4/INTERL I T DECEMBER 2005

Iwant to talk to you about some-thing very significant called thepen. Two years ago I called anacquaintance in Canada, whereI was scheduled to speak, and

said, “I have a problem. I contractedwith two books back to back and amreally pressed for time. Would you con-sider releasing me from coming tospeak? I would be so appreciative.”

He said, “Oh, we will release youbecause we do not want you to be anApollos.” I said, “I heard the part aboutreleasing me, but what do you meanwhen you say you do not want me to bean Apollos?” He explained, “Paul was agreat preacher, and so was Apollos. Oneof them wrote and we have half theNew Testament. The other one didn’twrite anything and we don’t have thefoggiest idea what he said. We do notwant you to be an Apollos.”

I’ve thought many times aboutthat—the difference between Paul andApollos. Both were good preachers, butonly one left a legacy, because he wrote.Christian publishers participate in aPaul-type of ministry—one that leaves asignificant legacy. The major enterpriseyou are involved with is the passage oftruth from one generation to another.

You are trustees, stewards of the gifts forthe next generation, charged to producesome Pauls instead of Apolloses.

You and I are part of a relay. We arenot some tiny group of people isolatedfrom history, but are part of a massiverelay, receiving the baton that has beenhanded down for 2,000 years. To makemy case, allow me to tell part of thestory of that relay, starting just afterChristianity’s first 100 years, the NewTestament period.

In the 100s lived a man namedJustin Martyr. He wrote a letter that isnow referred to as one of his “Apolo-gies”—apology meaning a defense.Some apologists articulated the Gospelso clearly in the second and third cen-turies that they even won over emper-ors. You are a part of a legacy of truth

with a man named Justin Martyr, whoended up giving his life to be one of theearly trustees.

In the 200s, Tertullian penned theo-logical treatises—apologies, defenses ofthe faith. Also in the 200s, there lived aman named Origen. Jerome, a scholarwho a century later translated the Bibleinto Latin, said that Origen was the sec-ond greatest teacher of the entirechurch—second only to Paul himself.His literary output was staggering. Hewrote the Hexapla, six columns of Scrip-ture compared with each other. It wasone of the first parallel versions of theBible ever done.

The Church was hit with theologi-cal tsunamis at that time. It dealt, forexample, with Arianism, Docetism,Donatism, Ebionism, Manicheanism,

This article is adapted from an address given by Dr. Jim Garlow, coauthor of Cook`s best-selling title, Cracking Da Vinci’s Code, at the Cook Communications Ministries International President’s Conference West 2005,

held April 22-24, 2005 in Palm Springs, California, U.S.A.

COVER

The Pen & the Baton

The major enterprise you areinvolved with is the

passage of truth from onegeneration to another.

DECEMBER 2005 INTERL I T/5

Modalism, Monophysitism, Nestorian-ism, and Pelagianism. One after another,all of these movements challenged thevery essence of what we believe, particu-larly about the nature of Christ, that Heis fully human and fully divine at thesame time. Now what did the earlyChristians do? They didn’t wring theirhands. They reached for a pen.

Irenaeus wrote in the 100s, a bookentitled Adversus Haereses (Against theHeresies). He specifically attacked whatPaul alluded to slightly, and what Johnalluded to a great deal—the movementcalled Gnosticism. If you look carefullyat the language of I John, chapter one,[John] says, “We have seen [Him]” (I Jn.1:2). [John] used an intense word in theoriginal languages, which doesn’t meanhe just glanced at Him or evenembraced Him. It means, essentially, “Iknow Him.”

And who was John writing against?He wrote against the Gnostics, whobelieved that all physical matter wasevil. They were called Docetists some-times, derived from dokeo, a Greek wordmeaning “to seem.” They taught Jesusonly seemed to have a physical body,that He didn’t really have a body. Sowhat does John do? He does away withthe Gnostics, whose teachings do awaywith the Incarnation, the Crucifixion,and the Resurrection as we understandthem. The implications are incredibleand profound.

Who would have thought that aftertwo thousand years we are still battlingGnosticism? If you know anythingabout Dan Brown’s book The Da VinciCode, it embraces Gnosticism. My book,Cracking Da Vinci’s Code, fights the sameugly rumors battled by John, Irenaeus,and Tertullian.

And then there’s the writing giant,Augustine. In 386 he was convertedfrom a life of immorality. He’d had ason by a prostitute. He lived immorallyin every respect. His mother Monica hadprayed for him, but she died and nevergot to see him help us understand thenature of sin and the depravity of thehuman heart.

We are blessed to live when we live.We know far more now about the

depravity ofthe humanheart andthe nature ofsin than wedid beforeAugustine.We knowmore aboutfaith nowthan weknew beforeLuther. Weknow moreabout holyliving nowthan we didbefore JohnWesley’stime. Whatis the differ-ence? Themassiveamount ofinformationthat hasbeen pre-served forus, ourtrusteeship,this legacythat helps usto understand who we are.

I take you to Jerome, who in theyear 405 completed a translation of theBible. Jerome was not a pleasant charac-ter; he argued with everybody. He wasin the city of Bethlehem. Why? He hadwanted to be voted to a particular bish-opry and he did not get it, so he gotmad and took off for Bethlehem. Thenhe figured that he was by himself, andthat he might as well do something, sohe translated the Bible. It took him 23years to complete it. Somehow God usedhim, with all his eccentricities, to bepart of the trustees in this great legacy ofhanding down the truth.

If you speak English, do you knowthe story about the faith that came toyou? You only know about it through aparticular writer. He is so honorablethey called him the “venerable”—theVenerable Bede, who wrote The Ecclesias-tical History of the English People (Historia

ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum) in the year731 A.D.

In the 13th century, there was aman who was called a “dumb ox”because he was so unsightly. His facewas asymmetrical; he was overweight;he was perfectly ugly by any standards.Later, his nickname became the “angelicdoctor.” Now, how do you go frombeing a dumb ox to an angelic doctor?This man was brilliant. He wrote themasterpiece of all time, the Summa Theo-logica, which is an attempt to merge,during the pre-Renaissance and Renais-sance time, faith with reason, biblicalroots, and the flow of information fromsources outside the Bible. He is the theo-logical Mount Everest of his time, themost influential theological thinker in1,000 years. Thomas Aquinas’ theologyis still so prevalent in Roman Catholiccircles it is known as Thomistic theolo-gy, after his first name.

“As believers, we stand on the shoulders of early Christians who literally gavetheir lives for a faith in Christ,” says Dr. James L. Garlow, senior pastor ofSkyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, U.S.A.

6/INTERL I T DECEMBER 2005

About 200 years later, who would bethe world’s most famous author for thefirst 1500 to 1700 years of Christianity?Another Thomas. His name is ThomasHaemerken. You may not know him bythat name, but if I told you he camefrom Kempen, Germany, and adoptedhis town as his last name, you wouldrecognize Thomas A. Kempis, who wrotethe Imitation of Christ (De imitationeChristi). It probably sold more copiesthan any book except for the Bible. Andwhat do we know about the world’smost successful author up to that point?Almost nothing. He was a bookkeeper ina small monastery. He was influenced bya man named Gerard Groote in Deven-ter in the Netherlands, who called othersto cultivate intimacy with Christ. All wereally know about Thomas A. Kempis isthis: he wanted to imitate Christ. Isn’tthat a wonderful legacy?

And then, there was John Wycliffe,who at Balliol College in the Universityof Oxford, in England, taught that salva-tion could not be earned. It is a free giftfrom Christ Himself. That was radicalnew teaching. He had the most influen-tial, most brilliant mind in all of Europeat the time. Wycliffe was thrown out ofthe university to a non-descript village,intentionally sent away from his library.And, 44 years after his death, theyexhumed his body, burned it, and threw

the ashes into the Avon River, sayingthat would get rid of his influence. Theydid not realize that just as his ashes werecarried everywhere, so was his message.

One hundred and fifty years afterWycliffe’s death, on October 31, 1517,Martin Luther nailed the well-knownNinety-Five Theses to the church door.He did not do that in a fit of rage, assome suggest. He was a professor at Wit-tenberg University and that was the wayto state what you wanted to debate inthe academic community. What Lutherdid not know, however, was that some-body would take his paper down, take ita short distance away to where theGutenberg Press had been invented, andwithin three weeks it would fan all overGermany and set off a revolution.Gutenberg’s invention made the dissem-ination of information much easier—and our responsibilities, as purveyors ofthe legacy of truth, became far greater.

On April 1, 1521, Luther started hisjourney to the city of Worms; he wentsupposing there would be a discussionthere about his beliefs. He had rediscov-ered the essence of the Gospel, thatthrough Christ Jesus we are saved of oursins, a radical thought at that time. AtWorms he found they were not going toallow him to debate. They said, “MartinLuther, we have two questions. Did youwrite these books? And are you going to

recant them?” He said, “I came todebate,” and they said, “Well, there willbe no debate.” So he requested 24 hoursto think over the answers to those ques-tions, knowing if he answered themwrongly, it could cost him his life.

He came back the next day and said,“My conscience is held captive by theWord of God. I cannot—I will notrecant. Here I stand. I can do no other.God help me. Amen.” He knew thatcould be the death sentence for him,and his friends did too. They also knewthere was a plot to capture [and] maybe[even] kill him. So they prevailed onhim, “Don’t travel that road.” Lutherwent anyway. He was kidnapped; butnot by his enemies. His friends got therefirst. They hauled him away to theWartenberg Castle and held him in asmall room, to protect his life. And whatdid he do while he was there? He had acopy of Erasmus and copy of a GreekNew Testament. He translated the Bibleinto everyday German. That’s thetrusteeship you have.

Luther’s message exploded. MartinBucer picked up on the tenets in Stras-burg. Ulrich Zwingli picked up on themin Zurich. Johannes Oecolampadiuspicked up on them in Basel, in Switzer-land. They spread from city to city allthe way to Geneva, where John Calvin,wrote the Institutes of the Christian Reli-

ON THE POWER OF LITERATUREGENERAL TRADE TITLES:

Bloom, Harold, How to Read and Why (Scribner, 2000;068485906-8). u National Book Foundation. The Book That

Changed My Life (Modern Library, 2002; 0679783512). uPennac, Daniel, Better Than Life (Coach House Press, 1994;0889104840). First published in French as Comme un roman(Editions Gallinard, 1992; 2070388905). u Quindlen, Anna.How Reading Changed My Life (Ballantine Books, 1998;0345422783 ). u Shwartz, Ronald. For the Love of Books: 115Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (Grosset/Put-nam, 1999; 039914466-8). u Zaid, Gabriel. So Many Books:Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance (Paul Dry Books,Inc., 2005; 1589880034) First published in Spanish as Losdemasiados libros (Editorial Anagrama, 1999; 8433905333).

CHRISTIAN TITLES:

Jeffrey, David Lyle, People of the Book: Christian Identity and Lit-erary Culture (Eerdmans, 1996; 0802841775). u Larsen, Scott,Indelible Ink: 22 Prominent Christian Leaders Discuss the BooksThat Shape Their Faith (WaterBrook, 2003; 1578565545). uRottman, Carol J., Writers in the Spirit: Inspiration for ChristianWriters (Faithwalk Publishing, 2004; 1932902430) u Ryken,Leland, The Christian Imagination (Shaw, 2002; ISBN:0877881235). u Sire, James W., Habits of the Mind: Intellectual

Life as a Christian Calling (InterVarsity, 2000; 0830822739). uVerwer, George, Literature Evangelism (Authentic Lifestyle,2003; 1850784728) u Willimon, William H., Reading withDeeper Eyes: the Love of Literature and the Life of Faith (UpperRoom Books, 1998; 0835808475). —Kim Pettit

gion. The Institutes are probably the mostelaborate systematic theology ever writ-ten. That is part of your trusteeship.

The Gospel, when it exploded fromGermany and went from country tocountry, was blocked from coming toEngland for a long time. There, a youngman named William Tyndale said, “TheGermans have the Bible in their lan-guage. Why can’t we have the Bible inour language, in our country, now?”The English bishops and civil authori-ties warned Tyndale that Henry VIIIwould not allow Reformation teaching,saying, “Don’t you dare translate theBible because that will put it into thehands of common people, and theywon’t understand it.” Tyndale replied,“The day is coming when every plow-boy in England’s going to know theBible better than you bishops.”

In 1524 he escaped to the conti-nent, set up a printing press, and startedtranslating the Bible and smuggling itback in to England in bales of cottonand sacks of flour. He heard that BishopTunstall had commissioned AugustinePackington to buy the Bibles and paywhatever price was necessary to getthem destroyed. Tyndale, in Europe,raised the price and revealed where theBibles were. Packington bought them,paid the exorbitant price, and destroyedthem all. Tyndale said, “Great! Now I’vegot some cash. I can do a better transla-tion of the Bible and print far more.”And that is exactly what he did.

He continued doing that on themove, staying ahead of the authoritiesthat wanted to stop him and kill him.Henry Philip found him in 1535 andpromptly turned him over to theauthorities. As they choked him todeath, Tyndale’s last gasp was, “OhLord, open the eyes of the king!” Twoyears later, that prayer was answered. In1538, Henry VIII changed his mind andhad Tyndale’s Bible published through-out England so that everyone could seewhat the Bible had to say.

I take you to the 1550s, to a bookthat makes us all examine our commit-ment to Christ. Lady Jane Grey, thatbrilliant teenager who at 16 was killedfor her faith, turned on one occasion to

John Foxe and said this word: “Write.”And he did. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs has[shown] how high the bar of excellenceis supposed to be if you are a follower ofJesus Christ. He wrote so much that acomplete edition of Foxe’s Book of Mar-tyrs only became available in the 1990s.

I take you now all the way to the1600s. Imagine you are riding with medown City Road in London, England, toBunhill Fields Cemetery. Buried thereare Susanna Wesley; Isaac Watts, thegreat hymnologist; and Daniel Defoe,the writer. At one more gravesite, wefind John Bunyan.

John Bunyan had a poor education.He taught himself to read. He wasthrown into prison for his non-con-formist views. There, he began to writethe story of the Christian life. This man,known for his wickedness and cursing,had an encounter with Jesus Christ. Hewalked through the challenges of grow-ing in Christ and as result, he usedphrases like “the valley of humiliation,”“the valley of the shadow of death,”“the dungeon of doubting castle,” and“the giant of despair.” In 1678, book

one of Pilgrim’s Progress came out, and ithas helped us understand the journey offaith as much as any book ever written.

Across the street from that littlecemetery is the famous chapel that JohnWesley built and the home where helived and died. More doctoral disserta-tions have been written about JohnWesley than almost any other figure inhistory, except for Christ and MartinLuther. Wesley left behind a massiveamount of writing. His 50-year ministryinvolved him preaching some 16,000sermons and riding 300,000 miles byhorseback. He wrote letters about everyplace he went, every city he visited, andevery sermon he preached. He alsowrote around 200 books. As a result, wehave new denominations and churches.

These are all people who wrote.They picked up the pen. Is it becausewriting is easy? Oh no. Nobody likeswriting books; everybody likes havingwritten a book. Writing is hard, difficult,even painful work. You encourage thepeople who pick up the pen and make adifference. You have been commis-sioned as trustees in this legacy of truth.

DECEMBER 2005 INTERL I T/7

CCMI President David Mehlis presents a gift to Dr. Garlow, who co-authored Cracking DaVin-ci’s Code and wrote How God Saved Civilization, A Christian’s Response to Islam, The Covenant,and The 21 Irrefutable laws of Leadership Tested by Time.

8/INTERL I T DECEMBER 2005

Is it easy keeping the writing enter-prise going? Oh no. But people likeyou—trustees—have been a part of thisall these years and, as a result, we havewhat we have.

I take you to the United States. It’sthe 1800s. President Abraham Lincolnmeets a lady who changed the course ofAmerican history. He looked at her andsaid, “So you are the little woman whowrote the book that started this greatwar!” Who was she? Harriet BeecherStowe. She was challenged by her sister-in-law, “Why don’t you write somethingabout slavery?” She started writing. Herstory was published in a newspaper. Thenewspaper readership shot up untilfinally Uncle Tom’s Cabin literallychanged the course of the nation.

I take you to the late 1800s, toKansas, where a poor man died in thestreets of Topeka. The man who sawhim die asked, “What would Jesus havedone?” He lived out the answer to thatquestion by becoming an editor for theTopeka Journal for one week. Readershipshot up that week as he tried to act asJesus would have if He had been the edi-tor of the paper. Charles Sheldon wrotea book about that experience called InHis Steps. The presses could literally notkeep up with demand. Later CharlesSheldon’s famous question, “Whatwould Jesus do?” would even become ayouth movement in bracelets. And bythe way, Cook Communications, thenDavid C. Cook, was one of the publish-ers of that incredible book that changedthe way we think about life.

Across the country in Pennsylvania,two brothers, Milton and Lyman Stew-art, heard about the discovery of oil inCalifornia. They moved West, to a little

tiny struggling town called Los Angeles.They began to develop oil and gasolineand realized that people with cars mightneed gas stations. Theirs are known bythe name Union or 76 gas stations.

The Stewart brothers founded theBible Institute of Los Angeles, nowknown as Biola University. They startedwhat has become the largest Gospel mis-sion on earth, Union Rescue Mission. Inaddition, they decided to collect severalarticles defending the Christian faith.They put them together in a little paper-back series of 12 volumes called The Fun-

damentals: A Testimony to the Truth. Theyprinted 3 million copies of that 12-vol-ume set and circulated them free ofcharge to every single pastor, mission-ary, and Sunday school teacher in Amer-ica. People who picked up the pen, and,in this case, those who published theseauthors made it possible.

The power of the pen, the power ofour legacy, reaches across the centuries.I was with my friend Gayle Beebe, thepresident of Spring Arbor University. Wehad stayed up much too late talkingabout the writings of Pascal, and Gaylestarted reading from his copy of Pascal’sPensées. I wanted to say, “I am too sleepyat 2 a.m. to listen to someone whowrote in the 1600s,” but as tired as Iwas, the book captured my heart. Pascal

was a brilliant mathematician, philoso-pher, physician, physicist. The devotionto Christ that came through those pagesre-enlivened me. I said, “Wow. Keepreading.” That’s the power of the pen.

Do you think Rick Warren, when hewrote A Purpose Driven Life, could everhave guessed that, in an apartment inAtlanta, Georgia, a young widow beingheld hostage by a murderer would cookthat murderer breakfast, read him sec-tions of the book, and calm him downso that he would turn himself in to thepolice? No. Rick Warren had no idea

this would happen. He picked up thepen and started writing, and the resultsare immeasurable.

Not everyone writes bestsellers. Mydad, a Kansas farmer, was an author too.When he died at 82, he left behind 47notebooks about his walk with God. Hewas concerned no one would read them,but his fears were unfounded. My sonJacob told me “I’m up to my ninth note-book.” You may not write for the world,but if you want to influence your world,your sphere of influence, you’ll pick upthe pen—or encourage those who do.

You are commissioned; you arecalled to a trusteeship of this legacy oftruth. The pen is really a baton. You arein a relay race. It does not make any dif-ference how fast you run the race if youdrop the baton. Get that baton from theperson who’s handing it to you to thehands of the next generation. We areparticipating in a 2,000-year-old relay.

We do not take lightly, Father, the factthat we could falter, trip, or drop the baton.Help us not to do that. By Your grace, byYour strength, by the discernment You haveput in our hearts, we humbly receive Yourcommission. v

Nobody likes writing books;everybody likes

having written a book.