I have come to grips with the fact that I cannot read every edifying book that catches my eye. Thankfully, I am surrounded by book-loving brothers who can thoughtfully distill the highlights of some of the best books that are out of my reach. One of those brothers just so happens to be my dad, Gene Smith. I asked him to give me his review of Iain Murray’s recent book A Scottish Christian Heritage.
There is a famous saying that goes something like this: “We must study history and learn from its mistakes, or else we will be doomed to repeat them.” Or as Paul writes to the church at Corinth: “These things happened to them as examples, and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” (1 Cor 10:11) Thoughts such as these come to mind in the reading of Iain Murray’s A Scottish Christian Heritage. As Murray states in his foreword, he is not attempting to give a summary of Scottish church history, nor to write “a book in praise of things Scottish as such.” Rather, he singles out certain leaders in particular and draws from their biographies lessons for us to learn for our walk of faith today.
Who has not heard of John Knox and his battle with Mary Queen of Scots? But what of Robert Bruce, Thomas Chalmers, John MacDonald, and the Bonar brothers? Murray’s treatment of each whets the appetite for further exploration of these men of the highlands and moors. As he quickly points out, there is nothing holy about Scotland in and of itself, but there were so many Scottish Christians of “adoring and heavenly minds” because of their recovery of biblical truth, and the persecution that followed. Murray traces that recovery, and battle to maintain it, and then the sad erosion of those biblical foundations. The subtle invasion of theological liberalism which resulted in a quenching of the fire which once burned brightly within those of the Scottish kirk led Robert Louis Stevenson to write in 1887, “The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction.” What happened and how did such a reversal occur for the spiritual climate set by the likes of Knox and Bonar? As Murray sums it up, “Faith in God cannot long survive disbelief in his Word.”
Murray takes the reader on a fascinating journey with the men who shaped the Scottish reformation from the 16th to 19th centuries, in the form of their biographies, their sermon content, and of course their struggles and the lessons that we can learn from them today. As Murray puts it, “The most frequently used word in John Knox’s vocabulary was undoubtedly ‘battle’; and the battle, as he knew it, was ‘not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world’” However, in spite of Knox’s at times coming across as severe and extreme in his day of harshness of persecution, he also had a strong ministry of encouragement to struggling believers. “Your imperfection shall have no power to damn you,” he writes to a Mrs. Bowes, “for Christ’s perfection is reputed to be yours by faith, which you have in his blood.” And of course, we must not leave out the power of Knox’s preaching. As the English ambassador exclaimed upon hearing Knox preach, “The voice of one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.” Even so, Knox was quick to admit that he was not a good orator, but that his powerful preaching was a result of the grace and working of the Holy Spirit within him.
A study of Knox’s life also reminds us of how God is active in history. It was a result of Knox’s exile to England that his friendships were formed that helped draw the two long-hostile nations together. And as Murray continues to point out, his exile to Calvin’s city contributed to bringing Britain the Geneva Bible. A touching portrait of Knox is presented through these words spoken to gathering friends in his final days of earth: “Live in Christ. Live in Christ, and then flesh need not fear death – Lord, grant true pastors to thy Church, that purity of doctrine may be maintained.”
In reading of the lives and prayers of the Scottish reformers, it is almost as if they arise heavenward as the aroma and smoke of the burning peat rising from the bogs of the highlands. May they continue to inspire us to offer up our lives to God as vessels of reformation and restoration of Biblical truth for the kirk in our day.
