Posts by Jim Elliff (Page 28)
Review of The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton
Book by Bennet Tyler and Andrew Bonar Tyler, Bennet, and Bonar, Andrew, The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton, Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, reprint 1975, 454 pp. ($18.00) The author, Bennet Tyler, was a pastor for many years at South Britain, Connecticut, where he knew Nettleton intimately. He eventually became the president of Dartmouth College. He is famous for his polemics against the liberal Nathaniel Taylor and the New Haven theology, a view which countered the Edwardsian…
The Care and Feeding of Flies
I just received this news about a Warren, Arkansas event, which took place 84 years ago. I’m sure that I’m the very latest one to receive this intelligence. Here it is: Mar. 3, 1914: Warren, Mar 2 – Yesterday closed the fly contest that has been carried on in Warren for the last month. The Democrat-News offered $10 to the boy who caught the greatest number of flies and the Warren Commercial Club $5 to the one who caught the…
Serious Preaching
I have been considering for some time the desperate condition of preaching in the West. I have even toyed with the idea of writing a booklet entitled Serious Preaching. Such preaching is out of vogue, but I still believe in it. Please know that I’m not talking about serious sweating. It used to be said that if a man didn’t fill his hanky with sweat, make himself hoarse with screaming and wind up walking on about two inches of his…
The New Gospel: Appealing But not Revealing
It cannot be overstated that the most pressing issue in the American church at present is the prevalence of unregenerate church members within our ranks. When the current surveys of American life place those who call themselves believers in Christ about the seventieth percentile and climbing, conservative Christians ought to finally awaken to the immensity of the problem. Deception is pandemic. It is as if a modern Constantine christianized the masses while we were asleep. Spurgeon said, “Everyone has a…
Dull Preachers
“Dull preachers make the best martyrs,” said Spurgeon. “They are so dry they burn well.” Well said. My contention is that dullness in preaching is not so much in a scarcity of speaking ability of the preacher as it is in they dry-as-dust heart of the same. Ross Perot was not heard because he could speak like Charlton Heston, but because you at least knew that he believed and was exercised by what he believed enough to unload the burden.…
An Argument for Learning
One of the immense edifices on the skyline of Christian history over the last hundred years was the eminent leader, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981). He is noteworthy not only because he was a great preacher and the pastor of Westminster Chapel of London, but also because of his zest for learning. Having begun as a physician of exceptional quality, he carried over into his Christianity and ministry this unceasing hunger to know more. From a delightful little book entitled Martyn…