Book Review / Interview with Ted Donnelly (1992)

The point: Take note of questions that arose from the pre-membership class and submit them to Pastor Nichols for a future Q&A session.

Martin compares the 'dense' pre-membership class material to real perfume costing $60 for half an ounce, implying its concentrated value and depth, not lack of clarity.

Pastor Nichols indicated that in July there will be an adult class marked out as a question-and-answer time, so if you have had concerns, matters that either were not clear to you or the biblical roots of the matters were not sufficient as to carry your conscience, whatever concerns may have grown out of those 13 weeks of very concentrated and dense materials, I don't mean dense in terms of unclear, but they came to us in the different... the difference between cologne and the real perfume that cost $60 for half an ounce.

0:59 - 1:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But if we have given pastors and teachers for our benefit, then it is our responsibility if those pastors and teachers can minister to us, not only in the living pastor-flock relationship, but those who being dead yet sp…

Martin recounts Paul's request for his cloak and books in 2 Timothy 4:13, using it to illustrate Paul's legitimate concern for physical comfort alongside his continued commitment to spiritual and intellectual growth through reading.

This old man about to die, and yet he's not coasting in terms of his spiritual or intellectual development and growth. And among his closing requests given to Timothy, we find in chapter 4 and verse 13 these very fascinating words. The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when you come. Apparently he was cold.

7:41 - 8:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And I trust that we will have something of Paul's spirit, that to the very end of our days, as long as we have any measure of rationality, we will seek more and more to know the ways of God, and the works of God, and the…

Martin highlights Paul's unique spiritual experiences (caught up into the third heaven) to emphasize that even an apostle with such privileges still needed to read and grow, underscoring the universal need for reading.

He is still committed to growing spiritually. Spiritually and intellectually. Now if that's true of an apostle, who as we shall see more fully in the message of the subsequent hour, and as we know from our general acquaintance with scripture, was drawn to Christ in a most unusual way, had very unique privileges, caught up into the third heaven, heard things unlawful to utter. Surely if any man could say, well I have enough of past experience upon which to meditate to my own spiritual and intellectual growth, I would be able to do it.

9:25 - 9:59 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains that widespread reading of the same books can enhance corporate edification, enabling believers to fulfill Colossians 3:16 by teaching and admonishing one another…

Martin illustrates how reading can enhance mutual ministry by imagining a scenario where one believer recommends a specific chapter from a book to another struggling believer, based on shared experience.

As we are able to say in my struggles with Thus and Thus, I found something in chapter 4 of such a book that was a tremendous help, and it seems to me from what you have said to me, John or Mary or Henrietta, your struggles are exactly where mine were. I really recommend that you take account of such and such a chapter, and it will increase our ability to minister one to another in areas where perhaps we would not be competent to give the exhortation, to give the instruction, but having received it in the printed page, we can point our brothers and sisters to it, and in so doing minister to th...

12:21 - 13:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Use Octavius Winslow's 'No Condemnation in Christ' for personal devotions and possibly family worship, especially with teenage children and upward.

Martin mentions his personal copy of Winslow's book got 'dinged a little bit in the last airline trip,' adding a personal touch and distinguishing it from a bookstore copy.

And then for those of you who perhaps come to some fresh understanding of the glory of your acceptance in Christ and realize that with it comes an even increased motivation to holiness, to be well established and not shaken in that new found joyful confidence that you are accepted in the Beloved, I highly recommend the reprint of Octavius Winslow's No Condemnation in Christ. This is not the bookstore's copy, so Chuck and Kathy and Helen, you need not hold your breath. This is my own personal copy that got dinged a little bit in the last airline trip when something was put in my satchel and ben...

19:06 - 20:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Use Octavius Winslow's 'No Condemnation in Christ' for personal devotions and possibly family worship, especially with teenage children and upward.

Martin quotes Winslow's exposition of 'heirs of God,' explaining that God himself is the inheritance, not merely the giver of an inheritance, to amplify the concept of God as the possession of his people.

Here lies our vast, infinite and incomputable wealth. What constitutes the abject poverty of an ungodly man and his being without God in the world? He takes the phrase heirs of God, and he turns it and sets it before us, not that we are heirs because God is the cause of giving us an inheritance, but as the heart of the covenant promise, God himself is our inheritance, heirs of God. And then he opens up that wonderful concept that God himself is the possession of his people. And then he goes on to amplify and apply that in a warmly pastoral way. That's just a little sampling. I know many of you...

21:27 - 22:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Use Octavius Winslow's 'No Condemnation in Christ' for personal devotions and possibly family worship, especially with teenage children and upward.

Martin quotes Winslow's bold statement that Romans 8 'may be said to contain the whole gospel,' emphasizing the chapter's profound significance.

In fact, Winslow is bold enough to say, it is not only all gospel, but this chapter may be said to contain the whole gospel. And so I urge upon you this book as an excellent devotional book, one that you may not only use, desire to use in personal devotions, but possibly even in family worship if you have teenage children and upward. Then I want to say a word about a historical or biographical book. Why should we as the people of God be concerned to know anything about God's servants and God's church in previous ages?

22:36 - 23:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Read J.C. Ryle's 'Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century' as a first foray into biographical and historical reading to cultivate a taste for history.

Martin suggests reading biographies of Whitfield and Spurgeon as examples of men greatly used by God, encouraging those who 'don't have a taste for history' to cultivate it.

In other words, it is right to look back upon those who've gone before us and have lived an exemplary life and to learn from them and to imitate them. And I would urge you if you have never read, say, the two volumes of Whitfield's biography that, I'm sorry, the biography of Whitfield by Dollymore, and then the work on Whitfield put out by the Banner, the two volumes of The Life of Spurgeon, those men that were greatly used of God, whose names are household words in evangelical circles. And if you've just been one who says, I just don't have a taste for history, well, I think you could change ...

23:50 - 24:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Read J.C. Ryle's 'Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century' as a first foray into biographical and historical reading to cultivate a taste for history.

Martin shares that he frequently quotes from J.C. Ryle's book in the academy to illustrate aspects of preaching, demonstrating the book's practical value for ministers.

And in so doing, he has given so many helpful things. The men in the academy know that this is one of the books from which I quote most frequently after I've articulated some aspect of preaching, I have found again and again wonderful illustrations of it in a paragraph or a page out of J.C. Ryle.

26:32 - 26:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Become readers yourselves to model this for your children, fostering a home environment where reading is valued.

Martin uses the 'television age' as an analogy for a cultural force that has 'killed any serious reading,' urging believers not to conform to this pattern but to be transformed by renewing their minds through reading.

And I believe you'll come away saying, where can I get more stuff like this? And hopefully in the right sense you'll get hooked on history, hooked on biography. And one of the final things that I want to say, and I want to be very blunt about it, studies being done by educators and sociologists clearly indicate that one of the most cursed, baneful results of living in the television age is it has by and large killed any serious reading among the rank and file of the places where the television is a household item. Now that's just a fact.

27:19 - 28:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Become readers yourselves to model this for your children, fostering a home environment where reading is valued.

Martin illustrates the importance of parents modeling reading by suggesting children should grow up seeing 'mom and dad with a book in hand,' fostering a reading culture in the home.

It can be established by statistics in an overwhelming way. And the scripture tells us we are not to be conformed to this age, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, and it would be a tragic thing if the erosion of being a reading congregation were brought to pass through careless and shoddy patterns of television watching. And so I would urge some of you who are deeply committed to the molding of your children's perspectives on life to become readers yourself. They ought to grow up in a home where mom and dad with a book in hand is part of the memory that they carry into their adult li...

28:01 - 28:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Avoid reading merely to 'name drop' or for carnal absorption with the number of pages read, as this does not foster genuine godliness.

Martin warns against reading for pride, stating that 'some of the most ignorant people I've met read a lot' and one can become 'bookish and carnal as a goat and self-centered and proud,' illustrating the danger of reading without genuine godliness.

And hopefully in our interaction one with another our conversation will be more edifying, our impact upon one another more godly and in this way as the word of Christ dwells more richly in us we will then be able to minister one to another. Now, for any of you who've got all kinds of time to read and who would use what you read as a symbol, let me say at the outset the fact that you read a lot doesn't prove anything but that you read a lot. Some of the most ignorant people I've met read a lot. But they learn nothing from what they read.

30:18 - 30:53 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces Pastor Ted Donnelly, emphasizing the truth of the universal church and the importance of fellowship among true churches, citing 1 Corinthians 1 as a biblical…

Martin points to the church's practice of reading letters from churches worldwide and praying cyclically for them as a tangible expression of belief in the universal church.

hold fellowship with that specific church in that specific place called Corinth. And while there are few who would deny the theology of the doctrine of the universal church, and there are some and we have had the impact of that leaven upon our own congregation in the past couple of years with one or two who have imbibed that notion that there is no such thing as the universal church. It's one thing to hold the theology of it, it's another thing so to live as to make it manifest that you believe it. And those of you again who are new among us and wonder why do we have these letters 3, 4, 5, 6, ...

36:02 - 37:30 Read in full sermon

Driving home: with his word as our guide and the teaching of his word and the commitment to love and to holiness there is really nothing else that the church of Christ needs to experience his blessing and God has brought those people …

Donnelly shares an elder's perceptive comment at a prayer meeting: 'perhaps we should also give thanks for those whom he has kept away,' illustrating how God protects the church by not bringing those who want to change its principles.

at a recent prayer meeting we were giving thanks for those whom God has brought and one of my fellow elders said very perceptively perhaps we should also give thanks for those whom he has kept away and I think there is an element of truth in that folk who wanted other things came for a short time we weren't willing to change our principles to give them what they thought they wanted and God has blessed us in that way so we are very very thankful to him in spite of all our needs well carrying on from there Pastor Donnelly what would you say about three or four of the most critical concerns that ...

44:27 - 45:56 Read in full sermon

Driving home: how astonishing it is that in a country where there are so many Christians and there are very many converted people in the north of Ireland how astonishing it is that in that place there should be trouble is that astonis…

Donnelly addresses the 'slanted backward American media' portrayal of Northern Ireland, correcting the impression that it's an 'armed camp' and providing a more accurate historical context.

I've already spoken to Bill about this the impression the average American would get from our television is that somehow sometime in the indefinite past a bunch of people went over from England with the approval of the English government and partitioned off Northern Ireland and holds it as an armed camp against the will of its inhabitants and if you folk had any sense you would just give up that horrible arrangement and I think it would be helpful to our people to just give a brief sketch of how this situation came into being and what it is like now to live in the present tensions so that our ...

48:51 - 49:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: how astonishing it is that in a country where there are so many Christians and there are very many converted people in the north of Ireland how astonishing it is that in that place there should be trouble is that astonis…

Donnelly uses a rhetorical question to explain why there is trouble in Northern Ireland despite many Christians: 'where do you think the devil would want to cause trouble in the world?' arguing that the devil targets places where the gospel is strong.

there is absolutely nothing reprehensible or unbiblical in Irish people wanting independence from Britain that would not personally be my wish or my choice but there is nothing wrong with that aspiration there is nothing wrong with the aspiration of wanting to remain united with Britain what is important is that those aspirations should be pursued in a peaceful, honourable and democratic way as civilised human beings so that we can come to some agreement that will satisfy the aspirations of the people and the problem is these terrorists using as it were the flag of history of English oppressio...

52:52 - 54:20 Read in full sermon