Luke Short’s Long Life

February 18, 2014February 16, 2014 / davidsschrock / 1 Comment

In the Puritan Paperback, The Mystery of Providence, by John Flavel, Michael Boland gives the publishers introduction. Commenting on Flavel’s remarkable influence, he writes of Luke Short, a man deeply impacted by Flavel—some eight decades after Short heard Flavel!

Here’s what Boland writes:

Luke Short was a farmer in New England who attained his hundredth year in exceptional vigor though without having sought peace with God. One day as he sat in his fields reflecting upon his long life, he recalled a sermon he had heard in Dartmouth as a boy before he sailed to America. The horror of dying under the curse of God was impressed upon him as he meditated on the words he had heard so long ago and he was converted to Christ—eighty-five years after hearing John Flavel preach. (John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence, 11) Continue reading →

B. B. Warfield and the Second Beatitude

February 16, 2014February 17, 2014 / davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Ninety-three years ago today, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, a native of Kentucky and a world-renowned theologian went to be with the Lord. His death came six years after his wife’s, a woman who had spent years bedridden in their home in Princeton, New Jersey.

Nearly fifty years earlier (1876), Warfield had married Annie Pearce Kinkade. She was the descendent of Revolutionary War hero, George Rogers Clark. And when they wed, they were ready for a lifetime of happiness together. Presumably Warfield would teach; Annie would tend to the home and raise children. I say presumably, because such were not the circumstances God gave them. Continue reading →

Five Lessons from an Unlikely Missionary

February 12, 2014 / davidsschrock / 1 Comment

The first missionary I heard of was not Lottie Moon or Jim Elliot. It was Dr. Dolittle, the man with the curious ability to speak to animals. When I was a boy my parents read to me about his astonishing adventures and the way he traveled over oceans to care for a host of animals.

I admit, most of my memories of that book have faded, but one memory remains: the pushmi-pullyu (pronounced ‘push-me—pull-you’). In Hugh Lofting’s book the bizarre animal was a ‘gazelle-unicorn cross’ with two heads at opposite ends of its body. In the book, Dr. Dolittle first meets a pushmi-pullyu while in Africa, and is eventually awarded one after vaccinating a kingdom of monkeys. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?!

The gift of this animal sets Dolittle on a tour around England, the proceeds from which enabled him to retire to his home in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. In all honesty, Lofting’s book is slightly absurd but it succeeded in charming readers young and old with this animal-loving ‘missionary.’ Continue reading →