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Study
Dr Barnhouse on Study of the Word
I recall the comment of the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, who said, “If I had only three years to serve the Lord, I would spend two of them studying and preparing.”
Dallas Seminary will not be insensitive to the economic struggles and time demands of our students. But this does not mean we will lose the reputation of being a place where the diligent study of the Scriptures occurs.
As C. S. Lewis declared: “If all the world were Christian it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now—not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground—would be to throw down our weapons, and betray our uneducated brethren who have no defense but us against intellectual attacks of the heathen.
“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. The learned life is then, for some, a duty.”
Dr. Charles R. Swindoll, excerpted from the inaugural address at Dallas Theological Seminary, October 27, 1994, and quoted in Presidential Inauguration, a special edition of DTS News, December 1994, p. 2
Learn the Word as You Would Your Trade
Remember the wise words of Richard Baxter to the people of Kidderminster: “Where you but as willing to get the knowledge of God and heavenly things as you are to know how to work in your trade, you would have set yourself to it before this day, and you would have spared no cost or pains till you had got it. But you account seven years little enough to learn your trade and will not bestow one day in seven in diligent learning the matters of your salvation.’
John R. W. Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, Some New Testament Word Studies, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1961), p. 27
Stumbling Blocks or Stepping Stones
Does God ever use black angels
To carry out His plan
Does He reverse old Satan’s tactic
To change the lives of men.
I think He takes the happenings
Of life—amid our moans
And makes to us each thing we meet
Stumbling blocks or stepping stones.
I think He takes each pathway blockage
To test our mettle: be it foul or fair
And urges us to fight a good fight
And not as one who beat the air.
So if something happens to deter us
Let’s not fall down and groan
Let’s say - Lord with your help I will go on
And make of this—a stepping stone.
Isn’t it strange that princes and kings
And clown that caper in sawdust rings,
And common folk like you and me
Are the builders of eternity.
To each is given a bag of tools,
A lump of clay, a book of rules
And each must make ere time is flown
A stumbling block or a stepping stone.
Author Unknown
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