Westminster Divines, Spiritual Warfare, and the Neglected Practice of Hospitality with Chad Van Dixhoorn

Life and Books and Everything — Clearly Reformed

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Westminster Divines, Spiritual Warfare, and the Neglected Practice of Hospitality with Chad Van Dixhoorn

September 25, 2024

Life and Books and EverythingClearly Reformed

It’s not everyday you get to hear from the world’s expert on the Westminster Assembly (and who among us does not wish to know more about the Westminster Assembly?!). So sit back and enjoy this freewheeling conversation as Kevin and Chad talk about a guy named John Arrowsmith, the importance of pastoral hospitality, issues of church and state, and how Chad’s profession of faith split his childhood church. Lots of nerdy Presbyterian talk with the occasional mention of hot dogs as well.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro & Sponsors

5:38 A Southerner From the North

8:23 Tell Us About Your Faith

16:58 The Westminster Assembly

32:05 Sponsor Break

33:42 Tell Us About John Arrowsmith

1:02:42 The Neglected Practice of Hospitality

1:13:55 Until Next Time…

Books & Everything:

Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of Life

Crossway Plus

Here We Stand

Puritan Treasures for Today

Westminster Theological Seminary Biblical Language Certificate

Confessing the Faith: A Reader's Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith

Plans for Holy War: How the Spiritual Soldier Fights, Conquers, and Triumphs

Transcript

I want to mention a couple of our sponsors for today. I'm grateful to have Crossway sponsoring the podcast. I want to mention the new book, Everyday Gospel by Paul Tripp.

Sure many of you have read one of Paul Tripp's books, and this is a great way to get into Paul's writing and also into the Bible. This is a book of 365 friends. This is a book of Jewish engaging entries following an annual Bible reading plan from Genesis through Revelation.

You get brief, practical reflections as you read through the Scriptures. So pick up a copy of Everyday Gospel from Crossway. You can sign up for a Crossway Plus account to get 30% off.

Also grateful to have Desiring God sponsoring the podcast. This October, join Desiring God to celebrate the heroes of the Reformation by highlighting both well-known figures and lesser-known champions of the faith. There is a 31-day journey through the month, where you can read or listen to short little biographies of men and women who defended the Bible.

It's key truths. There's over 100,000 people who've already subscribed, so go to DesiringGod.org slash Stand to be a part of this special Reformation tour online through the month of October. Greetings and salutations.

Welcome to life and books and everything. I'm Kevin D. Young, senior pastor at Christ's Covenant Church in Matthew's, North Carolina. I am joined today by my very special guest and truly a friend and a great scholar, Chad Van Dixhorn, all the way up the road about three miles away in next-door Charlotte.

Chad, good morning. Well, I'm fine. Thank you.

All the better for seeing you, Kevin. Oh, well, that's very nice. Some people watch this.

Most people listen to it. But right over your shoulder is a picture of a very handsome-looking fellow. Who is that? That's John Lightfoot.

John Lightfoot. Who was John Lightfoot? And have you done any work on him, any books that you could mention? So John Lightfoot was a member of the Westminster Assembly, a scholar of the Old Testament, and yes, I have done work on John Lightfoot. I have that book.

It is an impressive book. So, last year, I, OUP, published John Lightfoot's journals of the Westminster Assembly. So, including a journal that was previously lost and covers a good chunk of the assembly's history about which, if it were not for this book, we would know nothing.

So, I'm kind of excited about that. So say that again. So people have, you found something from Lightfoot that hadn't been found before? Yeah, I mean, it was known in the late 17th or early 18th century, but then it kind of went missing.

So, part of his journals were published in Volume 13 of his works, but this, but what was published was incomplete. So, I found one more journal. It covers a chunk of the Westminster Assembly's history about which no other information survived.

So, that's what we call a good day in the life of a PhD student. It's very good. So you found this back when you were doing all your other Westminster stuff.

2001, and I finally got it published last year. And where, what was it like? Where did you actually find it? And I agree with you. You're much more a bona fide scholar than I am, but when I was doing Witherspoon stuff in archives.

And I found a couple of things that nobody had, or they were mentioned, but nobody had published it for. It is like, you know, an Indiana Jones movie. You feel really excited.

That's exactly how I want people to think about me as Indiana Jones. Yeah. You are the Indiana Jones of the Westminster Assembly, truly.

So, is it Cambridge's library just bounded with a bunch of other manuscripts? And a librarian knew where it was, but they just didn't know what it was or why it was important. This is often the case, you know, they've catalogued it manuscript by lightfoot. And no one had just kind of trolled through volume after volume of catalogs looking for this kind of thing.

And so they missed it. And how easy was it to read his hand? As a 17th century handwriting goes, it's quite good. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Good.

I found volumes of Witherspoon sermons. And I don't think they've been published anywhere. And the hand is so difficult.

Some other student somewhere down the line is going to have to go through them. I've did find some things that were readable and were shorter things that I used. And usually, thankfully, Presbyterian minutes and session minutes tended to be, you know, they knew who they were getting with the clerk.

And he usually did a fairly good job. Yeah, the Westminster Assembly did not know who they were getting. It's probably the worst hand in the 17th century.

But that's the one thing I can do is read messy handwriting. Well, very good. Okay.

So I want to get to that. But let's, let's back up a little bit. People, I hope, know you, but it's always good to ask some, some lead in questions.

Is it true that you come from our fair neighbor to the north? Indeed, I'm a Southerner from a northern country. I grew up in Southern Ontario and yeah, spent the first 26 years of my life there. Near to Michigan? Near to the land of your heart, Kevin.

Yes. What city again? So I grew up outside of a village just south of a little town called St. Thomas. Not sure if it's named after the apostle or our medieval theologian.

Yeah. Is this on the QEW or the. No, this is, this, I grew up one house away from a dirt road.

So don't go. Yeah. And just off the north shore of Lake Erie.

So on a foggy night, we could, we could hear the lighthouse blaring. Yeah. And did you ever see the lake on fire or that was before your time? I did not say courtesy of America, the lake on fire.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you curl up a Christian? I grew up in a church going home, a conservative Dutch home.

Everybody in the church were, they're all Dutch immigrants. All of them stuck together by going to church. What vintage, what, what immigration pattern was this? Post World War II.

So my parents grew up in the Netherlands and spent their earlier in the Netherlands. After the war, my grandfather was a Miller on the windmill, but between Nazis, flooding the land to get Nazis out. Going into hiding and so on, they ran out of money, came to Canada.

And yeah. Yeah. And what does, so we were familiar with Van and D prefix, what is Dix or? Yeah, anybody's guess, but, but, you know, the best theory I've heard and I'm going to stick to is it's sort of from the, from the.

The people who blow the horns on the Dikes, Dikes horns. Yeah. Yeah.

I could imagine that. So, yes, a blower of the horn. D Young, as you may know, is I'm told the most common surname in the Netherlands because it simply indicates, you know, the first born son might get the name of whatever you're from or what the occupation of the father was.

And the second born son is just, well, what's he, he's the younger. Yeah. So you just get the.

So that's all I am. And it allows for lots of comments over the years about, well, now he's deal. Okay.

I have heard it before. So you grew up in a church going home. When did you really get serious about your faith and when did you get a call, a sense of a call to ministry and or.

You know, further studies, how did you get on the path that you are on? Yeah, my, my mother came to a sort of self conscious. Sort of alive Christian faith when I was about 10 years old, really began to pray with us and, and urge us to consider, consider Christ. I really struggled with assurance of faith for many years around 18.

My elders had asked me to lead a Bible study called how to come to faith in Christ. And I really came to understand the gospel through leading that Bible study, not that I would advise pastors to have someone who wasn't sure if they were Christian leading Bible studies, but that was very helpful. And so that's around when I either I became a Christian or became confident that Christ was my savior.

And then I suppose I just kept leading Bible studies and over time realized that there's nothing I loved more than than the Friday night or Saturday night Bible studies. So there are enough churches without pulpits that I began exhorting here and there to use a Presbyterian term. And in a tomato free environment, you know, no one ever actually kicked me out, although I do respect the churches that never invited me back.

My sermons were pretty bad. I eventually talked to my elders and they said, yeah, we want you to go to go to seminary. So then I had to go back to university.

So I hadn't gone to university. I'd done grade 13, two years into college. I got one, one credit for that.

And one college credit. And then, yeah, I went to University of Western Ontario and then to Westminster seminary. I did a couple of degrees there and, and I was ready for ministry.

So back up a little bit. You said you struggled with assurance was this personal obviously was personal was this unique to you or was any of this. The elements of the Dutch reform church, you know, Joe Biki's written lots about this because it can be part of the very serious Dutch tradition that almost discourages assurance as a kind of presumption.

So very much that the latter so it was considered presumptuous for any young person who had not had some kind of pretty remarkable experience to consider themselves a Christian. And indeed, when I went to profess my faith in the church heard about it. All the wealthier donors in the church told the donors that the big, the big givers in the church had told the pastor and the session that if they allowed me to profess my faith, they would leave the church.

I was too young. You know, wasn't wasn't a solid enough Christian. And they even said they reminded him that they held the mortgage for his house and they would sell his house.

The day that he allowed me to profess my faith. And so, wow, that's what happened. I profess my faith to the church left that Sunday.

They put it for sale sign this house and sold it, you know, in a flash. So, yeah, he moved in with our family because he had nowhere to go. And it was, you know, it's a hard story.

The church never really recovered. He ended up over time working in a factory couldn't do that, end up pushing pushing. I was going to say grocery carts, but, you know, shopping carts at, I think, Canadian Tire.

An establishment that everyone should shop at it's at least once in their life. So he knew what he was doing. I mean, this was a real courageous act on his part.

And eventually slipped on the ice and bang his head and never recovered. So I'm actually dedicating my next book to him. There's a man who just died in obscurity.

But he was a courageous pastor. And you're just a man. I could sometimes think of what would happen if he had bowed to that pressure.

And it said to me, yeah, you're actually not going to profess your faith. If he had snuffed out the wick, if you will. So an unsung hero, but really my hero.

And to be honest, Kevin, you know, he wasn't the sweetest preacher of the gospel. You know, he preached sin better than Christ, but he did preach Christ. Often enough.

And when it really mattered, he came through. Mm hmm. Can you give us a because this will.

If you're not from this really thick old school, Dutch reform tradition, it all sounds very strange. And I grew up in the RCA, but not at all. I mean, the RCA was mainline, very Americanized, had been for two centuries.

And all of the, the waves of Dutch immigrants went into the CRC or in Canada. What was the denomination? So this wasn't the CRC. This for me was the free reform church, but this little church that fell apart was a, a church that left the free reform church and became more conservative.

Right. So I didn't have any of this in my background, but I'm familiar with it and talked to lots of people who had it. Where did this come from? You know, the already in the 17th century, both English congregationalists and the Dutch reformed.

And then especially in the early 18th century, are beginning to think that the gold standard for a conversion experience, the gold standard for a profession of faith is a conversion experience. A conscious I can remember the time. This is what happened to me sort of event.

And sometimes almost wildly supernatural, at least that's what I picked up. Supernatural is better. Well, I mean, of course, I was supernatural, but it's always super, but almost like a dream or a vision or I encountered that in some of the Dutch circles.

As a young man, I was desperate for something like that. We would go to people's homes and who had had conversion experiences and I'd listen to them and, you know, when she had heard about someone who had been converted. And I just I just wanted one of those experiences.

And never never quite got anything that dramatic. And that was part of my problem. And then you need a second you need an experience like that as well to be called into ministry.

So, so, so, yeah, once you get, but once you're standard for church membership or, you know, coming to the Lord's Supper is a memorable conversion experience. You end up with a bunch of follow on problems, which we talked about in church history at RTS, sacraments, problems, ecclesiology problems. I mean, there's just you begin to preach a lot about assurance of faith because you've got the church filled with people who've grown up in the church.

Love the Lord, love his people, but don't have a conversion experience. So, there's always shade thrown on their testimony. There's always doubts inculcated.

And so kind of accompanying that taxonomy of conversion and membership. You then have a lot of preaching aimed at assurance of faith because you've got congregations filled with quasi members who lack any assurance. Hmm, I didn't even know that is part of your, your background story.

So, I'm glad I asked. Maybe you're not glad I asked. Well, I actually got into the Westminster.

I got into studying the Westminster Assembly. Because of this, I was trying to do an independent study in, uh, and seminary on assurance of faith with St. Cliff Ferguson, who saw that there was no direction or focus to my study and so why don't you look at chapter 18. The Westminster Confession of faith.

And that's how I began really studying the Westminster standards more seriously. Well, that's a good lead in. So you were at Westminster.

You go right from there to Cambridge. I had one year. So I did the, how do I say this? I did the MDiv and the THM in four years.

And was to kind of burned out in that fourth year to apply to PhD programs, but had a good sense. That the way, uh, the way things were going, I would get into a PhD program. So I just spent a year working for a guy named David Wright, professor and Edinburgh.

Oh, yeah. Working on the minutes of the assembly in preparation for a PhD. So it was like a, a year of my PhD that I didn't pay tuition for.

And I did that in Princeton and an Edinburgh and then went to Cambridge. Yeah. And the, the dissertation you eventually did at Cambridge.

Is it the, the, the most over the word count dissertation in the history of Cambridge? So the librarians at Cambridge apparently took the effort to try and figure this out. I think there's a, there's a longer, there's a one with more volumes. I don't know if has more words.

This is really not, you know, me figuring this out. They came to me and they were amused when they saw seven volumes arrive in the library. Yeah.

So you did a dissertation that was seven volumes. I suppose I did. Yes.

Yes. You suppose you do. So I, I know you're, you, you don't want the people to, to give you accolades, but I think this is just factually true.

You are one of, if not, you probably are the world's expert on the Westminster assembly. And what do you do with that? What, what are you, what are you hoping for however many years the Lord gives you? You have a, tell us some of the things you've already done. And now what are you hoping to do with this expertise? Cause you only can, if, if we're doing a fantasy football team, I'm drafting you number one for, you know, the Westminster assembly slide.

You know, that one of the ways which one becomes the world expert is just keep studying the same thing and everyone else retires. And by default, you become the world's expert. So that's where I am.

So I, I, I, I, that much of the dissertation is now published in the minutes and papers of the Westminster assembly. So that's a five volume. The most expensive thing book I've ever purchased by myself.

I am trying to, I'm in the process of asking OUP to release these volumes to another publisher to create a paperback edition. That would be more affordable. Yeah.

But yeah, it is a Paulingly expensive. It was $800 when I bought it and I, and I wrote all in there. From there.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh wow.

I got in while it's good. Little did you know that I know. And, and so, so that's on the, the kind of the academic side that on the theological and more popular side.

I've written a book called confessing the Faith. My wife's written a wonderful study guide to that. That's, that's designed to kind of lead people through the Westminster confession of faith.

And to really explore what, what the assembly saying, not just what this text makes me think of. And to demonstrate from, mostly from the text that the Westminster defines themselves use why reform faith is plausible. As expressed in this confession.

And then also to ask the question kind of so what, how does this impact my, my life, my prayers, my ministry. So there's that sort of threefold angle there to confessing the faith. And then back on the academic side, I wrote a little book called you are asking what I did on the assembly, right? So I'm not rambling unnecessarily.

Keep going. Yeah. Okay.

So I wrote a book called gods ambassadors. This is like a historian attempting to do practical theology. So why did the Westminster assembly examine 5000 ministers? What were they looking for? Oh, I don't have that word.

Yeah. What are they looking for in a preacher? How did they try and change the way the Church of England examined ordained used pastors and so on. And so the first half kind of tells that story in the last part, kind of looks at the writings, the Westminster Divines to say kind of what's what's their, what's the theology and the exegesis behind their ideal pastor or their vision of that.

So, what else Kevin, I suppose, then John Lightfoot and then introductions to different books and lots and lots of articles. So, okay, we're going to get to this, this new book that RHB has published. I want to go back to the, the confessing the faith.

I mean, I have it. I've used it. I forget the exact title, but that's the title.

Yeah, I guess the main, that's the main title. Yeah, so the commentary on the Westminster Confession. There are lots of commentaries out there over the years and lots of good ones, but I do want to encourage anyone out there.

This, this, I would say this is the best current one. We want to learn from other good ones that have come before. And what you said was really important, Chad.

You said, not, not mainly, Hey, what does this make me think about? And somebody could do that. All right. The Westminster Confession talks about justification.

And here's a nice devotion on justification and what it means to me. And that could have some value, but you're really trying to, with application, but you're trying to say what, what were they meaning to communicate? What were they saying? So this is very readable. Nobody out there should be intimidated because you've done some seriously intimidating work, but you're a very good writer, even in those things and your, your humor and personality comes through.

But this is a really wonderful book that I would say every Presbyterian should have. And I don't say that every lightly. It's, it's very good.

And you've worked with Crossway in doing some, some additions of reformed confessions. And then there's a Bible that has them in the back. That's really useful too.

Yeah, I'm really encouraged by, by, by the attention crossways by all the attention they're giving to creeds and confessions and thinking about how this enriches our devotional life keeps us in touch with Christians through history and around the world. And so yeah, I've done, done a few things with Crossway. Yeah.

So let me ask you about the Westminster Assembly. It is often seemed to me, and now I have the expert on here, that in, in, in one sense, the assembly was more successful than they could have dared to dream that centuries later. People all over the world in hundreds of languages are studying it.

It's the standards for denominations all over the world. Probably wouldn't have dared to, to dream that. And on the other hand, for the immediate context of what they were trying to do in the realm, you might say their work was, was kind of a failure.

If that's the case, how do you explain both of those? And in particular, the, the second one, which can be a surprise, even here, when I will teach and usually now, Tom Grossema, who does a great job in our new members class does on the Westminster. I will tell people, you know what, there may be more Presbyterians in Christ Covenant this Sunday than there are in England, which is a shock to people. What happened? Yeah, that's a long story.

I mean, the successes due to Scottish adoption and the adoption in Ireland and then immigration, missionary success, that the failure has to do with, well, it's, it's a long story, but a lot of it has to do with toleration. The Presbyterians at the Westminster Assembly were not willing to make space for Congregationalists, for Episcopalians. And I mean, that was, there they breathe, no one made space for one another.

They really wanted one version of the faith, the Protestant faith to obtain. And, and when that, when that soured people in the 40s. When people got a taste of freedom in the 50s, when a piscopalianism returned with a vengeance in the 60s, that combination of things left Presbyterians unable to ever kind of gain their vision again.

So, so most of them can, many Presbyterians, I should say, conformed went back to the Church of England. Some of them, the Westminster Assembly's generation stayed, stayed firm to the faith and remain Presbyterians, but, but they did not have educational institutions. They didn't have the libraries they once had.

They didn't have the, you know, the Norman structures on street corners. They lost a lot of credibility. And then they lost theological credibility.

At the end of the century, there's, there was, there's a move towards latitudinarianism and even early Unitarianism. Already by the end of the 17th century. Yeah, and that's, that's, that's a, that's a complicated story.

There's still surviving Presbyterians, but, but over time, church mergers, especially in the 20th century, further diluted their testimony. At the United Reform Church in England absorbed a lot of Presbyterians. The United Reform Church in North America is a very happy thing.

It's, it's a, it's a thriving Bible believing reform denomination. And the URC, yeah, that there are some, you know, believing congregations and pastors, but, but they are on the decline. So, so it is, it is a story.

You know, you know, there are 19th century, there are early 20th century Presbyterians still in, in the UK. Excuse me, in, in England, but that those numbers just keep decreasing. Do it.

And you and I have lots of friends who, who we just want to make there who are doing really good work and we encourage them and the IPC and others. The EW, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England, Wales, it's quite a mouthful. Yeah.

And of course, Scotland and Ireland are different stories, but we're, yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's good things.

It's, you know, but the, the barely the size of a man's face that we pray for all of, all of the Lord's blessing upon it. What, what in your, you know, decades now of study on the Westminster Assembly? I don't want to say what you have you learned because you've learned 10,000 things. But are there one or two things in particular doing the dissertation maybe that you just really surprised you or that rank and file Presbyterians would really be surprised to know about the Assembly? Yeah.

I mean, I suppose the, the depth of the doctrine, the conversation about the Westminster Assembly has long been about church government. Those are the most publicly public debates, the most sort of noisily disputed issues between. Congationalists and the Presbyterians, especially.

I think on that front, the, the debates with Parliament were probably under, under told that story. The way in which the Assembly really fought back against a domineering control and part of Parliament. So, so there's that, there's that story that's interesting.

And then I think it's also the case that the, that, that the divisions between Presbyterians and congregation lists don't really help you understand the other conversations at the Westminster Assembly, such as debates about the doctrine of God debates about justification and so on. Just having those two party labels, if you will, don't help you understand any of the other debates in the Assembly where things fall out very differently. And so I think I've, you know, put a little bit of effort into trying to expand those stories and, and kind of complicate the narrative a little bit.

Are there any myths or part of the received story that you, you found out? Yeah, maybe that isn't quite as accurate. We're the handful of Scottish commissioners, like the superheroes, or is that slightly exaggerated? Yes. So, so the, the, a lot of the history of the Westminster Assembly has been told by Scottish historians and by Americans who love Scottish historians.

And, and we do, we do right now. I do. But those narratives tend to lionize the Scottish contribution in, in ways that reflect the prominence of, and of, of an Alexander had to send a Samuel Rutherford to George Gillespie, but also minimize the narrative of some pretty impressive English theologians.

So, there's another part of the narrative that, that we're trying to correct. And we're publishing, I'm, I'm involved in, in trying to bring to the fore some more works of English theologians, such as John Aerosmith, as well as helping us better understand our Scottish theologians. So, so that narrative needs to be enriched, if you will, by, by a discussion of English theologians, it's one of the reasons why I went to Cambridge to study, to, to look at the contributions of the English.

And, and then, you know, on a, on a kind of popular level, there's a pretty persistent narrative promoted by editors on Wikipedia that there were baptists at the Westminster Assembly. You know, I've got Presbyterians who kind of, you know, correct the narrative. No, there are congregationalists, but not baptists.

And then someone will just kind of work that story back into the Wikipedia page on the Westminster Assembly. So, no cradle baptists at the Westminster Assembly. Anyone who was there who then later became creative.

And that also is a no. Yeah. Yeah.

So, that, that's sort of amusing. In August, I was speaking to a group of Baptist ministers and, and, you know, had to remind everybody that there, most of them did know this. There were no baptists at the Westminster Assembly.

And we love you anyway. Yeah. We do love you.

And then they can, you know, the London Baptist confession feel free to just use our confession. Make a few imendations. Yeah.

It's yours. And the Westminster Assembly loved baptists as long as they didn't print too much about their views. Some things never changed.

We mentioned a couple of other sponsors who are grateful to have reformation heritage books, RHB. I want to mention again, Puritan Treasures for today. This is a series of books that RHB has put together.

It is giving the best of the Puritans with some updated language, helpful introductions. There's classic works from people like John Owen, Jeremiah Burrows, and many more. So, this is a great way to get into the Puritans.

Or if you've found the Puritans a little bit challenging, or you have someone in your life who's maybe intimidated by them, you can go to Puritans Treasures for today that RHB is putting out. And it's a wonderful way to get into all that the Puritans have to teach. And if you go to heritagebooks.org coupon code, clearly, you can get an additional 10% off.

Also grateful for Westminster Theological Seminary and their partnership with this podcast. At WTS, you can get a 100% online biblical language certificate program. So, if you are looking to grow in your knowledge, or just start out learning Greek or Hebrew within a couple of years, and be able to read the Bible in the original languages, you can go to wts.edu slash language.

And begin working on this language certificate program to help you, whether you're a pastor or student, just want to know the Bible better, how to learn Greek and Hebrew for yourself. So you mentioned John Arrowsmith, a new book that has come out by RHB and really grateful for RHB to publish these old works like this. And this is the first time that this has been published or in hundreds of years at least.

That's right. So there's a couple of 17th century, I guess, one 1668 another 1700, but then David Noe produced a fantastic translation, either privilege of introducing it and you were kind enough to puff it and say something nice about it. I did puff.

So here it is. It's a big book. Plans for Holy War, how the spiritual soldier fights conquerors and triumphs by John Arrowsmith.

It is, you know, 500 pages here, and I did give it a good power read and enough to give an honest blurb for it. I have to admit, I think I'd heard of him. I'm not familiar with him.

You have an excellent introduction introduction is actually selling it short. Chad's introduction in this book is like two Kevin Deung books, maybe three Kevin Deung books. It is a serious introduction.

So tell us something. Immediately people, you know, want to ask, did dude look like a lady or some kind of other arrowsmith different era Smith. Who was this man? John Arrowsmith grew up in an Eastern England.

I had his, believe it or not, had his eyes shot out, one of his eyes shot out with an arrow as a young boy. No. In which case you did a little bit of teaching and a whole lot of reading back then fellowships were really for the fellow.

Actually, it's still largely the case, rather than for the students. He then went to serve as a pastor at a chapel in the county of Norfolk and King's Lynn, but chapel is a bit of a euphemism is one of the biggest churches in England. Massive, massive place.

Very well connected with people around Europe. Then was displaced because of the Civil War ended up in England and ended up in London, excuse me, and was called to the Westminster Assembly as one of its theologians. I wrote the whole biography about how he goes from there to Cambridge serves as the master of St. John's College, beautiful college, then the master of Trinity College, Cambridge's of Oxbridge's most wealthy and large college.

And one of my research assistants asked me what we know about his family. I said, yeah, the authorities say we know nothing about his family. He says, are you sure? So I started doing my own digging and turned out there's a lot you could find about his family.

It was a really hard life, you know, married, lost all the children, but one from his first marriage got remarried further deaths and so on, but he was a good family man loving father. And it was just, it just helped kind of fill out the biography in a wonderful way. So thanks, thanks to her for, for, for her, for pressing me not the first time a research assistant has, has pressed me.

And that's been production. And so what is this massive book about plans for Holy War, because, you know, I say in my blurb here, that it is a very unique book. It's what I say, spiritual warfare and the life of the Christian equal parts creative daunting intellectual inspirational challenging comforting.

He's doing a lot of things. He really, it is a truly astounding book. This man is dying.

He's unable to give the lectures that he wants to his college. I think he's pulling off just a couple last lectures, maybe to the university, but he's dying. And rather than perfecting the different books that he has well on its way towards the press, he decides to write an entirely new book.

So that itself is just challenging. And not a new book, you know, like, not an easy book, like confessing the faith where you got like a text in your commenting on or like a, like a biblical commentary where like the organization is not an issue because you're commenting on to this is, this is just a book that carries through one big theme that is how spiritual warfare is characteristic of the whole Christian life. And in fact, helps us as a theme to understand the whole of the Bible.

So he starts with the Proto in the Gellion, you know, that that that earliest gospel promise there in Genesis three and runs us through right to heaven. The first part is all about spiritual warfare, how we are, how Christ is our captain, very Christ centered in, and it's just an encouragement for us to take spiritual warfare seriously. And an argument, Kevin that that spiritual warfare is not just sort of an internal struggle against sin, but a struggle against Satan and that Satan's main emphasis is to deceive us to get us wrong in our thinking, our theology.

And thereby get everything else wrong downstream. So very interesting argument. Second part of the book is an exposition of Ephesians six, and, and, and the warfare, just covering a number of important doctrines along the way.

And the last part's on prayer, prayer in heaven. And it's, it's heavenly. It's really, really wonderful.

He's a, he's a, he's a gossipy kind of writer. He tells you how he's feeling tells stories along with loves telling stories along the way. And he does a lot of systematic theology and a very kind of chatty friendly way does a lot of apologetics in a much less than usual grumpy way.

I mean, he's just much less grumpier than many other apologists. And it's just a really compelling figure. Do you, do you have a sense for the reception of a book like this when, when I see a book like this, which is long and daunting, even though it has these chatty elements to it.

I wonder, are we not a spiritual, are we not as intellectual, or is it the case that when he wrote it? Yeah. Many people didn't read it then either because it was so big. So the preface to the 1700 edition says, you know, here is a reprint that's wildly overdue.

Everybody's trying to buy this book. It's super, super costly because, you know, the prices way up there that theologians and pastors just really value this. So I'm guessing it had a sizable print run from the University of Cambridge when it was first printed.

And, you know, this is a, these are theologians in the Netherlands saying, look, this book is just so valuable. It, you know, it's, it's a, it's a book that starts out heavy with these speeches against the Vigalians. And you got to get past that to get to plans for Holy War, in which case you're really into some rich stuff.

A pastor recently, who are the Vigalians? Ah, yes, who knew? So they are followers of a little known 16th century, errorist, maybe heretic. And they downplay the importance of theological education. And they are kind of like 17th century, 16th century Charismatics, who are downplaying the importance of study of the Bible in favor of direct revelation.

But, but Elizabeth is really going at them for the way in which they, they weaken the church by, by telling people they don't really need to know theology. And by, by telling ministers they don't really need to study theology. And that is this theology professor's big, big concern.

Yeah. Let me ask from this book, personal pastoral question, you know, as we're recording this. It's recently in the news that a note worthy church figure is, is out of ministry because of, of personal sin and moral failing and you and I, unfortunately could, could think of others.

Good men or seem to be good men in our, in our circles. So we don't need to talk about those specific cases, but are there things that John Arrowsmith certainly he did say, but what, what can we glean from this, because of really robust reform work on spiritual warfare? What insights does he have for the Christian pastor, but really any of anyone out there in fighting these kinds of sins and struggles, which I don't know if it's happened happening more often or we just the internet lets us hear about it more often. I think that's maybe the case, but certainly we have to be engaged in, in spiritual warfare in a way that I think we overlook.

So what Arrowsmith does for me as I read this book and, and as I have read and reflected on this book again and again, he's helped me stay on theme with the challenges and the depths of our spiritual warfare in a way that sort of a single sermon or two. You know, John MacArthur's commentary on, on, on Ephesians six or whatever, you know, Lloyd Jones or whatever, you get, you get, you get studies that keep you on topic there for an, for an hour or so. But, but, but, but Arrowsmith manages to keep you on this topic for a couple hundred pages without wearying without getting repetitive and redundant.

Which allows you to think about the topic much more seriously. He also is not one of these guys is content to, to kind of frown and grimace and warn about spiritual warfare and then not have an even stronger. Remind or of who our captain is and what our supports are in the help.

So, I mean, I, I don't know about you, but I've heard a lot of spiritual warfare talk. That is not evenly balanced when it comes to the comfort and encouragement of how we're going to actually survive in this. And so, but both in terms of the, the warning of Satan's wilds and, and, and a sense that we, we really don't need to live defeated lives.

As Christians, we, we, we don't need to live with the sense that we are all going to be failures. Arrowsmith's really helpful with that. And when, when you just take a body blow, like we have this past weekend and just hearing about another failure, I think we would do well to think more seriously about the spiritual warfare and, and we do well to see how in Christ there really is hope for pastors and for everyone else.

That's really good. One of the other topics that he talks about is in this whole realm is a lot of church state ideas. And what did he say? And I think this is an area where as much as you appreciate this whole book, you differ with some of his assumptions on church state.

So give us Arrowsmith and then give us Van Dijkstra. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, let me give you a three for a run on a two for in the last couple of things I've worked on.

I'm trying to honestly represent people I disagree with. So John Lightfoot is an Arastian. Would he own that label? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He's, he's going to defend that those, that's a good question. What do you own the label? He's definitely defending all the content and sort of the Arastian heroes, if you will.

So I, I'm thinking so, but your question causes me to pause. And what's your give for people who don't know, Arastianism, the one sentence definition. So an Arastianism is someone who has thought through one of the two default positions of the medieval church.

In the medieval church, you've got, you've got those who want the state to dominate over the church, and you've got those who want the church to dominate over the state. But there's not a lot of sort of theory behind the state domination view. So William of Occam is just sort of grumpy rails against the papacy, but doesn't provide reasons why the emperor should be kind of number one over the church in Europe.

16th century, you have, this is not one sentence definition. This is a story leading up to a one sentence definition. I like it.

I like it. In the 16th century, you finally have people offering some real kind of exegetical support for for that common commonly held medieval view. And, and the, the Arastian believes that the state has the right, given to it by Christ, given to it by God, to determine the, what, what the government of the church will be.

And secondly, the state is the final arbiter of all cases of church discipline, or in some cases will affect the discipline itself, but is usually just at least the final arbiter. So, Arastianism believes the church, not the state determines the form of the government, which is in itself indifferent and can be argued for pragmatic grounds. And, and is the final arbiter.

That's, that's light foot. That's different than John Aerosmith, John Aerosmith, like the vast majority of Westminster divines would say no, the state has the right to establish a biblical form of church government. And is not to be involved in discipline in church discipline, but can, if you will, echo or independently corroborate the church's discipline.

And that's what, you know, New England congregationalists believe that's what that's what most reformers, most people at the Westminster Assembly believe they believe in an established church, but not an Arastian church. Right. And, and these, these conversations, as we know, are, I think 15 years ago, it would have thought, well, that's an interesting bit of historical retrieval.

And now it's a very live issue with a thing with a number of people saying, you know what, that is the reform view and they were right. And we ought to have that now in parentheses, I'm never quite sure that there's a plan, how we're ever going to get there, unless it's post millennialism, blah, blah, blah, blah, we get there. So leave that aside, just, you know, examining the theology and the theory of it is important.

This has become a big thing. How do you assess the thing and how do you assess. Yes.

So two buckets of answers. I could wear two hats here. So, so if I'm wearing my historians hat first, maybe, I'd say that this is, this is a view that's contested at the Westminster Assembly, believe it or not, even though this view being what has a sort of a softer and a harder form, but then it's harder form includes the idea that the state will coerce those who teach, at least teach otherwise.

So it would. Some suppression of it's a press heretic suppress error as well, the degrees of error. That there's dissent at the Westminster Assembly that's not successful over this point.

Then, as you know, we get into the press materials in America never seem to be big fans of this of this view. And so already in 1729, the majority of, if not all Presbyterian pastors in America, dissent from the view that the state has a course of power that the Presbyterian church ought to be established. That's formalized in 1788.

That's printed in 1789 and so on. So the, the idea that, you know, our sort of properly reformed person will, will side with the English Presbyterians with Calvin and not with the American Presbyterians. And it strikes me as a quirky on a couple of different points.

First of all, it's a little out of touch with the situation of the reformers. The reformers are not arguing for this. It's just that it's the air they breathe and, you know, trajectory arguments can be a little bit dodgy, but let me make one anyway.

Most of the reformers are actually inheriting, if you will, in a rasti in situation where the state wants to establish what form the government will be. And they want to dominate that church and be the final appeal that they want the state to be involved in church discipline. That's, that's the kind of the late medieval situation as states, especially cities become unhappy with the church.

They're actually beginning to take on themselves church discipline. And Calvin had to fight tooth and nail and actually fighting against that. And so to say he's for establishment.

That's, that's true. He does believe in establishment, but that's a, if you will, he's fighting against a worse form of, of establishment. That is a rasti inism.

And so, you know, the reformers are, if you will, dialing back on their present situation. And the fact that in a later century, press positions will further dial back need not be seen as an aberration, but, but as something that just becomes more possible as political situations change. I'd like to hear more of that discussed and thought about in circles promoting the establishment principle.

Because it tends to, it tends to be Calvin turrets. We got this whole there, 16th, 17th century, the capital, our reform position is this sort of without a historical context without change and anything different than that is a capitulation to the spirit of the age. And everybody admires the French perform church as well in the 16th, 17th century.

They're not fighting for establishment. They're fighting for freedom. And no one thinks less of them for that.

So, so again, you know, is it the dominant position? It's, it's certainly a major position, but there are those who, who are not able to get there who don't even seem to be trying to get there. And, and the Dutch have, from the beginning, they, they have for better or worse, they have a different view that Dutch have always been, you know, toleration and they have waves where it's more or less of that. And you might say we see the bad side of it, but because of their experience under Spain.

At least they were more willing earlier than others to speak of toleration. I mean, I do think that originally toleration is seen as a uniquely Armenian view for about 50 years and then eventually the Calvinists kind of get on board with toleration and they're ahead of the English sometimes. Yeah.

So that was one bucket history. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's, that's one bucket history. And then I think obviously the much more important reason to reject this is now Van Dixorn.

I'm giving you his, his take here to reject the establishment principle has to do in the first place with that. I suppose you'd call that a kind of redemptive historical or biblical theological point. And that is, you know, the church is Israel.

The church is the continuation of Israel or the new Israel, but it's not, but one has to say that just, you know, how does the church relate to Israel, but Israel when. Or Israel where. And if you read the New Testament, you read first Peter.

You read the examples cited in Hebrews. The church is Israel in the wilderness or Israel in exile. We're not Israel in the promised land.

The analogies, therefore, the biblical historical or the biblical theological analogies between the church and Israel is not the church and King David. King Hezekiah, King Josiah, or even Ezra Nehemiah. Our parallels are the church in the wilderness, still wandering looking forward to the promised land or even better.

Or the church in Babylon. Even better the church in Babylon. We are the church in exile, waiting for our 70 years to end before we go home.

The church is scattered throughout the lands with governments that may show a tolerance to the Christian faith or may not. But the establishment principle makes the biblical theological mistake of assuming too much continuity between Israel in the land, rather than Israel. Let me ask one.

Yeah. You got more to say? Well, I do, but people might like a breather. Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. Well, here's a follow up because you and I are on the same page of this. And are you going to publish the talk that you gave at RTS for your convocation or is that so much your chapter in the Westminster Confession book? We just have to wait with baited breath.

So reform, faith and practice is going to publish this. There's enough that's distinct in this in the lecture that you refer to that I've, you know, kind of worked it into an article. So look for that coming sometime soon in the RTS online.

The rejoinder I've gotten from people. Now I've gotten some that are not really very thoughtful, but some are. And one of the quick ones has more of a historical argument is, well, yes, but okay, the American Presbyterians, maybe they changed some things, but look at how much they want to defend Sabbath laws.

And isn't that they want to enforce they still want to enforce both tables of the law. Now, I don't think that's the best way of putting it, but it certainly is the case. They are very exercised over the desecration of the Sabbath and they want the state to have Sabbath laws.

I have a way to think about that, but I'm more curious. How do you understand that? I don't see that as as I see that separate from the establishment. It could be related to it.

I mean, you could say because we have an established church, we have this, but I could see how you don't have an established church. And you still argue as a Christian that this is best for our society that we don't allow Sunday, you know, businesses and commerce. So I don't see it as a defeat or argument, but I'd love to get your response to it.

So first, this may feel a little ad hominid, but I know that some of the people who are really lobbying to recover reformed political structures, if you will, are not actually that keen on practicing. Reformed, if you will, sort of weekly structures. There are those who really love the idea of recovering a coercive state who are not themselves that keen on observing the Lord's Day.

So there's a bit of an irony there. But you know, leaving that aside with you, I think that we can make incredibly strong prudential arguments, common grace arguments, natural law arguments in favor of. And as a creation ordinance, I think we ought to do that for all creation ordinances.

Whether our forefathers were right in wanting to enforce Sabbath laws for the state, I think is one question. But certainly one does not, I don't think one needs to have an establishment principle as one's major tool for enforcing the Sabbath. I mean, I'd say the Sabbath is a very important idea, the idea of a work and rest paradigm is really important for humanity.

It is for our good that God gave us this. But boy, establishments have very big hammer for that size of a nail, even if it is a big nail. And I think there are other ways of driving that point home, if you will.

So. And I think that the arguments, at least in the 19th century, which is where I would be more familiar, and it's different, certainly back in the Puritans, but those arguments in the American soil are less about. You know, cracking down on, you know, collecting firewood on the Sabbath or something that the issue was is the post office going to deliver on the Sabbath is the government exercising these functions on the Sabbath.

Hey, we have a say over what our government does. We don't think the government should be doing this on the Lord's Day. So even when we talk about Sabbath laws in the 19th century, or it may be laws for this municipality that businesses should not be open.

That even is different than cracking down in a punitive way on those who, you know, the state is now adjudicating what sort of activity is deemed recreational or not on the Sabbath. That's not the sort of crackdown that I see in the 19th and 20th century as these debates are happening. And for what it's worth to get out of the historical realm, there are two different kinds of arguments for how Christians ought to view the Sabbath.

There's the, sorry, the Harry reader approach, which was to say, if only a minority of Christians would start saying no to sports on Sunday would say no to X, Y, and Z. That's a big impact. And we can challenge our culture and help restore some level of sort of Christian hegemony in society by advocating for the Sabbath. The other approach I might call the John Mather approach is a wonderful little essay in New Horizons from who knows how many years ago, where he argues that the Sabbath is part of the life of a pilgrim people traveling through this world.

It's our kind of cultural cultural statement. So those are two different ways of promoting the Sabbath, if you will. And I think both of those can be traced in our own tradition.

I said I wouldn't keep you past an hour, but I want to ask one more, one other question, which is totally different from Puritan's Westminster Assembly. Well, not totally different because they would care about this too. But one of the things I've really been impressed with, and we're grateful that Chad and his family moved to Charlotte and Chad is teaching at RTS, of course, and wonderful family, and we've gotten to know you so I can call you a colleague and a friend.

I'm very grateful for that. And you have given me lots of personal encouragement. I thank you for that very meaningfully so.

And everyone who knows you knows that you and your wonderful bride really have the gift of hospitality. I'm going to put the soapbox under your feet now to talk to Christians. Why is hospitality so important? And in your own life, is this something you think you have a natural affinity for any ways? Or have you had to teach yourself to do this because I'm always hearing about all the students who are coming over and you meet somebody at church and they're having lunch with you.

It's really wonderful. So talk about the importance of hospitality in your own life and for the Christian. Yes.

So, so my parents exercise hospitality in a kind of radical way. They would have a guy moved in. He had a need and he ended up staying for eight years.

I think more than once they took our family room and divided it in half. Just put up a wall and had people living in our house. It was a one bathroom house for most of my life.

We had six to nine of us in the house. So they exercise radical hospitality. My wife and I do something much more subdued than that.

A, we have a bigger house with more bathrooms. And B, although we give a big dog. Stay away from the dog.

We've had people stay with us for a couple of years or so, but never on that scale. But Emily, I guess early on in our marriage. We just, we both do love people.

We love students and we'd have fellow students and people from our church over. And we just started small. Lots of lots of food put into the oven and pulled out of the oven and served.

A little grips for Sunday lunch and then people over after Sunday evening service and Emily just kind of kept it up and became a better and better cook, better at sort of guesstimating how much food works for how many people. And, and I've, I've been involved just in kind of helping tidy the house vacuum, clean up dishes. And we've really found that, that showing hospitality is at the very least good for our marriage.

Sometimes we can get involved in and sort of conflicts or issues like that and just looking outside of ourselves, not always analyzing ourselves or entertaining ourselves. It's just been good for our marriage. And, and then I suppose, you know, this, this works in part because of my wonderful wife.

This also works in part because our children have, have, have decided that they like this. They like having people over and being a pastor in Cambridge and being there, being Cambridge for seven years, lots of lonely people, lots of students who don't have a home. And the Bible says a lot about strangers, people who can't give back and showing hospitality to them.

So, we should allow hospitality strangers, excuse me, students and people traveling through, traveling through town. And we just, the Lord's enabled us to continue to have victims who say yes when we ask them to come over. And, and, and so Emily, Emily and I do try and look for homes that are close enough to where we could work, the Lord willing or worship, or we can have people over a few extra bedrooms.

It's a wonderful dining room. That's good size. We're very grateful for the way the Lord's provided.

And there are different ways that people can exercise hospitality and there are different seasons, depending how you got nursing kids, you got lots of different seasons for it. And some people, it will be a very formal, like we're getting a date on the calendar, you're coming over, we're bringing out to find China. That's not my personality, but I don't want to say that's wrong, but I do think sometimes less bother is actually more welcoming to people.

Yeah, we do a lot of paper plates and hot dogs. Yeah. Yeah, and somebody you would like here at the church.

I like hot dogs. I can't eat the buns anymore. And I, and I really like paper plates, but somebody said recently about us, which I think was a compliment.

They said, yeah, if you try to get on the D Young's calendar, their life is so crazy. They might not get back to you, but if you just drop by unannounced, they might just let you live in their spare bedroom, which is sort of. I think sort of what our life is like right now.

Would you say it's a fair deduction or one possible application there for just thinking of pastors that a pastor ought to try to live close to the church that he's serving in the community. Now, a community that's a, that's a vague term and it can mean many things in different places, but he ought to live relatively speaking close to the church and therefore the, the church ought to pay him a salary that allows them to do so because most churches don't have mances anymore. I do think this hospitality command for elders does have some practical ramifications for how pastors and churches think about ministry.

I love that leading question. I'm leading it, hoping that you agree. You know, when we came to Charlotte, you, you were the first to invite us over, by the way, you were the first to show.

We had hot dogs and we had hot dogs as it happens. So, so yes, I think it's a really important aspect to a pastor's ministry and elders ministry. And boy, I have a thought it's slipping away as thoughts sometimes where the pastor lives.

Yeah. How the church allows that to bring the thought back. Not yet.

Unfortunately. Okay. You'll, you'll dance around it.

I know when we move, I'll just talk a little bit and then maybe it'll come back, but again, I don't think it's automatically wrong that a pastor might, you know, okay. I got it. Dream what's to live in the country when your church is here, but certainly I think if a pastor moves to a church and quickly is somewhere in a different community far outside.

Maybe you can do it after you've been there 15 years and people know you and get it. But even then it's hard to do. I think it is part of the calling that a minister must feel I'm going to live in this place.

And therefore, especially in cities, the church is really going to have to think about how can we make this possible if we really want to, you know, give any sort of effort that the ministry in the city radiates out of the city. Our forefathers definitely emphasized the importance of a pastor being resident among his people as much as possible, you know, in, you know, in New York where costs are prohibitive and where you have a metro and everyone's used to traveling, you can perhaps show hospitality and not live right near the church, but even then it to be close is such a game. And here's a, here's a kind of a quirky reason.

You mentioned earlier, a minister's failing. And, you know, others will come to our minds. I do think that a pastor who has an open home where people are in his home, not just enjoying his hospitality but by default also observing his life the way he interacts with his wife and children and so on.

I think it becomes harder for a pastor to have a ministry of manipulation and unfaithful relationship with his wife and abusive relationship to his family when his when he lives in a glass house. When people can come by and see him. I think that many of the ministerial failures are accompanied by closed homes where the minister's not known his family is isolated from the church.

And so hospitality, I think, has a useful side effect in promoting holiness and transparency. And I welcome that. I, you know, I have many reasons to be faithful to the Lord.

One of those is just the crushing thought of how awful it would be to my wife and family if I was not the horrible thought of how sad it would be if everything that I've written would always be. He picked up with a, oh, and there's a man who was once faithful. And so as I think about those things, I love the way in which the Lord has helped me to be more accountable by having people in my home who can watch what I do and how I speak.

It's just one more guard. I think you, you had showed me something a while back that you had written along those lines before that I hadn't thought of it in those terms and it really, really is, is powerful and wise, because when we think about pastoral failure, just personal failure. It's easy to think we need accountability.

I need to be in the word. All that's true. But hospitality, you know, there's, there's no magic bullet, you know, sin will find a way.

But we want to make those ways as difficult as possible. And the hospitality shows, you know, somebody was just saying recently and thankfully I don't remember who he was talking about. It was something in the past, but was saying that people were reflecting, looking back that before this person had a failure, he started to kind of tell more sexual jokes, more kind of innuendo just just got sort of freer.

And looser and, you know, maybe the sort of thing that is a one off, he like, well, I don't know, maybe that was a little over the edge. And that's the sort of thing that if you're in with life, now we can always find a way to fake, I suppose, but the more you have people in your life, the more you actually have friends. People who, you know, mutual backscratchers, but real friends who see you, see you, you know, at the, at the soccer game, the cross country meet who see you in your home.

It's, you know, Lord, Lord help us, Lord help all of us. Chad, thank you for your scholarship, may the Lord give you many, many more decades to serve the church grateful for you, for Emily, for your kids. Thank you for all that you do and for your friendship.

And look forward to having you teach me and others many more things about the Westminster Assembly. Thank you, Kevin. My feelings are mutual.

Glad to be on this show. All right. Thank you all for listening or watching to life and books and everything in ministry have clearly reformed.

You get more episodes like this at clearlyreform.org. Until next time, glorify God, enjoy him forever and read a good book. Thank you.