Tag: David Wells

Summer 2023 NTJ Available (pdf)

Published on by D. G. HartLeave a comment

To repeat, this is not a typo. The Summer 2023 issue is now available at Oldlife.org. Huzzah? Maybe not.

In it, readers will find a case for shorter (8-10 years) pastorates as opposed to the increasingly common one of decades long tenures for pastors. Here is an excerpt:

In lengthy pastoral tenures a congregation becomes so comfortable with their minister (and vice versa) that the identity of the place has more to do with the people in this particular setting than with the denomination. Such a situation makes it harder to find a successor to the long-term pastor. A congregation might need to conduct a lengthy search to find that one person who has just the right gifts for this group of Christian. At that point, the congregation might well forget the nature of the ministry according to the common standards of the denomination. They might want “our guy” more than, for instance, a generic Presbyterian pastor who can do all the things that a man trained for the Reformed ministry is supposed to do. The congregation might forget what it means to belong to a certain communion because it functions largely within its own local context with its own pastor. A pastoral search could then depend more on personal qualities than on the demands of presbytery and the denomination’s corporate witness.

Conversely, expectations for relatively short pastorates, say from five to seven years, likely nurture a sense of belonging to a wider communion in which ideally all of the ministers should be able to serve in any congregation. Instead of building up a kind of co-dependency between minister and congregation thanks to a long tenure, a series of medium-term calls may encourage church members to deepen their membership in the broader communion beyond the congregation.

Who Will Review in that Great Day?

Published on by D. G. Hart26 Comments

Our Virtuous Commonwealth of Pennsylvania correspondent sends us news of a book, From Heaven He Came and Sought Her, on limited definite atonement. It features chapters by:

Raymond A. Blacketer, Henri A. G. Blocher, Amar Djaballah, Sinclair Ferguson, Lee Gatiss, David Gibson, Jonathan Gibson, Matthew S. Harmon, Michael A. G. Haykin, Paul Helm, David S. Hogg, Robert Letham, Donald Macleod, J. Alec Motyer, cJohn Piper, Thomas R. Schreiner, Daniel Strange, Carl R. Trueman, Stephen J. Wellum, Garry J. Williams, and Paul R. Williamson.

It comes with endorsements from:

J. I. Packer, D. A. Carson, Michael Horton, David Wells, John Frame, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Ligon Duncan, and Kelly M. Kapic.

So who is left who teaches theology or historical theology to review this book? And will those people feel all that kindly to a book whose editors overlooked them?

Sometimes publishers go overboard with endorsements and take out of circulation people who should be reviewing the book. Of course, endorsements may sell more books than reviews. But I doubt it.