Happy St. Patrick's Day! If you want to learn more about this Christian pastor and missionary, check out this biography of Patrick by Acts 29 pastor Reid Monaghan.
A network of churches planting churches for the glory of Jesus. Get more info.
I am a servant of Christ to a foreign nation for the unspeakable glory of life everlasting which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. – Patrick
My family name was originally O’Driscoll until it was changed a few generations ago by relatives hoping to more fully assimilate into American culture after immigrating from Ireland. Though I was raised Irish Catholic, I knew virtually nothing about Saint Patrick other than the green beer, parades, shamrocks, leprechauns, and drunken Red Sox fans that celebrated in his honor every March 17th.
Technically, Saint Patrick is not even a saint, as he was never canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Additionally, Patrick was not even Irish. Rather, he was a Roman-Britain who spoke Latin and a bit of Welsh.
Patrick was born around 390 A.D. When he was roughly 16 years of age he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland on a ship where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next six years alone in the wilderness as a shepherd for his masters’ cattle and sheep.
Patrick was a rebellious non-Christian teenager who had come from a Christian family. His grandfather was a pastor, and his father was a deacon. However, during his extended periods of isolation without any human contact, Patrick began praying and was eventually born again into a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. Patrick endured the years of isolation in rain and snow by praying up to 100 prayers each day and another 100 each night.
In his early twenties God spoke to Patrick in a dream, telling him to flee from his master for a ship that was waiting for him. Amazingly, Patrick made the 200-mile journey on foot without being caught or harmed to find a ship setting sail for his home, just as God had promised. The sailors were out of food for the journey, and after Patrick prayed a herd of pigs miraculously ran toward the ship, providing a bountiful feast for the long voyage home.
Upon returning home, Patrick enrolled in seminary and was eventually commissioned as a pastor. Some years later God spoke to Patrick in a dream, commanding him to return to Ireland to preach the gospel and plant churches for the pagans who lived there.
The Roman Catholic Church had given up on converting such “barbarians” deemed beyond hope. The Celtic peoples, of which the Irish were part, were an illiterate bunch of drunken, fighting, perverted pagans who basically had sex with anyone and worshiped anything. They were such a violent and lawless people, numbering anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000, that they had no city centers or national government and were spread out among some 150 warring clans. Their enemies were terrified of them because they were known to show up for battles and partake in wild orgies before running into battle naked and drunk while screaming as if they were demon-possessed. One clan was so debased that it was customary for each of their new kings to copulate with a white mare as part of his inauguration.
In faith, the forty-something year-old Patrick sold all of his possessions, including the land he had inherited from his father, to fund his missionary journey to Ireland. He worked as an itinerant preacher and paid large sums of money to various tribal chiefs to ensure he could travel safely through their lands and preach the gospel. His strategy was completely unique, and he functioned like a missionary trying to relate to the Irish people and communicate the gospel in their culture by using such things as three-leaf clovers to explain the gospel. Upon entering a pagan clan, Patrick would seek to first convert the tribal leaders and other people of influence. He would then pray for the sick, cast demons out of the possessed, preach the Bible, and use both musical and visual arts to compel people to put their faith in Jesus. If enough converts were present he would build a simple church that did not resemble ornate Roman architecture, baptize the converts, and hand over the church to a convert he had trained to be the pastor so that he could move on to repeat the process with another clan.
Patrick gave his life to the people who had enslaved him until he died at 77 years of age. He had seen untold thousands of people convert as between 30-40 of the 150 tribes had become substantially Christian. He had trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery.
Curiously, Patrick’s unorthodox ministry methods, which had brought so much fruit among the Irish, also brought much opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. Because Patrick was so far removed from Roman civilization and church polity he was seen by some as an instigator of unwelcome changes. This led to great conflicts between the Roman and Celtic Christians. The Celtic Christians had their own calendar and celebrated Easter a week earlier than their Roman counterparts. Additionally, the Roman monks shaved only the hair on the top of their head, whereas the Celtic monks shaved all of their hair except their long locks which began around the bottom of their head as a funky monk mullet. The Romans considered these and other variations by the Celtic Christian leaders to be acts of insubordination.
In the end, the Roman Church should have learned from Patrick, who is one of the greatest missionaries who has ever lived. Though Patrick’s pastors and churches looked different in method, they were very orthodox in their theology and radically committed to such things as Scripture and the Trinity. Additionally, they were some of the most gifted Christian artists the world has ever known, and their prayers and songs endure to this day around the world, including at Mars Hill where we occasionally sing the "Prayer of Saint Patrick" and the Celtic hymn "Be Thou My Vision."
Valentine’s Day is often loved by women and loathed by men, who drop their cash on flowers, jewelry, candy, and cards. Perhaps comic Jay Leno expressed the male dilemma about Valentine’s Day best in one of his monologues: “Today is Valentine's Day—or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day!” Conversely, the hopelessly romantic at heart enjoy the opportunity that Valentine’s Day affords for thoughtful romance and unbridled passion.
Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, the fact is that it has evolved into an enormous holiday. The question remains, however, who is Valentine and how did he come to be associated with everything from the color red to some secret known only by a woman named Victoria?
While the details of his life are sketchy at best, Valentine was allegedly a Christian who was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint. His name was common and is derived from the Latin word valens, meaning strong and powerful.
One legend claims that Emperor Claudius II (or Claudius the Goth) outlawed marriage because he decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and he wanted to bolster the strength of his military. But a priest named Valentine secretly performed marriages, thereby defending romance and love.
Another legend claims that just prior to being beheaded, Valentine prayed over the daughter of his jailer. This led to the curing of her blindness and the conversion of her entire family, including her father, though he still put Valentine to death toward the end of the third century.
Further contributing to all of the confusion is the fact that there may have been as many as three Christians named Valentine who were all martyred, thereby making it seemingly impossible to know which stories are true and to which men they apply.
Although the celebration of the life of Saint Valentine was not initially met with much fanfare, he eventually grew in popularity for a very practical reason. Around AD 498, Pope Gelasius chose February 14 as the day for commemorating Valentine’s life because that was the day he reportedly died as a Christian martyr around AD 270. That day proved to be serendipitous, as the medieval legend emerged that birds select their mates on February 14, thereby associating the day with romance and love. Also, Saint Valentine’s Day fell the day before the Hefner-esque Roman fertility feast of Lupercalia on February 15. Lupercalia was a drunken, naked crazy-fest not unlike modern-day Mardi Gras celebrations. Lupercalia was dedicated to the god of partying, Faunus, and was marked by the usual frat-boy nonsense of naked guys running through the streets while crowds danced and drank heavily, and young singles enjoyed “hooking up.”
Once Saint Valentine became connected with the debauchery of Lupercalia, his Christian influence on the holiday quickly waned; the two holidays essentially merged and the spirit of Lupercalia remained but was renamed Valentine’s Day. At this point, Valentine’s Day quickly grew in popularity. Its association with the color red may stem from the fact that the color red was chosen to commemorate the death of Valentine who died the bloody death of a martyr. Also, the association with the chubby, winged pseudo-angel Cupid, who is the mythical son of the Roman goddess of love, Venus, is a Lupercalia leftover from pagan mythology.
Perhaps the most common present-day tradition associated with Valentine’s Day is the giving of valentine cards. No one is certain how this tradition began. One legend reports that Valentine actually sent the first valentine. The story goes that while in prison awaiting his execution, he wrote a love letter to a woman and signed it, “From your Valentine.” Apparently the expression stuck and remains perennially popular.
By the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day was widely celebrated. The first Valentine’s Day card was reportedly a poem sent by Charles, the Duke of Orleans, to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. That card remains on display at the British Museum in London to this day. By 1450, to be someone’s valentine was synonymous with being his or her sweetheart. By 1533, a valentine was synonymous with a piece of paper folded as a romantic card. By 1610, valentine gifts were also commonly given to sweethearts.
By the mid-1700s, Valentine’s Day grew in popularity throughout Great Britain, and around that time Americans also began exchanging handmade valentine cards. By the 1840s, the commercial greeting card companies began mass-producing valentines marked by such girlie adornments as lace and ribbon. Today, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, following Christmas.
Sadly, the holiday in his name completely ignores our Christian brother Valentine. As a pastor, he likely would have been mortified at much of what is done in the name of love to commemorate the day his head was chopped off because of his love for Jesus.
In Martin Luther’s essay, “The Freedom of a Christian,” we read the following: “I believe that it has now become clear that it is not enough or in any sense ‘Christian’ to preach the works, life, and words of Christ as historical fact, as if the knowledge of these would suffice for the conduct of life.”
Luther is claiming that asking “What Would Jesus Do?” is a bad question for your spiritual formation. Luther continues: “Yet, this is the fashion among those who today are regarded as our best preachers…and such teaching is childish and effeminate nonsense.” Luther’s 16th century words are still relevant today.
Thankfully, Luther explains why he considers WWJD a bad question:
Don’t get all excited because you now have a great theologian giving you a divine sanction on your favorite sins. Luther spends the rest of his essay talking about what it looks like to love God and your neighbor. He is no antinomian.
But do get angry if you’re offended by the gospel. That can be a good thing because it points you to some good news—that the remedy for guilt and condemnation is NOT your better law-keeping or adherence to your well-polished moral sense, but faith in the law-keeping of Jesus. Because of Christ, you are already vindicated in the eyes of God. God’s riches of forgiveness and freedom from guilt, condemnation, and shame are offered not on the basis of working or measuring up. Rather, you have a right standing before God because of the righteousness of Christ.
So, what would Luther do? In the face of suffocating religion and moralism, he would offend boldly and celebrate the liberty of faith for the sake of the gospel.
Serving the church and spreading the gospel. Help support this effort by giving to the Global Fund. More info at MarsHillGlobal.com.
Robert Robinson (1735-1790) was an English minister. After the death of his father, a young Robinson lived a life of drunken recklessness and destructiveness. He changed his life course after hearing a sermon preached by George Whitefield, and at the age of 20, he reformed his ways and became a Methodist preacher, penning the well-known hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
Continued from Part 1.
Scripture gives scant insights into the early life of Mary. She grew up in Nazareth and was betrothed to be married to a carpenter named Joseph. During her engagement, the angel Gabriel appeared to her to declare that she would give birth to Jesus by a miracle of God the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). Following this announcement she traveled some one hundred miles to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was from the family line of Aaron (Luke 1:36). Upon entering Elizabeth’s home, she broke into a hymn of thanks to God (Luke 1:46–56), which has come to be known as the Magnificat. Mary later returned home and her fiancé, Joseph, was intending to end their relationship because he believed she had been sexually unfaithful to him. But God intervened and told Joseph in a dream all that He was doing (Matthew 1:18–25). Some months later the couple was required to travel about eighty or ninety miles to Bethlehem to register for a government census. Mary’s son was born there in humble circumstances (Luke 2:6–7), in fulfillment of Micah 5:2. He was named Jesus in accordance with an angel’s requirement (Matthew 1:21).
The family would later flee to Egypt to save the life of young Jesus and then they returned to Nazareth. Around perhaps the age of twelve, Jesus went to Jerusalem and was noted by the teachers for His theological insights (Luke 2:41–52). Jesus performed His first miracle at the request of Mary at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11). Mary is scarcely mentioned again in the Gospels until she appears at the crucifixion of Jesus, where He spoke to her lovingly just before His death (John 19:26–27). Following Jesus’ death, Mary then appears with the group of 120 early Christians who gathered in the Upper Room (Acts 1:12–26). She does not appear in Scripture again and her death is not mentioned in Scripture.
Mary was simply a very godly young woman who loved the Lord and trusted in Him despite great risk to her own reputation. She repeatedly appears as a devout woman who loved God and was a loving mother to Jesus. Contrary to some aberrant teaching, she did not remain a virgin, but mothered other sons such as James and Jude, who visited Jesus with Mary during His ministry (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31–35; Luke 8:19–21) and later became pastors who penned books of the New Testament bearing their names.
Therefore, the Mary of Scripture greatly differs from the Mary of myth, legend, and folklore. The real Mary is a wonderful example for young women to love God and retain their virginity until marriage as a demonstration of their love for God. The real Mary is a wonderful example for mothers of a godly woman who is best known for the sons she raised, whom God used to change the world, thereby elevating the ministry of Christian motherhood. The real Mary is a wonderful example for all women of what it truly means to trust God in all things, obey God even when His call is difficult, worship God in faith that He is good for His promises, fellowship with God’s people in the church, and love God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
– Mary worshipping God in Luke 1:46–47
Each May it seems curious to me that many Protestant Christians do not focus on Jesus’ mother, Mary, in conjunction with the celebration of Mother’s Day. This may be, in part, an overreaction to the improper emphasis upon and false teachings about Mary among many Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
In the second century, Irenaeus depicted Mary as a “second Eve,” laying a foundation upon which later theologians would build an unbiblical view of Mary, including Cardinal Newman who rediscovered the image in the nineteenth century. Also, in the second century, the baptismal creed began referring to Jesus as “Born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” By the fourth century, some churches were being dedicated to Mary. In the fifth century, the Council of Ephesus declared Mary the “mother of God,” which further encouraged devotion to Mary. In the eighth century, Germanus of Constantinople said that Mary dispenses grace to the church on earth, and also taught, along with others, that Mary was Mediatrix, meaning that she participated in saving people along with Jesus.
In the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux helped to popularize the idea that Mary dispenses grace to Christians, and the “Hail Mary” prayer was introduced and combined with the Rosary. In the fourteenth century, the title Coredemptrix first appeared in Catholic literature, speaking of Mary as participating with Jesus in our redemption (this concept continued gaining popularity, and in more recent times the late Pope John Paul II spoke of it on multiple occasions).
In the fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV spoke of the spiritual motherhood of Mary over all Christians and the “Hail Mary” prayer was changed to its current form. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, shrines dedicated to Mary appeared in places such as Lourdes, France, and Fatima, Portugal. In the twentieth century, Pope Pius XII declared that Mary ascended into heaven like Jesus, called for the memorial of Mary’s role as queen dispensing grace to Christians, and said that she was so united with Jesus that she was involved in His suffering and our salvation. The Catholic Church also held a congress on Mary and sponsored pilgrimages to some of the shrines dedicated to Mary.
Having been raised as a Catholic, I did pray to Mary as a young boy. Once I met Jesus at the age of nineteen, though, I was convicted that I had sinned against God by praying to anyone but Him. In some ways I then overreacted for a few years and did not esteem Mary as I should have. Sadly, it seems that many Christians are also prone to the extremes of either esteeming Mary too much or esteeming her too little.
The key to undoing all of the false teaching surrounding Mary is, of course, to simply look at what Scripture does say about her and add nothing to that. Mary appears by name in three of the four gospels (the Gospel of John refers to “Jesus’ mother”) and the book of Acts. She was a young virgin girl, perhaps even a young teenager, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14.
Continue to Part 2.
At the age of twenty-seven Calvin settled in the city of Geneva. There he sought to fulfill his missiological church planting vision—to build a city that operated according to the principles of the Bible as an outpost for the kingdom of God on earth. Through his preaching and teaching Calvin became the most famous citizen in Geneva, refashioning every aspect of society from, law to theology, seeking to bring it under the lordship of Jesus and authority of his Word. Many years later, Marxist genius Leon Trotsky, who helped Lenin create the Soviet Union out of the Russian Revolution of 1917, said that Karl Marx and John Calvin were the two greatest revolutionaries in all of Western history.
In the 1550s John Calvin saw the population of his city of Geneva double as Christians fled there from persecution. One of those refugees who came to Geneva was the Englishman John Bale, who wrote, “Geneva seems to me to be the wonderful miracle of the whole world. For so many from all countries come here, as it were, to a sanctuary. Is it not wonderful that Spaniards, Italians, Scots, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, disagreeing in manners, speech, and apparel, should live so lovingly and friendly, and dwell together like a . . . Christian congregation?”
God in his loving providence forced Geneva to become a short-term training ground in missions, where Christians from varying cultures lived together under the teaching of John Calvin and had to determine for themselves what to receive, reject, and redeem from their culture so as to effectively contextualize the gospel and do evangelism.
After they had such wonderful theological training and missiological experience, many of the Christians returned to their cultures once persecution subsided. The result was an explosion of contending, contextualizing, and church planting, which is the logical result of the first two works. In fact, in France there were only five underground Protestant Churches in 1555, but by 1562, 2,150 churches were planted, with some three million people in them. Furthermore, some of the churches were megachurches, with anywhere from four to nine thousand people in attendance.
Additionally, Calvin sent church planting missionaries to Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and the free imperial city-states in the Rhineland. The Atlantic Ocean was even crossed by church planting missionaries Calvin sent to South America and what is today Brazil.
Along with Martin Luther, Calvin is regarded as the most towering figure of the Protestant Reformation, although the two men never met. Calvin is credited with helping to bring about the rise of capitalism and democracy, which emerged from his theological teaching and helped to shape the entire Western world. Movements such as Puritanism, as well as the modern-day Presbyterian and Reformed churches, follow in his legacy.
Today, men such as Lesslie Newbigin, Tim Keller, and Ed Stetzer carry forward the legacy and influence of Calvin on missiology and church planting. These three men, one deceased and two living, are faithfully and fruitfully taking the same ideas that drove Calvin and applying them to our own age with keen insight.
In our own day there are many faithful Reformed Bible teachers carrying on in the legacy of Charles Spurgeon. Among the best known is John MacArthur, a fifth-generation pastor. Like Spurgeon, he has committed his life to Bible preaching and teaching. This commitment extends, as Spurgeon’s did, to leading a school to train people for gospel ministry (The Master's College and The Master’s Seminary, which we have benefited from directly since one of our Mars Hill elders is a graduate), publishing many Bible commentaries, and launching publications. He has also published a long list of books. Among those I found most helpful to me as a newer Christian is The Gospel According to Jesus, which was a seminal book in what has been called the “Lordship Salvation Controversy.” When planting Mars Hill Church, I also gleaned a lot from his books Shepherdology and The Master’s Plan for the Church.
Also admirable are his bold stands for the gospel, including appearances on major networks such as CNN, and actually being sued as a church for practicing church discipline because the Bible commands it. MacArthur has always been a strong proponent of expositional Bible teaching through books of the Bible. That idea has definitely caught on among New Calvinists, and it is now the predominant form of preaching in that tribe.
If memory serves me correctly, I was first introduced to MacArthur’s teaching ministry when I heard him on the radio as a new Christian. I went on to listen to literally hundreds of his sermons on cassette (yes, I am old enough to remember cassettes). His radio program recently includes what I believe is a new twist—answering questions from the people in his church. In my opinion, this is some of his richest teaching because he blends his knowledge of the Bible with affection for his people and the occasional insight from his own life and childhood, all of which is quite compelling.
For many years, MacArthur was not noted as a Calvinist, but rather better known for being a Bible preacher and teacher. In a conversation I had with our mutual friend, John Piper, he said that about fifteen years ago MacArthur started putting Puritan sermons in the back of his books. This prompted Piper to invite MacArthur to the Desiring God Pastors Conference and ask him publicly if he is a five-point Calvinist, to which MacArthur replied, “Yes.” Since that time we have also seen MacArthur mellow out a bit on the cessationist position that some spiritual gifts in the Bible are not for today, which he argued for in Charismatic Chaos. He has gone so far as to welcome C. J. Mahaney—who is both a devoted Calvinist and charismatic—to preach at Grace Community Church and other events. For these and many more reasons, I want to honor MacArthur in our tributes this week.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) is my favorite mentor outside of Scripture. Visiting his college and the private collection of his library and memoirs was a highlight of my visit to London.
Spurgeon was the oldest of seventeen children, though nine died in infancy. Due to financial hardship, at the age of eighteen months he was sent to live with his grandfather, who, like Charles’ father, was a strong-willed Calvinistic preacher. At a young age he began reading his father's and grandfather’s theological books and listening in on their theological conversations with other men. On one occasion the visiting preacher Richard Knill prophesied over Charles, “This child will one day preach the gospel, and he will preach it to great multitudes.”
Free public education was not available in his day and so his father paid for a private education for Charles. By the age of ten, Charles was reading the Puritans with great delight.
Spurgeon began preaching shortly after his conversion to Jesus Christ at the age of sixteen. He soon became the best-known Bible preacher in the world in his day, and perhaps the best preacher in the history of the church outside of Scripture, along with John Chrysostom (347–407). Spurgeon preached up to ten times a week and was heard by twenty million people from his pulpit over the course of his lifetime.
Four years after his conversion, at the age of twenty, he was appointed the pastor of London’s famous New Park Street Chapel, which was previously led by the distinguished Reformed Baptist theologian John Gill. Spurgeon was such a magnetic draw that the previously struggling church, which had dwindled to a few hundred people, soon outgrew their building and had to move to Exeter Hall, and then to Surrey Music Hall. Spurgeon often preached to crowds of more than ten thousand without any amplification. His church became the world’s largest by the time of his death, meeting in the Metropolitan Tabernacle that they had eventually built.
Spurgeon was a committed lifelong student. He had a large library built in his home so that he could study continually and still be near his sick wife. He had a large, round desk with a hinge that permitted him to sit in the middle of it with his beloved books surrounding him.
Spurgeon was blessed by a rigorous mind and powerful voice but also suffered from poor health. He suffered continually from a variety of ailments, ranging from kidney disease to gout, which occasionally prevented him from preaching and ultimately took his life at age fifty-seven. Additionally, his beloved wife Susannah struggled mightily with poor health. In his seasons of tremendous pain he was forced to pray and trust the goodness of God. Nonetheless, his suffering greatly clarified his understanding of Jesus’ painful atonement and great love for his people.
His prayers also sustained him when he was forced to miss up to seven weeks at a time and lie bedridden in pain rather than preach to his congregation. Spurgeon struggled with depression prompted by his poor health and the painful burden he carried for the many pastors who came to him for counsel. Perhaps the darkest period of Spurgeon’s ministry came when troublemakers began falsely crying “Fire!” to a packed congregation that had come to hear him preach, causing a stampede that killed some people who were trampled underfoot.
Spurgeon was known to have a robust sense of humor that spilled out into his preaching, much to the consternation of his many critics. Still, Spurgeon shared the Bible’s love of irony and sarcasm, and his great wit endeared him to people who appreciated the fullness of his emotional life. This made him a real human being from whom people enjoyed learning the Bible. Among my favorite Spurgeon quips is his statement that he loved church committees and believed the ideal committee consisted of three people, two of whom stayed home.
Spurgeon was committed to activism and social justice, going so far as to preach against slavery, which made him very unpopular in America, where his printed sermons were banned and burned. Spurgeon was also a very merciful man who opened and oversaw an orphanage for needy children. Many called the orphanage the greatest sermon he ever preached. His wife, Susannah, had a particular burden for poor pastors who could not afford books to assist their studies of Scripture. She raised money for a pastors’ book fund that gave away thousands of books to needy pastors.
Throughout his ministry, Spurgeon came under continual attack because of both his conservative theology and successful ministry. What has come to be known as the “Downgrade Controversy” ultimately led to Spurgeon being kicked out of his own Baptist denomination for his unwillingness to stop teaching such things as eternal torment in a literal hell, the literal truthfulness of Scripture, a literal creation by God, and the perfection and divine inspiration of Scripture. In his final days, Spurgeon was attacked by hyper-Calvinistic legalists and universalistic liberals alike, the former because he freely preached the gospel to all people, and the latter because he did not believe that everyone would be saved.
The hyper-Calvinists in his day disdained Spurgeon for his passion for lost people to meet Jesus and his continual offering of the gospel of grace to the masses, which led to the baptism of 14,692 converts during his ministry. Despite much mean-spirited opposition, Spurgeon never shied away from calling all men to repentance. He used unconventional means, such as meeting in a public theater (not a church) and preaching from a stage (not a raised pulpit), in an effort to be more culturally relevant in his ministry style. Curiously, however, he forbade the use of choirs, organs, and other musical instruments in his church services.
Upon his death, sixty thousand people passed before his open coffin in one day, with a similar crowd the ensuing day. Four memorial services were held in one day for the members of the church, ministers and students, members of other denominations, and the general public, respectively. The road to the cemetery from his church was lined with hundreds of thousands of people whose lives had been touched by the power of the gospel through Jesus’ servant, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
For those wanting to study Spurgeon more in depth, I have particularly enjoyed the following resources and recommend them to you for consideration:
My wife, Grace, has also enjoyed studying the life of Charles’ bride and recommends the book Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon by Charles Ray.
The Resurgence is a reformed, complementarian, missional movement that trains missional leaders to serve the Church to transform cultures for Christ.
