Status Updates From Memoires d'un pasteur ordin...

"When [Tom] died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation...But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to the only throne room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man—he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor—but because he was a forgiven man."

"What Christians must do, what Christian leaders must do, is constantly remember that we serve our God and Maker and Redeemer under the gospel of grace. Dad’s diaries show he understood this truth in theory, and sometimes he exulted in it (as when he was reading Machen’s What Is Faith?), but quite frankly, his sense of failure sometimes blinded him to the glory of gospel freedom."

"[Don's brother] Jim recalls barging into Dad’s study unannounced,
finding him on his knees praying, and quietly backing out. 'But
that image has always remained with me, especially during my later,
rebellious teen years. While walking away from God, I could not get
away from the image of my father on his knees, praying for me. It
is one of the things that eventually brought me back.'"