“Weakness means we don’t have what it takes. It means we are not sovereign, omniscient, or invincible. We are not in control, we don’t know everything, and we can be stopped. Weakness means that we desperately need God.”

What Should We Be Like?

We were all huddled around a circle of tables. Thursday noon meant “Table Talk” for the guys at Bethlehem Seminary, and on this particular day we were talking church unity with our pastor and school chancellor, John Piper. He had raised that subject to kick things off, though the conversation had morphed into a discussion on various denominations and influences within American evangelicalism. We were simply carrying the conversation along by our questions. Then Benjamin spoke up.

“Pastor John,” he began, “as seminarians at Bethlehem, and since we have been deeply impacted by you, what do you want us to be like? What should characterize us?”

The room became instantly still. This was a really good question. We all leaned forward, waiting for Pastor John’s reply. He looked down at his Bible, deep in thought.

“I want you to be more like John Newton than John Knox,” he came back. “Knox was passionate and wild, even abrasive at times.” We knew these could be good qualities (minus the abrasive part). But then Pastor John continued.

“But John Newton,” he said, beaming with a smile, “Newton was glad he was saved!”

Newton Knew Weakness

Newton, the one-time slave-ship captain in eighteenth-century England, was wonderfully redeemed, and lived conscious of it. The gospel of Jesus crucified and risen broke into his dark heart and then shone brightly through it. After his conversion, over the course of some time, he went on to serve the church as an Anglican pastor and hymn writer, composing the most popular song in the world, “Amazing Grace.”

But one of Newton’s most fascinating characteristics is precisely what our pastor highlighted. Through all of Newton’s subsequent success as a gospel minister, he never forgot what it meant to be lost and then found. He was tender to the story of God’s mercy in his life. It was too wonderful for him to make a mere footnote.

I have the impression from learning about Newton that if you could go back in time and have a cup of coffee with him, you would be sure this man had tasted God’s grace. I imagine that amazement radiated from him.

At the same time, Newton was extremely gifted. He was eccentric—a man who could talk shop with the roughest of sailors and compose a hymn gentle enough for a child to sing. But as gifted as he was, he was surrounded by men even more gifted—and he would have been the first to say it. For instance, one of his longtime friends was William Cowper, a preeminent poet with an impressive pedigree, whose literary skills are manifestly superior to Newton’s in a book of hymns they wrote together. [1] Add to this his teamwork with Member of Parliament William Wilberforce in the abolition of the slave trade. Unlike the up-and-coming Wilberforce, Newton’s role in the abolition was less political and more personal. He was a behind-the-scenes coach to Wilberforce and contributed best to the cause’s success by confessing the atrocities he had seen and participated in.

Newton was remarkable in his own right, but the exceptional talent of his closest friends and colleagues kept him from thinking too highly of himself (Rom. 12:3). His influence grew wide and deep, but for him it all came back to grace—amazing grace. God had saved him. He was a miracle. He knew that whatever good would come from his life, it was because of God’s greatness, not his. Newton understood that he was weak.

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