My 82-year old father, GB, is an exceptional man. After 25 years of working as a pastor in India, he is in Auckland with us. Initially, when he came in January 2009, he was skeptical about Reformed theology. But by God’s grace, the following factors have caused him to change his opinion.

  • His love for the word of God and desire to conform to it.
  • Having had to leave his ministry in the hands of Reformed Baptists (How this came to be, though most amazing, is beyond the purview of this post), and having resigned himself to live out the rest of his days in his daughter’s home, he had to now scrutinize the doctrine of this new “denomination”.
  • Sovereign Grace Church (Lunn Ave in Mt. Wellington, Auckland): The faithful preaching of Pastor Bala and Pastor Alfie Orr, visits of Pastor Orr to discuss theology and things, visits of Pastor Bala to discuss the India ministry, the love of the church, the prayer sessions.
  • The videos of the nine messages containing the Parting Words of Counsel of  Pastor Al Martin. GB was firmly of the impression that we were advocating a disguised version of a Once-saved-always-saved-so-you-can-sin-as-much-as-you-want gospel.  Pastor Al Martin’s was clearly another pastor who like him was moving on to another chapter of his life after having spent many decades striving for godliness and faithfulness to the word in his church.
  • Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones: He had been reading Studies in the Sermon on the Mount even before he came here. (This along with the entire ministry of John MacArthur was a bridge that we shamelessly used to woo him to the other side. ) GB now has several of the Romans series and is thoroughly delighted by them.
  • The messages of John Piper on the subject of the New Birth
  • The visit of cousin Prabhu from California who spent many hours during that week to go through doctrinal concepts and Bible passages with GB.

Right now he is enjoying the concluding pages of Chosen By God by R.C. Sproul.

It has been a while since we looked at the following videos as a family. I’m sure it will be a good refresher for the children and good for GB too: