George Whitefield – Volume 1

By Arnold A. Dallimore George Whitefield was born in England in 1714.  He would become the greatest evangelist of the 1700s, a contemporary and friend of both John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as Jonathan Edwards in America.  He was the leading figure in the great revivals on the 1700s on both sides of the Atlantic.  He lived an amazing life.  At the age of 56 one preaching scholar calls him the greatest preacher since the New Testament. And many would say that he was the greatest preacher ever in the English language.  One scholar commented that if you listed 20 men in world history who have had the greatest impact for the gospel, Whitefield would be on the list.  And yet for several reasons, not the least of which was his profound humility, he is little known today.

When this book was published in 1970, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the renowned preacher and physician in London, said that he had been waiting 40 years for a book on Whitefield that did him justice.  He remarked in the forward:

Of all the men of that century, Whitefield was the most lovable.  He radiated warmth and joy, and wherever he went he moved others to greater zeal and activity.  Above all he was the greatest preacher – indeed one can say that he was the greatest preacher that England has ever produced.  He had in abundant measure all the qualities of a great preacher.  His appearance was pleasing in spite of his squint, and his whole personality conveyed the impression of a man who ‘knew his God’ and at the same time had a loving concern for the souls of men.  As an orator there has scarcely ever been his equal.  His voice was not only powerful but beautifully modulated and under perfect control.  From all contemporary accounts one gathers that it had a most moving and melting quality that none could resist and which was the envy of the famous actor David Garrick.  He gesticulated freely, and, as I once heard it said by an orator of the earlier part of this century, he could ‘pull out all the stops of the entire gamut of the human emotions.’ …  He was the pioneer in open-air preaching as in other matters; and though not to be compared with his contemporary and friend John Wesley as an organizer, he easily eclipsed him as an innovator and promoter.  His mind was more original and fertile and he was less bound by tradition and logic.

But above all he was a great saint, and Wesley and others bore noble tribute to this during his life and after his death.  This was the ultimate secret of his preaching power.  He was ‘filled with the Spirit’ and endued with exceptional unction while preaching.  He could say with the Apostle Paul ‘I am what I am by the grace of God.’ … God is still the same and is able to do again what He did in the eighteenth century through George Whitefield and others.  (ix-x)

Whitefield attended Oxford University, but he could only afford it by working his way through.  There he met John and Charles Wesley and joined them in the Oxford Holy Club.  Like the Wesleys, Whitefield had a strong dose of religion before he became a believer.  At that time he recognized that he could only be saved by God’s grace through Christ’s work on the cross.

Very soon after his conversion, Whitefield started preaching and there was a special anointing on him from the start.  He began preaching to overflowing crowds in churches – crowds that packed the church and spilled out to the outside.  Then he began preaching to outdoor crowds – he was the innovator of outdoor preaching in 18^th century England.  He commonly preached to thousands and at times would preach to 20 or 30 or even 40 thousand.  All of this while in his young 20s.

Whitefield continued to be a close friend of the Wesleys and he was the much more prominent figure during his lifetime.  He may have been the most famous man in England at the time.  He was considered the founder of the Methodist movement, though he had no desire to start a denomination.   For both John and Charles Wesley, he started large outdoor congregations and then turned them over to first John, in Bristol, and later Charles, in London.

Apparently, Whitefield was an incredible speaker with a powerful voice, combined with pure diction.  He would later spend much time in America preaching, where he became a friend of Benjamin Franklin.  Franklin even published his sermons, though he was never converted by Whitefield.  Franklin calculated that with Whitefield’s voice he could easily speak to tens of thousands of people at once and be heard.

Whitefield was indefatigable.  He might preach to these large outdoor crowds two or three times a day, day after day after day.  He wore himself out!  And this probably contributed to his early death.  I don’t think he knew the meaning of a Sabbath rest.

Whitefield started an orphanage in Georgia, a ministry which would cause him considerable headaches.  He tried to start a school for blacks in Pennsylvania, though it never got off the ground.  He was bold, indeed fearless.  For example, he wrote against the mistreatment of slaves in America when that was not a popular thing to do.  He was the first prominent figure to speak out for the black slaves in America.

Whitefield was endlessly criticized by his own Church of England.  Whitefield, along with the Wesleys, was considered an enthusiast, and a rebel, for preaching outdoors and not doing traditional Church of England ministry.  Undoubtedly there was a lot of jealousy.  But Whitefield was unshaken and undeterred by the relentless criticism.

Much more difficult for him was a growing split with the Wesleys over theology.  Whitefield became more and more of a Calvinist – though not by reading Calvin but by reading the New Testament.  He became convinced of the truths of God’s sovereign grace and election. The Wesleys opposed these views and there was a growing rift.  The Wesleys also began to espouse Christian perfectionism, that you could attain a sinless state, a view that Whitefield in no way espoused.

Whitefield had a deep, deep heart for the Lord and incredible humility.  It was a good thing that he was a man of humility, because when he was in his young 20s thousands and thousands of people would flock to hear him.  This kind of success, especially at such a young age, is difficult to handle well.

Whitefield resisted calls to begin a denomination.  He was an early proponent of “one church” – he would work with any Bible-believing pastors, which was most unusual in 18^th century England.

(This biography, volume 1, ends when Whitefield is barely 26 years old.)

The Innovators

By Walter Isaacs Walter Isaacson was the skilled writer and editor at Time magazine who later wrote biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steven Jobs. This is his history of the development of the digital revolution.  He is uniquely qualified to write this history because he understands technology and science, and he can write.  He begins with the story of Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, who also happened to be Lord Byron’s daughter.  She inherited her father’s poetry and her mother’s mathematics, and was an early theorist who pointed to the age of computers.

He traces the developments of the computer, programming, the transistor, the microchip, video games, the internet, the personal computer, software, and the Web.

This is the story of remarkable individuals such as Charles Babbage, Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John Mauchly, John von Neumann, Grace Hopper, William Shockley, Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, Jack Kilby, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Ray Tomlinson, Nolan Bushnell, Alan Kay, Vint Cerf, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin.  It is also the story of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, and of key universities like Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

The book is at times tedious, but at times quite interesting.  Perhaps someone who is a true technology buff would find it all interesting.

The most interesting part of the book was the last 10 pages, where Isaacson articulated a number of lessons from the digital revolution.  They are:

1. Creativity is a collaborative process. Innovation comes from teams more often than from lone geniuses. This was seen time after time after time.
2. The collaboration was not merely among contemporaries but also between generations. The digital age was based on expanding the ideas handed down from previous generations.
3. Even though the internet provided a tool for virtual and instant collaborations, in other distant collaborations physical proximity is beneficial. The best collaboration happens when people are together face to face.
4. Throughout history the best leadership has come from teams that combine people with complementary styles. Great teams pair visionaries with operating managers who can execute the ideas. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were both visionaries, but they needed an Andy Grove who could execute for them.
5. The most successful endeavors in the digital age were run by those leaders who fostered collaboration while also providing a clear vision. Too often these are seen as conflicting traits: a leader is either very inclusive or a passionate visionary, but the best leaders could be both.
6. Another lesson from the digital age is as old as Aristotle: “Man is a social animal.” Almost every digital tool was commandeered by humans for a social purpose: to create communities, to facilitate communication, to collaborate on projects and enable social networking.
7. Machines are valuable but only humans bring creativity to the party. Human creativity includes values, intentions, esthetic judgments, emotions and imagination. People who appreciate math and physics must also appreciate the arts and the humanities and vice versa. Digital age creativity occurs at the intersection of the arts and the sciences, people who link beauty to engineering, humanity to technology, and poetry to processors.

Faithful Witness - The Life and Mission of William Carey

By Timothy George This is a solid biography of William Carey, considered by many to be the founder of modern missions.  He was a shoemaker, self-taught, who ended up as a pastor in England before going to India as a missionary in the late 1700s.  He was a remarkable man – deep heart for God, refreshing humility, enormous capacity for work, endurance through tough times, and a heart for the world when that was so rare.

Despite a very difficult marriage, he accomplished an incredible amount for the kingdom, including translating the Bible personally into eight languages in India and overseeing the translation of a total of 40 languages.  He had several heartaches but never wavered in his love and zeal for Christ.

Centennial

By James A. Michener

This is James Michener’s epic novel of Colorado. Reading Michener is always an enjoyable and learning experience, though he won’t be brief. (This is 900 pages.) There are many riveting stories. The epicenter of the tale is northern Colorado, on the high plains near Greeley9, on the shores of the South Platte River. The readers learn about the world of the fur traders in the 1700s, the world of the Arapaho and other Indian tribes of the West, both before their conflicts with the white settlers during the conflicts of the 1800s, the cattle drives that came up from Texas, the pioneers who came to Colorado and through Colorado in the mid-1800s, the huge cattle ranches on the open range, the settlers who founded towns in the West and the later demise of many of those towns, the problems and resources of Colorado today.

One understands the crucial role of water and the lack of it in much of the West.

In many ways this is not just the story of Colorado but the story of the West, especially in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s. But the story also includes the Depression years and Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Moreover, the story includes other places, where settlers came from: St. Louis, the gateway to the West, the large Texas cattle ranches, German farms in Pennsylvania, the life of Mexicans in Mexico and more.

The story of the West is a grand tale, a tale of triumphs and tragedies, a tale of courage and brutality, a tale of adventure and constant change.

The Source by James A. Michener

This is a large historical novel by James Michener about the land of Israel. Its setting is in a fictitious tell (ancient mound in the Middle East) of Makor. From this vantage point Michener traces, episodically, the history of the land of Israel. That is, he does not deal with continuous history, but he dips in and gives a glimpse of the land at various times. The book was published in 1965, so it only goes through the early 1960s.

Through the chapters, the reader gets a good idea of life in the land thousands of years before Christ; life in the land during the time of King David; life in the land during the 600s B.C.; life during the Hellenistic times, about 170 B.C.; life about the time of Jesus’ birth in 4 B.C.; life during the Roman period, 66 A.D., shortly before Rome was destroyed; life about 335 A.D., during the Byzantine Period; life about 644 A.D., the arrival of Islam; life about 1100 with the Crusaders; life in the 1200s; life about 1291 as the Crusade continues in the land; life during Ottoman rule in the 1400s; life about 1880, when more Jews were beginning to return to the land; and then finally life in 1948, during the battle for independence.

In some ways, this is a collection of novellas rather than a continuous novel. Although most of the characters are fictitious there are some historical characters who populate the work, such as Rabbi Akiva, King David, Herod the Great, Emperor Vespasian, Josephus, Moses, Maimonides. And, as always with Michener’s works, the story is true to life and representative of how life was in the various historical periods.

To tell the story, Michener ranges far away from the fictitious city of Makor and includes life in other cities of Israel, at times branching out to Russia and to Spain. Michener certainly conveys the idea of the persecution and difficulties of the Jews throughout the centuries, including persecution in ancient times, the Spanish Inquisition, persecutions in Europe during the Middle Ages, and some references to the Holocaust of the 20th century

Michener is a great writer. He is continually fascinating and the reader learns a ton about Israel and the Jews.