April 24, 2012 (EMAIL FROM THE BEREAN CALL)
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Men tell us that our preaching should be positive and not negative, that we can
preach the truth without attacking error. But if we follow that advice we shall
have to close our Bible and desert its teachings. The New Testament is a polemic
book almost from beginning to end.

Some years ago I was in a company of teachers of the Bible in the colleges and
other educational institutions of America. One of the most eminent theological
professors in the country made an address. In it he admitted that there are unfortunate
controversies about doctrine in the Epistles of Paul; but, he said in effect, the
real essence of Paul's teaching is found in the hymn to Christian love in the thirteenth
chapter of I Corinthians; and we can avoid controversy today, if we will only devote
the chief attention to that inspiring hymn.

In reply, I am bound to say that the example was singularly ill-chosen. That hymn
to Christian love is in the midst of a great polemic passage; it would never have
been written if Paul had been opposed to controversy with error in the Church.
It was because his soul was stirred within him by a wrong use of the spiritual
gifts that he was able to write that glorious hymn. So it is always in the Church.
Every really great Christian utterance, it may almost be said, is born in controversy.
It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error that they have
risen to the really great heights in the celebration of truth.

--J. Gresham Machen ("Christian Scholarship and the Defense of the New Testament,"
in: What is Christianity?, pp. 132-133. See, on this same point, What is Faith?,
pp. 41-42; Christianity and Liberalism, p. 17).