Largely Unknown, Never Anonymous
Davy Ellis Anonymity is one of my fears in ministry, and I suspect my fellow pastors share my worry. We marvel at men like Luther, Owen, Spurgeon, and Packer. We spend seminary reading D. A. Carson, Thomas Schreiner, Alec Motyer, and T. Desmond Alexander. These giants have written numerous books, preached to thousands, or changed the course of the gospel cause in their time. Then we look at ourselves. We pastor churches of maybe 100. Anything we write will likely be read only by our mothers and spouses. A hundred years from now, we may be forgotten. In a thousand years, we will be forgotten. We feel anonymous. If we dwell on that thought for too long, we soon wonder what the point is. First Chronicles 1–9 can help. Desert of Names Preachers and laypeople alike often overlook the books of Chronicles. One reason is the long list of hard-to-pronounce, largely unknown names in the first nine chapters. There are about 200 names in Chapter 1 alone. Mark Dever designated these chapters a “ver