The Forgotten Spurgeon

Just finished reading Iain Murray's excellent tome, The Forgotten Spurgeon, and I can't recommend it heartily enough. It is not so much a biography as it is a focus on Spurgeon's not-so-happy years of conflict with those who were content to go with the flow of popular trends in the Church. Trends like hyper-Calvinism, Arminianism, Ecumenicalism, and bending the Gospel to conform to the whims of the culture du jour. Sound timely? George Santayana said something to the effect of, "Those who won't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Reading this book, I see three generations who haven't learned their lesson--ours looking back to Spurgeon's, and Spurgeon's looking back to the Puritans'.

Spurgeon stood almost alone for doctrinal purity out of a sense of pastoral care for his congregants, because he had a high regard for the Word of God, felt the ends didn't justify the means, wasn't afraid to take abuse from men for doing what he felt Scripture called him to do, and because he felt that the best way to maintain the unity of true believers was sometimes to do things that would make the tares up and leave.

Although outside the scope of this book, Spurgeon's life models a "kinder, gentler Calvinism" (as James McGuire calls it) that showcases grace and truth together. Bravo!