Paul the Missionary
Overview
Louis Berkhof calls Paul “a greater reformer with broader view and wider sympathies than Luther,” “a thinker more acute than Calvin,” and “an earnest lover of souls surpassing Whitefield.” A large portion of the New Testament contains his writings and is devoted to telling the story of his life and influence. In his series of addresses to a missions society in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1915—here reprinted in Paul the Missionary—Berkhof implored his listeners to look to his example. The first three lectures are biographical, and the final lecture contains an exposition on grace based on Paul’s writings.
Top Highlights
“In the first place he saw it in the fact that he was born from Jewish parents. It was a distinct advantage for the apostle to be a Jew. He himself realized this and appreciated it.” (Page 6)
“We cannot overrate the importance of Paul’s conversion in the preparation for his work. Without it he would never have been a true missionary. His gifts and talents, his education, and the favorable circumstances in which he moved from his earliest years, would never have qualified him to be a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, if he had not experienced this inward change of heart.” (Page 17)
“Paul was a great man in every way and, what is of greater importance for us at present, he was a missionary; and as we survey that long line of witnesses that testified to the love of God in Christ among the gentiles and that laid down their lives a sacrifice to the cause, we find that one man towers above them all,—Paul, the missionary of the cross.” (Page 1)
“In the second place Paul saw that God had been setting him aside from the time of his birth, in the fact that he had been born and bred at Tarsus,—and was moreover by birth a Roman citizen.” (Page 9)
“‘But when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.’” (Page 5)
- Title: Paul the Missionary
- Author: Louis Berkhof
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Print Publication Date: 1915
- Logos Release Date: 2009
- Pages: 82
- Era: era:modern
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Missionaries
- Resource ID: LLS:PAULBERKHOF
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2020-03-24T22:25:18Z
Louis Berkhof (1873–1957) was a Reformed theologian whose works remain highly influential. He taught at at Calvin Theological Seminary from 1906 and served as its president from 1931–1944.
Berkhof’s writings, including his Systematic Theology, presented Reformed thought in the tradition of John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, and Herman Bavinck. Throughout his tenure at Calvin, he stressed the importance of orthodoxy, a focus shown in his works.