The Montifiore Manse

Cornelius Van Til

Dear friends & family,

I have been meaning to post for a while. Here is just a short one.

As I am sitting in my study (yes it is done!) I decided I needed to return to listen to an old friend: Cornelius Van Til. I have a CD with the works of Van Til and among those works are several of his lectures and sermons. I have listened to these lectures and sermons several times; it was my habit to listen to them over breakfast while I was interning in Chilliwack British Columbia.

There are marvelously helpful thing in these lectures. It was in one of these lectures I finally found concrete evidence of how Van Til pushes the antithesis further then anyone else in the Neo-Calvinistic school of thinking (he went so far as to say the antithesis applies to numbers, and in so doing he goes at least one step beyond Abraham Kuyper). But what I truly enjoy in them is that I find him easy to understand. I know, I know, "Van Til is not easy to understand!" many say, and that is true for most. However I find his Christian philosophical techno speak soothing and familiar.

So why post about Van Til?

In the ministry you need to know how to rest, relax, feed, and refresh yourself. You must primarily do this through prayer and the reading of God's Word (and it is real temptation and danger not too), but secondarily everyone, especially pastors, should have particular authors that help relax, refresh, and feed them. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had a Puritan named Richard Sibbes. A friend of mine has Robert Murray McCheyene, another has John Owen, another has George Whitefield, and the list could go on. Each one of the Lord's people has individual struggles in their Christian walk and it is a marvelous idea to have a friend (an old dead author) who you can learn from and be once again be directed to Christ in greater depths.

My two greatest helpers, as far speaking to my soul consistently, have been Augustine and Luther. In times past it has been Thomas Boston and Thomas Shepard. Geerhardus Vos is never far from me but usually for redemptive historical testing on my exegesis and Van Til is actually further into the background testing my epistemology.

Who do you read, besides the Spirit inspired Word, for rest, relaxations, refreshment, and feeding?

Love through Christ,
terry