7 May 2000 A.D. Presbyterian Statesman’s Last Time in His Pulpit. Mr. (Rev. Dr.) James Montgomery Boice, Pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church, preached his last sermon
(I’ll call him Jim. I met
him in the early 70s as the PCRT started.
We were members of Tenth for 3 years, that is, he was my Pastor. We were on-hand for Tenth’s vote to secede from
PCUSA and to join the RPCES followed, shortly, by entrance to the PCA (791-5
vote to secede with family of Dr. C. Everett Coop voting “nay”). Also, correspondence was maintained for
years. Further, he insisted on me
calling him “Jim.” He was a friend, but back on point.)
The story is told by Dr.
Rusten. We add a few of our musings to the story.
Rusten, E. Michael and Rusten,
Sharon. The One Year Christian History.
Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2003. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Christian-History-Books/dp/0842355073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393302630&sr=8-1&keywords=rusten+church+history
As
a boy with his family, Jim attended Tenth Presbyterian, Philadelphia, an
historic church. He thought highly of
his Pastor, the Rev. Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.
He was an avid listener to The
Bible Study Hour. By age 12, he wanted to be a minister. Little did he know that one day he would fill
Tenth’s historic pulpit in Center City.
Jim
attended Harvard, getting his BA in English literature. He met Linda Ann Boice (nee McNamara) at
Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. She
received an MA from Harvard. They married.
Jim attended Princeton Seminary, earning the M.Div. Afterwards, they
went to the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Jim earned his D.Theo. under
Prof. Oscar Cullman. After Basel, they
settled in Washington D.C. where Jim worked for Christianity Today.
In
1968, Tenth Presbyterian called Jim to the pulpit of his youth as the senior
Pastor. On 1969, he became the speaker for The
Bible Study Hour. Jim was always
scholarly, accessible and relevant in his expository messages. Tenth grew in
numbers, outreach, income and programs. The church also created an inner-city
classical and college preparatory school.
Perhaps
more famously, Jim and Jim alone initiated the “Philadelphia Conference on
Reformed Theology” (PCRT) at a time when it had languished in American
life. Jim invited top-drawer Professors
to the 4-city conferences: Philadelphia,
Chicago, Atlanta, and varied other cities.
Dr. Jack Gerstner, the then-young-and-unknown
R.C. Sproul, Dr. James Packer, Dr. Roger Nicole and others were frequent guests
in the conferences. As a result, other
conferences, e.g. Ligonier Ministries, were inaugurated.
In
1977, Jim initiated and led the International
Council on Biblical Inerrancy, a 10-year project that drew scholars and
professors to address.
Jim
contributed to and wrote more than 60 books.
On
Good Friday, 2000, 2 hours before the opening of a PCRT in Philadelphia, and 2
hours before Jim was scheduled to preach, he was told that he had an aggressive
form of pancreatic cancer. The prognosis
was poor.
On
Sunday, 7 May, 2000, Jim mounted the
pulpit of Tenth for the last time. He
announced to his stunned congregation that he was rapidly dying of cancer. Whoever can forget his final statement:
“Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free
to do that, of course. My general
impression is that the God who is able to perform miracles—and certainly He
can—is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place…Above
all, I would say pray for the glory of God.
If you think of God glorifying Himself in history and you say, `Where in
all of history has God most glorified Himself?’ the answer is that He did it at
the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross,
though He could have…And yet that’s where God is most glorified.”
On
15 June 2000, age 61, the Rev. Dr. James Montgomery Boice died peacefully in
his sleep 8 weeks after his diagnosis.
A
General and Admiral in Israel fell.
Horton,
Michael. “James Montgomery Boice: Servant of the Word.” Modern
Reformation. 9 no. 5 (September/October 2000): 10-11.
Dr Boice was an inspiration, a great preacher of the word. I still miss him but glad to be able to hear his podcasts.
ReplyDeleteDr Boice was an inspiration, a great preacher of the word. I still miss him but glad to be able to hear his podcasts.
ReplyDeleteDr Boice was an inspiration, a great preacher of the word. I still miss him but glad to be able to hear his podcasts.
ReplyDelete