One of my
ministry heroes once said, “The only thing I don’t like about Matthew Henry is
that I didn’t start reading him sooner.” It is a fitting testament to the wide
appeal and accessibility of Henry’s massive commentary on the Bible that my own
set was given to me by a layman in my
home church. I treasure it.
If you’ve
read Henry, then you know that he is thorough and wonderfully practical, which
is probably the secret to the popularity and perseverance of his work almost
300 years after his death.
Though not
technically one of the Puritans, Henry is certainly just downstream of them.
With that being said, what I love
about Henry is a joyfulness that is sometimes missing in other Puritan writings.
The old word for this is “winsomeness”. There is a “joy in the Lord” that seeps
out from Henry’s pen.
That
winsomeness did not come from an easy life, however. I’ve been reading a
biography of Henry and was surprised to learn that his first wife died early in
their marriage, while giving birth to their first child. That child later died
as well. Henry remarried and a second child was born. Sadly, this child also
died.
In his
diary, Henry wrote, “The Lord is righteous, he takes and gives, gives and takes
again; I desire to submit, but, O Lord, shew me wherefore thou contendest with
me.”
The Sunday
after the baby’s funeral, Henry preached on Romans 5:14: “Nevertheless death
reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.”
Acknowledging that within that same year, two of his
children, and two other members of his family had passed away, he could still
say, “The Lord is gracious.”
Without
saying much about the softness of our generation, I do recognize that my own
joyfulness is often fairly easily robbed from me. I’ve buried no loved ones, save a few
elderly grandparents. Yet, an encounter with a grouchy church member can cast a
shadow over the first few days of a
week, if I let it. What I want, however, is a joyfulness and a deep-down grasp
of the goodness of God, so that even when life is lousy, I recognize that the God is still gracious.
Nehemiah
8:10 says, ‘…the joy of the Lord is your
strength.” May it be so! Thanks again, Matthew Henry.
His,
Terry
