Now and again we come across people who are impressively self-deprecating, and effective in accomplishment without having to advertise the results. By that I mean, there are some rare people who have remarkable abilities, and who use them faithfully, conscientiously and therefore fruitfully in areas of life that are often hidden.
Paul Ellingworth was that kind of person. We heard yesterday that Paul died early on Sunday morning, (Nov 25), full of years, and at peace. I first met Paul in 1984 and and after that our paths crossed regularly when we shared conversations about biblical exegesis, the artistry of Wesley's hymns, the strengths and reluctantly acknowledged weaknesses of Wesleyan theology and spirituality, and latterly the shared concerns about life, health and family.
I want to say a little more about Paul, because he is a representative of a generation of Christian scholars who dedicated gifts of intellect to the nourishment of the heart, and for whom translation and exegesis of the biblical text was an ecclesial and only then an academic responsibility. He and Professor Howard Marshall were friends, academic colleagues, both of them Methodists with an old fashioned Arminian slant to their theology, and both of them unashamed Evangelicals. Between the two of them the Methodist church in Scotland had a deep reservoir of biblical learning and exegetical expertise.
Paul Ellingworth was a Bible translator. Much of his life he worked for the United Bible Societies. His gifts as a linguist owed much to a patient temperament, a meticulaous attention to detail, a passionate care for words and their right use, and all of this an expression of his vocation as a Christian academic. His magnum opus was his magisterial Commentary on Hebrews. Prior to the publication of this, he had produced The Translator's Handbook on Hebrews, and following it a much more accessible and briefer commentary on Hebrews.
The word magisterial is overused these days, applied promiscuously to far too many scholarly achievements. It is a word that should be used only when it bears its literal meaning of carrying full authority, the earned authority of someone who has mastered his subject or, in the case of Paul Ellingworth, one who speaks out of the humility of knowing the subject has mastered him. The NIGTC commentary needs no recommendations here as to its authority, nor its usefulness as an exegetical guide replete with learning and the wisdom of one whose life has been given to the translation of the Greek Testament. It is a magisterial commentary, distilled out of careful scholarship funded by a mind soaked in the text. It is a gift to the church of enduring importance. And on the shelves of Aberdeen's Sir Duncan Rice Library are boxes heavy with hundreds of articles and essays gathwred over a lifetime, and kept together in the Paul Ellingworth collection.
Paul was a Methodist circuit preacher, a faithful and devoted member of the local Methodist church, a fine organist deeply knowledgeable of hymnology and church music. Those who knew Paul recognised, and admired his quiet courtesy, enjoyed his gentle erudition and came within range of an old fashioned and deeply dyed Wesleyan spirituality in which the great Methodist focus on holiness as perfect love was kept clear and sharp.
The combination of text critic, church organist, Wesleyan piety, Arminian theology, and humble spirit of service, meant that Paul, like his namesake, had learned to be content as the servant of His Lord, and of the church, and of the text that bears witness to the Word become flesh. We will miss his quiet presence, and I will personally miss those moments of personal conversation when amongst the matter shared is the heart that informs the mind, and the mind that nourishes the heart.
Well done good and faithful servant...who now stands alongside and amongst that great cloud of witnesses, having persevered in his race, his eyes now and finally fixed on Jesus the author and perfecter of his faith.
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