I love a good biography. I love a good biography when it’s a “standard” or “pure” biography that simply describes a person’s life from beginning to end. But I also love a good biography when it is written purposefully or thematically—when instead of chronologically detailing all the events of a person’s life it provides selective details and draws lessons for its readers. This is exactly the kind of biography Mary Mohler has written about Susannah Spurgeon in Susannah Spurgeon: Lessons for a Life of Joyful Eagerness in Christ. And it’s a joy to read.

Susannah Spurgeon was, of course, the wife of the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, a man so uniquely gifted and whose influence was so vast, that everyone around him stood in his shadow. Yet while Susannah was in no way ashamed to be so closely identified with her husband that she is often only described in relation to him, she had a life, ministry, and impact that was all her own. Yes, she was Mrs. C.H. Spurgeon and plenty pleased with that fact. But she was also her own person with her own gifts, her own talents, her own means of serving others both alongside her husband and apart from him.
Mohler writes this book with the particular audience of Christian women in mind. There is a sense in which it flows out of her ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in which she serves as Director of the Seminary Wives Institute. “My goal,” she says, “is to write about what we as women—primarily women married to men in ministry, but also to Christian women in general—can learn from the remarkable life of Susannah Thompson Spurgeon.” And while she is neither a historian nor a biographer, “I have been a ministry wife for forty years and counting, and have been training future ministry wives for twenty-five years, so I have some stories to tell.”
And that introduces one of the strengths of this book. Because this is not a formal biography, she is able to make it personal and to integrate some of her own experiences—a factor that adds both human interest and life application. In fact, each chapter ends with a number of questions meant for quiet reflection.
Along the way, she chooses to focus on six themes, each of which is applicable to Christian women in general and to ministry wives in particular. She looks at Susannah’s life prior to being married and to her conversion to Christianity; she looks at her marriage and her devotion to her husband; she looks at her commitment to her home, both as a mother and as someone who carried out a ministry from the home; she looks at the deep physical suffering that for many years left her housebound and often bedridden; she looks at her response to some of the controversy she and her husband endured and also to her years as a widow. The book concludes with a selection of Susannah’s own writings for she was a talented and widely-read author in her own regard. In each case, Mohler quotes both original writings by Susannah and Charles Spurgeon along with information gleaned from their many biographers. And in each case, she ensures that the events of Susannah’s life lead naturally to application that is relevant to today’s readers.
Susannah Spurgeon: Lessons for a Life of Joyful Eagerness in Christ is an easy-to-read little biography that is as interesting as it is beautifully written. Whether for a ministry wife, for a Christian woman, or for anyone else (including men), I give it my highest recommendation.
Buy from Amazon

May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

Can You Stand for Truth without Being Offensive?
“I often speak on controversial subjects: abortion, homosexuality, Islam, transgenderism, bioethics. These aren’t topics that are casually brought up over Christmas dinner and calmly discussed with out-of-town family. That’s why believers often ask me how they can stand for truth on controversial topics without being offensive. Here are three quick things I tell them…”
Too Busy to Read? Read More, Not Less
If you find you’re too busy to read, then maybe you’re thinking about things wrongly…
Questioning God
“Sometimes people act like you can’t ask questions in church life, as though you just have to ‘have faith’, which is true but not in the way that people who usually say it mean. I think they act like this because well-meaning people have told them so.”
WATCH KEITH & KRISTYN GETTY’S IRISH CHRISTMAS CONCERT FREE
Join Ireland’s own Keith & Kristyn Getty for a one-night-only livestream of Sing! An Irish Christmas—live from the Museum of the Bible! Gather your family and sing the songs of Christmas together again through soaring melodies and foot-stomping Irish-American renditions of your favorite Christmas hymns. RSVP today and receive a FREE digital download of our keepsake hymnal and program book featuring new songs from the Gettys, devotional material and advent readings, and more! (Sponsored Link)
‘Tis the Season for Regret?
Stephen Roberts: “Christmas is often filled with regret, especially when we compare the Hallmark ideal with the realities of life in a broken world. It shines a bright light on pasts that are often filled with trauma, the gaping wounds where love once was or should’ve been, and the hardships nibbling at us in the present. Before you drown yourself in mugs of warm eggnog, here are a few reminders for how to recover the reason for the season…”
Baby Jesus: Our High Priest and Sympathizer
“The Christmas season becomes more profound when we grasp this gift of Christ’s birth. We have a God who wanted to identify with our suffering to comfort us and give us strength in time of need. Hebrew 4:16 says, ‘Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’”
Norway’s Shoddy Christmas Tree And The Nature Of Biblical Typology
Here’s the connection between a shoddy Christmas tree and the nature of biblical typology.
Flashback: Please Don’t Give Them Porn for Christmas
This Christmas a lot of children will receive porn from under the tree. It’s not what they wanted, and not what their parents intended for them to have. But they will get it anyway.

We can’t separate the Bible’s commands to do justice from its commands to be discerning. The oppressed deserve more than our good intentions. We must love them not merely with our hearts and hands but with our heads too. —Thaddeus Williams

There are many different ways to chart the journey through life. We can do it in life stages, like childhood to adulthood to middle age to old age. We can do it in decades, like teens to twenties to thirties and so on. But lately I’ve been pondering the passing of the generations, how when we are young we lose our grandparents, and then when we are a bit older we lose our parents, until finally we come to the stage when our own generation begins to fade—when we have to bid farewell to the people we counted as friends and peers.
In the past few years, I have watched a number of dear friends grapple with terrible and ultimately terminal illnesses. I have watched people I only ever knew to be whole and strong fade until they were broken and weak. I have watched them accept the reality that their time was short and the Lord was calling them home. And through it all, I’m convinced that I’ve seen their faith shine all the brighter. I’ve seen an inner beauty and an inner glory that has become all the more evident as everything outside has been slowly pulled off and peeled away.

I want you to imagine that you are walking toward the Old Testament tabernacle, that you are seeing and experiencing it for the very first time. The twelve tribes of Israel are camped in a great rectangle all around it—millions of people, hundreds of thousands of tents, countless cattle. In the center of it all is a clearing and within that clearing is the tabernacle.
As you approach it, you can see the outer wall which is made up of plainly-colored curtains supported by bronze stands. The people and the priests are coming and going through an entrance that faces east. The outside of the tabernacle is noble and dignified, but hardly impressive.
As you pass through the entrance, you now find yourself in the outer courtyard. Here you see the great bronze altar billowing with smoke. Nearby is a bronze laver where the priests carry out their ceremonial washings. You stand for a few moments and observe the structure of the tabernacle tent, and while you know it is made up of four layers, you can mostly see only the practical outer layer. This courtyard is a place of bronze and silver. It is impressive, but not stunning.
And now you know it is time to pass into the Holy Place. (For the sake of the illustration, we’ll have to suppose you are somehow permitted to do so.) You walk past the great columns of gold that support the veil and inside you see the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the table for the showbread, all of it covered in gold. The walls are made up of vertical wooden frames and horizontal wooden bars, all overlaid with gold. Ahead of you is the veil guarding the entrance to the Most Holy Place. This veil is blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen, and woven into it with the most precious thread is the image of the cherubim, the angelic guardians. Looking above, you admire the precious inner covering that contrasts sharply with the practical outer covering you saw from the courtyard. If the courtyard is a place of bronze and silver, this is a place of gold. It evokes awe within.
The best of the beauty is in the hidden places.Share
There is just one more step to take. Parting that great curtain you walk into the Holy of Holies and gasp at the beauty of the Ark of the Covenant with the ornately carved cherubim stretching out their wings over the mercy seat. This room is beautifully ornate, every surface made of either precious gold or exquisite cloth. Best of all, the glory of God is tangible here, visible and undeniable, for this is the place where God lives, where God has chosen to dwell among his people. This is a place of gold and of glory. You can only fall on your face in wonder and worship.
And later, as you ponder what you have seen, you consider this: The best of the beauty is in the hidden places. In fact, the deeper you go into the tabernacle, the more precious the contents. The more you peel away layer after layer of the tabernacle, the greater the beauty and the greater the glory.

And this is exactly what I have observed as my friends have grown ill, as their strength has faded, as their bodies have failed. As more and more layers of strength and health have been peeled away, the beauty and the glory within have shone all the brighter—the glory of God displayed in the beauty of a sanctified life, the beauty of a submitted heart, the beauty of a satisfied soul. I have seen the glory of the Lord as he shines in the place he now chooses to dwell—not in a tabernacle made of gold and cloth, but a tabernacle made of body and soul. And as the body and soul have prepared to part for a time, it has shone all the more, all the brighter. I have seen and I have known: the glory of God is in this place.