For the past four months I have been working with the Ordination Examination Committee of Knox Presbytery (CREC), in preparation for my Oral Examination, which took place this past Tuesday (10/15/13) at Presbytery. The Oral Examination took place on the floor of Presbytery, overseen by the Committee, and after the examination concluded the Presbytery went into executive session, deliberated, and voted to recommend me to the local Session at CCRC for ordination.

The Ordination Examination process was long and hard: I worked with the Committee, which involved interviews, phone calls, emails, research/writing papers, filling out pastoral case studies and written exams, etc. I am thankful for how God manifested his glory during the process. It was spiritually rewarding. I am, however, thankful to be finished. Although it is an oversimplification, in general this is what I did in order to prepare for my ordination examination:

Systematic Theology

I worked through my notes from Beeke and Ferguson’s Reformed Confessions Harmonized, Williamson’s WCF for Study Classes, Turretin’s Institutes, and Calvin’s Institutes.

Bible

I worked through my notes for Bible, e.g., comprehension, book outlines, lists, characters, etc.

Ordination Study Guide

I filled out and reviewed the CREC’s ordination study guide.

Church History and the Trinity

I thumbed through several volumes on Church History and the Trinity, e.g., Shelley, Placher, Curtis, and Letham.

Exegesis Papers, Written Exams, and Case Studies

I reviewed the exegesis papers, written exams, and pastoral case studies I turned into the committee as requirements during the ordination examination process.

In hindsight, I wish I had spent more time figuring out what I didn’t know. I should have been more systematic about determining where the gaps were for both doctrinal/biblical knowledge and pastoral reflection and wisdom.

J. Gresham Machen served during World War I in France with the YMCA war efforts to support the troops. In one of his letters back home, he recounted how he recently escaped a German insurgence that had overtaken his previous post. He and companions had to retreat hastily, with no time to pack up any personal effects at all – everything was left behind. He had made his way back to Paris, and while there he wrote:

I have been directed to wait here in Paris till tomorrow when instructions may be given me. Naturally clothes are almost my first concern. The prices are something terrific – for instance I paid 185 francs plus a war tax for a pair of high boots. But I should not mind if I could only get the things that I desire. French underwear is cut in the queerest way imaginable, and the American variety cannot be found. But this morning I am at least fairly clean. I even had a bath! (Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir, 270).

When I first read the above, I laughed out loud.

Ned B. Stonehouse quoting J. Gresham Machen in the biographical-memoir J. Gresham Machen:

Instead of stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these pleasures as the gifts of a heavenly Father. Instead of obliterating the distinction between the Kingdom and the world, or on the other hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God [underline CCS] (187).

Machen got it right: Christians need to be joyful and enthusiastic as they make the world subject to God, i.e., as they fulfill the Great Commission.

At First Things James R. Rogers has some nice things to say about Calvinists.

“Believe it, brethren, God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master’s work” (Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 54).

“We must learn to know the Scriptures again, as the Reformers and our fathers knew them. We must not grudge the time and the work that it takes. We must know the Scriptures first and foremost for our salvation. . . . But one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 54-55).

“Here [in the Psalter] we learn, first, what prayer means. It means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promise” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 47).

“God not only gives us inspired teaching in the Bible, but inspired songs too. Songs often do as much as sermons (if not more) to shape our faith. The Scriptures preached and Psalms sung provide an ideal curriculum for shaping the faith of the church” (Michael LeFebvre, Singing the Songs of Jesus: Revisiting the Psalms, 38).

“The Psalter is the great school of prayer” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 47).