Strangers & Aliens

Got sent a book of sermons by John MacArthur to mark his 40 years in ministry in California. Read the pen-portrait by Iain Murray this morning and was interested to read this about his time in seminary:

All students had to preach at least twice in the Seminary chapel and as they did so, members of the faculty sat behind them on the platform and filled in critique sheets. When MacArthur's turn came he was assigned to preach on 2 Samuel 7, the passage where the prophet Nathan's encouragement to David to build a temple was overruled by God. MacArthur took as his main theme the importance of not presuming on God and, supposing that he had preached well, he anticipated receiving the high opinion of Dr Feinberg at the end of the service. Instead the critique sheet the latter handed to him was blank apart from the words "You missed the whole point of the passage." Later he had to enter his teacher's study to find him shaking his head in disappointment as he exclaimed "How could you? How could you? The passage presents the Davidic covenant culminating in the Messiah and his glorious kingdom and you talked about presuming upon God in our day to day choices." The hearer of these words says it was the "deepest single impression I ever received in seminary. I can still hear Dr Feinberg's heartfelt admonition ringing in my ears. If you don't have the meaning of Scripture, you do not have the Word of God at all."