Dear Friends,

My latest book find is a book I came across last week titled "Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?" (Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois. 2001) by the late James Montgomery Boice. (This book is subtitled "Recovering the Doctrines That Shook the World"). Many of you (perhaps most of you) may already know the story about how in mid-April, 2000, hundreds of people had come to Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (where Dr. Boice had been pastor for 30 years), for the Philadelphia Conference on Reformation Theology--an annual conference which Dr. Boice had been instrumental in getting started in 1974. At this conference in 2000, he shared with friends the medical report he had received on Good Friday of that year: He was suffering from cancer of the liver and the prognosis was very bad. Eight weeks later, at one o'clock on Friday, June 23, 2000, a vast company of people once again filled Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia--this time they were gathered to honor the memory of Dr. James Montgomery Boice.

This book was the last writing he did, and it was published in 2001 under his wife's copyright. In this book, "Jim Boice has given us a three-fold message, calling us as Christians: 1) to repent of our worldliness; (2) to recover the great salvation doctrines of the Bible...; and (3) to live a life transformed by the essential truths of the gospel."

"As Dr. Boice wrote in the closing words of the book, "There are times in history when it takes a thousand voices to be heard as one voice. But there are other times, like our own, when one voice can ring forth as a thousand. So let's get on with our calling, and let those who say they know God show they actually do--for His glory and for the good of all."

In the final words of the preface to this book, Dr. Boice wrote: "We need ... to recover the gospel of grace. May God Almighty be pleased to grant it. For His glory alone. Amen."

Possibly In some future articles, I hope to share some of the content of this book as regards some of the key points. But for this article (as the hour is late, and I'm still a bit strapped for time), I'm going to "lift" a couple of things from the book that stand alone in their thought-provoking words. My prayer is that it will touch some heart(s) to thoughtfully consider the reality of the kingdom of God in this time and at the place where we are right now. For better, and more, consideration of this pursuit, I highly recommend this book.

Grace and Peace,
Elaine

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The first "vignette" I'd like to share with you is from the opening of Chapter Four, "Christ Alone". The chapter begins with this poem:

To Him who loved us long ago,
Before we came to be,
Who left His throne for earth below
To save a wretch like me:
All praise to Christ from grateful men
Forevermore. Amen.

"In 1897, the year of the magnificent jubilee celebration in honor of Queen Victoria, when England was at the height of her colonial power and the rulers of the empire had returned to London in their tall ships for a long summer of self-congratulating days, Rudyard Kipling, the best known and most popular of the British poets, was asked to write a verse for the occasion. He wrote a powerful poem, beginning:

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine ---
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

"Kiplings "Recessional 1897" was not appreciated. The opinion at the time was that Kipling was passed over as the nation's poet laureate because he had dared to remind his countrymen that earthly success comes from God alone and that God must not be forgotten or fail to be devoutly thanked. No one wanted to think like that in 1897. But Kipling was right, and we must heed that warning ourselves, less we forget the gospel of salvation by grace alone that is our heritage."

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The second "vignette" from the book that I want to share with you this week is from Chapter 8, "Reforming our Worship". Dr. Boice writes in this chapter: ". . . the first and most important thing to be said about true worship is that it is to honor God. If what we call worship is not God-centered and God-honoring, it is not worship." "Yet worship also has bearing on the worshiper. It changes the person. This is the second most important thing to be said about worship. No one ever truly comes to know, honor, praise, or glorify God without being changed in the process. I think here of what is surely the best definition of worship. It is from the pen of . . . former archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple: "To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."

"In that definition the attributes of God--holiness, truth, beauty, and love--and His wise purposes are foremost. But these, rightly known, acknowledged, and praised, impact the worshiper . . . . Thus, in defining worship, Temple has also given us an excellent description of the true Christian life and has defined true godliness."

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