was before all else a man of prayer. He lived in the conscious presence of the Lord; constant communion with God had become to him as necessary and natural as breathing. The China Inland Mission, which he founded, was born in prayer, and prayer has ever since been its vital breath.

The maintenance of regular daily seasons of devotional prayer (together with Bible meditation) by the missionary on the field will not come easy. Lack of privacy in makeshift living conditions, incessant interruptions by well-meaning but undiscerning persons, the pressure of multiple duties and the oppressive atmosphere of surrounding spiritual activity-all these distractions must be confronted in order to safeguard devotional prayer.

Intercessory Prayer

This is quite different from devotional prayer. The latter is very real and precious and its vital importance has already been stressed. Yet, it needs to be remembered that prayer is not merely communion with God, it is also cooperation with God, a definite and aggressive ministry, a partnership with God in the carrying out of His divine will and purposes in the world. Prayer is more than simply preparation for service; it is power in service-yes, even more than that, prayer IS service. Among the many Bible passages setting forth this aspect of prayer, one to which we would specifically call attention to is the last part of James 5:16. "The energy put forth by the fervent prayer of a righteous man issues in mighty results," or "brings mighty things to pass.": This rendering has the merit of emphasizing the truth that prayer is a vital force, a great dynamic, that prayer exerts energy, and brings things to pass outside the one who prays. We are aware that some individuals will object to this conception of prayer, their contention being that since the universe is governed by certain fixed and unalterable laws, it is therefore unthinkable that any mere man, by his praying, should be able to interfere with such fixed laws. But these objectors lose sight of the important fact that prayer itself IS one of these fixed laws of God, and that God has designed to bring many things to pass by the means of prayer. When that fact is recognized, it will at once be seen that it is not the man who prays, but rather the man who does not pray, who interferes with God's fixed laws, by failing to cooperate with God in bringing about things which He has meant to be accomplished through His law of prayer.

In no other realm have the priority and the power of prayer been as overwhelmingly demonstrated as in the realm of missions. We speak of Pentecost as being the starting point or inauguration day of Christian missions, but we must not forget about the upper room in Jerusalem where that devoted company of disciples continued for ten days with one accord in prayer and supplication for the coming of Pentecost. Therefore, the beginning of missions can consistently be dated from that prayer gathering. The missionary enterprise was born in prayer, and its entire subsequent history has been a record of answered prayer.

The Pietist and Moravians & Missionary Intercession

From Pentecost and the apostle Paul right down through the centuries to the present day, the story of missions has been the story of answered prayer. Every fresh outbreak of missionary energy has been the result of believing prayer. Organized missionary enterprise began in Germany and Denmark a century earlier than in England. It sprang directly from the revival movement known as Pietism, under the godly leadership of Spencer and Francke and it was deeply rooted in prayer. Out of it came the Danish-Halle Mission to India, and also the better known Moravian movement led by saintly Count Zinzendorf. A settlement was founded at Herrnhut ("The Lord's Watch") where a life of prayer became so effused in missionary zeal that it made that little community, and the long line of devoted missionaries who have gone forth from it to the ends of the earth, one of the wonders of the Church age.

Jonathan Edwards & Missionary Intercession

Herrnhut in turn exerted a distinct influence upon the great leaders of Methodism in England, where early in the eighteenth century a marked revival of prayer for the unreached world broke out, greatly stimulated also by a powerful appeal issued by Robert Miller of Scotland urging prayer as foremost among the measures to be used for the conversion of the unreached. In 1744 a call was widely circulated for a sustained concert of prayer, and in 1746 a memorial was sent to America inviting all Christians there to unite in the same petition. This message moved Jonathan Edwards to preach a sermon which not only awakened many on this side of the Atlantic to more earnest prayer, but which also proved to be one of the influences that stirred the heart of William Carey in England, and thus contributed to initiating the modern period of missions.

William Carey, Samuel J. Mills & Missionary Intercession

The facts pertaining to the beginnings of this new era of missions are too well known to need repeating. It's not our present purpose to dwell upon the record itself, but rather on the vital fact that prayer was instrumental in bringing it about. As related to Great Britain, William Carey is universally recognized as "The Father of Modern Missions," and the same title is justly due Samuel J. Mills as related to North America. One cannot read the story of either one without being profoundly stirred. Kettering in England, where the first Baptist Missionary Society was founded in 1792, and the "Haystack prayer meeting" of 1806 at Williams College in the USA will always be spoken of as the birthplaces of modern missions. But it was in the hearts of Carey and Mills, and through their travail of soul and strong wrestling in prayer, that this great enterprise for Christ and the world was actually born. Just as truly can it be said that the China Inland Mission and the Gossner Mission in India, two notable "Faith Missions," were born in the hearts and through the agonizing prayers of their respective founders, Hudson Taylor of England and Pastor Gossner of Germany. The prayer life of the former of these has already been mentioned. Of Gossner, who single-handedly sent out 144 missionaries, it was said: "He prayed up the walls of a hospital, and the hearts of the nurses; he prayed mission stations into being, and missionaries into faith. Prayer was his atmosphere: he could not live without it."

Revival, Missions & Intercessory Prayer

All the mighty spiritual revivals which constitute the mountain peaks of missionary annals had their roots in prayer. The one in Hawaii which continued from 1837 to 1843 began in the hearts of the missionaries themselves. As they assembled for their annual meetings in 1835 and 1836, "they were powerfully moved to pray, and were so deeply impressed with the need of an outpouring of the Spirit that they prepared a strong appeal to the home churches urging Christians everywhere to unite with them in prayer for a baptism from on high." Soon they saw unmistakable signs of deepening interest in spiritual things. Then in 1837, a revival swept the island so that missionaries labored day and night with throngs of anxious souls. On one memorable day at Hilo, 1,705 were baptized by Titus Coan, and within six years 27,000 converts were received into the church.

The story of the great revival among the Telugu outcastes of India is vitally linked with "Prayer-Meeting Hill," a high hill overlooking the town of Ongole. A missionary couple and three like-minded Hindu helpers on a preaching tour were constrained to spend the last night of 1853 on that hilltop in prayer for the Telugu field, which after many years of faithful toil had yielded almost no fruit. More than once the Board at home had been on the point of abandoning it, and only upon the earnest plea of the missionaries had this action been postponed. Just as the first day of the New Year began to dawn, a sweet sense of assurance that their prayers had prevailed stole into their hearts. A further long period of testing had still to be faced, but gradually the opposition broke, the tide began to turn, and finally a mighty outpouring of the Spirit brought a multitude of souls into the kingdom. In a single day at Ongole, in 1878, 22,222 were baptized and 8,000 within six weeks, and the church there became the largest in the world. An added note of interest is that "the Government of India has acknowledged the power emanating from Prayer-Meeting Hill by donating the hilltop to the Mission to be used as a memorial and gathering place."

Perhaps the greatest of all revivals on the mission field was that in Korea during 1905-1907, when one of the most remarkable manifestations of God's power in the entire history of the Christian Church took place. It swept over the whole land and across its borders into Manchuria and China. It cleansed and purified the church, bringing an overwhelming realization of the awfulness of sin. It fired the Christians with a new passion to seek the lost, great numbers were struck with deep conviction and led to accept Christ. It prepared the way for the "Million souls Movement" which was vigorously carried on for years. Like all other revivals this one began with prayer, first by a group of workers in eastern Korea, where the earlier stirring was felt, and latter in Pyeng Yang in the west, which became the center of "The Great Revival." For months previous to this awakening the missionaries of that station had held daily prayer meetings pleading for a mighty outpouring of God's Spirit. Finally the flood of blessing broke upon a large assembly of Korean workers and believers gathered for prayer in the great Central Church of the city, led by a humble but godly Korean evangelist.

A sequel to the Korean Revival was an extended series of much blessed revival services in China conducted by Dr Jonathan Goforth, who had visited Korea and seen the mighty working of the Lord there. As touching the prayer factor in this revival movement, the following impressive testimony was later given by Dr. Goforth: "When I came to England I met a certain saint of God. We talked about the revival in China, and she gave me certain dates when God specially pressed her to pray. I was almost startled on looking up these dates to find that they were the very dates when God was doing His mightiest work in Manchuria and China...I believe the day will come when the whole inward history of that revival will be unveiled, and will show that it was not the one who speaks to you now, but some of God's saints hidden away with Him in prayer who did most to bring it about."

Equally noteworthy are the wonderful answers to prayer and manifestations of divine power and blessing in the lives and ministries of native workers such as Pandita Ramabai and Sadhu Sundar Sungh of India, Pastor Hsi and Ting Li Mei of China, Neesima of Japan, and a host of others who although less well known in the West have similarly learned the secret of prevailing prayer. "One of the greatest miracles and pieces of evidence of Christianity is the prayer life of Oriental Christians, newly won to Christ. In all these multitudes of India, China, Japan, Africa, and the Islands of the sea, we find the same phenomenon - they pray."

Prayer Is Something Everyone Can Do!

If all that has been said about the power and the achievements of prayer is true, then shouldn't we be challenged afresh to embrace this great privilege of cooperating with God through prayer? Missionary praying, unlike going, or giving, is something that every child of God can have a part in. All cannot go today, for going requires special qualifications and training and all cannot give, at least in liberal amounts, because of their limited resources, but everyone can pray. The humblest Christian who lacks public gifts or talents, the illiterate, and even the shut-in and the bed-ridden believer can share in this highest and mightiest ministry of intercession. Indeed some of the greatest missionary intercessors have been among these last mentioned, who have turned their bed chambers into audience rooms with the King, and by way of the throne of grace have projected themselves far beyond the range of any preacher, and touched and influenced the very ends of the earth for Christ.

We thank God for all the faithful intercessors and their prayers. They have been God's means of breaking down barriers, turning the hearts of kings and rulers, forcing open closed doors, calling forth workers, releasing money to support them, giving persuasive power to preaching, softening hard hearts and bringing them under conviction, turning defeat into victory in the hour of crisis-all this and much more. Yet, we need even more such intercessors, yes, for the whole Church to be driven to its knees under a burden of deep concern and a renewed sense of responsibility.

The Purpose Of A Seminary (B B Warfield)

At a time when seminaries seem to be at cross-purposes as to what they should be about, I found this article by B B Warfield helpful and incisive. Although he wrote this almost a century ago, his clear vision of the need to define a seminary's purpose according to a biblical understanding of the Church, the Christian ministry and the substance of the gospel is one which we should take to heart in our day. I also appreciate his emphasis on the need for seminaries to produce preachers, first and foremost, but preachers who are "scholar-saints". In an age where popular opinion does not equate scholarship with saintliness and vice versa, and where the seminary is expected to churn out all kinds of "ministers" of which "the preacher" is just one of many, Warfield's article is both timely and necessary.

This article is taken from The Collected Shorter Writings of B.B.Warfield, Volume One, pp 374-378, published by Presbyterian & Reformed (Phillipsburg, NJ). It first appeared as an article in The Presbyterian, Nov. 22, 1917, pp. 8-9.

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It is customary to say that the theological seminaries are training-schools for the ministry. Properly understood, that is the right thing to say. But it is not very difficult, and it is very common, seriously to exaggerate the function of the seminary under this definition. It is not the function of the seminary to give young men their entire training for the ministry. That is the concern of the presbytery; and no other organization can supersede the presbytery in this business. The seminary is only an instrument which the presbytery uses in training young men for the ministry. An instrument, not the instrument. The presbytery uses other instruments also in this work.

There is the academy, for example; and the university. It being once understood that the ministry is to be an educated ministry, the academy and the university become instruments which the Church uses in training young men for its ministry. And there is the local church. It is to the local church that the presbytery commits its candidates for the ministry, for moral and spiritual oversight and training. The seminary cannot properly undertake the work of these other instrumentalities. It is essential, if the ministry is to be an educated body, that the minister shall know his A B C’s. It does not follow that the seminary ought to teach young men their A B C’s. It is absolutely necessary, if the ministry is to be a religious body, that every minister should be a converted man. It is not therefore the function of the seminary to convert its students.

No one will suspect me of suggesting that the seminary need not be a “nursery of piety” – any more than that it need not be a “nursery of learning.” But no one ought to contend that the seminary ought to be either expected or permitted to begin with either piety or learning at the beginning. The illiterate and the ungodly have simply no place in the seminary. And if they actually are found there, the remedy is not that the seminary should enlarge its borders and take on the functions either of a primary school or of a confirmation class. The seminary has its own specific work to do, and that work presupposes in its pupils attainments both in literature and in piety. Young men go to it only after they have acquired the education which is common to all educated men, and have made such progress in piety as ranks them with the especially pious men of the community. Basing on this foundation, the seminary undertakes to give to candidates for the ministry the specific training which is peculiar to them as ministers; which fits them, in a word, for the worthy prosecution of the particular work of a minister. It is, in this sense, the finishing-school of the ministry; and it must give itself strictly to those things which the deeply pious man of liberal culture still requires, in order that he may fulfil the office of a minister with credit to himself and to the advantage of the Church.

What precisely must be taught in a theological seminary will be determined by our conception of the ministry for the exercise of the functions of which it offers preparation. And that will be determined ultimately by our conception of the Church. On the sacerdotal theory of the Church, the business of the minister is to perform certain rites, by the correct performance of which the effect sought is obtained. The seminary, in this view, becomes a training-school in the exact sense of that term. It is the place where the prospective minister is trained to perform these rites properly. On the rationalistic theory, the Church is simply a club for intellectual entertainment, or, at the best, a society for ethical culture, or a benevolent organization. The function of the preacher is to be the leader of the group which he serves in such activities; and his training ought to be such as will fit him for this. Great stress will naturally be laid on literary culture, and the masters of thought will take a large place in the theological curriculum. Or, perhaps, the best course in the seminary will be one in sociology - possibly a census of the inhabitants within a given radius of a country church.

None of these things are bad. Even the evangelical minister would do well to know how to conduct the services of the church acceptably. And it will not hurt him a bit to be on speaking terms with Plato and Emerson – and Galsworthy and H. G. Wells and Marie Corelli! Certainly it will be of advantage to him to be at least aware of the social unrest growling around him, and of the terrible distress which it may lie within his power to do something to mitigate or relieve. But all this will not make him a good minister of the gospel of Christ. Do not even the heathen the same? Christ has sent him not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not to ameliorate the lot of men, but to carry to them salvation. On the evangelical view, the Church is the communion of saints, gathered out of a lost world; and the business of the minister is to apply the saving gospel to lost men for their salvation from sin – from its guilt and from its corruption and power. Palpably, what he needs for this is just the gospel; and if he is to perform his functions at all, he must know this gospel, know it thoroughly, know it in all its details, and in all its power. It is the business of the seminary to give him this knowledge of the gospel. That is the real purpose of the seminary.

It is important that we think worthily of the minister, and understand exactly what the great task which is laid upon him involves. The ministry is not a handicraft, a certain skill in the performance of which may be acquired simply by practice. It is a “learned profession”: one of the three, or at the most four, learned professions which divide between them the expert care of man in his several relations. Man is a composite being, with body and soul, set in a social organism, dependent on a physical environment. He needs expert guidance in every sphere of his existence. Science mediates between him and nature. It is the lawyer who advises him in his social relations. The physician cares for his body. The minister is his guide in spiritual things.

It is possible to argue that we can do very well without any of these guides. It is easier to argue it than to practise it. The Lord has not intended his people to hobble along in their religious living. He has appointed ministers in the churches, and given them the task of shepherding the flock. And no minister is fitted for the position he occupies, unless he is prepared to act as spiritual adviser of the community which he serves. We may talk of “the simple gospel” being enough; and we may thank God that the gospel is simple, and that it is enough. But it is no simple matter rightly to apply this simple gospel in all the varied relations of life, in the multiform emergencies which arise in the tangled business of living. Read but the Epistle to the Romans. Was the right exposition of the gospel in the conditions then obtaining at Rome, given us in the first eleven chapters of this Epistle, so simple a matter that Paul might just as well have left it to the Romans themselves to work it out? Was the application of this gospel to life at Rome in the first Christian century, added in the remaining chapters, so simple a matter that it did not need a Paul to make it rightly? Perhaps we nowhere see the minister more plainly at work than in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. These questions which the Corinthians put to Paul, and he answered with so much care – did they really not need to be asked of him or answered by him? The minister in his place, as Paul in his, is the spiritual guide and adviser of his people.

For this, we say, he needs to know the gospel: to know it at first hand, and to know it through and through. All the work of the seminary must be directed just to this end. For one thing, the minister must learn the code in which the gospel message is written. He must be able to de-code it; to de-code it for himself. No trusting the de-coding to another! This is the message of salvation, and he is the channel by which it is conveyed to men. He cannot take it at second-hand. He must get it for himself, and convey it first-handed to those entrusted to his care. He must, in other words, know the languages in which the gospel is written; and he must be skilled in drawing out from the documents the exact meaning. And, then, he must know the message, thus drawn out, thoroughly, and all its compass, and in all its details, in its right perspective, and in its just proportions. Otherwise he cannot use it aright. Of course, he must also be skilled in winningly presenting this message, thus thoroughly known, and in helpfully applying it, point by point, to emerging needs. These things constitute the core of the seminary’s teaching. There are others that stand very close to them; so close that they cannot be dispensed with as props and stays. The minister must know how to defend the gospel he preaches. And he should know something of the history this gospel has wrought for itself in the world. These things not for themselves, but for the aid they bring him for understanding the gospel better for himself, and for commending it more powerfully to others.

Without this much equipment, the evangelical minister is robbed of his dignity and shorn of his strength. He cannot be the spiritual guide and adviser of the community, as the lawyer is the legal guide and the physician the medical adviser. He sinks into a mere handicraftsman plying a manual trade, learned by rote; or into a mere lecturer to a club or leader in benevolent activities. Of course, “the simple preaching” of the “simple gospel” will not fail of its effect. The loving lisping of the name of Jesus by the lips of a child may carry far. But that is no reason why we should man our pulpits with children lisping the name of Jesus. The foolishness of preaching is one thing: foolish preaching is another. Let us not deceive ourselves: in religion as in everything else knowledge is power. That is a platitude. But platitudes have this to be said for them – they are true. Nothing – not fervor, not devotion, not zeal – can supersede the necessity of knowledge. If knowledge without zeal is useless; zeal without knowledge is worse than useless – it is positively destructive. This is Reformation year: let us ask ourselves why was William Farel, consumed with zeal, burning with evangelical fervor, proclaiming the pure gospel, helpless at Geneva – until “with dreadful imprecations” he brought to his aid John Calvin: John Calvin, scholar become saint, scholar-saint become preacher of God’s grace? What we need in our pulpits is scholar-saints become preachers. And it is the one business of the theological seminaries to make them.

An Interview With F F Bruce (Part 2)

Part 2 of this interview (together with Part 1 which was posted previously) were first published in Ward & Laurel Gasque, “An Interview with F.F. Bruce,” St Mark’s Review 139 (Spring 1989): 4-10.

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GASQUES: Your work over the years might he described as a love affair with the writings of the Apostle Paul, in that you have written commentaries on every one of his epistles as well as on the Acts of the Apostles, which sets them in their historical setting. What do you think are Paul’s major legacies to the church?

BRUCE: That’s a big question. [Long pause.] My hesitation to answer quickly lies in my unwillingness to say anything that might seem to do Paul less than justice. But, of course, anything I say about him would do him less than justice! I believe his main legacy is his law-free gospel, his affirmation that the grace of God, which he declares is available on equal terms and manifested in an equal degree among human beings of every kind. When he says that ‘in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free person, neither male nor female’ [Galatians 3:28],he is saying that distinctions of those kinds are simply irrelevant where the gospel is concerned, and where Christian witness, life and fellowship are concerned.

Your major work on Paul was published as “Paul: the Apostle of the Free Spirit” in England. In America it was entitled “Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free”. How did these too different titles come about?

The first was my own choice. I had in mind the words of Psalm 51[:12] where the psalmist prays. ‘Uphold me with thy free spirit!’ When my American publisher undertook to market it in the USA, it was thought that the expression ‘free spirit’ had associations which might obscure the main thrust of the book from the intended reading public. ‘Free spirit’ was said to be either a particular brand of gas for automobiles or a class of hippy. I thought at the time that Paul may have been regarded as a sort of hippy in his day! When the book was reviewed very graciously sometime later by Professor Paul Minear of Yale, he pointed out that ‘heart’ in the title was used in a non-Pauline sense. I could not agree more, but I comforted myself with the contemplation that this expression was not my own choice.

How have you been able to resolve the apparent conflict between Paul’s theology of freedom and the social manifestations of people who adhere to Paul but who obviously are not free in either their personal lives or in their manner of relating to people in the world?

If they are obviously not free, they don’t adhere to Paul! They may think they do, but they haven’t begun to learn what Paul means by ‘the liberty with which Christ has set his people free’ [Galatians 5:1].

Why do you suppose there is this fearfulness among Christians who profess to follow
Paul?

Many people, including many Christians, are afraid of liberty. They are afraid of having too much liberty themselves: and they’re certainly afraid of letting other people, especially younger people, have too much liberty. Think of the dangers that liberty might lead them into! It seems much better to move in predestinate grooves.

What is your source of confidence? Does it come directly from your theology?

Yes. Certainly. From Christ as mediated through Paul, who had an exceptional insight into the mind of Christ and realized that in Christ and nowhere else is true freedom to be found. Among all the followers of Christ. I suppose there has never been a more emancipated soul than the soul of Paul.

What has been Paul’s influence on Western thought?

Paul’s influence on western thought has been very profound, indeed. Perhaps it has been chiefly as mediated through Augustine. For Augustine has probably had greater influence on western thought over the centuries than any other single thinker.

Has Paul’s thought been mediated accurately by Augustine?

Not altogether. Augustine did not have quite the same appreciation of Christian liberty that Paul had. Even though Augustine was one of the greatest interpreters of Paul – as [the theologian Adolf] Harnack said of Marcion [whom he considered the greatest interpreter of Paul] – even he misunderstood him’!

Who do you think have been the most accurate interpreters of Paul?

Certainly the great reformers, Luther, for example. Or John and Charles Wesley in the eighteenth century. Paul played such a dominant part in their conversion experience that they could not help assimilating the very heart of Pauline teaching and communicating it to others.

Do you think the current theologies of liberation – for example, Latin American and feminist Theologies – are correct in applying Paul’s theology of freedom to social and political issues?

Basically, yes. The liberation that is at the very heart of the Pauline gospel can’t be restricted in any way. It must have its social implications and applications. I do not know too much about liberation theology, but it does sometimes seem to he linked to a Marxist interpretation of history, and of human life, which is quite different from the Pauline approach.

You seem to interpret Paul as a liberator, if not a revolutionary. But many others see him as a conservative – one who wanted to keep people in their places, who tells slaves to he satisfied with their position in society and women to be silent and forbids them from having positions of leadership in the church. Their interpretation of Paul is of one who is anything but a liberator of people!

Paul’s attitude to slavery must be seen in the context of the social condition of the time. There was no point in telling slaves to rebel against their condition of bondage. They were in no position to do anything about it. What he did was to show, as the Stoics of his day also did, in a way, that a slave can be a free person, just as truly, as a sociologically free person is very often a slave. Slavery and freedom are matters of the inner life, primarily, and a person’s economic or societal position is not of the first importance.

How would you apply this to the role of women?

Paul’s teaching is that so far as religious status and function are concerned, there is no difference between men and women.

What about in practice? Does he not limit women’s role in leadership and in teaching in the church, and in leadership in society?

No. If we have regard to the place that women have in Paul’s circle, he seems to make no distinction at all between men and women among his fellow workers. Men receive praise, and women receive praise for their collaboration with him in the gospel ministry, without any suggestion that there is a subtle distinction between the one and the other in respect of status or function. Anything in Paul’s writings that might seem to run contrary to this must be viewed in the light of the main thrust of his teaching and should be looked at with quite critical scrutiny.

Your church tradition does not have formal ordination for men or women. However, if you were in a church that did make a distinction between clergy and laity, would you support the idea that women, as well as men, should he ordained as pastors, even bishops?

The point is that I could not countenance a position which makes a distinction of principle in church service between men and women. My own understanding of Christian priesthood is quite different from the understanding that dominates so much of the current discussion of the subject. If, as evangelical Christians generally believe, Christian priesthood is a privilege in which all believers share, there can he no reason that a Christian woman should not exercise her priesthood on the same terms as a Christian man.

How do you interpret 1 Timothy 2:9-15, which suggests that women are not to teach?

I’m not quite sure about whether 1 Timothy 2 was written by Paul. But even if it is taken as a statement by Paul himself, it is merely a statement of practice at a particular time.

So you would not regard it as a canon law for the Christian church for all time.

No. I think when you look at Christian history, you observe a tendency to pick and choose the church regulations from the Pastoral Epistles between those precepts which have been taken over as permanent canon law and those which have been set aside as being only for that particular age.

How do you answer people who say that you are doing the same thing, picking and choosing among the various doctrines of the New Testament, using one strand of Paul’s teaching to set aside another strand of the Pauline tradition?

If there is any substance in that criticism, then the strand that I am choosing is the strand that contains the foundation principles of Paul’s teaching in the light of which those other passages must be understood.

What about 1 Corinthians where Paul suggests that women should he quiet in church?

In the same chapter, he indicates certain occasions when men should be quiet or silent in church also! My own view about 1 Corinthians 14 is very similar to the view expressed by Gordon Fee in his recent commentary [in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1987)], namely, that the textual evidence throws doubt on the authenticity of the word ‘let your women keep silence in the churches.’ But even if they are part of the original text of Paul’s letter, they have relevance only to the uttering of prophecies in church, where women are advised not to question publicly and vocally the interpretation of prophetic utterances. In most of our churches today, we don’t have prophetic utterances of the kind envisaged in 1 Corinthians 14. Therefore, the application of that negative injunction does not apply. In general, where there are divided opinions about the interpretation of a Pauline passage, that interpretation which runs along the line of liberty is much more likely to be true to Paul’s intention than one which smacks of bondage or legalism.

What about Paul’s use of the term kephale (head) in 1 Corinthians 11:3, where man is said to he the head of the woman, and in Ephesians 5:23, where the husband is described as the head of his wife? Does not this imply women’s subordination to men?

No. It implies that the head is the source of the being of the other party in question. Paul is referring to the Genesis story of Eve’s being formed out of Adam’s side. In that sense, the husband was the source of the wife’s being. This suggests priority in terms of existence but not otherwise.

You have described yourself as a ‘layman.’ And yet you are looked to as one of the leading biblical scholars of our day. Is there not an inherent contradiction in this?

I do not think so. One uses the term layman in two senses. When I apply the term to myself. I use the term in an ecclesiastical sense: I am not an ordained minister. This is a negative status that I rather insist on! One talks of laymen in another sense, as between doctors or other professionals on the one hand and non-specialists on the other hand. This is a different matter. However, as a lay interpreter of scripture. I am in quite a respectable tradition. Even our Lord was a layman, as the writer to the Hebrews emphasizes.

Does your status as a layman give your work a special slant as a biblical scholar?

Sometimes it gives me a special privilege in that it cannot be said that I hold the things I hold or say the things I say because my church directs me to do so.

What books have influenced you most in your life, other than the Bible?

Some of the great Christian biographies have influenced my life, especially among them the memoir of Anthony Norris Groves, the early Brethren missionary: the life of William Robertson Smith, J. S. Chrystal; and John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

Have you changed your mind in any fundamental way in regard to our basic understanding of the Christian faith over the years?

As far as the main outlines of my position are concerned, there have been no appreciable changes. But there have been lots of changes in appreciable matters. For example, in matters of biblical criticism: I may have a vague idea about the purpose, date, authorship, and structure of a particular book of the Bible but if I have to teach a course on that book, or write a commentary on it, and get down to the detailed work necessary, I may find myself changing my views on a number of points related to its study. But that is because I was relatively uninformed previously, whereas closer study has shown me that this rather than that is the way to understand a matter. A rather technical example would be this: for many years I was disposed to believe that the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians belonged to the letter that Paul wrote between 1 and 2 Corinthians, sometimes called the ‘tearful letter’ [2 Cor 2:3-11]. But when I got down to studying 2 Corinthians with a view to writing a commentary on it. I found myself compelled to change my mind and regard the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians as part of a later letter by Paul written subsequently to that contained in the first nine chapters.

What do you think are some of the greatest problems facing Christians today?

The problem is what it has always been. I think: conformity to the world, to the current climate of opinion. The climate of opinion of today may be very different from what it was fifty years ago, but that is the essence of what the New Testament calls “worldliness”. Getting one’s mind into the mind-set of the age, and thinking in those terms instead of in distinctively Christian terms.

How do we avoid worldliness?

We are all influenced by the current climate of opinion, inevitably so. We can’t watch television, or listen to radio, or that sort of thing, without being influenced in this way. But so long as we are aware of the fact that we are being influenced, we may be on our guard against it, instead of simply imbibing it without thinking about it.

What do you think is the greatest opportunity for a Christian young person living today?

There is one great opportunity in the fact that Christian presuppositions, even in a diluted sense, are becoming less and less the presuppositions of our contemporaries. So a Christian who bears witness to the principles of Christian faith and life is not so liable nowadays to hear the response. ‘Yes that is what I’ve always believed!’

Do you have a strategy to suggest to the church today?

No.

Do you think we are living in the last days?

I have no idea.

How can we convince people today of the necessity for sacrificial love?

The best way to convince people is not to talk about it but to practice it. There is no sense in telling people about sacrificial love if one does not show something of it!

What do you think Christians can do to further the cause of peace in the world!

They could start by living peaceably one with another, showing themselves to be, in reality, as they are in the divine purpose, a fellowship of reconciliation, a community of those who, having experienced the reconciling power of God in their own lives, proclaim his message of reconciliation to others, in the widest conceivable sense.

Do you think Christians should he actively involved in opposing nuclear weapons?

I do not see a difference in principle between nuclear weapons and other weapons. We have seen quite a lot of indiscriminate destruction wrought by non-nuclear weapons of a kind that Christians could not contemplate with anything like approval. And the use of nuclear weapons simply multiplies this to the nth power.

Do you think that the Christian perspective demands a pacifist stance!

I should find this a difficult position to maintain. I realize that the pacifist probably has the better of the logical argument, but there are other considerations that may lead to a different conclusion. For example, many people in Britain who were pacifists on principle in World War I were not pacifists in principle when World War II broke out, because they believed that the evil to be opposed in World War was a really positive evil that could not be opposed in any other way. Of course, if it had not been allowed to get to the point to which it had reached in 1939. This evil could have been checked at an earlier stage. From our point of view, however, the moral conclusions that persuaded people in 1939 have been replaced by a quite different series of issues in our day.

I have only observed you to be nervous on only one occasion in all the years I have known you. My impression is that you have a great sense of confidence and certainly an independence of spirit. Is this a valid observation! And, if so, why do you think this is so?

Independence of spirit may largely be the result of my having always been in a position where my personal comfort, income, and the like were not affected by what I affirmed. A person who always has to be looking over his shoulder lest someone who is in a position to harm him may be breathing down his neck has to mind his step in the way such as a university teacher, which I’ve always been, is quite a stranger to.

I’ve known a lot of insecure and nervous university teachers!

That may be so, but that is probably largely a matter of personal temperament.

Has your father’s influence on your life been an influence in this?

In teaching me to think for myself, not to believe a thing just because some preacher says it is so, unless I see it clearly for myself – that was excellent advice. There are some people who will swallow what the most eloquent preacher says.

An Interview With F F Bruce (Part 1)

I have a copy of In Retrospect, an autobiography of F F Bruce. I have read other material on him, but I have never before read an interview conducted with Bruce. Recently, I "chanced" upon this interview with him conducted way back in 1987. I thought this might interest some who have appreciated Bruce's extensive work, not least, his treatments on the intertestamental period and the different books of the New Testament. I am certain you will find many interesting and surprising comments by him here. I should add you will probably also find much to agree or disagree with! Whatever your reaction, I hope this proves an interesting read and gives you an insight into his positions on various issues which you might not find elsewhere. As the interview was quite lengthy, I shall be posting it in two parts. The summary given below of Bruce was provided by the interviewers, and it and the interview were first published as Ward & Laurel Gasque, “An Interview with F.F. Bruce,” St Mark’s Review 139 (Spring 1989): 4-10.

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The figure of Frederick Fyvie Bruce (born 1910) towers like a giant over the field of contemporary biblical scholarship. His commentary on the Greek Text of the Acts of the Apostles (1951) is generally recognized as the first important work in what has since become a contemporary renaissance of evangelical theological research. In recognition of its excellence his alma mater, the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, awarded him an honorary doctorate. Generations of college students have been first introduced to Bruce by reading his little book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable (IVP and Eerdmans) which has been regularly reprinted and revised for nearly a half century. His New Testament History (Doubleday) has been a standard textbook in seminaries and colleges for two decades. Educated lay men and women have appreciated his ability to translate the results of specialized studies into non-technical books that you do not need a theological degree to be able to understand and enjoy – such as History of the Bible In English (Oxford University Press) and Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Eerdmans), while pastors and teachers look forward eagerly to each new commentary or biblical study from his pen. The latest of these, on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians for the New International Greek Testament Commentary (Eerdmans), will doubtless remain a standard work well into the next century.

A simple listing of Bruce’s publications runs to fifty-six pages of small print! He is the author of more than forty books and nearly two thousand articles and reviews. In recognition for his work he is one of the few scholars who has been elected president of both the Society for Old Testament Study and the Society for New Testament Studies.

From 1959 until his retirement in 1978 he occupied the prestigious John Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at Manchester University in England, where he supervised more PhD students in biblical studies than any other professor in British history.

The following interview was conducted by W. Ward Gasque and Laurel Gasque, who recently visited Professor and Mrs Bruce in their home in England.

THE INTERVIEW

GASQUES: Has your church tradition [the Plymouth Brethren] shaped your study and teaching of the Bible?

BRUCE: I suppose in some ways it has. As far as my experience goes, it has been part of the tradition of the ‘Open Brethren’ to encourage independent Bible study and independent thinking, without following one school of thought rigidly as sometimes happens in other ecclesiastical groups.

When you began your academic career, there were very few people in British universities, especially in England, who were committed to combining an evangelical faith commitment with academic biblical studies. Things are quite different today, I believe.

Oh, completely different now. And I think it is due, in some measure at least, to the influence of the Tyndale Fellowship which is an association of evangelical men and women who wish to engage in serious biblical research without unnecessary strings but linked with a faith commitment.

It has been forty-five years since you defended the essential trustworthiness of the New Testament in your little book "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable"? Do you still stand by what you wrote then?

I still stand by the general thesis of the book. I may differ in details from some of the critical points I dealt with incidentally, but I still maintain the same outlook that I argued for in that book.

How do you as a Christian and as a scholar, approach the study of the Bible?

I think I should have to distinguish between academic study and more general study. At one level – and perhaps this is the most important level – I approach the Bible with a readiness, and an expectation, to hear the voice of God there. But there is no conflict between that more devotional use of the Bible and its academic study. Over the years I have played a pretty full part in Bible ministry in churches – preeminently, of course, in the local church that I happened to be associated with at any particular time – and what I have tried to do in this ministry has been to combine the two approaches. I have sought to make available to my hearers, in a form that they can assimilate, the results of my academic study, while at the same time trying to enable them, like myself, to recognize and apply the voice of God in holy scripture.

The term ‘biblical criticism’ normally has a positive connotation in your writings, in spite of the negative connotation it has in some circles. Why is this?

Because biblical criticism is the study of the biblical text. It involves the establishing of a reliable text on the basis of manuscripts and other early witnesses: this is the work of ‘textual criticism.’ And when that is done it involves the interpretation of the text, what is technically called ‘exegesis.’ And this requires the study of such matters as the structure of individual books, a consideration of the dates at which they were written, how they fit into their contemporary setting, and then the question of authorship. It is in these three areas – structure, date and authorship – that we have the group of studies that used to he summarized in the single term ‘higher criticism.’ Thus biblical criticism is a very positive study. Its aim is to help people to understand the Bible better. One of my eminent Manchester predecessors in the Rylands Chair, Arthur Samuel Peake, who was no mean practitioner in biblical criticism, has put it on record that ‘criticism for its own sake has never interested me. The important thing is to pierce to the core of the meaning.’ And any technique that enables us to penetrate to the central meaning of scripture is helpful.

Is there is a uniquely ‘evangelical’ view of biblical criticism that differs from other types of biblical criticism?

Not so far as I’m concerned. Some evangelical scholars probably do have unique views of biblical criticism which they would distinguish from certain other approaches. But when I was appointed to teach biblical criticism in the University of Manchester, I was appointed to teach the same subject as my predecessors had taught – Peake, whom I have mentioned. C. H.
Dodd, and T. W. Manson – and I have been conscious of no difference between the criticism that I have taught and the criticism that they taught. They may, in certain respects, have reached different conclusions from those that I reached. But that is a different matter.

In North America there has been a lot of debate concerning the ‘inerrancy’ of the Bible, and ‘inerrancy’ has often been viewed as a touchstone of evangelical orthodoxy. What do you think about this concept?

Happily, from my point of view, that is a North American phenomenon which one does not find very much in Britain. The term that has been traditionally used to describe a high view of the authority of scripture in this country is ‘infallibility.’

What is the difference between the two terms?

When one looks at the words themselves, there is no difference! ‘Inerrancy’ means ‘not going wrong’ and ‘infallibility’ means ‘incapable of going wrong’ or ‘incapable of leading astray.’ But the infallibility of scripture as traditionally defined relates to its function as ‘the rule of faith and practice.’ Inerrancy seems to imply more than this.

What term would you prefer to use in describing the Bible?

Truth. What’s wrong with that word? The truth of scripture is what we’re talking about. Or, if one says that the scripture is the Word of God, why bother about terms like ‘infallibility’ or ‘inerrancy’?

Some years ago you objected to being labelled a ‘conservative evangelical.’ You said you preferred to he known as an ‘unhyphenated evangelical.’ What did you mean by that?

Conservatism is not of the essence of my position. If many of my critical conclusions, for example, are described as being conservative, they are so not because they are conservative, nor because I am conservative, but because I believe them to be the conclusions to which the evidence points. If they are conservative, then none the worse for that.

And what do you mean by ‘evangelical’?

An evangelical is someone who believes in the God who justifies the ungodly [Romans 4:5]. To believe in Him, and nothing more nor less, is to be evangelical. That is evangelicalism in what might be called the Lutheran tradition.

How do you draw the line between those who are evangelical and those who are not?

Those who have a defective view of the work of salvation and of the sovereignty of divine grace in the saving process. Anything that begins to allow for an element of merit or human achievement in the work of salvation is, to that extent, non-evangelical.

So ‘evangelical’ to you signifies more a theological orientation than a movement or a group within the church.

Primarily, it is, I think it’s disastrous when evangelicalism becomes the designation of one party within the church.

Still, recognizing that there is a group of people who might he identified as evangelicals sociologically, what are some of the changes you have observed as having taken place among them over the years?

In my experience in Britain almost the only Christian grouping in which there has been a distinctively evangelical party has been the Church of England. Now I cannot speak from first-hand experience of Anglican evangelicals, but I think that they themselves would be the first to admit that there has been a very considerable change of outlook among them over the past generation. They have become a much more outward-looking, instead of inward-looking body. They realize their responsibility is to play an active and positive part within the witness of the Church of England as a whole. But here I speak merely as an observer. In my own church tradition I think it would be right to say that we’re all evangelicals. We (in the Brethren) would have no possible existence apart from the faith of the gospel as I have tried to indicate it.

In terms of the world-wide evangelical community, have you observed any similar trends?

I think there is a much greater sense of responsibility to contribute to the well being of the church as a whole, and, of course, of the human race as a whole. The Lausanne Covenant is one very interesting manifestation of this change in outlook.

What do you think of the so-called charismatic renewal movement?

I have had very little experience of the charismatic renewal. Certainly, no active involvement with it. So I cannot say anything that is very well informed. But from what I know of it, it does seem to be a movement of the Spirit of God which is playing a part in the maintenance and the revival of Christian witness in many parts of the world in these present days.