Olive Tree Journal

By J. Gresham Machen

From: The Princeton Theological Review, Volume 11, 1913, pp. 1-15. An address delivered September 20, 1912, at the opening of the one hundred and first session of Princeton Theological Seminary, and in substance previously given at a meeting of the Presbyterian Ministers Association of Philadelphia, May 20, 1912. It also appeared in Banner of Truth, with an introduction by Francis A. Schaeffer

One of the greatest of the problems that have agitated the Church is the problem of the relation between knowledge and piety, between culture and Christianity. This problem has appeared first of all in the presence of two tendencies in the Church—the scientific or academic tendency, and what may be called the practical tendency. Some men have devoted themselves chiefly to the task of forming right conceptions as to Christianity and its foundations. To them no fact, however trivial, has appeared worthy of neglect; by them truth has been cherished for its own sake, without immediate consequences. Some, on the other hand, have emphasized the essential simplicity of the gospel. The world is lying in misery, we ourselves are sinners, men are perishing in sin every day. The gospel is the sole means of escape; let us preach it to the world while yet we may. So desperate is the need that we have no time to engage in vain babblings and old wives fables. While we are discussing the exact location of the churches of Galatia, men are perishing under the curse of the law; while we are settling the date of Jesus birth, the world is doing without its Christmas message.

(Read the article)

Comments(0)

By Benjamin B. Warfield

From: The Homiletic Review, Vol. 33, Feb., 1897.

Professor Flint, of Edinburgh, in closing his opening lecture to his class a few years ago,¹ took occasion to warn his students of what he spoke of as an imminent danger. This was a growing tendency to “deem it of prime importance that they should enter upon their ministry accomplished preachers, and of only secondary importance that they should be scholars, thinkers, theologians.” “It is not so,” he is reported as saying, “that great or even good preachers are formed. They form themselves before they form theft style of preaching. Substance with them precedes appearance, in­stead of appearance being a substitute for substance. They learn to know truth before they think of presenting it … They acquire a solid basis for the manifestation of their love of souls through a loving, comprehensive, absorbing study of the truth which saves souls.”

In these winged words is out­lined the case for the indispensableness of Systematic Theolo­gy for the preacher. It is summed up in the propositions that it is through the truth that souls are saved, that it is accord­ingly the prime business of the preacher to present this truth to men, and that it is consequently his fundamental duty to become himself possessed of this truth, that he may present it to men and so save theft souls.

(Read the article)

Comments(0)