Christ and Culture Revisited
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 64, No. 2 – Spring 2022
Editor: David S. Dockery
By Tom Nettles. Fearn, UK: Christian Focus, 2021, 230 pp., paperback, $14.99
Tom Nettles, already a noted Spurgeon biographer, offers a fresh and scintillating perspective on this Baptist legend. Nettles is senior professor of historical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The book’s title and premise derive from William Wordsworth’s My Heart Leaps Up revealing that people’s personalities develop as children, and they show those same qualities as adults. Nettles develops ten specific Spurgeon convictions, “Issues that appeared early in [his] life, made their way in his ministry through the years, and stayed with him until death” (p. 213). Nettles intends this book to be a companion to his biographic magnum opus Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Christian Focus, 2013).
Nettles sees providence as the bedrock of Spurgeon’s convictions for he viewed everything through the lens of the divine purpose and gaged his internal and external response based on biblical doctrine (p. 19). Indeed, the doctrines of grace undergirded his spiritual convictions, proving a bulwark of security in all of Spurgeon’s life and ministry challenges from conversion to death (p. 36). Spurgeon felt strongly about being a Baptist. Regenerate church membership had thrust him into Baptist life (p. 59), and he believed that Baptists held a deposit of sacred truth to defend, and one should not hesitate to battle for it (p. 72). After conversion, Spurgeon’s early evangelistic desire led him to seek the salvation of his younger brother and throughout his life he believed the sole directive of the church and the minister was the winning of souls (p. 96).
While most are privy to Spurgeon’s “tendency to despondency” (p. 120), some may lack clarity as to where he found relief. The Bible was as “an abiding source of tonic against depression” (p. 120) and Jesus was his balm for depression, for in Christ “he found a fellow-sufferer of more deep physical suffering and more poignant troubles of soul” (p. 216). Spurgeon displayed an early bent toward transparency and commitment to self-analysis. Reading Spurgeon, one quickly becomes aware of his thoughts on personal experience (p. 143), thinking of himself as somewhat of a human paradigm (p. 216). God would use this conviction for the benefit of both his servant and those to whom he would minister (p. 144). From the onset of his walk with the Lord, Spurgeon felt a deep sense to contend for the faith. He believed that every minister who distanced himself from this “contending” would be responsible to God for the souls of men (p. 180). His contentions were not simply doctrinal, they were against the “coldness and the lethargy of the times” (p. 162). His was a deep conviction concerning slander. Nettles supplies a theology of slander in his study, where Spurgeon reveals how criticism gives opportunity to magnify God’s grace (p. 186).
The two best chapters (4 and 10) deal with Spurgeon’s convictions about preaching and his commitment to the Scriptures. Watching his father and grandfather prepare to preach, he knew early on “he could watch, but he must not talk or distract in any way, because faithfulness to God’s glory and the souls of men was at stake in the spiritual sensitivity which gave birth to a sermon” (p. 21). For him, preaching was art and science, but primarily a passionate overflow of the person and work of Christ (p. 215) and if exposition did not end in the cross of Christ, then true exposition had not occurred (p. 91). Nettles points out that his unshakable faith in the infallibility of Scripture was foundational to every Spurgeon sermon, book, ministry endeavor and controversy in which he engaged (p. 218). For Spurgeon, “[Inspiration] is the Thermopylae of Christendom. The entire battle for truth turns on it” (p. 198).
I find no downside to this book whatsoever. Nettles performs a service to both the church and the minister through his continued writing. This volume well serves those interested in preaching, ministry, Baptist life, or church history. Spurgeon was an excellent example of convictional steadfastness, who displayed many honorable characteristics that were noticeable throughout his pilgrimage (p. 19). May we similarly find courage in our convictions that will carry us through to final breath.
