From Rutherford Hall -- By: Jerry O’Neill

Journal: Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal
Volume: RPTJ 02:1 (Fall 2015)
Article: From Rutherford Hall
Author: Jerry O’Neill


From Rutherford Hall

Jerry O’Neill

President of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Two Bible verses have been on my mind a lot recently. Under divine inspiration, the apostle Paul warns Timothy of those who have the appearance (or form) of godliness (2 Tim. 3:5), but who deny its power. These people, he says, are to be avoided. In 1 Corinthians 4:20, we read that the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power. What a warning for those of us at the Seminary who spend our lives in preaching, teaching, counseling, and in other ways serving as stewards of the mysteries of God! The kingdom of God does not consist in talk, or words, but in power.

One of our students reminded me recently of Talkative in Pilgrim’s Progress. Do you remember Talkative? Talkative loved to talk theology. He says to Faithful at one point, Talking about theology is most profitable. A person can learn the necessity of the New Birth, the insufficiency of our own works, the need of Christ’s righteousness. He may learn what it means to repent, believe, pray, and suffer. People can learn, for their own comfort, what the great promises and encouragements of the gospel are. He can learn how to refute false opinions, to vindicate the truth, and how to instruct the ignorant.

But then Christian pulls Faithful aside and says to his friend, in essence, Talkative knows how to talk about repentance, belief, and prayer, but he only knows how to talk about them. He goes on to say that Talkative’s house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is empty of flavor—there is neither prayer nor the sign of repentance there.

Why is the church in the West so impotent? Why is the Reformed church so lacking in genuine conversions? Have we lost our saltiness? Why do we appear to be only a dim light in the midst of a decaying culture? When I ask these questions, I hope you understand that I am not talking about the church “out there.” Rather, I am talking about the churches of our own tradition. What needs to be done to reverse the trend that seems so obvious in the Western church today?

I certainly do not have the full answer to these questions. Only our sovereign God can bring repentance to our land. But God uses people, men and women and boy and girls, who are filled with His Spirit. In that light, living our lives in union and communion with the resurrected and living Savior is of fundamental importance.

This volume of our journal speaks to the theme, “Experiencing the Fullness of Our Union with Christ.” My hope and prayer is that we might all drink deeply from the wisdom contained in these articles. Pray that the Lord Himself would use them to cause us more and mor...

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