15 June
2000 A.D. In memoriam of the Rev.
Dr. James Montgomery Boice, Senior Pastor Tenth Presbyterian Church,
Philadelphia, PA.
In Memoriam, James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000)
June 15 marks
the tenth anniversary of the death of James Montgomery Boice, who was for
thirty-two years the pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, the
dean of Reformed pastor-scholars in his generation, and my beloved pastor.
The enduring image of Dr. Boice in my mind is also the first, when I had
walked into Tenth Church for an evening service in 1990: standing in the pulpit
preaching God's Word with authority, clarity, and both intellectual and
spiritual power. The ten years since his death have seen little decrease
in his standing and influence among evangelical Christians. Through his
continuing radio ministry on The
Bible Study Hour
and especially through his writings, Boice continues not only to teach the
Scriptures and its great doctrines, but he continues to anchor the commitment
of his followers and admirers to the innerancy and sufficiency of God's living
Word.
In
my opinion, the reason for James Boice's influence and legacy is seldom
understood. What was it about him that drew so wide an audience of
pastors and laypeople? The answer is that as a Reformed theologian, James
Boice was a Christian first. That is, the issues for which he stood were
Christian issues: the inerrancy of Scripture, the gospel of faith in Jesus, the
sin-cleansing power of Christ's blood, and the Christian witness for the
salvation of the lost. It is true that Boice served this Christian and
evangelical cause from a distinctively Reformed perspective, but his cause was
simply that of Christ and his gospel. It is in this way that Boice so
ably advanced the credibility of Reformed theology within evangelicalism, by
showing that it is only the Reformed doctrine that can consistently uphold
Christian distinctives. Boice taught, proved, and defended Calvinism by
teaching, proving, and defending the Bible. On a personal level this
Christ-centered priority was also true for James Boice. While Boice was a
Calvinist through and through, his passion was for the person and work of Jesus
Christ, and his labor was offered in personal service to his living and
reigning Lord and Savior. Calvinism was ever the servant of Boice's
passion for Jesus and never the master.
I think that
James Boice's ministerial career can be seen in three phases. The first
phase of his career, from the mid-1960's to around 1980, involved the defense
of evangelical doctrine against liberal assaults. These were the years
when Boice was wrapping up the education he received in liberal institutions
like Princeton Seminary and the University of Basel. In his John
commentary, dating from these early years, one will frequently read Boice
defending the Bible from the interpretations of liberals like Rudolf Bultmann.
These were also the years when Boice was ordained in the liberal United
Presbyterian Church, so that the context for his ministry was that of
opposition to liberal attacks on the Bible. It is no surprise that
Boice's chief concern during these years was to defend the inerrancy and
authority of Scripture, as seen in his leadership of the International Council
on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI).
The second phase
of Boice's ministry took place from around 1980-- when Tenth Presbyterian
Church left the liberal UPC and eventually made its way into the evangelical
Presbyterian Church in America -- until 1993. This phase of Boice's
ministry focused on the teaching of Reformed theology within an evangelical
context. Boice believed that the evangelical movement could only maintain
its doctrinal moorings (and therefore its spiritual vitality) by standing on
the foundation laid by the Protestant Reformers (and the apostles before them).
The crowning achievements of this period of Boice's ministry were his
four-volume commentary on Romans, which not only lays out the biblical basis
for Reformed doctrine but also shows the necessity of these doctrines for
Christian faith and life, and his lay-friendly systematic theology, Foundations
of the Christian Faith.
The final phase
of Boice's ministry can be dated from the publishing of David Well's book, No
Place for Truth, in 1993, which uncovered the looming danger of worldliness
in the faith and practice of evangelical churches. These years saw Boice
emphasize not merely the inerrancy of the Bible but also the sufficiency of Scripture
for the church's evangelism, holiness, guidance, and cultural impact. It
was around this time, 1994, that Boice (along with Michael Horton) founded the
Alliance for Confessing Evangelicals, which carries on his work to this day.
One of Boice's final and best books issued this clarion call to
reformation, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? a book which
retains every bit of its relevance today and will continue to be relevant for
decades to come.
Was James Boice
successful in his endeavors as a Christian statesman? I think the answer
is that he was remarkably successful as God blessed his Bible teaching and
statesmanship. As for his early defense of the Bible, Boice did not
persuade the liberals, but his and others' efforts did anchor a generation of
evangelicals to the inerrancy of Scripture. As for his middle years and
their emphasis on Reformed doctrine as key to the gospel, Boice lived to see
the beginnings of the Reformed awakening that is now in full bloom among so
many evangelical Christians. When Boice founded the Philadelphia
Conference on Reformed Theology in 1974, experts insisted that no one wanted to
hear Reformed teaching much less pay to attend such a conference. Today,
not only is Boice's PCRT still going strong (with over 2000 people attending in
2010), but it has spurred a host of even larger conferences such as the annual
Ligonier Conference and the more recent Together for the Gospel. Finally,
as for Boice's later endeavors as a reforming leader, in this he also was blessed
by God with considerable success. It is true that Boice, the Alliance of
Confessing Evangelicals, and other like-minded groups have not stemmed the
flood of worldliness and doctrinal infidelity in the broader evangelical world.
But Boice did inspire a generation of young Christian leaders who are
passionately committed to biblical fidelity and filled with gospel zeal.
In the last couple of years of his life, Boice often spoke to me about
his excitement for the future due to the emergence of so many fervent,
well-grounded young pastors and lay leaders. Jim Boice did not die with a
sense of failure but with a joyful optimism regarding what God would do in the
coming years through the legion of fervent, Bible-believing, cross-exalting,
sovereign grace-proclaiming Christians he saw coming behind him.
One way for me
to eulogize James Montgomery Boice is to recount both the first and the last
things he ever said personally to me. My first conversation with Boice
took place at a congregational dinner of Tenth Church, shortly after I had been
converted and joined the church. I remember arriving late for the meal in
the church's crowed fellowship hall, filled with circular dinner tables, and
seeing no available seat except for one directly next to the senior minister,
Dr. Boice. I suppose others were too intimidated to sit next to the great
preacher, but I was thrilled. During the meal I recounted to Boice how I
had been growing under his preaching and especially how my reading of his books
was enriching my soul and leading me into truth. After a bit of this,
Boice interrupted me and said, "Young man, you are talking too much about
me. I would suggest that you stop reading my books and start reading the
Bible for yourself, focusing on the truth that Jesus will teach you by the Holy
Spirit." At the time I was downcast over this reproof, but the
episode left a permanent impact on me on the importance of being devoted to
Christ and his Word rather than the teaching of any man.
My final meeting
with James Boice took place about ten years later, just a few days before he
died. A group of us from the church had gone to his home to see him for a
last time and to sing some of the hymns he had written and which were set to
music by Paul Jones. The last of these hymns we sang was in my view
Boice's best: "Come to the Waters," a hymn gathering together all the
"water of life" themes in the Bible as they flow from the gospel.
(If you want to feel the very heart-beat of James Boice's ministry, just
sing this hymn!) Sitting on the couch with Jim afterwards, he grabbed my
arm and in his cancer-weakened voice he said to me, "Rick, do you see what
I am saying in that hymn? It all flows to Jesus and out from him.
Don't ever forget that!" By God's grace, I don't believe I
ever will forget it, and I will certainly never forget the inspirational,
Christ-centered life and ministry of my friend and pastor, James Montgomery
Boice.
Not long after
that final meeting, I had the privilege of preaching the evening sermon at Tenth
on the Sunday after Dr. Boice died. Phil Ryken and I had scripted that
Sunday, with him preaching a pastoral message of comfort to the congregation in
the morning and with me preaching a memorial message that evening. I
chose as my text 2
Kings 2:11-15,
the ascension of Elijah in a chariot of fire. One reason for selecting
this text was that when I had learned weeks earlier that Dr. Boice would soon
die of cancer, I had gotten onto my knees and prayed for God to give me double
the portion of the Spirit so as to be one of those who would carry on Jim's
work. In the sermon I wanted to point out that we as a congregation could
take up Boice's legacy, like the mantel that fell from Elijah's ascending
chariot, and carry it on by holding forth the convictions he had taught us from
God's Word. A couple of days before preaching the sermon, however, Phil
Ryken gave me a cassette tape of a message Boice had preached on that passage.
I had thought that Jim had never preached from that text, but it turned
out that he had done so for his tenth anniversary as Tenth's pastor. In
that sermon, Boice revealed that when he was a seminary student at Princeton in
1960, his father had called to tell him about the sudden death of Donald Grey
Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Church and Boice's pulpit hero. Jim
related how when he heard the news, he fell to his knees in his room and prayed
for God to give him double the portion of Elijah if he was to take up the
mantle of so great a man as Barnhouse. I ended up telling this story in
my memorial sermon for Boice, pointing out that he was, like us, simply a man
of faith who had prayed to be used by God. It is therefore our sovereign
and gracious God who deserves the praise and glory for the life and ministry of
James Montgomery Boice, as Dr. Boice himself would be the first to insist.
If we will pray for the same - for God's mighty Spirit to equip us to
minister the gospel truth to our generation - we can expect God to do great
things through our labors as well.
Dr. Boice's
favorite benediction from the Bible says of God that "from him and through
him and to him are all things." Paul concludes, "To him be
glory forever. Amen" (Rom.
11:36).
It was James Montgomery Boice's own glorification to leave us and be with
God, ten years ago today, having devoted his life and labors to the praise of
God's glorious grace.
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