The Missing Ingredient In Too Many Marriages: Joy

By / Jun 12

Like cupcakes that are missing sugar, there are too many Christian marriages that are missing a key ingredient. This missing ingredient in too many marriages doesn’t mean it’s not a marriage, just as a cupcake missing sugar doesn’t mean it’s not a cupcake. But neither “tastes” good.

When we realize that what is at stake is not a bad batch of baked goods, but potentially being a poor reflection of the gospel through our marriage relationship, we will do all we can to put the ingredient of joy back into our marriages. Many Christian marriages, including many ministry marriages, would be sweet again if husbands took the lead in loving their wives joyfully.

My wife is usually pretty positive with me, but one evening she looked at me and said, “Did you know you’re pretty grumpy most of the time right now?” I was knocked a little off-kilter. She knew that things had been stressful at church recently. She had been supportive and prayerful with me. But after I stopped defending myself in my mind and started to think about what she had the courage to point out, I asked her more about it and realized that she was right. I was getting so consumed with trying to stay on top of pastoral ministry, while dealing with multiple fronts during a difficult season in our church, that it was negatively affecting my parenting—and our marriage.

I had to ask for forgiveness, and start to make changes. Nothing was immediate, but through choice by choice, joy began to seep back into our marriage and family. As I evaluated what happened, I realized that in trying to be Jesus for my church, I had not loved my wife like Jesus loves the church. Ephesians 5:25 is loud and clear on our calling: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…”

One specific way that Christ loved the church, a way that God calls us to echo his love in our marriages, is that Jesus loved the church joyfully. He loves to love us. Do we love to love our wives?

Jesus doesn’t just put up with the church. He receives joy by giving us joy (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus doesn’t grudgingly love but persistently loves the church. He joyfully and persistently loves us. Jesus’s love doesn’t change based on how we are doing in our relationship with him any given day.

When wives are loved this deeply, knowing that their husbands love to love them, there is a security in marriage that develops and strengthens over years. This security frees a wife to be an even greater blessing to others. Also, when we love our wives so joyfully that it’s obvious to her and others, there is a sweetness that develops. When a pastor and wife exude this sweetness to their church and others through the genuine joy in their marriage, their marriage “smells” like the gospel. A joyful marriage covenant points to the New Covenant.

Here are four ways to cultivate more consistent joy in your marriage as you strive to reflect Christ in the love you have for your wife.

1) Spend intentional time together

Jesus delights to be with his bride. Yet, I am shocked at how quickly I can coast in marriage. The demands of ministry, bills, raising children, home repair, and just making it through each day can mean that I look up and we haven’t had enough intentional time together. We have found that a weekly date night is unrealistic in this season of five kids including toddlers to teenagers. But we can still purposefully set aside one night or more a week to cuddle on the couch together while we watch a movie or talk. And we can still intentionally carve out times that we do go out together without kids, both for a few hours and occasionally for a few days. Are you as intentional to spend time with your wife as you are to follow up on shepherding issues at church?

2) Talk about what God is teaching you

Joy ultimately comes from Jesus (Luke 2:10, Matthew 28:8, 1 Peter 1:8, 1 John 1:4). When you are both investing personally in your relationship with Jesus, true joy will begin to seep into your marriage. I have found that when we talk about what God is teaching us, whether spontaneously or as an intentional question, it not only encourages each other’s walks with the Lord, but it also begins to spill over into our marriage relationship. Pastors, God is teaching you in the Word every week. Share some of that with your wife not as an additional sermon, but out of the joy of knowing Jesus.

3) Act like Jesus is King

One of the greatest pieces of advice I have ever heard from another pastor is to talk about church matters as appropriate or needed with your wife for just a little bit when you get home. Then pray together about it before moving on with the evening if there’s a pressing issue, but act like Jesus is king. It is easy to bring things up again and just go around and around about ministry. That is ok to a degree if it is helping you to serve others together, but at some point you need to have discussions that are not ministry related, especially if the issues are stressful. Give it to Jesus, and let it go for the evening (Matthew 6:34).

4) Serve together in some way

Serving as a pastor does not mean that I am automatically serving Jesus together with my wife. It can be okay to serve in different areas of the church or family life depending on season of life and giftedness. After all, she is not a pastor because she is married to you. But I have found that it has been helpful to do some sort of ministry purposefully together. For us it has looked as varied as visitation, foster care, planning an outreach together, or both being on the worship team together. Serving together purposefully can bring joy to your marriage, reminding both of you that God brought you together to glorify him.

Brothers, does your wife not only know that you love her, but know that you love to love her, as your Savior does? The marriage of A.W. Tozer leaves us with a somber warning. In his book I Still Do, Dave Harvey recounts: “Tozer was a spiritual giant—a man of spectacular faith, incredible insight, and compelling godliness. But Tozer neglected his wife, Ada, and their family in some pretty stunning ways…After Tozer’s death, Ada remarried a man named Leonard Odam. Dorsett [Tozer’s biographer] writes of a poignant moment when Ada was asked to describe her life with her new husband. ‘I have never been happier in my life,’ Ada observed. ‘Aiden [Tozer] loved Jesus Christ, but Leonard Odam loves me.’”[1]

Brothers, we can love both Jesus and our wives well. We are called to love both. A marriage that “smells” like the gospel will have one often-overlooked ingredient: joy.

__________

[1] Dave Harvey, I Still Do (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2020), p. 193.



Episode 267: Awesome Dads of the Bible

By / Jun 12

In honor of Father’s Day coming up, the guys are bringing their short lists of the best dads in the Bible. We’ve got some curve balls for you on this one!



Unstoppable: Fuel for Service from Isaiah 40

By / Jun 10

My wife, Tracy, and I had spent all day on a bus. We had just arrived in a rural town; we stepped off the bus into the pitch black; we weren’t completely sure which way we should be walking. But we could hear it.

We didn’t know which direction the sound was coming from. We didn’t know how far away it was. We didn’t know its precise location. But we could hear it; we knew it was there.

We were visiting Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

The word awesome is overused, but seeing the Falls in person is awesome. Victoria Falls is powerful, majestic, and impressive. It is just over a mile wide, more than 100 meters tall, and at least a million liters of water pour over the falls every second. Victoria Falls is awesome.

Now, imagine standing at the bottom of Vic Falls, looking up at the million liters of water falling 100 meters for a whole mile every second. As you stand there looking up at this, someone whispers in your ear, “Try and stop it. Go ahead—try and stop all that water flowing over the falls.”

It would be impossible.

Likewise, with our God. It is impossible to stop Him. This waterfall in southern Africa is only one of the many things that the One True God spoke into existence. This God is truly awesome.

Isaiah 40

The majesty and power of our God is beautifully presented in Isaiah’s words from Isaiah 40:10–31. Isaiah, mingling comfort and warning, begins with, “Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him” (41:10). This is God’s Word to each of us. His awe and majesty bring reward and recompense. This is why we need to be reminded of our awesome God who is tender in His care.

There’s nothing more important for us to remember than God’s incomparable majesty for the good of His people. Isaiah communicates this in a most compelling fashion in 40:10–31.

Awesome in Power

First, our awesome God is just that, awesome. Nothing is beyond His control. Only God’s purposes and plans will ultimately prevail. He is the One who spread out the skies and brings the princes of earth to nothing (vv. 21–23). He is the One who made, named, and numbered all the stars—keeping them in place by His might (vv. 25–26). If He can do that, He can sustain us in whatever we face. God is unstoppable. Satan cannot stop God. Sin cannot stop God. You cannot stop God. I cannot stop God. He is awesome in His power.

Tender in Care

Second, our awesome God is tender in His care. Despite the unmatched power that God possesses, in 40:11 Isaiah makes it clear that this awesome God is tender in His care. He tends his flock; He gathers, carries, and gently leads His people. At the end of the passage in 40:29–31, it is made clear that this awesome God strengthens those who wait on Him. The One True God could crush us, but instead He comforts us. In all the stresses, strains, and struggles of life, never forget the omnipotent God is tender in His care.

Relentless

Third, our awesome God is relentless. Throughout this chapter, God questions His people. Many of these questions point to God’s unrivaled power: Who else has held the waters of the earth in their hand? (v. 12) Who else has measured the starry skies with the span of their hand? (v. 12) Who else knows all things?  (vv. 13–14; cf. 25, 27, 28). The most pointed question is asked twice: To whom will you compare this God? (vv. 18, 21). These rhetorical questions are intended to back us into a corner. He relentlessly pursues Isaiah’s reader with a series of questions which underscore how unstoppable this awesome God truly is. Of course we know, of course we’ve heard—there is none like our God.

Conclusion

Commenting on this section of Isaiah, Geoffrey Grogan (Isaiah, EBC, p. 723) notes, “The incomparable majesty of God set forth in [here]…will give strength to his frail people.” Considering God’s power and care, we cannot remain unmoved and inactive. Just as Paul urges those who desire to serve as deacons in 1 Timothy 3:10, I urge you—as I urge myself—to prove yourselves blameless. The reality that our God is unstoppable should fuel our service for Him and His glory. We must and we can strive on in service confident that nothing can stop our God—He is relentless, unstoppable.



Preach, Preach, Preach Everywhere

By / Jun 6

Editor’s Note: Excerpted with permission from Preaching: A Sermon Collection by Charles H. Spurgeon, edited by Jason K. Allen. Copyright 2024, B&H Publishing. Available now from B&H and wherever Christian books are sold.

Preach, Preach, Preach Everywhere[1]

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Mark 16:15–16)

Before our Lord gave his disciples this commission, he addressed them in tones of serious rebuke. You will observe that, appearing unto the eleven as they sat at dinner, “he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because, they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” So honorable an estimation did he set upon testimony; so marked a censure did he pronounce upon those who neglected it. The reprimand they received on such an occasion may well serve as a caution to us, for unbelief unfits the Christian for service. It is in proportion to our personal faith in the gospel that we become competent witnesses for teaching it to others. Each one of us who would get credit for sincerity must say with David, “I believed, therefore have I spoken,” or else a want of faith of ourselves will effectually deprive our speech of all its power over our fellow men.

There can be little doubt that one reason why Christianity is not so aggressive now as it once was, and exerts not everywhere the influence it had in apostolic times, is the feebleness of our faith in Christ as compared with the full assurance of faith exercised by the men of those days. In vain you hide a timid heart behind a modest face when the attitude we should show and the living force that should constrain us is a bold reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit and a deep conviction of the might of the truth which we are taught to deliver. Brothers, if there is to be a revival of religion, it must begin at home. Our own souls must first of all be filled with holy faith and burning enthusiasm, and then shall we be strong to do exploits and to win provinces for the scepter of King Jesus.

Having thus made a note upon the context, I want you to refer to a parallel passage in Matthew. There we learn that in delivering this commission our Lord assigned a remarkable reason for it, and one that intimately concerned himself. “All power,” he said, “is given unto me in heaven and in earth, go you therefore and teach all nations” These words were adapted to strengthen the faith of his disciples, of whom it had been just observed that “some doubted.” Do you not see the point of this announcement? Jesus of Nazareth, being raised from the dead, tells his apostles that he is now invested with universal supremacy as the Son of Man. Therefore he issues a decree of grace, calling on all people of every clime and kindred to believe the gospel with a promise of personal salvation to each and every one who believes. With such authority is this mandate clothed, and so imperative the duty of all men everywhere to repent, that they who do not believe are threatened with a certain penalty of damnation. This royal ordinance he will have published throughout the whole world, but he enjoins it on all the messengers that those who bear the tidings should be thoroughly impressed with the sovereignty of him who sends them. Let the words then ring in your ears, “Go ye therefore.” They sound like the music of that glad acclaim that hails the Redeemer installed with power, holding the insignia of power in his possession, exercising the full rights of legitimate power, and entrusting his disciples with a commission founded on that power, “Go ye into all the world.”

Yet another remark before we proceed to the text. The commission we are about to deal with was the last the Lord gave to his disciples before he was taken away from them. We prize greatly the last words of his departing servants, how shall we sufficiently value the parting words of our ascending Master? Injunctions left us by those who have gone to glory have great weight upon our spirits; let obedient lovers of Christ see to it that they act according to the last will and testament, the last desire expressed by their risen Lord.

I claim for my text peculiar attention from every disciple of Jesus, not indeed as if it were a mournful entreaty but rather as a solemn charge. You remember Christ’s own parable, “The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.”[2] Look at this as the last direction Jesus gives to his stewards before “he went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.” It seems to me that as when the mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha, Elisha would have been much to blame if he had not caught it up, so when these words fell from our ascending Savior before the clouds concealed him from the disciples’ sight, we ought to take them up with holy reverence. Since he has left them as his parting mantle, they ought to be lovingly cherished and scrupulously obeyed.

Come we, then, to invite your earnest heed to the command the Savior here gives: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”[3] It was given to the apostles representatively. They represent the whole body of the faithful. To every converted man and woman this commission is given. I grant you there is a specialty to those gifted and called to surrender themselves wholly to the work of the ministry, but their office in the visible church offers no excuse for the discharge of those functions that pertain to every member of the body of Christ in particular. It is the universal command of Christ to every believer: “Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

__________

[1] Published in Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 15 in 1869 by Charles Spurgeon. This is an excerpt from sermon 900, delivered in 1869, exact date unknown.

[2] Matthew 25:14.

[3] Mark 16:15.



Episode 266: Grab Bag!

By / Jun 5

A new installment in the Grab Bag feature, where Jared and Ross each bring two surprise questions for the other to answer.



Prayer and Evangelism Reinforce One Another

By / Jun 4

Editor’s Note: The following excerpt is by Joe M. Allen III, published with permission from Before You Go: Wisdom From 10 Men on Serving Internationally, edited by Matthew Bennett and Joshua Bowman. Copyright 2024, B&H Publishing. Available now from B&H and wherever Christian books are sold.

Prayer and evangelism go together like chocolate and peanut butter. The two practices mutually reinforce one another and enhance the other spiritual disciplines. The dynamic happens like this: the more you pray, the more you attune your heart to God’s heart, and specifically, God’s heart for the lost. The more you seek to evangelize, the more you sense your need for the Holy Spirit’s divine enablement and long for his intervention. Prayer should lead to gospel proclamation, and gospel proclamation should intensify your prayers.

The irony is that prayer is often a solitary activity that appeals to introverts, while evangelism is a social activity that appeals to extroverts. Regardless of your personality, maintaining a close interrelationship between prayer and evangelism will push you out of your comfort zone and force you to grow. When you join prayer and evangelism, watch out! Something special is about to happen.

Jesus links prayer and evangelism in Luke 10:2 when he says, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” Jesus instructs his disciples to pray for harvesters and then, in a surprising twist, he sends them to be the answer to their own prayers! The same thing might happen to you, so when you pray, be ready to obey.

A verse that I find myself returning to time and again when I think about prayer and evangelism is Romans 10:1. Here, we get a glimpse of Paul’s heart, which proves instructive for us. He writes: “my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation.” As we consider the importance of prayer and evangelism in the life of a missionary, let me make three observations about this verse.

First, Paul cared deeply. His desire was not a shallow, fleeting desire, but a core longing that sprang from the center of his being. If you do not feel deep compassion for the lost, go back and review the gospel. Consider afresh the glory of the One who calls you into fellowship with him. Meditate on the majesty of God as revealed in Scripture. Think about the sacrifice of Jesus and the depth of the love that bought your salvation. Contemplate the joys of heaven and the horrors of hell until your heart is stirred for others to know the gospel. Feed your godly desires so you can say with Paul, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation.”

Second, Paul prayed fervently. The people of Israel had rejected Jesus as their Messiah, but Paul remained hopeful that they might be saved. Paul did not give up on them, and he did not leave his heart’s desire unexpressed; he acted. That action first took the form of prayer. We must do the same. Do not bottle up your desire; let it bubble up and overflow in prayer. Give expression to your desire through intercession.

Third, Paul prayed specifically. He did not pray ambiguous prayers for some amorphous spiritual blessing. Instead, he prayed for their salvation. Elsewhere, Paul prayed for boldness (Eph. 6:18–20), for opportunity (Col. 4:2–4), and that the Word of the Lord would spread rapidly and be glorified (2 Thess. 3:1). A couple of years ago, I realized that if I only make vague or general requests with lots of qualifications and caveats, then I would never be able to tell if God had answered. So let me encourage you to pray such focused prayers for the salvation of souls so that you can recognize God’s answers and rejoice.



Episode 265: Dealing with Criticism

By / May 29

We all swim in a sea of negativity every day, but how should Christians process and respond to specific criticism that comes their way? Whether pastors receiving criticism from their congregations or everyday believers receiving critical words from others, what’s the biblical response to hearing criticism?



Episode 264: FTC Mailbag

By / May 22

Let’s check the mailbag! In the latest installment of the FTC Podcast’s most popular feature, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson discuss your submitted question and topics, including: positives and negatives of VBS, avoiding pragmatism, church mergers, disagreeing with a senior pastor’s ministry philosophy, can pastors have close friends in the church?, picking songs for Sunday worship, and . . . church potlucks? Yes, even a question on church potlucks. (Jared and Ross have strong opinions.) Listen in and submit your own questions/topics for the next mailbag ep via [email protected]



The Indispensable Necessity of Doctrinally Rich Young Adult Ministry

By / May 20

I’ve worked within student ministry in some capacity for 12 years. If junior highers smell like body spray and if high schoolers can smell fear, then young adults (YAs) have a nose for inauthenticity. They see right through the smoke machine and lights. They quickly pick up on lack of depth. And they know on first whiff whether the “answer” you just gave to the question that’s plagued them or their friend’s faith (or is sitting at the bottom of their lack thereof) is worthy of consideration or if you’re just grasping at straws. They pull no punches, and they are awesome for it!

If I could encourage those attempting to reach or minister to college-age people toward one thing besides knowing their Bibles and enjoying God, it would be this: you and your ministry must be doctrinally robust. Your acquaintance with the issues YAs raise, and even more importantly, your familiarity with the answers from Scripture and Christian tradition, are indispensable in engaging GenZ 18- to 20-somethings. Whether it’s the unsaved skeptic, the new believer, or the mature believer, there will be no fruitful ministry among GenZ college students and young adults apart from deep, rich, and robust doctrine.

Evangelistic and Apologetic Need

As Derek Rishmawy, himself a campus minister, has said in regard to reaching GenZ college students, “Nerdy theology really does matter for evangelism. Doctrineless evangelism simply will not work.” Amen. The universities where YAs live lack no robust secular doctrine that refutes Christianity. Bart Erdman does not pull any punches, and neither should we. Young adults need to know the church has sufficient and coherent answers to their theological questions, and we who pastor them should be ready to offer those answers (1 Peter 3:15).

The Need for Adult Answers to Adult Lives

Young adults face new life stages and challenges. They have questions about dating, marriage, finance, politics, culture, and more. They often no longer rely on their parents or tradition for answers. They need deep, robust, and coherent doctrine that addresses the complexities and hardships of life. You might get away with shooting from the hip in youth group, but young adults will suss out a run-of-the-mill answer in a heartbeat. Not only this, but as a generation coming of age amid heightened turbulence (American political context, COVID) and lack of solidity (social media), they long for rootedness and concreteness. A concreteness only deep doctrine can provide. YAs need mature doctrine so they can mature into adulthood (Hebrews 5:11-14).

The Discipleship Need

Many, if not most, YAs have no clue robust theology even exists. They rarely read theological books and haven’t sat under good preaching and teaching. I pick up on this when some of the YAs in my church don’t understand the need for church membership, the significance of baptism, the habit of tithing, and so on. YAs, mature or immature, need good doctrine that will instruct them in how they ought to live and stir them up to taste the depths of the knowledge of God so that they might be further formed into his image (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Resources

So, if pastors or volunteers or parents want to effectively engage and disciple young adults, they must equip themselves in knowing, presenting, and defending “what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1, Cf. Titus 1:9; 1 Timothy 1:10). And we will become so by not only going deep in our Bibles, but going wide in our familiarity with solid Christian theology and growing in our ability to wield it for the good of those young people we long to reach and disciple.

So, as one step toward this, what should one be reading/doing to prepare for ministering to college agers?

Historical Theology

YAs don’t need new answers. They need age-old answers applied to contemporary phrasing of age-old questions. And thankfully for us, the Christian tradition is in no small part the history of answering the most foundational questions humans have ever wondered about. Metaphysics, morality–these are the same questions GenZ has, though staged somewhat differently.

Pick a (preferably not from this century) systematic theology or theologian and dedicate yourself to ingesting it/them. Go slow and let the sound theology seep into your bones. Recognize how the answers given centuries ago are the answers needed today, just with your own presentation.

And let the 21-year-old know where you’re getting these answers from. This will not only give you the next most solid foundation outside of Scripture with which to grapple with the questions young adults have, but it will also provide a rootedness to the young adult asking as they see this isn’t something thought up last week.

You can’t go wrong with Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. Or, if four volumes is understandably a bit much for a first bite, Louis Berkhof’s one-volume Systematic Theology is a great place to start. For a modern presentation, look at John Frame’s.

Biblical Anthropology

You knew you needed to read in this area. And you knew why. If YAs have questions about anything, it is about our bodies. What are they? Am I my body, or am I inside of it? Do bodies matter? How much do they matter? How do we know they matter more than what my mind says? Speaking of, what’s a mind? These are just the snowflakes of the iceberg.

But these questions aren’t theoretical. YAs have these questions because they have friends whose lives hang in the balance of these questions, or so it seems to them. These are live questions for YAs because they deal with lives. That is why they matter to YAs, and they should matter to you because those very lives might walk into your campus or church young adult group.

But you don’t just need to know what you think about LGBTQ+, the goodness of the material body, God’s design for marriage and family, abortion, assisted suicide, and the like. You need to know why you know. And you need to know and be able to explain why the Christian answer is not only true, but also the most beautiful and genuinely good option in the marketplace.

Here’s a starter pack:

  • The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory, Abigail Favale
  • Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, Alistair MacIntyre
  • Begotten or Made?: Human Procreation and Medical Technique, Oliver O’Donovan
  • Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Francis A. Schaeffer

 

Miscellaneous Apologetics

We must also be familiar with the various topics that YAs are likely to ask questions about. Especially for those YAs going to college, they are interacting with peers and professors who operate from a different worldview. This raises a range of questions for YAs, most of which can be categorized into a broader field that we would do well to engage. This will require us to know the best arguments of the other side. Doing so enables us to gather our own compelling and sound answers, while also being able to formulate our own questions for those worldviews to reveal their inadequacies. A few general areas in which to be well read are

  • Exclusivity of Christianity as the one true religion, and the claims of the main world religions
  • The authority and trustworthiness of the Bible and what makes it different from other religious texts
  • The relationship of Christianity to science
  • Epistemology (how do humans know what they know?)
  • Old Testament “problem passages” (God’s commanding violence, allowances for slavery, presence of polygamy, etc.).

 

Write

Finally, consider writing as you read. Writing solidifies ideas in your mind and heart. It helps you synthesize the large amounts of information you take in through books. There are countless ways of doing this. I (Dan) have a running doctrinal statement along with documents on theological topics that I add to and tweak as I read new theological material. I try to keep the writing short (100-200 words) but carefully written. Writing will make you more confident and clear when you are in an off-the-cuff conversation with a YA on a theologically dense or apologetically precarious topic.

Conclusion

Take heart, God is pursuing YAs in this generation as he has in every generation before. He formed them and knows the hurdles they have to faith in his gospel and greater growth in it. He has many people in this generation (Acts 18:10) and is more than capable of saving them. His arm is never too short. And be encouraged, while he is not dependent on you, he wants to use you to reach them. So pray for them, go on fast food runs or coffee shop meet-ups with them, hear them out for hours at a time if needed, and arm yourself with robust doctrine so that when they ask their questions or the questions of their friends, you are ready to give a sound response.



Spurgeon’s Love of Poetry: An Excerpt from Christ Our All

By / May 17

Editor’s Note: This article is taken from Christ Our All: Poems for the Christian Pilgrim and used by permission of B&H Academic. The book is now available everywhere Christian books are sold.

Spurgeon’s love of hymns began at a young age. Once, during a summer holiday, his grandmother offered him a penny for each Watts hymn he memorized. With his gifted mind, young Spurgeon memorized so many that his grandmother soon had to change her offer or risk financial ruin! The money earned was eventually spent, but his love of hymns remained with him for the rest of his life, becoming a part of his theological vocabulary. “No matter on what topic I am preaching,” he wrote, “I can even now, in the middle of any sermon, quote some verse of a hymn in harmony with the subject.”[1] As Spurgeon grew in his knowledge of hymns, his sermons would come to include not only Watts, but Toplady, Cowper, Wesley, and many other great hymn-writers of the Christian faith.

As the pastor of a church, Spurgeon sought to pass on his love of hymns to his congregants. In addition to preaching, he planned the liturgy for the gatherings of the church, including the selection of hymns. When he first arrived, there were two hymnbooks in the pews, one by Watts and the other by John Rippon. But watching people fumble with multiple books convinced Spurgeon that something had to change. So, in 1866, he compiled and published Our Own Hymn-Book, containing 1,130 psalms and hymns. As reflected in the title, Spurgeon’s concern was the church. This was not Spurgeon’s hymnbook; this was the church’s hymnbook. One of his top priorities was to pull together psalms and hymns that reflected the church’s doctrinal convictions. After all, Spurgeon understood that a church’s hymnbook was often the only book of theology most church members would ever read.

But even while Our Own Hymn-Book reflected Spurgeon’s Reformed and Baptist traditions, he also sought to introduce a wide variety of traditions, pulling together hymns from all of church history. He wrote:

The area of our researches has been as wide as the bounds of existing religious literature, American and British, Protestant and Romish; ancient and modern. Whatever may be thought of our taste we have used it without prejudice; and a good hymn has not been rejected because of the character of its author, or the heresies of the church in whose hymnal it first occurred; so long as the language and the spirit commended the hymn to our heart we included it, and believe that we have enriched our collection thereby.[2]

Thus, we see in Spurgeon’s collection of hymnbooks a wide variety of hymn writers: Scottish Presbyterians, English Baptists and Methodists, German Lutherans, Anglicans, medieval Catholics, and other nationalities and church traditions, ranging from the nineteenth century all the way back to the medieval and early church. From all these psalms and hymns, Spurgeon sought to bring out the ones that best reflected the historic faith of the apostles and the church’s doctrinal convictions. In his day, Our Own Hymn-Book was recognized as an achievement in Christian hymnody.[3]

But Spurgeon’s love of poetry extended beyond hymns. His library reveals that Spurgeon enjoyed just about every kind of poetry: ancient poetry, poems about nature, love poems, children’s rhymes, and many others. Most of all, however, Spurgeon loved poems about God and the Christian life. Preaching in 1855, Spurgeon declared, “Much as I respect the genius of Pope, or Dryden, or Burns, give me the simple lines of Cowper, that God has owned in bringing souls to Him.”[4] William Cowper was indeed one of Spurgeon’s favorite poets. He usually included Cowper’s famous hymn whenever he signed autograph albums, “E’er since by faith I saw the stream . . .”[5] Fittingly, these lines are etched on his tombstone.

Another poet he loved was John Bunyan. Throughout his life, he read, “at least a hundred times,” The Pilgrim’s Progress, “that sweetest of all prose poems,” which shaped his vision for the Christian life.[6] What he loved most about it was simply how much Bible was in it.[7] Bunyan brought together Spurgeon’s love of Scripture with his love of poetry.

Yet another of his favorite poets was George Herbert. Herbert was a source of refreshment for Spurgeon, especially after a long day of ministry.[8] His wife, Susannah, recounted:

It is the Sabbath, and the day’s work is done. The dear preacher has had a light repast, and now rests in his easy chair by a bright fire, while, on a low cushion at his feet, sits his wife, eager to minister in some way to her beloved’s comfort. “Shall I read to you to-night, dear?” she says; for the excitement and labor of the Sabbath services sorely try him, and his mind needs some calm and soothing influence to set it at rest. “Will you have a page or two of good George Herbert?” “Yes, that will be very refreshing, wifey; I shall like that.” So the book is procured, and he chooses a portion which I read slowly and with many pauses, that he may interpret to me the sweet mysteries hidden within the gracious words. Perhaps his enjoyment of the book is all the greater that he has thus to explain and open out to me the precious truths enwrapped in Herbert’s quaint verse;—anyhow, the time is delightfully spent. I read on and on for an hour or more, till the peace of Heaven flows into our souls, and the tired servant of the King of kings loses his sense of fatigue, and rejoices after his toil.[9]

For Spurgeon, poetry was about more than just entertainment. It gave him the perspective of a Christian pilgrim. It provided spiritual nourishment for his tired soul. And it strengthened him with a renewed joy in God for the week ahead.

Thou Art My All (by C. H. Spurgeon)

Dear Lord, in thee I view my all,
And lovely is thy name.
For though on earth I slip or fall,
Thy love remains the same.

Each day reminds me I am weak
To stand against my foes;
And, but that I thy help may seek,
I’d fall beneath my woes.

But thou hast said my strength shall be
According to my day.
Thy promise has been kept to me,
And still will be I pray.

For what are we if left to roam
In life’s deceitful way?
Yet farther off, not nearer home,
Our feet are prone to stray.

Then never have us Lord to tread
This world without a guide.
And never let the tempter lead
Thine erring sheep aside.

“I will not leave, nor yet forsake
My people here below;
Until in glory they shall wake
And purer regions know.”

For further reflection: Deuteronomy 33:25–27

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[1] Autobiography 1:43–44.

[2] OOH, vi–vii.

[3] For an appreciative nineteenth-century analysis of Spurgeon’s contribution to Christian hymnody, see Josiah Miller, Singers and Songs of the Church: Being Biographical Sketches of the Hymn-Writers in All the Principal Collections: with Notes on their Psalms and Hymns (London: Longmans, Green, 1869), 580–81.

[4] NPSP 1:344.

[5] Hayden, Highlights, 101.

[6] MTP 45:495.

[7] “Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire; and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures. It is really Biblical teaching put into the form of a simple yet very striking allegory.” C. H. Spurgeon, Pictures from Pilgrim’s Progress: A Commentary on Portions of John Bunyan’s Immortal Allegory with Prefatory Notes by Thomas Spurgeon (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Publications, 1992), 11.

[8] “Frequently, when I return home from chapel on the Sabbath evening, I get down George Herbert’s book of songs; and when I see how much he loved the Lord, it seems to me as if he had struck upon his harp the very notes that he had heard in Paradise, and sung them all again.” MTP 46:106.

[9] Autobiography 2:185–86.