J. C. Ryle & Masculine Ministry [Theology Thursday]

February 23, 2012 at 3:56 am · Filed under Biography, Conference 2012, John Piper, Video

Our selected video for this week is John Piper’s biographical sketch for the 2012 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference which looked at the Bishop of Liverpool, J. C. Ryle.

Ryle was a very powerful preacher who didn’t pedal softly around the weaknesses he saw in the church.

Here is a lengthy quote by Ryle to whet your appetite, abbreviated by John Piper:

is an epidemic which is just now doing great harm, and especially among young people. . . . It produces what I must venture to call . . . a “jelly-fish” Christianity . . . a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power. . . . Alas! It is a type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is, “no dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.”

We have hundreds of “jellyfish” clergyman, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have no definite opinions . . . they are so afraid of “extreme views” that they have no views of all.

We have thousands of “jellyfish” sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge, or a point, or corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint. . . .

And worst of all, we have myriads of “jellyfish” worshipers—respectable Church-gone people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that differ, any more than colorblind people can distinguish colors. . . . They are “tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine”; . . . ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old.

J. C. Ryle & Masculine Ministry >>>

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