My Thesis....

For the last two years I've been trying to write a thesis on John Gill (between working at a homeless shelter, moving to another state, teaching school full time, serving as a part time youth minister, and trying to be a good husband and father). Now, I've finally finished a draft of the whole thing. I still have some work to do on editing and refining, but it appears that I should be finished by my deadline--this time.

When I'm finally finished, I wonder what I'm going to do with myself? Ha. Ha.

John Gill Give Away!!!

I'm giving away a free copy of John Gill's collected works on CD Rom on my other blog. You can sign up here.

Prospectus Approved!!! Almost.

I just met with my supervisor this morning about my prospectus submission. The significant aspect that needed revised was the thesis statement. I had originally proposed a statement that was too vague: "This thesis will argue that Gill's commentary on the Song of Solomon was written with a presupposition that the book is about Christ and the Church, and a presupposed ecclesiological vision flowing from other texts throughout the Bible." This statement was followed by a paragraph fleshing out what I intended which my supervisor said contained a better thesis statement: "None of Gill's ecclesiological claims flow directly from the Song, but in every reference to an ecclesiological claim within the Song, Gill draws support from similar images elsewhere in Scripture from which these claims are actually derived." I plan to make the necessary revisions and my prospectus should be approved early next week. My fear now is that I have overstated my claim. I use the word "every." While I know that this was extremely common, I will have to see as I write whether the claim can be substantiated.

New John Gill Blog

I have created a new blog and will probably be contributing to it much more than I do this one. It is a blog devoted to research on John Gill, a Particular Baptist pastor in 16th century London. That is who I am writing my thesis on. I have been joined by Allen Mickle and Jonny White, both Ph.D. students also writing their dissertations on Gill. You can find this new blog here.

John Gill: Advocate of the Use of Means in Evangelism?

John Gill is usually considered to be the father of the hyper-Calvinistic Baptists. There is a very long tradition of calling Gill a hyper-Calvinist. A 900 page dissertation has even been done on the subject of Gill and hyper-Calvinism. However, my own reading of Gill has uncovered several passages that make me question this common assumption. I will not argue one way or the other, because honestly the issue is very technical and it is not the specific area of his theology that I am studying, but I want to post a few quotes from Gill here just for others to see--and you can judge for yourself whether John Gill was a hyper-Calvinist:

From His Commentary on Song of Solomon II:14:

It is reported of the dove, that it will allure wild doves by its familiar converses into the dove-house with it: those who are called by grace, will use all proper ways and methods to allure and gain others to Christ, and to compliance with his ways and ordinances, as the church does the daughters of Jerusalem in this Song.

Do these sound like the words of someone who doesn't think that evangelism matters? Do they sound like the words of someone who opposes evangelism? It seems very clear to me that in this passage, Gill was advocating the proper "use of means for the propagation of the gospel to the heathen."

Forthcoming Blog Posts on John Gill

I've been working on my Th.M. Thesis on John Gill for the past few months and I was just directed to this blog, Helm's Deep: December, for some forthcoming posts on Gill in January.