BELFAST
BOUND
The Mystery of Teaching
I consider it an odd thing that God has chosen to build His people primarily through means that involve teaching. It is so interesting to me how God has chosen to build His Church and bring people to Christ through the means of people simply preaching and teaching the message of Scripture. Why is it that words are the things that change lives and make Christ's Gospel abound in the world? It seems so out of step with the way the world would choose to spread it's kingdom but this is the wisdom of God.
When Christ was about to ascend into heaven, He instructed the disciples to go to all the world, making disciples “teaching them all that I have commanded” (Matthew 28:16-20). This passage shows teaching is critical to the very being of the church. In Acts 2, we see how the Apostle Peter preaches a sermon, primarily explaining how the history of God’s work among His people as it is recorded in the Old Testament demonstrates how Jesus is the Christ who has come to save His people. Because of this sermon, which was meant to teach how the Old Testament Scriptures witness to Christ, more than 3,000 came to faith in Jesus-because of plain explanation of the truths of Scripture. The Apostles even considered it their primary job to commit themselves to only three things: breaking of the bread (Lord’s Supper), prayer, and, of course, teaching (Acts 2:42).
Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, tells us two astounding things that relate to teaching. The first is that faith itself comes from God working through the announcement of His Word: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). When God’s Word is announced, dead hearts come to life. The act of teaching is directly connected to how people become Christians in the first place.
The second thing from Romans is that teaching is strongly linked to our growth in godliness. In Romans 6:17, Paul gives thanks that people who were once enslaved to sin have now become obedient to “the standard of teaching.” Paul links the act of teaching to our growth in the Christian life as well.
Granted, all of these things I have mentioned so far are acts carried out by our pastors and elders in every faithful local church. It is also the case, however, that in order for ministers to be equipped to faithfully fulfill their callings to teach the Word of God, they need special training. As J. Gresham Machen liked to say it, ministers need to be equipped to be “experts in the Bible.” And Machen thought this was the task of the theological seminary.
Paul writes to his disciple Timothy: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:1-2) I take this charge to be one that binds leaders in the church today as well to train younger men and prepare them for future ministry. This requires that the church have two things 1) qualifications that men must achieve before they can enter the ministry and 2) a way to train these men in those qualifications. The church has used the theological seminary to train future ministers of the gospel for centuries.
I am committed to God’s program of preaching His Word with the expectation that through that preaching, people will be brought to faith and will be strengthened in that faith. I am also committed to reproducing faith ministers of God’s Word in the next generation. For this reason, I want to pursue teaching at the seminary level. We need to work for the sake of the next generation of the church and need laborers who will commit themselves, not only to understand Scripture and explain it to others, but who will also be well trained enough to teach others the very art of interpreting and preaching Scripture.
Why Study Church History?
The Christian faith is a very historical religion. Christian doctrines are not abstract principles of wisdom, nor a timeless set of truths. Christianity is founded and centered on the very historical reality of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are nothing if we do not fix ourselves on the historical reality of a first century Jewish man, who was also the eternal Son of God and the Savior of God’s people. History, therefore, should be intrinsically important to Christians.
But why study the history of the church? One very profound reason is that I believe Christ never abandoned His people. After His ascension, Christ sent His Holy Spirit to be at work in His people. We are not a people left without our Lord among us, but He is among us by His Spirit. I believe the Spirit has been at work among God’s people to help us understand God’s Word and apply it to our lives. For this reason, it is incredibly helpful for us to study the members of God’s church who have written about their study of the Scriptures from ages past. We gain real insights from what God has taught His people in past centuries and this is helpful for us because we do not have to start over trying to understand the Bible in every generation. We have great deposits of learning about Scripture from Christians of times long before ours.
Another great reason to study church history is because it shows us examples of God’s faithfulness to His church throughout history. It gives us testimonies of how God has upheld us and taught us from His Word in all ages.
One more great reason to study church history is that reading theologians from history helps gives us new perspectives on our own theological difficulties. Theologians of the past certainly made mistakes in their theology, but they did not make the same mistakes that we make. They faced different trials than we do. Reading their works can help us understand the mistakes they made and give us clarity on those issues, but more so, reading their works can give us fresh perspective on the difficult theological issues we face today. They may have also thought through these issues, but did so without the burden of the same biases of culture and debates that we have. Church history then becomes incredibly useful for us to understand the Scriptures and live the Christian life.
Why Study James Ussher?
The Irish Reformation is a topic that has been left largely untouched by scholars of church history, at least it has not been dealt with to the degree that the Reformation in Europe and England has been addressed. The church, however, needs to understand what God did among his people in Ireland to keep the presence of the gospel at work there.
James Ussher (1581-1656) was the foremost Irish reformer and incredibly influential, not only in Ireland, but also in all Britain, and was well respected on the European continent as well. Some figures in Reformation history have received tremendous amounts of attention, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, and rightfully so. It is time we turn our attention to some of the other giants of the Reformation era that also deserve our attention.
Ussher was a towering intellect that taught theology at Trinity College Dublin and also preached in various churches in Ireland. He was eventually appointed Archbishop of Armagh, which was the head position in the church of Ireland. He was a staunch defender of the Reformed faith in Ireland, and has been considered among the Puritans.
One of his areas of influence was in the doctrines of covenant theology. Covenant theology is the use of covenant as the concept to structure the system of theology. The benefits of the covenant of grace are won for us by Christ, and given to us in justification and sanctification. Ussher was involved in writing the Irish Articles of 1615, which gave confessional status to covenant theology for the first time, although it had been in use to some degree since the beginning of the Reformation.
Ussher’s work and the Irish Articles were well-respected at the Westminster Assembly, which is responsible for producing the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is still a constitutional document for Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Ussher’s covenant theology was used and incorporated into the Westminster Confession and Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms. For this reason the study of his thought is still incredibly relevant for those who are involved in these denominations.