I think I know what you’re saying, but part of this confused me.

You decry a “pick and choose” attitude with reference to what we glean from the biographies of the holy men of old. But, isn’t that what we have to do, unless you’re advocating that we take everything they did and said as Gospel? (With the exception of Spurgeon in your short list, they’d have all been baby-baptizers, for instance.) The best men are in the process of sanctification, not having yet arrived, and so I’m not sure I see the point about accepting their practices as good and godly just because they practiced them. All things must still be examined and tested.

I believe I know you well enough to know that this is not what you intended to convey. I’m guessing you probably meant that if these “better brethren” can teach us theology as well as they do, there’s a fine chance they can also show us what good theology looks like in practice.

You said:

You decry a “pick and choose” attitude with reference to what we glean from the biographies of the holy men of old. But, isn’t that what we have to do, unless you’re advocating that we take everything they did and said as Gospel? (With the exception of Spurgeon in your short list, they’d have all been baby-baptizers, for instance.)

First, it isn’t like they don’t baptize at all. They have their own means of baptism, so that particular disagreement is in methodology of a doctrine we both affirm (like, for example, some churches use grapejuice and crackers, while others use a real loaf and wine).

Secondly, of course I’m not advocating that we take everything they said as gospel. I am simply saying that there are too many who completely disregard some foundational principles that these men held to, while still claiming them to be ‘heroes’ and picking and choosing what they do like about them (often times not even really understanding what they think they like about them). Examples could be given, but I think you get my point.

You said:

I’m guessing you probably meant that if these “better brethren” can teach us theology as well as they do, there’s a fine chance they can also show us what good theology looks like in practice.

Exactly. If we like their theology, why don’t we look at their lives? I didn’t want to take the space writing out the details in my post, but most of these men lived strict, disciplined, and upright lives, which would make even the best Christians today look like lazy and unprofitable.

For example, Whitefield would get up at 4am because he believed that a minister of the gospel shouldn’t sleep later than those who got up early to go about their secular jobs. If their work was worth getting up early for, how much more was his, he reasoned, and he sought to convey this practice to others. Now, today that would be seen as legalism, as overly-strict, etc. I’m not saying we all get up at 4am, but I am saying that far too many people would cry legalism if we took a closer look at some of the foundational principles that these men lived by as an outworking of their theology.

By the way, I totally agree with the post, then. But I do so painfully because I am one of those you mention whose laziness and time-wasting is utterly condemned by the lives of my better brethren.

By God’s grace, I have repented of that, though. I confess it is their prayer lives that most humiliate me. And their productivity. I am shocked at how much some of them wrote and preached. Shocked, I tell ya. But challenged, as well.

Gotta go…prayer time slipping away.