Customer Reviews

Contending for Our All (Paperback Edition): Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen (The Swans Are Not Silent)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the fourth book in Piper's series, "The Swans Are Not Silent," and follows his pattern of looking at three "swans" of church history through the lens of a central theme. The three presented here are Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen; the theme is the subtitle, Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ.

I was immediately captivated by Piper's Introduction, so much so, that I read portions of it aloud to several people, prefaced by an excited "Listen to this!" His discussion of truth, controversy, and humility sets the tone for what is to come. Piper lays out the historical background for his treatment of Athanasius by discussing the nature of orthodox theology in the fourth century, particularly with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity and the heresy of Arianism. In the second half of this first chapter, he gives seven practical lessons we can learn from the life of Athanasius, and shows that old battles are still being fought, but with new terminology.

John Owen is the only "swan" I had read previously. Piper begins his discussion of Owen by relating the impact Owen has had on men like J.I. Packer, Sinclair Ferguson, and on Piper himself. He gives a brief biography of Owen, including a short definition of Puritanism. He sees the heart of Owen's life and ministry as the mortification of sin and personal holiness: "Be killing sin or it will be killing you." I particularly loved Piper's comment about the relationship between private spirituality and public ministry:

One great hindrance to holiness in the ministry of the Word is that we are prone to preach and write without pressing into the things we say and making them real to our own souls. Over the years words begin to come easy, and we find we can speak of mysteries without standing in awe; we can speak of purity without feeling pure; we can speak of zeal without spiritual passion; we can speak of God's holiness without trembling; we can speak of sin without sorrow; we can speak of heaven without eagerness. And the result is an increasing hardening of the spiritual life. (p. 109)

Piper's final chapter is about J. Gresham Machen and his valiant battle against the Modernism of the early 20th century. After saying that it is not much different from the postmodernism of our day, Piper lists twelve lessons from Machen's life and work applicable to today, and is not shy about bringing up his flaws. In fact, the final section of the chapter is titled "Hope in God's Sovereignty Through Human Shortcomings," an encouragement to us all.

The Conclusion is a gem. With a brief nod to another "sweet-singing twentieth-century swan," Francis Schaeffer, Piper reminds us that passionately standing for the truth is inextricably linked to love. He discusses several Scripture passages where this is taught. He then closes the book with "Our Prayer In a Time of Controversy." This brief prayer, combined with the Introduction and Conclusion, are, in my mind, reason enough to read Contending For Our All. This is not just a history lesson, but also a book for your spiritual benefit. - Pam Glass, Christian Book Previews.com

Each year at the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, hosted by Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis, John Piper delivers a biographical address dealing with a notable Christian figure from the history of the church. Every few years, several of these addresses are compiled into a book as part of "The Swans are Not Silent" series. The most recent of these titles is Contending For Our All, subtitled "Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen and J. Gresham Machen."

Transcripts of the speeches delivered by Piper are available online. It might be reasonable to ask, then, why anyone would care to pay for them. The best reason is that appended to these transcripts are a preface, and introduction and a conclusion, also written by Piper. Within the introduction he discusses why he has chosen to publish the three speeches together. In this book we learn that the common theme of Contending for Our all is that Athanasius, Owen and Machen all stood for the truth of God's Word in the face of opposition. None of them delighted in this controversy, and none was concerned with his popularity. What bound them together, even through almost two millenia of history, is their willingness to suffer for what they knew to be right in their defense of the gospel.

The thrust of each of the sections is to help the reader understand the lessons each of these men offers the church today. Piper does not offer mere biography, but biography that leads to lessons in practical theology.

Contending For Our All is a welcome addition to this series and is a book that is well worth reading. Any believer will benefit from reading about these great men of the faith, whether they do so through purchasing the book or from reading the biographies online.

In Contending for Our All, John Piper continues his series "The Swans Are Not Silent". They are not stricly biographies, so if you are looking for detailed biographies on historical figures you'll need to look elsewhere. For lack of a better term, I would call them "Applied Biographies". They look at the lives of faithful figures in church history, and show what we can learn from them, and how their lives can help us understand the Christian faith and the challenges to that faith in our present day.

Contending for Our All is an especially important book for our present day. In the lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen, Piper shows how the need to defend truth has always been paramount in genuine Biblical Christianity. None of these three men enjoyed controversy for its own sake. All three were charitable and gracious with those whom they disagreed (a lesson all sides should learn in our day!). In his section on Athanasius, Piper insightfully applies Athanasius' battles to the issues of our day:
"Athanasius would have grived over sentences like 'It is Christ who unites us; it is doctrine that divides.' And sentences like: 'We should ask, Whom do you trust? rather than what do you believe?' He would have grieved because he knew this is the very tactic used by the Arian bishops to cover the councils with fog so that the word Christ could mean anything. Those who talk like this--'Christ unites, doctrine divides'-have simply replaced propositions about Christ with the word Christ. It carries no meaning until one says something about him. They think they have said something profound and fresh, when they call us away from the propositions of doctrine to the word Christ. In fact they have done something very old and worn and deadly.." (pp. 64).

His section on Machen was encouraging and challenging as well, and he provides some welcome clarity on a man often unfairly lumped in with "fundamentalists" (in the worse sense of the word) by historians:

"The overarching lesson to be learned from Machen's mixture of weaknesses and strengths is that God reigns over his church and over the world in such a way that he weaves the weaknesses and the strengths of his people with infinite wisdom into a fabric history that displays the full range of his glories. His all-inclusive plan is always more hopeful than we think in the darkest hours of history, and it is always more intermixed with human sin and weakness than we can see in the brightest hours. This means that we should renounce all triumphalism in the bright seasons and renounce all despair in the dark seasons." (pp. 156).

All in all, this is an excellent book for helping those who love Christ and love His church to learn the lessons of history so that hopefully (and by God's grace) we may not repeat the mistakes of history. For our modern evangelical church, enamored with so many passing fads and latest methods, we need to once again see the wisdom of the great believers of the past. They obviously were sinners and imperfect just as we are, but they offer us great wisdom and knowledge that we would be incredibly arrogant to ignore as we seek to love and serve the cause of Christ in our day.

The fourth book of Piper's The Swans Are Not Silent series on the lives of the great saints of the faith, Contending for Our All exposes the reader to the lives of three great warriors who battled for truth against great odds and in the face of great persecution. Athanasius, one of the early church fathers, became bishop of Alexandra in 328 and passed away in 373. He was almost single-handedly responsible for the battle against the heresy of Arius who claimed that Jesus, as the son of God, was a created being; not one with the Father from time and eternity. Athanasius fought this false doctrine and his teaching and influence resulted in the creeds from the Council of Nicaea as well as the Council of Constantinople shortly after his death.

Piper next explores the life and teachings of Puritan pastor John Owen, a man tremendously influential in the lives of some of today's outstanding Christians leaders such as J.I. Packer and Sinclair Ferguson. Some, including Gordon-Conwell Seminary professor Roger Nicole, consider Owen to be the greatest theologian who has ever written in the English language - even greater than Jonathan Edwards. Owen's most outstanding works are The Death of Death in the Death of Christ and Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers. In addition to his writing Owen was a pastor, the Vice Chancellor at Oxford, and heavily involved in the affairs of Parliament. He also suffered the death of his eleven children during his lifetime. Owen is buried next to his contemporary John Bunyan in London.

Finally, Piper tells the story of the short, but controversial life of J. Gresham Machen, a man who stood at the turn of the century here in America and sounded the alarm regarding the liberalization of the church. As a professor at Princeton Seminary, Machen was in a key position to witness this cultural shift that he called "modernity" and that he defined not as a subset of Christianity but rather as a hostile competitor to the traditional and historical faith grounded in Scripture. Machen watched as Princeton Seminary "died," so he and several others left the once-great seminary to start Westminster Seminary. Machen was not only a New Testament scholar, but also one of the first cultural apologists whose influence shaped the life of the great Francis Schaeffer among others.

This series by Piper is quite extraordinary giving the reader a glimpse into the lives, struggles, victories, personalities, and ministries of some of the great saints of the faith. I highly recommend these books to every Christian wanting to know more about the Christian faith and the men and women included in the "great cloud of witnesses."

John Piper shows the solid and sober Christian Athanasius was:
'He is surrounded by an atmosphere of truth. Not a single miracle of any kind is related to him. The saintly reputation of Athanasius rested on his life and character alone, without the aid of any reputation for miraculous power.'
p 41, quoted from Archibald Robertson.

The fourth instalment of 'The Swans Are Not Silent' enters the deep fray of doctrine, and the struggle for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, in the lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J Gresham Machen.

'The problem with modernity is that it has bred forces that are hostile to biblical faith and yet produced a worldview that believers readily embrace.' p 131

Piper's emphasis is again on historical truth, and to commend others not to jettison the lessons learnt in the preservation of biblical truth. How it came to be defended before is not irrelevant, but definitive for our contemporary church.

'When the preference for what is new combines with a naturalistic bias and a scepticism about finding abiding truth, the stage is set for the worst abuses of religious language and the worst manipulations of historic confessions.'
p 133

'It makes very little difference how much or how little of the creeds the church the modernist preacher affirms, or how much or how little of the biblical teaching from which the creeds are derived. He might affirm every jot and tittle of the Westminster Confession, for example, and yet be separated by a great gulf from the Reformed faith. It is not that part is denied and the rest affirmed; but all is denied, because all is affirmed merely as useful or symbolic and not as true.' p 134, Gresham Machen, quoted from What Is Faith? p 34

'This utilitarian view of history and language leads to evasive, vague language that enables the modernist to mislead people into thinking he is still orthodox.' p 135

'When you take away any norm of truth, you take away the only means of measuring movement from lesser to greater, or worse to better.' p 136

'As over against... (the pragmatist, modernist) attitude, we believers in historic Christianity maintain the objectivity of truth. Theology, we hold, is not an attempt to express in merely symbolic terms an inner experience, which must be expressed in different terms in subsequent generations; but it is a setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based.' p 138, Gresham Machen, quoted from What Is Faith? p 32

'If we do not know history, we will be weak and poor in our efforts to be faithful today. Our hope for the church and the spread of the true gospel lies not ultimately in our strategies, but in God. And there is every hope that He will triumph.' p 139

John Piper has given his life, I am convinced after reading this book, to the supremacy of God in all things through a spread of the pure gospel. In this insightful volume, which is part of the "Swans are Not Silent", Piper looks at the life of Athanasius, the beloved bishop, John Owen, the greatest mind of the puritans, and J. Gresham Machen, one the last great theologians of the old Princeton Theological Seminary.

Each biographical sketch surrounds what was pivotal in the lives of these men. This volume is by no means a detail work, but it is nevertheless a powerful one. It is a primer for the reader to be engaged in the lives of older saints, who surrendered their all for the cause of Christ. Buy and Read!

This book gives a good introduction to these three men; Athanasius, Owen and Machen. It walks through their lives and a little on their theology. I guess I was hoping for a little more on their theology but since the book is less than 200 pages what can you expect? Very concise and easy to read and follow and like most of what Piper does, there is good application to what these men lived and believed. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to be introduced to these three vital men of Christendom.

This is my first "The Swans Are Not Silent" book. I picked up this book because of my sincere interest into the life of my favorite theologian, John Owen.

I originally purchased this book back on June 2010 but didn't pick it up to read it until just now.

To my sheer delight and joy, when this book did come up in my queue, I was thrilled to see Athanasius' name next to John Owen. For you see, over Christmas, I just finished Athanasius' On The Incarnation of the Word which made Christmas all the more special (and reading that book during Christmas is a tradition I am sure to pick up). But I digress.

So if Piper sought to put Machen (some dude I never heard of) alongside Athanasius and Owen, I am sure to pay attention.

While this is a book about their lives and their works, it was less about those men and more about defending the truth and "contending for our all".

I love the theory that is being passed around that we, as humans, have so evolved in our behavior in thinking. Yet, when I read history, I am blown away that we are still doing the same exact things that we were doing 10,000 years ago or even 100 years ago. We have not changed. Sin is still sin. We are still born depraved. Praise God that he still saves.

It is no truer than defending Biblical doctrine or 'what the Bible teaches' and it is no more needed in current age of the children of the Enlightenment (post-modern, whatever you want to call it).

What I see commonly is two thoughts: Orthodox Christians who assume the truth (dangerous) and Liberal Christians who fail to see that there is nothing new under the sun and continuous push for new truths and revelations that are not there (far more dangerous still). Yet, for those who do know the truth will not reach out to the Liberals or to the flock in a gentle, loving, compassionate way, they lash out using truth as a double-edge sword and leaving a heap of bodies in their wake.

Shall we take the examples of these three men who did not see the people who opposed the truth of God as enemies but as prisoners of war. This book is a staunch reminder that while we are to "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (2 Timothy 4:1-5) but to be constant reminded that "... we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12). Shall we follow in their footsteps in worshiping our sweet, loving God in Spirit and in truth? My hope in Christ alone and I pray that He will make all things right one day and he will do so despite our best efforts to separate ourselves from each other.

Like the others in this series of biographical books, this one consists of sketches of the lives of three historical christian leaders along with discussion of lessons the reader can learn from each. The men whose life stories are featured in this volume are Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen, who each defended truth in the Christian controversies of their day.

The introduction of Contending for Our All is a defense of those who fight for "the truth and meaning of the gospel" when the truth of the gospel is at stake. The reason this defense must be made is that "[i]n every age there is a kind of person who tries to minimize the importance of truth-de'ning and truth-defending controversy by saying that prayer, worship, evangelism, missions, and dependence on the Holy Spirit are more important...."

Of course, these things are important, but they all depend on clear teaching of foundational truths. As Piper explains,

"I love the passion for faith and prayer and evangelism and worship behind those statements. But when they are used to belittle gospel-defining, gospel-defending controversy they bite the hand that feeds them. Christ-exalting prayer will not survive in an atmosphere where the preservation and explanation and vindication of the teaching of the Bible about the prayer-hearing God are devalued. Evangelism and world missions must feed on the solid food of well-grounded, unambiguous, rich gospel truth in order to sustain courage and confidence in the face of afflictions and false religions. And corporate worship will be diluted with cultural substitutes where the deep, clear, biblical contours of God's glory are not seen and guarded from ever-encroaching error."

Athanasius, Owen and Machen all understood how high the stakes were in the controversies of their times. They did not love controversy for controversy's sake, but they all understood how vital certain truths are to the health of the church, so they contended for the truth out of love--"love to Christ, his church, and his world."

Athansius defended the deity of Christ against the Arians way back in the fourth century. At times, most of Christendom stood against him. For more than forty years--all of his adult life--Athanasius fought for the truth of Christ's deity, even though for much of that time, those in power were working to get rid of him, exiling him five times. Eventually, however, the orthodoxy Athanasius fought for won out, although he did not live to see the successful outcome of his work.

John Owen, a Puritan pastor of the 1600s, wrote to defend against errors that diminished the gospel. He worked hard to uphold the truth throughout his whole life, despite the heartbreak that came from burying all eleven of his children. His writings include, among other things, defenses of the doctrines of perseverance of the saints and definite atonement.

J. Gresham Machen did his contending in the first half of the last century, standing against the errors of liberal Christianity. His most important work was Christianity and Liberalism. My favorite story about Machen is this one. As he lay dying, he sent a telegram to his friend John Murry that said, "I am so thankful for [the] active obedience of Christ. No hope without it." You have to love a man who finds his comfort in death in the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

John Piper draws out many lessons for us from the lives of these three men who contended for the truth against false teaching, but his central lesson is this:

"Faithful Christians do not love controversy; they love peace. They love their brothers and sisters who disagree with them. They long for a common mind for the cause of Christ. But they are bound by their conscience and by the Word of God, for this very reason, to try to persuade the church concerning the fullness of the truth and beauty of God's word."

I love biographies and I love church history, so I loved Contending for Our All. However, if you are looking for detailed life stories like you would find in most biographies, you may be disappointed. But if you want to learn lessons from the lives of these historical figures of the church, lessons that you can apply to your life now in our times, this book will suit you well.