Life & Letters: free grace

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Field-Preaching

A selection from a letter by George Whitefield to a friend who had taken a settled pastorate in London. Whitefield knew that God had called him to an itinerant ministry, at least for the present. He shares some of his reasons why and rejoices in the blessing of God on his labors. The letter was written July 13, 1741.

I have no freedom, but in going about to all denominations. I cannot join with any one, so as to be fixed in any particular place. Every one hath his proper gift. Field-preaching is my plan; in this I am carried as on eagles wings. God makes way for me every where. The work of the Lord increases. I am comforted night and day. O free grace to such an hell-deserving sinner!

Letters of George Whitefield for the Period 1734-1742, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, 1976, Letter [CCC], p. 277.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Free Ransom Given for Sold Souls

A morsel of a letter by Samuel Rutherford. It was written to a friend, Alexander Gordon, who promoted and supported the Presbyterian cause in Scotland. No letters ever written by mortal man are so full of Christ as Rutherford's. Spurgeon thought them to be the nearest thing to inspiration than any writings of mere men. This letter is as always, full of Christ. It was written in 1637.

Sinners can do nothing but make wounds, that Christ may heal them; and make debts, that He may pay them, and make falls, that He may raise them; and make deaths, that He may quicken them; and spin out and dig hells for themselves, that he may ransom them. Now, I will bless the Lord that ever there was such a thing as the free grace of God, and a free ransom given for sold souls; only, alas! guiltiness maketh me ashamed to apply to Christ, and to think it pride in me to put out my unclean and withered hand to such a Saviour. But it is neither shame nor pride for a drowning man to swim to a rock, nor for a shipbroken soul to run himself ashore upon Christ.

Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of his Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents, by the Rev. Andrew A. Bonar, first published in 1664, reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust, 1984, Letter # CCXVII, pp. 425-26.

Why Life & Letters?

Before e-mails, telephones and text-messaging, people wrote letters to one another. Letters are personal and thoughtful. We can be thankful that biographers have letters to and from the people they write about from generations gone by, for modern forms of commu-nication leave us in want. Letters have a quality about them not found in e-mails. Historian and biographer, David McCullough, says, “I think often of how little we will leave about ourselves and our time in our own words. Maybe some of the e-mail will survive, but I doubt it. How will future gen-erations ever come to know us? Historians and biographers a hundred or three hundred years hence will have almost nothing of a personal kind to work with. Our story, consequently, will be a lot less interesting, less human, per-haps even impossible to write.”

It is a shame that few of us today craft letters to our children and friends. Letter writing is a lost art. I hope this blog will inspire others to write letters. Letters are valuable. C. H. Spurgeon said, “A man’s private letters often let you into the secrets of the heart.

Most of what appears here are selections taken from letters of Evangelical Christians. There will also be occasional reviews of books of letters.

Articulate, Thoughtful, and Well-Composed Letters

"In the nineteenth century, many biographers wrote books titled The Life and Letters of So-and-So. While this was not always an eloquent way of writing history, it speaks volumes about our cultural distance; if restricted to composing a narrative of someone’s life around his written correspondence today, we wouldn’t be able to write biographies, because people write too few letters to constitute the substance of a book. Further, if you read those nineteenth-century letters, you cannot fail to notice how articulate, thoughtful, and well composed they commonly are. A culture that was accustomed to thoughtful, well-composed letters produced remarkable significant letters, even among fairly common people. Today, we have become a culture of telephone babblers, unskilled at the most basic questions of composition…"

Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, by T. David Gordon, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2009, pp. 66-67.

A Wonderful Book of Letters: "The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ: The Letters of Ruth Bryan"

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Field-Preaching

Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Free Ransom Given for Sold Souls

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Why Life & Letters?

Articulate, Thoughtful, and Well-Composed Letters

A Wonderful Book of Letters: "The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ: The Letters of Ruth Bryan"

A Sample Letter

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